When I was in year 5 at Primary School I saved up and bought a small aquarium from the local pet store just around the corner from where we lived. It was a very small aquarium measuring (in today’s metric system) 28cm long by 22 cm high and 20 cm deep. Like I said, a very small aquarium. The smallest in the shop, actually. But it fitted nicely on the bookshelf in my room. Soon enough I was able to purchase some aquarium gravel, an aquatic plant and a solitary, small goldfish – and some fish food flakes. I was really pleased with myself, even though the set up was very spartan, to say the least. I cared for that goldfish and it grew, but very, very slowly and not by much over the next twelve months. According to the “fish inches” rule of thumb of aquarium keeping at the time, my aquarium could not handle another fish safely without the water becoming quickly toxic.
That small fish explored the extremities – if you could call them that – of the small aquarium. It was a pretty cramped environment even for one small fish. It swam back and forth, up and down, from front to back hundreds and hundreds of times a day. It had nothing else to do. Back and forth, up and down, front to back – these were the limits of that goldfish’s tiny world.
There came a day, just over a year later, when I had saved up enough money to purchase a much larger aquarium. This one was 91 cm long, 61 cm high and 45.5 cm deep – a three-footer. Now I could add more fish. I duly set up the new aquarium with more gravel, more plants and this time with a filtration system which more than doubles the fish inches calculations. I then placed my goldfish into the new aquarium. Within moments I noticed a very strange thing. That goldfish swam in a cube-like space of 28cm x 22cm x 20cm – that was it. Although in this huge aquarium, the fish swam within those tight, invisible confines. I called my sister to look at what was happening and we were both laughing in astonishment. I then netted the fish and placed it in a different part of the new aquarium – the same thing happened. It swam within the confines of a 28cm x 22cm x 20cm space. Then I had a brain wave. I dropped some fish food flakes into the aquarium outside the fish’s learned, confined swimming space. Within seconds the fish was after the food, well outside it’s conditioned swimming space. After that, I threw in food each day at different places in the aquarium and, well you guessed it, the fish was soon exploring the boundaries of a much larger environment than the one it was used to. I think he was quite happy after that – and the fish grew considerably over the next six months, too.
The goldfish had become conditioned to its physical limitations. It’s thinking was limited by conditioning. The dimensions of the first aquarium were all it knew. The imposed dimensions were its little world. All its powers were limited by the physical environment – including growing.
In the same way, we “born agains” who have been reborn to conquer and to reach greater heights, have been conditioned – for good, or bad – in the church environments in which we grew up. Or, if we came to faith later in life and joined a local church, we have been conditioned by those environments – physical, doctrinal and theological, and also ecclesiological (i.e. inherited understandings of the workings of the church etc.). We are affected, for better or for worse, by our discipleship environments – spiritually speaking, many of us have learned to “swim” within very tight confines. Even when we attend a different church later on the conditioning can be hard to shrug off.
Our sense of conditioned limitation, both as individuals and as churches, does not represent the true extent of our God-given power and calling. Especially when it comes to prayer and intercession. We have even conditioned ourselves, to a lesser or greater extent, to the limitations of unbelief. We have even conditioned ourselves into accepting Satan’s resistance and his continued hold over geographic places, people groups, families and even churches – or we just put up with it. Why? And this has prevented the conquerors (that’s us!) from capturing these areas of spiritual control and pulling them down.
It's time to break free.
The apostle Paul proclaimed - at full volume, it feels like when reading it – that we are the conquerors. We have been born again to conquer, not to be conquered.
Romans 8:36-37 (NIV)
As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
He is saying that the world considers us “easy meat”, lambs to the slaughter, weaklings, pathetic, of little consequence. The apostle says, “NO!” – he is so emphatic – “in ALL these things we are MORE than conquerors through Christ who loved us.”
Why does he say this in his letter to the Roman church? No one knows for sure but, at the time of writing the Christians were under horrific persecution by the Roman Emperor, Nero. It was horrendous. The church looked weak and feeble, and perhaps in a worldy sense they were – they were no match for the Roman authorities, and considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But the apostle says, “NO!” In the spiritual realm the people of God are more than conquerors. They just didn’t know it. No one is sure what their conditioning was, but Paul calls them to break free of whatever wordly, fleshly limitations they were looking at, and pray. Intercede out of our true identity – who we are as God’s people. Paul also wrote to the church at Ephesus encouraging them to intercede. They lived in a major city where Satan had an enormous stronghold at every level of society and culture. Twice he encourages the church to not think within the confines and limits of what the physical situation looked like -the conditioning out of which they had been saved - but to break free in prayer and intercession. The first encouragement is here …
Ephesians 3:20 (NIV)
“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, …”
He is talking about the power of God in His people breaking free of worldly thinking, assessments and imagination limitations in prayer, confidently claiming what is necessary in the spiritual warfare, even if that looks impossible. Again in chapter 6 he presses the point after teaching them how to put on the full armour of God and take a stand (6:10-17) in the spiritual battle, and concludes by saying …
Ephesians 6:18-20 (NIV)
“And pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.”
“Prayers and requests” here is translated from two words for prayer, “proseuchē” (προσευχή), which generally refers to prayer in general, and “deesis” (δέησις), which specifically means supplication and request – all kinds, says Paul. Back to Romans, and Paul uses another word for prayer different in meaning. The word “enteuxis” (ἐντευξις), which is the noun form of “entugchanó”, is used to describe the act of interceding or making a petition or legitimate claim on behalf of another. There is a difference here in meaning to the other words “proseuchē” and “deesis”. For example, Paul uses the word “entugchano” to describe Holy Spirit's intercession on behalf of believers.
Romans 8:26 (NIV)
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”
Three words for prayer, each different. So, whether we pray generally, or we petition the Lord, or we intercede, we become conquerors in the making – we break free from any previous limiting conditioning. But here’s the thing about intercession. Intercession is the spiritual warfare pointy end of prayer – it is weaponised prayer used by conquerors who know they are going to win! Intercession is loaded with supernatural power when two or three are gathered together in Jesus’ Name. In that very moment - when we are interceding - Jesus is there in Spirit interceding with us.
Romans 8:27 (NIV)
“And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God.”
Now, if we have Holy Spirit interceding on our behalf, even when we pray with what we do know, how can we possibly be defeated? With Him present in our intercession gatherings we are more than conquerors – MORE! That is, beyond earth and into heavenly realms.
Our church is gathering to intercede on Sunday mornings at 9:00 am. The ministry of intercession is growing strong. More and more people are coming along – it’s exciting, it’s hot, and many are learning to break free of limiting conditioning they’ve inherited as we trust the Word of God. The momentum is building, faith confidence is rising.
Join us when you can, or at the same time from home before you get to worship.
We’re breaking free, as conquerors do. We were reborn for this reason … to be more than conquerors.
Join us!
Ps Milton