 of prayer. Anyone, if you can please lead in prayer that will be good to open up our session for today? Yes. I have only further. Yes, Elijah, go ahead. I have only further. We want to give you praise and thanks this morning for this moment of our lives. We pray, we commit our class to you, O God. We commit every student and our facilitator into your care. We pray for wisdom, understanding, knowledge that as we are about to engage, let your Holy Spirit, O Lord, take absolute control and lead us and guide us into the truth and knowledge of you. In Jesus' mighty name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you so much, Elijah, and welcome once again everybody. This is the course on prayer and intercession. We will understand various aspects of prayer and intercession. The intention is to learn what scriptures have to tell us, but at the same time to develop our own personal prayer lives. So it's both from an academic perspective and from a spiritual development perspective, a very, very important subject for us to consider. And I'm sure everyone will agree that prayer is so foundational for our relationship with God. So before we go any further, just want to let us know that I have posted the course notes and the course overview on the Classwork page of Google Meet. So if you look at that, if you can open it right now, you can download the notes and I will try and go in order as much as possible. So you can look at it and also I will be sharing from there. So that will be, you know, like a reiteration of what is given in the notes for you. So I would encourage that you have your notes open with you as we go through this course. Okay. So please download it if you haven't already. All right. So let's start off by understanding what prayer is. So what is prayer after all? Any thoughts from you? What do you think prayer is? Just feel free. You can unmute. Yeah, go ahead. Yes, Rosalind, could you come again please? It's talking to God. Okay. Wonderful. Talking to God. Okay. That is prayer. That is prayer. What else is prayer? Okay. Yes, Abu Bakr. Could you, you can go ahead and share please. You can unmute yourself. Please go ahead. All right. I'm not sure if you heard me. I can see a raised hand so you can speak please. Abu Bakr and John Paul says communication, communion with God. Rebekah says prayer is a request to God. Okay. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. So prayer is all this and you know, much more and we will try and understand that as we go along. Now prayer is warfare. Okay. Zalito Lee says prayer is warfare. That's great. Okay. Rosalind says relationship with God. Okay. That's great. That's great. Sid Kenu prayer is communication of a child to his father. Okay. Wonderful. Wonderful. Sid Kenu. Anita says prayer is our relationship with God. Okay. Wow. Awesome. Awesome. So as we have understanding about prayer in this manner, we will expand our understanding from here. So yes, prayer is all this. Prayer is what we do connect to God to relate with God. And if I can use the term commune. Okay. Commune with God. Now it's fellowship. It's fellowship. So when we communicate with God, what happens is we are sharing our hearts. So some of you said that prayer is speaking to God. That's true. But in communion or in fellowship, what also happens is God speaks back to us. Okay. So we speak to God. God speaks to us. And when this kind of interaction happens between people, you know, you exchange your thoughts. You exchange your vision about things. You exchange your purpose. Right. And we can also say that as we continue speaking with God and communing with God, there is a divine exchange which we can expect to see. And what is this divine exchange? This divine exchange is that we get to relate to or our lives and live out the kind of life that God wants us to live. So yes, we are speaking to God when we are praying. We tell him what is on our hearts. But at the same time, God communicates back to our hearts enough. Right. And he ensures that we understand his purposes. It is speaking, but it is communing with God. It is a two-way connection with God which brings about an exchange. Right. It brings about an exchange and draws us closer to God. Now that in, you know, in the, and the outside is like a very simple understanding of prayer that we can get. But as we will also notice that prayer helps us partner with God. And I will talk a little more on that today itself. Prayer helps us partner with God. Okay. Thank you, Divya. So, Divya is saying that I'm freezing in between. I hope you just find now, Divya. Yeah. Yeah. But in between, yeah, it just gets interrupted. Okay. So I have another connection, internet connection. I'll try and put it on. I'm just worried that it shouldn't get disconnected. So if it happens, don't worry. I will log back in. So let me try. Yeah, the better connection. