War Room (movie): five Lessons on prayer.

I got the opportunity to watch the movie War Room in January.  Before this, all my friends were talking about it and I couldn’t wait to watch it.  I cried, laughed, cried a little more and was inspired in that order. War Room has been my favorite movie this year.

War room isn’t just about getting you entertained; though it manages to do that, it is also a movie about the power of prayer.

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If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. (2 chronicles 7:14)

Prayer at its most basic level is humility. Its telling God I can’t do this on my own, I need your help. In this verse, He has promised us… if we will humble ourselves…if we will pray, then He will answer us.

From this movie, I gleaned so much on fighting …God’s way and winning battles on my knees

1. This is my favorite place; I call it the war room.

  

She has cleared out her closet and made it into a prayer closet.

When you pray, go into your most private room and, closing the door, pray to your father, who is in secret; and your father, who sees in secret, will reward you in the open. (Matthew 6:6)

A prayer closet is a place that creates an intimate atmosphere where God can come and meet us.  It’s my way of saying “I have made a place for you, come join me.” And every time I enter into this place, He is always there waiting for me to show up. It makes prayer all the more special.

It doesn’t have to be limited to just a room, it could be out in nature maybe a favorite spot by the river, or by the trees. Wherever you feel most comfortable at. That should be your prayer closet.

Make Him a special place in your life and see if He won’t come and fill it.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and him with me. (Revelation 3:20)

2. Victory will not come by accident. It’s intentional and it’s deliberate.

Imagine a soldier who goes to war without preparing. He sure won’t be expecting to bring home the spoils.

To do combat in prayer, one has to develop a strategy for victory.We don’t get into spiritual warfare without a strategy. The enemy will take us out. In prayer, God gives us the strategy for victory as we submit ourselves to Him.

Here is an example,

And the Lord said to Joshua; see I have given Jericho, its king and its mighty men, into your hands.

You shall march around the enclosure. This you shall do for 6 days and on the 7^th day you shall march around the enclosure 7 times and the priests shall blow the trumpets. When you hear the trumpets, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of Jericho shall fall down in its place. (Joshua 6:2-5)

When Joshua followed God’s strategy, he had victory over Jericho.

What an unusual way to fight.  But God doesn’t think like us or work the way that we expect Him to.

I imagine the men going back home and their wives asking,

“Honey what did you do today?”

“Well, we went around the wall of Jericho.”

“Did anything happen?”

“No. nothing happen not even a stone moved.”

It must have looked foolish but on the 7^th time of the 7^th day the wall of Jericho came tumbling down and Israel got their victory.

God will often give us an illogical instruction before a miracle.

Sometimes, you might have to do something that goes against logic but when you trust God and obey, you will see amazing results.

3. Prayer is first and for most surrender. The goal of prayer is never to change God’s mind about what you want. The goal of prayer is to realign your heart with what He wants to do, for His Glory. Prayer changes the person who prays.

This I learnt the hard way. For a period of time I felt called to intercede for my future husband (check it here). It didn’t take long for me to realize that the call to pray was more for me to surrender to God’s plan than it was for him.

Yes, there was a need to stand in the gap for him but before I could do that, God realigned, my heart with his will.

Until we surrender, we will just keep going around the same mountains over and over.

In surrendering our will, we get God’s will for our lives and finally realize we have actually received what we were really looking for all along.

I see prayer as an invitation from God to come and be changed.  He beckons us, “Come and see the way I see things. Come and look through the lenses of my eyes.  Come and look at it from a different perspective.

 We now have a different picture, the people we thought needed changing don’t anymore (if they change its fine if they don’t its fine too) because we saw that a change was needed in us too. The circumstance that we once hated isn’t so bad because our perspective has changed.

Our perception has changed, and we discover it is in our ability to change the valley of weeping into a place of springs.

4. When we pray we get to participate in what God is doing on earth. We become co-laborers with God. He wants us to participate in His plan of drawing people to Himself. He wants us to collaborate with him. What a privilege!

This is what intercession is all about us working together with God to see His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It’s here we learn that we cannot do God’s job and He sure will not do our part.

  We understand the authority given to us, and the responsibility that comes with that authority.

Here is our authority.

Behold I give you authority and power to trample over serpents and scorpions ,and over all the power that the enemy possesses ; and nothing shall in any way harm you. (Luke 10:19)

Here is our responsibility.

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, the things you don’t allow on earth will be the things that God doesn’t allow. The things you allow on earth will be the things that God allows. (Matthew 16:19)

Now the million-dollar questions.

What are you allowing in your life that you shouldn’t be allowing?

Have you allowed the devil to rule your life?

When you allow strife in your house, you are allowing the enemy to rule. When you allow disease to be in your body, you are allowing the enemy to reign.  When you allow the enemy to destroy relationships that God has ordained for you to have, you are allowing him to rule. When you allow him to steal all your joy, he is indeed reigning in your life.

Get in your prayer closet, release the Authority that God has already given you, and tell the devil to exit from your life. Crying won’t change it, begging God won’t change it; pleading with the devil won’t do it. The only thing that changes it is by releasing your authority on earth.

5. Its in prayer that we learn that sometimes the best gifts is not only the easy times when everything is going our way. The best gifts come to us sometimes, disguised as painful, heart wrenching trouble.

When all you have are questions more than answers; when things seem to be getting worse the more you pray. That’s when God is really up to something because God’s initial goal for us is not to keep us comfortable and contented, but to make us like His Son. We wait for the miracles and the breakthroughs and those are good. However, right in the middle of it, God is looking at us and saying she is looking more and more like my Son.

For those whom He foreknew. He also destined from the beginning to be molded into the image of His Son (to share inwardly His likeness), that He might become the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29)

The person who cultivates a prayer life, will have victory for a lifestyle.