Cole Constructing Paradise

Influencing Culture Through a Life of Prayer
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5439-5270-4
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 180 Seiten

'If all your prayers were answered today, would it change the world or just yours?' Through this groundbreaking new message, Ryan Cole teaches you how to recapture the glorious environment that Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden of Eden. Constructing Paradise is a handbook for understanding prayer and gives you the tools you need to change the environment of the world around you! Unlock the power to transform nations and shape culture! In the midst of our wishlists and endless sessions of crying and complaining, have we overlooked the real power to engage heaven and bring solutions to the weighty issues that are plaguing the world today? Prayer is more than a selfish act to sooth the ache of the soul and the burden of the conscious. It's a tool given to us by God in order to release his will into the earth! Through this teaching, you will not only learn how to receive answers to your personal prayers but you will be empowered to become an integral part of a move of God that will bring cultural transformation to your entire city!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cole, Ryan

Leseproben

  The Blueprints   For I know the plans I have for you… —God   As any good construction company will tell you, “there’s no use in starting construction until the blueprints have been drawn.” If construction begins without blueprints, then the stability of the building will be in question. Although this is a simple concept, how many of us construct our lives without consulting God’s divine blueprints? Throughout the Old and New Testament, we see over and over again how the glory of God was always preceded by the implementation of order and structure given by God. From the creation account in Genesis, The Tabernacle of Moses in Exodus 26, to The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 to name a few, God always provides the blueprints, and we must build according to His pattern. It has become painfully evident to me, even in my own life, that disorder always breeds dysfunction. In other words, there is no way you can properly function while living in a messy environment. I strive in my interactions with people, to look beyond the representative that they are exhibiting to the world, and instead look at the environment that they are creating and sustaining. Perfect looking people are not always living in houses that have been swept clean. If you look beyond all of the makeup and all of the cover up, you will see a lot of things that have been swept under the rug. Disorder in the natural is an indication that there is some type of disorder going on in the spiritual and the longer you are in a relationship with a person, the more dirt you will encounter. That’s why I don’t judge people based on the way that they are presented when I first meet them, or how they present themselves in public. It’s also important for us to realize that just because a person looks like they have it all together on social media, does not mean that their life is in order. What I have experienced with the youth of today and with social media is this mentality that, “My life doesn’t have to be in order as long as people perceive that I have it all together. As long as I can make it look like, in a picture, that I am living this extravagant life and I can get so many people to like it then I’m all right.” I recently heard on the radio that funeral homes are now renting out caskets to families of deceased loved ones. That way, you can be presented in the most exquisite casket and then buried in a plain wooden box. Has our superficiality come to this? Even in death, we actually feel the need to please others? I pray that God would give you a revelation of His grace. May you understand security in Jesus Christ and leave all the superficial, people-pleasing agendas behind. Discussing wolves in sheep’s clothing, Jesus taught us in Matthew 7 to judge a tree by the fruit that it bears. Why do we automatically believe that people are who they present themselves to be online, and why then are we so shocked when a scandal comes out concerning them, or we hear that they went off of the deep end? I have learned that prosperity is not determined by how beautiful your tree is, but by the kind of fruit you have produced. It’s not about the kind of presentation you’ve made on social media or even the kind of casket you are buried in. It’s how you lived that makes all the difference. While most people are looking for success, wouldn’t you rather have significance? I mean, the term “success” is very culturally skewed anyways. Let your goal be to reach people and not to attain a big pile of stuff. Many people carry this same superficial mindset into their prayer life. They are concerned about how their prayers sound, and yet they have no results. I don’t think God is looking for pretty or polished prayers that are prayed in public as much as he is looking for order and effectiveness in your private life. The greatest prayers that I have ever prayed have been the prayers that I have released behind closed doors. I am most effective in my prayers when it’s just God and me. It is there that I allow my life to be ordered by his instruction. Building your life