Intervention Prayers - 1 - Praying to Change Things

Thank you for tuning in today.

My name is Michelle Steele, and I'm so excited that we have this time together to build our faith concerning what God says about the salvation of our loved ones.

One of the most important things we can do with our faith is use our faith for the people we love.

You know, we can use our faith to receive natural things.

We can use our faith to receive healing in our bodies.

But how much more eternal when we use our faith for the salvation of the people that we love.

And that's what we're talking about today.

We're talking about how to pray intervention prayers.

And one of the things that God put in my heart when I was compiling this devotional intervention prayers was tools to help people know how to be effective in prayer, especially when you see someone who's fighting addiction, or they are living totally against the way that God has instructed in his word.

Maybe they are blinded by some kind of a religion that has them going away from God.

But when we use our faith, we become instruments in the hand of God.

We become used by the power of God to effect change in the situation.

And that's what we want to do today.

We want to find out how to effect change, how to pray prayers that are going to be effective in changing the situation that my loved one is in.

And it's so important for you to know the difference in just praying and begging, and this power that we have in prayer to pray and change things.

When we just beg out of desperation, there's not a flow of faith.

There's not a connection of faith.

It's the prayer of faith that saves the sick.

It's the prayer of faith that changes things.

And so we've got to get the word of God on the matter.

We've got to allow the leading of the Holy Spirit so that we're praying accurately.

And we've got to follow what the word of God reveals as the will of God that's already established.

God already wants to save your loved one.

You do not have to waste any more time begging him to do something he's already on board to do.

You don't have to waste another minute attempting to get God to do something that he already planned and made available in Christ Jesus.

And so instead of begging, oh, please God, please save them, please save them, instead of wasting spinning the wheels is what I like to refer to that as.

You're just spinning the wheels in the mud, just slinging mud.

You're just slinging that desperation all over the house.

And it's not changing anything.

But when you get over here to the place where you are convinced, it is the will of God to save my loved one.

It is the will of God to open the eyes of the blind.

It is the will of God.

And you've allowed the word of God to convince you of his will, then you're praying in line with the will of God, like a person who's using a tool with skill.

You know, if you put a nail gun in my hand, that would not be a wise thing.

I've never used a nail gun before.

It I have no safety experience with a nail gun.

But if if you put a computer in my hand with certain uh maybe InDesign software or Adobe Photoshop or certain softwares, I have a skill with that tool.

I have a skill.

I know what to do with that InDesign software.

I know how to format a book.

I know how to do uh certain things that other people might not know how to do.

In the same way that I'm not confident with a skill saw or a nail gun.

Some other that same person who is confident with a skill saw or a nail gun would not be confident, perhaps, with uh a computer trying to format a book in Adobe InDesign.

So the skill that I have, the skill that they have with that tool gives them confidence with that tool.

And and praying intervention prayers requires skill.

It requires skill in knowing what the word of God says, skill in knowing the the uh uh established plan of God is to save that loved one, is to save and set them free and open the eyes of the blind and and show them the mercy of God.

And so when we're praying for our loved ones, we don't want to do it without skill.

We want to bring our preparation to it.

But when you're praying, I want you to see your petition as a connection.

I want you to see that prayer as a connection.

And and I'll tell you, you know, many of you are familiar with my testimony.

And in case you're not, let me tell you.

When Jesus saved me, I had been in addiction for a number of years.

I ran away from home when I was 15 years old, ended up on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee.

I was homeless, I was a drug addict, I became a prostitute.

I had so much bondage and so much shame and so much guilt and so much darkness, and I didn't know anything about God.

I didn't know anything about the Bible, I didn't know anything about the plan of salvation, but I had people in my family who were praying for me.

My grandmother was a woman of prayer.

My mother said she prayed for me.

There were people who were opening the door for God to move in in my life and to free me from the life that I was in.

When I tell my testimony, I still have people who come to me and say, Michelle, pray for.

And they'll begin to say, My granddaughter, my son, my nephew, and they'll they'll begin to, and when the moment they began explaining the fear and the frustration and the pain of what they're watching that loved one go through is so prominent in their heart that I began to realize when I first encountered this interaction with people for their to agree in prayer with them.

