Living Hope Fellowship Church

PRAYING THROUGH (1)

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

PRAYING THROUGH (1)

Preface

 (prayer)

          Mankind’s greatest need is salvation through Jesus Christ.  After that, the greatest need of the hour is that men know how to pray through!

          John 9:31 tells us, “Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.”  When we try to worship God, it is important that we be prayed through!

          How long do you pray?  Till you get tired?  Till you get bored or till somebody calls?  Until you’re called for dinner?  What if we prayed until we got prayed through instead?  Why does our schedule override our personal relationship with Jesus Christ? 

          Jesus said in John 6:37, “. . . and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”  When you pray through the joy will come!  Ask God to take out unbelief and indifference, and He will quicken you as you pray through!

PRAYING THROUGH (1)

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

          2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:”

          God’s Word is eternal, and everything written in it is placed there for a purpose.  It will never be out of date for any generation; it is always applicable.  God spoke it, and He had it written down a certain way.  The same Spirit that wrote it will guide you into all truth if you yield to Him. 

          Mankind’s greatest need is salvation.  Everything else is secondary.  Salvation was sent through Jesus Christ, by God, out of His mercy and tender love toward men.  After salvation the greatest need of the hour is that men know how to pray.  We must learn how to get a hold of Almighty God AND PRAY THROUGH. 

          Knowing God is not an intellectual experience, although it affects that.  Knowing God is a heart felt miracle!  Jesus told Nicodemus, who knew all about salvation, and the law, and about God, that he must be born again.  The man didn’t have a clue what He was talking about.  The church world doesn’t either.  They know all about God and Jesus, and they have all kinds of seminars, gatherings, groups, books, and music, but they don’t KNOW God.

          God’s name is “I AM”.  It is not “I Could Be”, or “I Should Be”, or “I Will Be”, or “I Was”.  That is why Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  His Word, His anointing, and the conditions of His will never change or vary.  That is a foothold and a foundation for those who believe and serve the living God.

          What is praying through?  Praying through is an old fashioned term which God never took out of style.  He doesn’t change with the times.  Praying through is different than just praying.  When someone bumps into you in a crowded mall, perhaps they look back at you and apologize and keep on walking.  You think no more about it, because it is a little thing. 

          However, if someone wounds you, and it goes down to the depths of your soul, and they come up and give you the same trite, “I’m sorry,” and walk away, it is not enough. 

          We are created in the image of God.  Therefore, our wounds are felt and understood by Him.  We have been offended, and the offender can say, “I’m really sorry.  I’ve had a bad day.  Will you please forgive me?”  Sometimes we give a token reply like, “Yes, certainly,” just to get them out of our face, because we can’t stand to be around them.  Then we have to go home and pray that God will get the bitterness out of our heart.  Meanwhile, the offender seems to think nothing of it.

          You are commanded by God to forgive them, so you do, but you may not trust them ever again.  It depends on the severity of what they did to you, or what they didn’t do, as the case may be.

          God forgives us of sin.  God sees the heart, and how you repent after you sin.  You can grieve His Spirit, and you can open the wounds to Christ again.  You can come against Him and not even aim to. There are things about us that are variable and things that are sinful.

          Sometimes when we get down to pray it’s like heaven is brass and the earth is iron.  God puts up a protective wall, a pavilion, the Bible says, of darkness around Him so that men can’t break through and gaze.  The only ones who can are those who have prayed through and have everything under the blood of Jesus.  

          Isaiah 59:1-2 says, “Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:  But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” 

          God can save, and He can hear the lowest and the worst, but our iniquities have separated us from God, that He will not hear.  Show God you mean business by the way that you come.  I have seen people saunter to the altar chewing gum and in the height of casualness.  I have not seen anyone like that get anything.  Come to God in repentance. 

          There are some things that you think are not even worth apologizing over, and there are other things you have forgotten.  You may think someone is over sensitive, but they may think you are insensitive and callous!  We must be sensitive to God’s Spirit.

          If you want something from God, you have to pray through.  “Praying through” is not just saying, “Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, heaven take me for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.  So, pass the salt.”

          We must pray through.  There is no way you can name every sin that you have ever done, or bring it all back to your mind.  Sometimes we don’t remember, because we have been so callous.   We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, but, praise God, when we repent Jesus washes and makes us whole!

          When you are saved and genuinely living for God, you have to learn how to pray and stay prayed through.  You have to get every sin under the blood, or God sees the iniquity! 

