Rabbi Schneider - How to Break Through with Prayer

On February 14th in 2007, we dedicated to the Lord a special room in our building for 24/7 prayer. And by God's grace, we have had somebody in our prayer room 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for over 8 years. We came up with the name the Key of David because the Scripture says that Jesus holds the key of David. And the key of David was intimacy. David was a man that was after God's own heart. So every year during the anniversary, we bring a special word, and I usually share with people the concept of 24/7 prayer, and I talk about Revelation, chapter 5, verse number 8.

And we see, beloved ones, in Revelation, chapter 5, verse 8, that before the throne of God there is a harp that's playing represented sanctified, vertical worship music. What I mean by vertical worship music, I mean that it's songs that are being sung directly to God, not songs that are being sung about God, which I would call horizontal worship music, but rather vertical music. So we're actually singing to God, himself. So before the throne of God, in Revelation, 5:8, we have a harp that's playing music that's ascending to the throne of the Lord in worship. And mixed with the music, we read in Revelation, 5:8, is a bowl of incense. And there's smoke coming from the bowl of incense. And the incense, we read in Scripture, represents the prayers of the saints.

So before the throne of God, the atmosphere of heaven contains two things. Number one, it contains sanctified worship music ascending to the Lord, and the prayers of God's people that are ascending to him. And in Revelation, 5:8, where we see the bowl of incense representing the prayers of the saints, and the harp, the worship music being played, it's not like the harp plays and then stops, and then the prayers are said, and then they stop, and then the harp starts again. It's not like we do often times in typical churches, where we, you know, we, we, we worship in song, and then we stop worshipping in song, and then we pray. No, in Revelation, 5:8, the two are mixed together, so that while the worship music is ascending, while the harp is being played, the incense is also arising at the same time.

So the worship music and the incense are intermingled with each other, both ascending to the Lord at the same time. So what we have in the prayer room, beloved ones, is vertical worship music mixed with prayers at the same time, with the worship music. So again, this has been going on now, by the grace of God, someone's been in our prayer room, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for over 8 years. Our goal is to have somebody in the prayer room when Jesus returns. Isn't that awesome? And so every year that we've celebrated an anniversary these past 8 years, I've always preached a message on Revelation, chapter 5, verse 8, the principles of, of this type of ministry. But this year I felt the Lord giving me a different type of message. I felt like the Lord was giving me something that would inspire people to sit at the feet of Jesus in the prayer room.

In other words, how could we have kept this prayer room going for 8 years? It's because people believe that by spending time at the feet of Jesus in the prayer room, that God is gonna do something in their lives, that he's gonna change them, that he's gonna reveal himself to them, that he's gonna empower them, that he's gonna impart his glory to them, that he's gonna give them an increase in revelation. So in other words, for people to make the commitment like they do to come to the prayer room at 2 in the morning, at 4 in the morning, at 5 in the morning, in addition to all the other normal times of the day, in order for people to do that and to do it faithfully and consistently for 8 years, they must believe that they're gonna receive something from being there.

And so this year, I really wanted to focus once again as I preached on the 8th year anniversary of the prayer room, I wanted to preach a message that would inspire people to continue to sit before the Lord, to come to the prayer room so that they would see value in simply sitting at the feet of Jesus in the prayer room. Now we know that we can pray anywhere. In fact, we're commissioned by Jesus to pray continuously. And yet we also see that there's a place in our lives to go to a lonely place to pray. Do you know that Jesus, before he was about to go to the cross, he brought his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane, a lonely place to pray. We find that Jesus would often times withdraw to a mountain or to a mountainside to be alone and to pray. We find that before Jesus selected the disciples, he went alone to a lonely place to pray.

So even though we can pray from our own homes and we can pray anywhere, there's value in having a specified place to go and pray; whether it's a special prayer room at your home, or wherever it is that God has directed you to. And so, on our 8th anniversary, I was again wanting to bring a message of inspiration to our people, that they would understand the value and the benefit of remaining disciplined in coming to sit before the Lord in our prayer room. And the message that the Lord gave me, beloved ones, is A Parallel Reality. In other words, as we understand where we can actually go in God, if we will fully give ourselves to him, that is enough, beloved, to motivate us to seek him and to pray.

