Thy Kingdom Come - Derek Prince

if I were to ask you here whom do you consider the most influential kind of person on earth I suppose you might think of various different answers probably your mind would turn to political leaders such as George Bush or Mikhail Gorbachev or others man of science or maybe even military commanders but I don't believe that they are the really influential people I look in a completely different direction as I understand it the most influential people on earth today are those who now know how to get their prayers answered because they can release the omnipotence of God into situations which goes far beyond anything that the wisest or most powerful human being can do so I want to speak to you in this message on certain requirements for getting our prayers answered but first of all I just want to read you three statements from the New Testament about what prayer can do the first is found in matthew chapter 21 verse 22 jesus himself is speaking and he says and all things whatever you ask in prayer believing you will receive notice all things that you ask in prayer you will receive there's no restrictions it's just one condition believing the condition there is faith and then we turn to John's Gospel chapter 15 and verse 7 and again we have the words of Jesus to his disciples if you abide in me and my words abide in you you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you another version says ask what you desire and it shall be done for you notice there what you desire there's no other restriction that the condition is if my words abide in you in other words if we pray according to God's Word and one final scripture in the first epistle of John chapter 5 verses 14 and 15 now this is the confidence that we have in him that is in God that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us and if we know that he hears us whatever we ask we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him there again it says whatever we ask but again there's a condition attached it's according to his will so if you take those three passages together you'll find that the scope of prayer is unlimited nothing is excluded but the conditions are threefold faith according to God's Word and according to God's will and they go together because God's Word reveals God's will and we know that when we're praying according to God's will we will get what we pray for so I want to deal in this message with what I consider to be the basic requirements for praying that kind of print for making you a person who can change the course of history I don't know whether you're aware but in the light of the recent events in Eastern Europe the they overthrown the anchor the release of political Liberty inside the Soviet Union in 1987 the church in Russia which was looking forward to its 1000th anniversary set aside the month of January for prayer and fasting and I believe if you look for the real cause of the dramatic political changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union it's not in the decision of politicians it's in the prayers of God's people and I'd have to say and I trust you'd agree with me that if that amount of authority has been committed to us as believers in Jesus and in the Bible we are really foolish if we don't make use of it and I think when negligent I think God is going to call us to account if he's committed that kind of authority to us and we don't appreciate it and make use of it now for the conditions that I want to speak about I want to turn to the Sermon on the Mount and particularly to this sixth chapter and I want to take the first part of what is Familia known to Christians around the earth as the Lord's Prayer Jesus says in Matthew 6:9 in this manner therefore pray I don't believe he means that we've always got to use precisely those words although they're beautiful words but I believe that he sent forth a pattern of the way we ought to pray and typically it's very concise but very complete now I only want to take the first two verses verse 9 and verse 10 I believe they contain the key to effective praying I hope I can put this key in your hand and you can walk out of this meeting with a key that will unlock the omnipotence of God let's just read those familiar words I'm reading from the New King James Version our Father in heaven Hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven first of all we address God as father that makes all the difference we're not praying to some remote unknown deity some impersonal force but were praying to a person who has made himself our Father through Jesus Christ you see the the mechanistic view of the universe that it's just a series of material explosions and causes leaves a person very lonely lost in the vastness of a universe which he doesn't understand and can't control I always think of a friend of mine a well-known Catholic charismatic speaker if I gave you his name wouldn't be known to almost all of you incidentally he was recently here in New Zealand so I'm giving a lot away and he told me this years back he was in one of the slums of the big cities of the United States and it was late in the evening it was getting dark and it was a cold windy evening and the dust was swelling up around him and he was standing on the corner of the street and he felt so lonely and so weak and then it came to him just to use one word and he repeated again and again father father father addressing it to God and the more he repeated the word father the stronger and more secure he felt and just reinforcing that one relationship to Almighty God as his father completely changed his whole outlook on his situation at that moment for me my background is in philosophy and I studied for a good