Get the Vision, Pray It In – Episode #618

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Get the Vision, Pray It In
Episode #618
10-07-2018

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow

When God gives you the vision for something, it still has to be prayed in, but what does that look like? What does it mean to pray in the promise of God?

Martha:
We’ve had a call for many years.  A lot of people have come and gone. But the call is and the promise is a disproportionate power to an insignificant entity. And we are an insignificant entity. But we have not come to the disproportionate power. John has said to me numbers of times, “We’re stuck and we’re not moving.” And I would say to him, “It because we’re not praying.” And he would go through, we’d go through and come back again and say, “We’re just not moving” and I would say, “We’re just not praying.

So I have been asking the Lord for I don’t know how long, “How is it that we as a cooperate group need to pray? And what do we need to pray and how?” And the Lord has answered me with a book. It’s called Prayer Circle or something like that. And as I read it, I realized I’ve done it a few times in my life and it has worked.

When I was in the Episcopal Church and I didn’t, we didn’t know the pastor was into mediums and later he divorced his wife and married a witch. And he was the pastor when I was being filled with the Spirit. So I knew that nobody knew the Lord there, because he wasn’t preaching Jesus. He was preaching good works. And so I prayed, “Lord,” and I prayed it a lot. I had been filled with the spirit sovereignly, individually. You know the story. I would pray, “Lord, open the heavens and pour out on this church the same, the blessing that you gave me.” The blessing was the Holy Spirit but I didn’t know the name. But that was my prayer. “Open the windows of heaven as You did for me and pour out Your blessing.”

That preacher left and another one came in who got saved and filled with the Spirit after he was ordained a long time. And he was filled with the Spirit and very quietly and wisely, he carefully began to orchestrate introducing the church to the Holy Spirit.

And so we had a layman weekend where people came and gave witness to speaking in tongues and being baptized in the Spirit. A Wednesday night group was formed that people came from all over Atlanta because there was so much going on in healings and everything and we were in such… The Holy Spirit was so moving that people learned about it. Even nuns came. And I would say, “I’m so glad you came.” And she said, “I’m so glad you came.” (chuckles) And it was a wonderful time.

Then there was the Honduras story, which I prayed, prayed the, over and over again, “Jesus is Lord.” And I prayed it over the whole valley over and over and over again. And it exposed the problems and closed down the mission and we left the mission.

But the original intent… A nun had bought that property and made it a paradise with a vision of having a retreat center for Honduran pastors and churches, because they meet wherever they can. And most of them don’t have church buildings that they own. And so that was this nun’s vision. And, and that became mine without knowing about her vision. My vision was a retreat center. Well, it has been built. So God had me circle that and fight for that retreat center and it was build by the local Hondurans and is functional. And they’ve asked me to come and do a conference there.

So there have been times that I have prayed this way. And I’m very excited because one of my mentors is Henry Gruber. And he’s the man who walks and prays. He’s walked every street in Israel. He’s walked through gunfire in Lebanon and it didn’t touch him. He has a truly miraculous life and visionary life. But he walks and prays where God tells him to go.

And that’s what I’ve done with the Methodist Church in Dahlonega. And when I lived there with Kenneth I did… Lots of times I’d go round and round that church, because I’m called there and I’ve had a vision of revival there. And that vision has died in my sickness and in my not being able to be at that church. But it is being resurrected to this level of prayer. The resurrection is, in my life, is prayer; how to pray so effectively and it’s very simple. It’s just getting the promise or the vision and you pray circles around it.

And the story… You will read the story of the man that discovered this from a legend in Jewish writings. A legend of a man who drew a circle… They had a drought in Israel, which they had often in the centuries past, and he sat down and he drew a circle around himself and he said, “I’m gong to stay here and I’m not leaving but I’m going to pray until it rains.” And he was known as the one you go to when there’s a drought because the rain happened.

And he traces… The most powerful one that I feel the Holy Spirit on is the story of Jericho. That they marched round and round in silence. And I think it was some six hundred thousand people marched around Jericho. I’m not sure. I’ve read that figure but I don’t know that it’s accurate. Anyway they walked around and around and prayed silently I think for seven days. And when they shouted the walls fell down and the city surrendered.

So that kind of prayer is our image. We’re going to be like Jericho. And we’re going to get God’s vision of what He wants—a vision of the vision.

And this man started a teeny church on Capitol Hill in Washington. From that beginning, that little beginning of maybe twelve people at the service, he has coffeehouses; he owns millions of dollars of value in property that God gave them the money for. God gave him $25,000,000 for missions. And all they do is pray circles around everything. And it’s not so much a literal circle, it’s you just stay at it. It’s a matter of persistence. You just stay at it and you keep praying and you will not give up.

John:
The thing I love about it is that the message that you gave on prayer, you gave two messages. And those two messages you and your booklets, obviously, you talk about hearing, listening, hearing and praying what you hear. It’s not about praying what you decide. It’s not praying about what you even want, really. It’s really not. It’s… You can, you can…

Martha:
It’s not what you see.

