Charles Capps - Releasing the ability of God through prayer

Contents

Introduction

It is not my intention in this book to do a comprehensive study on prayer. In no way is this book to be considered the last word on prayer. I will be the first to tell you if your prayer life is successful, I wouldn't change it . If not, I would admonish you to change.

This book is not meant to be controversial; however, it will probably be contrary to everything religious you ever heard about prayer. Yet it is my responsibility to share it with you. You can do what you want to with it. If it is too strong for you, put it on a shelf, but don't forget where you put it because you will need it someday.

So many people have prayed to a God that was hard to entreat, slow to hear, one that had to be pestered day after day, until one day maybe He would be persuaded to answer their prayer. When the truth came, they found there was no such God in the Bible. For God says, Ask and it shall be given you ... everyone that asketh receiveth .

The Lord spoke to me several years ago saying, "Forget your preconceived ideas and study My Word as though you had never heard it before." When I began to do that, I learned some things, and then I had to unlearn some other things. So much of my religious thinking was contrary to the Word of God.

Someone has aptly stated, "If you have been on the same road for twenty years and haven't arrived at your destination, you should know you are on the wrong road."

I traveled the road of religious praying for more than twenty years and seldom ever saw any results. I was confused, disillusioned, sick in body and supernaturally in debt. I was hanging on to the last knot at the end of my rope. I had prayed, pleaded, begged and complained, but the answers had not come. I had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. I was on the wrong road. When I found the truth (the Word of God), the knowledge of that truth set me free.

The reason for this book is found in 2 Timothy 2:24-26:

And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

I recovered myself out of the snare of the devil by acting on God's Word, and you can do the same. Read this book prayerfully; it is dedicated to your freedom.

The Ability of God

Every born-again believer has God's ability abiding in him in the person of Jesus Christ; yet few have ever learned to release that power. God is in you to the degree that His Word is in you. God and His Word are one. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). The Word was God in the beginning. The Word is still God today. God's Word is Lord over every circumstance of life. Our minds cannot grasp these truths without the revelation that God and His Word are one.

Jesus said, If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you (John 15:7). We stagger at the love and faith which God has invested in humanity. If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode (our home) with him (John 14:23).

The spirit must be expanded by the rebirth to receive such awesome truths as Jesus spoke when He prayed to the Father: ... the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as WE ARE ONE: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one ... that the world may know that thou ... hast loved them, as thou hast loved me ... And I have declared unto

them thy name, and will declare it: t hat the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them (John 17: 22-26).

Hebrews 1:3 literally says Jesus was the exact expression of God's substance. He was the exact personality of God. "I and my Father are one." Truth personified. The Word was God ... upholding all things by the word of his power. God released His ability in Word form and it upholds all things. The whole universe stands in obedience to His Words. God's ability is in His Word. We must learn to release that ability within us by rightly dividing His Words.

Jesus said, These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace (John 16:33). Many of God's people are held in bondage because the enemy has perverted their minds to the great truths of the Word of God. God gave you His Word to put you over. He designed it to work in every area of life. His Word works and it knows no time or distance. It is spiritual law.

God's Word Rules

God's Word is alive and powerful. (Heb. 4:12.) It is living substance. It is law in the world of the Spirit. It is more powerful than the laws of nature that govern the universe today.

The law of gravity works continually. You won't wake up some morning on the ceiling, wondering why the law of gravity isn't working! No, you can rest assured that when you wake up in the morning, you will be lying down; you won't be lying up on the ceiling.

Just that sure are God's spiritual laws and they work continually. They work the same yesterday, today and forever. They will never change. The Word says, God changeth not.

God's Word never changes, but it changes things.

Laws of God

Let us take off our religious eyeglasses and look at some things that Jesus said concerning prayer. There are laws of God that govern and uphold all things. I want you to see that the laws we will be referring to are God's laws and they are spiritual. God is a Spirit and He created the universe. Everything you see has been created by a Spirit.

Now sometimes people get the idea that this is the real world and the spirit world just somehow doesn't exist because they can't see it with the natural eye. It is like a fog out there somewhere. Many people believe in it like they do Santa Claus. The spirit world is the real world. This is not the real world. The Word says, the things which are seen are temporal (2 Cor. 4:18). In other words, they are subject to change.

But the word of God ... liveth and abideth forever (1 Peter 1:23). God's Word is a living Person (Jesus) and abides forever. The reason you have eternal life is because you received the eternal Word into your spirit and He is life. The Word is eternal and He produces after His kind.

Scriptural Bondage

Today there are many Christians that have been deceived by the evil one. Satan is called the deceiver. His ability is in his deception. Jesus stripped him of his authority and power. God's Word will always strip the armor from satan and bring to light his deception.

Deception is his only armor. God's Word will penetrate that armor and expose him.

Many are held in bondage by certain scriptures. Have you noticed that the devil tried to put Jesus in bondage by quoting scriptures? Now the enemy knows a few scriptures, but he will quote them out of context to bring you into bondage.

If you take scripture out of context, you can make the Bible say anything you want it to say. For example, the Bible says that Judas went out and hanged himself. Then in another place Jesus said, "Go thou and do likewise." If you take these two scriptures out of context and put them together, you could say that the Bible says it is all right to go hang yourself. Well, some folk have. They have hung themselves spiritually by doing so.

Certain scriptures hold people in bondage because they seem to say things which they do not say at all. If you learn to rightly divide the Word, it will produce liberty. It will also produce power and strength in your life. Just as food will produce physical strength for the body, so will the Word of God produce spiritual strength for the spirit man. We need to feast on the Word and be doers of it.