          Luke 14:17-24 says, “And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.  And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused.  And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.  And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.  So that servant came, and showed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.  And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.  And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.  For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.”

          The ones who were bidden didn’t want to go.  They made light of it, so He told his servants to go out into the highways and the byways and compel them to come in, that His house would be filled!  The good and the evil came in.  The Bible says that there is a time when men sleep that the tares are sown among the wheat.  You can’t tell the difference between a tare sprout and a wheat spout until the fruit comes out.  God will separate them. 

          Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a giant net.  The drawing of the Spirit gathers in of every kind, the bad and the good.  He said when the servant got home, he put the good into vessels, and he cast away the bad.  This terrifies me, because this lets me know that a human being can be drawn by the Spirit of Almighty God, get in an altar of prayer, be born again, get filled with the Spirit, but not stay prayed through and turn into a tare!  Then he can be a device of the devil. 

          Read what happened to Esau.  Genesis 27:30-33 says, “And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting.  And he also had made savoury meat, and brought it unto his father, and said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his son's venison, that thy soul may bless me.  And Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn Esau.  And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who? where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall be blessed.”

          Isaac asked Esau, “Who art thou?”  In other words he said, “I have already put out the blessing, so why weren’t you here?”  Of course everybody can say, “Oh, Jacob kept him from getting there.”  People say that the preacher or someone else is keeping them from getting there.  Those are just excuses.  Nobody can keep you out of heaven, but your own iniquities can.

          Can you imagine standing before your Father and saying, “Now I’m ready for my blessing, and I’m ready to get my inheritance,” and he says, “Who are you?” 

          Jesus said in Luke 6:46, “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” 

          Matthew 22:8-11 says, “Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.  So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.  And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:”

           This is likened to the Kingdom of Heaven, and it terrifies me.  The lord who had the great feast came in to inspect the guests.  It is easy to fool people, but you can’t fool God!  Where everybody was rejoicing in the courts of the Lord there was a man who didn’t have on a wedding garment!

          There is only one way to get to God.  John 14:6 says, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

          Matthew 22:12 says, “And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.”  He asked him how he got there, but the man was speechless.  Some have tapped into the power of God, but they have come up some other way, and Jesus said in John 10:1, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.”

          Matthew 22:13-14 says, “Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  For many are called, but few are chosen.”  This man tried to make it the wrong way! 

          Jesus calls some types of praying “vain repetition”.  Some pray much, but they are not prayed through.  They just get a “rush or a “feeling” from their effort.  

          When God sends the anointing, people are healed, delivered, saved, set free, and filled with the Holy Ghost.  People can get under the anointing of the Almighty God and prophesy.  The anointing of Almighty God stirs and moves, and the gifts of God can be stirred up.  God’s Spirit is life and a quickener.  The anointing of God can quicken flesh, and it can also move devils!  That is why devil possessed people love to come to Pentecostal meetings.  It is not to be delivered, but devil possessed people can be blessed in the presence of God if the power is just enough to entertain them and not enough to cast the devil out! 

          Consequently, some stir up a gift that is within them, yet they have not prayed through because of a backslidden condition.  The anointing in a service may be just enough to cause them to manifest a rattling devil.  So many preachers are deceived in this who think that their ministry is going on.  If their ministry has backslid, so is their altar work!  It is witchcraft! 

          It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.  It is dangerous to play around with God.  It is dangerous to come to where you know to do good, yet choose not to do it.  God is merciful and gracious.  He will deal with you with great longsuffering, but God has another side that you don’t want to see. 

          Jesus tells church people how to pray through.  Hebrews 12:12-13 says, “Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.”  A lot of people keep walking just like they used to.  You have to make a change and pray through! 

          It is harder to pray through from a backslidden condition than it is as a sinner.  A sinner doesn’t know what to do but say, “Jesus, help!”  If there is a proper amount of anointing of God in the ministry to deliver that soul, they will be delivered completely.  Luke 12:48 tells us if much has been given to you, much will be required of you.  If you were born again, you knew more.  If you don’t pray more, then you are going to have to pray back through. 

          Delusion is a terrible thing, because you can feel so justified.  We are supposed to make straight paths for our feet.  Get out of the crooked path so that which is lame won’t be turned out of the way.  In other words, leave the crooked path so that part of you that is wrong or diluted will not go on into a delusion.  The end of Hebrews 12:13 says, “. . . but let it rather be healed.” 

