Scripture: Colossians 4 v 12: " Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God."
Ephesians 4 v 11 - 13: "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:"
We all have a desire to be perfect and complete, to be acceptable to God, and to be found worthy of eternity in Heaven. This was the full purpose of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus on this Earth. We are parts of His body and He wants it perfect and complete too.
To achieve this end God needs labourers who pray fervently for the born again saints to grow spiritually in all the will of God. So He placed in the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers who through their different functions and fervent prayers will edify, or build up, the Body of Christ.
Along with their calling into those different ministries, the Lord gave the most priceless gift of the Holy Spirit. He is so wonderful in everything He does for us, and in the gifts He brings to enhance our abilities to bless the functioning of the Church.
1 Corinthians 12 v 4 - 10: "Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
5 And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.
6 And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:"
In our ministry of prophecy and intercession we have seen every one of these gifts in operation over nearly forty years. They have been invaluable in the way the Lord taught us, at first it was like layer by layer in a long process until we learnt the intricacies of each gift, then those processes were gradually speeded up until so much became automatic and flowed swiftly. What before had taken days to complete, now took less than an hour. That's the power of the Holy Spirit.
In the book, Rees Howells Intercessor, a Prince with God" by Norman Grubb, Rees often spoke of coming to the place of abiding. This became a wonderful lesson for me as I learned the understanding of what the place of abiding was to the Holy Spirit.
As an Intercessor you often pray for similar needs in different people. Like praying for cancer to be healed. There are basic roots in praying against cancer, which is the manifestation of a demon in EVERY case. The demon of cancer is always the same, but there are many forms it takes like tumours, or blood cancer, bone cancer, skin cancer, all with different names like melanoma, leukaemia etc.
When we first started out praying against cancer we had to learn, through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that it was a demon we were dealing with, not a disease! A demon cannot be healed, it must be bound and cast out with all its companions. You cannot cast out a disease, it must be healed. For this is discerned by the gift of discerning of spirits.
So when you have prayed for many of these needs you come to the place of abiding. It means that the Lord accepts that a certain level of prayer has been successfully accomplished and need not be repeated laboriously but can be taken as a place forever reached. So the intercession now needs to focus on the uncommon or unique presentation of the cancer in each individual case.
We can only give God the glory for every one who has been healed of cancer, HIV/AIDS, renal failure, heart problems, brain tumours and other difficult problems. He has been very gracious to us over the years and has helped many back to health. He wants people to stand perfect and complete in all the will of God, and He equips us with the ability to accomplish it.
There are depths to the gifts of the Holy Spirit that come with continual use of them. The more you apply these spiritual gifts, the more knowledge you gain about them, and the more useful in fervent prayer you become. I am sharing these jewels with you today because the Lord wants to stir up your slumbering spirits to seek more and gain more knowledge of the deeper things.
In today's reality everything must be ready and available like instant messaging. No waiting days or weeks for a snail mail letter to come through the post. No anticipation of that excitement while waiting for its arrival. So people are demanding quick fixes and get bored or impatient at having to wait.
But God says wait on Me! And it is through patient waiting and diligent learning that He provides new knowledge and how we use that information to build up the Body of Christ builds trust between God and us. In that trust is the absolute confidence and faith that is never disappointed.
The blueprint for our perfection is the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 8 v 27 - 29: "And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren."
However, once we are born again we must work with the Holy Spirit as it says in Phillipians 2 v 12 - 13:
"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."
We are a work in progress and should be constantly seeking to improve our spiritual abilities to becoming true followers and conform to the image of God's Son. When we do this we will stand perfect and complete in Him for eternity.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, we worship You in Spirit and truth and appreciate all Your wonderful gifts that enable us to achieve the goal for people to achieve the perfection of Jesus. We submit ourselves humbly to Your will for without You we are nothing. In Jesus' name. Amen.