I began to realize how are they going to pray in faith?

How are they gonna pray in confidence when they are so overwhelmed with what they see, when they are so in pain and turmoil at the life that they are watching their loved one live.

And that is one of the reasons I began to compile this toolbox.

And that's what I look at intervention prayers.

It's like a toolbox, and it teaches you how to take the tools out and gain skill with the toolbox.

And so one of the things that I began to see is that we've got to move our focus over, first of all, we've got to move away from this idea that I'm trying to talk God into doing something he's not convinced he wants to do yet.

And we've got to become uh we've got to live connected to the will of God.

The will of God is that that no one should perish.

God doesn't want your loved one to perish.

I mean, you don't, but he even more so doesn't.

He so desires them to be saved that he already prepared the payment for their freedom.

The one to ransom, the rescue payment, the ransom payment is already on board.

It's already available.

All they have to do is believe it and receive it.

And so the problem is not God.

We're not trying to get God on board, we're not trying to talk him into it, we're not trying to sell him on it.

He's already sold on it.

No, our problem now, what we're attempting to solve in our praying, is we want our loved one to know it.

We want them to be convinced of it.

We want them to receive it.

And what's stopping them is deception.

What's stopping them is blindness.

The God of this world blinds the mind.

The one that they are under the control of has used mind-blinding techniques to hinder them from being able to receive what's available, to it to walk in the freedom that's theirs in Christ Jesus.

If they would just call on the name of Jesus, they would be free from that addiction, they would be free from that torment, they would be set free from that shame.

So that's what we're trying to accomplish with our praying is the light to shine, the understanding to come, the freedom from that bondage to be experienced.

And so one of the greatest examples I see in the Bible is um there's some Old Testament examples that have really spoken to me.

First of all, would be Abram.

Even before God changed his name to Abraham, God was in covenant with him.

And Abram got news one day that Lot, his nephew, who had chosen to separate from Abram and to go live in Sodom and Gomorrah.

And he was there when Sodom and Gomorrah became under attack, and they, the whole city, everybody was taken captive.

And then someone came and told Abram, Your nephew Lot has been taken captive.

And Abram took his covenant with God and 318 men and accomplished what five kings could not do.

He overcame the enemy and rescued not only his family, but rescued all the other people who had been taken captive out of the city.

But what if Abram had not acted in faith?

What if Abram had not taken that step?

Lot didn't have the power to get himself free.

And your loved one needs the power of God, but they don't have access to it.

They don't know how, unless we do some things in the spirit realm, stock the shelves in the spirit realm, unless we provide some answers for them and provide some freedom through our praying, where we're binding the enemy and standing against the blindness and praying for God to send the light, to open the eyes, to send laborers across their path.

All of those things are open doors for the power of God in their situation.

And so Abram, God used Abram, he used the covenant he had with Abram, and he used Abram's faith.

So Abram became an instrument in the hand of God.

He became a tool that God was able to use.

He was able to move through Abram's movement, and God was able to bring supernatural rescue for Lot and all of those others.

Another great example, and it's from the Old Testament as well, is when David, his family had been taken captive by the Amalekites.

And his family, all of his soldiers' family, they came home to their city of Ziklag and they found it had been burned, and all of the children and all of the women had been taken captive.

And it was so oppressive.

It was such a hard thing on the hearts of his men that they wanted to kill David.

They wanted to take it out on David.

It's your fault.

We were with you.

We should have been here with our families, whatever it was they were blaming their sorrow and their pain.

But David, he responded differently.

David didn't respond to the pain of loss.

He looked to the Lord.

He encouraged himself in the Lord.

He sought God for the situation and he found encouragement in God because God comes to him when he's seeking God and he's encouraging himself in the Lord.

The Lord says to him, Pursue, overtake, and recover all.

And so that's exactly what they did.

They went after their loved ones, and the power of God was able to move through David, through his men, execute judgment on the enemy, raise up a standard against the enemy, bring a resistance against the enemy.

Lot didn't have power to resist.

David's family, they didn't have power to resist, but the power to resist came from the one who entered into the situation with a covenant with God.

And that's why we need to stand in the gap.

That's why we need to pray prayers that change things.

There are so many examples.

