The Prayer for Spiritual Power

Prayer was given to us by God to contact heaven in order to get help on earth. Dr. Tony Evans says effective prayer doesn't come from a ritual, but from a relationship.

If you're going to get heaven to come down to meet you on earth, that will be determined by your level of spiritual intimacy. This is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of The Urban Alternative. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy eventually learned that she already possessed what she needed to solve her problems. Well, today Dr. Evans will explain why Christians often have a hard time making that same discovery.

Let's join him as he explains the connection. A woman who lived in the boondocks way out in the far country was used to lighting her home with kerosene lamps. That's how she got her light. Finally, however, electricity got connected to her area, but the electric company noticed that the power didn't seem to be used very much.

They went to see the lady and knocked on her door. They said, we want to make sure, is your electricity working? She said, yes, the electricity, the electricity is working. They asked, well, tell me how you're using the power. Well, she said, well, it's very simple.

Every day I turn the lights on long enough for me to light my kerosene lamp. Here was a lady who did not know how to use the power she had. Every believer has been granted power, but far too many of us are simply using it to light our kerosene lamps. That is, we're not utilizing, understanding, and maximizing the power of the king and his kingdom that has been granted to every believer. Our series is called Kingdom Prayer, Igniting Kingdom Prayer, because that is the link, the wiring, if you will, that God has given us to link us with the power that he has provided. Kingdom prayer may be defined as the divinely authorized methodology to access heavenly authority for earthly intervention.

It is the divinely authorized methodology to access heavenly authority for earthly intervention. Prayer was given to us by God to contact heaven in order to get help on earth. Today I want you to look at a well-known prayer in Ephesians 3 about connecting with your spiritual power that you already possess. Paul wants to pray for the church at Ephesus, and he wants to pray for you and me that we get a hold of this power, that we no longer live in the realm of the mundane and the realm of the regular, that we're no longer limited to the natural because we've been hooked up to a power company that ties us to the supernatural. Paul says in verse 14 of Ephesians 3, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name.

He introduces this prayer, he says, I go down to my knees, the posture of humble prayer, for this reason. Well, in verse 13, he says, I don't want you to lose heart. To lose heart means to quit. To lose heart means to be overwhelmed by discouragement. To lose heart means I want to throw in the towel. To lose heart means that I don't believe I can go on any longer or any further. When the Bible talks about losing heart, it's talking about quitting because of discouragement.

People go to artificial stimulants, alcohol, and drugs to camouflage the fact that they've lost heart, that they want to give up, so they need something to cover up the pain, the hurt, and the anguish. If you're 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 having a long distance relationship with God, don't expect to see heaven enter history. Look at what he says in verse 16, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man. What's happening on the inside, the inner man, will affect what God does for you on the outside. If the inside is not growing, there'll be no power in prayer.

The inside, the inner man, by the work of the Holy Spirit, has got to be deepening if you want to be strengthened with power. Some years ago, I had a problem in my lawn. My sprinkler system was not working, so my green grass was becoming brown. I called the sprinkler company over, and I said, I'm not getting power.

The power is not working, so my sprinkler is not coming on. They came over and checked, and they said, excuse me, sir, you have plenty of power. Then much to my chagrin, they began digging up my lawn. They began going deeper in my lawn.

That was not a pretty picture, because they're digging my lawn. But then they told me, we have discovered your problem. Your line is disconnected, so you're not getting the power that's available to you. See, I thought I had a power problem when what I had was a connection problem. See, many of us think we have a power problem when God's saying what you really have is a connection problem.

Once they dug deep underneath and found the disconnect, I got reconnected with the power. So if you're going month after month, year after year, and there is no power, then you need to visit the connection. The way you go deeper is for Christ to dwell in your heart by faith. The key word is the word dwell. The Greek word for dwell means to make yourself at home, to make yourself at home.

So when it says that Christ might dwell in your heart by faith, he is saying your inner spiritual life will develop to the degree that Jesus is at home in you. Most of us have welcome signs at our front door. That welcome sign means you are allowed to come in. If you are a Christian, you've given Jesus a welcome sign.

You have told Jesus, come into my life, I trust you as my sin bearer for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life. You have given Jesus the welcome sign if you are a believer, so he's in your house. But just because he's in your house doesn't mean he's dwelling there. One of the lies we tell regularly when we allow people into our house is the lie that says make yourself at home.

