Purpose vs Prayer
Prothesis is a Greek word translated as “purpose.” In studying on prayer and intercession, I can never get away from the understanding of His “purpose” in my life, our church and our region. Understanding the purposes of God is key to prayer and intercession.
In prayer and intercession there is declaring, decreeing and dictating the words authored by God. When we do this we begin to come in line with His purposes. Of course, this is done by faith. Hebrews 12:2 says, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the AUTHOR and PERFECTER of our faith…” He is the Author, the one who wrote it all out before time began. He wrote our victory plan. He authored our success! He also perfected it. Your life is a perfect creation of God, full of excitement, adventure, accomplishment and lots of love!
God authored this life of ours. We call it destiny; He calls it purpose. The work of the author can be seen in the study of the word “purpose.”
2 Timothy 1:9 “…who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace”.
Romans 8:28 “…And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”.
As I mentioned earlier, “purpose” comes from the Greek term prosthesis, which means to set forth the purpose of something in advance. Words like exposition and thesis explain the meaning of prothesis very well. In other words, God wrote His plan, His exposition, and His thesis about you before you were ever born!!
Psalms 139:16 says it this way… “your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be”.
You have the right to experience this destiny. God has purposed your purpose. But it will never be understood without an understanding of prayer and intercession. The author has authority. He authored your purpose. Prayer simply gives to you His authority to live out what He has already purposed!
So… Have you considered what your purpose is?
That’s very true, our understanding is so limited or small that the only way to know our purpose in through prayer. When I was in the world without Christ as my friend and saviour, I couldnt understandsome thing around me, my boss was Christian, i was taking classes in a Baptist church, so many sign but because my lack of knowledge and purpose it just passed in front of me at that time.
But now I give thanks that I found Him and in that process my purposed purpose is getting more clear and since I pray, decree and declare the will of God which is my purpose and motivation to get more to a point of overflow so I can spread the Word of God and the Good News of Jesus to this region.
This is my purpose that God planted in my heart and I’m willing be processed by the set man of our house in order to reach that.
Thanks pastor.
Javi… A very good understanding of what I just wrote. Good stuff!
Yes I have thought about my purpose and every time I think about it I thank God He is going to help me reach it. I know He is faithful and before I was born He already wrote it. As you said pastor when we pray and seek the face of God, He starts revealing us more about who we are. The principal is the more we know about Him, the more He will reveal us who we are. I have to pursue Him more and more and God will show me the right paths to reach it. I don’t want to do it by my own strength but I want to follow Him and hear His voice at every move I make.
“God has purposed your purpose. But it will never be understood without an understanding of prayer and intercession.”
Prayer isn’t optional for the believer in Christ. To see God’s purposes accomplished, we must pray. As Paul states in 1 Timothy 2:8, “I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer.” Prayer is not an office or a gift. It can not be found in Romans 12 or Ephesians 4. Prayer is not something thats left up to a “Prayer Team.” We must ALL pray! Prayer keeps us properly aligned to His purposes. We are prone to get out of alignment spiritually. Prayer matches our will with God’s will. God is a constant, He never moves. We do. We tend to be all over the place. However, if we pray regularly, our lives will line up with His will and purpose. As humans, we have to practice this process of alignment regularly. Perhaps that is one reason why Paul admonished us to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). When we are continually in communication with God, we will stay in alignment with His will and purpose.
Since the outworking of God’s will and purpose is so vitally dependent upon prayer, we can further conclude that prayer isn’t optional for the believer in Christ. As Jesus began teaching His disciples about prayer in Matthew 6, before He gave them the Lord’s Prayer, He instructed, “When you pray, don’t do this,” “When you pray do this,” “When you pray, say this.” It was always “When you pray,” never “If you pray.”To see God’s purposes accomplished, we must pray!
Wow……Purpose. To start, I have learned what my purpose is and I am so delighted to have recognized my purpose in God. Though prayer and intercession has a lot to do with our purpose, I have learned (by my personal experience) that we would never learn or understand our purpose until we have walk through the raw rooted foundation of “Process”. Process has a large part of the composition in Purpose. You See – It was through process, prayer and intercession is that I learned and understood my purpose. What is my Purpose? To be the “LIGHT” to those in the darkness. To be the voice of “HOPE” for those who feel lost. To speak “LIFE” to those who feel dead. Not only to be a walking testimony, but to show the world that GOD is real and alive as he always was. GOD is the way to true happiness and love. But above all – Going through the raw sacrificing walk of “Process” is what feeds me knowledge to my “Purpose”.
