Working Power in Prayer

Are you praying for a loved one who seems unreachable? 🙏 Your prayers are making more of a difference than you know. In this week's episode of Faith For Your Family, Michelle Steele dives into the power of asking in prayer — and why God needs your petition to open the door for someone who can't open it themselves.

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Transcript

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Hello, my name is Michelle Steele, and I'm so thankful that you've tuned in today for this episode of Faith for Your Family. We want to strengthen you in your ability to stand for your family, for your loved ones, for their salvation, for your prayer life as you enter in and lay hold of those things that God has promised you, their strength for you today. And I want to encourage you. We have been going through 12 lessons that I taught some time ago. It's called Effective Prayer, and it's available in CDs. If you still have a CD player, DVDs, uh, we also have flash drives that you can get, or if you want to, you can download the audio. Uh, and the the download comes with a PDF version of this study guide. This is effective prayer, 12 lessons. And in each of these lessons, we have all of the scriptures that we're going through. We are dealing with how to be vigilant in prayer, how to make supplication and intercession, the different types of prayer that the Bible talks about, the assignments that God gives us, divine assignments in prayer, how to be effective in the prayer of faith. And so effective prayer is a tool to help you understand how to communicate your request to God and to prepare a way, an opening, an in-road for God in your family's life, in your loved one's life. And so I want to also encourage you about another tool that our ministry has. It's called intervention prayers. And this is specifically about praying for your family, those who are in lifestyles that are destroying their lives, whether it be addiction, whether it be a false religion, whatever is trying to take your loved one out, and you are standing between them and the destruction that's trying to move forward in their life. This tool, this is a devotional. It has four weeks worth of teachings and prayers and scriptures for you to have something different each day of those four weeks to strengthen you. And I have so many people who tell me I went through it and I went back and started it over again because that first time they were just learning how to pray those intervention prayers, learning how to have an effective prayer against the destruction that's taking place in their loved ones' life. And so I encourage you today that your prayers are making a difference. And what I want to talk about today is that progress that prayer provides to us. And so when we talk about faith for our family, a lot of what we're dealing with in this is our ability to pray, how to stand in prayer, because that's where I use the faith for my family. That's where I apply it, is in that place of prayer. And so today, John 16, 23 is where I want to begin. John 16, 23, Jesus is teaching us about prayer. And in this chapter, he's actually telling the disciples, and we are his disciples, he was telling his disciples, these are some things that are going to be different than they have been. You've been walking with me, you've experienced uh, you know, uh this uh level of a relationship with God. But I'm about, you know, we know from hindsight, Jesus is having a conversation before he goes to the cross, before he establishes their redemption, before he moves them into a place where they are born of the Spirit, alive unto God, able to utilize his name, able to have the Holy Spirit dwell in them. He said, He's been with you, but he's gonna live in you. And so he is explaining to them some of the things that are gonna change. And you notice in this chapter of John 14, 15, and 16, how he deals with their ability to pray. What's a something is about to change in your prayer life, and you're about to go to a whole nother level in your prayer life. And so he is giving them this instruction, this encouragement about asking. And I think still the Holy Spirit does not have the body of Christ at the level of asking that God would like. I still think that we need to be asking at a whole nother level. I think that we need to be strengthening ourselves in the promises of God, strengthening ourselves to see what God has prepared and provided and wants us to operate in and walk in so that we'll ask. And you know, when it comes to asking for your loved ones, you know, sometimes we just ask for the bare minimum. Lord, just get them out of the lifestyle that they're in. Lord, just rescue them. Lord, just that they, if it's the last minute, Lord, just save them, just get them out. And and yeah, that's good. Yes, we want them saved. We want them rescued, and even if it is at the last minute, but why not go ahead and ask God for them to be in full-time ministry or ask them to fulfill the best promise of their life? That Lord, I'm asking you that they be in church with a fire for you, that they got, Lord, I want to see them in the in the pew with their hands lifted and worshiping you instead of just barely rescued from the pit of hell. And so asking is something we need to bring our A-game to. And John 16, 23, Jesus said, In that day you shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Hitherto, I don't use that word, you probably don't use that word either, but it means before now, before now you have asked nothing in my name. Why? Because this is part of what's getting ready to change in the establishing of our redemption in the cross. He said, Before now you've asked nothing in my name. Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. Ask and you shall receive. See, so many people are waiting to receive, but they haven't asked yet. They haven't made the legal transaction of their faith, they haven't made the petition, they haven't asked in Jesus' name, they haven't um applied their faith in that, and they're just saying, Lord, you know what I need. You know what I want, Lord, you know, you know, Lord, if if if God wants me to have it. But God says, even though He's provided it, even though He's prepared the way for you, that there's an asking that needs to take place. And so He said, Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. A lot of what we are waiting on God to do, God has already put it in our responsibility corner. He's put it on our to-do list. And so we need to go through the to-do list that God made for us and see have I done what He told me to do? He told me to ask. You would think, well, of course He wants my loved one saved. Of course he wants them to be set free from alcohol. Of course he wants them to be free from that addiction. So, Lord, you know, you know, God's knowing isn't what is required for the receiving? He said, our asking is the required element of our receiving. Mark 11, verse 24, Jesus said, What things soever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them. What things soever you desire? Have you brought your desires to him? Have you applied your faith to your desires? Or are you applying your faith just to the bare minimum in that situation? Just to, Lord, just just the least that I think I can get out of you, the least I think I can talk you into doing, which we've talked about that a lot in this podcast, that we're not about our responsibility, isn't trying to twist God's arm. He's already on board, he's already willing. We've got to find out what he said he's willing to do, and we've got to get in agreement with what his will is. And he's already willing to save them. He's already willing. We don't have to talk him into it, but we do need to ask. So it's not a me an asking to try to convince God to do something, but it's a legal petition. It's a legal that God can say, if the enemy ever comes to him and says, that's not fair, that you over you went in and that person was in sin. They were were eat up with, they were ate up with fear, with with rejection, with a hatred, and and and they weren't even interested in hearing your about your love. They weren't interested in hearing about you. They there was nothing in them. They had given up on you a long time ago. I had them convinced already. And so it's not fair that you came in and you opened their eyes, and God can pull out the legal document with your voice signature where you said, Father, I'm asking you to open the eyes of their understanding. I'm asking you to send laborers across their path. And he can say, I had a legal petition made to me. Yes, those they they had they had said they're they're done, that they're not interested. You know, my testimony, a lot of you know my testimony, how I was in a life of crime, addiction, prostitution, and and I was facing the possibility of going to prison for a long time. And I was was invited to go to church, and I was no. And you know, I sloughed it off, I made light of it. But then on the inside of me, I thought, I can't go to God. God hates me. Why would I, I can't, I can't go to God, God hates me. And so in my mind, there was nothing in me that was hoping that God would help me, that hoping God would change it, that was asking God. But you know, I had loved ones who were praying for me. My little, my little kids, my children were going to their Sunday school class. Their grandmother was raising them and she took them to church, and they were in Sunday school, and I was their request around the Sunday school circle when they were there, they had their their Sunday school class praying for me. My grandmother was praying for me, my mother was praying for me. There were other people who were saying, God, you've got to save her. I wasn't asking for his help, but somebody was asking. And so you can be that asker that opens the door and makes the way for God to have entrance into that person's life. Matthew 18, 19. Again, I say to you that if any, that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. If two shall agree on earth concerning anything that they ask. So the asking is this essential element in this Matthew 8 agreement that we're talking about. Say, well, agree with me in prayer. I've learned over the years just from this scripture that when someone comes to me and says, agree with me in prayer, that we need to stop and agree. We need to both ask. We need to, because for me to say, I agree, Lord, may not be an application and an a stamp of of sufficiency on that petition. I need to say, Father, I agree. I'm asking in agreement with what they're believing. I'm asking too. I'm asking in agreement with what we and so I have to ask. So be in agreement with me. Okay, what are we agreeing? What's our verse? What are we standing on? Because I need to ask too. It's not just me saying, yes, Lord, yes. Mm-hmm. Okay, yes. And oh, we've agreed. No, they ask. So we need to be asking. So in the asking, God's power is made available. James chapter 5, verse 16. It's a verse we use a lot. This is the New King James. It says, Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. The effective, fervent prayer avails much. It makes it makes tremendous power available that amplified says it avails. And we need the availing that the effective prayer provides. It avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. It wasn't a coincidence that it rained right after he prayed, because the Bible uses this example to show us that his prayer caused the rain to stop, and his prayer caused the rain to start. It was in line with God's will because God came to him and told him, You go tell Ahab it's not gonna rain. So we know it was God's will. And then when he got ready for it to rain, God said to him, You go tell Ahab to go ahead and get ready because the rain's coming. And he he he goes to him on both uh uh instructions, but so it's in line with the will of God. We're not praying something, we're not using this asking for something that's outside of God's will because you can't use you can't have faith, not Bible faith, for something the Bible doesn't say you can have. So you can't use faith to marry my husband. Impossible. Not gonna happen. No, why? Because there's no faith for that. You can't use, you can't say, well, I'm believing God to marry somebody else's husband. No, you can't believe God for something that the Bible doesn't promise you. You have to have for you to have Bible faith, faith comes by hearing the word. So you got to have the word on it. So we're talking about something that's in line with the word of God, that's in line with the will of God. We're talking about the prayer of faith here, the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man. We're talking about a prayer faith then, a prayer that's in line with the word of God. The example is your prayer, your asking, your petition can change the circumstance. Your petition can make the change. Hallelujah. So the amplified again says it makes tremendous power available, but the amplified keeps amplifying, you know, available, dynamic and it's working, power that's working, working power. You know, when it's effective is the word that we're looking at in the King James and the the Greek um effectual, uh, is also a word that's used when the apostle Paul was talking about an effectual door is open unto me. And it meant a working door, a door where the power of God is working. And in that door that he had opened to him for the preaching of the gospel in Ephesus, God was doing such tremendous miracles that it says that that handkerchiefs that were he was, you know, that were taken from him after he had preached, that that these signs and wonders that God was doing, these special miracles that God was doing, supernatural activity. Why? Because it was an effectual, a working door. And that's the word that's used here: the effectual prayer, the effective, fervent prayer. This is a working prayer, a prayer that's making power that works, power that works on this, on the situation, power that works to open the eyes, power that works to set that person free from the lie that they've been believing that keeps them going down that path. So the effectual door, the effectual working door is the door we want open. And that's why you've got to stay in that place. You've got to stay spiritually strong. You've got to keep your heart, guard it, guard it from worry, guard it from the details of what's going on. You can't get over at them offended because they keep costing you money. You can't, and that doesn't mean you have to go bankrupt trying to fix the problem, but the offense is what I'm talking about. You've got to guard your heart because your heart is where the issues of life, the forces, the this working power is in the heart. It's in your prayers, released through your praying, but your heart condition, you've got to stay strong in your position. You've got to stay strong in your walk with God so that you can continually make this power available so that God can continue to work in your loved one's life. I want to give us one other example before we move on from this, so that when we come back next week, we can kind of go in the next direction. In Acts chapter 12, we have an example of this working power, this power that was at work in the prayer. Um, and it says in Acts chapter 12 that Herod had taken James, the brother of John, and killed him. And we know James, the brother of John, was a disciple, uh, someone who had walked with Jesus. He he was someone important in the plan of God. This wasn't God's will, this wasn't God's desire for James, the the brother of John, to be killed by Herod. It wasn't a part of God's plan. He was killed. This the enemy is the one who comes to kill and to steal and to destroy. And so this affected the church. This affected the plan. This affected what God was doing. And so Herod saw that he he had such a great response out of this, he thought, I'm gonna do the same thing to the rest of them. Let me start with Peter. And he goes and he takes Peter. It says, when he he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also. Look at where you see Peter in in the book of Acts, all of the impact that he had on the formulation of the church, the body of Christ. What an instrument. I wonder what could have been, you know, established if James, the brother of John, had lived. And so here's Peter, who is taken and he was gonna kill him. It was during the days of unleavened bread. So when he arrested him, he put him in prison, delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover. Peter was therefore kept in prison, but something happened