Paul’s Prayer in Colossians 1:9-12 | Mike Bickle

father we come to you in the name of the lord jesus father of glory we ask you again and again release the spirit of glory let us see the glory of your son let us see the glory of who we are to you release your glory in us and through us lord even as we open our hearts and consider your word even now holy spirit we acknowledge your presence in this room we acknowledge you as the teacher the one that escorts us into the knowledge of god we ask you to do that even tonight in a specific way in jesus name amen well tonight we're looking at session four of the apostolic prayers the prayers that shift history we're looking at colossians chapter one verses 9 to 12. and in this prayer which is pretty well known in our community it's been prayed many times paul is praying that the saints would be filled with the knowledge of god and the purpose is they would be empowered to know god in a deep way they would grow in the knowledge of god they would have intimacy with god but also that they would walk worthy of him and also they would have fruit in their ministry and in their life let's read the prayer just kind of real quickly and then we'll break it down phrase by phrase paul said we do not cease to pray for you that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding so that you would walk worthy of the lord specifically by fully pleasing him and being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of god those are three ways paul is identifying that you walk worthy of the lord verse 11 that you would be strengthened with all might for the attaining of patience and the patience means perseverance most translations use the word endurance or perseverance and long-suffering but not just teeth gritting endurance but having joy in our spirit in the midst of persevering and one of the keys to this is to be anchored in a spirit of thanksgiving to the father to see the good things god's doing rather than only seeing the negative things that are emerging around us we lock into the divine narrative of our life that's where the giving thanks to the father comes in it's way it's like wait a second there's negative there's challenges there's setbacks there's delays but there's a bigger story and it's thanking him locking into the bigger stories what he's talking about here well verse 9 paragraph b paul makes this kind of big statement he did not cease to pray this for them like really i mean do you not cease to pray that your loved ones are filled with the knowledge of his will you might think well not that wouldn't be really an accurate state i do kind of cease to do that and so this kind of uh this statement it causes us to ask what did paul know about these requests that made him be so steadfast and asking for these six or seven er whatever the number is eight or nine things here well paul knew one thing i mean paul understood this one thing that the more that he would ask the more the spirit would do and we all know that principle that's so illustrated throughout the scripture one of my favorite illustrations of that is in exodus chapter 17 moses is uh telling joshua to go to battle to the amalekites down in the valley and he's up on the mountain so joshua goes down in the valley in exodus exodus 17 and it says when moses's hands were raised they would have victory israel down in the valley when moses put his hands down they would have defeat because the battle went on for hours his arms got tired so aaron and heard held his arms up and that's a that's a an illustrate an illustration that whenever moses would stay with it victory would increase when he drew back it was minimized and then the other illustration that i think of regularly related to this is in daniel chapter 10 verse 12 daniel's fasting and praying 21 days and the angel appears and says because you kept praying god sent more help michael the archangel and we moved out we removed the demonic resistance and the implication is if you would have stopped more angelic help would not have come to move back the demonic resistance and you wouldn't have had the breakthrough now we all know this principle but this is like really real you have a loved one you have a situation and i don't mean praying hours and hours a day but staying with it is like moses's hands raised that more victory will happen and when we think well i don't know then some of that victory is diminished it's actually real it's a fluid situation that is really dynamic what happens in the spirit realm to what happens in our conversation with god now i don't believe that paul's saying you're praying all day every day but what paul's saying is i did not cease meaning i prayed about this last week throughout the week i didn't just drop it i stayed with it i don't think he means 24 hours a day but i didn't let go of it from a month ago i'm sticking with this request i'm like daniel i'm staying with the prayer and it doesn't mean hours a day but it means day after day after day ish i mean you'll miss a day or two here there but sometimes we'll get real energized for a subject for a breakthrough and we pray for it for a month or two and then we kind of get a little breakthrough and we relax and then we look around and all of a sudden the victory is diminished we go what happened the lord's just saying stay with it paul said i don't cease to do this i stay with this subject again not all day every day but i don't drop it for months at a time roman numeral two well let's jump right into it he begins with i call this the miracle and the privilege of partnering with god and sometimes we can lose sight of the miracle of this weakened broken human beings with darkened understanding and darkened emotions god moves on us to where we can partner with the genesis one god i mean this sounds like a real mismatch we are partnering with you with the way we think compared to how you think it was yeah and i'ma give you the ability to do that more to partner with me more and more but it's anchored in being filled with the knowledge of his will knowledge jesus said it in john 8 32 you'll know truth and truth will liberate your heart paul said it in romans 12 2 he says you're renewed you're tr i mean you're transformed in your emotions by changing what you think by having knowledge of the truth in your mind so paul he anchors it here he goes it begins this whole miracle this whole privilege of greater partnership with god it begins with knowledge of his will there's the general knowledge of his will and there's the specific knowledge for your individual life let's look at that paragraph b and both of them are very important and both of them take attentiveness we have to attend to these two vast arenas of knowledge and the more knowledge we get that's an interaction with god the more transformed our emotions are the more confidence we have but that's our personal response paul was praying this for the people that he loved and he knew if they had the general knowledge of the truths of salvation about their life as well as the specific knowledge of the will of god in the seasons of their life they would be more energized their spirits would be more vibrant so that's why paul stayed with this prayer paragraph b that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will let's talk first about the general will