 Many intercessors are finding it difficult to maintain the prayer life to which they were accustomed. Not only is the drive to intercede gone, but they cannot even maintain a discipline of prayer.
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Many intercessors are finding it difficult to maintain the prayer life to which they were accustomed. Not only is the drive to intercede gone, but they cannot even maintain a discipline of prayer. This has been quite disconcerting to many people whose lives were marked by intense, frequent, powerful prayer as little as a year ago. When this pattern of prayerlessness continues for a season, condemnation sets in.
My observation is that there has been a shift in the way God desires that we pray. During the Ruler season of church history we measured the effectiveness of our prayer by the degree to which our spirit was able to express itself through our soul. When there was a river of words, deep passion, brilliant reasoning, or fluid weaving together of relevant Scriptures, we felt we had touched heaven.
This expressing of our spirit through our soul is not wrong. God still does this today. However, for those who can no longer find that connection, there is good news. God has another, better plan for you in the gift of Mercy season.
Here is a typical scenario. Fred is vaguely aware that Sam is "on his mind" for several hours or days. During that time, Fred is not "thinking" about him in the conventional sense. He does not sense that Sam is in trouble. He is not asking God what is happening in Sam's life. And he most certainly is not interceding for him in the conventional sense of speaking to God about Sam's life and situation. Eventually the sensation passes.
We have documented some situations where a "Sam" is in a difficult situation at the same time that he is on "Fred's" mind, and there has been intervention from God, in spite of the fact that Fred was not "interceding."
It appears to me that what is happening is that Fred's spirit was communing with God's Spirit about Sam's situation, without Fred's soul being brought into the discussion. Fred's mind is not able to monitor, much less direct, the dialog between his spirit and God, but his spirit was in fact, engaging in deep, effective work in the spiritual realm. I suspect that this form of intercession will become normative in the Mercy season.
There are many implications to this. The first is that if this describes you, you can discard that bundle of condemnation you have been carrying around since your devotional life disintegrated. It is quite likely that your devotional life actually took a step up, not down. Your spirit may actually be engaging in much more intercession at a much higher level by communing with God without the involvement of your soul.
Second, for those of you who draw a sense of legitimacy from intercession that can be monitored internally or observed externally, you just lost a major legitimacy crutch! It is time to get healed.
Third, we are now reaping the benefits or consequences of our previous spiritual disciplines or lack thereof. Those who have genuinely nurtured their spirit for the past few decades will have a powerful impact in this Mercy season.
Fourth, witchcraft prayer is out. We are so driven to quick fixes and our love frequently causes us to try to pray away the consequences of someone's wrong actions. Often these are not prayers from the heart of God. Can you imagine the beauty and purity of our prayers when our spirit is joyously synchronizing with the Spirit of God, without having to rise above all the interference, confusion, control and small perspective of our soul?
Oh, yes! Where there is beauty and purity, there is most likely power as well.
Arthur Burk is a Bible teacher and founder of Plumbline Ministries. He travels extensively teaching principles of the Kingdom of God.
Used by permission http://www.plumblineministries.com
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