and Proclamation Archives - Truth Is The Word

Pray it then Say it – The Potential of Proclamation

Jesus did not pray for any of the people to whom He ministered.

I mentioned this in a previous article, but it is worth repeating. Jesus prayed when He was alone with His Father. However, when He was ministering to people, He did not pray. He identified their need, often made physical contact with them, and then either proclaimed them healed, or instructed them to do something which indicated their restored condition. I believe that the reason Jesus didn’t pray for the sick was simply because He knew the will of His Father and realised that He already carried the anointing to minister healing.

Prayer is a form of communication, not an agency for spiritual ministry. When we pray, we talk to God. We might ask for anointing, or we may inquire if something is according to divine will. Prayer therefore precedes spiritual ministry yet we habitually pray for the sick when we minister to them, instead of simply ‘healing’ them. We don’t seem to know the will of the Father. We are unsure whether it is His will that we heal the sick, so we lay hands on the infirm, interceded for them by praying to God for mercy, and then add “if it be thy will”. Jesus, on the other hand, knew His father’s will, and so He had no need to pray when ministering; He simply went ahead and healed.

But how did He do this? He often healed by laying His hands on the afflicted people but in most cases He spoke authoritatively; He proclaimed healing.

I am not suggesting that words contain power. An essential tenet of magic is that certain words have the power to control nature, to transform physical elements, and to evoke spiritual beings. I do not believe this. However, words do play an important role in the process of transferring power. The Roman Centurion of Luke 7:7 understood the power of authoritative proclamation because he said to Jesus, “say the word, and my servant will be healed.” His servant was in another town some distance away, yet the soldier knew that Jesus was capable of healing with a word.

Consider the actual phrasing of the Lord’s commission to His disciples. To the twelve He said:“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8).

Luke adds the insight that Jesus ‘gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases.’ (Luke 9:1) To the seventy-two other disciples Jesus simply said, “Heal the sick who are there…” (Luke 10:9) He did not say “pray for the sick”, nor did He instruct them to ask God to heal. He gave them both power and authority, and then told them to get on and DO it!

Having said all this, it would be unwise for me to end this short article without a caution. There is a difference between proclamation and presumption. I really don’t think that we should pronounce people healed (past tense) unless we have received a genuine gift of faith to do so. This would be presumptuous. However, I do believe that we should proclaim healing (present tense) when we minister to the infirm. Suitable proclamations would be “receive healing in Jesus name” or “be healed in Jesus name.”

So, to put it all together, what I am proposing is that we first pray for both power and direction, and then in faith receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit. After that we should minister to those in need by humbly yet boldly proclaiming in Jesus name. Prayer – Power – Proclamation. If you would like to read this, and my other books, please visit www.truthistheword.com or click HERE.

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The Prerogative of Power

As with Jesus, so with Peter, and so with us.

In another article, I wrote about the privilege of prayer; in this article I want to touch on the prerogative of power. The dictionary defines the word prerogative as ‘a privilege or right enjoyed by a person occupying a particular position.’ As sons and daughters of God we, who are born again in Jesus name, have the privilege of asking for, and receiving, power from on high. God imparts this power to us so that we can grow to be like Jesus in both character and ministry.

Jesus ministered in the power of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit came upon Jesus at his baptism. Luke records this event, and then continues with the words: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert.’”(Luke 4:1). Then in verse 14 he states that “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit”. Further on in verse 18 Luke records how Jesus took his mission statement from the prophet Isaiah when he quoted, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me.”

The Gospel of Luke contains some significant references to Jesus’ wonderful anointing. Luke 5:17 records how, ‘One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick.’ The Holman’s Christian Standard translation has: ‘And the Lord’s power to heal was in Him.’ Luke 6:19 is even more specific where it records that ‘the whole crowd was trying to touch Him, because power was coming out from Him and healing them all.’

Jesus possessed power to heal; he was full of a supernatural energy which issued from him and dramatically affected those to whom he ministered.

Luke Chapter 8 records the incident when the woman touched Jesus’ garment and received healing. Jesus sensed that someone had touched him and responded to his disciples’ protestations with the words “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” (vs. 46).