You see, I believe that there's a place that you and I can ascend to in the spirit that I'm calling a parallel reality. I'm calling it a parallel reality because it's a reality that exists above the reality that we walk in when we're walking in the natural realm. In other words, when men are living in the natural realm, they're conscious of the material world. They're conscious of circumstances. They're limited in their thoughts. They exist only in time and in space. Their mind is controlled by the paradigm of the world. And men that live in the natural world, beloved, will be trapped in that sphere and never be able to move beyond it. But Jesus came to bring us into a different reality. I'm calling it a parallel reality.

Jesus said, if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. I'm calling it a parallel reality because it exists right above the natural realm that we live in, hovering just over it. But it exists, beloved, listen now, in space and time just like we do. When Jesus came from heaven and broke into our world by being born of a Virgin Mary, by growing up and ministering, he broke into our world to bring us, beloved into eternal life, which I'm calling a parallel reality. You see, Jesus exists here and now. There's a parallel reality that exists for us here and now that's outside of our circumstances, outside of the material world, outside of space, outside of your family genetics and family history. It's outside of the natural known world. It exists here and now. It's a parallel reality and Jesus is that parallel reality.

When he came to this world, most people didn't recognize him. The Bible tells us, we're gonna see in a second, that he came into the world and the world was made through him. And yet when he came, the Scripture says, the world did not recognize him. So here he was, the Son of God, broke into our world. When he cast out the demon he said, if I cast out the demon by the finger of God, know that the kingdom of God has broken in, this parallel reality has now broken into your world, and it exists now among you. We can enter in. We can also break in to this parallel reality called the kingdom of God if we will put certain principles, beloved, into operation in our life.

You see, you need to believe, and I need to believe that we can experience so much more than we're presently experiencing, that there is another dimension, a parallel reality, the reality of the kingdom of God, that we can enter into and which all things will pass away, all things will become new. We'll be walking in the freedom and in the victory that Christ Jesus promised us. See the Bible tells us, in Messiah Jesus we can reign in life. Jesus said that we've been raised with him and are now seated with him in the heavenly places. I want to talk to you today about how you can break in to this parallel reality, how you can break in to a world that's not limited by the natural. Jesus said, all things are possible for those that believe.

I want to talk to you today about breaking in to this other sphere of reality. I want to talk to you about what you can do, practical steps that you can take, that if you'll give yourself whole-heartedly to breaking in to this freedom that Jesus promised for you, you're gonna enter in to it. And Jesus said, when the Son sets you free, you're going to be free indeed. So beloved ones, join me now as we consider practical steps that we can take to enter into this parallel reality that Jesus said is the kingdom, hallelujah, of God. The first step, beloved, to enter in is desire. Desire is the beginning.

I'm gonna begin, beloved ones, with Psalm number 73:25. Hear the Word of God: Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, get this now, I desire nothing on earth. I want to key in on this word desire. Desire is the pre-requisite. It's the flame. It's the combustion engine that will drive us to enter in to this alternative reality. The psalmist says: Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, get it now, I desire nothing on earth. Desire, beloved, unlocks the river of life into our souls. Jesus said in Matthew, 5, chapter 6, 5 verse 6: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. We're talking about hungering. We're talking about desire. We're talking about a desire that burns so strong that it draws forth the wells of salvation, the Spirit of Elohim, the Spirit of God into our being.

Desire unlocks, beloved, the things of God, the passion of God, the Holy Spirit's fullness. It releases him into our lives. Blessed are those, Jesus said, who hunger and thirst for righteousness for God, for they shall be satisfied. We're talking about entering into an alternative reality called eternal life. And the number one pre-requisite to enter into this is an extreme desire, a fierce desire, a desire that will not be satisfied until it lays ahold of that thing for which it seeks. You know, Jacob took ahold of God and said to God, I will not let you go until you bless me. His desire fastened him onto the Lord in such a way that God could not do anything but release that thing into Jacob's life for which he longed for. Desire is the first pre-requisite to enter in to this parallel reality.