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can you still see me, Divya? Is everything okay? Yes. Okay. Great. Great. Yeah. Let's hope this connection is stronger. Thank you. Yes. So, yeah, we started out by saying that prayer is communion. And I said, additionally in scripture, we see that through prayer, we can partner with God. There are many things on the heart of God that he once accomplished here on the face of the earth. And how does God actually go about doing those things? God wants us to agree with him in prayer. And when we agree with him in prayer, we're exercising our authority and we are able to partner with God in accomplishing his purposes on the face of the earth. So prayer is communion with God, but prayer is also partnership with God to execute his purposes here on earth. Now prayer is also a ministry. Ministry is nothing but service. Now, if we want to serve others, one thing that we can do is pray for them. Why? Because when we pray, as I told you, we are partnering with God to execute his purposes. So that execution takes place. We stand in agreement to God's word for that person's life and the blessings of God, the deliverance of God, the healing of God, the understanding and wisdom that person needs. Whatever it is that the other individual needs, that is released to that person as we pray for them. So it is actually a service or a ministry that we are rendering to them. So prayer can also be medium through which we can bless others, particularly our brothers and sisters in Christ. Now prayer, in addition to all this is also warfare. We see in Ephesians 6, when Paul talks about the armor of God, he describes various parts and towards the end. He says that pray for everyone with all kinds of prayers. So when we are standing up against the enemy, that is Satan who wants to bring destruction into our lives, we can also use this weapon of prayer. So prayer is warfare. We are protected when we pray and we can also destroy whatever it is that the enemy is planning against us. So prayer can be used as warfare. So overall, as you consider prayer, prayer is very, very powerful. God did not just institute prayer and say, okay, yeah, there is this medium through which you can communicate with me and that's about it. No, but it is a very, very powerful foundation for our relationship and a victorious life here on earth. In the Word of God, we see that so many people of God, they engaged in prayer, they poured out their hearts to God because our God is a prayer answering God. He never institutes something and says that I will not take notice of it, not at all. But because he has instituted prayer, we can be sure that God is also a God who hears prayer. So there is a scripture in Psalms, Psalm 65 and verse 2. It's in your notes if you have it open with you and it is on page number 4. Excuse me. I request one of us to please go ahead and read that and also the next scripture there. First Peter chapter 3 and verse 12, please. Anybody can unmute yourself and read both the scriptures. Psalm 65 too. O you who hear prayer, do you, all flesh will come, 1 Peter 312, for the eyes of the Lord are on their righteous and his ears are open to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Thank you. Thank you, Zellie Tohli for reading those scriptures and here we see that God is a prayer answering God and which is why we can go confidently into his presence to seek whatever it is that we need and also we read in these verses that God's eyes are turned towards the righteous and he is listened to us and we can continue to strengthen our relationship with God through prayer, pour out everything that is upon our hearts and relate to him in a stronger way through prayer. So that is in a sense some of the key things that we understand about prayer. So we will go ahead look at the purpose of prayer, but before I go further I just like to pause and ask if there are any additional thoughts or comments from your side based on what you heard just now. Prayer is communion, prayer is executing, partnering with God to execute his purposes, prayer is warfare. So you have any comments on that? Yes, Divya please go ahead. Yeah, I was just like the point that says prayer is partnering with God, so is God dependent upon our prayers? That's one thing that came to my mind for execution of his plans on earth. In that case, yeah, if we are not going according to that will of God, so am I limiting what God wants to do? Yes, Divya and I will explain further. In fact, the explanation is coming up in today's session itself. Okay, so please hold on. Yes, God is dependent on prayers. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Yes, thank you, Divya. Abhu, can you have a question? Okay, you may either unmute yourself and speak or if you're more comfortable putting it in the chat then you would please do that and I will take up that question soon. So it's great that you know we are all thinking about prayer and what prayer really is. So let me continue and maybe we'll come back to more questions and answers towards the end of our session. Here in chapter 2 the purpose of prayer is explained to us. So what we see here is that God when he created man on the face of the earth he created him in his own image. Okay, and in the image of God when God created man he also gave him dominion and authority. You see that in Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 and 27. Okay, and I think it will be helpful if somebody reads that passage as well. So anyone if you can quickly turn to Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 and 27, good scriptures to meditate. Then God said let us make man in our image, in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Thank you Rosalind. So as we heard that passage we saw that God gave dominion and authority to man on various creatures. So God intended for us to rule and reign here on the earth. So he wanted us to subdue and in this passage you note that there is creation that is given to be subjected to man and God really wanted for man to have dominion over all these things. Now as we continue