Better Way To Pray CGF-01-FDN-MAT
The things the Lord has
revealed to me about prayer since then have totally changed my life, and I’m
now seeing miraculous results. If you aren’t getting the results you know the Lord wants you to
have, maybe it’s time to consider a better way to pray. I’m not saying that
anyone who doesn’t pray as I do is “of the devil.” I wasn’t “of the devil” in
the way I used to pray. I loved God with all my heart, and the Lord loved me.
But the results weren’t there.
First, we need to
recognize that God isn’t angry at mankind anymore. He is no longer imputing or holding our sins
against us.
“God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;
and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19).
We are NOW reconciled to
God through Jesus. That means we are in harmony and are friendly with God right
now. He isn’t mad; He’s not even in a bad mood. The war between God and man is
over.That’s what the angels proclaimed at the birth of Jesus.
Luke 2:14 says,
“Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
These angels weren’t
saying that peace would reign on earth and that wars between people would
cease. That certainly hasn’t happened. They were proclaiming the end of war
between God and man. Jesus paid a price that was infinitely greater than the
sins of the whole human race.
God’s wrath and justice
have been satisfied. Jesus changed everything. God isn’t angry. His
mercy extends to all people. He loves the world, not just the church, but the
whole world. He paid for all sin.
The Scriptures say in 1
John 2:2,
“And he is the
propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
In the Old Testament,
God’s judgment was poured out on both individuals and nations. In the New
Testament, God’s judgment was poured out on Jesus. That is the
nearly-too-good-to-be-true news of the Gospel. We no longer get what we
deserve; we get what Jesus paid the price for, if we will only believe.
Before I understood
this, I would say, “If God doesn’t judge America, He will have to apologize to
Sodom and Gomorrah.” Now I say, “If God judges America, He will have to
apologize to Jesus.” Understanding what Jesus did completely changes our
perspective.
Second, Jesus is now the
Mediator. A mediator is one who
seeks to reconcile, or make peace between, two opposing parties. In the Old
Testament, man had not yet been reconciled to God through Jesus. The people
needed a mediator, someone to intercede with God on their behalf. That is where
we find people like Abraham and Moses pleading with God.
In Genesis 18:23-25,
Abraham interceded with God on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah:
“Abraham drew near, and
said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there
be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the
place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do
after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the
righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge
of all the earth do right?”
In fact, Abraham
actually negotiated with God until He agreed not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah
for the sake of ten righteous people. But there weren’t ten righteous people in
the whole city, and only some of Lot’s family survived. A similar account is
recorded in Exodus 32:9-12 and 14. Here God was furious with the people, and
Moses interceded for them:
“The LORD said unto
Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now
therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may
consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the
LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people,
which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and
with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief
did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from
the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil
against thy people…And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do
unto his people.”
Moses actually told God,
“Repent!” What nerve! What’s more amazing is that God repented. From these and
other stories in the Old Testament, modern-day “intercessors” believe we,
too, must stand in the gap, or mediate, between God and man. Just as I did
decades ago, they believe we must plead with God to save the lost, to withhold
His wrath from those He is ready to judge, and to be merciful to those whose
needs He is unwilling to meet because of their unworthiness.
That couldn’t be further
from the truth, but it is what’s being
taught in many churches today. It ignores the fact that Jesus is now seated at
the right hand of the Father (Heb. 10:12), ever making intercession for us
(Heb. 7:25). If Moses or Abraham could persuade God, don’t you think Jesus
could do at least as well?
In 1 Timothy 2:5, we
read,
“For there is one God,
and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
In the New Covenant,
Jesus is the ONLY mediator needed
to stand between God the Father and mankind. Sin is no longer a problem with
God;it’s been atoned for, and we are now the righteousness of God in Christ
Jesus. That is how God sees us. If we understand that, it will change the way
we pray.
It was appropriate for
Abraham and Moses to pray as they did because God’s wrath had not yet been
appeased through Jesus. Today, under the New Covenant, if people try to mediate
in that way, they are actually antichrist—against Christ. They are saying that
Jesus was not enough and are not esteeming what Christ has done. When Jesus
became our Mediator, He put all other mediators out of business—forever. I
know these words are strong, but they are the truth.
Satan is behind much of
the wrong teaching on “prayer.” Consider how crafty his plan is and the fruit
it produces. He has convinced believers to stay in their closets, taking the
place of Jesus in intercession. They spend hours pleading with God to turn from
His wrath, to pour out His Spirit, and to meet the needs of the people.
Meanwhile, families,
coworkers, and neighbors are going to hell and dying from disease. The Bible
doesn’t say that salvation comes through intercession, but by the foolishness
of preaching (1 Cor. 1:21). And we are not told to pray for the sick, but to
heal the sick (Matt. 10:8) by commanding healing into their broken bodies.
We have been deceived into believing prayer is all about persuading God to release His power. We believe He can save, heal, and deliver but that He is waiting on us to shape up and earn it. The truth is, we don’t deserve it, and we will never be good enough. Because of Jesus, all that God has is ours. That’s good news. We no longer need to beg or plead; we need to exercise the authority He has given us and receive His blessings.