Psalm number 42, verse 1, hear the Word of God: As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. Here the psalmist is crying out, as the deer pants for water. Water was the life that the deer needed. Water was what the deer needed to survive. And notice the hunger in the psalmist's heart here. As the deer pants for the water, so my soul pants for You, O God. This is not a general thirst. This is a passionate, fiery, focused thirst that says Lord, I want you more than anything else on earth. And I'm gonna die unless I can receive you. Desire is the first pre-requisite to entering into the kingdom. But where do we get desire? Where does desire come from? You may have heard the statement before, listen, that you can't coach desire. In other words, you can't give somebody motivation. You can't give somebody desire.

So where does desire come from? One of the keys, beloved one, to having an extreme desire, to having an extreme thirst for God that will cause breakthrough in your life into the alternate reality that Jesus called the kingdom of God that I'm declaring today, one of the pre-requisites to having desire, get this now, is having a belief, listen to me, having a faith that you can have, that you can possess, dear child of God, what Jesus said you can possess; that you can have, child of God, what God said you can have. Unless you believe that the realities of the kingdom can really be yours, unless you believe that you can really walk in the fullness as the Scriptures promised that you can, you won't have a desire. You won't have motivation.

So in order to have desire, we must have belief, we must have faith that we can have what God says we can have, and that God is who he said he is, and that his Word is true. Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 6, says this: And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those that seek Him. Notice here once again, he's saying here that if we don't have faith, we can't please God. It says we need to have faith, number one, that God is. And secondly the author of Hebrews says, we need to have faith that God's a rewarder of those that seek him.

So if you're gonna have a desire, you're have to believe number one, that God is real, he is who the Word says he is. And that secondly, you can have what he says you can have. Ask and ye shall find. Knock and the door will be opened for you. Seek, knock, seek, ask and the kingdom of God, Jesus said, will be yours. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of God. In order to have desire we need to believe that if we do what Jesus said we should do, and if we would do these things that we're gonna have him, we'd have faith that we will have him.

When do we do these things? What things am I talking about? I'm talking about, beloved, leading a steadfast, disciplined life for the things of God, for the person of God, and doing the things that he says in his Word that we should do to enter into the fullness of his kingdom. I love the Scripture in the Book of Romans, chapter number 4. In Romans, 4, verse 19 through 21, we read about Abraham, who's called the father of all believers.

Let's listen to what he says here. It says Abraham, without becoming weak in faith, he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead. In other words, his body, beloved one, the Scripture says, was as good as dead when it came to bearing children, because that's what this promise was about. The promise that we're reading here is about the fact that God told Abraham, when he was still a relatively young man, that through Abraham's seed, that through the offspring of his body, would come the lineage through whom the Messiah would come into the world through and through whom the world would be saved. God said, in your seed, Abraham, all the world shall be saved. In your seed, Abraham, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

So Abraham, his whole life, he's waiting for this seed to come to pass. Nothing's happening. We know the story and so he tries to take matters into his own hands, and impregnates his maid Hagar. He has a child by Hagar. God says no, she's not, she's not your wife, Abraham, and her offspring is not this child of the promised. God says it's gonna be through your own wife, Sarah. Now Abraham's in his, a hundred years old. Sarah's in her nineties. And the Scripture says here now, their bodies are as good as dead, meaning that these guys physically are past the age of childbearing. I mean they're past the age, guys are over when it comes to having children.

So let's continue again: Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb. In other words, he contemplated his own body. He was a hundred. And he contemplated the deadness of Sarah's womb. She's close to a hundred. And yet, continuing on, yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was also able to perform. And so Abraham, who's called the father of us all, had a faith, beloved, that did not waiver. And his faith is what fueled his action. It fueled his desire. It's what was the gasoline on his life, that gave him the ability to do what God said he needed to do to get the breakthrough.

Because Abraham had faith, because he believed that he could have what God said he could have, he laid hold of what God said he could have when he went to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, and God stopped him when God saw that he had truly surrendered his heart and was willing to do anything to obtain the promise. God said to Abraham, Abraham, because you've done this thing, I will greatly bless you. And in your seed, Abraham, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed and Abraham, God said to him, I love this, he said, I am your exceedingly great reward.