Dreams & Mysteries - The Mystery of Prayer

ask anyone on the street if they pray and most will tell you they do some pray to God others pray to the universe a handful will admit they only pray when they're in trouble prayer comes in all shapes and all sizes but is all prayer equal is there something all prayer has in common is all / simply creation attempting to communicate with its creator or at least something they consider deity and a prayer is simply an act of communication is that all its supposed to be and if it is is that enough to answer that question all again have to do some digging because I believe prayer is much more than telling God what we need that would be like treating prayer as it was some flat piece of paper a two-dimensional object when in fact it's actually much more beautiful and complex than that communication is just part of what's taking place when we pray what else is there well let's answer that question together as we examine the mystery of prayer it is dreams and mysteries with John Paul Jackson prayer is a part of every major religion but there are several distinct differences that make Christianity unique Christians have been given the privilege to know their God personally we've been given a personal limitation to have the very spirit of God live inside of us through our belief in who Jesus is it's through this spirit that God reveals his very nature to us that's what it means to have a personal relationship with God you don't just know about him you know him and no other religion on the face of this earth offers that there are a myriad of reasons why Christianity difference from other religions but this is perhaps the most significant and unique we have been given an invitation to a personal relationship with the creator of everything what does this have to do with the mystery of prayer it too has everything to do with it you see the effectiveness of your prayer will rise in direct proportion to the depth of your relationship with God the more effort you put into knowing who God is and knowing God's ways through his word and his spirit the more attune you will be during prayer and the more attune you are in prayer the more you pray the will of the father praying the will of the father ensures you will see your prayers answered because prayer is not telling God what we want to happen it's knowing what God desires to happen and aligning our will to his will prayer then is admitting the all-knowing God knows more than we do with that said we need to put prayer into the microscope and begin looking at the elements that comprise it remember I said a little earlier that some of us look at prayer is this flat two-dimensional object we close our eyes we pray for what we'd like to see happen and then we wait and then we wait and sometimes we even wait longer but there's actually a whole lot more to prayer than meets the eye a lot is going on in the heavenly realm even when we think nothing is happening so first of all our prayer unlike any other conversation will have during our day needs to be focused on the reality we're praying to God it's important that truly Graf's the weight of that you're praying to the creator of heaven and earth you're praying to the uncreated who knows the exact location of everything and every moment you're praying to him who knows every thought of every person on the face of the earth every thought they have had every thought they ever will have and the motivation behind those thoughts this same God despite the mind-boggling scope of his power and majesty is the same person who loves you he sent his son to die for you you should always inner prayer carrying the weight of that reality this is the first layer of prayer the recognition of who we're praying to once we've established that fact everything that follows will become more authentic in the scope we'll begin to comprehend who God really is and we'll begin to understand the next facet of prayer which is faith faith that invisible force that makes all prayer work you can pray but can you pray without faith sure you can people do it all the time but does prayer work without faith I don't think it does that doesn't mean that all faith has to come from you it just means faith has to be present even to take time to pray says you at least have a little faith faith is a big subject though the Bible describes faith in different ways depending upon the context of the passage but at its core faith is the understanding of how the system of heaven works that's right the system of heaven works through faith that's what we learned during the interaction between Jesus and an incredible man the Bible identifies as the Centurion soldiers come with me I'll show you what I mean in the book of Luke we find an interesting story about a Centurion soldier and Jesus Jesus is doing a lot of healings at this particular time demons are coming out of people demons of illness are coming out of people his pink people are being healed and the Centurion soldier who's been watching all this going on probably sent there to guard are not the garden but to keep watch on Jesus in the town of Capernaum or Capernaum so he's looking at all this happening and he realizes there is a a corollary or a parallel between Jesus addressing invisible issues and things happening and what he does and the natural he compares the natural and the spiritual that's what you see and what's invisible he compares them together and it makes a startling conclusion the conclusion is this that just as he tells his soldiers and servants what to do in the natural world when the world that's seen Jesus is saying the exact same thing to world that's not seen and in this dis comparison he then says I want this man to come and heal my