I recently received this e-mail and was deeply touched by it. I usually delete all such e-mails by reading the first line or by checking the subject line. God’s Word has never told the New Testament Christian to try to destroy those who oppose the Gospel. Yet, day after day I receive ugly, hate filled e-mails regarding the upcoming elections that are supposed to convince me to not vote for the candidates the writer hates. This is supposed to open the way to make America more Christian?

 

God’s Word tells all Christians this:

 

“If my people, who are called by my name will humble themselves, pray, and seek my face, then will I hear from heaven and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).  

 

Please read the following e-mail (which I have verified on the internet as valid) and then pray:

 

The following is a good example of the intervention of God in the final results of an election in India (see www.renewamerica.us/columns/fischer/081023).

 

Patrick Joshua is the Director of the National Prayer Network and a father figure to the prayer movement in India. Because of a special burden for our nation, he visited the United States twice in recent months, including a trip to Houston. Patrick believes the U.S. is at a very critical time in history, the impact of which will be felt around the world.

 

During his visits, Patrick told the story of God’s intervention in India in 2004, in response to the fervent, united prayers of His people. At that time, political forces had mobilized with the intention of turning their nation in a direction that would make it almost impossible for Christians to share or practice their faith. Those forces had the momentum and the numbers as the Christian population in India is a minority by some estimates representing only 6% of the 1.1 billion people in the nation.

 

The situation was desperate. Many thought it was impossible. So they turned to the God of the impossible and began to pray. In cities and states across their nation, a movement of united, fervent prayer arose, but with a unique focus. They weren’t praying for particular candidates or political parties. Instead they were praying for the person of righteousness, the person of God’s choosing, to be elected in every elected office.

 

Right up until the day of the election every poll and pundit predicted the election would be a landslide for those who were opposed to the gospel. When the votes were counted, however, the results revealed a different story. In district after district those candidates and political allies who opposed the gospel had been soundly defeated. At a national level they were out of power. Needless to say the press and the pundits were stunned. No one saw it coming.

 

So what happened? It seems God heard the cries of His people and touched the hearts of the voters as they went into the voting booths. Some believe a corporate conviction came upon the people and they indeed voted for the person of righteous, the person of God’s choosing. This was seen most dramatically in the states and regions where prayer was the most concentrated and fervent. In one of those states, laws that restricted the advance of the gospel were immediately repealed.

 

While our situation is certainly different, Patrick believes we are at a critical crossroad. He has encouraged us to follow a similar pattern in prayer for our upcoming election. Here’s the pattern for prayer as we approach our election. Come into God’s Presence with Worship. Thank God for his great mercy and many blessings. Ask God to extend his mercy to us and to our nation. and then pray this way for:

 

1. Those running for office nationally: Instead of praying for specific candidates or political parties, pray that the person of righteousness, the person of God’s choosing, would be selected in every congressional district, every senate race and for the office of President. Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a disgrace to any people. Proverbs  14:34

 

2. Those running for office at the state and local level: Pray that the person of righteousness, the person of God’s choosing, would be selected in

every elected office at the state and local levels. When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan. Proverbs 29:2

 

3.Those voting: Pray that each person voting will be convicted to vote for the person of righteousness, the person of God’s choosing, in each elected office and in each ballot initiative. Pray for God’s Presence to overshadow each person as they make their decision. The Spirit of the Lord will be upon him the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; Isaiah 11:2-3

 

4. Those involved in the election process: Pray that every official involved in the election process would serve with honesty and integrity of heart. The Lord abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight. Proverbs 11:1

 

5. Those praying: Pray that God would empower intercessors and people across the nation and around the world to call out to Him day and night in extraordinary prayer during this season. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a Spirit of grace and supplication. Zechariah 12:10

 

6. The Church: Pray that the Church would be fully awakened, engaged and empowered during this critical season. Pray that we would understand the urgency and importance of this election and the implications for the advancement  of God’s purposes in our nation and around the world. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. Isaiah 9:7

 

7. Our nation: Pray that God’s plans and purposes for our nation would be established during this election season. Pray that we would be a nation who follows God and is a blessing to the nations of the earth. Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:10