          Hebrews 12:14 says, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:”  You have to follow holiness.  You aren’t going to have God in your life without it, and this is how to pray through.  Verse 15 says, “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;”

          In the 33^rd chapter of Job it states that often God will allow mankind to be afflicted with strong pain in his physical body to wake him up!  God will deal that way so long, and then sometimes He will lift off and give you some space.  Then He will come again.  This is why some things are the way they are.  You aren’t prayed through.  Praying through means seeking God and staying on your knees until you get the victory!

          A lot of people tell me that they don’t know if they are saved or not.  I kind of wonder if they are, because you should know on whom you have believed!  There is a difference in faith, self assurance, and self will. 

          Look diligently.  Search in your heart, and then ask God to show you things you don’t want to know about.  Something is not going right in your life, because this and this and this is happening and you can’t get the victory, so what is wrong with you?  You take your salvation personally, so take your failures personally.  Say, “What is wrong with me, Lord?”  Don’t get melancholy.  Get a hold of God, and He will tell you. 

          I believe that there would be more prayed through people in the world if there were less remedies, drugs, doctors, and hospitals to bring temporary relief. These things can sedate us so that we don’t even have to think!  Job 33 lets us know in other words that you will get sick a while, but when you pray through you will be healed.

           God saves people by whatever means.  He will bring the backslider back by whatever means He can.  That boastful, proud prodigal son was influenced by what he went through.  He had to get down in the gutter.  He had to get down to eating pig food, and then God opened his mind for a little while to see if he would pray through.  The Bible says that he came to himself. 

          God will bring people to the place where they will come to themselves.  Compare your life to God’s Word.   You don’t need someone telling you, “Oh, you poor thing,” and you don’t need to build a hedge against God.  When you get prayed through, everything will be alright!

          The Bible tells us to look diligently lest we fail of the grace of God!  Search your heart when you get down and pray!  You are saved by the grace of God.  A lot of people are trying to figure out laws and formulas and cures, when all they need is faith! 

          It is not by words or by intellect.  Zechariah 4:6 says, “. . . Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.”  Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

          People still try to push the right buttons, be in the right place, and get the right recipe.  They boast what they know about God, but they still need to pray through! 

          Some say they pray every day, but how long?  “Well, until I get tired.”  “Well, until I get bored.”  “Until somebody calls me.”  “Until I’m called for dinner.”  “Until they come and get me.”  What if we prayed until we got prayed through?  Why is it that our schedule overrides our personal relationship with Jesus Christ?  Why is it that we don’t pray through?  I mean to really get on our faces and pray until we get the answer!  The Bible says that if we don’t pray believing, we can’t receive!

          Jesus said that His words are spirit and life.  When you get filled with the Holy Ghost it is spirit and life.  As you build up yourself on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, life comes upon you.  There is no life in the church or in your soul, because there is none or not enough prayer!        

          Those who do pray all the time can teach until people know a great deal, yet they can be like 2 Timothy 3:7 - “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  Sometimes it is because their ministers have not prayed through.

          I found a strange thing.  For a variety of reasons, there used to be times when I wasn’t in my right spiritual condition, but the gift of discernment still worked.  We fail at times, but the gift of God never fails.  That is why we have to stay prayed up and prayed through!  The gift of God is salvation through the blood of Jesus!  It is Jesus literally and manifestly in every believer if they are prayed through first, and then prayed up.

          Sadly there are those who can have a gift operate, and they are backslid.

          I Samuel 16:14 says, “But the spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.”  That was judgment.  Some people get devil possessed because of willful sin.  The Bible says that Saul tried to kill David on several occasions.  He even tried to kill his own son.  This king was head and shoulders higher than anybody in the land, but he had a problem.  Yet, when he got around Samuel’s anointing Saul fell on the ground and prophesied.  The gift still came upon him, but he prophesied naked. 

          That is why people in the church are so confused.  They see people talking one thing but doing another.  Their lifestyle looks like the devil, but something seems to be moving in the altar, and it is confusion. 

          People can know all things about the Word of God and still be lost.  Lucifer fell because of his brilliance; his intellect; his brightness.  The Bible says his wisdom was corrupted by reason of his brightness.  Read it!  He was too smart!  There is nothing wrong with being brilliant, but make sure that there is a proper balance with humility and being prayed through!  Folks, it is not with your head, nor your strength, nor your might, nor your pull, and not with your salary; it is with the Spirit of God that we make heaven our home! 

