Prayer Warrior: Praying Your Way To Victory - Session 5 - Condition Yourself To Be All You Can Be

The Church of Divine Guidance Sunday Morning Adult Bible Study Group is going through

Prayer Warrior The Power Of Praying Your Way To Victory by Stormie Omartian.  For a copy of the book, click or touch this LINK or the image, of the book at the end of the notes.

No one can sit on the sidelines today when it comes to spiritual matters. A war is going on between good and evil, and every believer is involved. For every Christian who wants a meaningful prayer life that is more than just asking for blessings.  Bestselling author Stormie Omartian shows how to pray with strength and purpose―prayers resulting in great victory, not only personally but also in advancing God's kingdom and glory.

These are my notes for the study. The audio of the study is at the end of the notes.

Review

Last week our session title was Be Certain Of Your Authority in prayer.  As a prayer warrior you must be absolutely sure of your authority in prayer. If you not the enemy will attempt to bombard you with doubt.  We have to be confident that we have been given the authority and that will never change no matter what.  Our Commander doesn’t give and then take back so if He gave us authority in prayer we always have it.  We have authority because;

• We have Jesus - The basis for your authority in prayer is that Jesus is your Commander.  The Bible says Jesus “is mighty in you”

I will give you all the proof you want that Christ speaks through me. Christ is not weak when he deals with you; he is powerful among you. Although he was crucified in weakness, he now lives by the power of God. We, too, are weak, just as Christ was, but when we deal with you we will be alive with him and will have God’s power. 2 Corinthians 13:3‭-‬4 NLT

• We have authority because of the name of Jesus - He has given you the authority to use His name in prayer  

At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything. I tell you the truth, you will ask the Father directly, and he will grant your request because you use my name.  You haven’t done this before. Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy. John 16:23‭-‬24 NLT

• You have authority because Jesus rescued you from the tyranny of evil.

For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. Colossians 1:13‭-‬14 NLT

• You have authority because the Holy Spirit is in you.

“A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.  At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.  He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you.  But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. John 14:19‭-‬21‭, ‬25‭-‬26 NKJV

• You have authority because you are called.

When a soldier is called up for duty, he is given a specific assignment. He has authority to do what is necessary in order to carry out that assignment. When you are called to pray, you have full authority to carry out that assignment from God.

• You have authority because you are forgiven

We want to be able to say as Jesus did that “the ruler of this world has nothing in me.” The enemy can only have an inroad into our life if we give him an opening.

Remember we are new creatures because of Jesus   So the enemy can’t throw up your past.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he  is  a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. II Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

When you understand your authority in prayer, you will go from simply having a prayer life to enjoying a dynamic and exciting life of prayer.

Condition Yourself To Be All You Can Be

Every good soldier knows that he or she has to stay in the best condition physically,
mentally, and emotionally.  Stormie uses the training of Navy SEALS as the example of the kind of, intense training the prayer warrior needs to engage and continue to be prepared for spiritual warfare in prayer.  They have to first  prove themselves capable, fit, excellent, and exceptional.  The difference in us and Navy SEALS is that we don’t have to prove ourselves.  Our Commander has taken care of that.  

God sees us as righteous because of Jesus so we don’t have to prove anything.  God sees us a completely righteous because of our faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:21-26 (NLT)21  But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago.22  We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.23  For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.24  Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.25  For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past,26  for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

The SEAL has to train, practice, and work excruciatingly hard to become extremely strong, sharp, skilled, knowledgeable, experienced, and prepared.  The same is true for a prayer warrior.   The Bible says that God has already equipped us;

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. 2 Peter 1:3 NLT

Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared.  In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil.  Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. Ephesians 6:13‭-‬18 NLT

but even though you have the equipment you have to be trained in how to use it and you have to constantly train so that you don’t lose your edge.  

The Things The Prayer Warrior Needs To Do To Stay In Condition

Spend Time with God in Prayer

Stormie says we get our power in prayer.  I agree that we get power in prayer but that power is not from the prayer it is from the Holy Spirit that is in us.  Jesus, when He talked to His disciples told them that the Holy Spirit would bring with Himself some things including power.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.  He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. John 14:16‭-‬17 NLT

Still they stood there in disbelief, filled with joy and wonder. Then he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?”  and he ate it as they watched. “And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.” Luke 24:41‭, ‬43‭-‬43‭, ‬49 NLT

Stormie’s point is that we get power because we spend time with God in prayer.  In our last two studies we’ve talked about how important it is to create a God-space where it’s just us and God.  As prayer warriors we need to stay filled with the Holy Spirit.  What have we said being filled means?  It means letting the Holy Spirit dominate every aspect of our lives so that the fruit of the Spirit, which is  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; matures and we become more and more like Jesus.