That's usually a Christian lie, because we don't actually mean that. What we mean is make yourself at room, because I'm going to take you to the rooms you can deal with. I'm going to take you to the den, I'm going to take you to the kitchen, and there's the bathroom. But you can't be going all up in the bedroom. You can't be going up in the closet where I threw all my junk in. You can't be doing all that. I don't mean that. If somebody came and they just started roaming all over the place, you'd think they were crazy, because you didn't quite mean what you said.

Make yourself at home. But if you want power, Jesus has to be free to roam, to dwell, to make himself at home in all the crevices of your life. He must be free and welcomed 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're desiring to consume. He wants to visit the living room of your relationships to talk about the kind of folk you're hanging out with. He wants to be able to go to the attic of your hidden habits to deal with the things you snuck away that nobody can see.

He's got to be able to go to the garage of your toys to see the kind of things you're playing with. You see, if you're going to grow in the inner man, he's got to be able to take a tour of the whole house. You can't just say, Jesus, this part of my life belongs to you, but these parts are off limits to you. Because the moment you limit Jesus Christ to only the rooms that have been cleaned up in your life, only when you limit him only to the religious side of life, when he can have Sunday but he better not touch Monday, then what you have done is uninvited his power.

But I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, well, yeah, but some of those rooms of my life, the things I think about, the places I go, the things hidden in the attic of my life, I don't want Jesus to see. But those are the rooms he wants to go into so he can help you do a cleaning service. He wants to be invited into all the rooms of your life. And to the degree that he can roam, to the degree that you come before the Lord with the real deal and not play Christian and speak Christianese, to the degree that he can infiltrate all the rooms of your life is to the degree you access power. He says Christ must dwell in your hearts by faith. He must be free to roam. So you can be keeping the power away because you've limited Jesus to a certain location in your life. He wants to be part of your work life, your entertainment life, your relationship life. He wants to be part of all aspects of your being because now he's free to share his power with you. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment to tell us about the second requirement for those seeking spiritual power.

Stay with us. Along the way, you'll explore key teachings and learn how to apply them in real-world situations. There's lots of exclusive content from Tony to keep you interested and motivated, and an online forum where you can ask questions, get answers, and collaborate with other students.

It's almost like having a seminary on your smartphone. Visit TonyEvans.org today and connect with the Tony Evans Training Center, where you can explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. You can find out more about the Tony Evans Training Center at TonyEvans.org. And while you're there, don't forget to request your copy of his current teaching series called Igniting Kingdom Prayer, a look at how to bring heavenly power to bear on our earthly problems. Right now, we're offering this two-volume, 12-message collection as our gift when you make a contribution to help support the ministry of the alternative. And you can get the details at TonyEvans.org. Or call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222, where team members are ready 24-7 to help you.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Well, let's get back to our teaching time now. Here's Dr. Evans. The second thing, if you want spiritual power and you want to see through prayer heavenly authority entering into earthly intervention, is that spiritual intimacy must expand spiritual capacity. He says that you being rooted and grounded in love, verse 17, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. God will only give you as much of Him that you can handle. He's not going to give you more than you can handle.

So that means you've got to get more capacity to handle more of Him. Because God is not going to waste God on you or me. It starts with spiritual intimacy. But then He wants you to expand spiritual capacity so He can do more. He says, I want you to be rooted and grounded in love. Love has to have an object. Which means if when you go to God for power, it's only about you. You're not rooted and grounded in love.

It's for you, but it can't be only about you. That's why He goes and says with all the saints. If you only exist for you, if you only pray for you, if you only want God's power for you, you're not rooted and grounded in love so you're not hanging out where God hangs out. That's why God wants every believer to be part of a spiritual family.

He wants you to be part of a spiritual family because He wants you to give an environment to express His love. And if you're building spiritual intimacy and expressing His love, you're expanding spiritual capacity. It's like blowing up a balloon. The balloon is very flat, but it's been built to expand.

It's been built to take on more air and more air and more air because you're expanding capacity. God is only going to give you as much of Himself as He knows you can handle. Your spiritual intimacy sets the stage and your loving expands the balloon because He knows it's not only about you. So 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, which means you've expanded the balloon, which means you've allowed God to do more. And so spiritual intimacy expands spiritual capacity.