many years the various theories about the origin of the universe I never could find one that satisfied me intellectually then I started to read the Bible in desperation I thought at least it can't be any sillier than some of the other theories I've heard I didn't believe it was divinely inspired or unique I just said I'll treat it like any other book start at the beginning and read it through to the end I did that when I went into the British Army in 1940 so I took a Bible with me planning to read it through while I was in the Army and of course I had plenty of time because I spent the next five and a half years in the British Army not by my choice and I always recall the impact this made the first night I was in the back room with 24 other new recruits and I didn't think anything about it I just sat down and opened up the Bible and the other soldiers began to look at me and they realized I was reading the Bible and I mean uneasy hush fell on the whole barrack room I couldn't believe that one book would have that much of faith and the thing was I baffled them all because when I was not reading the Bible I didn't live the least bit like people who regularly read the Bible however through reading the Bible I met the author and once I met the author the book made the most wonderful sense to me and I found in the Bible the answers that I had not found in philosophy I found a description of the begin things that explained me to myself that was not really mad when I read the description of the creation of man in Genesis chapters 1 2 & 3 it explained what was going on inside me see my favorite philosopher whom I study I read every word he ever wrote in the Greek language was Plato and one of Plato's pictures was the human soul was like a chariot drawn by two horses one black and one white and the white horse was always trying to go upwards the black horse was always pulling the chariot downwards and really that was so true to my experience but I didn't get any further but when I read the description of the creation of man I saw man comes from two sources he's from the dust of the earth below but he's from the breath of Almighty God above and there is in every one of us something of a tension between what comes from a bomb and what comes from the earth but God shows us in his word how to resolve that tension and bring our lives into harmony I can't go into that tonight but just want to testify that the Bible made the most wonderful sense to me and explained me to myself and I had a totally different view of the universe from that time onwards when I met the the God of the Bible I knew that there wasn't some impersonal force some big bang that just brought the universe into being but I came to understand that there was a father and that the real power behind everything is the love of God and one thing the Bible never explains is the love of God it tells us God loves us it never tells us why God loves us the one unexplained fact in the universe is the love of God we just have to receive it we'll never understand why God should love us passes our comprehension but the good news is he really does and so Jesus says when you start to pray to God the first word you use is father now in the English translation it comes out our Father but in the Greek the word father comes first and then our so the first thing you do when you pray if you know God as Father through Jesus Christ his approach him as father and then the word hour is important because most of us are extremely self-centered and when we pray we tend to pray Lord bless me help me heal me and Jesus reminds us you're not the only child God has he's got a lot of other children and they're all important to him and it's important to him that you care for your brothers and sisters and then the next phrase is hallowed be thy name that expresses an attitude of reverence of worship and so after we've acknowledged God as father we need to adopt an attitude of reverence and I have to say that in many sections of the church today that's sadly lacking the approach of reverence to Almighty God God doesn't want us terrifying but he does want us reverent and something happens in our spirits when we Lent that attitude of reverence express itself in our prayers and then we come to the first - if you could call it petitions and these are the ones I want to deal with your kingdom come and then your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and notice we don't begin by praying for what we need that's for that followers give us this day our daily bread forgive us our trespasses but it's not where we start we start with God's purposes what's important to God see through the fall man was shut up in a little prison called self and natural man is self-centered his life focuses on himself how can I get what I want who's going to help me what do I get out of this that's a prison but through the new birth and through the grace of God we can be released from that prison of self-centeredness and enter into a relationship with God where what God wants is more important than what we want and when you pray that way you're beginning to grow wings you can move out of the natural level praying is not going to God with a shopping list you know then after all Jesus said your father knows what you need before you are skinned you don't have to tell god what you need what's important is that you get into such a relationship with God that you know when you do tell him you're going to get it establishing the relationship is much more important than giving God a list of what you need so the first thing we are desay is your kingdom come that's tremendously important because what we're doing is aligning ourselves with God's purpose God's ultimate