The Shunammite woman became an instrument in the hand of God, a living instrument.

The Shunammite woman stood for her son who had stopped living.

He was not alive, he was dead.

But God raised him from the dead, not without that standing in the gap that his mother did.

His mother became the connector.

His mother became the one who went to the power of God, brought the power of God to the scene.

And that's what your prayers do.

Your prayers, the effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous.

Let me read it.

James chapter 5, and I want to read it from the amplified.

James 5 · chapter mention

It says, the prayer that is of faith will save him who is sick, and the Lord will restore him.

And so that word save is not limited to healing, salvation.

It's the word rescue, deliver.

And so if they're sick with blindness, if they're sick with uh hard hearts, if they're sick with shame, if they're whatever it is that is separating them from God, the prayer of faith will save him.

It says the Lord will restore him, and if he's committed sin, he'll be forgiven.

Verse 16.

Confess to one another, therefore, your faults, your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins, and pray also for one another that you may be healed and restored to a spiritual tone of mind and heart.

The earnest, heartfelt, continued prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available, dynamic in its working.

Tremendous power is made available by your praying.

Don't let your mind disqualify you from that.

You say, Oh, Pastor Michelle, I don't have strong prayers.

I don't have powerful prayers.

That's not what the word says.

The word says, if you have been bought by the blood of Jesus, that's the only thing you need to be made righteous.

The blood of Jesus purchased you.

You are born again.

If you're born again, you're righteous in God's eyes by the blood of Jesus, by the sacrifice that Jesus made.

And he says, your prayers, your effectual.

It says the earnest, heartfelt, the King James uses the word effectual.

That means my heart is in it.

I'm connected.

I'm serious about this.

The earnest, heartfelt, continued prayer makes power available, dynamic in its working.

When you pray, God has an open door.

When you ask, God has an entry point into that situation.

When you quote the word, when you stand against the enemy and you declare, I plead the blood of Jesus over my child, my grandchild, my niece, my nephew, my aunt, my uncle, my husband, my wife, whatever the case may be, when you stand in that place of authority, it's not you, it's God working through you.

It's not just you.

Let me say it that way.

He needs you to stand and he needs you to say, and he needs you to declare, and he needs you to quote his word back to him.

You're not trying to quote the word to God to get God to do it.

You're quoting the word of God so that God has a free reign, an open door, an entry point into that situation.

I like to explain the um the praying of the righteous like the picking up the phone and calling 911.

And if you've heard me talk about this before, it's it's just an such an example.

Without that call to 911, the the people who have the power to change the situation don't know the situations going on.

Yes, God knows, but he doesn't have a legal entry into that situation until someone calls and says, Father, in the name of Jesus, now I've got legal right to enter that building.

I've got legal right to knock on the door of that person's heart.

I've got legal right to draw them by my spirit.

Without that, that phone call, that that call to 911, there's no intervention into that situation.

And the situation requires the power of God.

So someone who knows God needs to be a connector, an entry point for God into that situation.

And he says that your prayers are connectors, that your prayers make power available.

When the centurion, let's look at two examples from the New Testament in the time that I have left.

When the centurion came to Jesus, the centurion in Matthew chapter 8, it says, There came unto Jesus a centurion beseeching him.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

He came with a petition, he came providing an entry point.

If he had never come, nothing, we don't know that anything would have ever changed.

But because he came and he said, if you just send your word, your word is enough.

If you'll just send your word, that entry point of his faith, Jesus said, as you have believed.

Glory to God.

So his faith became an instrument that God could use, just like the super, the electricity working through a skill saw.

Without the electricity, that saw is not very effective.

You could rub it against that wood and it's not going to do much.

You might scrape it, you might scratch it, but you're not going to really get the effect until the power supply is connected to it.

God is the supp the power supply.

He's the supply of the power to your tool.

And you bring your power tools to him and you plug into him with your faith.

And as you have believed, glory to God.

Matthew 15 is the example of the woman of Canaan who came and she cried unto Jesus, saying, My daughter is grievously vexed at a devil.

Here's this woman who brings Jesus into the situation, brings the power of God into the situation.

And that's what you're doing.

That's what you're doing.

You're bringing the power of God into the situation and causing what his power can do to be made available for your loved one.