John:
Certainly not what you see, at all. But you’re literally waiting for the vision, the heavenly vision. God saying, “This is what is in heaven that I want to do on earth.” And then you stand. And the thing that shocked me so much about the message of the book that you related to me, I’ve not read the book yet, but the thing that you related to me about it is that you’re not particularly praying, “God do this, God do this, God do this, God do this.” You’re not telling God what to do. You’re praising God for He wants to do.

Martha:
Thank you, John. That’s the simple premise. I’ve heard it from three different sources. The simple thing of prayer is you get the promise and you glorify God. If you get sick and you get the promise of healing, you no longer ask for healing. You just praise Him for healing.

John:
Actually it’s anti-faith to pray for healing…

Martha:
Exactly!

John:
…when you’re sick.

Martha:
It’s unbelief.

John:
It’s unbelief. If you have a word, if you have a word for healing, and God says, “I am going to heal you.” And then you say, “God, please heal me, please heal me, please heal me.” Well, then you’re praying in…

Martha:
In unbelief.

John:
In unbelief and fear, really. And what he says and what you’ve said is that you get the thing and then you stand and then you praise God for it, you thank Him for it.

Martha:
Um hmm.

John:
You stand in the place of gratitude and thanks that…

Martha:
Thank you, John

John:
…He is going to do it.

Martha:
That’s the essence of it.

John:
That was the essence for me. That’s what my take-a-way. Just the gleanings. I mean really you just told me a little bit about the book. You’ve not read it. You’re read stories in there and I’ve been, you know, impacted by the stories. But the thing that really… That’s what hit me. That’s what hit me. All of a sudden I said, “Oh, my gosh! I’ve haven’t done that at all. I continually go…

Martha:
“It’s not here. It’s not here, so…”

John:
“God please do this, God please do this.

Martha:
Um hmm.

John:
And really that makes a relationship with yourself rather than a relationship with God. If you have to hear what God does and says, that’s a relationship. It’s relational. You’re listening to Him and then you’re thanking Him for it. You’re saying, “Thank You! I am thanking You ahead of seeing it.” Which is faith is the evidence of…

Martha:
Things not seen.

John:
Not seen. And so that, that’s so huge to me. So that I can say, “Ok, this is— God, this is what You have, You have said in my heart. This is what You’ve said would, would transpire here.” Even on the podcast that went out today I’ve, I’ve been asking people, “Hey, would you please pray that the floodgates would open. There’s a veil on the floodgates.” Maybe the veil is the fact that it needs to be pierced with thanks. I don’t do that. I say, “God, please, PLEASE do this.” He’s already told me He wants to do this. “Thank You, God, You’re doing it. Thank you, God, You’re doing it.”

Martha:
Um hmm. And see the books that we have, we need to go and pray and pray that there will be open doors to the books. That they will go out. Not, it’s not that the books would sell. It’s that the message would get out.

And even the man who’s so becoming so famous, as the expert on prayer ­– his name is Erwin something – he prayed for Billy Graham’s crusades. He’s the one, he’s the one that got Billy Graham. Now there were other men. There were other visions but he’s the one who prayed. And someone said to him, “Erwin, what’s the secret of prayer?” “Get the promise and plead the promise,” he said. “Get the promise and plead the promise.”

Well, I think we have many promises that I’ve just probably lost. But the one we have is a disproportionate power to an insignificant entity. So we’re going to pray for the disproportionate power to be ours.

John:
Ok. We’re not going to pray for it.

Martha:
Ok.

John:
We’re going to thank God that He’s given us the…

Martha:
The disproportionate power.

John:
…disproportionate power. We have it. He’s done that for, for almost…

Martha:
I see.

John:
The entire. It’s the way we think.

Martha:
Yes, thank you! Everybody correct everybody that does what I just did! (laughter) “We’ve got to pray for this!”

John:
No, we don’t have to pray for it. He has told us almost the entire time, if not the entire time that I’ve been here, that that was the reality.

Martha:
Um hmm.

John:
But I’ve never thanked God for that reality.

Martha:
Me neither.

John:
I’ve never said, “God, thank You that You choose to do it through a insignificant entity and that You are giving us, that You have given us…” See, it’s hard!

Martha:
Um hmm.

John:
“…that You have given us the disproportionate power.” And another thing that he (Batterson) kind of goes back over and over through the book he says, “Listen, this isn’t the ‘name it – claim it’ thing.”

Martha:
Yes. Right.

John:
You know, I’m…

Martha:
You don’t decide.

John:
I’m so resistant against that.

Martha:
Yeah.

John:
I think, it’s repulsive because it does it without God.

Martha:
Um hmm.

John:
But he, he…

Martha:
It makes yourself god.

John:
It makes yourself god.

Martha:
And the “name it, claim it” is I decide what I want and I decide God’s going to give it to me.

John:
That’s right.

Martha:
And that’s not the way it works.

John:
That’s not it at all.

Martha:
It’s not what it… And I’m glad he put that in there!

Get the Vision, Pray It In – Episode #618 – Shulamite Podcast

When God gives you the vision for something, it still has to be prayed in, but what does that look like? What does it mean to pray in the promise of God? John and Martha paint a clear picture of prayer that pleases God.