Releasing Heaven into Your Family

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- Michael Sitko

If you’ve been in the kingdom for any amount of time at all, it isn’t long before you begin to find yourself wondering about this thing God designed called prayer. What is prayer? Why do we use it? What was God’s intent and design for prayer and what did He intend for it to accomplish? All good questions. One of the kingdom principles that I've grown in awareness of is the necessity of acquiring understanding. Acquiring knowledge is great but until understanding is applied to that knowledge you will never possess the revelation designed to be released through it and without revelation there is no materialization of the goods meant to be obtained by that knowledge. 

I want to focus on one aspect of prayer today that I believe has the capacity, if applied, to transform and change the life of our families forever. I was listening to a speaker the other day and he was talking about the hidden power contained in the Lord’s prayer that was released in his life after he came into a revelation of God’s original intent.

In Matt 6, we see the story of how Jesus' first disciples were so moved after hearing Him pray, that they asked Jesus to teach them to pray the way He prayed. Now, to really get this, we need to understand that Jesus’ disciples were not a people unaccustomed to prayer. In fact every jewish boy was taught from an early age how to pray. However, there seemed to be something markedly different about how Jesus prayed that obviously got their attention. 

The disciples were accustomed to a form of prayer where they regularly petitioned and plead with God to move in and through their lives but there was something remarkably different in the way in which Jesus approached prayer. He seemed to be demanding things of God the Father. This would have been very strange indeed, especially for a man to presume to direct or give orders to God. In Jewish culture they were even forbidden to mention God's name in prayer let alone to presume to be so casual and personal that a man could presume to appear to make demands of God.

As we begin to look at the language used by Jesus in His prayer we begin to see that there are a couple key pronouns used in His prayer. The first pronoun of significance is the word “US”. It seems that Jesus’ prayer was not directed towards the fulfillment of His own needs, wants, and desires, no, rather He distinctly seems to be directing His prayer towards meeting the needs of His “US”. The second pronoun that is a key for us is the word “Give!” 

To truly grasp an understanding of what Jesus was after, as He instructed His disciples in the art of kingdom prayer, we need to catch the revelation of our position in Christ and Christ’s position in God the Father that He was trying to communicate to us.  

“No one has ascended to heaven, except he that came down from heaven, which is the Son of Man who is in heaven…” John 3:13;

When we begin to understand that Jesus came as our model, of what it is to be a son or daughter of God on the earth, Jesus was revealing the original prototype of who we were meant to be, a man or woman simultaneously seated in two realms at once.

The Apostle Paul told us through the Holy Spirit that we “ARE” presently seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus at the right hand of God. The significance of this position should be carefully weighed and paid attention to, as it is a place of rulership and authority. In other words, God the Father, intentionally and purposefully placed His sons and daughters in a place of authority in the realm of the kingdom so that we could conduct the business that He purposed for us to do and to access the resources that are needed for the mission He gave us. 

In understanding the “US” in the Lord’s prayer it is essential for us to understand jurisdictional authority and ordained authority. In Jesus prayer to the Father in John 17 He said to the Father “Of those you have given me I have lost none…” When we begin to understand that God gives us specific spheres of authority for which He expects us to care for, and to pray, decree and prophesy into from our place of being seated together with Christ on His heavenly throne we truly can begin to see the results God intended to come from that care. 

I could take this in many different directions when it comes to understanding and talking about jurisdictions of spiritual authority but today what’s on my heart for us is for the sphere of our FAMILIES. When we begin to take these spiritual truths and principles and recognize that God has given us delegated authority as mothers and fathers in our families, we can begin to understand the power that God wants to release through us towards meeting the needs and fulfilling the destinies of our families here on the earth.

When we begin to understand this it becomes very evident why the enemy is in such a fervour to destroy the family unit. If he can dismantle and take apart the nuclear family he will successfully remove the power and capacity for mothers and fathers to release heaven’s influence into the lives of our children and grandchildren. 

Jesus said when you pray, pray like this,

“Your Kingdom Come!” “Your Will be Done!” “Give US this Day Our Daily Bread!” “Forgive US our Trespasses!” “Deliver US from the Evil One!”

This my friends is the language of declaration and decree’s and we are literally invited by God Himself to pray in this way. God commands us to take our seat in Christ and command and direct the provision of heaven into the lives of our families on a daily basis. It is our responsibility to rule and reign with Christ over our areas of stewardship and jurisdictional authority. This is what God is after when He invites us to co-reign together with Him. 

As we begin to get the revelation that Jesus intended for us to get, on our heavenly position in Christ, that we occupy as a mother or a father in our families, we are only then able to fully release what God intends and has purposed to be released into the lives of our families.

The dreams, the passions, the provision, the destinies, are all waiting for us as fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, to take our place and begin to speak, declare and prophesy into our families, the things needed to walk fully in the purposes God has for our families today.