Golden Apple Two
Prayer Changes the One Who Prays

“‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,’ he said to them. ‘Stay here and keep watch.’ Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. ‘Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will’ . . . Once more he went away and prayed the same thing . . . Returning the third time, he said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come . . . Let us go.’” (Mark 14:33-42, NIV)

Jesus prayed His way through anguish and tears to a changed heart. He was completely human when He was facing impending death, and His soul did not want the cross. Knowing the will of the Father, however, He struggled in prayer to surrender His thoughts and feelings. Three times He went away from His friends to pray, asking if there was any other way.

I do not think the Son of God ever considered not obeying His Father, but I do believe He struggled in prayer to change His heart to be in agreement with God’s will for Him. Jesus did not sin by asking the Father to take away the cross if there was any other way. He reconfirmed His obedience to God’s will each time He did. Finally, He broke through in prayer, accepted the coming cross and arose to go and meet the end of His life.

We often pray prayers asking for other people to change. The main reason to pray is to agree that God’s will in heaven shall be done on earth. The next most important thing our prayers accomplish is they change our attitudes and our motives.

Lord, I want your will done on earth. I also want your will done in me. I want to be changed. I want to pray without bias or personal desires. I want to pray with pure love. Amen.

Tasting the Truth

• What did you learn from this Golden Apple? Can you use it to make a positive change in your life
• What did Jesus do to change His heart?
• Why do you think He had such a struggle?
• Was it wrong for Him to ask if there was another way? Explain your answer.
• We should pray for whom to change? Why?

  
I want to be changed and renewed in my prayer life. I want to pray pure prayers that are in agreement with your will and plans, Father. I want to be the one who will always agree that your will must be done. Lord, help me to realize that I must become changed. I will pray until I break through to change, as Jesus did. Thank you, Jesus, that you kept the Father’s will ever in focus even though you were struggling with incredibly real human feelings. Because of your obedience, I am now part of the family of God. Thank you again! Amen.

About Truth

Too many Christians quit seeking when surface truth brings them some answers. Learning surface truth will bring some understanding and some relief—this is one-dimensional, single-layer truth which requires little effort to understand and little growth. Learning whole truth requires involvement and commitment to the truth. This kind of truth can bring growing pains, but God always gives growth in stages we can handle.

Surface truth is like asking your teenager if he has quit pulling his sister’s hair because you told him to. He says yes, and you have surface truth. A smart parent seeks more layers of that truth and asks the teenager if he is doing something else instead to bother his sister. The whole truth is that he is pinching her, hiding her cell phone, and making fun of her friends.

We all need to experience and appreciate God’s deeper, multi-layered truth about why our lives are not where we want them to be.

God has said to seek and you will find; so your command is to begin seeking and to keep seeking. Those who continue to seek His full truth will feel growing pains when their souls’ capacity begins to fill up. The seeker’s soul starts being loaded up with knowledge and new understanding from God.

If your soul is extremely full of old stuff which is constantly being rerun through your mind like bad videos that will not go away, you are going to feel the pressure and the crowding within.

This is when you need to start cleaning out the corners of your soul to get ready for the whole truth. The Bible says that when you KNOW the truth, it will set you free. This does not mean you can recite truth from the Bible–it means that you have done whatever you know to do to experience and walk out a truth you are learning to understand. You seek the truth, you try out the truth, you work with the truth, and you step out on the truth to do something you have never done before. Then the truth is guaranteed to set you free.

So, get your Keys ready to start cleaning out the corners of your soul! Jesus said in Matthew 16:19

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Working with truth and with the Keys of the Kingdom binding and loosing prayers will go much better when you believe something good will come of your efforts. That takes faith. Let’s talk about what faith really is.

About You and Your Soul

You can use the binding and loosing Keys of the Kingdom in prayer to open up and clean out the clutter in your soul so you have room to receive God’s whole truth for you. These are not patty-cake prayers; they are powerful prayers that can shake you until you find that your old attitudes, wrong beliefs, and wrong mindsets beginning to fall off like leaves in the fall. You will begin to feel new, to feel free, and to feel ready for your future.