purpose in this age is very simple in its essence the details may be complicated but the essential plan of God is simple to establish his kingdom on earth and notice Jesus says on earth that's one that's God's first priority all through the history of this age from the time that Jesus died and rose again until now God's priority has never changed millions and millions of Christians pray the Lord's Prayer and never realize what they're praying for when we say your kingdom come we are aligning ourselves with what God once done in the earth you see ultimately the only real practical solution to the needs of humanity is the establishment of God's kingdom we hear a lot today about a social gospel meaning that we need to care for man's physical and material needs I agree I believe all Christians should be concerned with the physical and material needs of our fellow human beings I believe that's the expression of love if you love people you'll be concerned about their needs but I don't believe that it's in our part really to meet the needs of humanity as a whole the church has been here nearly 2,000 years and the needs in many cases are greater now than they've ever been at any time in human history 40,000 children under the age of 5 die every week on the earth today mainly of malnutrition in sanitary conditions and yet if all the money that was spent by the nation's on military armaments were made available it would be abundant to establish hospitals clinics safe water supplies in every nation on earth the problem is not the resources are not available the problem is that human greed and fear and hate caused the resources to be misdirected now don't misunderstand me I'm not preaching pacifism I'm just pointing out that the root of the problem is in human nature and personally I don't believe that man by himself or the church by itself is ever going to resolve the material and practical needs of humanity it's only one thing that can do that what is that the establishment of God's kingdom on earth see I claim to be a practical person I don't want to be just a visionary or a dreamer I tell people many times the Holy Spirit is the most practical person on earth today if a thing is not practical it's not spiritual and I believe the establishment of God's kingdom is the only practical solution to human need the people who preach what's called a social gospel are presenting a dream their motives may be good but to suggest that by merely focusing on man's material needs we can resolve them is not true there's only one hope for Humanity Ruth and I travel widely and we've been to a lot of places where people are desperately poor and in need and in ignorance if you've never been outside this beautiful nation you probably have a very faint picture of the needs of humanity in many many nations across the earth and they are not being met many cases they are increasing poverty deprivation hunger they are Nautilus anything they're more now I'm not an pessimist I believe there is a solution but I believe it's God's solution and it's a practical solution it's the establishment of Christ's Kingdom on a and I don't believe anything else is going to do it and God is a great realist and his love for Humanity causes him to make priority number one the meaning of the medes of humanity through the establishment of Christ's Kingdom on earth I hope you understand me now we need to have a little clarity about the way the kingdom is established and this is a subject which is a great interest of Christians at the present time first of all the kingdom is defined in its essential nature by Paul in one simple verse Romans 14 verse 17 the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness peace and joy in the holy spirit I want to point out two things first of all righteousness comes first and without true righteousness there will never be true peace the world today is talking a great deal about peace and many sections of the church are praying for peace that's a good prayer but bear in mind without righteousness peace will never come to this earth God says twice in the prophet Isaiah there is no peace to the wicked I meet many Christians who want peace and joy but very often I find they've omitted the fact that they only come as the results of righteousness righteousness is the first expression of the kingdom in any attempt to achieve peace without righteousness is doomed to frustration I personally my understanding of Biblical prophecy is that there will come an antichrist a satanically inspired ruler and he will promise peace and he will seem for a very brief moment to achieve it but Paul says in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 when they say peace and security then sudden destruction comes upon them without warning so the pursuit of peace by passing righteousness is foolishness so it's righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit the only power that can impart those things in their true nature is the Holy Spirit somebody said the limits of the kingdom of God are the limits of where the Holy Spirit is present where the Holy Spirit is not present you cannot have the kingdom of God now the first way that the kingdom comes is inwardly Jesus told the Pharisees of his day the kingdom doesn't come by watching and waiting for it externally he said the kingdom of God is within you or among you now there's no kingdom without a king so if we want the kingdom we have to welcome the king and many of you here in this meeting know from experience that when the king comes in he brings his kingdom with it but to want the kingdom apart from the king is to deceive yourself so there is an individual experience of the kingdom of God that every true believer can have who