6. Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory

When kingdoms are in conflict on the earth, throughout our history the preferred means of resolving the conflict has been to go to war and use brute force to conquer the other side.

However, the conflict in which we are engaged with the dominion of darkness requires a much more subtle approach, primarily because the battle ground where the conflict is raging is not on some foreign field but in our own back yards – in our own minds and hearts and souls and homes and schools and places of work and governments and cultures.

Satan does not normally launch a brutal full-frontal attack against an individual or a group of people, although it does happen; and in some countries it is happening often. His normal approach is what we might call a war of attrition, in which the objective is to wear us down until we give up because we do not have the strength to resist any more (see Daniel 7:25). Once a person’s resistance has been broken, the demonic then have the freedom to move in and take over.

However, we should not be waiting to see if the evil one is going to attack us. On the contrary, we should be taking the initiative and going on the offensive against him. Paul instructs Timothy about how God has equipped us to rise to this challenge:

The Amplified Bible renders this verse in the following way, which may enable us better to understand it:

POWER

In the last two lessons we have been thinking about how to keep ourselves safe and free from Satanic interference or attack. But now we want to look at how the kingdom of God can go on the offensive and overpower the dominion of darkness. Jesus said:

This statement clearly depicts the armies of the kingdom of God coming against the gates of the strongholds of Satan and overwhelming them.

Paul reminds us:

(a) that we have powerful offensive weapons in our armoury:

(b) that we are engaged in hand-to-hand combat with our enemies (but not all of the time, of course!):

Paul then goes on to describe the whole armour of God that has been provided for us, and most of that armour is defensive. However, there are two items of offensive weaponry that are introduced to us in verses 17 to 19:

So the word of God and prayer are the two activities that God has provided as the weapons of our warfare that have divine power to destroy strongholds. Peter and the rest of the original Twelve Apostles recognised the same principle in the early days of the church, when they said:

For the advancement of the kingdom of God and the pushing back of the dominion of darkness, it is prayer and the ministry of the word of God that will be effective.

Prayer

As Christians, prayer should be our lifestyle, as natural to us as breathing. In Ephesians 6:18 Paul exhorts us to be ‘praying at all times’.

Forms of Prayer

Let's not have a limited view of what prayer is. It is our communion with God. ‘Communion’ is from two Latin words meaning ‘together as one’. God invites us to “come and be in oneness with Me; let us be one together”. The term “prayer” encompasses all of our individual and corporate, public and private intercourse with God in all of its variations and manifestations:

• Committing our day to God when we get up
• Thanking God for our food before we eat
• Asking for God’s blessing on our families, friends, and neighbours
• Seeking God’s guidance when we need to make decisions or undertake tasks
• Pleading for God’s mercy for those who are sick or in sin or in trouble
• Upholding our government, or other authorities, before God’s throne
• Interceding for the lost, either individuals or communities

The postures that we can adopt while praying are many. For instance:

• Standing (Mark 11:25)
• Sitting (2 Samuel 7:18)
• Kneeling (Daniel 6:10)
• Prostrate (Numbers 16:22)
• With fasting (Ezra 8:21)
• Organised, with or without an order of service (2 Chronicles 6; 1 Timothy 2)
• Spontaneous gathering (Acts 12:12)
• With singing (Acts 16:25 - in a prison cell)
• In tongues, with or without singing (1 Corinthians 14:15)
• With musicians (1 Chronicles 16:4-7)
• With deep groanings in the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26)

And let’s not forget the form of prayer that is perhaps the most intimate of all – the prayer of silence (Psalm 25:1).

The Dynamic of Prayer

Many of our prayers are simply requests that we make to God to ask Him for help as we go through the trials and tribulations of everyday life. God is perfectly happy with this, and He has even said that He is pleased with the prayer of the righteous (in Proverbs 15:8).

However, the prayer that advances the kingdom of God, which we might call ‘kingdom prayer’, has a particular dynamic that we need to understand. We can see it worked out in the life of Nehemiah, in the book that bears his name.

Nehemiah had a heart that was open and available to God. He was concerned for the glory of God’s name and for the well-being of His people. He was a vessel ready and willing to receive the burden of the Lord and to pray it through.

In Nehemiah 1 verse 4, Nehemiah sets himself to pray concerning the state of Jerusalem and those who are living there. He says, “I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before God.” In Verses 5 to 10 we read the main thrust of Nehemiah’s supplication and intercession, where he pleads with God for mercy, forgiveness, and help.

But then in verse 11 the tone of his prayer changes as he says, “… give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man” – ‘this man’ being Artaxerxes, the king of Persia, in whose service Nehemiah held the office of cup-bearer.

Then in chapter 2 we see Nehemiah approaching the king and asking the king to send him to Jerusalem so that he might begin to rebuild its walls. In approaching the king, Nehemiah was actually showing that he was willing to surrender his own life, if necessary, as the king could have had his head off in a moment. Nehemiah had died to himself and was now living for God.

