Matthew 18:19 “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”
Jesus explained in Matthew 18 18-20 what happens when two or more believers agree together for God’s will to be achieved and it is very powerful. Jesus promises to be with us at such times. This is why we are encouraged to pray together and also why corporate prayer often comes under attack. Thankfully, you only need a minimum of two people for the prayer of agreement to be effective, so even if your fellowship does not have a time of corporate prayer, hopefully you can find someone that you can share some prayer time with.
We need to know God’s Will in order to agree. If we are in agreement with God’s will and His Word, then we can confidently agree together for it to happen. We should not agree with someone in prayer for something which we know is contrary to God’s will.
1 John 5:14 “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us–whatever we ask–we know that we have what we asked of him”.
We need true Agreement between us–The word used for “agree” is “sumphoneo” – our word “symphony” comes from this “sum” = “together” “phoneo”=”to sound. i.e. to sound together, be in harmony, be in accord
Imagine that each one of us is a different musical instrument – if we are merrily playing our own tune we will sound awful – just one loud noise – however, when each instrument comes together and plays in harmony then beautiful music is heard. When we truly are in harmony together then our prayers will powerfully reflect that unity. God’s blessing will be there. When we are in unity God bestows a blessing. The Bible encourages us not to think too highly of ourselves because true unity comes through humility. The good new is that we are also stronger together in Christ – “One can chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight” just as Jonathan and his armour bearer did.
Jesus talks about believers taking authority in binding and loosing. What we bind on earth is bound in heaven and what we loose on earth is loosed in heaven. In the preceding verses Jesus is talking about sinful behaviour. As believers when we bind the enemy’s works, we need to be careful about the behaviour which we “loose” i.e. allow in the Church and the consequences of that in the spiritual realm. We will only ever “bind” and “loose” effectively if we understand the principles in these verses. As a body of believers in Christ we will not bind Satan’s work effectively if we are sinning ourselves and also blatantly allowing sin in our Church and turning a blind eye to it. We bind with one hand but loose with the other – That is not effective. Sin should be dealt with through grace and love.
My friend shares a testimony of someone who was trying to help deliver a person who was afflicted by an evil spirit. Although the person was taking authority and binding the spirit in Jesus’ name -it refused to budge. Eventually, the person realised that they had no authority over the evil spirit because they were also afflicted in the same way. There was unconfessed sin in their lives from that same pattern of sinful behaviour. Until they repented over their own sin they had no authority over the enemy.
EagleSight 