In Perils - A call to Intercession

So I can share that Jesus Christ has given my a heart for prayer. I have been able to see the spiritual ether of darkness when I go to places and to cities. I feel and discern spirits, and often wrestle against spiritual darkness in my daily life. This is not something easy to convey to other people, what this is actually like. I'll often pray based on what I see with spiritual eyes. It's real and what God says about it is true. But there is prayer and then there is intercession.

Ephesians 6:11-12 states,
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against power, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.

For you to get a bit of context on me, I'll share a bit of where I started. I came out of a dark childhood with an alcoholic father and a mother who was mentally ill and was into witchcraft. The Lord delivered me out of much, but sometimes I am still troubled by the things that I suffered in childhood, things of a spiritual nature. When I was eighteen I accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and confessed my sins and received His forgiveness. When I was nineteen I put my hands on someone who was bent over in agony, they had something wrong in their stomach and could barely walk, in fact the woman was my neighbor and she was on her way to see the doctor. I asked her if she believed in Jesus Christ, she said yes, I then prayed and Jesus Christ healed her instantly, the pain ceased and she stood upright. This seemed normal to me, in my teenage mind and overflowing faith, it's what Jesus did and what he asked us to do, it's in the bible. Then I started to go to church. I was blessed by God in some ways but also encountered some very bad things and many things that people did that were against His words. Thinking that somehow church was a safe haven was a reality that didn't exist. I now discern between a good show and keeping it real with Christ. Needless to say, looking back I learned precisely what God wanted me to.

Now I'm fifty-one and this morning and I woke up and wondered why I achieve so little victory against the dark forces that have persistently dogged me throughout my life. I have enjoyed victory a few times when I look back, where Jesus brought me to a vista, a plateau with Him in the Holy Spirit, a place of peace and great joy and closeness to the Father. Those were glorious times but few, and then again I've been taken down into the war. I was so aggravated this morning, and asked "Why Lord, why does it persist why do you allow me to face this spiritual struggle, why do you allow Satan to assail me." I pray all the time. I however concede that I have not fully committed to deeper prayer, I fast infrequently and pray more often in my own understanding rather than by the Holy Spirit, hoping things will change.Yet I want to complain. I am reluctant to go into the deeper work we wants me to do in prayer, intercession. I feel lazy, I feel scared, I dig my heels in, I want to do something else. But I know full well that in truth that it's my own half-heartedness that has led to defeat.


This video with Lance Lambert says so much about what I'm getting at in this post and is a deeply valuable message for all believers in Jesus Christ. Mr. Lambert went to be with the Lord in May of 2015. His website is still online here http://www.lancelambert.org/.

So this was the answer I received from the Lord almost immediately as I opened the New Testament to continue reading, which I started after not reading the Word for some time. Let me also say that it is odd to be this open with the world about my journey as a believer in Jesus Christ. But the times are dark and I feel we need to be full-on for God, and be a city set on a hill. Over the years I've become a wishey washey believer when I look at His Word, and it pains me to even say that. Thank you Steve Quayle for sounding this alarm recently in one of your videos. At times I've strayed away from the Lord with one foot in the world and another part of me still believing in Him, and got myself into trouble by not following His words, but He has always remained faithful. His laws and guidance are in place to protect us, I've learned that the wrong way. Thank God for his immense mercy and forgiveness. I've thankfully turned back to Him with my whole heart and in the last several months I've begun to seek him as my primary focus, read the bible again, and turn from things I know I can't have in my life if I am to be effective and if I mean to follow.

This morning he showed me what Paul faced and I went 'oh, yes I remember'. The work is often difficult and I'm not the only one who has suffered following God. It wasn't the answer I was looking for, but it was what I needed as a reminder that as Christians we will suffer, struggle and face obstacles in this world. That we are engaged in a spiritual battle. That Satan hates us and will seek to destroy us. I've certainly experienced that, but fear little because of it. I want a holiday from it all however; I'd like a couple of glasses of wine so I don't have to be so aware of the times we face, but I have to press on and press into God, seek Him and submit to the call of intercession He gently puts on my heart. I need to ask him to teach me to intercede even though I've been praying for decades. So this is the passage of scripture I got smacked with in response to my cry out to Him this morning.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are in peril as Christians and we live in possibly the most perilous times in human history, and we need to draw close to God and do His work. Paul faced very difficult and painful things, so we can't feel so alone knowing what others have faced following Jesus Christ. If you face obstacles and sufferings remember and read Paul's testimony. Jesus did say we will share in his sufferings, but He also said His Grace was sufficient for us. For me I know I have to pray through the burdens I'm not relieved of, until a breakthrough comes. To intercede. We are co-workers with Jesus Christ, but are we lazy workers? I can no longer afford to be so.

2 Corinthians 11:23-33

Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended and I burn not? If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not. In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me: And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.