An Experience of Religious Prayer & A Believers Prayer

I had felt it on my heart to write this out, the experience I recently walked and the questions I kept asking God. If I am honest, I didn’t want to write this piece. I put it off a few days hoping it would somehow slip off my heart to do, but it never did.

It had came down to this question: am I trying to please man or am here to please God?

As I share the experience of what I witnessed and what God has shown me in that time, I will keep all names out and write what the Holy Spirit tells me to share with you on a religious prayer and a believers prayer. My hope is that this piece being written will shine a light of the works of God and how important it is we walk closely with Him, submitting to His will, praying what the Spirit tells us to pray and be obedient in the process.

We (and by we I mean my family and others) recently had to make a visit. It was a visit that changed me deep inside, strengthened my walk, and the spiritual realm was seen and felt. It’s what I call, Life Experience. I don’t mean walking through life but LIFE. You’ll see what I am talking about here as you read on.

I prayed in my heart and mind on the way up there, verses I begin to mark in my bible lined up ready to pray. I felt the Holy Spirit lead me to go and pray for this someone. And that was where we were headed. As we arrived, I vividly remember walking in and immediately feeling this dark heavy presence that my Spirit immediately shielded me from. I knew this presence was not of God but of darkness.

This sense of heaviness began to weigh on me. It suddenly seemed as if it were concrete being pressed upon my shoulders trying to forcefully push me down. With my bible in hand, my head lifted up knowing we were there not by accident but to serve God, we did as we felt led to do. Pray.

Now here is where I begin to share a glimpse of what we saw and witnessed….

The three of us began to pray, I prayed the Word of God and spoke in authority, standing in my placement of identity in Christ. I began to see movement starting from the legs… I was astonished yet filled with joy for more from the Lord.

We then split as we felt led to do and I continued to stand in prayer as the other two stayed in prayer out the door.

The only two verses my spirit wanted to pray was John 3:16 and Psalm 91. With each verse, each time I said LIFE, LIFE was happening within the body. Legs once again began to move, feet moving, arms moving, shoulders moving. It was miraculous. I prayed until the Holy Spirit told me to leave the room. As I left the room I had the very question pondering my mind, why did I have to leave when a miracle was being shown?

Sometimes we won’t understand why we are told to leave when we begin to see something miraculous happening, but this isn’t our job to know everything. Our job, our responsibility, is simply to obey what the Spirit leads us to do.

About two hours passed and everyone wanted to gather in prayer. My Spirit knew to not partner with the Catholic prayer that would be said but rather counter the prayer with where I was sitting speaking only what the Holy Spirit says. Fellow believer, if you didn’t already know, we are to not participate in religious prayer. A believer must steer from that partnership because we walk with Christ, not religion. I wasn’t understanding right at that moment, I just knew I needed to pray in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit. After I finished my prayer, I began to feel an intense headache trying to come along… Along with the person next to me they began to feel it too. We both felt it was time to step out.

The moment we stepped out is the moment things shifted.

Oh how I wish I could tell you more, but the matter of this writing is how I was able to see the difference in religious prayer and a believers prayer. I strongly felt to write this because in these times, we need to understand relationship and religion. God wants to break off religion, and right now, He is doing just that, sifting through religion and relationship.

Religious prayer is prayer that goes based on works, a ritual, repetitive, no relationship with the Father, no power or authority in it. It is based off performance, performing to be seen by God but not working for Him, working to gain their own power and glory.

Believers prayer is one that prays standing in their placement of identity, knowing their relationship with the Father is not based on rituals but intimacy, and speaking the Word of God with power and authority. They don’t just know about their God but have experienced Him to come to KNOW Him on a personal deep level. They have their identity solely in Christ and not in religion.

God is a God not of religion but of relationship, and when we believers pray, heaven comes to earth, mountains are moved, death bodies move, the spiritual realm shakes and trembles, and your spiritual muscles strengthen. You are partnering not in your own power but in Christ. You are partnering with Heaven and the Lords Will. You are standing for Christ in the matter, not looking at what is seen but what is unseen.

A religious prayer cannot move a mountain. It cannot cast a demon out. It cannot bring death to life. Why? Because it has no power of God in those prayers, He isn’t present. They are a ritual repetitive prayer that has been taught over and over that never grows into relationship with the Father. Religion is based on the outward and not the inward.

It is like the Pharisees. The Pharisees cared so much of how they looked on the outside but inwardly, there was alot going on that needed some deep soul cleaning. What they lacked was the relationship with the Father. They kept all the laws, did all the rituals, but what they didn’t understand was that God wants hearts transformed, not outward appearances. God doesn’t get impressed with what we wear, look like, what titles we carry, degrees we have, or even if we keep every law in the book because what He cares about exceeds and goes far beyond what we think. It is an upside Kingdom that must be known through the Spirit and walking with Christ. He cares about our hearts and our relationship with Him.

God looks to the heart. He doesn’t look at religion. He wants relationship with His people to grow into Him daily by prayer and surrender.

Now there may be a lot of things you don’t understand on this side of heaven, and that is okay. We have to be willing to listen, heed instruction to the Spirit, and don’t be afraid to ask the Father questions. During the whole time I walked that place I kept asking God questions. Questions are good. This is where growth begins. He will answer them, in His time. Whether it’s immediately or later. Write the questions down.

All in this friend, I wanted to show a glimpse of what God revealed to me in this place. A place where we witnessed the spiritual realm in a very deep way, seeing how a religious prayer differs from a believers prayer.

A believers prayer dear friend, brings Jesus into the place where darkness is. It is a believers prayer that stands for Jesus because they know who He is, who they are, and have accepted Him as their Lord and Savior. They built their relationship with Him. They have grown to know Him through their own life, placing Him first and following where He leads.

My prayer friend, is that we all, as followers and believers of Christ, gain heavens knowledge and wisdom to see and know the difference, to see in the heavenly realm, to view through the Fathers lens and see how partnering with Jesus, and having Jesus, moves mountains and brings life to a situation where life doesn’t seem possible. I have seen it is vital within our time that we stayed glued to Jesus and not get swayed to the left or to the right but rather keep our hearts hidden in the Lord so He can reveal more and more, bringing it all to the light. May we as believers be united in the Kingdom of God, discerning truth (God’s truth) and veering off from religion practices to stay in the lane God has called us too.

Heavenly Father, help us to become more aware of the Holy Spirit and His work, may we heed instruction and learn everyday to surrender our life to Jesus. May our relationship grow the more we abide in Christ daily and may it be watered with heavenly nourishment. Fill our souls with what is needed and remove what’s in our hearts that is causing a hinderance in our relationship. I pray those who are reading this will take this reading knowing it was filled with grace and salt. Enlighten our eyes to your work and may our relationship with you Father be of relationship and intimacy not of performance based religion repeating the same rituals and acts. Remove these pedestals off the throne so that you can be on the throne where you are meant to be. Show in us any offensive way within us, and correct any wrong doings we do within our hearts. Thank you for the sifting and shifting in this season. Thank you for the correcting because without it, we wouldn’t mature or grow in our walk with you Lord. Thank you for your goodness mercy and grace that is undeserving but freely given because you love us. In Jesus name, amen.

Verses to Refer to

John 14:6 “Jesus answered, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

1 John 4:5-8 “They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

John 3:16-18 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

1 John 4:1 “Dear friends, don’t believe all people who say that they have the Spirit. Instead, test them. See whether the spirit they have is from God, because there are many false prophets in the world.”

2 Timothy 4:3-4 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”