on in the word of God in Psalm 115 and verse 16, now we see that God gave the earth to man but like the heavens belong to him. So in other words what God is saying is that the execution of his purpose is here on the earth and the dominion that he wants exercised here on the earth, he is expecting man to do it because he has vested man with that authority and he has vested man with that dominion. So that is the original intention of God to have man here on the earth and for man to rule and reign. Okay, whatever happened, we realized came out of the disobedience of man. When it happened the world was corrupted with sin and we don't really see anything written about the dominion from that point on shifting over to another person but when you read about the temptation of Jesus in Luke chapter 4, you will notice that Satan tries to entice the Lord Jesus and he says things like this whole everything belongs to me, the kingdoms of the world they belong to me, I can give it to you if you only bow down and worship me but in this account it makes you think how is it that Satan can say that the kingdoms of the world belong to him when God actually created man with dominion and authority over the world in the original state. But we know that because of the fall there was a shifting of authority that took place. No wonder Satan now had to interfere with the things of the world and he was actually doing that is the point when the authority which we lost to Satan was given back to us which was restored back to us. So this is how we understand the deputization of man here on the earth but God entrusted him with authority but now need to exercise that authority we will talk about the fact that prayer is one of those ways in which we can exercise this authority that God has given us. John Wesley made a very pertinent statement and he says God does nothing on the earth save in answer to believing prayer. For some of us that might be hard to digest to think that oh God is sovereign how is it that we are saying that God works on the basis of our prayers but it is true and I will tell you how I will tell you how it is true. So there are many things here on the earth that God will not do unless we pray. So just a pointer right here for those of us who are finding it hard to receive. See there is the master plan of God and in that master plan there are certain aspects which cannot be changed for example we have the creation of the world and then we had the plan of redemption the Bible says the Lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the world. Okay so the Lord Jesus and his sacrifice was planned before the foundation of the world. Now if we were to pray and ask God not to send the Lord Jesus it wouldn't work because these are the grand plans of God which cannot be changed. So there are certain purposes of God which no matter how much we pray it cannot change it but then there are the other purposes of God where we are equally you know included as partners and unless we exercise our authority we will not see breakthroughs we will not see the execution of those purposes here on the face of the earth. Okay so that's just a small explanation for us at this point but we will continue to talk about the sovereignty of God and God's dependence on the prayer of man as we go along. So okay so far we understood that God gave man authority and God restored back that authority through the Lord Jesus. Now God declares his purposes okay and all of scripture is that God has declared his purposes and he wants to see those purposes fulfilled. Okay what is the role of prayer in this what is the role of prayer in this one very good example is the life of Elijah and we will look at the life of Elijah. So I would like to request one of us to please read from First Kings Chapter 17 verses 1 and 2 please. So one person can read that passage then we can have another person read from First Kings 18 verses 1 and 2 and then verses 39 through 46 I will I will post it for us here in chat. So anybody please take it up and pray. I mean please read it. Yeah First King Chapter 17 1 and 2. Now Elijah the Tishbite from Tishbe in Gilead said to Ahab as the Lord the God of Israel lives whom I serve there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word then the word of the Lord came to Elijah leave here turn east world and hide in the kerat ravine east of the Jordan. Okay thank you thank you Rosalind there's another passage that we would need to read this is First Kings 18 I posted it somebody could you please pick that up and read please. Now it happened after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying go show yourself to Ahab and I will send rain on the face of the earth so Elijah went to show himself to Ahab now the famine was severe in Samaria was 39 when all the people saw it they fell on their faces and they said the Lord he is God the Lord he is God then Elijah said to them cease the prophets of Baal do not let one of them escape so they cease them and Elijah brought them down to the brook of Kishon and slew them there now Elijah said to Ahab go up eat and drink for there is a sound of the roar of a heavy shark so Ahab went up to eat and drink but Elijah went up to the top of Carmel and he crouched down on the earth and put his face between his knees he said to his servant go up now look toward the sea so he went up and looked at looked and said there is nothing and he said go back seven times he it came about at the seventh time that he said