Powerful Prayers to help develop the real you
Who is the real you?
Will the real you step forward?
Is the truest part of your being the one that is best or the one that is worst?
I will now describe my recent life experience.
The battle between the inner man and the flesh (Romans chapters 6-8)
Let us read these two key passages in Romans
Romans 7:17 As it is, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me.
18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do— this I keep on doing.
20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law;
23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God— through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
8:2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
So how do we decide who has the ‘say’ in each situation, the inner man, or the flesh?
The inner being is our deepest person.
The inner man is our true selves.
The inner man delights in God’s laws.
The inner man does not need to be crucified unlike our flesh.
How to get power into our inner man
We saw that Romans chapters 6-8 cover the battle between our inner man and the flesh nature in our lives (detailed commentary on these chapters can be found at the bottom of this article).
It is clear from these chapters that victory is available to our inner man through Jesus Christ.
In that split second, when we are tempted we need to remember our true identity, which says
'this is not the inner me; this is not what I really want'.
We can also use the Word of God as a sword against the temptation.
Walking in the Spirit; we need to know how to put Jesus’ victory into practice in our lives and how to walk in the Spirit rather than the flesh (see the series called How to walk in the Spirit) .
Something that helps give the victory to the inner man is when there is specific prayer that we might be strengthened in our inner man.
This prayer can be made by yourself and by others.
The Apostle Paul gives four model prayers to equip the church in the inner man that we can rise above the temptations and circumstances in life and be fully fit and equipped for God’s purposes on a daily basis.
Ephesians 1:17-19a
[I ask] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you
a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes
of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what the hope of His is
calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what
is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.
Ephesians 3:16-19
[May the Father] grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened
with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in
your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may
be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and
height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God
(NB Trinitarian nature of prayer)
Philippians 1:9-11
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge
and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order
to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the
fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise
of God.
Colossians 1:9b-12
[I ask] that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom
and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to
please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the
knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might,
for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the
Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.
These are not puny prayers but mighty life changing prayers that will help the real you (the inner man) step forward for God.
Conclusion
1. Would you dare to pray these prayers for yourself and others?
2. Do we need to be strengthened in the inner man this year?
3. These are the prayers that Paul prayed for the church from his heart knowing what they really needed.
Amen
Personal Prayer