Eph. 1:15 Prayers Peculiarities part 13

Activate in Making Continual Requests v.15-23

Clarify the Motivation of a Personal Concern

Prayers Motivation v.15

Stimulated by a good report Wherefore I also after I heard

Stimulated by a Good Response

In Attitude of your faith in the Lord Jesus

In Affection and love unto all the saints

No one likes to be burdened. But we need to reexamine prayer burdens. Instead of seeing them as excessive loads that hamper and put us into wrinkled fraught we have to reconsider. They are our break through not our break down. These burdens are the jet fuel that runs the rocket ships of prayer.

We need to be troubled to triumph. The disturbances and distresses of life are the launch pad of a communion that connects. This is our link up to the eternal storehouses of our riches and wealth in the power of Christ.

Prayer is something that is supposed to relax but why does it instead often perplex? We often hear someone say they do certain things to unwind like watch a movie, take a walk or go buy something new.

How about really lightening up to a reorientation to accessing our loosening in the peace of God that passes understanding? The Spirit affirms that this is our alleged unwind that is incomprehensible or out of this world.

Prayer is this great mystery, but why? I like the assertion in

Eph. 3:4 whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ

The mystery of Christ is many things. When we come to God in prayer we are kneeling in our heart before the throne of grace next to Jesus who is bowing before the Father with us?

What a sensation to realize His arms are around us every time we pray. That is a great way to unwind in the mystery of Christ. When we pray, we need to scrutinize. Are we coming in Adam or in Christ?

Adam came in the fear of guilt. Not in the boldness of Christ. Adam slithered into the hiding of failures in the bushes. Not in the freedom of knowing the forgiveness of Jesus. Adam came in the false works of fig leaves and not in the pure garments of Jesus. Do we pray feeling we did this and that so we deserve this and that?

We’re to come in Christ dressed in His robes of righteousness covering our entire being from head to foot. No fear with God’s righteousness on, my person and offering to bring.

Mary came at the wedding of Cana in John 2 telling Jesus they we’re out of beverage. Do we come with our lacks and others needs? Jesus rebuked her about the divine versus the human, our timing and God’s timing, the Sovereign versus the conditional temporary uncertain short term issues.

Is beverage that important? Well yes, it is. But Jesus did nothing unless it was in the Father’s timing and will. The dynamic of resting in His timing and yet imploring Him in confidence is a great mystery between the human and divine.

The rebuke is interesting. What was it like to have carried Jesus in her womb, knowing He was conceived by the Spirit miraculously, what a mystery.

What was it like to watch a perfect baby, a perfect boy and child, a perfect teen ager and now a perfect man? Really it’s no different for us. We have this perfect person living within by His Spirit and it’s the mystery of Christ.

But the rebuke, why? One issue is Mothers are great manipulators of their sons and the son needed the timing of the Father.

Here again are we coming in Adam or in Christ. Are we praying in the flesh or in the Spirit? Are we relaxing in Christ’s timing or ours?

We can’t manipulate God in our prayers. He can make water into wine, He can make something out of nothing, He can calm the wind and the waves in a word, and He can swallow us with a great fish when we idiotically jump in the sea to run from our God and our troubles.

Sons in their humanness can yield to their Mothers fleshly Adamic methodology. Christ wants us to kneel with Him and yield all to the Father. Mary understood the mystery of prayer and the rebuke of timing and the complexity of the human versus the divine, Adam versus Christ.

She answered others in the Mystery of Christ, by saying what He says do it. We need to enter in to every word that proceeds from His mouth; we need to pray with Christ’s word on our lips and in our hearts.

Prayers Motivation v.15

Stimulated by a Good Report Wherefore I also after I heard

We bring each burden to the Lord and not just once but continually and repeatedly. The things we hear are sparks of ignition of a holy flame. The news of spiritual activity in others is the stimulation of a good report of answers sent from above in the precious lives of those God has placed on our hearts.

Stimulated by a Good Response

In Attitude of your faith in the Lord Jesus

Each response becomes an explosion of joy as we see the attitudes of faith in Christ enacted and developing from faith to deeper enlightenments of faith.

Faith is the wireless connection of prayer to God. I’m amazed with Wi-Fi. I remember being in a large strawberry field with my truck years ago in California resting from driving. I could see nothing for miles around and I got a Wi-Fi connect to the internet. That still amazes me.

We have a wireless connection to the Lord. Every time I pray I believe God speaks to the person I’m praying for. They can be on the other side of the world and I can spiritually Wi-Fi them through Christ.

Now the sovereignty of God and the free will of man are another thing and I don’t know all the ins and outs of man’s nature of refusals, rejection and turning their back on the Spirit of Christ. But I know I can ask the Lord over and over to knock on their hearts door or arrange circumstances or supply the conditions influencing the lives of those I pray for and He hears and answers.

The Spirit tells us we have not because we ask not. There’s a simple solution to that. Ask and it will be given, seek and we will find, knock and it will be opened up. The Greek structure is keeping asking keep seeking and keep knocking.

In Affection and love unto all the saints

Our affections are stirred and stimulated and the faiths of those we are waving before the Lord are opened up into a developing and deepening of compassion and love for Christ and His own.

The wave offering is an interesting image in which the worshiper lifted up the offering and waved it before the Lord. What a privilege we have to lift the lives of those we are burdened for up to our God.

Jesus says the one who is forgiven much loves much. The more we feel His loving arms of forgiveness around us the more we will want and pray that others He places in our lives will feel the same.