By being born again, we are made blood brothers of Jesus and therefore sons of the heavenly Father. We no longer have to pray only as petitioners, but as sons, who have rights, who have claims and who have the riches that the Father has for them.

edited by Laura Johnson 

By being born again, we are made blood brothers of Jesus and therefore sons of the heavenly Father. We no longer have to pray only as petitioners, but as sons, who have rights, who have claims and who have the riches that the Father has for them. Through this glorious sonship, we are also able to go past personal prayer for our own needs and cry out to the Father for our friends in need. The Father has to answer a son crying out to Him to be mightily filled with the Holy Spirit, to become like a fire hydrant for God to save cities and nations from the power of the devil.

The Power of the Kingdom

Jesus said in Luke 12:49, "I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!" There is a day coming when God is going to pour out His power like He has never done in the history of the church. There are signs of this happening all around the world right now. I’m privileged to go to many countries and see with my own eyes the amazing things God is doing. I went to Siberia just a few months ago. They’d had 87 years of militant communism, terrible oppressive communism. A few years ago, one young Ukrainian went to a region of Siberia, just one young man. There was no Christian within a thousand kilometres in any direction; they had all been wiped out. He went alone to the city of Abakan. He started planting a church five years ago. There are already twelve hundred members in this one church. He has planted thirty other churches around Siberia. He has a Bible training school in which there are 316 young people. It is a two-year course, and these young people are absolutely on fire. They are going to go out as missionaries into Mongolia and all other parts of Russia. Miracles are happening in a powerful way.

I heard of a powerful prayer meeting in Colombia in South America. A group of believers came together to pray for one whole week for their nation. As they cried out to God for their nation, the Spirit of God fell upon a town of thirty-five thousand people near to where they were praying, and as far as they could tell, every single person was converted. Think of God doing that in your city! He is a big God.

In Luke chapter 8, Jesus goes out in the power of the Kingdom. In Luke chapter 9, He sends the twelve out in the power of the Kingdom. In Luke chapter 10, He sends seventy out in the power of the Kingdom, because there is this fire in Jesus to get the world saved. Then we come to Luke 11:1, which says, "Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’"

One of His disciples came to him. If He had been giving out ten thousand dollars to everybody, there would have been a lot more than just this one disciple. It is interesting that when it comes to prayer, there is not the same rush to get hold of these things. When revival begins to touch a nation, the first sign that it is coming is people beginning to pray. Eighteen months earlier, Jesus had taught the people how to pray in the Sermon on the Mount (Mathew chapter 6). It was wonderful teaching. They were so blessed as they listened to His teaching on prayer. They all made careful notes; they bought the tapes, played them in their cars and thought, "This is the best teaching on prayer I’ve ever heard. I really must get down to do this." But somehow time passed, and they were very busy, and they never quite got round to doing it. Does that sound familiar?

In the power of the Kingdom, the twelve and the seventy had gone out. The anointing that was upon their lives was because of the prayer life of Jesus. He was carrying them by His prayer, and that allowed altogether 83 people to go out in the power of the Kingdom because one man knew how to pray. At last they began to understand that the reason that Jesus moved in such power was because of the way he prayed. They saw the power of prayer upon His life. So when He had finished praying, one person came to Him and said, "Lord, teach me how to pray." Then he made a big mistake. He said, "Teach me how to pray the way that John taught his disciples." But Jesus had no intention of teaching His disciples to pray the way John had taught his disciples to pray. He was going to teach them Kingdom praying, which is totally different. If we could pray Kingdom prayer, we could make the Kingdom come.

John did his best. He taught them how to pray, but he could not teach them Kingdom prayer because John himself was not in the Kingdom. So Jesus said, "No, I won’t teach you the way John taught his disciples how to pray, I’m going to teach you the Kingdom way." Our Father

In the first few verses of Luke chapter 11, Jesus begins to teach what it means to be a Kingdom prayer. It begins like this: "So He said to them, When you pray, say: our Father in heaven". That’s not just a polite beginning of a prayer. There is something so powerful there that I pray to God you will see it. John the Baptist never prayed, "Our Father." He could not, because he did not have that relationship to God. But Jesus always prayed that way because he had that relationship. He was God’s Son.

Thirty years ago in England, a friend of mine was in charge of a large charity, which did many good works in the third world. He had the opportunity to present the need of this charity to the Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth of England. He was given a fifteen minute interview to present the charity to the Duke of Edinburgh; if the Duke became the royal patron, my friend would have access to all sorts of funds that he could not otherwise touch. So he put on his best suit and made himself as smart as possible. He traveled to London, went to Buckingham Palace, and was sitting in the room waiting to speak to the Duke of Edinburgh. He sat there nervously, and the time came, the door opened, and he was shown into the presence of the Duke of Edinburgh.

He sat down, and was just about to begin speaking when the door flew open and a little boy ran in. It was Prince Edward, I believe, and he was a small boy in those days. He came running in and he said, "Daddy, my toy is broken."

He didn’t have an appointment; he was the son of the Duke. So the Duke said, "Excuse me, but I must attend to the needs of my son." Nine minutes ticked by while he fixed his toy; then he gave him a little pat and said, "Off you run!" He said, "I’m sorry, I cannot give you any more time. You have to complete your petition in six minutes." My friend said this, "In that moment I learned the difference between a petitioner and being a son." What kinds of prayers do you pray? Do you pray as a petitioner? Or do you pray as a son? The word "son" in the Bible has got nothing whatsoever to do with gender. The Greek word does not mean a male son; it means having a relationship of being born of that womb. Male or female, we are from the same womb. In Hebrews 2:11, speaking of the Lord Jesus, it says, "For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren". Literally in the Greek it says they are all from the same womb. Hallelujah!