The essence of ‘kingdom prayer’, as we see in Nehemiah’s example, is that we move from asking God to do something FOR us to inviting God to do something THROUGH us, even if there is a price that we have to pay. We see this heart attitude also in the earlier story of Esther, who took her life in her hands when she approached the throne of king Xerxes (known to the Jews as Ahasuerus), who was the father of Artaxerxes.

Kingdom prayer may be your calling, or you may be called to it for a season, or at different seasons throughout your life.

Let’s look again at a passage that we have thought about in an earlier lesson:

It should go without saying that Jesus is NOT telling us that faith in God is a magic wand that we can wave any time we want something, then just speak it into existence.

If we think back to lesson 3, where we learned about having fellowship with God, we will remember that God expects from us COMMITMENT and RESPONSIBILITY, and that He gives us AUTHORITY and BENEFIT. If my heart is for the kingdom of God, as the heart of Jesus was when He cursed the fig tree (Mark 11:14), and my desire is not for my own personal benefit but for the benefit of others, because I am being motivated by love rather than selfishness, then God is more than happy to grant me the authority that I need to ‘speak to the mountain’ and to see the mountain obey (or, as in Esther’s and Nehemiah’s case, to speak to the king).

So, what authority is God likely to give me, and how do I know when I can ‘speak to the mountain’? Jesus provides the answer for us:

If this was true for Jesus, it is true for you and me as well.

My understanding of how this works is, that I come to God in prayer about a situation, with my own perspective on it and my own opinion about how it might be resolved. But as time goes on and, like Nehemiah, I continue to pray, with fasting if need be, and continue to engage with God, I allow God to work in my heart and CHANGE ME so that rather than me persuading God to answer my prayer in a particular way, I allow God to persuade me about what should be done, and make myself available to Him so that He will be able to work THROUGH ME to bring about the resolution. In a way, I am becoming the answer to my own prayers, if that is what God desires.

Once I have come to that place of alignment with the heart and mind of God, He is then able to give me the necessary authority to command the healing, or cast out the demon, or speak to the person in charge, or bind the powers of darkness, or whatever might be appropriate at that time.

Like Nehemiah, and Isaiah before him, I say to God, “Here am I, send me.”

Perhaps you have been praying about something for a long time and wondered why God has not been answering your prayers. If so, could it be that God is taking advantage of this opportunity to do something in you first, as He did with Hannah, the mother of Samuel, in 1 Samuel 1:27-28? Hannah initially prayed for a child because she wanted a child for herself, but she came to the place where her heart was so aligned with God’s heart that she wanted the child for the Lord.

Nehemiah and Hannah were both on a journey of prayer that led them into a place of unity with God – of one heart and one mind with Him – and, as a result, God’s will was accomplished on the earth through them (as Jesus teaches us to pray – see Matthew 6:10).

The Ministry of the Word

The word of God is likened to a sword (Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12; Revelation 1:16), which was the number one weapon for use in close combat up until modern times.

In 2 Corinthians 10:5, Paul tells us that the weapons that God has provided for us, “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ”. So the purpose of these weapons is not to put our enemies to death (Luke 9:54-56 KJV) but to deliver them from their faulty thinking and believing and to set them free to see the light, to know the truth, and to be able to receive the gospel (John 18:36-37; 2 Corinthians 4:4).

The ministry of the word is not limited to preaching and teaching, although these are two of its main expressions. (The difference between preaching and teaching is that the TEACHER wants his listeners to UNDERSTAND the word, while the PREACHER wants to PERSUADE his listeners of the truth of the word. In both cases, the ultimate goal is that the listeners would draw closer to God.)

Other forms of the ministry of the word are:

• Reading – privately or publicly (1 Timothy 4:13; Revelation 1:3)
• Learning (Proverbs 7:2-3)
• Meditation (Psalm 1:2)
• Discussion (Deuteronomy 11:18-19)
• Mentoring (2 Timothy 1:5)
• Combating the demonic (Matthew 4:4,7,10; Luke 4:4,8,12; Matthew 8:16)

And, of course, the word is not only the written word but is also the prophetic word:

Words spoken from the flesh are limited in their power, although every politician knows that what you say, when you say it, and how you say it can mean the difference between being seen as a national hero and being consigned to the dustbin of history.

However, words spoken under the inspiration of the Spirit of God have great power. We know that it was through His word that God created the universe in the beginning (Genesis 1:1-3), and that it is by means of His word that He sustains the universe now (Hebrews 1:3), and by means of His word that He will eventually slay the antichrist at the end of this age (2 Thessalonians 2:8; Revelation 19:15a).

When we dedicate ourselves to God and enter into true fellowship with Him, engaging with Him in kingdom prayer, then step out in faith and open our mouths to speak as He inspires us to speak (Ephesians 6:19), we will know the power and authority of His kingdom working through us.

LOVE

The “great command” is at the heart of the Kingdom of God. If we are truly living in the Kingdom, our lifestyle will be characterised by love – love for God, love for ourselves, love for our neighbours, and even love for our enemies (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27).