These prayers are powerfully helpful for you and others in your prayers. They are powerfully dangerous to your unsurrendered soul’s self-interests and status quo and to the works of the enemy that he tries to send upon your life and the lives of your loved ones.

These prayers will carve out room in your soul for miracles to come in and take up residence!

First, a few ground rules. You are a three part being consisting of:

• Your spirit
• Your soul
• Your body

Your spirit is that part of you that connects with the Spirit of your Creator supernaturally. Your body is your earth suit that walks around doing things in the natural realm. Your SOUL is made up of three parts that consist of:

• Your mind
• Your will
• Your emotions

 
All babies are born with spirits that are dead to, or not linked together with, God’s Spirit. Adam and Eve caused that problem for us by their disobedience in the Garden. That is why all people have to be born again to receive that Spirit-to-spirit connection between man or woman and God. This is what Jesus accomplished for you on the Cross—He bought your right to enter into that connection with His Father’s Spirit.

If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are now a child of God, firmly born into the family of God along with all other believers. God wants to start communicating with you.

When you (as a born-again Christian) receive a message of inspiration or instruction from God, here is what happens: God’s Spirit speaks into your born-again spirit. Your spirit passes that on to your soul (your mind, will, and emotions). If your soul is cluttered up and clogged up by old memories, painfully negative thoughts, and emotional baggage, God’s words of inspiration, guidance, and love will not pass through your soul and into your consciousness.

As you clean out your soul, God’s messages can begin to pass from His Spirit to your born-again spirit; then they pass into and out through your soul’s consciousness. Your mind then consciously thinks about what it is hearing, your emotions check out how they feel about it, and your will is set and ready to act upon it if your mind says, “This is good. Do it!”

If all systems are GO, then this command is passed on to your body in the natural realm. Your thoughts perk up, your emotions give a little leap of excitement, your face lights up, your body feels energized, and you get up off the couch and take your new understanding and direction from God out into the world.

You feel blessed, you act upon what you believe God is saying to you, you share it, and you bless others. When every part of you is operating like this in perfect cooperation with your Father, the miracles flow, answered prayer and blessings tumble into your life, and you walk in your destiny purposes.

You must make room in your soul (your mind, will, and emotions) to receive from God or this wonderful synergy with Him is not going to work very well.

Your ability to have faith resides in your soul, too. This might give you a clue as to why your faith has such a struggle sometimes. When your soul is filled with old things from your past that you have never known how to release, your faith has to try to grow right in the middle of the toxic waste of your soul’s junk!

According to the original Greek language of the New Testament Scriptures, faith IS your trust and confidence in the goodness, power, wisdom, and love of God directed towards you.

You learn to trust by recognizing when someone or something never lets you down. This happens in your thoughts and your emotions. You learn to have confidence when people or things are always just what they appear to be. You recognize this happening in your thoughts and your emotions.

If your damaged emotions, distorted thought patterns, and unmet needs have convinced you to feel betrayed and ignored by God, can you see how that affects your confidence in believing that His goodness will flow towards you? If you are angry with God, can you see how that affects your confidence in believing that His power will flow towards you?

If you have somehow mixed up your feelings for God with your negative feelings about those who have taken advantage of your love, can you see how that affects your trust and confidence in His love for you?

Many hurting people have souls filled with an extreme sense of having been unfairly treated, and unforgiveness towards others for all of it. Without God’s divine work of the Holy Spirit to cleanse, repair, and heal these areas, they just get more and more toxic. The Key here is that the Holy Spirit will not smash through your soul’s self-defense systems and barriers to get into your innermost part to cleanse and heal you. You must choose to make a way for His entrance into those deep places and let Him know that you trust Him and want Him to fix you–because you have finally acknowledged that you know you are broken and need to be fixed. You can make this choice very effectively by praying with the binding and loosing prayers (sample below).

All Christians want to believe and have faith when they pray for God to help them, but they often just give up when nothing seems to change. How many times have you prayed and asked God to send the Holy Spirit into your pain and fear to fix you, and you felt nothing? Your faith felt like mush.

