Culture of the Kingdom
Today’s Topic: Prayer: The Prayer of Faith and Summary of the Culture of the Kingdom
Scripture: James 5:13-18
Greetings Kingdom Citizens
Now so what is the prayer of faith? It is faith in the operation of God. We are to have faith in the fact that the elders are the representatives of God in the Earth and have been given authority in the Earth and they have been empowered against the demonic to render judgments in the earth that God will honor in Heaven and demons must obey and the conditions resulting from the demonic activity will also stop. Now I want to make a specific point here that some healing will take place over time. It may take the body time to adjust to functioning normally after years of demonic oppression. But the key is to cut the root of the sickness and its authority then the body will experience healing. We need to understand the importance of doing things the way God commands us and not changing because we think or society says we should. Now let’s wrap this entire mini-series on prayer up.
We have seen, in Revelation 5 and 8, prayer as incense coming up to God and that is the kind of prayer that aligns the individual on earth with the realities of Heaven. When that prayer comes to the Lord Jesus, because it is already the will of God, God mixes the prayer request with the authority of God. This is symbolized as fire in Revelation 8:5. God then hurls the answered prayer with the authority and power for the prayer to be answered to the earth.
Now we also learned that these prayers must be in the name of Jesus because He is the Holy One who made the perfect atonement for our sins as represented by the sacrifice in Exodus 30:10. It is the blood of the sin offering of atonements. We know that this is the type and shadow of Jesus because it was His blood that made the atonement for our sin. We know that for these prayers to be answered they should line up with the Will of God for that particular time. So saying in the name of Jesus does not automatically get the prayer answered. Hence in the model prayer our first request is “Thy Kingdom come, thy Will be done”. Well how will we know the Will of God for that particular time? That will come from the apostolic and the doctrine they preach. It is through the apostolic that the CURRENT direction of the church comes through. The Word they speak is the thing that God is doing in that particular season and our prayer should line up with the Will of God and the thing He is doing in that season.
Our prayer life should model the prayer life of Jesus. When Jesus prayed He prayed for the Will of God to be done for that particular time and for the thing God wanted in the Earth. I remember a particular time when Jesus was praying in Matthew 26:42, He prayed to the Father and His soul was sorrowful but the spirit is willing. What is it willing to do? It is willing to do the Will of God. Matthew 26:42: …O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, THY WILL BE DONE.
We need to re-evaluate prayer and allow the Scriptures to show us how we should pray. As we mature in the Kingdom our prayer should mature from things to the Will of God and for His Kingdom to come.
Summary of the 4 Elements of the Culture of the Kingdom
Apostles’ Doctrine: It is the current Word and direction for the Body of Christ in a particular season. The apostolic gives foundation and order to the lives of believers in the Kingdom. The Word of God comes from the mouth of God to the apostolic and the apostles give that word to the Body of Christ. It is that word that comes from the apostolic to the ears of the citizens of the Kingdom and feeds the spirits of the believers. So we need the apostolic so we can know the current direction of the Body of Christ.
Fellowship: Fellowship is all about understanding how Holy Spirit arranges us in the Body of Christ. We understand also that the House of God is arranged in a Patriarchal order where there are human spiritual fathers that show the nature, character and ways of Christ to the sons of God to help mature the sons of God so they can disciple the nations.
Breaking of Bread: The breaking of bread is more than just communion or the Lord’s supper. The breaking of bread is the feeding of the spirit of man of the Word of God. This typically is done in fellowship. We looked at a example that at the Table of the Lord, the bread from Heaven is broken and shared but also there is the discerning of the hearts of those at the table of the Lord. In addition the people who come to the table of the Lord to fellowship and be fed can also find peace, joy and safety at the Lord’s table.
Prayer: As we mature in Christ our prayers should turn from asking God for things for us to asking for His Kingdom to come and His Will to be done in the Earth as it is in Heaven. In addition we looked at the prayer of faith and saw that the elders are to discern sickness within the body of Christ and determine the proper process and protocol to deal with the illness, especially if it is sickness due to sin. We also saw that the Elders are empowered, as God representatives to forgive sins in the process of healing someone who is sin sick.
At the Father’s Service,
Elder Calvin Calhoun Jr.