What is love, then? Is it a warm emotion that makes me feel good when I think about that other person or when I am in their presence? That is one way in which we use the word, but it is not what God means when He commands us to love. No, the love that God requires of us is this:

• To desire what is best for the other person, and to do what we can to provide it, without any thought of personal gain, advantage, or blessing.

God wants us to be MOTIVATED by love, as He is. This is what apostle John means when He says that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) – that everything that God does is motivated by the desire to do what is best for those whom He has created.

(Of course there comes a time when grace runs out and God will judge and condemn those who refuse to repent, because grace without justice is favouritism and discrimination, not love.)

Abiding in Christ produces the fruit of the spirit:

The first in the list is love, because love is at the heart of the Kingdom of God. He who lives in love, lives in righteousness (Romans 13:10; Galatians 5:14), because the essence of love is to put the needs of others before your own. The fruit of the spirit grows as we choose to walk in it. Remember, if we choose to walk in the flesh our flesh is strengthened, but if we walk in the spirit our spirit grows and becomes stronger. We grow in love as we live in love.

Brokenness makes us vulnerable, and the broken, hurting, and vulnerable person tends to focus on self-protection. It is hard to reach out in love when you are hiding behind a shield and a spear.

When you are broken, there can be a lot of fear present in your life. But remember: God has not given us a spirit of fear; He has given us a spirit of love.

When fear shows up we can say with confidence that it is not from God and choose not to give in to it, but to trust in God’s love. Fear does not come from God. Don’t walk in fear. Walk and live in love.

Learning to love begins with learning to be loved, and learning to be loved begins with learning to step into the light of God’s truth:

Our awareness of God’s love for us deepens and develops through our knowledge of Him, which is not just head knowledge, but our experience of Him as we see His faithfulness in our lives and as we see Him prove Himself to be trustworthy in our lives again and again. Our hearts then increasingly open up to Him with love, trusting Him to be who He says He is and to do what He says He will do.

The more we know God’s love for us, the more we become whole. The more whole we become, the more will we be able to love ourselves in a Godly way, and then reach out to others with the same love of God that we ourselves have experienced.

SOUND MIND

The Greek word, translated as ‘sound mind’ in the King James version, and as ‘self control’ or ‘self discipline’ in other versions, is ‘sophronismos’, a word that has no direct equivalent in English. It conveys the idea that through the exercise of wisdom, understanding, and sound reason, one maintains a temperate and self-restrained lifestyle, not giving way to passion or excess, but remaining sober and in control of oneself at all times. It could also be translated as, “admonishing or calling someone to soundness of mind, to moderation and self-control”.

A related word is found in Titus 2 verse 4 translated as “teach to be sober” in the King James version:

It has been said that it takes a steady hand to hold a full cup, and it takes a steady character to hold the fulness of the blessings and the power and the glory of God. Whereas God wishes to pour out His fulness into our lives, many times it is because of our own lack of sophronismos that we are unable to receive His fulness, or if we do receive it we are unable to contain it.

Sound mind, or sophronismos, is what keeps us safe in our strong tower, because we understand the dangers, we are conscious of the risks, and we know that if we step outside on to Satan’s home ground we will lose the battle, and that is to the advantage of no-one, except the enemy.

We might think of POWER as being the RIGHT HAND, wielding the offensive weapons of our warfare; SOUND MIND as being the LEFT HAND, bearing the shield and keeping the warrior balanced and protected; and LOVE as being the HEART, the motivation for entering the battle, and for enduring and persisting until victory is achieved.

All three of these spiritual endowments are necessary for us if we are to walk the Christian walk and arrive safely at our destination at the end of the highway of holiness – this journey that we embarked upon when we first surrendered our lives to Jesus Christ and were born again into the Kingdom of God.

Conclusion

We have been thinking about the continual conflict between the Kingdom of God and the dominion of darkness, and how we all were born into darkness and under the lordship of Satan, but can be born again into the Kingdom of God, through faith in and submission to the lordship of His Son, Jesus Christ.

We have seen how God has made provision for us not only to be rescued from darkness and evil but to become His children and to enter into fellowship with Him.

We have learned how He protects us, and how He enables us to protect ourselves; how we can be free for ever from the clutches of evil and have victory over the demonic. And we have seen how God empowers us to take the fight to the enemy and to triumph over his forces using the mighty weapons of prayer and the word of God.

You are not a victim; you are not a survivor; you are more than a conqueror, through Jesus Christ, Who loves you.

Rise up, put on the whole armour of God, and fight the good fight of the faith.

Run into the strong tower of the Name of Jesus and find that safe place in which to become whole and from which to shine the light of God’s truth and glory and goodness into the darkness around you.

Model Prayer

“Heavenly Father, in the name of Your Son, my Lord Jesus Christ, let Your Kingdom come to me; let Your Kingdom come through me; and let Your Kingdom of love, truth, and light always displace and destroy the kingdom of hatred, lies, and darkness wherever I may go and with whomever I may be.

“For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”