In my sermon last Sunday I talked about the fact that we have feelings, emotions, and thoughts. If we stop “faking the funk” and start being real with God and spend quality time with the Lord, we won’t be dominated by them our feelings, emotions, and thoughts. But when we spend time with God, our unforgiveness, doubt, lust, hate, anxiety, and sadness becomes forgiveness, faith, purity, love,  peace, and joy.

She also quotes Psalm 37:4-5 When we delight ourselves in the Lord, He gives us the desires of our heart. When we commit our ways to the Lord and trust in Him, He brings our desires to pass as we pray about them.

What have we said about this in the past?

If we spend time with God in prayer and His Word our desires will become what He desires for us.

Live in a Way That Pleases God

The first way to please God is to keep His commandments and laws, and we get them from the Bible.  That’why it’s important to read and study it.  

“We must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away” (Hebrews 2:1).

Jesus equated keeping the Commandments and laws with loving Him. He said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23). The promise here is that if we love God, we will obey Him, and He will always be present in us, even if we don’t feel it.  When we love God and keep His commandments, we truly live in Him and He in us.

We can, and do, have the Holy Spirit in us but we are not always filled with the Holy Spirit.  That is something that we constantly have to do.  We have to constantly allow the Holy Spirit to fill us because our flesh still wants to do it’s thing.  There is a constant battle going on.

So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another. Galatians 5:16‭-‬26 NLT

Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”  For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Romans 8:5‭-‬17 NLT

As a prayer warrior, God uses us powerfully to affect situations and people—not only in our lives and the lives of our family members, friends, community, and country, but all over the world as well—and we cannot let our own sin deter us.

A prayer warrior must be separate from sin. If you have sin in your life, it will weaken you. The enemy knows it and will use it to harm you. Sin will always separate you from God, and you won’t see your prayers answered until you turn away from sin and back to God

If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. 1 John 1:8‭-‬10 NLT

Acknowledge God’s Call to Holiness

But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:15‭-‬16 NLT

Stormie says that “Holiness is a desire of the heart to please God and an invitation to the Holy Spirit to do what it takes in us to make us more like Him. A life of holiness is a life of power and significance because God can use you powerfully and significantly.”

I agree that “There is no way any one of us can be holy on our own. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us that we are enabled to be holy. Paul said, “God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness” (1 Thessalonians 4:7). He went on to say that if we reject this, we are rejecting God, “who has also given us His Holy Spirit”  (1 Thessalonians 4:8).

The Hebrew word for holy is “qodesh” (ko'-desh),and means “apartness, set-apartness, separateness, sacredness”  In the New Testament, the Greek word for holy is “hagios” (hag'-ee-os), and means set apart, reverend, sacred, and worthy of veneration.”  

So what does it mean to be holy?  

Some people think in order to be holy you have to be in church on your knees praying all day,  walking around with a halo, not having any fun or enjoying yourself.  They think to be holy you have to despise everything of this world.  You don’t have to hate everything in the world because there are some good things in it,  but you do need to be led by the Holy Spirit and not your own understanding.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NLT)5  Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.6  Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

Does being holy mean that we that we don’t drink, or smoke, or dance, play cards, or gamble?  For many, maybe most Christians,  that’s what it means, and that’s okay.  Does it mean that we maintain sexual purity, financial honesty, and commitment to private prayer?   Of course it does. Those things are obviously things that set us apart from the world, but those things are not what Scripture is talking about with regard to holiness.

Again the most basic meaning of the word is to be "set apart" or "dedicated" to God—to belong to God.   So how often a person goes to church, how many hours they spend in prayer, what good spiritual books they have read, all the good things they do doesn’t make a person holy.  These things are a result of being holy they don’t make you holy.  The thing that makes you holy is the desire to become all God created you to be, It’s the commitment to do the will of God.

Holiness is not just about moral purity. It's about union with God in Christ and sharing in Christ's holiness.   A lifestyle of holiness does not mean that we have a list of do’s and don’ts to live by. We are free from the letter of the law remember.

2 Corinthians 3:4-6 (NKJV)4  And we have such trust through Christ toward God.5  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,6  who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

But we are to fulfill the law of Christ.

What exactly is the law of Christ?

Mark 12:28-31 (NKJV)28  Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, "Which is the first commandment of all?"29  Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.30  And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment.31  And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

To love God with all of our being and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves is the law of Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. Galatians 6:1‭-‬2 NLT

Living a holy life means letting our decisions be guided by the Holy Spirit.  Holiness is surrendering to the will of God, and at the same time, it is grasping each moment and making it all it can be. Holiness is allowing God to fill every corner of your being.  Holiness doesn’t stifle us; it sets us free.

Bible Study Audio