behold a cloud as small as a man's hand is coming up from the sea and he said go up say to Ahab prepare your chariot and go down so that the heavy shark does not stop here in the light in a little while the sky grew black with clouds and wind and there was a heavy shark and Ahab rode and went to Jesse then the hand of the Lord was on Elijah and he girded up his loins and outran Ahab to Jesse thank you thank you John for letting me quickly explain them to us so what he says right so he knows the word Lord and he also says he will not come unless you know first castra what I say and why pronounce so Elijah hears the word of God and he goes and he announces it to Ahab also he tells King Ahab that it's going to rain now the next thing we see somebody as we would want to tell him Elijah as a very powerful prophet isn't it because we know his miracles in his ministry and in his life so even a powerful prophet like Elijah we saw in first Kings chapter 18 the last portion there that he goes and he begins to pray and he prays seven times he prays seven times now it is do that he knows he knows for fact that it is going to rain now have you know that shouldn't Elijah have just you know stretched his feet and taken a nap maybe and thought okay fine it is going to happen so there is nothing that I need to do but what do you see to do here he goes and he prays seven times for something that he already knows is going to happen okay that truly tells us that Elijah understood that there is a part for us as people as human beings to play in the purposes of God through our prayer so what if Elijah did not pray from what we have seen it may be safe to say that it may not have rained okay yes can God cause it to rain he can did God intend for it to rain he did did Elijah know about it yes but Elijah had to do his part of praying and that's why you know we said that prayer is also partnering with God in executing the purposes of God here on earth so in a way though it may sound right we could say that God depended on the prayers of Elijah okay now if we read verse 5 from you know verses 16 through 18 over there it tells us Elijah a man like us he prayed that it should not rain and he prayed that it should rain and it rained right so that passage encourages us in James says that the prayers of a righteous man are effective if a human being a man just like us only refers to the human nature given the authority of God if Elijah could could release that authority through his prayer and things happened we are told that the prayers of a righteous person okay and we have been made righteous through the blood of Jesus Christ that our prayers are very very effective that God will work together with us to accomplish his purposes okay and that is the kind of authority we carry and and we see in Elijah's example that Elijah was using that dominion and authority and he saw it rain just as he had prophesied earlier and similarly if you look at the life of Daniel this example is also given in our notes here but I won't get us to read I'm on page number five I won't get us to read all the scriptures here but essentially what we see here is that Daniel understood through you know the prophecies made earlier that there was a time for the children of God to be set free from their captivity so knowing the timeline Daniel seeks God knowing the timeline Daniel prays to God and he says God you know you have spoken that your people will be free after these many years of captivity that time is soon approaching so you know I'm just praying into it and I ask that it would be done that it will be accomplished so we have people like Elijah we have people like Daniel who were engaging in prayer knowing the authority which God had vested upon human beings so today what I want us to awaken to is the fact that yes you know prayer is communion with God prayer is us sharing our hearts with God and enjoying the presence of God but there is also a purpose in executing the purposes of God here on the earth and we have been given that authority and dominion and one of the ways in which we can release it is through prayer and we must do that now as God's people there are several other scriptures that encourage us in Romans chapter 8 verses 16 and 17 we read that that we are children of God we are sons and daughters we are co-heirs right we are co-heirs with Christ and co-heirs with Christ again puts the focus on the privileges that we have as his children and we can use those privileges through prayer so as God's people as the church you know we must never forget the fact that we are in a powerful position we are in a very powerful position because we can exercise our authority we are co-heirs with Christ and we've also been told that we have the power of the name of Jesus remember Jesus told us that when we pray in his name that our prayers would be answered so he has given us in a sense that power of attorney when we use the mighty name of Jesus in our prayers and things are accomplished okay and we've also been given the keys of the kingdom in Matthew chapter 16 Jesus said that he said that I'm going to build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it so what has he done for us to be such a powerful entity for the church to be such a powerful entity he has given us the keys of the kingdom keys represent authority you know anyone who has the keys to my house can enter can have access to everything in my house okay so keys represent authority and Jesus said that he is