We wrestle not against principalities and powers and rulers of wickedness in high places.
Why?
Because of who we are in Christ and because of his word.
We are called for such a time as this to pray for the nations.
I don't know about you, but I am watching the news and hearing reports and my heart
is heavy for what is happening in the Ukraine.
And I just want to share with you a little bit today some basic foundational principles
of prayer that I think will remind you of how good God is, how powerful prayer is, and
how faithful he is to keep his word.
First and foremost, the word is truth and Jesus is good.
We're praying for the will of God to be done in the earth and we always can know that by
going back to the Lord's Prayer, Lord let your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
So when we're thinking about prayer and how do we pray for what's happening in the earth
today, first and foremost, we just need to know that God is kingdom minded, not political
party or leader minded.
God's kingdom is a heavenly kingdom and he's interested in the word of God being preached
to all of the nations.
So I just want to encourage you today that there's some principles in prayer that you
can't go wrong with.
And I want to recommend a book called The Mighty Warrior by Elizabeth Alves.
Now this book was written by an incredible intercessor who was actually, she was best
friends with Kenneth Copeland's mom and these ladies would gather and intercede for ministries.
I met her at my first staff meeting when I was teaching school at Victory Christian School
in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
And she came into the staff meeting and the first thing I remember was Billy Joe introducing
her as one of the ministry's intercessors, one of his personal intercessors.
And he gave her the floor to share whatever was on her heart.
And she began to lay out principles that she had prayed regarding the school.
And I remember all of it just coming into my spirit.
And I felt like I was really hearing from the Holy Spirit what did he want to do in
this place.
And I will tell you over all the years that I worked for the school, in my spirit man,
I would always go back to those foundational truths that Elizabeth shared.
That we would disciple believers.
That we would take the Word of God to the nations.
That we would train a generation of young people to share the Word of God.
That we would win the lost.
That the priorities within the Christian school would always stay the same.
And it always hung with me.
And then she came back a couple other times and ministered.
And after that initial meeting I was introduced to her book.
And her principles on how to pray, when to pray, and just prayer strategies in terms
of breaking the week up in how to target in prayer specific things.
Elizabeth was meticulous about speaking the Word of God.
About sticking to the will of God regardless of what we might see or feel.
Regardless of what our feelings might be telling us at the moment.
Our feelings have to line up with what the Word of God says.
God does not operate in fear.
God does not operate in anxiety.
You can know things are right and true if they line up with the Word of God.
Now more than ever intercessors need to be trained how to stand in this hour.
You know, I
I can honestly tell you that the most important battles are, first and foremost, one in prayer.
I learned over trial and error that prayer and worship and singing and intercession,
they all go hand in hand.
Why?
Because, first and foremost, you want to come into God's presence with thanksgiving in
your heart.
You want to enter his courts with praise.
You want to come into his presence with singing.
You want to remind God of his goodness and his greatness and his mercy.
You want to thank him for his goodness.
And I will be honest with you, generally, at that point in time, I shift over into repentance.
I judge my heart.
I look at my motives.
I deal with my own flesh.
I look at my motives before I come before him because I want to make sure that when
I come before God, that my heart's right, you know, that ultimately, I mean, a lot of
I'm going to say human nature is to come to God with, God, I need help or God, I want
this or God, give me that.
When in reality, we should think about what is God's plan first.
And you know, sometimes he's so good to us and he loves us so much.
He's not going to give us something that we're not able to handle.
Or he's not going to give us something that we don't have the character yet to carry.
He's not going to put us in a place or a position that we don't have the grace to sustain.
It's all by his power and by his spirit that we do all things.
It's not about us and our flesh and our agenda.
When we align our heart with the will of God and with the word of God, and we begin to
speak the word of God in prayer, I'm telling you, heaven shows up.
We can pray.
Now, one of the things you've got to remember is God doesn't do anything in the earth without
prayer.
He has to be given permission.
He operates in agreement.
He looks for saints.
The Holy Spirit is waiting on you.
He's waiting on your heart and your mouth and your ability to speak his word, to line
up so that he can do something in the earth.
It's time for intercessors who really know how to pray to begin to pray the next generation
and to pray for the next generation and to train them to be skillful intercessors.
I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and when I first came to Tulsa and I first came to ORU, I was
really a baby Christian, and I had a voice teacher at Oral Roberts University, and she
was very close with a woman by the name of Jeannie Wilkerson.
And Jeannie Wilkerson's intercessory prayer groups in Tulsa now really are legendary.
The Holy Spirit showed her how to pray across time zones.
She prayed that the word of God would be able to be preached in all regions and nations
of the earth.
She was another one that knew how to record and journal what she got in prayer and to
keep track of it.
And during the 60s and the 70s, while Jeannie Wilkerson was praying, she was interceding
for the men in the Hanoi Hilton.
One of them, of course, was John McCain, but another one, one of my personal heroes, is
a man from Sioux City, Iowa, Bud Day.
And Colonel Bud Day was with John McCain.
And it's very near and dear to my heart because Bud and his family were from the same side
of town that my mom was and raised over on Riverside, which was kind of a rough part
of Sioux City.
We used to call it the Little Chicago.
But God took a man with really a tough character and empowered him to do something that very
men could not, very many men couldn't have the courage or the strength to do.
And that was to withstand that horrific Hanoi Hilton.
Well, anyway, the intercessors, they prayed and they journaled night after night.
They journaled moments where things were happening to them.
these men, and they had dates and times and locations.
Their intercession and their group of prayer warriors became legendary.
Now I want to encourage you today.
Is God talking to you about stepping in the gap and being a prayer warrior for him?
If the Holy Spirit is leading you and guiding you to do it, then I highly recommend that
you just start the daily discipline of praying the Word of God, praying according to Scripture,
and begin to journal.
I've got to be honest with you, I used to journal all the time, and I haven't journaled
as much lately just because it seems like I'm overwhelmed with this new position that
I have.
But I will tell you this, when the Holy Spirit wants me to pray, he knows I will wake.
It's usually around 3, and I'll go downstairs to my recliner and grab my Bible and open
up a tablet.
I have Elizabeth Alves' book on my tablet, and I have an e-reader that I carry with me
pretty much everywhere now.
I will begin to just pray, or I will just get really quiet and say, Holy Spirit, what
are you saying to me right now?
And how am I supposed to pray?
Now this is really important if you have family members or loved ones that are in desperate
need of intercession.
We can stand in the gap, and we can pray for the Word of God and the will of God and divine
intervention to manifest in their life.
It's time to rise up, intercessors.
It's time to pray.
Thank you for listening.