makes Jesus unreservedly king and that means displacing self from the throne of your heart and placing Jesus on that throw and when you do that then the kingdom of God sets in righteousness peace and joy but jesus also said the kingdom of God is within you and I believe there's a corporate expression of the kingdom which is in the true community of believers which is called the church not some man-made institution but the the fellowship of those who've made Jesus King in their own hearts and lives and relate to one another on that basis and I believe that it's the responsibility of the church in any place to model the kingdom of God that by our attitudes and our relationships and the way we live we challenge the world with a glimpse of the kingdom and people should be able to look at the church and say so that's what the kingdom of God is like righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and I tell you that where the church demonstrates these things the hearts of men and women are nearly always open to the truth of the gospel but if the world doesn't see the kingdom in the church why should the will believe our message probably they will not let me just suggest one very practical and important way in which we can model the kingdom and it's a way that today is somewhat controversial the fact of the matter is that today truth is controversial Isaiah wrote about a time when truth has fallen in the street and righteousness cannot enter and we're not far from a time like this in many parts of the hee society but Paul said to Christian married couples husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and I tell husbands that's not a recommendation that's a commandment you are commanded to love your wife you don't have any options and furthermore it will do you a lot of good when you do it some of you may have seen that book which you seen Ron has rather a lengthy title husbands do yourselves a favor love your wives it's true but the other side of it is wives submit to your husband's as the church is submitted to Jesus Christ so if you put those two statements together I see it this way that every Christian married couple should be a prophetic message to the world when the world looks at Christian married couples the world should say I understand that the way that man loves his wife is the way Christ loves the church and the way that woman relates to her husband is the way the church relates to Christ would you like to be prophetic I think all of us in a way would have an ambition to be somewhat prophetic well a committed Christian couple can be prophetic you can be a message to the world this is what the kingdom of God is like if there's one place that the kingdom should be demonstrated first and foremost it's in the believers family and if there's one place that Satan is attacking today it's the family because it was designed by God to represent the kingdom and Satan wants to blur and obscure and eliminate the message of the king he's afraid of the kingdom because wherever the kingdom is established his power has come to an end so there are two primary ways in which the kingdom can come invisibly in the individual heart and life of the believer and in the corporate fellowship of the true church and not least in the Christian home but that's not the ultimate the ultimat is the visible establishment of God's kingdom and the visible kingdom requires a visible King and only when the king himself has returned visibly and in person can the true kingdom of God be established on earth and personally I have to say I feel it presumptuous for the church to suggest that we can do the job and finish it off without Jesus the Bible says that we should be eagerly longing for his appearing it says that in many different places I would like to ask you this evening are you eagerly longing for the appearing of Jesus if not why not friend of mine as a preacher as a Rolla droll way of expressing himself and he said when Jesus comes back the church should do something more than just say nice to have you back believe me brothers and sisters things are going to happen on earth between now and then that will make us desperately anxious to see him back God is going to arrange that so that's the primary purpose of God the establishment of his kingdom on earth visibly with a visible King ruling over it and everything that God does is directed toward that and until we make that our priority we are not really aligned with the will and purpose of God see that's why that's the first thing that we are required to say after acknowledging God is our Father we are required to align ourselves with God's purpose I tell people this prayer is not a way for you to get God to do what you want a lot of Christians think it is it may work out that way but that's not its purpose prayer is a way for you to become an instrument for God to do what he wants alright I think I'm going to say that away again prayer is not a way for you to get gone to do what you want prayer is a way for you to become an instrument for God to do what he wants and when you become a line with God's purpose you're going to pray prayers that are irresistible there will be no power human or satanic that will be able to resist the outworking of your prayer and then jesus said one more thing your will be done on earth as it is in heaven do you believe that's possible do you really believe that when we pray rightly in any given situation God's will can be done as completely here on earth as it's been done in heaven I do doesn't mean everything is perfect on earth but it means in any given situation God's purpose and solution can be perfectly worked out do you believe that you see you pray differently if you convince