When you are praying this way, you depend on the word of God and you depend on the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Because we're not praying just wrote prayers.

And you know, in in the devotional that I've compiled, intervention prayers, I talk about uh each.

Different teaching point, and then I give an example of a prayer, not so that you just read off the page, but you learn how to apply it.

And then as you're applying that prayer that you've learned from the word of God, you learn how to do that in other areas.

You learn how to apply that in, you learn how to take that tool and work it in when you see them dealing with a wrong relationship, or you see them dealing with uh uh decisions that that could end them up in prison.

And and so you're taking these prayers and you're you're utilizing that as an open door to bring the supernatural, the electricity of God, the supernatural, into that situation and change that situation.

God wants to save our families.

He wants your loved ones free.

He wants them free.

God's not trying to hold them out because of the mistakes that they've made, the decisions that have have separated them from God.

God's not the one holding them back.

It's the shame, it's the blindness, it's their their closeness to the things of God.

But if you'll pray, God open the eyes of their understanding.

If you'll pray, let there be someone who comes across their path today who will reach them in a way that I haven't been able to reach them.

But Lord, you know who they'll listen to.

So send that person across their path today.

And those prayers, God is working with.

Those prayers.

He is working with the word you're declaring, he's working with the promises you're standing on to bring change into your loved one's life.

I'm so glad that you tuned in today.

We're gonna be talking about this next week too.

So make sure that you mark your calendars to tune back in.

Intervention prayers is a tool that will help you, it will help you know how to pray.

It is four weeks.

It's got testimonies, it's got tools for your toolbox and skill for that tool.

And so I'm so glad that you tuned in today.

We're gonna be together again next week, but until then, I want to also encourage you to go to our website at lifeoffaith.net.

Uh, visit the different YouTube channels, Roku channels, podcast channels that we have to get these teachings and strengthen them in your life.

We're so glad to have this opportunity to join together with you and to build your faith.

So remember until next week to build your faith and frame your world by the word of God.

911, what's your emergency?

When your loved one is in danger of losing their life, who can you call for help?

Are they battling drug addiction or alcoholism?

Are they cutting themselves or being tormented with thoughts of suicide?

Whatever evil force is driving your loved one to destruction, you have someone to turn to for supernatural help.

Hi, my name is Michelle Steele.

God supernaturally set me free from a life of addiction and crime.

I am a result of the intervention prayers my family prayed.

I've written this book to help you connect with God's rescue and deliverance for your loved one.

Intervention prayers is more than just a book, it's a life-saving manual.

It holds keys to unlock the power of God and bring divine intervention.

With this book, you can leave behind the desperate begging prayers that leave you feeling helpless and enter the throne room of God with the confidence to get the help you need.

Intervention Prayers is formatted with 28 days of teachings from God's word that will establish your faith and God's will to intervene in your loved one's life.

The daily chapters include guided prayers and faith-filled confessions to help you activate the truth you have received.

I want you to know that God is willing and ready to intervene and rescue your loved one.

Are you concerned about family members who are struggling with addictions or destructive lifestyles?

My name is Michelle Steele, and I invite you to join me and Pastor Philip Steele for a powerful weekly podcast dedicated to helping you stand strong in faith and pray for the salvation of your loved ones.

With inspired teachings, heartfelt prayers, and encouragement to help you keep believing for positive change.

We have new episodes every week.

They're available on major podcast outlets.

So tune in on your favorite podcast platform or watch on YouTube.

You can catch the video versions of Faith for Your Family on the YouTube channels for Faith Builders International or Faith Builders Little Rock.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to make a difference in your family's lives.

Subscribe now and join us in prayer and faith for the transformation of your loved ones.

You are invited to Life of Faith Church in Little Rock, where we are building people's faith, producing life, city, state, nation, and world.

Our address is 116-20 Rainwood Road, just one block off Rodney Parham, near Green Mountain Drive.

Our Sunday service begins at 10 a.m.

and offers classes for children and youth, in addition to the adult service in the main sanctuary.

On Wednesdays, we have an hour of power as we dive into Bible study.

We have a place reserved for you and your family at Life of Faith Church.

For more information, visit lifeoffaith.net