“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
THE PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS PERSON IS POWERFUL AND EFFECTIVE
If Christ is in you, you are righteous in him. Your prayers are powerful and effective.
2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Prayer is the secret weapon of the believer if done so from the proper perspective. If you pray "if it be thy will" prayers, I wouldn't expect much to happen. But if you stand in your identity and authority in Christ, you can expect to see everything Jesus paid for manifest in your life and the life of others.
You don't have to ask God to give you things he's already given you in Christ. In Christ, you have been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of Jesus. Jesus bore your sickness and disease on the cross. He delivered you from the wrath of God. You have the mind of Christ so that you can have peaceful mental health. God promised to meet your needs exceedingly, abundantly above all that you can ask or imagine. His spirit is in you, guiding you into all truth. He gives you wisdom just by asking. He has given you power to minister to others.
All of these things are already yours, right now, in Christ. Plus, God already knows what you're going through before you even ask. He knows how to help you.
Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
Not only does he already know what you need, he wants to help you.
Matthew 6:8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
And He's willing to help you.
Matthew 8:1 When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." 3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.
He has already given you what you need.
2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Jesus has given you power
I give you power, lay hands on the sick... Luke 10:19
So pray from a place of confidence and authority. If what you're praying for doesn't come to pass, stand firm and trust God. Don't blame him or concoct some mysterious doctrine that God must not want you to have what he's already given you in Christ. Don't fall for the "timing" excuse. If Jesus paid for it, it's yours. If you don't see it, don't blame him. Just keep persuading your heart until you're convinced of Christ's finished work.
I realize that's easy to say and hard to believe at times, but it's the truth. God is not withholding the things he's already given us freely in Christ. We still see problems in the world because humans introduced sin and death and messed it up. But we still have dominion over the planet so we can believe, pray, and affect the world with the kingdom of God that is in us.
MANKIND HAS DOMINION OVER CREATION
From June to July 1993, the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, experimented on the impact of prayer and meditation on the crime rate of Washington D.C. You can read the details of the experiment from these two links.
https://research.miu.edu/maharishi-effect/reduced-violent-crime-in-washington-dc
https://www.worldpeacegroup.org/washington_crime_prevention_full_article.html
The summary of the experiment is this: A group of people who practiced meditation wanted to measure the effects of focused intention on a large city. The experiment was led by quantum physicists who understand that humans can affect the behavior of matter merely through observation.
The physicist hypothesized that a large enough group of people could intentionally affect a large city's violent brain wave frequencies. So they organized an experiment to lower the violent crime rate of Washington D.C., which is one of the most violent cities in the United States.
The experiment was successful. They saw a dramatic decrease in violent crime for as long as they meditated, which was a few weeks.
If unbelieving human beings have that kind of influence over a violent city, imagine what the body of Christ can do if we were united to make positive change in the earth. But, unfortunately, we are too divided, too busy figuring out who is right and condemning those we think are wrong.
Humankind has dominion over the planet. The body of Christ has the authority of Heaven, influencing our natural dominion. It's time we use our power to influence the world for Christ. If every believer spent at least 5 minutes a day praying peace, hope, and love over our nations, we would see amazing fruit.
I go into more detail about this experiment and the power of prayer in the sermon above. I pray it is a blessing to you as you seek to exercise your authority as a member of the body of Christ.
Watch the video above for the full sermon on this topic.
Watch the Spiritual Practices and Disciplines Series on YouTube.
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