This happens because of your self-defense mechanisms, your walls, your inability to trust, and your fears that your soul has put in place to try to protect you the only way it knows how. The Holy Spirit is the great Comforter and Teacher, but He will not shove His way into your soul to begin cleansing, renewing, and healing your mind and your emotions. He waits for your invitation and your cooperation.

God cannot pour miracle answers into a soulish mixture of doubt, fear, and anger!

Still, God desires for you to invite Him into the locked chambers of your soul. This is not a Christian’s born-again experience, this is the beginning of becoming whole and new. He wants you to believe in Him and to be willing to cooperate with Him so His Spirit can begin to cleanse and heal you. I hope that we can further discuss here how you can cooperate with God as His Spirit mends your broken heart and moves you into miracles and freedom.

Here is a basic Keys of the Kingdom binding and loosing prayer to pray for this week. As you pray this prayer and see things begin to happen, come and share this with me and others on this Blog:

FAITH is trust and confidence in the goodness and power and love of God towards us. Easton’s Bible Dictionary says that faith is the persuasion of the mind to have trust and confidence in something as being true. Faith in God is birthed when the mind is taught to believe the truth about Him. Faith in general is birthed through the convincing of the soul of the goodness of God towards it. The “gift of faith” is God-given for specific times.

FEAR is the absence of trust and confidence in the goodness and power and love of God towards us. Fear is not an evil spirit as many have believed after reading Second Timothy 1:7, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (NKJV). Thayer’s Greek/English Lexicon describes the phrase “not given us a spirit of fear” as used here to mean “to be filled with the same spirit as Christ and by the bond to be intimately united to Christ.” In other words, there is no room in the born-again spirit of the Christian for fear to exist. Let’s pray!

I am here and now committing to filling my mind with your Word which tells me over and over that you are completely trustworthy and faithful to those you love. My mind will learn to trust and have confidence in all of your intentions toward me. To fear means that I have not yet learned to fully trust your plans for me. Forgive me for that, Lord. I never need to fear anyone or any circumstance because of your promise that you are always with me. My born-again spirit has no room in it for fear, and as I bind my mind to the mind of Christ and loose all fearful thoughts from my soul, I will bring my soul into alignment with my spirit.

Whenever fear tries to come into my mind, I will call 911 and 912! “Because I dwell in the secret place of the Most High, I shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty!” (Psalms 91:1). “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust!” (Psalms 91:2). Thank you for such promises.

Your Word says that you revive and restore my soul—my mind, will, and emotions. Your Word also says you have predestined good works for me to do; you have prepared good paths ahead of time for me to walk in; and you have prearranged and made ready a good life for me to live (Ephesians 2:10, Amplified). I want to fully experience these good things. So I will add this knowledge of your promises to my trust and confidence in you, and I will choose to obey your Word as I surrender myself to your love.

I loose all of my soul’s stronghold thinking that resists trusting you, Lord, and I loose all of its layers of self-defense over any old unresolved issues that still frighten me. I loose all wrong thinking that has kept my soul in a state of fear, unwilling and unable to receive the reality of your unfailing love towards me.

I will fill the space that fear used to take up in my soul by taking action on my faith. I will have confidence in your goodness and power when I am confronted with things beyond my abilities. You are more than able to take care of all of the details of everything I hold dear: my family, my home, my job, my health, my ministry, and my future destiny. I bind myself to the truth of your faithfulness to do this, and I loose all backup plans and self-agendas that my soul has made “just in case you don’t.” I bind myself to everything you have for me. Thank you, Father, for the Keys of the Kingdom. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Prayer taken from Liberty’s Laminated Prayer Series which can be purchased from
Liberty Savard Ministries
P.O. Box 41260, Sacramento, CA 95841 USA

916-721-7770/ www.libertysavard.com  (F061404)

Welcome to my new blog!

I am hoping this will be a place where we can share with each other. Feel free to send me your questions, I will respond directly to your questions or provide the resources here to help you find the answers.