giving the church or his people you and I the keys of the kingdom meaning access power dominion which we can use in our prayer life and in various other ways to establish the kingdom of God so in this you know we see that we as as God's people can partner together with him and see very many things accomplished so just want to pause here and share a small it's not testimony but it's more like what happened so aware that we have just come through the second wave here in India and the second wave of covid was quite you know it was really scary because we saw people getting very sick the mortality rate was high and so many things happened in our nation and during that period as a church family here at apc pastor ashish had called for a prayer for 40 days and we would meet on zoom every morning at 6 a.m to just pray for the needs of people particularly covid related issues and names of people would get posted on the chat then you know concerns would get posted on the chat so 40 days 40 days of just praying praying over people and on the call you would have you know people ranging from I don't know maybe 70 to 100 people joining the call every day early morning six o'clock and as I was observing you know what was going on over the 40 days we saw so many answers to prayer we saw you know people who were critical in the icu's eventually we would have messages on the chat which said that now they're doing better you know they are recovering so all kinds of testimonies that that we could see and all of this because God's people were engaging in prayer so every morning here we were you know calling upon the Lord and you know we were standing on the word of God God's word of protection God's word of healing through the finished work of the cross right so we were here praying for the people praying for our families praying for the nation okay and I could really sense God moving in a powerful way through those 40 days of prayer now what if we did not in what if we did not pray what if we did not minister ourselves to pray I really don't know what would have happened one thing I know those prayers had in fact okay and praise God that it was despite physically but it's it is important for us to execute God's excuse me okay there's a little bit of a connection issue there but no problem all right so now we will move on to the question that Divya raised about God's self-sufficiency and his dependence on our prayers okay so as I shared earlier prayer is God's design okay and whenever something is God's design God is in favor of that I wonder the scriptures we began with that God hears our prayers right and excuse me his ears are turned the press for us to seek him okay so there are a couple of scriptures here you don't have to read it I'll stir you know share the essence uh Jeremiah 29 12 and God said I will listen to you seek me you will find me right so the design of prayer is from God it's not something that man stumbled on or you know man came up with it somewhere along the journey not at all God was the one who instituted prayer and he at every point encouraged people to pray and seek him with prayer so this must help us understand that prayer is so important when something is really important generally you know you look at the life of Jesus and you fill it in your mind that oh man this Jesus himself taught prayer right remember the he teaches the people and says in this manner pray and we will see about life of Jesus and how he is our role model for prayer but we observe that Jesus took a lot of time in prayer he taught about prayer right he taught about persevering in prayer so if Jesus gives this kind of importance to prayer definitely you know there is something about partnering with this sovereign God who is actually able to do everything but still there is a role for prayer to play for that purpose to be accomplished and no wonder in fact even before Jesus goes and selects his disciples will read the whole night he prayed okay so there is something about prayer right in following the purposes of God in releasing the purposes of God God can do it without us but he has chosen to have us engage as partners so God is looking for someone Ezekiel 22 it's mostly I mean it must be familiar for many of us where we see that God says I'm looking for one man to stand in the gap okay Ezekiel 22 verse I'm looking for one man to stand in the gap and I found no one so at least one person to stand in the gap Jeremiah writes and what God says is if I get one person to agree in prayer then he's actually able to and in this case you know to to to save the people from from wrath okay effectively if you all understand the authority that we have and we engage in prayer what all mighty things we can accomplish and you know how we can serve our nation how we can serve the nations of the world so there is an incredible mandate out there in prayer and God has chosen right God has chosen to lead us in and through prayer and that is how he has designed it okay and which is why Divya just making that point once again that God is dependent okay on our prayers is that are you okay with it or any thoughts yeah yeah I'm pretty clear yeah yes okay okay yes yeah thank you Divya yeah so I think for now we have understood you know quite clearly that God has chosen to need us and and there are times when you know we we can stand in the gap for others in fact there is a time when Job you know he going through a lot of difficulties in his personal life but you know he he