of god and general doesn't mean unimportant it means the truths that are for all believers at all times the truths include what the word reveals about who we are to him who we are in christ we can't lose sight of that and we can have it for one season and they kind of lose our grip on it in the next season the knowledge of his will who we are to him how we are to live that sermon on the la on the mount lifestyle it really matters to him that this stays in front of us the knowledge of things of what we're to believe him for the breakthroughs that we're to believe and contend for some folks get energized about breakthrough and season of their life and then a year or two later they're not focused on that paul would say you you need to be filled you need to be gripped with the knowledge of god's will what his main kingdom purposes are so we don't lose focus and of course paragraph one our main our highest kingdom purpose is that we would receive the love of god and express it the first commandment overflowing to the second commandment and paul's saying be filled be gripped with the knowledge of the general will of god the salvation the truth that are true to all believers in all seasons but it's not limited to that paragraph two there's that specific application of the will of god for your own personal life your ministry assignment it's what the lord wants you focused on in any given season it's how we're to invest our time our resources where our time is actually our main resource our resource is much more than money it's our ideas it's our relationships many things related to our resources the lord has a he wants us to invest our time and resources in specific ways and that changes in different seasons and he's saying paul's saying i want you to be alert the seasons will change what you might do in your 20s may look very different than the assignment he gives you in your 30s or your 40s or and what i mean seasons of life i'm talking about those two three four five year seasons not every month a new season but those three four five six year seasons of life where the focus will change often in those seasons of how he wants you to invest your time and energy paul says you want to you want to pray for this paragraph 3. paul says you know i don't cease to pray for this for you because the seasons change over the years and the holy spirit would say if you ask me i will make you more sensitive of how to realign and refocus as seasons change and again they don't change every month or they'll change i don't believe they change every year but every chunk of years whatever that means you know three four five six seven eight ten years the focus will change another uh aspect of being gripped with the knowledge of his will is paragraph four when i see the will of god it's not just for me and in the general truths or my specific direction i can see the will of god for you i can see in you god is doing something different than in me some folks get so excited about the will of god for their life their assignment they end up critical about other people in ministries that don't have the same assignment they have oh you know that group down the road if they were really hearing god they would be doing what we do in other words they would be walking in our assignment and paul says no not exactly the body of christ is a symphony and different ministries and individuals even within one ministry have different assignments in different seasons and when i'm gripped with the will of god i'm not just my optic about my assignment is the only good one to write one so i wish you would get with it i'm not praying that you have my assignment i'm praying that you would walk in the assignment god's given you but when i'm gripped with the will of god then i can see the diversity more clearly and i can love you more effectively where by nature or just our natural way is again to be a uh even subtly critical of other people in our midst or other ministries in the city or the nation whatever that aren't doing what we do and i find it liberating to have greater insight into the will of god and go no wait the symphony is beautiful it's beautiful how it works and and i'm rejoicing in the fact that god has given you an assignment that isn't the same as mine paragraph c paul says well you can know that general will of god those truths that are important for every believer in every season of their life those salvation truths and you can know the specific assignment in that two three four five ten year period and sometimes you might have the same assignment for 20 30 years you know some people the assignment the same one goes on and on but he says in paragraph c you want to apply it with wisdom and you want to interpret it with spiritual understanding it's one thing to have the knowledge which is very important but it's another thing to apply the knowledge in practical ways that are in agreement with god lord wants me focused in prayer in this season in a way more than the last season okay does that mean you go to more prayer meetings does that mean you pray to your family does that mean you go on more prayer walks does that mean you what does that mean oh i don't know there's specific expressions of what that might look like each season will have a specific way that we apply our time and resources again i'd say time resource time is our biggest resource actually but i'm just wanting you to grasp it in some seasons you invest more time in your family than the season before other seasons you spend more time in these relationships than you did those relationships i mean outside your family some seasons there's more time in training and study other seasons is more time and discipling and pouring out some some seasons you're focused on this ministry activity and others more on that one paul says you need wisdom but the idea isn't like oh man this is so burdensome that how am i gonna know paul's underlying point that if you'll pray this though it may not come in some dramatic way but the holy spirit will gently inspire you and you'll find yourself making sense of how to apply wisdom what to invest your resources in every given season it's not a a confusing puzzle the lord will just make it clear you'll have peace about it some persons you know a lot some folks they pray about getting in the will of god and i go well it's i think of a different i i pray so i don't get out of the will of god i'm not trying to get in a room i'm already in meaning we're in a walk with god and we have peace and more times than not you're in the will of god you're flowing and lots of folks are anxious they're trying to get in the will of god since you're in it you have peace it's clear what you're doing it feels right in your spirit stay with it no i want some dramatic sign and wonder who says you're already in it but stay sensitive and i'll give you those subtle impressions and those inspiring i did i'll take the piece away and i'll give the piece back and you'll have the application that's wisdom i would put the application of how to invest your resources because now that you have an idea of the specific will of god you want to have some practical application of how to do resources but it's more than that paragraph d their spiritual understanding spiritual understanding how to interpret what god's doing while you're