in Peter's situation that didn't happen for James, the brother of John. If it had happened, we would have seen it. And the fact that it emphasizes it in this chapter emphasizes that John died. I'm sorry, James, the brother of John, died, and and Peter was next and uses this comparison of what happened in the two disciples as an understanding for us to see what made the difference. How come Peter didn't die? How is it that God supernaturally see if people think God's gonna do what God wants to do without and and if he if if it happens, it's because God wanted it to happen. No, it was. Was not the plan of God. When a person thinks this way, they're not applying the necessary faith and making the necessary effective prayers to bring the change in line with the will of God. When they see, wait, that that is not God's will. I'm gonna pray. Why would you pray if God's gonna do it anyway? Why, why bother to pray? Why make, why ask if God's gonna do what God wants to do? So what an a difference we see here because it says Peter, verse 5 of Acts chapter 12, he was in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church. Constant prayer. This is the one thing that we see that made the difference between what happened to James, the brother of John, who was killed, and Peter, who had a supernatural intervention where an angel came, woke him up, and walked him out, unlocking every door, leading him past armed guards, four squadrons, soldiers, walked him out the gate. So he walked him out prison doors, he walked him out the gate of the prison, he walked him out until he was out in the city, until Peter was like, What? What happened? Am I awake? I mean, the church prayed for him. That's what made the difference. That's what made the working power, the power of God available. Peter was a recipient of the working power of God, and he was asleep. So who was praying? The church was praying. The church was praying. So constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church. And the effective, fervent prayer that you're making is making working power, dynamic working power that that enables light to convince your loved one. That enables that blindness that the enemy has worked for years to establish over their thinking to be removed in a moment. When truth comes, no matter how dark it is, when the light is turned on, that darkness has to leave. And when the truth, the light of the truth of God's word turns on in your loved one's life, no matter how wrong they thought, no matter how dark they've been in their understanding, when that light comes, that darkness has to turn and and and leave. And so keep making that working power available to your loved one. Again, effective prayer is such an important tool for you to get a hold of. You can go to Michelle Steel Ministries.com slash books, click on any of the books there. This one uh it'll lead you to our bookstore, and you can get effective prayer and also intervention prayers. Now, effective prayer is not a book, it's this is a study guide with all of these lessons that we've been going through. There are um audio teachings from the first time that I ministered this. You can go online to our YouTube channel and watch it all again for free. You don't have to pay for any of it. You can go watch all of those teachings for free. But if you want the study guide, if you want these in so you can keep them in your car, um, they are available at our bookstore. And then intervention prayers is also another tool that will help you. And I've got some information for you about intervention prayers. Thanks for tuning in today. I look forward to seeing you again next week. When your loved one is battling drug addiction or alcoholism, who can you call for help? Are they cutting themselves, starving themselves, or tormented with thoughts of suicide? Where can you turn to stop the destruction? I want you to know that you have someone to turn to for supernatural help. My name is Michelle Steele. God supernaturally set me free from a life of drug addiction and prostitution. I am a result of God's intervention. I've written this book, Intervention Prayers, to help you find God's rescue for your loved one. Intervention prayers is more than just a book. It is a life-saving manual. It holds keys to unlock the power of God and bring supernatural intervention. With this book, you can leave behind the desperate begging prayers that leave you feeling helpless and enter the throne room of God with confidence to get the help you need. Intervention Prayers is formatted with 28 days of teachings from the Word of God. It will establish your faith in God's will to intervene in your loved one's life. Every day, you're equipped with guided prayers and faith-filled confessions to help you activate the truth you've received. The personal testimonies of God's miraculous deliverance will inspire you to know that God is willing and ready to intervene and rescue your loved one from destruction. Get your copy of Intervention Prayers, powerful prayers to rescue and restore your family. You can call 501-400-8797 or visit lifeoffaith.net. Regardless of what you see playing out in the lives of your loved ones, even if reports tell you things are getting worse, you can stand strong in faith. Go to our website, lifeoffaith.net, or call 501-400-8797 to get your copy of intervention prayers today. Our heart is to help produce spiritual life that empowers you to overcome life's adversity and succeed in God's purpose for you. Subscribe, turn on notifications, and let your faith be strengthened.