cries out to God he says God if only there was one person who could pray for me Job 9 versus 32 and 33 for he is not a man as I am that I may answer him and that we should go to go together nor is there any mediator between us who may lay his hand on us both okay and Job 16 verse 21 follow up to that he says oh that one might plead for a man with God as a man pleads for his neighbor so basically what Job is saying is he saying that look God is too powerful and you know it's like I'm not even worthy to go into his presence and I'm going through this very difficult time and I just wish there was somebody who can stand on my behalf to plead my case right so he is looking for an intercessor God is looking for intercessors to execute his purposes people who are in need and many times you know there can be people who are very sick there can be people in some sort of an amount of people some reason but you know when we pray we are able to access our authority on their behalf and we can see the purpose of God accomplished in life now God he wants us to partner there are people in need who we can bless through our prayers we must also pray because you know God rewards us remember Jill said if you go and pray in secret I will reward you in open so for us we may think what is the use of prayer and prayer anyway doesn't get recognized by everyone unless you know like as you stand in front of everyone and you pray for them but that says prayer is not about getting noticed when we pray we are noticed by him right and God has a reward for it so that must also encourage us to pray and if we don't pray no we are truly missing out on we are missing out on our fellowship with God we are missing out on exercising our authority here on the earth we are missing out on blessing those who may be in need of our prayers and we are missing out on the blessings and the rewards that God has for those who are willing to pray in secret right so that overall is our content for today so I'm just gonna pause right now and we will go ahead and take up some of the questions that have come in so far Abubakar had a question so okay so Abubakar says prayer is a ministry why prayer is not among five fold ministry according to Ephesians Abubakar there are various kinds so Ephesians 4 talks about the Lord Jesus giving the gift of the five fold ministry and the five fold ministry offices passages like Romans 12 okay you will find a lot of ministries listed there and they are not necessarily the five fold ministry offices for example in the five fold ministry you have a pastor teacher an evangelist a prophet an apostle but other ministries that you would notice in Romans 12 is things like administration things like leadership things like a service okay so the point I'm trying to make is there are many ministries to serve God's people and the kingdom of God now we don't necessarily have everything listed in scripture okay and similarly prayer may not have been included in the five fold ministry offices but it certainly is a ministry and we can serve with through that those people through prayer okay I hope it answers your question Abubakar okay okay all right there's another question here by Ruben and Ruben is asking is worship also prayer okay very very interesting yeah so see in worship we praise God we adore God we you know we express our reverence and our honor to our God and we make our spiritual sacrifices as we go through this course we will observe that there are many different kinds of prayers okay and in the kinds of prayers there is one set or category of prayer which is thanksgiving and thanksgiving I'm sure you would agree with me is also a form of worship isn't it so yes you could say that there is an overlap as you're praying you know you you might also worship the Lord because I was speaking to God that you might say God you are so awesome you are merciful like thank you you know you have gone before me you have rescued me from things that I could not understand you've brought me out of my difficult situation I praise you I honor you so I'm praying but there is worship which is a part of my prayer so we won't get too hard and fast and too technical about you know this is worship this is prayer but yes there is an overlap there can be an overlap and which is okay because ultimately we're just trying to relate to God right and we're just trying to strengthen our relationship with God yes so there can be worship worship is also prayer you you could say that okay thanks Abu Bakr happy to know that my explanation helps prayer is a part of worship okay okay same thing prayer is a part of worship or worship is prayer there is an overlap and that's that should be okay right so yes everyone this is our introductory class where we've talked about the purpose of prayer and what I would encourage us to do is continue to jot down any thoughts or questions that you may have even though the the class is over you can post it on the stream page okay you can post it on if you have any questions you can post it on the stream page and you know I can answer it for you on the stream page till we meet next week for our class here okay so yeah if there are no more questions I think we are good to wrap up is that okay everyone yes ma'am thank you so much okay great thank you thank you thank you everyone thank you God bless so glad you joined us take care God bless God bless thank you bye for now take care thank you thank you God bless thank you ma'am thank you thank you bye bye