Jesus teaches us to ask, seek, and knock. Go do it.
Asking for results that God already wants to deliver it not just a great way to pray. It’s a great way to prepare for something to happen: for God’s results on earth to happen just as they already are in heaven.
Do this experimentally and discover how powerful and easy this is. No need to be without Workers for the Harvest! Or to have other needs unmet.
Jesus is already propagating his Kingdom. Join with him!
After we ask something for, command it by speaking to it, just as Jesus showed so many times. Tell it what to do. No drama needed. Just deeply and with single-mindedness say what you mean. When you have trouble being as single-minded as you prefer, ask Jesus for help with that and do your best. With Holy Spirit.
Overview:You can effectively and thoroughly transfer skills, power and authority to disciples in three stages.
This series is designed to give you a mental map, an easy to remember overview of how togo andminister as Jesus.
Go exemplify and help someone experience ministry that begins with Jesus.
Prepare the way with prayer and command. Then,
Stage One: Teach with Examples.Demonstration & Testimony, also Parable & Story.
Stage Two: Transfer by Laying on of Hands.
Stage Three: Disciples Implement through Prayer and Command.
This Overview is the first part of a brief series about how to equip others to do some important things that Jesus taught and said to do.
Jesus gave us power and authority. Which includes how to do a thing, how to get it done.
Such as Preaching the Good News of the Kingdom, Healing the Sick (including Lepers), Freeing the Bound, Raising the Dead. Some will want to learn and do. Make Disciples of all kinds of people. Disciples who Multiply and start Ecclesias that plant yet more churches.
So…how do we transfer skills, authority, and power? It’s useful to have this overview in mind. Then to go on and Prepare the way.
Stage One: Teach with Examples. Demonstration & Testimony, also Parable & Story.
An example that motivates can result from an experience or from the various kinds of stories – a story you remember that motivates.
Different examples have interesting characteristics:
Demonstration is vivid and convincing. Disciple makers often start with demonstrating how to do something and its value. Such as Preaching or Teaching the Good News of the Kingdom of God that Jesus Preached and using that context for healing or setting someone free. Showing this is a brilliant way to make disciples.
Testimony is a story that happened, that is real. Testimony implies that the same can happen to you. Spoken prophetically to build faith and point to it’s happening to you next.
Parable is the shortest kind of story Jesus used, it applies to us all. Using common culturally known information and people without names, you understand a parable easily applied to yourself.
These are stories. Stories that motivate, show context and importance, that show how something happens or how you accomplish something.
Use unique examples in various situations; you can even use several types. Have fun with your examples, and your student-learners will have fun, too.
Your faith, the faith of the receiver – or both – touching the Anointing is an explosive combination that results in power and authority being transferred. Including power and authority for healing, or to give gifts for ministry to another person.
Lay hands on your student-learner when it is time and they are ready – when you are not sure when or how, ask first.
Please see that the person receiving – whether you or someone else – activates what has happened quickly by acting on it.
Preferably, then telling (testifying) to someone else about what just happened. (People healed, set free, cleansed, raised, given gifts, or new to the Kingdom: act quickly on what just happened and tell the truth of that to someone as a witness who can confirm what was just said.)
This is invaluable in confirming the miracle that just took place, setting it firmly in memory, and making commitment stronger.
Stage Three: Disciples Implement through Prayer and Command.
Implement through Prayer and Command. Ask for what you want of Jesus. Then command – speak to – what is to transform or change. Whether it be for healing of a body part, a whole body, or pacifying waves and wind, or other weather.
Point One: God has proven himself to be a skilled planner. If you look at the remarkable number (hundreds!) of advance plans (sometimes called prophecies) that he prepared in advance of his Messiah’s appearance on earth, details as far back as Genesis 3, you realize that God has some mad skills at planning ahead.
Point Two: God is good. That’s not negotiable. God is always (always!) in favor of his kids, always working for our good.
Point Three: In Exodus, God is pretty badass. His plagues confront the Egyptian “gods” and show them to be powerless. Then he leads a couple of million people out of slavery right on the schedule he had announced several centuries earlier.
And here’s where my ears seriously perk up.
God, the omniscient, omnipotent super-planner leads his people into the desert, famous for having neither food nor water. And what a surprise, the people have no water, no food.
So they complained. Like people do.
They wanted food (Exodus 16). So he fed them meat (quail: good eating!) in the evening, and bread (manna) the next morning (v12).
Then they complained about not having water (Exodus 17), and in the midst of their whining, they asked for water (v2). And God gave them water. He used a pretty epic miracle (v6) to do it, too.
And in these ways he provided for his children for forty years in the desert. (Hint: read Exodus again. What epic stories!)
We’ve all heard sermons about their complaining, and how that irritated God and really frustrated their leader, Moses. Reasonable lessons to draw from these stories.
I was talking to God the other day as we were going through Exodus. “You’re so good at planning. Why did you lead them into the desert without food or water?”
And suddenly, my mind was taken back to The Magician’s Nephew, CS Lewis’s book about the beginning of Narnia. Polly and Digory were on a mission for Aslan, the Christ figure, and they were hungry:
“Well, I do think someone might have arranged about our meals,” said Digory.“
I’m sure Aslan would have, if you’d asked him,” said Fledge.
“Wouldn’t he know without being asked?” said Polly.
“I’ve no doubt he would,” said the Horse. “But I’ve a sort of idea he likes to be asked.”