according to God’s instruction will ensure that you are like the man who built his house on the rock and not the sand (Matthew 7:24). I love this story that Jesus tells us, about a wise man and a foolish man. We know from the story that the rain, the wind, and storms came down on both houses. How many of us pray and think that we are going to be blocked from trials? The fact remains, that the storm and trials are going to come and there are going to be times in your life that seem unimaginably difficult. The question is, will you still be standing when the storm settles? Are you building your life on the right foundation? We build our lives on a good foundation by hearing and abiding by the words of Jesus. You see, most people are concerned more about the esthetics of their house, or the decorations and furniture than they are the structure. Focusing on the superficial will never bring you eternal beauty. You can have the most beautiful of decorations in a house but if you don’t have a solid foundation it can all come crumbling down around in you in the blink of an eye. In the end, whether your prayers look and sound pretty is not what’s important. What matters most is how successful you are in building God’s Kingdom here on the earth through your prayers. Prayer moves you beyond the superficial and into the eternal. You have to trust that God will make everything beautiful in its time, and the beauty that he creates is everlasting. So stop trying to impress everyone with your prayers. When you stop worrying about everyone else’s opinion, then you are positioned for God’s glory to be revealed through you! The problem I encounter when talking about prayer from this perspective is that not a lot of people are thinking long term. Does it really take a tragedy to pray? Does it really take hardship to spark a desire to build structure in our lives? I believe that many of us have the wrong understanding of the limitless nature of God and have failed to accept the fact that there are restrictions that God desires to place on us even in his limitlessness. Do you mean God has limitations for my life? Shocking concept, right? Except these are not boundaries that keep us from experiencing life to the fullest, they’re boundaries that ensure that we do experience life to the fullest. What is it about us that cause us to reject restrictions? I believe it is because so many of us have been manipulated by people and circumstances over and again, to the point that we have lost our ability to trust. We want to shake off any restriction because we feel like we are being controlled. Because of this, the blueprints of God seem like a rulebook to many people instead of guidelines for a prosperous life. This is constantly fueled by our negative experiences with social and cultural limitations that have kept us bound to systems and structures that are absent of God’s purpose.   I want to bring some comfort to you and assure you that any restrictions and boundaries that God places on your life are there because he loves you. There is protection in these boundaries. We think freedom comes when there are no limitations, but freedom truly comes when we understand the right limitations for our lives. I’ve struggled with this concept and I have had a problem trusting God because of how many times I had been let down by people that I trusted; especially leaders. It wasn’t until I realized that the blueprints of God were there to protect me and not harm me, that I was set free from living a life bound with fear. There was great peace that came into my life the moment I completely placed my trust in the Father. I can’t say that there aren’t times when I still fail to trust, but I make a daily decision to consult him and the plans that he has for my life. The more I consult with him, the more I am able to trust, and the more I trust God, the more peace I experience. For many of you, the answer to all of your prayers can be in simply allowing God to bring the right order into your life. A life without order is characterized by chaos. You can spot a chaotic person from a mile away. Clutter follows this type of person and they are constantly surrounded by drama, spending all of their time wrapped up in the affairs of other people to the point that they don’t have any time left to take care of their own lives. Is your life filled with chaos? Maybe you look around and see the chaos that you have created, or maybe you’ve just allowed the chaos of others to creep into your personal space. The solution to this chaos is prayer. Prayer will always cause you to pull in the reigns on your life; to examine the way that you are living. When we think of the word “peace,” many of us think of this heightened level of tranquility. What we must understand is that the peace of God always follows the order of God. We have peace when we order our lives according to his plan and when our decisions correlate with his instructions. The order of God will always bring the tranquility of God. Where there is chaos there is no peace. Let’s look at the story of the birth of Jesus. When Jesus was born, the angel of the Lord made a strong declaration.   Luke 2:14 (NKJV) “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”   The arrival of Jesus did not just release a “good feeling” among men. This sense of tranquility was never the primary goal; this was just the bi-product. When Jesus came, he took what was...