doing the will of god and you're investing your resources in a certain way what do i mean by that it's called spiritual perception or interpreting what's happening many times i'm thinking my personal life would be true of all of us but i look at my circumstances i'm clear that i have the two or three main clear clear points of focus in the will of god i'm doing my assignment i'm investing my time and my resources and mostly the right way and again it's through the grace of god he's very generous he's not a hundred percent accurate at all the time but then the blessing on my circumstances it increases or decreases the promises and the provisions are released and then delayed i'm going i need some interpretation because every time there's a delay it doesn't mean it's the devil every time there's an increase doesn't mean it's god like i want to i want a little bit of spiritual understanding i want to see what you see what's going on so i can be grateful for what you're doing and resist what the enemy's doing and it's not not a you know a perfect science where you know it perfectly all the time but paul is by this prayer informing us these are some of the conversations you're having with the lord you're praying along these lines and these are some of the things you're praying for the people that you loved your your your loved ones or the church in your city or your leaders or your family members you're praying they would know the general will of god salvation truth they would know the specific will of god they would know how to invest their time and energy they would be able to have the application in different seasons and the interpretation is it god's hand or the devil's hand is the increase is the is the delayed promise actually good for you and redemptive or is the delayed promise there's a reason for the delay some people just have one answer if the promise is delayed the devil's winning and we're sinning and the lord sometimes goes nuts i have salvation purposes i have a reason for delays that makes sense typically years down the road you look back you know i've been a pastor now 45 years and i remember in 83 and 84 when all these great dramatic things happened promising things that are that have happened over the last 10 or 20 years and yet still to happen and i wanted them all to happen in the 80s and i would have thought i don't know that was so long ago i can't remember what i thought to be honest but i was knowing me i would have thought in the name of jesus devil take your hand off the delay and the lord says you have no idea what's going to be happening in 2020 in the earth i am setting something up bigger than you know that's not the devil delaying this but some people are on automatic pilot all delay and all decrease is always the devil and paul's saying no have spiritual understanding perception to what's happening and sometimes it is the devil and we need to take a strong stand and sometimes the increase is the enemy trying to get us off center because if he can't get you on the ditch at the right by oppressing you he'll get you in a ditch on the left by overworking you with too many opportunities he don't care what did she get you and the rider to the left he just wants you off the center focus some people say look all the doors are open i go yeah and you're supposed to actually say no to a bunch of them well they're open doors i can get more money have more influence have more have more have more yeah and then you'll end up at the heart level having less and less and less we need spiritual understanding with the will of god well there's one more facet paragraph e it's having the knowledge of god's will in terms of his prophetic seasons like in a nation like right now in 2020 we are in a prophetic hour in our nation this is more than knowing the will of god for my personal assignment or knowing the will of god of salvation truths who i am to god and what he wants me to how to respond in the sermon on the mount lifestyle the sons of issachar it says in first chronicles 12 they had understanding of what was happening in their nation and that two to three year period of time and then the next two to three year period of time and again they didn't have understanding that every day had a different purpose but you know a series of years the lord says this is what i'm doing and this is what i want my corporate people to respond do this i mean we're in one of those seasons 2020 and i tell you 2021 is going to be we all know it doesn't take a profit to understand it but it's a shifting of what god's doing on on the globe and so this is a gr an important time to pray lord fill us with the knowledge of your will this is bigger than the specific assignment for our life what's happening in this hour of history and it's not like you're gonna get a hundred things there might be two to three things the spirit highlights top of page two now paul's giving some of the reasons for praying that we would be filled with the knowledge of his will he goes now let me tell you the takeaways why i want you to be filled with the knowledge of your will with spiritual application uh called wisdom and perception the ability to interpret what's happening that's called understanding here's what i want you to do i want you to be able to walk worthy of the lord and the way you're gonna walk worthy of the lord he gives three specifics by fully pleasing him setting your heart to being fruitful in every good season and that can be tricky because some people's idea of fruitfulness only means their external circumstances the blessings are increasing and when that's not happening they think i'm not fruitful and the lord goes well there's i got levels of this i got different applications of what fruitfulness looks like and the way we walk worthy of the lord another way is by increasing in the knowledge of god paragraph b and we'll i'll just mention this a little bit because in ii thessalonians 2 that's a prayer we're going to be looking at roles next week or the week after i'm not sure what order i have all these in but it's the prayer that we paul prayed that they would walk worthy of the lord and he's not telling them to earn their salvation he's telling them to live in a deep agreement with god's heart to have a worthy response to god to position ourselves to walk in the fullness of what he has for us in that season of our life so he's praying he goes i want you to walk worthy of the lord because the underlying idea i have written here which i'm not going to take time on because we're going to spend an entire session on it the idea is if we walk worthy of the lord if we're responding in a way that's in agreement with him it prepares us and positions us to walk in the fullness of god's purpose in that season a lot of believers that are stuck in compromise or they're stuck they don't talk to the lord about what they're doing so they're off on the wrong lane over here somewhere and the lord goes get in the right focus because i want you to walk worthy i want you to walk responsive to my heart that's what that really means to be faithful to be responsive to what i'm actually saying with you because this is relationship it's not just you're not just a soldier then i said go to war you're my beloved family and we're doing it together and i want you to obey me not just in the