Jesus was truly anointed, but we know from Luke 24:49 that this same anointing is also the prerogative of all his disciples. The Lord instructed his first disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they had received power from on high. This they did, and the book of Acts records how they went out in the power of the Spirit and ministered supernaturally in Jesus’ name. Peter is an example of this.

Powerful Peter

At the Gate Beautiful, a beggar asked Peter and John for money, and Peter responded to this request with the words, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” (Acts 3:6). He did not have money, but he did have something of greater worth that he could give freely to the man crippled from birth. This is a significant text, because it reveals something of how Peter understood the anointing. He didn’t say, “I don’t have money but I will pray for you’” Instead, he said “but what I have I give to you.” What did he have? He had anointing from on high, the power that the Holy Spirit had imparted to him! Peter understood that he possessed this power – “what I have”. He also understood that he had the ability to impart this power to others – “I give to you.”

Then Peter addressed the lame man and said, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” He evoked the name of Jesus to indicate that he was acting under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he said, “walk!” He did not pray, he proclaimed. He was acting on what he had observed in the life of his master. Jesus prayed often, but he did not pray for the sick. Let me state that again; Jesus did not pray for the sick. He ministered healing. He laid hands on the sick and healed them. He pronounced them well and they became well.

As with Jesus, so with Peter, and so with …us – Prayer, Power, and Proclamation. To read more, CLICK HERE

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The Privilege of Prayer

Leave a Comment / Articles, Published Articles / Christopher Peppler

In an article I wrote for Joy! in August 2009 I asked why we, as Christians, are generally so passionless and powerless. I suggested that one of the reasons was that so many of us are confused concerning the nature of prayer, the stewardship of spiritual power, and the need to proclaim in word and ministry – Prayer, Power, and Proclamation.

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that we have separated these three elements instead of integrating them into one – three yet one. Conversely, we tend to confuse these elements with each other.

A well known adage is, ‘there is power in prayer’. But there is no power in prayer. Prayer precedes power, but in itself, prayer is simply communion with God. Prayer is the communication component of our end of an intimate relationship with our heavenly Father. God is certainly powerful, but how can the act of speaking to him have power in itself? Yet preachers often tell us that prayer ‘works’ (another expression which confounds me). Powerful results of prayer are simply evidence of God’s response.

We confuse the response with the request when we say that there is power in prayer. Even more seriously, we confuse the object with the method. God is the one to whom we pray (object), and prayer is the method of communicating with him. Yet prayer is foundational to both power and proclamation.

In prayer we express our dependence on God and our willingness to proclaim His will in word and deed. In prayer we ask Him to fill us with power from on high so that we are able to powerfully proclaim His word.

As children of God, we also ask Him, in prayer, to exercise His power to achieve what we perceive to be valid kingdom endeavors. It might appear on the surface that our prayers have released power, but it is actually God who chooses to manifest His power. An example of this is in Acts 4:29-30, where the disciples prayed, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” Verse 32 records that “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” The disciples prayed, and God responded with a mighty demonstration of his power.

However, the text also reveals that God went further than just demonstrating His power; He also filled the disciples with spiritual energy so that they could speak His word with boldness. This is the second level connection between prayer and power. God may respond to prayer with direct acts of power, but He may also respond by imparting power to us, His children, so that we can act in His name. This seems to be the Father’s preferred response to our prayer requests. Why? I think it is because He wants us to grow up to be responsible and mature members of his household; children who have learned both dependence on Him and responsible stewardship of His authority and power.

As always, let’s take our queue from Jesus. Matthew chapter seventeen records how Jesus went up a mountain to pray. Whilst He was praying, He had a dynamic spiritual encounter, heard the voice of the Father, and received an illuminating anointing.

Jesus then went down the mountain and cast out a demon from a suffering boy – Prayer, followed by the receipt of power, followed by proclamation.

Prayer precedes power, and power is essential to effective proclamation. To find out more, please download my latest book ‘P3’ concerning power from on high.

