THE PRAYER MANDATE

Usually, by midweek I know the subject on which I am going to blog on Saturday; however, this was not the case on this week, I woke up this morning (blogging day) without a clue. I started praying and asking God for direction, and almost immediately, I received an answer, write a blog on the prayer mandate.

In the kingdom of heaven in which believers are citizens and ambassadors, God’s word is inviolable and absolute. God’s word is eternal (Psalms 119:16), and whatever He speaks or decrees are laws. Thus, according to scripture in Genesis 1:26, the prayer mandate was given. It states, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” When God said, “let them have dominion,” and not “man and I will have dominion” His words became law. He gave the man the responsibility of the earth realm, and He would only intervene in the affairs of the earth when He was requested to do so. The word dominion means to rule, sovereign authority, or govern territory, and that is our primary task on earth. We are to handle, rule, and govern the affairs of earth.

Many believers do not understand this authority or responsibility that has been given to us. Also, just like the serpent beguiled Eve in the Garden of Eden, he continues to deceive us into thinking our prayers are unimportant. Hence, Augustine, an early Christian theologian, addressed this state of prayer apathy when he said this, “Without God, we cannot, without man God will not.”

For many believers, prayer is a struggle; it is boring and secondary until we run into a crisis. I think if we first realized that Satan is the originator of these thoughts, we may respond differently to prayer. So, as the scripture states, “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: I am not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11); therefore, I daily safeguard my prayer life by putting into practice these few actions:

1. I cast out the Spirit of Prayerlessness and bind the Spirit of Grace, Supplication, Intercession, and Petition to me.
2. I pray without ceasing meaning whenever I think about a prayer issue; I pray over it immediately because if I wait, I will probably forget.
3. I ask God to reveal to me prayer issues.
4. I pray that His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

I pray this blog has encouraged you to accept your prayer responsibility if you have not and to continue praying if you already do so because as you can see the world needs Divine intervention and this can only be accomplished with your prayers