And then you get to see spiritual power. Verse 19. Now here's the verse everybody wants. It's going to be verse 20. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be glory in the church. Now see, everybody wants verse 20 while they skip verse 14 and 19.

They will quote verse 20 in a minute. But having built spiritual intimacy, having built spiritual capacity, but they want spiritual power. Here's what God is offering us through kingdom prayer. He is praying for heaven to intersect history. This is where your mind gets blown. This is where God is doing stuff you can't even figure out. This is where God's bringing stuff to you that you were trying to force to happen.

This is where God is shaking you and baking you. This is where God's doing a crossover on you. First of all, His power is personal. God is not the force in a Star Wars movie. He's not some inanimate object. He's not whatever God they may be. Now unto Him, the triune God that's in this passage, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, unto Him, that God.

Because guess what? He's the only God. Now unto Him. Why do you pray? Because you need Him.

You don't need them, you need Him. His power is very personal. But it's not only personal, it's potent. He's able. Now unto Him who is able.

Now I love that. He's able. 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. You think your situation is impossible? You think your dilemma is unresolvable?

You've got to understand, you're dealing with Him. And He's able. When you turn your faucet on, the amount of water that comes out depends on how far you open it. If you just open it a little bit, you get a trickle.

You open it a lot, you get a gush. A lot of us are wondering why there's no power coming through the spigot of our lives, because we won't open that thing up and give God free reign to fully express Himself in the inner man. Tony will come back in a moment with a great closing story. But before he returns, I wanted to let you know that there's more to today's message on the prayer for spiritual power than we had time to present on the air. If you'd like to get the full-length version of today's message, it comes as a part of the complete two-volume, 12-message audio series called Igniting Kingdom Prayer.

For a limited time, you can get the complete series on CD or downloadable MP3s. They're yours with our thanks when you make a donation to help keep this listener-supported program on the air. The place to go for details is tonyevans.org, or call 1-800-800-3222, or someone from our friendly resource request team is ready to assist you. That's 1-800-800-3222, or online at tonyevans.org. You know, when we pray, God has the right to say yes, no, or wait. But on Monday, Dr. Evans will explain that we have some rights, too, and we often get them all wrong.

Right now, though, he's back with his closing illustration. Many years ago, the kids were small. We decided to go on vacation in August and drive from Dallas to Niagara Falls, New York. There's an American side of Niagara Falls and a Canadian side of Niagara Falls.

Our hotel was on the Canadian side. We went to the hotel at night, opened the window, and way in the distance, you could see the falls. The falls has lights on it at night, so you could see it. And it was beautiful. It was a wonder to behold. I couldn't hear anything because I'm too far away.

I could just see enough of it to be impressed. Next morning, we got up, and we went to the Canadian side of the falls. On the Canadian side of the falls, there's a park. There's a park there. When we went to the Canadian sides of the park, oh, that was more than impressed, because you could hear the thunder as the water came over the falls and crushed into the basin, and it crushed into the basin so hard that when the wind blew up, little dots would hit you of water because it hit so hard and the wind would blow it so high. So now in the hotel room, I could just be impressed by it, but now I could hear it.

And every now and then, I feel a little something, something. But now there's a third way to see the falls. It's called the Maid of the Mist. These are boats in the basin of the fall. If you go down to the Maid of the Mist in the basin of the fall, they're going to give you a raincoat and an umbrella because you're getting ready to get drenched.

You're getting drenched because you're now in the basin of the falls. Many Christians relate to Jesus Christ from the hotel room. They see him at a distance, and they are impressed with him, but they never hear anything.

They never hear anything. They just see enough to be impressed. That will get them to church, and that's sufficient. Then there are other Christians who go to the park. No, they hear a little bit more, and every now and then, they feel a little something, something. Every now and then, God does a little something, something because they are a lot closer than the hotel room. But then there's that small group that's not satisfied with the hotel room, not satisfied with the park. They want a raincoat and an umbrella.

They want to get up close, and they want to get drenched. So the question is, how much of him do you want? Because he's only going to give you as much of him as you can handle, not only individually, but he closes in verse 21, and he says to him, be glory in the church. So when we all come together and we all get raincoats and umbrellas, oh, then you're going to see heaven fall down. You're going to see God blow your mind because it's not just about you, it's about us as we serve the living God. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.