RESTING PRAYER, RESTING FAITH

SIMPLE, HUMBLE PRAYER

The Lord has mentioned prayer to me several times this year.  There are many kinds of prayers and intercessors.  There are loud prayers, soft prayers, silent prayers, written prayers, song prayers, instrument prayers, tongues prayers, groaning and yearning prayers, living prayers and even wishful thinking prayers.  I am also sure there are more kinds of prayers.  I believe that the Lord is so desperate for our prayers, that He turns most anything into a prayer, including our heart’s desires, when our hearts are turned toward Him. 

I attend lots of prayer meetings and those times are always loud, powerful and dynamic when in the room with 30 other intercessors all praying in tongues and in agreement as they rotate in taking the lead in English.  The Lord’s Presence is strong and powerful.  When I am by myself, most of the time I do not pray powerfully loud English prayers.  I do pray out loud in tongues and English and receive some powerful breakthroughs, especially when I pray in the car or exercising with the music!!  But when I am at home during the day, I pray mostly quiet prayers or silent communion prayers.  I had been thinking a lot of about that and wondering if it was OK to pray that way, since it is my habit.  In answer to my ponderings about this, here is some of the rhema I received this month:

RHEMA 10/01/06  SEATED PRAYER

[I had just prayed a 2 sentence prayer, it was exactly to the point and nothing else.]

HEARD:  You pray so well dear Sweetheart, that’s all I need.  My safe one.  Come let us pray, find out how.  Seat yourself.  You understand.  Resting faith. 

Heb 4:1-12 NLT

God's promise of entering his place of rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to get there. For this Good News — that God has prepared a place of rest — has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn't believe what God told them.   For only we who believe can enter his place of rest.

As for those who didn't believe, God said, "In my anger I made a vow: 'They will never enter my place of rest,' "even though his place of rest has been ready since he made the world. We know it is ready because the Scriptures mention the seventh day, saying, "On the seventh day God rested from all his work."  But in the other passage God said, "They will never enter my place of rest."  So God's rest is there for people to enter. But those who formerly heard the Good News failed to enter because they disobeyed God. So God set another time for entering his place of rest, and that time is today.

God announced this through David a long time later in the words already quoted:  "Today you must listen to his voice.  Don't harden your hearts against him."  

This new place of rest was not the land of Canaan, where Joshua led them. If it had been, God would not have spoken later about another day of rest. So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who enter into God's rest will find rest from their labors, just as God rested after creating the world.  Let us do our best to enter that place of rest. For anyone who disobeys God, as the people of Israel did, will fall.  For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires.

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RHEMA 11/01/06  RESTING PRAYER

HEARD:  Ought to pray, as often as you like.

PIX:  I saw a beautiful woman bathing in an old fashioned bathtub full of glistening  bubbles. Her head was tilted back looking up to heaven.  She was so lovely and peaceful and relaxed.

HEARD:  That’s how I want you to pray.  Swing vote.  You voted, My love, it was your decision.  Joy.  Laughing, eternity.  

COMMENT:  I love to pray in the bathtub, when relaxing.  When He was speaking to me about the swing vote, He was talking to me about being a doorkeeper. This is where we make our decisions about right and wrong on the earth, and we declare open doors to what we see as right.  And this is where we speak close doors to what we see that does not line up with His will on earth.  Being a doorkeeper and casting our vote is like a prayer, only with more authority.  A doorkeeper prayer can be a supplication where we ask the Lord to open or close a door.  However, the position of actually being a doorkeeper, where we have a place of authority in our family, or job, or elsewhere, is where we can declare into the spirituals that the doors be open or shut.

When He spoke to me about being this doorkeeper, He was saying that I don’t need to be loud or stressful in casting my vote.  Have you ever cast your ballot in the bathtub?  Smile. 

Isa 22:22-23 NKJV

The key of the house of David I will lay on his shoulder; So he shall open, and no one shall shut; And he shall shut, and no one shall open.  I will fasten him as a peg in a secure place, And he will become a glorious throne to his father's house.

CONFIRMATION:  I just went to the forum to get this link that is a teaching about being a Doorkeeper.  The random graphic that popped onto the top of the screen was the one about the doorkeeper. 

HEARD:  The gift of prayer.  Freedom.  To hold you accountable and release the angels.  To do what you are to do.  There is mercy at the core. 

HEARD:  Having said it all, just rest. 

HEARD:  Low bridge.

(Humility, bowing low.)

COMMENT: The Lord is saying that every time we pray, we are giving a gift.  Prayer is like a bridge that gives His kingdom and people a chance to safely cross over the obstacles.  Yes, we are accountable to pray and bring His kingdom to earth and when we pray it releases the angels to go forth and bring freedom.  He is also saying that our having known the need for prayer, that no matter how much we pray and fall short in such, He grants us mercy.  And once we have prayed and gained the witness that He has heard and will answer, we REST.  As the scripture says, He honors humble, repentant prayer.

2 Chron 7:13-14 NKJV

...if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land...

