The Power of Love in Prayer [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. When you get the love of God, it moves the fear out of your life. And when you get fear out of your life, you don't have to be so concerned about the people that are persecuting you. You can release the people that have hurt you. You can begin to pray for them.

You can begin to love them. You can begin to demonstrate the love of God when you are saturated with the love of God. It's the most wonderful thing in the world. And if we're going to be a people of prayer, what we need is a fresh encounter with the love of God. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear today's message in the series called Praying with Power, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching in the series, Praying with Power. Here is Alan Wright. Sylvia Gunter's books, prayer portions, there are three volumes. Sylvia Gunter, Beth Moore's stuff on praying the word is good.

There are a number of resources out that are good. And they can help you just learn to just how you take the scripture, speak it back to the Lord and say let it be according to your word. We have said that another way that we pray spiritual prayers is from the revelation of God and that every Christian can hear from God because Jesus says my sheep hear my voice. So if you're His sheep, you can hear from God. This is not reserved just for a few especially prophetic people who have a special gift.

Although that's wonderful when you get special prophetic gifts. But every Christian can be led by God, directed by God and can hear the voice of God. And if you can hear the voice of God because you're a child of God, then you can be led by God in your prayer life. Now sometimes this will take a miraculous manifestation in which you're praying about something and God just gives you a word of knowledge. He gives you some special leading or information that this is what you're supposed to pray about. And that's wonderful when that happens because then you just focus your prayer right in on the right thing. But sometimes it happens just because God's speaking to you and you just have a sense of knowing that this is what He wants you to be praying about or it perhaps comes about as a burden or a certain kind of leading. All of this is a part of hearing from God.

And when you hear from God by His revelation and you pray that back to God, you have a spiritual prayer that's going on because the communion of your spirit with God's spirit is producing this prayer. That's a wonderful way to pray. So learn all you can to hear the voice of God and it will affect your prayer life. The fifth thing that I've mentioned is that if we really want to have effective prayer life, we'll learn to pray in partnership with Jesus as Jesus is our advocate and our chief intercessor.

Paul said not only did Christ die for you, but He's been raised to life for you and He lives to intercede for you. That the life of Christ now is an ongoing life of intercession and that while there's an accuser of the brethren, the accuser, Satan means the accuser who is constantly bringing accusations against us, there is an advocate, there is an attorney in heaven, there is a counselor, an intercessor who is going in between for us because He died for us, He has a right to make an appeal for us and so Jesus is praying for you and Jesus is interceding for you and He is interceding for the world and I just want to, in whatever ways I can, hook up my prayer life to His prayer life so I'm just going to be prayer partners with Jesus. Now that's a powerful prayer life, you can get into that and we talked about that and then last week I talked about the importance and power of praying, the desires of your heart, not of your flesh, not just of your mind, but of your heart because when your spirit is in touch with God's Spirit, the deepest longings of your life become heart longings and when we get connected with that then we can pray in the Spirit out of that. So these are ways in which we can have a spiritual prayer life. Now what is the center of all prayer?

What is that which fuels all real spiritual prayer that without which there is no real effectiveness to any prayer nor is there anything pleasing to God about the prayer without this? And it's this, all effective powerful prayer is fueled by and filled with God's love. If you think about what Jesus says to pray for those who persecute you, how are we going to do that?

Because every time you get ready to start praying for people that have hurt you or people that are persecuting you in any way, you just find it almost kind of choking right here because it's so tied up with so many other thoughts and selfish ambitions and the wounds and all of that that it becomes so difficult to pray for them, doesn't it? The command I think of Jesus right there in His inaugural address to pray for your enemies, to love them and pray for them, is to highlight for us that God has always known ever since the fall of humanity that we weren't going to be able to keep even His law that He'd given through Moses and we certainly are not going to be able out of our own flesh or mind to be able to do what Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount. Instead what He's pointing us to is the inauguration of a new covenant that was prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah that in that day I will give them a new covenant that will not be as the old covenant. This will be a covenant in which I'll put my law in their hearts. I'll write it on their hearts.

I will transform their hearts. I will make the law become an internal thing within them so that what they do will be fueled by something that I have wrought inside of their spirit and that the spirit that is born anew will embrace the very heart of God so that their hearts will be my heart and out of that then all of these things become possible and they only become possible by that spiritual transformation. We can only love to the extent that we've been loved. I love the way that Gene Peterson wrote this in the message from this wonderful text in the Epistle of John. This I think is the apostle at the late stages of his life when he's lived so much longer than many others and he has distilled down what it's all about and says everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. God is love. If you really have love, God's kind of love, you can only have that if you're born of God. That's a radical statement because what it says is that the world's version of love, erotic love and even some of the kind of affection that we have or falling in love and getting those emotional infatuation feelings and all of that, that is not what he's talking about because anybody can experience that.

