Stop Praying Like A Widow, And Start Praying Like A Bride

Stop Praying Like A Widow, And Start Praying Like A Bride
By: Graham Cooke
The time for importunity is over.  The time to come into a whole new season of praying, a new strategy for prayer, and a whole new way of praying is approaching.
I believe the Lord is saying we are to stop praying like a widow and start praying like a bride, as Esther exemplified.  A new kind of watchman bride is emerging.  Jesus, who ever lives to make intercession, changed the rules in Gethsemane when He invited His disciples to “watch with Me”.
 
Now the young lady pleased him and found favor with him.  So he quickly provided her with cosmetics and food, gave her seven maids from the king’s palace, and transferred her and her maids to the best place in the harem.
Now when the turn of each young lady came to go into the King Ahasuerus, after the end of her twelve months under the regulations for the women – for the days of their beautification were completed as follows:  six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices and the cosmetics for women – 
The young lady would go in to the king in this way:  anything that she desired was given her to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace.
And the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she found favor and kindness with him more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti 
(Esther 2:9,12,13,17)
 
 
You Feel Like Nothing Is Happening
There are some who have been interceding for quite a while, having a traumatic time recently ~ even to the point of feeling like your anointing is lost.  It feels like you have not been getting through.  You feel like all the things you have been praying about have not changed and you wander what is going on.  Part of you has been blaming the enemy.  You have almost experienced a drawing back from the style and type of prayer you have been used to, but you don’t know why.  It is because He is making you a forerunner of intimate prayer.  He has been taking you out of one type of prayer which has been very successful for you in terms of ministry, and He is bringing you into a whole new season of prayer.
Something has been happening in your own life that you have not understood, but hopefully you will understand after today.  Many years ago, I believe it was Derrick Prince (in the 70’s & 80’s) who said, the prophets cannot go further until the psalmists take their place.  There was an incredible anointing for new songs and for new song writing.  New forms of worship began to emerge in the earth ~ beyond what we were accustomed to.
As those new forms of worship began to take hold, the prophetic anointing began to increase.  I believe we are in this place now where the Lord wants to say to us that the apostolic can not come forth until the intercessors take their place.  Paul was often found saying, Pray for me that an effective door will open for the preaching of the Gospel.  (see Colossians 4:3)
Intercessors Must Take This New Place
I believe in many cases, even revival and reformation may be held up until the intercessors actually take this new place before God.  Real warfare in the Kingdom is always concerned with the battle for intimacy.  This is a time to come off the battlements and enter a new place of intimate petition.  Too many intercessors have become exhausted and burned out.
We need to understand in these days that the intimate love of the King provides a shield of favor.  There is a place in the beauty of Christ that is a protection against the enemy.  I believe the Lord would have me proclaim a season of intense favor, specifically for intercessors.  And there is a year of beauty treatments, a year of deep and profound love, a year of exquisite peace, a year of excessive joy, and six months of oil.
There is a softening of the heart, a coming into a new place of surrender in love for God where your life is a constant and consistent application of His love, His grace, His kindness, His peace, His rest.  It is a new place of joy and deep bubbling up of happiness in Him.  You are embraced by the Spirit, bathed in His personality, and baptized in the Spirit to a deeper place of bridal intimacy.
These six months area time of cleansing.  God is going to use the oil to cleanse all your pores and so there is a joyful refining that will take place in this season.  Then following after the six months of fragrant presence of the Lord through all the norms of your life, you are going to put on Christ in a fresh and more exhilarating manner.  You will see Him in everything, and you will learn to be conformed to Him and to His nature.
Transformed!
You will be transformed in your minds and your personalities, and it will no longer matter what life, people, or the enemy throws at you.  Like Elisha in 2 Kings 6, you will look beyond the natural and discover the Kingdom of God at work all around you.  When he was surrounded by an army of the enemy he looked beyond all of that and saw an army of the hosts of heaven.
The Lord says if you will conform to Him in this season, He will teach you to look beyond the natural into the supernatural realm so that you can see the Kingdom of Heaven at work.  As we see Christ in everything, our hearts will delight in Him and the desires of our heart will be fulfilled ~ desires for life and for ministry.
Come Off the Wall and Rest
God is raising up an army of Esthers – an army of bridal intercessors.  The Lord says this is a time to come off the wall and rest in the throne room presence of God.  This is going to be a difficult thing for some people to do – to come out of one type of ministry into the discipline of resting in God.
But, the discipline of rest must be entered – a time of laying down ministry to gain fresh intimacy.  In this next season, He is going to prune your ministry in order to produce bridal love and affection, and out of that bridal intimacy, a new intercessory power will emerge.  The Lord is saying it is time to stand down, step back, rest, and be prepared for a greater revelation personally of who God wants to be for you.
Watchmen from the Secret Place