Jesus had a PURPOSE and it was through his raw excruciating PROCESS is how “WE” learned how to live in victory and glorify from that PURPOSE. That was knowledge that we were fortunate to learn from.
No knowledge is ever knowledge without lack.
Thank you Pastor Manny. I am afraid you are about to wake up the giant in me LOL. Again Thank You.
EXCELLENT THINKING and communication… Wake up GIANT!!! Wake up!!!!
purpose is what God has gave you to fulfill on earth and prayer is put in play to help you fulfill it with faith and seeking God and feeling his presents for help and gudience to fulfill that purpose.
I know that when pray the lord he will tell you what your purpose is going to be in life. so its always going to be prayer because it will get you to the next level.
I was reading this book called fresh wind fresh fire that my pastor recommended. Jim Cymbala describes how they would do outreaches in the city and have different teams. He was saying that through prayer God put a burden on someones heart and they would tell the pastor their burden and come up with a plan to reach that burden. It is amazing the people who got saved from a simple burden that was birthed through prayer. God has already set forth his will. He is just waiting on us to pray and connect with it. I pray that as we pray our heart begins to break for what God’s heart breaks for and God reveals to every person their purpose. I pray that I pursue God in prayer and strengthen my relationship with him. May we just surrender our lives to God and continue to pray it through. One day we will begin to cross off a list what we prayed for according to God’s will and see that he was faithful and answered it. Matthew 18:19-20
“Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” God did not say if we pray according to his will that it might be done, but it SHALL BE DONE. Let’s pray, act and believe that God’s will shall be done and individually and corporately God’s purpose shall be accomplished.
Awesome response Jazz!!!! My prayer is that one day we get to the place where we too will write a book about our church!
I totally agree that without the understanding of prayer and a truly intimate relationship with God we will never be able to distinguish His purposed purpose for our life. Pastor Johnny points it out; Jesus wants us to pray, pray and pray like never before. We must hunger daily for more of his presence. The closer we get to him the closer we get to our purpose.
We’ll do that very well this weekend!
I consider my purpose everytime there is a need in the kingdom of God or in the life of a believer that I want God to meet through me. I have the prayer part down, I have researched the scriptures pertaining to my purpose and I often remind God of what He has said and not that I deserve it. So whatever the hold up or the process is, I have to just be consistent in prayer and faith, knowing that if God said it, it’s a done deal.
I’m standing in faith with you Andrea!!! You will connect and execute your purpose! It’s all in the timing of the Lord!
I love the quote, “God has purposed your purpose”. He’s the author of our purpose. And the other quote, “Prayer is not an option…”. How can we know God’s purpose in our lives if we don’t ask Him? Thanks for sharing these timely messages, cous!
You are welcome Bernadette!
Knowing that I have a responsibility to walk out the purpose He has given me pushes me to seek Him more; I know that one needs the other one I can’t find my purpose outside of prayer and I can’t pray just to pray without being focused on my purpose – prayer does help me in those times that I feel my purpose becomes blurry due to lack of pursuit or being stagnant.
Yes Mel…. It all starts with prayer. Prayer helps us understand purpose and once purpose is realized then we work our prayer around it. But prayer without purpose is just religion! GOod word Mel!!
God’s purpose is my life because He gave me life! The way I keep
connected to Him is through Prayer.
One of the ways Pastor Manny is by your blogs. I think we are finally
grasping the importance of it.
For all of those that have answered your blog: I want to thank them.
This is very important way for us to keep in unity, stay connected and
and we totally honest with each other on how we feel. God knows this.
Yes Cindy!! Iam very thankful that people are responding…. I see such a maturity in them! I too am very proud!