          Indifference is one of the most powerful tools that the devil has in his arsenal.   When I want something from God, I’m going to go get it, even if I have to go over the top of you, through you, around you, or under you!  It doesn’t make any difference.  If you are in my way, you are sinning!  If we stand in the way, keeping somebody out, we are fighting God!

          Not every one who has ever called upon the name of the Lord is going in the rapture!  It is for those who are prayed through, those who are doing the will of the Father (see Matthew 7:21-23).  It is for those who love the Lord.  God will choose them, and He will say, “Come up.”  They are chosen as the trumpet is sounding!  1 Thessalonians 4:16 says, “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. . . .”

          As you live the life everybody around you will know that something has happened!  They may not understand, but they will know.  That is being prayed through.  It is not just talking it but breathing it and manifesting it. 

          Hebrews 12:15 says, “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;”  Bitterness and rebellion defiles.  When you get down and try to pray through, pretty soon part of your mind starts going into self justification.  You try to justify why you did things, or something you said.  However, James 1:20 says, “For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”  God has a scripture for everything! 

          Some of you have been in a box all your life!  The tragedy is that some of you have been out of the box, but you have gone back in the box, and don’t even know it.  The world is actually bigger than this!  Your life must not be consumed with just your church walls!  It is not the only place where you can get the anointing of God and where the gifts of God operate.  It is not the only place where you can pray through! 

          I find that often when I get discouraged I will start thinking up my own plan.  I think, “Well, since God isn’t listening to me I will go do this.”  Sometimes we just start dreaming out our own plans.  We think, “Well, since this didn’t work, God must not be in it.”  No, pray through!  All the promises of God are “yea” and “amen” to anybody who has prayed through. 

          God’s Spirit brings an anointing.  However, so does a counterfeit, because the devil is still anointed!  He still can come as an angel of light!  He can dazzle you, and he can brighten you!  I know a man who had a near death experience.  He was fading out, and the doctors brought him back.  He said that he saw a great light, so he isn’t afraid of death anymore.  He saw an angel of light.  The man is demon possessed, but he goes to church every Sunday.

          He is chained, and he is in a box, and he needs to pray through!  Then God could show him what that light was when he was dying.  It was actually the glow of hell.  It glows until you get in it, and then it is pitch black!  It is like going to Los Vegas.  There is a lot of glow, but when you get in it, it’s pitch black.  It is the same with gambling boats.   There is a glow outside, but sin is inside. 

          Pray through.  It doesn’t matter what you have accomplished.  Jesus said in Mark 8:36, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” 

          Many are defiled by the root of bitterness.  Simon, who used to be the sorcerer, believed and followed Philip and Peter around, as they were praying for people to receive the Holy Ghost.  Simon said that he would give them money for the ability to impart the gift also.  Acts 8:23-24 says, “For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.  Then answered Simon, and said, Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me.”  Simon was smart enough to know that he needed to pray through. 

          God’s Word says in James 5:16, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”       

          Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”   That is talking about Christians, because sinners don’t even come to the glory of God. 

          Psalm 51 gives us a good example of praying through, and so does Psalm 142 and Psalm 69.  David tells how inside your heart suddenly something will begin to stir.  You are down on your face praying, and all of a sudden all those weights, all those bands across your chest, on the back of your neck, and down in your hip, will just flow out like water! 

          Have you ever been stressed out and beaten?  Have you ever been just as tight as a string on a violin?  A lot of people come to church to get their fix, but then they aren’t two feet past the door, and they are just as bad as when they came in. 

          David said in Psalm 51:12, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”  Have you got joy?  I know some people whom you would have to tickle nearly to death before they would even chuckle!  They would cry at the drop of a hat, but you would have to pry a laugh out with a crow bar, because there is no joy.  Joy and laughter, and fun are not always the same thing.  You can have joy, and faith, and confidence toward God when all hell is against you! When you pray through the joy will come, and it will remain when everything else is gone! 

          It may take all day, all night, or even much longer to pray through, but Jesus said in John 6:37, “. . . and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Somewhere we aren’t prayed through, and the devil has a place in us.  We need to ask God to take the unbelief and indifference out of our hearts, and ask Him to stir us.  He will quicken us and deliver us as we pray through!

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail  livinghope@hughes.net

www.livinghopefellowshipchurch.org

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.