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Inverted Kingdoms – The topsy turvy kingdom

Leave a Comment / Articles, Published Articles / Christopher Peppler

It is hard to run when you are walking on your hands! What a strange thing to write. What I mean by this is that it is very difficult to move fast in a world that is up-side-down. This would be very much like walking on our hands in a normal world. It would be even harder if we could use our legs but we had to run on the ceiling. Yet, actually, we are living in a world that is topsy turvy. From a spiritual perspective, it is completely inverted; it is up-side-down, and in-side-out, and back-to-front!

Many years ago, some psychologists conducted an experiment with a group of volunteers. They gave them each a special pair of spectacles which turned everything they saw upside-down. The poor guinea pigs had to wear these spectacles all the time. In a sense, the spectacles turned them on their heads. I can imagine the confusion, frustration, and physical discomfort they must have experienced. After many days, something wonderful occurred. Their brains made the adjustment and simply turned the visual inputs 180º. Suddenly their worlds were the right way up again. Of course, you can guess what happened next. The researchers took away their spectacles, and the world once again turned upside-down!

In a figurative a sense, we are born with spiritual inversion contact lenses. We don’t know we have them, and we have no idea that the world we see is actually upside-down. Because we are born with these lenses, we feel at ease and we operate reasonably well. Then, later in life, we start to realise that things are not as they should be. We become aware of a spiritual world, parallel to and interwoven with the material world. We observe that this spiritual realm seems to operate entirely differently to the world into which we were born. Our discomfort becomes intense when the Holy Spirit regenerates us and we are born again. As we read the Bible and learn to listen to the Holy Spirit, we become painfully conscious of the differences between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world.

The values, principles, and priorities of these two kingdoms are inverted in relation to each other.

For instance, in the Kingdom of God, victory is through surrender not conquest. In the material realm, we live and then we die; in the spiritual realm, we die in order that we may live. In the world, we focus on getting, but in the Kingdom of God, we focus on giving. Jesus teaches us to love our enemies instead of hating them. It is all so much in contrast to the way the material world operates.

Enlightenment, in the Christian sense, is the experience of taking out those spiritual contact lenses and perceiving the world as it really is. Spiritual transformation is the process of adjusting to the new reality, and learning to live differently. At first, it is disturbing and disorientating, but after a time we are able to make the adjustment. Our reality flip-flops, and we become conscious that we are walking the right way up in a world that is upside-down. Jesus said, “My Kingdom is not of this world…” (John 18:36). He also said that “the Kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is’, or ‘There it is’, because the Kingdom of God is within (among) you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

The problem occurs when we still live as if the world is the right way up; as though it were the same as the Kingdom of God. We try to apply physical laws to spiritual realities – and we fall off the ceiling! We attempt to apply business principles to church life, and we end up with a church that looks, feels, and is … just like a business, not a church.

We need to realise that the principles of the Kingdom of God are very different to the principles of the kingdoms of this world. We must also acknowledge that our thinking needs to change radically, if we are to operate successfully in the realm of the spirit.

Finally, we need to commit to speaking and acting differently, and then diligently practicing until the 180⁰ shift occurs. I have written a book in an attempt to help us all to come down off our spiritual ceilings and walk tall through the Kingdom of God – It’s called P3: Prayer, Power, and Proclamation and you can obtain or read it at www.truthistheword.com

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Prayer, Power, & Proclamation

Leave a Comment / Articles, Published Articles / Christopher Peppler

“Why do we see so few genuine miracles in our day?” Have you ever asked this question? I certainly have. We see a lot of hype, psychological manifestations and pseudo-miracles, but my heart aches for the real and the holy. It’s not that God has decided not to ‘do miracles’ anymore so the problem isn’t His. Could it be ours?

It is not only the scarcity of miracles that concerns me, it is also the disconnect between how we live and what we observe in the lives of the early disciples. Those men and women who made up the first century church were passionate about Jesus and powerful in the way they ministered in His name. When they prayed with one heart and mind the place they were in shook (Acts 4:31). When Peter’s shadow fell on the sick they were healed (Acts 5:15). They were devoted to God and to each other (Acts 2:42-47). When they preached they did not call for a ‘while all heads are bowed’ secret response to the Gospel. Instead they proclaimed boldly, “Repent then, and turn to God” (Acts 3:19). They were different to people around them and different to most believers today.