Anybody that has ever walked the face of the earth could experience what it is just to fall in love with another human being. But what John is saying here is that anyone who truly loves with God's love, agape love, is born of God. And as you love, you're experiencing a relationship with God because God is love. When we take a permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us.

This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us. First we were loved, now we loved. He loved us first. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.

We cannot love any more than we have been loved because love is not something that is born out of the body or out of the soul. It is a spiritual thing. Love is the chief, the principle in the initiating of all of the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Love is the central thing because it is the very heart of God.

And so without love, then everything else becomes rendered ineffective. That's what Paul was communicating to the Corinthians. He said, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I'm only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

Think about this. This is the apostle Paul. This is one who had been transported into heavenly places. This is one who perhaps had heard the language of angels. This is one who is saying that even if I were to have a prayer language so heavenly that it was on the level of communicating in heavenly dimensions with angels, that even if I were to be praying in that way, that it is still absolutely impotent and no more to God than just a clanging cymbal unless it is full of love.

You know what I've come to understand? It's a radical thought but I believe it with all my heart that love is not merely that which accompanies the powerful flow of God's purposes. It is not just something that comes alongside of God's power. I've come to believe that God's love and God's power are moving such at the same time that love is power.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Prayer. As a Christian, you know it's important and you want to make it a priority. But if you're like most, your prayer life can slip so easily into routine, lacking fervor and passion. Maybe you're wondering, what is the key to praying with real power?

In Ephesians chapter six, the Apostle Paul has a clear answer. Pray in the spirit. But what does it mean to pray in the spirit?

Some would say that Paul is referring only to the spiritual gift of a supernatural prayer language. But in Alan Wright's unique series, Praying with Power, Pastor Alan reveals five different ways of praying in the spirit. Discover how praying God's word is praying in the spirit. Learn how to listen to the spirit as you pray. Come to see Jesus as your prayer partner. It's practical.

It's powerful. Get Pastor Alan Wright's Praying with Power and discover the power of praying in the spirit. Change your prayer life and you'll change the world. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. And today is the last day this special offer is available to you. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. The very love that you begin to demonstrate has a power in it because it is God's force in the world. It is something that is moving and transforming. And when love takes over, it begins to just transform things. It begins to just change. It begins to heal. It begins to move us.

It begins to direct us. Love has power in it. I was watching someone who was recently ministering in the power of God and this man as he would lay hands on people and dramatic things were happening but what I saw really was I was watching the love of God that was moving and God just spoke to my heart and the Spirit was saying, look at the love and then it turned from look at the power and then I realized I'm looking at the power when I'm looking at the love because everything Jesus did was through love. God moves through His love.

That's the way God is. And see what He wants to take place is for you and for me to have a continuing experience of His love so that we will be able to show that love to others. Some ten years ago I began to have a series of profound spiritual encounters and became friends with a dear friend of mine now, a Pentecostal evangelist who as he would lay hands and pray for people, the dramatic things would happen. I thought well nothing dramatic is going to happen to me but boy did something dramatic happen to me and it happened to me over and over again. And I was a very dignified Presbyterian and undignified things happened and I found times that I was like smitten on the floor and I'm like this and I'm getting over the embarrassment of whatever is happening to me and these things didn't happen to my wife in the same way. And somebody came to her in the midst of this and said well what do you think of all this?

And she said well I'm all for it. She said because every time he falls down when he gets back up he loves me more. That's the bottom line isn't it of every spiritual encounter. If you encounter God guess what's going to happen? Your heart's going to get filled with fresh love.

Your life's going to get filled with fresh love. And let me tell you if you love people, if you get the love of God it's the most wonderful freeing thing you could ever get. Because the Bible says that perfect love casts out fear. And we're not designed to run on fear.

We're designed to live by faith. And when you get the love of God it moves the fear out of your life. And when you get fear out of your life you don't have to be so concerned about the people that are persecuting you. You can release the people that have hurt you. You can begin to pray for them. You can begin to love them. You can begin to demonstrate the love of God when you are saturated with the love of God.

It's the most wonderful thing in the world. And if we're going to be a people of prayer what we need is a fresh encounter with the love of God. I was praying this morning with the prayer partners before our first service and I just confessed to them some struggles I was having. I woke up this morning.

I mean I just confessed to you. I woke up this morning with a struggle of having some thoughts towards some people that were making life hard for me. And I woke up struggling with it. And I'll just be honest you know what the soul does? The soul that's not totally the mind that's not been totally transformed? I just started strategizing about how I could win that thing in the flesh.