In this beauty treatment a fresh ministry will emerge ~ one that is earthed in favor and worship, where we will become watchmen from a secret place of the heart, and throne room prayer will take on a whole new substance.  In this season you are not going to be looking for the enemy.  Your place as watchman is to look for the return of the King.  You are going to look for the coming of the King, and you are going to be found saying, “The King is coming! The King is coming!” Then there will come a day after that when you will be found saying, “The King is here! The King is here!”
In that context, as the King comes, the enemy will come after Him, and as you proclaim the coming of the King, the Lord will say to you, “the enemy is coming up by this way.”  So like Jahaziel in the time of Jehoshaphat, when the Spirit of God came upon him, he identified where the enemy was and what he was about to do.  You will have prophetic revelation in order to confront the enemy because the King is here.
Your eyes will be opened to discover more of the King as you learn to inhabit the best place in the house.  Your bridal intimacy will produce power to save a nation, and in this next season you are to inherit a new and abiding strength.
You Must Pray in a Different Way
God will bestow upon you the joy of being loved, and you will have fresh favor in bridal petition because the love of the King will provide for you to enter a stronger place of entreaty.  In this year, everything you need in order to enter the presence of the King properly will be bestowed upon you, and the Lord says, “now, you must pray in a different way.”
Don’t pray with importunity like the widow before the unjust judge ~ pray with delight and favor.  In this season, you are not to pray against the enemy, but you are to let your delighted prayers cause the King to stir Himself, and come down.  There is an edict coming forth from the King of kings that will cause protection to come forth over and throughout the body of Christ to the earth.  This anointing will cause you to intercede with such joy that the Glory of God will fill the earth.
Beloved, what is the Glory of God?
Moses said “. . . show me thy Glory!”  God said to him, “I Myself ,will make all My goodness pass before you . . .” (Exodus 33:18-19)
Because the Glory of God is that He is good, you are going to be proclaimers of the goodness of God to the body of Christ, to the community, to the city, to the region, to the state, and to the nation, to bring down the power and the goodness of the King.
As bridal intercessors, it is your joy and delight to pray for the goodness of God to come down so the church can learn that we really do overcome evil with good.  The Holy Spirit will give you anew strategy for prayer and for praying with perseverance, one that contains delight and laughter, full of ardent and passionate love, bathed in fresh worship, and coming out of a deeper closeness.  Like John, disciple whom Jesus loved, you will be lying back with your head on Jesus.  He will present you with an opportunity to petition Him from restful intimacy.  Then you will have a powerful confidence in your abiding rest in the Lord.
Prayer
Father, I pray in the name of Jesus and ask that the anointing of God would rest upon us right now.
Father, I ask that any tiredness, weariness, or feeling of being burned out would leave as You refresh, restore, and renew us, in the name of Jesus in this next season.  Lord, where we have been attacked by the enemy, I pray in the name of Jesus for a new season of favor for our health, finances, growth in the Spirit, families, and our homes ~ that you will bring us into a place of optimum rest and favor in the name of Jesus.
Father, I ask that we begin to learn the disciplines of rest, and we come into a new place of passion for Jesus and worship unto Him, so that our focus will turn from the enemy to the King.
In Jesus name, I ask that we will be found one of a whole new generation of Esther intercessors being raised up to live in the presence of the King and to have favor with Him, and that we may come into Your presence not as a widow but as a bride who is loved.
As we come and petition you from this place of intimacy, closeness, and worship, please speak into our hearts Your favor and blessing.  Not only will our prayers move Your Heart and move Your Hands, but may the words we receive from You be like a balm of Gilead across the nation ~ that churches may rise up in a fresh favor.  May the attention of the church be taken off the enemy and put on the King of kings, and that we might be beholders of the Most High God.  As we behold Him may we become as He is.
Lord, I pray that the stronghold of God and the power of the majesty of the King of kings will come down into the earth so that His feet will touch the earth where we live.  And as He touches down among us, His goodness will spread out from among us so we will touch and impact our communities and overcome evil with good.
Father, I pray blessing on all these intercessors as we assume a new position before You in Your presence so You will pour out Your Spirit upon us and take us into a deeper place of relationship with You where favor awaits, where blessing awaits, and where a new revelation of God awaits us.  We ask these things in the mighty name of Jesus.
Amen.
Father, I pray that there will be a performance of all the words You have spoken to us in body ministry.  I thank You, Lord, that You have prepared a place for us and will enable us to inhabit that place in this next season.  Father, may we come into our inheritance and into that favor and blessedness that You have set aside for each one of us.
I pray that none of us will lose out in this next season, but that we will gain our inheritance.  For those of us who feel like we have been robbed for many years, I pray that you will restore what the locust has eaten, in the name of Jesus.  I ask You for a time and season of unprecedented, unparalleled favor of God to be upon us that we may come into a whole new place of spirituality, a whole new place of walking with You where we will be convinced of the bigness of God ~ that God loves us, and God is for us, and He wants us to succeed and is on our side.
I ask that a revelation of Your love for us fill every single heart, in Jesus name. Amen.

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