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how do you practice the prayer of agreement? I mean, how do you do this thing?
What do you do, you just call people: "Hey come on over, I need prayer."
it's a little bit more involved though it's simple
but it's a little more involved, in fact There are 4 guidelines I want to offer you
out of the text
that we're about to read acts 12 in verse 1: and we started verse 1 it
says
it was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belong to the church
intending to persecute them
he had James the brother of John put to death with the sword
when I saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also
this happened during the feast upon leavened bread
after arresting him, he put him in prison
handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers
each, 16 soldiers guarding a preacher Heord
intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover
verse 5: "so Peter was kept
in prison but the church
was earnestly praying to God
for him." Therein we see the example of
corporate prayer or the prayer of agreement or group
petition, all those terms are synonymous or a concert of prayer
we see a bunch of people coming together with one request
before God accompanied by each other's strength
of relationship with the Lord and their voicing it together before God
What are they asking God, they're asking God to set
Peter free miraculously. Now, I mentioned that there's 4 guidelines to the prayer
and so question: how do we practice the prayer of agreement
guideline No. 1: align
the request with God, A.L.I.G.N. align the request with God in other words
don't ask God for cockeyed things
don't ask God for crazy things, don't ask God for things
that God is not concerned about, that God
doesn't sanction, you understand
it's like a single guy, he's single
and he says God I know you love marriage I need to be married to a
a runway model some 5'10
10 in terms of pounds looking gorgeous, give it to me Lord
nothing wrong with marrying a model
but I don't think that's what God meant and so you align
the requests with God. What do I mean by that?
God's will is what God's respond to
when you pray in alignment with the will of God
and we know the will of God by the character of God, the nature of God, the
essence of God and the Word of God. God's will
is found in his Word and when I can't find the exact
answers to what the will of God in His Word, that's when I ask questions like
what would Jesus do and the answer leads me to God's will
so God's will is found in his character it's found in its person
it's found in his essence. Now 1 John 5:14 put it this way
this is theconfidence
we have in approaching God that if we ask
anything
according to His will, He hears us.
Did you hear that if we ask
anything according to God's will
he hears us and if we know that he hears us
whatever we ask we
know that we have what we ask
of Him. So question No. 1, question how we practice
the prayer for agreement that means when we gather together and and and Peter
is in prison then james was just be it was just killed whether beheaded or
or pierced with the sword we're unclear
but James was just killed and so the church now gathered together
in different clusters across the city of Jerusalem and they're praying for
a miracle from God and so
how do we know, that it is God's will for Peter to be freed
because there was no Bible verse at the time
How do you know?l because
the new testament was not yet written, all that was Old Testament
and so what they do understand of the Old Testament is this
God is a God of justice, He hates
injustice and Peter was not arrested because he committed a crime or
felony or some kind of act that was against the government. No!
He was unjustly charged, it was not justice that was brought brought him
into
this place of incarceration and and we know all from Psalm 9 verse 78 Old
Testament
"the Lord reigns for ever he has established his throne
of judgment, He will judge the world in righteousness
He will govern the people's with justice."
Therefore, the early church knew
that they can practice the prayer of agreement because they aligned
the request with God