servant apparently this servant is served him for a number of years and the Centurion really wanted the servant to be healed so he asked Jesus if he would heal his servant and Jesus says I will and it starts to head that way but the Centurion says wait a minute you don't have to go to my house I'm unworthy for you to go to my house all you have to do is say the word because I'm a man under Authority I see I said this one go and he goes and I said this one come and he comes and I say to my servant do this and he does it all you have to do is say the word and the inference is this invisible world will act on your authority just as a natural world acts on my authority Jesus marveled at the Centurions faith which was displayed by his understanding of how faith works in other words how the system of heaven works Jesus spent his entire life around rabbis and teachers of the law but this is the only time we see Jesus marvel at the revelation of another human being oh Jesus made some pretty wonderful statements about other people don't get me wrong however this is the only time Jesus marveled and he marveled because it displayed the relationship between two of Jesus's most talked about subjects faith and the kingdom the Centurion understood that it wasn't necessary to see something take place to believe that it would take place the Centurion understood how authority and obedience worked that the one with authority commands and the one under that authority obeys even in the invisible world and to the Centurion the case was closed see prayer needs faith to work however there is a substance called unbelief when we don't have faith that God will answer our prayer it's often because of the strange substance of unbelief I kind of like the kryptonite of Prayer in the great mercy of God we can ask God to help our unbelief that is an incredible that literacy to God I'm a I believe but help my unbelief and this is exactly what the father of the demonized boy did when he prayed lord I believe but help my unbelief sometimes we feel that while we may not have enough faith to make a difference like if it takes 500 units of faith we don't have that much God sees our heart and if we ask God to increase our faith he will think of it this way if prayer was a car faith it's like the gasoline that runs it sometimes we start our prayers where we're already running on fumes these first two elements of Prayer our recognition and faith we're establishing who were praying to and then we're acknowledging through faith that God is fully capable of doing what we're asking him to do the system is in place now we're prepared to inspect the next elements of Prayer our will and God's will when we begin prayer are well in God's will isn't necessarily the same thing we think it is but it really may not be you ever had a guitar that played with one string out of ten I wish I could say I hadn't but I have prayer outside of God's will is like we're trying to to do to play a song on our guitar we're trying to play the best way we can but it nothing will make the instrument back in tune until we tune that one string what gets us out of tune our soul now our solos our mind our will and our emotions and the soul will always fight spirit and when God is spirit that becomes problematic to reach the next level of prayer we have to quarantine our soul but to set our soul aside we have to say no to our our passions no to everything that that are our own done you know Dark Soul wants Jesus called this picking up our cross and following him why why did he call it that because we oftentimes find ourselves entering prayer in a moment of crisis we wait for crisis to happen we lost our job some would just told us they had a fight with your spouse someone is hospitalized after being in a car wreck plenty of crisis we have plenty of emotion in crisis but we lack spiritual insight that can cause us to begin praying of the emotions of the moment for many of us these may make up the majority of our prayer life we sometimes jump into these prayers without asking God for his wisdom what's God's will for this situation is it God's will that your cousin who's always bouncing from one job to the next job gets the job he's wanting or does God have a greater plan that's going to require a heart change and not just a job change these are the types of prayers that are in most need of spiritual alignment because our instigated by the mind the will and the emotions at the moment God's ways are so much higher than our ways God's will is based upon his wisdom which is derived from him seeing the end from the beginning God's will unlike our will is not hindered by the emotions of the moment his will is not flawed or clouded by logic or misinformation we may think we know what to pray but that's not always the case prayer is not telling God what needs to happen it often feels like we're groping for God's plan for what is happening to the person or in the situation before us and then agreeing with the plan that God has Jesus modeled this for us beautifully during his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and a great time of agony he prayed my father if it's possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as you will I dreamed I was walking in a blanket of fresh snow I looked at my feet and I was wearing silver shoes I kept walking in my silver shoes until I came to a large ravine and I knew I needed faith to get to the other side I began to run and I jumped and I safely landed on the other side I looked up and before me was a huge tree it was all so sore just like my shoes and then I woke up well this is one of those very interesting dreams because one of the things you learn to look for in a dream is things that aren't normal chrome