#3 Pre-requisites for ANSWERED PRAYER ... TAKING HEED !

2 Peter 1:10

Wherefore the rather, brethren,

give diligence to make 

your calling and election 

sure: 

for if ye do these things, 

ye shall never fall:

Take HEED:  If our calling and election WAS NOT ABLE to be IN JEOPARDY, then the Apostle Peter would not have told us to be diligent about MAKING IT SURE AND CERTAIN, would he ?

Yes, without a doubt, there is a danger to the spiritual sluggard and a serious warning to such a one here in this verse. 

The Disciplined Life of a CHRISTIAN .... is not optional.  Listen to what this well-disciplined ORDER of Christian sisters writes: 

MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD

Used with permission from: 

www.canaaninthedesert.com

Author - Basilea Schlink,

Publisher - Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary

 You must be self-controlled and alert, 

to be able to pray.

 1 Peter 4:7 GNB  January 29, 2014

“If you want your prayers to reach the throne of God and be answered, make sure you fulfill the conditions. 

1      Lead a life of self-control. 

2      Be disciplined in your words and actions, in eating, drinking and sleeping, and enjoyment of physical pleasure. 

3      By continually placing every area of your life under the dominion of Jesus Christ, you remove the obstacles to answered prayer and will experience the help and grace of God.”

Used with permission from :

MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD

www.canaaninthedesert.com

Author - Basilea Schlink,

Publisher - Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Photo of GARDEN of GESTHEMANE

What constitutes a "discipled" life ?  If our churches do not issue a call to discipleship, then we must establish a Spiritual discipline ourselves.

·      Yes, daily Scripture reading

·      Yes, daily worship... prayer, praise, thanksgiving

·      Yes, a devotional TIME set aside solely for that purpose 

·        Yes, a time for QUIETUDE... sitting still to hear His+ Voice.... spending quality, priority time with JESUS our LORD.

And like it or not, some PRAYERFUL, CHRISTIAN restrictions placed upon our own flesh in the area of

·                    food and drink

·                    dress,

·                    entertainment

·                    music

·                    and in the company we keep.

Why discipline ourselves in these areas ?

[ NO.  Discipleship is NOT "legalism."  JESUS HIMSELF+ told us we MUST be HIS+ disciples.]

The first reason is to control the flesh. 

We must teach it to submit to our New-man following the Will of CHRIST JESUS, not to continue doing the same things our old man, our Adamic Nature, has trained us to do.

[ Most of us have not been blessed with parents who submitted their SELF to The LORD and / or who taught us that we must submit our SELF unto the LORD in order to be well-pleasing unto HIM+.]

Our Flesh is supposed to be dead with CHRIST after Baptism.

Alas, the flesh has a habit of reviving itself time and time again, though. By making ourselves submit in any little way, we will be mortifying the deeds of the flesh... in a little way.

  Being faithful in little will indeed enable us to be faithful in more,  strengthened to mortify the deeds of the flesh ... in the greater battles we have in our own inner man against the Old Man values and habits we have acquired. 

That submission to discipline enables us to fight the GOOD FIGHT of FAITH in the Un-ending Battle Against SELF.

If we want prayers to be answered, then we MUST engage this most-unpopular-of-all fight of faith:  putting SELF to death.

Our LORD JESUS sacrificed His+ Life to empower us to fight our Adamic nature and put SELF to death. 

BUT... it is our battle, our decision.

HE+ will not do it for us. 

Yes indeed, HE+ will help us and has helped us; we CAN win in this battle to die DAILY to our flesh.  HE+ will send His+ Blessed HOLY SPIRIT to help us. 

BUT... HE+ will not do that  part for us which HE+ knows is our own prerogative to do ourselves: that is, turn our will over to HIM+.  

HE+ cannot yield for us.

HE+ cannot MAKE us 

choose TRUTH in the inner man. 

Only we OURSELVES can YIELD over the controls to HIM+. Only we ourselves can choose to follow in the inner man The TRUTH Our LORD shows us. JESUS is The Way, The Truth, and The LIFE. 

Do we want our prayers answered?  

Then we must yield all control over our SELF-WILL unto CHRIST JESUS.  

Then it will come to pass what is written in Psalm 89: 7

 GOD is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about HIM.

Ah LORD GOD!

Behold, THOU has made the Heaven and the earth 

by Thy great power and stretched-out arm 

and there is NOTHING too hard for THEE ! 

Jeremiah 32:17

#2 Pre-Requisites for ANSWERED PRAYER

1 John 5:14-16

And this is the confidence that we have in HIM+, that, if we ask any thing according to His+ Will, HE+ heareth us:  And if we know that HE+ hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of HIM+.

JESUS is "accessed" by TRUTH.

HE+ is surrounded and indeed, embodied in the Spirit of TRUTH. HE+ is the way, the truth, and the Life; not one person comes to The FATHER, but by HIM+ WHO+ is the way, the TRUTH, and the Life.