This message is very true and powerful. I think we all can agree that prayer is very important and that we should never underestimate the power of prayer. But understanding the purpose and praying are two very different things. We could be praying for a better house, car, status, temporary things. What makes a prayer powerful is the purpose behind it. To explain myself better one of the things I am strongly praying is for passion and hunger for God. Recently, I was challenge by a non-believer friend to see how long was this phase going to last in me. Truly, I am scare because I don’t want my faith and my believe to be a phase but my respond was “Get behind me Satan, because you are not thinking in the way of the Lord” (Little did he know I was trying to quote scripture) that was last month and still I am here and strong. I keep praying for passion and one of my purpose is to never let go of this phase.
No phase here Carla…. You are planted firmly in the house of God and you are growing deeply in the Kingdom! Keep pressing, keep studying… stay hungry!! God will show you great and wonderful things!
Do not quick Carla, 10 years ago I was told that I was just going through a phase. I must be very dysfuntional because I am still in it. 🙂
Sweet… Great word of encouragement.
Purpose has become abundantly clear. The journey and the purpose are not the same thing. Our purpose brings Glory to God in two ways:
1) Personally. He has fashioned us to love him with all our heart, soul, and mind. In that way He is glorified inwardly.
2) Before all men. We are His light and the world craves our leadership, and wants to know God… though not knowing of Him. They will know through the Glory of His Church. We are His Church.
Our corporate and individual stories (a.k.a. destiny) come as a by-product of pursuit to manifest His Word. The Bible explains any “what just happened here?” questions in response to revelation, illumination, miracles, signs, and wonders. The whole system leads all men to the threshold of two options: Believe or Reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
So…we should pursue purpose with urgency, remaining forceful and focused on the what and why, not the how. He will make that clear at an appointed moment, plus…all things are possible with Christ.
Only through prayer may we be Truly edified, sustained, and nourished in Christ Jesus. The perfection of the Trinity gave us the Holy Spirit, yet Jesus’ work was not done. He himself still intercedes for us, while the Holy Spirit gives us what to pray. Nothing everlasting is accomplished without prayer.
GOOD STUFF David!
Because our purpose is in God’s heart, prayer is the only way it will be revealed to us.
Once, when I was praying about my purpose, I clearly heard the Holy Spirit telling me to relax and just pray and keep walking because that would be the way He would reveal it to me. In other words just I should just live a normal Christian life and He will make sure I will get to my final destination…
Great Keller – Relax and walk sounds pretty good to me!
I don’t know completely what my purpose is but I know what direction it is I need to be headed in. I know that I have been called to Africa, which to this day I am still battling. My purpose is not clear to me as of yet but I know where it is I need to headed. I must continue to seek God’s face in prayer so he can continue to reveal what it is my purpose is.
May your purpose become more clear!!!
Purpose is always on my mind. I think there was a time when all I did was run from it. Silly huh. I had a God’s General moment. I layed it all down and gave in. I pretty told God I’ll do it, whatever you want, I’ll do it and I’ll go. That was at our first prayer escape last year. Prayer is key. That’s where your growth comes from, continuously seeking God and his word.
So proud of you April!
God already has it written but we have to discover our purpose. I don’t think it’s possible without prayer. It’s like a locked diary, you need a key to open it and see what lies within it. Prayer is that key that will unlock and open the purpose of our life.
Lord help us to the key….
I dont think a day has gone by that I haven’t! When you are young (I still am I know!) anyways when are young you often place your life on a small one way street that must follow this path, this way and this time. And often the bath is long and vast but determined. And as you grow older you realize their are quite a few hurdles and even quite a few more… Life is not always exactly what you think it will be. And that is good because God has so much more than you can put down a small little path. You might have to take a few “detours” to get there but the truth of the matter is that every detour connects to the larger pathway of your entire journey to an often unspecified destination. Our purpose is to run the already victorius race and take as many others with us as we can. My purpose is set. Simple and I’ll take whatever may come and trust that He knows what He is doing. Always!
I agree 100% with you Pastor. Prayer and purpose go hand in hand, I can say this because I live it. As soon as I decrease my prayer life my vision gets foggy and begin to become numb to the Spirits guidance towards acomplishing His purpose. What the Lord is dealing with me now is Effectiveness in His purpose. I don’t only want to do His purpose but be most Effective doing it.
Thank you and I honor you Sir.
Very good thoughts…