shoes silver chrome shoes aren't normal and a chrome tree isn't normal so you know that those two issues I have the basic concept of the dream encapsulated right there so when you you put the snow together with it you put a leap of faith across a ravine that you're going to have to get from one side to the other side and the only way you can do is to jump across or take this leap of faith here's here's kind of what we're looking at in the interpretation of the dream snow represents blessing and favor so notice the dreamer was walking through the snow and God was saying I'm going to give you blessing and favor and I'm going to redeem what are shoes it's what you're walking in I'm going to redeem that which you were called to walk in so apparently the dreamer hadn't experienced everything that the Lord wanted the dreamer to experience and now that's going to be redeemed what the original calling was is going to be redeemed but it's going to take a leap of faith to get there you're gonna have to leave one side and leap in faith to the other side across the ravine that's there if you do that then the dream also says that you're going to meet up with a leader now notice the tree was chrome was a chrome tree now some might say well it didn't have any leaves but that's not the point of the dream the leafless of the of that chrome tree that might be in some other dreams but in this particular dreams that wasn't the the real focus of that tree the real focus of the tree was it was chrome chrome tree chrome shoes here's what that means going to meet a leader trees represent leaders and the chrome represents Redemption or the silver represents Redemption so not only is is the Lord restoring the original calling of the person again chromed silver shoes but he's going to meet a leader who is going to restore his original call or give him an opportunity to restore the original call so they snow again represents favorite blessing of God refreshing and so you have a the dreamers walking through the snow blessing with chrome shoes going to restore his original calling jumps across a ravine with faith meets up with the leader that's going to give give the dreamer an incredible favor and restore his original call so God's putting all of it together chrome chrome or silver silver silver is the medal of redemption and so you have the redeeming of something and the prophecy or the predicting of something as well so the way it's kind of like a mixture of a calling dream and a self condition dream and a restoring dream this is restoring what you wants for this is where you're at and this is where you're going to go incredible dream for the future of that dreamer over the last 30 years John Paul Jackson has studied how God speaks metaphorically through dreams parables and proverbs in the Bible God wants all believers to understand their dreams and that includes you for your gift of $60 or more we'd like to send you the season to dream bundle a 2-cd set teaching the basics of dreams and visions John Paul's advance six CD set understanding dreams and visions in a three CD set on the biblical model of dream interpretation also included the moments with God dream journal plus four dream cards to help you understand your dreams order your season to dream bundle today visit dreams in mysteries.com or call one eight hundred five three eight five two eight five we've established that God is God and that nothing in the kingdom happens without faith we've also asked that I will be aligned with the God's will so the next component of prayer is forgiveness and thankfulness these two go hand in hand they really can't be separated when you pray you ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any sin in your life that you haven't asked God's forgiveness for and then simply ask for that forgiveness believing that you've been forgiven forgiveness is a big issue with God you see God sent his son to die for your sins and forgive you of your sins but effective prayer acknowledges when you've fallen short it should include you repenting are turning from that sin equally important is a need to forgive others as you have forgiven yourself or as you've asked God to forgive you if you expect God to forgive you you can't withhold your forgiveness from others withholding forgiveness can hinder God from answering your prayers so can lingering arguments with your spouse as we find out in 1st Peter 3:7 where we're told that husbands are to make peace with the wives so their prayers won't be endure who or repentance and being clean before God is not a Salvation issue but it is a vital part of your relationship with God and that relationship increases the effectiveness of your prayers being clean before God increases your sensitivity to the Holy Spirit as well and spiritually aligns your will to God's will thankfulness our gratitude is another powerful part of prayer telling God how thankful you are for everything he's done in your life changes the atmosphere prayer with literally a spiritual energy there are numerous examples in Scripture for being thankful or being unthankful cause the hand of God to move or not move one prime example is the account of Jesus who healed the lepers in Luke 17 here in this passage jesus heals 10 lepers but only one returned to thank him and when he returned he worshiped God and fell to the ground and thankfulness to Jesus for what he did this is an important principle to grasp and you might miss it if you don't look a little more closely at this passage all 10 lepers were healed meaning the leprosy disappeared but only one the one who think Jesus was made whole Jesus told him to rise and go because his faith had made him whole that meant that the digits that have been eaten away the fingers