Kingdom prayer is very necessary in the life of every believer. How can we ignite Kingdom prayer? Prayer is the only link that God has given to link us with the power that he has provided. Kingdom prayer is the divinely authorized methodology to access the divine authority for earthly intervention. Prayer was given to us by God to contact heaven for help on earth. It is God’s point whereby we connect with the power that we gain once we become believers.
Ephesians 3:14-15: “For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.”
We already possess this spiritual power when we come to Christ but can only access it through prayers. It is God’s will that every Christian gets hold of this power. Prayer is an awareness to every Christian that we no longer live in the realm of the mundane and the realm of the regular. We are no longer limited to the natural because we have been hooked up to a power company that ties us to the supernatural.
1) Our Prayers must be relentless
Experiencing the supernatural is supposed to be an every-second experience in the life of a believer. If you only see the supernatural once in a while, it means you do not have the power to access that supernatural because you are not a believer. Others may be believers yet unable to experience this supernatural from day to day because they do not know how to use the power of prayer.
The purpose of engaging in the kingdom prayer is to connect with the power of heaven to enable us to advance in our day-to-day challenges. Our prayers must be relentless. God does not want you to lose heart. To lose heart means to quit or be overwhelmed by discouragement.
When the Bible talks about losing heart, it is talking about quitting because of discouragement. Many Christians are standing on their last leg. Some have made up their minds to quit the pilgrimage because of financial difficulties, prolonged sicknesses, etc. These outnumbered challenges explain why we need to pray all the time.
Every believer has God as their Father. Which means every believer has equal access to heavenly intervention. If God is your Father because you are a Christian, then God has named you one of his kingdom kids. Therefore, you have access to him in prayer. You do not ever have to lag in prayers. If you want heaven to join you on earth, then you must persist in prayer routines.
2) Fix your inside man to grow intimately with God
If you are going to get heaven to come down in prayer to meet you on earth, that will be determined by your level of spiritual intimacy. If you are going to get heaven to join you in history, it will be affected and infected by the level of your spiritual intimacy.
If you are having a long-distance relationship with God, do not expect to see heaven enter history. Your level of intimacy will determine your level of power.
Ephesians 3:16: “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;”
What is happening on the inside–the inner man, will affect what God does for you on the outside.
We go to God to fix people, fix problems, and solve dilemmas. But God looks at the inside to determine what he will do on the outside. If the inside is not growing, there will be no power in prayer. If the inside is not getting deeper, there will be no strengthening of power in prayer.
The inner man, by the work of the Holy Spirit, has got to be deepening if you want to be straightened with power. If year after year or month after month passes without any manifestation of heavenly power in your life, then you have to visit the connection. Your inner man must be intimate with God for heaven’s glory to flow to the outside world.
The spirit of God will strengthen you with Power, but it starts with your inner man. If you do not care for your soul and take time to grow your spirit, then do not be surprised when your prayers are not getting answered. It is to the degree that you are going deeper spiritually that you experience greater power. The kingdom of God will visit you in history only when you go deeper in your intimacy with God.
God will withhold answers to prayer when his whole purpose is to make you go deeper and not be satisfied with where you are. God would force you to go deeper with him by holding back what you desire. The connection between you and God has to be strong before you can experience the outflow of heavenly power. What do you need to grow deeper? Do you have to pray more or read the Bible more? All that has their place in going deeper, but they are not the solid necessity to go deeper.
In verse 17: “So that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith”
You go deeper for Christ to dwell in your heart through faith. The Greek word for dwell means to make yourself at home. Your inner spiritual life must develop to the degree that Jesus feels at home in you. Whatever you need to do, whether prayers, fasting, or Bible studies, do it.
3) Let Christ feel at home in your life.
If you want power, Jesus has to be free to roam in your heart. He must be able to make himself at home in all the crevices of your life. He must be welcome to tour the library of your mind and interact with your thoughts. He must be free to visit the kitchen of your appetite to be able to look at the things you are desiring to consume.
Jesus wants to visit the living room of your relationship to talk about the kind of folk you hang out with. He wants you to visit the attic of your hidden habits and deal with the things you snuck away that nobody can see. Total surrender to God is inevitable if you must receive the Kingdom power. Some Christians would say, ‘Jesus, this part of my life belongs to you, but these parts are off-limit to you.’
The moment you limit Jesus Christ to only the rooms that have been cleaned up in your life is the moment you denounce heavenly power. While some people limit Jesus only to the religious aspect of their lives, others limit Jesus to Mondays of their lives and not Tuesdays. God must be supreme over every aspect of our lives for his power to be felt.
You might be thinking, ‘The other rooms of my life, the things I think about, and the places I go, I do not want Jesus to see.’ But Jesus loves to explore that hidden attic of your life to help you out so that your spiritual prayer would be effective. Be real before God. Do not play Christian and speak ‘Christianese.’ The degree that he can infiltrate all the rooms of your life is the degree to which you can access power.