When we confess our sins to HIM+, do we tell HIM+ something HE+ does NOT know ? 

NO. 

JESUS already sees our hearts and knows every word on our tongue before we speak it.

We confess our sins --- admit to the wrongness of our doings --- in order to tell The LORD: we are NOW walking in the Truth about ourselves. HE+ already knows the truth; we are the ones lacking in ENOUGH truth to call our own sin, OUR SIN.

This element of TRUTH in the inner man seems to be at least ONE of the keys to healing, both emotional and physical.

For example, if we know drinking bleach will poison us, do we continue to take small sips of bleach through the day... then ask The LORD to heal our intestinal issues ? 

Of course not. 

Stop drinking bleach first, The LORD tells us ... if we walk in truth. IF WE DO NOT WALK IN TRUTH, however, we will not be able to hear The LORD give us His+ directions.

HE+ oftentimes takes pity on us, knowing we are so tied up in a knot that we are not able to quiet ourselves down enough to hear HIM+. Then HE+ simply moves. HE+ will do that with healing, also... at times. 

But OTHER times, HE+ sends His+ people to us to warn us to stop drinking bleach.

If we are walking in TRUTH in the inner man, then the HOLY SPIRIT will nudge us and say: "Listen to that warning. " 

If we do,  then we are on our way towards our healing, rejoicing in CHRIST... and drinking no more bleach !

If we are NOT walking in TRUTH in the inner man --- if we have replaced TRUTH with pride or any of a hundred other hindrances to the TRUTH in the inner man --- then we will ignore HIS+ word to us, either the Written Word or the spoken word from our brother in CHRIST. 

It will seem "foolish" to our ear because we are natural-minded at that point or area in our life AND ARE NOT WALKING IN TRUTH there.

At this point, we need to EMPTY ourselves of our own ways and values, and humble ourselves before The LORD, saying, "ANYTHING YOU+ tell me to do, LORD, I will do." And mean it.

It may mean forsaking a job, forsaking a relationship, forsaking certain enjoyable activities which are not necessarily sinful, forsaking the medical profession, forsaking white flour and white sugar, or forsaking our own established priorities that keep promoting SELF-indulgence. 

It may mean moving out of a comfortable home nest, where parents are not right with The LORD. It may mean moving out of the country, with all the discomfort that might bring. 

WHATEVER The LORD shows us to do to establish a TRUTHFUL existence in the inner man with JESUS, we must do.

When TRUTH with JESUS becomes established, healings will take place. Maybe not instantaneous always, but the pathway turns for the better.

The LACK of TRUTH in the inner man hinders more prayers sent up by Christians than any other cause. 

For, when we establish a tight bond of TRUTH with JESUS, HE+ guides us into asking according to His+ Will. When that happens, Scripture teaches that THEN whatever we ask ---- according to His+ Will --- we will have.

There are some pre-requisites for healing for us in this church age. 

TRUTH in the inner man is one of them for persons who know The LORD or, know ABOUT HIM+.

JESUS sends miraculous healings oftentimes to people-groups who HAVE NEVER HEARD the GOSPEL and many turn their hearts to HIM+ when they see the healings. 

It seems when that happens, healings come to those who are "little" in their own eyes. They may have a rough demeanor, but underneath it all, they are the "little" people, un-sophisticated ones, on the face of this earth.

But we in the Western Civilized Church are TOO sophisticated, too high-minded, strangely enough to receive many healings. 

TRUTH in the inner man knocks all that sophistication out of the person. TRUTH in the inner man will bond that person to JESUS very tightly; he will not be able to abide a lie operating in or near him any longer.

It is HARD to be humbled by sickness. It is HARD to be humbled by TRUTH. But, no-one who turns a deaf ear to TRUTH in the inner man will be able to be healed, I am fairly certain.

It seems we WANT our physical healings intensely, but JESUS wants us to be WHOLE of heart, unified with HIM+ in EVERY way, doing His+ Will. 

HE+ will go to great lengths to achieve this.

We DO know that in Heaven, all healings will be complete! 

And that is where TOTAL TRUTH in CHRIST JESUS reigns. 

CHRIST the KING+ 

ever reigns on high; 

O come, let us adore HIM + !

Pre-Requisites to ANSWERED PRAYER

AGREEMENT :  To WHAT and To WHOM  Do We Agree ?  

And WHEN ? 

Again   I say   unto you,

   .

that  if   two  of you  

.

shall agree  on  earth  as touching  any  thing

.

  that  they shall ask ,

.  

it shall be done  for them  

.

 * of  My+ FATHER

. 

which  is in Heaven.   

~ ~ ~ The words of Our LORD JESUS CHRIST in Matthew 18:19, KJV

MATTHEW 18:19 is familiar to all serious-minded Christians as well as the well-taught, accepted, and unfortunately , rather GLIB understanding of that verse.  