character issues i want you to agree with me the areas of focus as well let's see let's look at paragraph c and one of the ways we do this is by setting our heart to be fully pleasing he says fully pleasing here to the lord i mean that's a that's a beautiful thing that again as weak and broken people we could be we could be fully pleasing that well that's only because he's very gracious and it's through the lens of his grace that he evaluates us because we look at our lives and go this is what fully pleasing is and it's not a bar so high that humans in the grace of god can't walk in it again it's he it's through that editing process of the grace of god he's very generous in his evaluation there's a determined yes in our spirit to fully obey and that determine that determined yes is really important some folks don't put much value on it they put all their attention on what they're coming up short in and the lord says no i'm looking at what you've set your heart hard to do and you'll have some setbacks and you'll have some stumbling you might do get off a little here there but you're going to recover because you're talking to me and you have it in your heart to be fully pleasing to me and of course that's one fundamental important way we walk worthy of him that we get ourself in the position ourselves prepared to to walk worthy to do all the will of god in that season of our life well he says fully pleasing paragraph c here in colossians but in second corinthians he says well pleasing look at this verse nine second corinthians chapter five verse nine he says we make it our aim it's our priority it's not a small thing we're set on this we have this in our conversation with god day after day we are adamant about making this our aim our priority he says whether present or absent and what he meant is whether we're absent from our body whether we're in heaven or down here it doesn't change we have one dominating uh uh aspiration ambition that's to be pleasing to him whether here or there it's the same we don't wait till there but also of course we'll walk it out way better when we're with them after this age without a natural body but we can add there's no super saints we can walk fully pleasing to the lord in this age as weak and broken people keeping in the conversation that's part of what paul's pointing out here keep it in the conversation keep it in your prayer dialogue with the lord to be fully pleasing to him and he says why verse nine we're going our goal is to be fully pleasing but why verse 10 so then or four because we're going to stand before him one day every believer will be evaluated one day and we're going to receive the response from him related to what we did in our body it matters we give someone a cup of cold water in his name he remembers it forever some people look at this like oh no it says we receive the things done in the body good or bad here's how i interpret this this is not an issue of heaven or hell the good or the bad for a believer it's people get into lifestyle uh patterns and and mindsets that are not in agreement with god and they get stubborn about it and they go you know what i'm just gonna stay with this and believers say you know you ought to let go of that they go no i got some other friends on facebook and they tell me it's biblical to do this and they stay hunkered into it and they won't repent of it and so the way i say it if you've got an area in your life that you're confident not to repent of then you will have it as part of the discussion when he evaluates the quality of your life at the end if you repent of it it's never in the conversation at the end but if you go no i'm going to stick with this lord says okay it will be part of your life evaluation if you're confident to stay with it and not repent of it and that's how some of the badge shows up on that day it's not about being unforgiven it's about being unwilling to say no to it when the scripture and the testimony of the spirit was clear because as a believer especially in 2020 you can find thousands of believers to agree with you on you know on social media on any area of compromise you want to walk in you can find thousands that will say the grace of god is okay with that paul says i'm not going there paul wasn't really big into the facebook opinions in his day he says i know i'm going to stand there and i only want in the conversation of the evaluation of my life that which is fully pleasing to him so i'm asking the lord lord he's not introspective searching every motive he's just saying let me know i want to be honest with you tip me off if it's off and i want to get rid of it i want to be fully pleasing well that's step i'm not step one that's facet one of walking worthy paragraph d another facet of walking worthy is being fruitful and every good work and that means in our relationships there's fruit bearing now some people will misinterpret this and they will think of bearing fruit as having some clearly outward visible measurable impact now some fruit is like that i mean there's some things you do it has a visible obvious somewhat measurable impact wow that was really impacting to people that inspired that helps some these three or four or those 30 or 40 or those three or four thousand whatever it actually helps some but don't think of all fruit bearing in that category or you'll get discouraged because a lot of the fruit bearing is internal character but other parts of our fruit bearing of our service we can't measure the fruitfulness of it but he can and so we're not fruit inspectors in that sense where we're trying to measure am i really impacting people who am i not the lord says stay in the conversation with me and just keep being available to touch other lives and and you will be bearing fruit you may not be able to measure it the way you would like to right now and the only reason i'm pointing that out because some people get into a real condemnation and inferiority and there's i'm not bearing any fruit i go how do you know i'm not seeing any you know lots of healings and thousands of people getting saved and people's lives transformed how do you know you're not moving people forward in the grace of god by your kindness and your service and your attention to them and i don't know they don't look like they're that changed don't evaluate it don't evaluate it just keep focused on receiving the love of god and wanting to express it and let the lord determine the measure of it and how valuable that measure is or how great that measure is here he says in john 15 very verse 2 is very important john 15 jesus is speaking he goes every branch in the branches of believer's life an individual every branch that bears fruit the father prunes that branch so that it will bear more fruit then he goes on in verse 5 i am the vine i'm the source of life you're the branch you're the expression of the life i have the divine life you're an expression my spirit lives in you if you abide in me and i in you you're gonna bear much fruit even if you can't measure it with your external observation with your natural observation you will bear much fruit if you'll abide in me and i abide in you you will bear fruit and i'd like to simplify this word abide and it's not a hundred percent accurate but this is this is gets you into the right idea instead of the word abide