AndFather whispered to me, “I wanted them to ask me, so I could answer them.”
I realized that God was training them how to come to him to meet their needs: his goal is relationship, a relationship of trust.
Someone smart once said, “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” God works on our behalf to teach us that faith, how to relate to him in faith.
I also feel I am getting to know God better. You can, too! I expect that learning about God more deeply and better is something that goes on for eternity.
Our creator has made us with a capacity for learning. Which can lead to a lifetime and – an eternity of continuing progress through various lessons.
Just the idea of this fills me with wonder. How about you?
Frustration in prayer or when standing on God’s Word is painful!
Holy Spirit gives you a revelation of how to apply God’s Word in your life. You act on this and God blesses you wonderfully!
Later, you do it again in a similar situation, and maybe this works for you this time.
Again and again, you depend on different Scriptures – and maybe this works well for you.
Sooner or later something else might happen. It will appear to you that standing on God’s Word is no longer working for you. (That’s not the actual issue, but it may seem to be.)
You will faithfully stand on God’s Word again – maybe in a different circumstance, maybe you are depending on a different Word in Scripture. And it appears to not work for you.
So you double down. And you double down some more. You try harder and harder and it isn’t working for you and you do not understand why this is happening. You are sure it can’t be what it looks like. And you are right – it isn’t what it looks like — only different from what you expect.
Here’s how to get this fixed. Like so many things, it’s easy when you know how. Hard when you are missing a key to what to do and how to go about it.
Here’s what happened and how things inexplicably went wrong – and here’s what to do about it:
Originally Holy Spirit delivered to you an insight, technically a revelation to you – that in response to a certain issue you were to apply and put to work a particular Word from God.
This worked wonderfully well for you.
When the situation changed or you try to do the same thing with a different Word or message from scripture – it may seem like it doesn’t work for you anymore, a puzzle easy to deny and hard to accept. Because you are so certain that being faithful was the key! Standing strong on God’s word was key!And you were right. But you may have missed something important.
The first time when it worked so well you received revelation through Holy Spirit.
After that you chose what scripture to apply to what situation and it seemed not to work. So you tried harder and harder. You continued to double down, and it still isn’t working.
You need God’s revelation! In choosing what Word or message from Scripture to apply and to give you insight to about how to apply that message.
When you try to figure it out by yourself, it may not always work.
Go back to what helped you from the beginning. God’s revelation to you!
Then pause. Stop. Listen. Look. Feel. Be aware of thoughts that appear in your mind. What you experience next may be literally God’s answer to your question.
And it will probably look and differ from what you expect. Why? Because you didn’t know the answer. It’s like something that’s lost: it’s not where you have been looking. AndGod knows more than you or I do.
And because God loves to give us wonderful surprises.
AND, God cares more about your relationship than most or possibly even all answers. God is not a Santa Claus, and not an answering machine, either.
You may not have thought about this yet, but it can be a wonderful and freeing and healthy thing to do: update yoursoul ties.
Soul ties are your ongoing relationships with people at the level of your soul – your thoughts, feelings, emotions and such. Also included are relationships with places, institutions, groups of people – anything or anybody your soul has ties to or a relationship with. Even your health or age.
God made humans out of the dust of the earth – the body, and the breath – spirit – which when body and spirit combined, humans became living souls.
Your soul is like the dreaming part of you. In fact, it is the soul that dreams.
There are objects and people who are stable, yet plastic and changeable. A chair can become something else in a dream, to name just one example. Not as likely in the physical world, where chairs are more stable.
So here is the key idea: every time a relationship changes, it’s possible, even likely, that the soul tie needs to be updated.
Any relationship that goes through a change needs to be updated. Parents need to let their children grow up and adjust to that, rather than continue to relate to them as children. Your child, yes; but not relating to your child as a child. Children need to relate to their parents differently as you mature and as they continue to mature and age. Suffering will surely result when this is not done. Even graduation from school. Marriage. Any change in relationship. Any.
Someone dies. Relationship changes. Soul ties need adjusting. Whether a family member, friend, or pet.
Soul ties need frequent updating because relationships go through transformations. Any time a status changes, a soul tie update is a good idea.
Here’s another hint: any time there is ongoing pain through a relationship, an updating of soul ties is likely called for. Ongoing relationship pain is a clear signal: an update in soul ties is called for. Literally.
How to do such a thing? Fortunately, it turns out to be easy to do.
People who do a lot of deliverance probably prefer to ask for the blood of Jesus to help make the change. There is a place for that.
Personally, I prefer to utilize the Helper that Jesus sent us to guide and comfort us: Holy Spirit.
Ask Holy Spirit to help you update and adjust your soul ties. Any time – every time – there is a transition or change in relationship. Or when there is ongoing pain or suffering.
And when there are normal things to do that mark a transition in your culture, do them carefully, thoughtfully, and lovingly. These help too.
Easy. Simple. Just ask. Holy Spirit will do this for you with wisdom and love, and do it perfectly, too. If you wish to pray in the Spirit, this is likely a great help, too. You really cannot go wrong praying in the Spirit.
And, if you highly empathicor sensitive (HSP), you can find much relief with this simple and easy approach that you are already equipped for. Ask Holy Spirit to adjust your energy, feelings, relationships, and body. Ask as often as you feel like it may be helpful. It can’t hurt, and this can help you a lot.
