The Prayer for Spiritual Power, Part 1

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 broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy eventually learned that she already possessed what she needed to solve her problems. In today's message from the archives, Dr. Evans explains why Christians often have a hard time making that same discovery.

Let's listen in. A woman who lived way out in the far country was used to lighting her home with kerosene lamps. That's how she got her light because no electricity had been run out to where she was that far out. Finally, however, when they connected the electricity, she now had power. But the electric company noticed that the power didn't seem to be used very much.

There was only a little usage of the power. So they thought something might be wrong at her home or with the connection, and so they went to see the lady and knocked on her door. They said, ma'am, excuse me, I'm from the electric company, and we've connected you with electricity, and 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 electricity on, and I turn the lights on long enough for me to light my kerosene lamp.

And then I turn it off. Here was a lady who did not know how to use the power she had. She had been connected with power, but she was still operating on a system without power.

In fact, she was using the power to help her not operate at the level that the power was provided to produce. 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.

That's what it's designed for. And it is God's point whereby we connect with the power that we've been connected with once we become believers. 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.

If you only see the supernatural from time to time, if the supernatural only visits you on holidays because it's not part of how you roll, then you either don't have the power because you're not a believer, or you have the power but don't know how to use it, get it, access it, and benefit from it. So Paul wants to help you and me through igniting kingdom prayer to connect with the power. 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.

For what 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. And so there are those here today, I am sure, who are on your last leg, or you've been there before, or you know someone who is losing or who has lost heart, who wants to quit, throw in the towel, give up. That is what is leading Paul to pray, and that is what is leading many of us to need to pray. He says, I am praying because I don't want you to quit. He says, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. Every believer has God as their father, which means every believer has equal access to your heavenly daddy. Every believer, if God is your father, because you are a Christian, then God has named you.

You're one of his kingdom kids, and so you have access to him in prayer. So Paul says, I'm praying, but he's your daddy too. And so what Paul is getting ready to tell them, he's telling us.

What he's telling them, he's telling us. I want you to pay close attention because if this connects with you, you will not be the same. And you won't mind praying. Because if you get this, if this is your way to get heaven to join you on earth, you're going to grab it. Now he's going to say three things in these verses, three things.

I want you to follow each of the three. 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. Let me say that again. If you're going to get heaven to join you in history, it will be affected and infected by the level of your spiritual intimacy. If you are having a long distance relationship with God, don't expect to see heaven enter history.

Your level of intimacy will determine your level of power. 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. He says, I want you to be strengthened with power by the spirit in the inner man.

See, we go to God to fix stuff, to fix people, to fix problems, to solve dilemmas, but God looks at the inside to determine what he's doing on the outside. To be strengthened with power in the inner man. If the inside is not growing, there will be no power in prayer. If the inside is not getting deeper, there will be no strengthening of power in prayer. He bows his knee and he says, 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.

We'll learn why that power isn't always available to us when we return to more of today's lesson in just a moment. First, though, today's message from Dr. Evan's Timeless Teaching Archives is part of a powerful 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 for a limited time, we're adding a special bonus to go along with this audio collection.

It's a copy of the powerful companion book to this series called Kingdom Prayer, Touching Heaven to Change Earth. You can get the details of this special offer at TonyEvans.org or call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222 where team members are ready to help with your request. Call us online at TonyEvans.org or by phone at 1-800-800-3222.

Well, let's get back to our teaching time now and hear what Dr. Evans had to say. 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. My sprinkler 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.

You don't have a power problem. Well, if I don't have a power problem, why am I not getting water for my lawn? Then much to my chagrin, they began digging up my lawn. They began going deeper in my lawn.

It 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. And because of my connection problem, it looked like I had a power problem. See, many of us think we have a power problem when God's saying what you really have is a connection problem, because once they fix the connection, we experience the power. 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. He says you will be strengthened by the Spirit of God with power, but it starts with the inner man. So if you're not caring for your soul, taking time to grow your spirit, then don't be surprised that you're not getting answers to your prayers. It is to the degree that you're going deeper spiritually that you experience greater power.

The kingdom of God from heaven visiting you in history. In fact, God will withhold answers to prayer when his whole purpose is to make you go deeper and not be satisfied with where you are. So he will force you deeper by holding back and saying, I want to make sure the connection is straight before the flow of power is manifested. You say, but what do I need to grow deeper?

Do I need to pray more, read the Bible more? And all of that has its place, but in this passage, he gives you a secret. Verse 17, so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith.

Here it is. 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.

Let's take a little further. Most of us have welcome signs. Many 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've 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. Mercury is very hot. All the time it's red hot. That's because of its proximity to the sun. Pluto is very cold. It's always cold. Because of its lack of proximity to the sun.

Now we live on planet earth. That's hot and cold because it's seasonal. And because it's seasonal based on its turning, sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's cold. The problem with God is he has seasonal saints. They'll turn to God in this season and turn away from him in another season.

See, they're seasonal saints because they rotate on him. And he's looking for ongoing proximity so that he can go into any room at any time for any purpose. If the life is not opened up, God is not going to share his power. So your pursuit of intimacy, which means exposure to the Lord, is critical for power. So anything you're hiding from him is limiting power from him. So the first thing is there must be the pursuit of spiritual intimacy.

That must be the goal. Time in his presence, time in his word. You say, but I don't have time. Well, you always have time for what's first. You can't use that excuse, especially if you call for him for power.

So I got it. You gave him a welcome sign. You brought him into your life, but he's limited to certain places. And therefore he knows he can't dwell there, can't hang out in your realm of existence. 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 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, if you're going to get more capacity, to be rooted and grounded in love. Dr. Tony Evans, exploring the workings behind our prayers for spiritual power, part of his classic series called Igniting Kingdom Prayer. For a limited time, you can get the complete two-volume series featuring all 12 full-length messages on CD or downloadable MP3s, along with a special bonus, the companion book that goes hand in hand with this series. It's called Kingdom Prayer, Touching Heaven to Change Earth. Both the book and audio collection are 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. Just as a bridge connects opposing shorelines, Kingdom Prayer connects our human limitations with God's limitless power. Tomorrow we'll dive deeper into how believers can strengthen that prayer bridge with God. I hope you'll join us. ? ?