However, the "accepted" understanding of that verse is based on an over-lay of ARBITRARY PUNCTUATION in the English translations which LIMITS and confines and for all practical purposes ,  HIDES the  intended message which is more easily seen in the Greek. 

Why is it seen in the Greek more easily ?  

It is because the GREEK uses no punctuation in the original manuscripts. The punctuation marks WERE ADDED much later to the English translations. 

Here  is an EXPANDED-with-connotations included from the Greek meanings --- minus the English punctuation ---  TRANSLATION OF MATTHEW 18:19 : 

(NB: Each Greek word is separated by an ellipsis. )

Furthermore, again ... 

solemnly true ... 

I+ declare...

 to you all ... 

that... 

if ever, whenever, if even ... 

two, the smallest group possible... 

of you who believe, follow, love and obey ME+ ... 

harmonize, sym-phonize, fit together, correspond with, match, make an agreement with each other ... 

upon earth ( or figuratively: before mankind or the world) ...

concerning , regarding, about, with regard to .... 

all, all manner of , every thing relating to human activity .... 

of activity, of deed, of act, of event, of matter, of affair... 

where if ... 

they should request, might ask ... 

it will occur, it will happen...

for them, to them, in them... 

from, the presence of ... 

of THE FATHER ... 

of ME+, My+ ... 

in the HeavenS. 

+  +  +

A Few Errors 

--- as high-lighted in the verse above ---

sufficiently 

hinder the message

spoken by CHRIST JESUS

to the church.

.

Every word high-lighted in pink in the verse is NOT FOUND in the Greek nor in its connotations. That is: 

• any SHOULD BE translated as every or all [ pantos = adj, genitive, singular ] 
• 
  
• that  is INSERTED; no Greek to support it [ ou ean = if where, ]
• 
  
• which has been INSERTED; no Greek to support it  
• 
  
• Heavens  is plural, as is often found in Matthew.

The high-lighted word in pale yellow --- as touching --- is okay but a rather poor way of saying CONCERNING, WITH REGARD TO. 

The high-lighted COMMA is not in the Greek, naturally, but unfortunately is used to "guide the reading" of the verse AWAY from the real message to the church from Our LORD JESUS CHRIST.   

The high-lighted *  is the place where the translation OMITTED the Greek word, para = from or from the presence of, when used with a genitive phrase as it is here in this section of that verse.   "OF" is included in the declension of the word "MY+" and the Greek form of "the."

+  +  +

So, what EXACTLY is Our LORD telling us here ?  

HE+ is saying: 

"Furthermore, I seriously declare to you all that if even two of you --- as small a group as two of you who believe, follow, love, and obey ME+  ---  if whenever they in that group  agree, harmonize and fit together on the earth before the world concerning EVERY MATTER .... 

"... wherein if they should request , it will occur or happen for them from the presence of My+ FATHER in the Heavens. " 

The OBVIOUS message is this: 

Agreement is to be a 

LIVING, 

WORKING, 

HARMONY

--- knit closely together --- 

with others who believe, follow, love, and obey 

The LORD JESUS CHRIST.... 

and furthermore, this agreement is to be 

in ALL MATTERS ...

YES,  

Agreement and harmony 

in EVERY MATTER. 

The "group" working in tandem, in thought and harmony of heart, can be as LITTLE AS TWO TOGETHER.

.

JESUS said so !

  .

Prayer partners, husbands-and-wives, monastic brothers, and monastic sisters, even monastic-in-heart brothers, or monastic-in-heart sisters.... any size group who LIVE IN HARMONY OF SPIRIT, OF HEART , OF VALUES, IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD to serve The LORD JESUS CHRIST qualifies !

.

That is when the promise of verse Matthew 18:19 becomes effective.  It is NOT simply those who agree in a prayer about an issue.  

The strength of that verse occurs when TWO OR MORE are living in harmony, together, sharing the Kingdom's values and work. 

.

The strength of that verse occurs when there is NO DISCORD in direction, purpose, values, and philosophy.

.

The strength of that verse occurs when UNITY and CONCORD prevail... and that means, in practice, that both or all group members are 

• denying self
• putting flesh to death
• working in unison of spirit and goal
• promoting the common good for JESUS' sake.  

. 

Dear Heavenly FATHER, 

I confess I superficially and expediently agree in prayer only to achieve what I deem as "good"  for that request. I do not even think about living in harmony with the ones I'm praying with, beyond our common concern.

I confess I do not work in unity and sweet concord with the brothers and sisters you have placed in my life.

I confess I often strive for my own will to be done when working with others for your Kingdom. 

Forgive me for my undercurrent of disagreement. 

Teach me to humble my own thoughts and plans and instead, learn be supportive and submissive. 

Guide me in performing this selfless unity,  that Thy Will may truly be done on earth as it is in Heaven. 

Through the power and strength of Thy HOLY SPIRIT, I pray this in the Name of Our SAVIOR The LORD JESUS CHRIST, Who+ was ever in Unity and Concord with THEE, O FATHER. 

Amen