in me i like to use the word if you'll talk to me i'll talk to you abiding is more than that but that's the essence the foundational reality of abiding talk to me and i'll whisper in i'll inspire your thinking means he's not saying you'll hear the audible voice of the lord all the day all all the time or very often but oh you'll have inspired thoughts i'll talk to you and out of that you talking to me and me talking mute me inspiring ideas to you you'll end up bearing fruit you'll have your character will grow internally and you'll end up touching lives in a way you can't fully measure that's called fruit bearing verse 16 here's the confidence i chose you to bear fruit and your fruit will remain forever you give someone that cup of cold water god jesus will remember it in the age to come he said truly truly i'll never forget this really that's just a cup of cold water it was nothing some of you are going i think all of you the shock of your life when you stand before the lord and the things that he remembered that you totally forgot and you didn't even care that much about the kindness you showed the humility the humble heart instead of defensiveness you know accusing and argumentative you were humble and teachable and he he remembers all of that stuff you think well that was 10 years ago i don't remember what happened he says i remember all of it and that's part of the fruit but here's the part i i want you to get paragraph three down here is that he prunes the father prunes every branch that bears fruit now some people have the wrong idea of this they think of when he prunes he thinks they think of that as the same thing as he disciplines them god disciplines his beloved people because they have an area of deficiency in their life that they're not own i mean they're not paying attention to so he his discipline highlights an area of deficiency or an area of compromise he says i want you to get this one right my discipline's on you because i love you the pruning is not the same thing as discipline a discipline is pointing out a negative a pruning is the father doing it because you're bearing so much fruit it's it's redemptive in a different way what pruning does is that he'll cause some outward things to diminish and it looks like oh no god's mad at me he goes no you've grown so much so much fruit so many opportunities you're losing your focus right now i want you more focused so i remember at one time in our ministry here the lord spoke to me real clear there's going to be a pruning time and we had a thousand staff members and and we had 90 departments and people were thought that's so cool and the lord says i love you guys i don't want you in 90 departments you're out of focus here's what i'm going to do but he told me ahead of time and i said it at our staff meetings for a couple years i go we're going to enter a pruning season we're going to enter a season of discipline where he's going to show us our deficiencies but he's going to cut back things because we don't have the insight or the resolve to stop about 20 of those ministries because they're exciting and they're fun and we don't have the insight to stop them and we don't have the resolve because the pushback would be so great so the lord says i'm going to stop him for you because i want you refocused so that you'll bear more fruit and the reason you're out of focus is because you've got so much blessing on your life too many good things are happening you're over the branches are over growing i'm going to prune them back because i want you focused so when the lord disciplines us we say what should we repent of when the lord prunes us he's saying i want you refocused on how you invest your time and resources they're very different one is the father because you're fruitful and the other is the father because we're not paying attention to an area of our life that he wants us to pay attention to why am i saying all that because paul says i want you fruitful and there's there's as i look over the years people easily get into confusion and condemnation they go i'm not that fruitful and i say how do you know what does fruitfulness look like how are you defining it how do you measure it i don't know you know i don't have any big thousand member you know evangelistic crusades where everybody's getting saved i'm not that fruitful who said that's what fuful was i mean i really like reinhardt bonkey and he's had a lot of those but that's not your assignment i mean it might be but it might not be so i'm giving you that just to give you that perspective top of page three now i won't spend too much time on this this is one of my favorite subjects and the favorite subject of many of you in this room as well he says that while you are bearing fruit while you're pleasing me and bearing fruit now this fruitfulness this doors are opening lives are being touched blessing is increasing and the biggest challenge when blessing increases the size of your influence creases the sizes of your checkbook increases the size of your impact increases the opportunities increase and most seasons of our life are not a perpetual increase but there are those seasons in a 50 or 60 year you know uh pattern there's a those seasons of increase and there's the seasons of pruning and there's seasons of discipline and some people think the only season god has is grow grow grow grow grow with outward effectiveness and outward increase of blessing and i go no that's not exactly right but my point in right now is often when there's fruitfulness people lose their connection with the knowledge of god intimacy with god that's what the lord warned the ten virgins in matthew 25 five of the virgins they all had lamps and the lamps were burning and they were connecting with the bridegroom and five of them got so busy in their lamp their ministry bringing light to others they neglected oil and five of them they kept prioritizing getting oil of intimacy in their life with god while shining their lamp and it's a it's not a a a again a perfect science how to do this i find this to be a challenging thing to have to be in a fruitful season of increase and yet increase in the knowledge of god while increasing in fruitfulness because often increase in fruitfulness the money may be increased the influence increased the opportunities increase the relationships increase and our connection with god often decreases but paul says no i want you to be filled with the knowledge of god's will and this is one of the fruits he's going to tip you off he's going to alert you and he's going to empower you so you can increase in intimacy while you're bearing fruit that's a miracle when that happens again looking back over the years in my own life and the lives of others when when things start growing it's like you know what we want them to grow but let's not buy be naive about it because often when our fear grows our heart shrinks in terms of our connection with god doesn't have to be that's why it's in this prayer paul says i'm praying you'll increase in intimacy while you're fruitful put that in your prayer be the five wise virgins that you're bringing your lamp of ministry but you're putting oil first as your priority not the five foolish that the lamp of ministry and they didn't care about the oil dimension of their walk with god well i have paragraph e here