yourself of that but if you say to dawn your will be done you know what you're saying not my will so that's the second essential requirement that you renounce your own will wherever it conflicts with God's will and I want to tell you this God's will is best most of us have let the devil make us afraid of God's will oh if I embrace the will of God it means suffering it means denial I'm going to have to give things up could happen that way but I read him Revelation chapter 4 all things were created for your will or according to your will and I've pondered on that verse many times partly because there's a song that's put out by scripture in song on their first major album they did it revelation 4:11 as a song and it particularly blessed me and so I pondered on that verse many times and I was thinking it over some time aback and I suddenly realized that that could not be anything better than God's will God's will is the best way for anything to be at any time so don't be afraid of embracing God's will but you do it without knowing what it will involve when Ruth and I were preparing for these meetings we were in theoretically we were resting in Hawaii but actually we were battling the forces of Satan and we came to a point where both of us I think we were on the floor said Lord we embrace your will without any reservation whatever whatever you will we embrace and I think God was kind of squeezing us putting pressure on us to bring us to that place of total surrender and embracing of the will of God and there comes a relief when you do that you don't know exactly what you're praying for but remember you've got a father who loves you who's omnipotent who always wants the best for you it's foolish to press your will against God's will his will his best if I look back over nearly 50 years that I walked with the Lord at gaying and again I thank God for the time that he didn't let me have my way I can see situation after situation if I've done things the way I wanted it would have been disastrous I thank him I thank God for the prayers he's answered I also thank God for the praise he didn't answer he knows what is best so there are the two I would say attitudes the two ways you have to align yourself to become an effective prayer to be able to pray the kind of prayers that will change nations change situations change families I look back on my own walk with the Lord and I can say to the glory of God I can see several points in the history of the last 50 years we're history was changed by my brands I have a book I don't know whether it's available called shady history through prayer and fasting and in it I give about four or five specific examples of history changed when I prayed the will of God I was saved in Britain in the Army in 1940 in just a few 1941 and just a few weeks later I was sent overseas with my unit to North Africa I spent the next four and a half years in the Middle East and during that time my unit took part in the longest retreat recorded in the history of the British Army 750 miles from a place called Allah gala in Tripoli to the well known place in Egypt El Alamein and I can tell you it's somewhat depressing to be retreating continually for 750 months of particularly in a very barren and unattractive desert and there I was newly converted I hadn't had any opportunity to attend church all I had was the Bible and the Holy Spirit and I thought I self I ought to be able to pray about this situation intelligently and I knew I didn't know what to pray so I said in my naive way Lord show me how you want me to pray and the Lord gave me a specific answer which was this lord give us leaders such that it will be for your glory to give us victory through them I was less than a year old in the Lord when I prayed that prayer and I prayed it consistently and then the command of the what was then the Eighth Army was changed and Montgomery took over by a series of strange accidents which I can't go into in detail he was not destined to be commander and Montgomery at that time I read an article just recently in a British newspaper on the anniversary of the hundred 100th anniversary of Montgomery's birth in which it said that no British General in human history has ever conducted a more brilliant campaign than Montgomery conducted at that time in North Africa you know why shall I tell you why because I pray do you believe that can you believe that God will do things for you now I know there were other Christians in Britain frames and after the Battle of El Alamein which was the turning point of the war in that area had been fought I was with my units lorry in the desert somewhere and there was a little portable radio on the tailboard of the lorry and there was a newscaster giving an eyewitness account of the scene at Montgomery's headquarters the night before the battle of Alamein was fought and he reported how a general Montgomery came out and called together his officers in his men and said let us ask the Lord mighty in battle to give us the victory and when I heard that I don't know whether you know what happens electricity is like some of you do but it went right through me from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet and God spoke to me inaudibly that's the answer to your prayer you see to be able to pray like that is worth more than all the fortune in this world a person who can pray like that is more influenced influential than the general that wins the victory the government that controls the general now I haven't always prayed that kind of Prayer sometimes I've got bogged down in my own little petty concerns and my limitations and I got praying give me help me bless me heal me there's nothing wrong in asking God to heal you but it won't really