You know? I mean come on that's what we do in just our limited minds. We start thinking like that. And I just came in here and I just got down at the prayer partner this morning and I said I don't even know if I got a sermon today.

I'm just struggling with this whole thing. I just you know pray I just confess it. You know when you confess that and you just start repenting of that? God just delights in that.

And He'll start moving in that. Just take whatever old stinking thoughts you got confess it to the Lord today. Just repent of it and say that's not the way I want to live my life.

I want to live a life of love. And you know what will happen is He'll just come into your life and He'll just start replacing that with His love. And when that happens it just drives out the fear. Because see what is so impotent about our prayer lives so often is that we're praying these soulish prayers that are really just us bringing our puny fears to God. Listen to me. God you can bring your fears to God.

Go ahead and bring your fears to Him. But you know what the truth is? Your fears don't move God.

Hello. Fear doesn't move God. I mean it's the way we pray. You know what I'm worried about so and so.

You know you got that person in there they're going on a trip you know and you're worried about their own to be safe you know and Lord just I just keep them safe and just you know just you know I'm worried about them Lord and just you know. You're not even going to be moving God by just bringing you're afraid that something bad is going to happen. That's not what moves God. The Bible says without faith it's impossible to please God. He's not moved by that. See I recognize.

Come on let's be honest. I recognize a lot of my prayer life. Even as long as I walk with God. A lot of it is you know I'm just kind of bringing some fears that I express through a prayer that hope that you know something you know withhold something bad from happening. That does not move God. God is not sitting up there going you know I'm kind of afraid of that myself too.

Let's not join in the other thing. It's not. But when you love it drives out fear and now your prayer is directed towards the well being of the one you're praying for rather than the fear of what might happen if your prayer is not fulfilled.

Do you see the difference in that? It's everything. It's everything. If we could understand what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 13.

If we bring this up more than at wedding time we might. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud.

It is not rude. It is not self seeking. Let me tell you about the love of God and you cannot understand this if you're not born of God. There is a miracle that takes place.

It is extraordinary and wonderful. The love of God is a spiritual thing and it comes into the Spirit that is born of God as much as we will allow preeminence to the Holy Spirit in our lives. That love will become more and more what characterizes the way we live and will eventually affect the way we think and feel and what we do and give and say. And that love when it is God's love it moves not only us to pray for a person but the prayer that we're praying is now not self seeking in the slightest. But it becomes so aware of the need of the person. It becomes captured with a desire for that which is good for the other. This is what love does. This is what love does.

Love just wants something so good for you because of the love that is there. You remember Kathryn Kuhlman, that strange lady back years ago, you know, and she had healing ministry. They said people would walk sometimes outside of the auditorium or colosseum where she was on the sidewalk not even knowing there was a meeting going on inside and get healed. Yeah, she had that flowing thing, you know, and all that stuff. But I was always fascinated by it because I knew God moved for that lady.

And I was reading an autobiography of hers one time and I saw it. I came to this one paragraph and she said oftentimes, most of the time, when I'm praying for the sick, she says my heart is so overwhelmed with love for that person that I feel I would gladly die for them, such as the love of God. Prayer. As a Christian, you know it's important and you want to make it a priority. But if you're like most, your prayer life can slip so easily into routine, lacking fervor and passion. Maybe you're wondering what is the key to praying with real power?

In Ephesians chapter six, the Apostle Paul has a clear answer. Pray in the Spirit. But what does it mean to pray in the Spirit?

Some would say that Paul is referring only to the spiritual gift of a supernatural prayer language. But in Alan Wright's unique series, Praying with Power, Pastor Alan reveals five different ways of praying in the Spirit. Discover how praying God's Word is praying in the Spirit. Learn how to listen to the Spirit as you pray. Come to see Jesus as your prayer partner.

It's practical, it's powerful. Get Pastor Alan Wright's Praying with Power and discover the power of praying in the Spirit. Change your prayer life and you'll change the world. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. And today is the last day this special offer is available to you. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. If it's true love, if you're really focused in with all call it emotion, call it power, I see this translating into a powerful prayer life. That's what you're teaching, right?

It is. Love causes you to want the absolutely best and only what is good for the one that you love. Love causes you to want to forgive and not hold a record of wrongs. So when you have this love that comes only from the Holy Spirit moving in your heart, you realize that prayer becomes a delight because you want what is best for them. And so now this motivation, this powerful motivation of love is joined together in God's foreordained means by which he moves in the world through our prayers. And you put those things together and what you have is someone who's praying in the Spirit because they're praying in love. Love is not just joined to the power of God. Love is a manifestation of the power of God. And so it is in prayer. So love's not just a tool you bring in off the shelf. It is the actual power that is going on in prayer. And thus, you know, telling some of the stories of people that have had great love often are the people of great prayer. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.