In 2005 George Barna conducted a survey among United States Christians. Among other things, he ascertained that:

The typical churched believer will die without leading a single person to a lifesaving knowledge of, and relationship with, Jesus Christ.
Churched Christians give away an average of about 3% of their income in a typical year, and feel pleased at their ‘sacrificial’ generosity.
The likelihood of a married couple who are born-again churchgoers getting divorced is the same as couples who are not disciples of Jesus.

So the terrible reality seems to be that most of us are no different to unsaved people. I guess if we want to minister miraculously as Jesus did we need to live as He did – differently. If we want to experience what the early disciples experienced then we need to be like them.

These observations have troubled me deeply for several years and so I set out to try to identify the root causes of my dilemma. Of course it is a hopeless quest to try to simplify such a complex issue and to reduce it to a set of prescriptions. However, my main findings are as follows:

Most of us have an essentially materialistic mindset. We need to realise that the Kingdom of God is shifted 180^o to the kingdom of this world (John 18:36). What is more, it is the worldly kingdom that is up side down, not the Kingdom of God. Problems occur when we still live as if the world is the right way up; as though it were the same as the Kingdom of God.

To act differently we need to first think differently. I believe that as we start to see the world as it really is, from a spiritual perspective, we will begin to speak and act as the early disciples did.

We also have a terrible misconception of who we are. Most disciples of the Lord Jesus see themselves primarily as servants, even slaves. Our favourite prayer is “Lord, please use me”. Yet the New Testament revelation is that we are sons and daughters of the Most High God. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1). The wonderful passage in Galatians (3:26 to 4:7) that sets out our true status ends

with the words, “so you are no longer a slave, but a son.’ Of course we serve, as bond-slaves, but service defines what we do, not who we are. We are sons and daughters who serve. There is a profound difference between a son and a slave mentality. A slave defines who he is in terms of what he does. A son determines what he does because of who he is.

Perhaps the underlying reason we are generally so passionless and powerless is that we have failed to realise just who we really are. Consider some of the implications of sonship:

The privilege of prayer, both personal and corporate.
The prerogative of revelation.
The potential for empowerment.
The response of service.
The catalyst of revival.

That’s what I want! What about you?

My third major finding was that so many of us seem to have become confused concerning the nature of prayer, the stewardship of spiritual power, and the need to proclaim in word and ministry – prayer, power, and proclamation.

Regarding prayer, we have largely reduced what is meant to be intimate communion with God into stylised categories such as petition, intercession, and so on. When did prayer stop being simple heartfelt communication, and start becoming a series of formulas?

We also seem to have confused prayer with proclamation. For instance, some folk address demons, and even the devil, as part of a ‘prayer’ meeting. Others deliver mini sermons to others in the group over God’s shoulder. Do you know what I mean? “Dear Lord, let us….” Or even as blatant as lecturing others and then adding “and so Lord, help us to….” We also routinely pray for the sick when Jesus actually instructed us to heal the sick. Have you noticed that Jesus never prayed for people who needed His ministry? None of the accounts of Jesus casting out demons or healing, record Him as praying for the afflicted person. He simply instructed, proclaimed, declared, and imparted healing and life.

Regarding power, a lot of people either effectively deny that God still imparts ‘power from on high’, or limit it to an initial, once off, ‘baptism in the Spirit’ experience. Yet surely one of God’s responses to our prayers is to empower us so that we can grow up as His children to be and do as Jesus did. And that is what we can experience!

Finally, having prayed and received power from on high, we need to proclaim in word and deed – we need to speak and do in the power of the Holy Spirit and under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, perhaps as we restore the dynamic unity of prayer, power, and proclamation we will live our lives in Christ more as the early disciples did and experience more of the miraculous Kingdom of God..

If you would like to read more, have a look at my book P3 – Prayer, Power, and Proclamation by CLICKING HERE

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and Proclamation

Pray it then Say it – The Potential of Proclamation

Jesus did not pray for any of the people to whom He ministered.

The Prerogative of Power

Jesus ministered in the power of the Holy Spirit

Powerful Peter

The Privilege of Prayer

Inverted Kingdoms – The topsy turvy kingdom

Prayer, Power, & Proclamation

That’s what I want! What about you?

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