produce the divine result until your whole attitude and motivation is aligned with God's purpose in the earth see God's not going to change his purposes if God and I are out of harmony guess who's going to change there's only one option I have to change and living out of harmony with God especially if you're a spirit baptized believer is painful how many of you had agree to that don't put your hand up sit on your hand at that point but how can we be in harmony the answer is aligned with God's purpose and the first two keys steps are there at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer thy kingdom come Lord I'm not praying primarily for my own interests or what I think is important I'm praying for the thing that's important in your eyes the thing that really is the solution the coming of your kingdom and then Lord I submit my will to you personally your will be done and where your will and my will clash is Lord I say not my will be done and I will tell you that it will always come a point in the life of every believer where we have to say not my will but yours be done and it's often extremely painful at the time but the end is always blessed I see some of you smiling and nodding your heads you've found it for yourself and then in Matthew 6:33 Jesus gives one more direction which is the outworking of what we've already discussed how many of you know what Matthew 6:33 says but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you get your priorities right and you really don't have to spend a lot of time praying for your personal needs God will take care of your personal needs if you align with his priorities now as I say I'm being a Christian almost 50 years hard to believe and I've been responsible for this ministry which really is a worldwide ministry for at least 10 years now and we marvel continually at how God supplies on it we don't have a big we don't have any big resources we don't have any millionaires that lavish their fortune on us most of the people that support this ministry are comparatively humble people and most of them ask for really no recognition and yet I'd have to say in his the members of our staff here God has never failed to supply our needs once and continually we have to reach out and faith we don't wait till it the resources are there and say now we can do it we say if this is what God wants us to do we'll do it and trust him for the resources years ago I was preaching to a group of young people in the States on how to arrange your life in line with God and I said it was a risky thing to say but I said when I go into a store I don't ask can I have four this I ask is this what God wants me to have because if God wants me to have it I can afford it well but six of those young people went out after the service was over to a restaurant across the road to get a little supper I heard this from them personally and they began to look at the menu and say what can we afford and one of them said let's do what the preacher said and just decide what do we want God does to have and order it and I mean I'm glad I wasn't there because I would have been trembling so they did that and when they wanted to pay the waiter said that gentleman over there has just paid your bill but listen don't do it unless you have the face you know what will happen you spend your evening washing greasy dishes all right now one more vital question and we close this message which is how can I discover God's will and I want to turn to one of my favorite passages Romans chapter 12 and very briefly outline the steps to discovering God's will as I understand it they're all here in Romans chapter 12 the first eight verses we don't have long but I'll go through it briefly Paul begins with a therefore in verse 1 and you many of you have heard me say when you find that therefore in the Bible you want to find out what it's there for and this therefore is because of the previous 11 chapters of Romans in which Paul has outlined the whole message of God's mercy and grace and he says in the light of that what should we do how shall we respond the answer is present your body a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God that always blesses me the Bible is so down-to-earth a lot of us would expect something super spiritual you know after all this glorious unfolding of the grace of God God what you want I want your body he you see when he gets our body he gets the contents and he is so wise so he says present your body to me a living sacrifice why does it say a living sacrifice because Paul's contrasting it with the Old Testament sacrifices which were first killed and placed on the altar but Paul says don't kill your body and place it on the altar place a living body on the altar and when any as sacrifice was placed on the altar it no longer belonged to the person who offered it it belonged to God so God says place your body on my altar as a living sacrifice and from now on you don't own it I own it you don't make the decisions to what will happen to your body I make them you don't decide where you're going to go you don't decide what you're going to eat you don't decide what you're going to wear those are my decisions my responsibility I take full responsibility for your body and I'll tell you he's much better able to look after our bodies than we can you can't lose by putting gone in charge of your body but it has to be a genuine surrender and then the next verse says do not be conformed to this world or this age but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God you see to discover God's will you have to have a change in your thinking your mind has to be renewed and God can do that but he will not do it till he has your body his present your body