the ears or whatever had been eaten away by the leprosy those fingers were missing grew back interesting all 10 were healed but only one man was made whole it's also interesting that the only one of the lepers to offer praise and thanksgiving to Jesus was the Samaritan of the group a foreigner a stranger in the land sometimes we as Christians are just like those lepers that didn't come back to give things we can take answered prayer for granted but gratitude is an important part of a greater hold us and healing and in answered prayer it's an important part of our prayer life is this issue of gratitude and thankfulness to God for what he's done in our in our lives at what is done in our past what he's doing in our present and of course what he's going to do in our future now that we've prepared our hearts to pray how do we pray everything we've discussed so far concerning this mystery of Prayer has led us to this very place what is effective prayer effective prayer perhaps to your surprise it's not expressing what you need from God the highest form of prayer is asking is such a way that it places God's desire above your desire so his desire becomes the focus God's plan for prayer has never been for believers to achieve their own goals it's always been about God achieving his goals through believers that's not to say that we don't ask God to supply our needs or that we never present God with a need but as we mature in prayer we're going to find that it's only a small part of a much larger prayer picture when praying be sensitive to the Holy Spirit now that may take you listening as well as you asking so still your soul your desires just long enough to listen to what the Holy Spirit might be trying to say to you and then pray through what the Holy Spirit is prompting you to pray there's also something else you you really should consider in the course of making your needs known also remember to ask God to protect you protect you from what well protect you from the evil one actually remember all prayer in one way or another is spiritual warfare when you begin stepping up the power of your prayers the enemy will take notice pray in advance for protection and also ask God to reveal any traps that the enemy might try to set for you along the way the art of praying the scriptures a new book from John Paul Jackson is a fascinating journey into the hidden power of meditating on God's Word if you've ever found yourself feeling disconnected from God or seem to be stuck in a wilderness season this is the book for you the art of praying the Scriptures is truly a fresh look at the spiritual discipline of lectio Divina for your gift of $50 or more to the ministry we would like to send you this new book the art of praying the scriptures a 2-cd set teaching on lectio Divina and a study card to practice the spiritual discipline anytime anywhere also to complete the art of Prayer series we are including cultivating God's promises through prayer and unlocking the mysteries of the Lord's Prayer to order the art of Prayer series visit dreams and mysteries calm or call one eight hundred five three eight five two eight five prayer really is a mystery that's not meant to say that it can't be understood or the God created it to be difficult or hard to do it just means that it's like a treasure a treasure we walk past everyday without fully realizing there's something really valuable in that treasure box if we truly understood or truly believed prayer was it was a treasure we would treat it as such which share its beauty with the ones we love we'd keep it in a protected place so that no one could take it from us we would find all there was to know about it so that when we truly understood it we would know it's worth and its value praying isn't a duty it's a privilege you see it's humanity's greatest privilege and what distinguishes us from every other part of creation is that nothing else God created has been given the ability to interact with its creator like us not even the Angels so there is a mystery of prayer that we may never know the answer to to its this why why does God love us that much why would he listen to our simple immature cries for help not just listen but patiently patiently wait to hear them in prayer we stand at the edge of eternity and we stare into it's great and vast mysteries and we yearn to peek behind the veil in prayer we leave if only for a matter of moments this temporary mortal existence and enter into the place where our Creator lives prayer is our meeting place it's the dinner table prepared for us in the presence of our enemies it's the green meadow it's the still waters it's all of these but you have to answer the faint knocking at the door of your heart one more mystery of prayer is this prayer doesn't change the unchanging God prayer changes the prayer are you ready to enter this mystery God is waiting for you and this new level of relationship with you awaits a level of relationship that if you will allow it you could walk into his righteousness now level of righteousness allows God to give you the power and authority necessary to change the lives of those around you power and authority power and authority what if I told you that power and authority aren't the same thing there is so much more to discuss in this mysterious matter of power and authority but that's a mystery for another time you

Channel: Dreams & Mysteries

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Keywords: John Paul Jackson (Person), Dreams & Mysteries, dreams and mysteries, Streams Ministries, daystar, Jesus, Christianity, dreams, dream interpretation, prayer, praying

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Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Fri May 09 2014