You can be hindering heaven’s power because you have limited Jesus to a certain location in your life. He wants to be part of your work life, your entertainment life, and your relationship life. He wants to be part of all the aspects of your being; only then would he be free to share his power with you.
4) Develop the capacity to hold heavens glory through prayers
The pursuit of intimacy means exposure. Exposing your life to God is critical for power. Spending time in his presence must be a Christian goal. Spend time in his word and presence. The second thing to do if you want heavenly authority to enter into earthly intervention is that spiritual intimacy must expand spiritual capacity.
Ephesians 3:17-19: “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
God will only give you as much of him as that you can handle. You’ve got to get more capacity to handle more of him. God is not going to waste “God” on you. It starts with spiritual intimacy. But he wants you to expand your spiritual capacity so that he can do more. If you are going to get more capacity, you have to be rooted and grounded in love.
The Bible says, “God is love.” It is an essential characteristic of God’s nature. God does not just love, but he is love. Love is a meaningless word unless there is an object. To love means that you are loving someone or something. God is love by nature. He does not have to try to love. It is built inside of him.
The reason that love is built in with God is because God has always had someone to love. God is a tri-being—God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, God has never been alone because of the triune nature of the Trinity. Love has to have an object. This means that if you go to God for power or in prayer and it is only about you, then you are not rooted and grounded in love. It can be for you, but it cannot be only about you.
If you only exist for yourself, if you only pray for yourself, if you only want God’s power for you, then you are not rooted and grounded in love. Here is the secret: when you go to God for something for yourself, tell him how that thing will benefit you and somebody other than you. God wants every believer to be a part of a spiritual family. He wants everyone to create an environment that expresses his love.
5) Desire to be a channel of God’s blessings
If you are building spiritual intimacy and expressing his love, you are expanding your spiritual capacity. It is like blowing up a balloon. The balloon is very flat, but it’s been built to expand. It has been built to take more and more air. When you became a believer, you were like an inflated balloon. Your capacity to grasp the kingdom power can expand.
God is only going to give you as much of himself as he knows you can handle. Your spiritual intimacy sets the stage for God’s power to infiltrate and overflow. You have to desire to be a channel and not a cul-de-sac. Everybody wants to be blessed, but not everyone wants to be a blessing. When you do not want to be a blessing, you are actually blocking God’s divine movement.
God told Abraham, “I am going to bless you, and through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” Whenever you bring ‘being a blessing into the equation,’ you are now being rooted and grounded in love and not just rooted and grounded in you.
6) Pray without relenting: Men ought to pray
Many Christians have not built spiritual capacity, but they want spiritual power. God is offering us his glory through kingdom prayer. Prayer is the only means where God is capable of turning around troubles in our lives that we could not figure out. It is the means where God can shake you and bake you at the same time. God can only do a crossover over you through a consistent prayer life.
Why do you pray? Because you need Him. His power is very personal. But it’s not only personal but potent, and He is able. That speaks of His ability. God has the ability. Scripture says nothing is too difficult for Him.
On that first Christmas, Mary the Virgin wanted to know, ‘How can this possibly be?’ And the angel said, “Because nothing is impossible with God.” Do you think your situation is impossible? Do you think your dilemma is unresolvable? You have to understand that you are dealing with God, who is able.
Hebrew 7:25: “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.”
2corithinas 9:8: “And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”
7) God is able to save us in spiritual intimacy
The three Hebrew boys said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “Our God is able to deliver us.” When Daniel was thrown in the lions’ den, the king came to Daniel and said, “Is your God able to save you in the lions’ den?”
No matter how bad the situation is and how long it has been, in spiritual intimacy, God is able to heal them all. A lot of people are able to talk, smack, or even sing. Some are able to make promises, but our God is able to perform.
Our God is able to do ‘far more.’ He is able to act, and then the Bible hits the superlative, ‘Far more.’ Meaning that God is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. In other words, he is able to blow your mind. If you put it in contemporary English, he is able to mess you up.
For most of us, our prayers are never answered, while some do not ask at all. Some people are very vague in their requests—they are never specific. The most important is many people pray solely about themselves and their personal benefits and not considering the other saints in the body of Christ.
God is so good at answering prayer that he not only can answer what your brain told your mouth, but he can precede your brain—he can answer what your brain never thought to ask for. God is capable of answering and throwing in bonuses.
In verse 20, ‘According to the power that works within us.’ God can only answer prayers in accordance with the power that is working within us. Jesus says, ‘If you abide in me, and my word abide in you. Ask me what you will, and my father will do it.’ So, the question is, how much of him do you want? How much of him do you already have? Because he’s only going to give you as much of him as you can handle. Go deeper with God, and you will experience extraordinary powers in your life.
Inspired by Tony Evans Sermon