then I'll renew your mind and when your mind is renewed you can discover the will of God you can't discover it with your old on renewed month lots of people get saved and I suppose they get to heaven at the end but they never discover God's will in this life because their mind is never you and then Paul says in the next verse I say through the grace given to me to me to everyone who is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of thing so the renewed mind is not proud it's not arrogant it's not self assertive it is humble it is sober it's realistic the first day you walk into the bank to work don't expect to sit in the managers chair see that's unrealistic when you come into the kingdom don't expect to be apostle day one be willing to be an office boy empty the waste bin for baskets you know in the in the spiritual life you know the way up it's now that's right the lower down you go the higher up you're in and then Paul says in effect and I'm not going to read the verse but he says you're not going to make it on your own you're going to have to be part of the body of Christ and God has given you a measure of faith a proportion of faith suitable to your place in the body so you have to find your place in the body and when you find your place you'll discover that you have the faith that you need for that place and for that function you see my hand works wonderfully well as a hand but if I try to walk on my hands I get into trouble because my hand is designed to be a hand or not a foot lots of Christians are feet trying to be hands on those is trying to be ears and if you have a continual struggle for faith in your Christian walk it's almost a sure guarantee that you're trying to be something God didn't design you to be because basically the life of faith has tests and problems but it flows it's not a continual struggle and when you find your place in the body you're allotted a portion of faith that God has given you will make you successful in that place and then finally Paul says in closing this little simple outline when you're in your place in the body God will give you the gifts you need for that place a lot of people just interested in spiritual gifts and I agree they're exciting but they are not to be sought in detachment from the body because until you know your place in the body you don't know what gifts you'll need my experience has been when I get in the right place I have the right gifts I remember when God thrust me into the Ministry of deliverance helping people to be free from demons a certain friend of mine brought his sister a married woman for deliverance to my first wife and me in a hotel somewhere in Colorado and she sat there and she was a picture of misery she obviously had problems and I looked at her and I opened my mouth and I heard myself say you need to be delivered from and I named about eight demons and then I thought to myself how did I know that and then I realized God had given me the word of knowledge why as an ornament no because I needed it to be effective in the place that he put me but remember that the key the initial move is to present your body a living sacrifice to God that's a definite experience and as I close this message I want to challenge you have you ever really handed over the control of your body to the Lord Jesus Christ have you really said God it's yours it's at your disposal do with it what you want and if you haven't there's no better time than now to make that decision shall we pray together just for a few moments now I don't want to pressure anybody but it would be unfair to close this message without giving you an opportunity to respond if you've heard tonight something about what God requires of you the condition you haven't fulfilled and you want to fulfill it you want to align yourself with God's purposes and God's priorities and you say God Here I am here's my body I place it on your own if you feel god prompting you to make that decision we want to help you very very simply just ask you to do one thing to indicate your decision just stand to your feet where you are in your place it's an act of surrender to go see I take my hands off and I hand myself over to God and his will you want to make that decision stand to your feet wherever you are bless you god bless god bless bless you now this is a very serious decision and I don't want to pressure you into making a decision that you'll go back on God doesn't expect you to be perfect from this moment onwards but he does expect you to be sincere and wholehearted so if you really have decided that this is the night you're going to put your body on God's altar I suggest that you say this simple prayer out loud after me you're not praying to me I'm just giving you the words with which you can approach God it'll be very brief very simple doesn't have to be a long prayer you say these words Lord Jesus Christ I thank you that on the cross you died in my place to save me from my sin and to make me a child of God and in response to your mercy Lord I now present my body to you I led upon the altar of your service as a living sacrifice from tonight onwards it belongs to you Lord and not to me I thank you you receive this sacrifice because I offer it to you through Jesus amen now just continue a few months

Channel: Derek Prince

Views: 118,904

Rating: 4.7984977 out of 5

Keywords: end times signs latest events 2021, biblical prophecy update 2021, derek prince sermons, bible study about end times, bible study about prophetic times, derek prince ministries, endtime prophecy, sermon about end times, sermon about prophetic times, i dont believe in the bible

Id: 9L-ZM0g6yf0

Length: 59min 4sec (3544 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2013