there's no we're just going to mention a couple of these there's no a couple of these paragraphs there's no aspect of god's grace that more powerfully transform our heart than when god the holy spirit reveals the knowledge of god to us when god reveals god to our human spirit when the holy spirit gives us these little even faint inspirations about the father and the son wow our spirit the human spirit was made to be exhilarated by even little faint inspirations of the father and the son so when god reveals god to the human spirit the human spirit says whoa well i don't know if they say whoa but you know what i mean but so we want to when i see this prayer here it's alerting to me it is possible to be pleasing to the lord to bear fruit and increase in intimacy in the same season if we are anchored in the knowledge of his will that's why this knowledge of his will is a really big prayer this is a really big prayer that's why paul says i never cease praying this one again i don't pray all day every day but i don't drop it for months at a time i stay with this request because you having knowledge of his will is going to result in these other things well right after his prayer paragraph one here paul talks about the knowledge of god the knowledge of jesus i mean colossians 1 verse 15 to 20. i'm not going to read it i'm i want to but i want to it is one of the most incredible six verses it's a line after line power punch power pack revelation of the beauty of jesus so once paul says i pray for the knowledge that you did increase the knowledge of god it's like he's saying now i'm going to give you an overload on the knowledge of the glory of jesus right after this prayer is over and man he's just one two three four he's the image of the invisible god all things were created by him he's the head of the church and him he will have the preeminence and everything he's the fullness of deity in human form and whoa he'll reconcile heaven and earth bring those two realms together yeah i want to grow in the knowledge of god that sounds that's where whoa that that's intense you know christianity is so much more than uh just escaping the penalty of hell although i really appreciate that it's more than obeying a kingdom code of conduct that we live with moral ethics on the sermon on the mount it's more than a ministry assignment the core christianity is interaction with a person pursuing a person and interacting with him and him interacting with us that's christianity 101 is interaction with a person and so we get caught up in a ministry or even a code of conduct or just focusing on the fact we're forgiven and that's the end of the message paul's saying no increasing forever in the knowledge of god is what you want as the center of your focus and if you increase even a little bit over the years to stay with it you'll walk worthy of the lord well let's go down to oh my paragraph two this these are great verses paul says i count paragraph two everything lost for the magnificence the excellence knowing him i've i love to say this since i've said it for years that if we could see what paul saw we can respond like he responded we could live like he lived we wouldn't have the same ministry if i can see what he saw lord i can respond in the extravagance he did let the key to paul isn't he was born a super saint is actually quite opposite read romans 7 he says i'm doing these things i hate to do even in the kingdom i hate in my early days i hate these things you go read romans 7 but you know don't verse 18 to 25 is pretty intense i'm doing things i don't want to do and i'm the things i don't want to do i do do and he goes on and on he wasn't born a super saint he grew in revelation of the beauty of the man and his heart got on fire and so the power of paul's life is what he saw he wasn't born a super saint he was born like us but he saw more but he stayed with it and his heart became more and more vibrant paragraph four without a sense of awe in our relationship with jesus we live spiritually bored so many believers i'm not saying this to put them down so many believers are living spiritually bored with jesus they go i love you i don't really get you that much but i love you i love you i love you and i'll i'll even enjoy a worship service but after that i don't know so much what to do with you but a spiritually bored believer which is i think the standard of the day in the earth today of the billion believers they say that are on the earth but the lord's going to correct this but when we're spiritually bored we're far more vulnerable to the devil far more vulnerable a fascinated believer is far stronger in their spirit paragraph five the spirits paul says the spirit searches the deep things of god to reveal them to you can you imagine the spirit who searches the deep things of the father and the son lives in you to show them to you and jesus made it clear in john 16 he goes he'll guide you he'll escort you he'll take you by the hand he'll escort you into the ocean of my beauty and who i am he will personally take you step by step if you want to go there talk to me more about it the spirit would say and i'll give you more about him i'll escort you i'll guide you paragraph six well i'm really doing all this aren't i i was trying to skip this passage oh it's so good ephesians 3 paul says grace was given the anointing instead of the word of grace but the anointing of the spirit was on me that i would preach the look at this unsearchable riches of a man the most neglected subject in the kingdom of god is god it's really true we talk and we should but we talk in the body of christ me too about the i'm talking about all over the earth we talk about in our messages relationship skills leadership skills economic principles ministry skills how to be happy how to make life easier we talk about and those we should talk about those kind of subjects but the most neglected subject in the kingdom of god is god the person of god paul said i'm anointed to unlock the unsearchable riches of a man wow paragraph 7 proverbs 2. if you lift your voice for understanding if you'll seek it as silver search for it like hidden treasures you'll find the knowledge of god you won't get the knowledge of god in a deep way on the run but real search for it stay with it year after year you look back 5 years 10 years 20 years later you'll say i'm discovering more than knowledge of god our life is to be this treasure hunt for decades into the deeper treasures of the knowledge of jesus the unsearchable treasures well top of page four paul says now verse 11 the holy spirit wants to strengthen your inner man with might we looked at this in in ephesians 3 that god would strengthen us by his spirit and our inner man meaning he would inspire our mind and emotions that's what it means to be strengthened in our inner man the holy spirit will inspire and it's little i i i use it kind of a words not probably the best word little installments of inspiration meaning it's not all it's not always a dramatic thing it's just little moments of inspiration there's little bits here and there and our mind and emotions are inspired little by little that's what it means to be strengthened with might in the inner man but here's the part that i want you to see this is the most heroic i mean impressive i don't know i don't know what