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~ SIMPLE INTERCESSION ~

I am a simple intercessor who, when the Lord tells me things, I write them down and hold onto them like Mary in my heart, waiting to see it manifested on earth.  Most of the time, I also walk these things out in misc. parables that connect with His Words, and I also have to stand against all the obstacles that oppose the Words I have heard. This kind of intercession is more of a walking and abiding place then it is verbalizing long prayers.  These are intercessions I do not share with the public, and if I am led to, I share them through simple Words to Ponder, as the Holy Spirit leads.

Matt 6:5-7 NKJV

But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.  And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. 

CONFIRMATION:  I had sent the above paragraph about Simple Intercession to Tao, and he wrote back saying that he saw a vision of the word Simple the same day. 

Hi Sandy,

Thank you for sharing your precious word and PIX with me. In a vision, I clearly saw the word, "SIMPLE"  clearly in a paper yesterday.  The word "SIMPLE" was quickened to me when reading  and I felt that it was connected to "the Kingdom of God".  His Kingdom consists of those who are simple and humble like kids.  Those who are the humblest are the highest in His Kingdom.

With His love and Kindness

Tao

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UPDATE PRAYER CONFIRMATION 11/18/06:  ACCOUNTABLE TO PRAY

VISION:  One of our intercessors saw a vision where a man who used to pray a lot was in front row of a room of about 50.  It was his responsibility to pray for those people.  He was no longer praying.  Then the intercessor saw that each one of those 50 people also had other rooms of 50 people they prayed for.  When the first one stopped praying, it affected all the others.  “When a leader stops praying over his flock of 50, then it not only affects those 50, but also the 50 that each one of those are also called to keep.  Am I my brother’s keeper?  YES.”

CONFIRMATION:  During the same prayer meeting, another intercessor told me that she heard the words, “PRAY, PRAY, PRAY.” 

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RHEMA 11/22/06 PRAYER PARABLE,  MEDICAL ALERT!

Jill Austin sent out in her newsletter that she was having double knee surgery.  Here are some quotes from her newsletter.

“The final event of this year involves my double knee replacement surgery.... God is calling us to embrace the posture of bended knees and He’s giving us “new” knees - a new level of intercession.... The Lord wants to take us to our knees, to go low in humility into a deeper place of prayer and pressing in to God in the secret place.”

http://www.masterpotter.com

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RHEMA  11/28/06  CONTEND FOR THE FAITH, NO NEED TO STRIVE FOR IT

HEARD:  The gift of prayer.  You can do this. 

QUICKENED FROM BOBBY CONNER:  “He told me He was going to give me my report card and it was going to be sealed.  He didn’t tell me it was going to be sealed so that no one could see it, but it was going to be sealed in laminate so that no one could change it.”

Bobby then said that he passed all the subjects except that he failed recess.  He said it was because he never learned the difference between striving and contending.  Contending is the work of the Spirit, striving is the work of the flesh.  It is God’s peace that crushes satan. 

http://www.bobbyconner.org

Jude 3 NKJV

...exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith.

CONTEND

epagonizomai

NT:1864 epagonizomai (ep-ag-o-nid'-zom-ahee); from NT:1909 and NT:75; to struggle for:

KJV - earnestly contend foreign

Matt 12:18-19  KJV

I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive , nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.

Isa 45:9 KJV

Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?

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INSERT PAST RHEMA 5/30/06  PRAYING OUT LOUD OR SILENT?

PIX:  I saw a knife being drawn out of its long sword sheaf.  I then saw a knight go down on one knee. 

HEARD:  How to pray. 

QUESTION:  Lord do I need to pray out loud? 

IMMEDIATE IMPRESSION:  The Holy Spirit downloaded me with the memory of these 2 scriptures:

John 11:41-43  NKJV

And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.  And I know that You always hear Me , but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me."

John 12:27-31 NKJV

"Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour.  Father, glorify Your name."  Then a voice came from heaven, saying, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again."  

Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to Him."   Jesus answered and said, "This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake .

WORD TO PONDER:  COMMUNION AND DECLARATION  5/30/06

Throughout the ages, I have heard mankind’s questions about which is more effective, silent prayers or voiced prayers?  Remember when on earth, I communed with My Father and He heard Me always, whether outloud or within My thoughts.  And I heard My Father, whether outloud or in My thoughts.  Prayer is simply communion and intimacy and can be enjoyed either way.

When I spoke to the fig tree, I spoke to it.  When I declared to Lazarus in the grave, I spoke with a loud voice.  When I agonized in the garden, My disciples heard My sufferings.  When on the cross, I cried out to My Father in anguish of spirit, body and soul.

How may I answer you, dear one?  I want you to express yourself in the best way you can express yourself.  I hear you and listen.   

1 Chron 28:9 NKJV

"As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts . If you seek Him, He will be found by you;

 John 11:41-43  NKJV

And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.  And I know that You always hear Me , but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me."

John 12:27-31 NKJV

"Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour.  Father, glorify Your name."  Then a voice came from heaven, saying, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again."  

Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to Him."   Jesus answered and said, "This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake.