“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” Acts 10:38
As important as serene, contemplative praying before His face is, Scripture shows us this was not the only way Jesus prayed. Jesus also often engaged in an opposite kind of meeting that was aggressive and disuniting. Not with His Father, of course, but with the forces of darkness. We see in the Scriptures where He communicated (prayed) out loud directly to the binding agents of the devil’s kingdom in order to loose or separate humans from his grip. With words, He met with whatever was binding someone’s body, mind, or spirit saying, “Be gone!” and “Be loosed!” The Bible says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy [loose] the devil’s work.” (1 Jn. 3:8) Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, had authority to loose the works of the devil with His words. As carriers of Christ bearing His name, we’ve been given the same power and authority. (Lk. 9:1-2, Lk. 10:17-19, Mk. 16:17)
Now that Christ is in us and because of His total victory on Calvary, our spoken words (the sword of the Spirit) make that same loosing effective: “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will have already been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have already been loosed in heaven.” (Literal Greek translation of Matthew 16:18, 19) While this kind of authoritative praying “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12) seems extreme and unlike prayer as we know it, it is in fact how Jesus did it and is defined as prayer as we see from the context of Mark 11:23-24,
“I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html
As important as serene, contemplative praying before His face is, Scripture shows us this was not the only way Jesus prayed. Jesus also often engaged in an opposite kind of meeting that was aggressive and disuniting. Not with His Father, of course, but with the forces of darkness. We see in the Scriptures where He communicated (prayed) out loud directly to the binding agents of the devil’s kingdom in order to loose or separate humans from his grip. With words, He met with whatever was binding someone’s body, mind, or spirit saying, “Be gone!” and “Be loosed!” The Bible says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy [loose] the devil’s work.” (1 Jn. 3:8) Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, had authority to loose the works of the devil with His words. As carriers of Christ bearing His name, we’ve been given the same power and authority. (Lk. 9:1-2, Lk. 10:17-19, Mk. 16:17)
Now that Christ is in us and because of His total victory on Calvary, our spoken words (the sword of the Spirit) make that same loosing effective: “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will have already been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have already been loosed in heaven.” (Literal Greek translation of Matthew 16:18, 19) While this kind of authoritative praying “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12) seems extreme and unlike prayer as we know it, it is in fact how Jesus did it and is defined as prayer as we see from the context of Mark 11:23-24,
“I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html
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