the words are aspect of the kingdom of god of a believer the miracle of a transformed believer is they have perseverance they don't quit they don't quit in the face of pressure they want to their body wants to their being wants to they don't quit they're strengthened to all perseverance to all patients another translation says endurance and they don't have a teeth-gritting dimension maybe a little bit along the way but there's elements of joy the confidence that god is watching them and them not quitting matters to god the joy is that yay this is really fun that's not i mean there may be moments of joy some people think joy is just an outward jubilation and there's moments of that but joy is the inward sense of well-being that god is watching and he's pleased and so we have long suffering which is the same thing as perseverance with a sense that sense that well uh a sense of well-being that he's watching and he's going yes yes this is good you're not quitting i know i've said this for years i think i'm right i say the number one temptation of the human race is to quit i believe you're an unbeliever to quit reaching for more it's just the temptation in can let's just talk about believers though that to quit reaching to go deep in god just you know what i'm just gonna coast i i did prayer for 10 or 20 years i never saw the breakthrough my ministry's not that great i don't have that many friends i think i'm a coast the next 10 or 20 years that is the i believe the number one temptation of the body of christ is to let go of the press and the reach and just coast paul says don't do it don't do it stay in the reach sign up again and again and when you get one of them bad seasons where you kind of get like ah just get through that season quickly and sign back up to go hard and believe for the fullness all perseverance i've got a few things on that it's but perseverance is again it's it is the great miracle we could call it love but not not letting go of the reach to go deep in god and to bring the spirit's blessing to others even if it's ones and twos and threes and fours and some people say if it's large numbers i'll stay in the battle if i got a little bit and they're not touched that much forget it i'm not gonna mess with it and paul says don't do that don't quit you know i tell the story i won't go into any great detail on it but i had one very dramatic uh encounter with the lord in august 1984 was a heavenly encounter and i tell the story of our prophetic history i won't tell it now but i'm literally standing before the lord in heaven and he's talking to me and it's the most dramatic encounter i've ever had i mean nothing close to it actually and he gives me the strangest command he says audible voice i mean i hear it it's like i'm right there i'm fully awake connecting with him and he's i'm standing there before him and you can if you want to hear the story i've told it on the prophetic history a couple of times over the last 40 years and i don't tell it often but he says this young man be patient like is that it no i didn't do that i trust me i was terrified i go i'm standing right by the presence of god he goes young man be patient then a moment later he says it's stronger and more stern be patient then he says it a third time and i'm feeling rebuked and i remember saying i've got a this is god he's right i don't know what he's talking about i've got to get out of this place because this he's god i am wrong he is right but i have no idea what he's talking about then he made it clear to me uh some time after that that be patient meant don't quit under the pressure or the delays don't quit and another one part he said he's made this point several times about don't vindicate yourself when attacked and accused i mean the miracle of jesus he was silent before his accusers i will vindicate you be patient the provision may be delayed the obstacles may increase the adversaries may come against you accusations may mount up don't answer them be patient and i found over that was almost 40 years ago the hardest is not answering for myself and i've been you know i'm trying to be a big martyr but many accusations all over around and by the grace of god i hope i i hope this is true but i don't know that i've ever answered one i set my heart back then not to ever answer locally to our own people abroad just nothing and some of the adversaries get so frustrated he never answers and i go like almost dead i could endure 10 more years before the great revival but entering jesus was silent before his accusers he said i will vindicate you in my way young man be patient don't answer and don't quit when i that happened that was 1984 i was 28 years old i'm 65 now i thought i'm standing before you and that's what you're telling me really i mean what about shandai mohanda or something or glory or something don't quit pretend why would i quit well 40 years later wow that was like really the word of the lord no i mean really the word of the lord but i could make sense of it on the front end well paul says all patience not quitting not vindicating yourself and i'm not talking about lawsuits in a legal situation this and that families you know there's there's times you do that but but he gave me such strong words about that and again those have been the most challenging things to not quit not answered not quite i mean i quit god but going for the fullness for the fullness lord how many years is it going to go it's been 38 years since some of those things happened in 83 84 like what were you thinking and the lord's answer back to me is well what were you thinking who told you it would be quick and easy where did you get the information it would be quick and easy everywhere in the bible it was long and hard joseph david moses yeah but none of them were americans i'm an american it's got to be quick and easy i i grew up you know tv and the super bowl and those things i i'm an american that's who told me my culture told me it would be quick and easier and i'd feel better about it he goes no you didn't get that from the bible but there's joy and again the joy isn't the external exuberance again i'm not i'm not against that that's not the point i'm making my point is some folks think that's what joy is it's that sense of well-being that he's smiling while you keep pressing you stay in the reach and you stay in the battle and he smiles and he goes that is love right there that looks like love to me you won't quit then he ends it he says i'll just end with this last thing he says by giving thanks to the father and verse 12 giving thanks this is such a small thing i mean such an important thing it's not a small thing i said it opposite giving thanks to the father some things thank you god thank you we had the worship service no it's the narrative it's buying into the god narrative of your life when we see the god narrative we're not locked into what we lack who's against us how hard it is what they did to us that's the secular narrative of our life the god narrative is i've received the inheritance of the saints i've been transferred into the kingdom of god i'm part of the family everything i do that's in obedience if nobody else agrees with it it moves you you remember it thank you thank you i'm a part of your family i'm under your leadership you're remembering everything it's the god