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And I will do
whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the
Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John
14:14
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Daniel
Fast 2012: Day Fourteen
A
Secret to Unhindered Prayers....
Dear Family of
God,
Mt 18:19 (ESV)
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they
ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
1 Peter 3: 1-7 (ESV)
Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if
some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the
conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and
pure conduct. 3 Do not let your adorning be external—the
braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing
you wear—4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart
with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in
God's sight is very precious. 5 For this is how the holy
women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their
own husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.
And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that
is frightening. 7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in
an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel,
since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that
prayers may not be hindered.
Both long ago and recently the Lord has visited us in several vivid
spiritual encounters to reinforce to us his zeal for wives and husbands
to experience a unity of spirit that results in a sense of "shalom"
in the very soul of their marriage. As a naturally/supernatural
by-product, there is a mysterious power in prayer that will flow out
from this level of unity that will touch the heart of the Father and
thereby move his hand to do things that only he can do for us and
others.
What we have found in our journey is that this has required us to
humble ourselves before God and cry out for the real help we need from
him by: 1) committing to him the pains of any disconnect between
us 2) giving and receiving forgiveness from the heart for ways we
have failed to love one another well in the past 3) regain the
grace of being vulnerable before one another and our heavenly Father.
Getting to this point of honesty and vulnerability is no small
challenge for two fully-human and opposite gender partners! One
of the secrets of attaining to higher levels of spiritual authority and
the accomplishment of Christ's will and ministry in and through us as a
team is to discern the ceiling of limitation we seem to hit and then
"back up" to set an environment around our souls and our
relationship that sets the stage for a future breakthrough.
We have experienced some breakthroughs over the last year in this arena
of agreement in spirit and harmony in prayer. We have also seen
the results in the circumstances of our lives that witness to the
intervention of God's power to do some things "above and beyond
what we could ask or think" (Eph 3:20). A simple daily
practice that we believe has helped set the spiritual atmosphere for
these things to occur has been to get up early and listen to the Word
of God together by accessing www.youversion.com and
really tuning in. A reader even reads to us. (Don't you
just love some of the new technology that is at our fingertips.
We drink our morning joe as we listen!) We signed up for a
daily reading...it's really user-friendly and you can get a free phone
app too. Sometimes we discuss what we have just heard and
sometimes we simply pray together in response. Even though we
still have had areas of life and marriage that are not fully settled,
we have witnessed how the Lord has gone into action on our behalf to
help us in our weaknesses. We all know that it is impossible to
please God without faith...but "faith happens"...as we hear
and assimilate the Word of God (Rom 10:17). This is a profoundly
simple thing that God has invited and challenged us to do.
With this kind of rich environment of Jesus' words increasing
both within and about us, God himself will provide for us all that we
need to please him from the inside out.
Heb 13:20-21 (ESV)
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord
Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by blood of the eternal
covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will,
working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus
Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Through Christ,
Michael & Terri Sullivant with grandson Jonah
(Leawood, KS)
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