narrative is what the thank you is about because it's so easy as i have written here under a paragraph way at the end of four paragraph two the dark narrative the enemy wants to trap us and the negative narrative how bad we're treated how hard things are what we don't have how much we fail the lord says that's not the narrative the narrative is how much i've given you and how long it's going to last and how free it is and how generous i am and how dear you are to me and how every little thing you do it matters to me that's the narrative thank me for my leadership over your life ah amen let's stand before the lord father we come before you lord we say that we we want to walk in all this we want to be filled with knowledge of your will we want spiritual application how to invest our resources in every season we want spiritual understanding how to interpret the increase and the decrease we want to walk worthy by setting our heart to be pleasing we want to be fruitful even when there's pruning we we trust your leadership we want to increase in the knowledge of god even when we're things are abound and we want to have oil in our hearts strengthen us so we don't quit strengthen us with patience and we set our heart to enter into the god narrative the i the thank you-ness of life but thank you thank you thank you for what you've given us and who you are and who we are to you we say thank you thank you thank you holy spirit i'm going to ask you to come and move on this tonight all over this room lord we wouldn't be people that walk in this i want to be a man that doesn't cease to talk about these things before you i want to talk about these things before you for me and for the people i love [Music] to talk about these things i don't want to lose these things in my [Music] conversations oh we love you jesus even in our [Music] weakness [Music] [Music] oh we love you jesus [Music] my [Music] i [Music] and will is [Music] is [Music] i love you [Music] oh you're jealous [Music] me [Music] right now [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] i am [Music] [Music] get oil even while the blessing of ministry is increasing [Music] [Music] holy spirit we just asked you right now across this room for an increase of your manifest presence holy spirit manifest yourself we ask for the spirit of glory to rest on hearts and bodies right now holy spirit come like wind come like fire right now i just take authority over the spirit of heaviness and the spirit of torment that's coming against minds that is lies in the name of jesus i speak refreshment in revelation the name of jesus the spirit of heaviness i rebuke you right now where there's demonic energy in it we take authority over right now torment and fear and condemnation i say fill them with the knowledge of your will that's safe that's the prayer theme [Music] of your will tonight [Music] [Music] is [Music] is to jesus [Music] jesus [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] [Music] going to ask the oh to give confidence clarity for the assignment the season you're in right now we all have this request that we know how to focus i mean where to invest our time and resources in the right things the right people in this season this two or three year season of your life father i ask you you would fulfill us give clarity on the assignment that you have for them i ask you that you give inspiration in their spirit prophetic dreams confirming words from others what they are to invest their time and resources into in this next three to six months fill them with the knowledge of your will confirm the season they're in even if it's the same assignment give clarity lift the fog lord we all want greater clarity where do we put our time and energy more more in this or more in that we want to be pleasing to you so i ask you for prophetic dreams even with clarity i ask you for the god narrative of our life that we can be people who give thanks i ask for the god narrative i take authority over the distraction of the enemy's lies and the way that we think i take authority over now in jesus name strengthen us with might for all perseverance with a sense of joy in it [Music] a fresh wave of inspiration clarity clarity for our sons and daughters for our siblings our loved ones our spouse speak with clarity about these things [Music] lord i pray for our siblings and for our children and grandchildren for a clear sense of destiny give them a clear assignment where they have a commission from you a key sentence they can anchor their heart in i ask for a fresh sense of destiny for all of our sons and daughters for our spouse for our parents a clear sense of destiny in terms of the divine assignment fill them with the knowledge of your will for everyone in this room as well a fresh sense of destiny for your life we want to know that our children our grandchildren [Music] speak to them call them by name i ask you [Music] give spiritual wisdom and understanding in the assignment [Music] or speak to them that son or daughter that family member that's wavering that has no sense of being anchored with us in the destiny the one without directions without a vision that people perish lord i ask to give a vision to our family members a clear sense of divineness [Music] i ask for the fog to live [Music] let's pray that for our family [Music] [Music] a new sense of fresh commissioning for the lord [Music] [Music] dreams [Music] [Music] intoxicating dreams [Music] and compromise of our family members we ask for a clear sense of divine commissioning that overcomes lethargy and dullness in jesus name tonight i ask that they so would receive it literally [Music] tonight we want to see rightly we want to see we want them to see that they would see clearly destiny commissioning to the family member that's wavering right now break free from the spirit [Music] of arise [Music] [Music] destiny commissioning purposes [Music] tonight and this week we've prophesied over them right now i'm gonna shift gears i'm gonna pray for physical healing every time we gather we want the lord to heal bodies father i ask all over this room for the spirit of power to rest on physical bodies i ask for healing miracles tonight [Music] nothing is too difficult [Music] we take authority over sickness disease and injury and any kind of ailment right now across the room right now lord we have we command your body to be jehovah rapha you are the lord that heals jehovah those on the internet as well come and heal those that are joining us online release the spirit of power in that room right now this is our inheritance on our family members we stand in the gap for them for healing tonight jehovah rapha i am the lord that healeth me that's what he said to moses i am jehovah rapha i am the healing god spirit of power right now in this room and in our families wherever they're at [Music] spirit of power holy spirit move his power we believe you tonight [Music] the impossible the impossible turn around tonight [Music] molly wes adams [Music] chris the county oh ask for healing [Music] [Music] cancer in the name of jesus [Music] you are [Music] speak here in the name of jesus it's what you do jesus

Channel: Mike Bickle Official

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Length: 84min 27sec (5067 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021