Rewiring relationships with Ephesians prayer moments

 I am reading a great book called "Mystically Wired: Exploring New Realms in Prayer" by Pastor Ken Wilson.

He made a suggestion of taking time throughout the day to "remember loved ones" in prayer as Paul did in Ephesians 1:15-16.

I would like to suggest to each of you to take time out for a few seconds to start, build up to minutes and longer to do the following. 

1. Stop and imagine you are sinking your brain into your heart, imagine you are going into your heart inside your body, literally feeling your heart as if you are inside of it.

Paul said:  I pray that the light of God will illuminate the eyes of your imagination (also translated heart or innermost) flooding you with light, until you experience the full revelation of the hope of his calling (to you, to which he is calling you)...  I pray that you will continually experience the immeasurable greatness of God’s power made available to you through faith. Then your lives will be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through you! This is the mighty power that was released when God raised Christ from the dead and exalted him to the place of highest honor and supreme authority in the heavenly realm! Ephesians 1:18-20

2. Imagine someone you love, and begin to list for yourself what you do love about them (if you are angry you can still remember times you felt loved by them or felt they were doing a loving thing. We MUST stop discounting the loving moments because there are ugly moments. Separate them for now.) Your brain is always in a state of now, when you remember, your brain re-experiences the event - not like a photo or video, but in the way you imagine it with the feelings you associated with it. Your brain releases chemical messengers that bathe the cells of your entire body with that information: love in the now. Areas of your brain are activated that amplify and reinforce the experience of love. 

3. Accept and believe that the Holy Spirit (who is in constant contact with God the Father and Jesus the Son) is also in residence in your heart. 

 If you really love me, you will keep the commandments I have given you and I shall ask the Father to give you someone else to stand by you, to be with you (within you) always. I mean the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot accept, for it can neither see nor recognize that Spirit. But you recognize him, for he is with you now and will be in your hearts. John 14:16 

4. Focus on the "memory" of your loved one and pair it with the emotion of love for as long as you can. Resist the devil's temptation to move your attention to condemning them before God - thinking of their failings and wrongdoings. Remember the PURPOSE - which is to rewire your brains to focus on love regarding this person, and as a result become more loving yourself.

5. If you catch yourself listing their wrongs, immediately choose to forgive them, ask the Lord to help them change, then ask yourself what ways you do the same thing, are the same way (it doesn't matter if you think you are not that way - trust me, this helps) and in faith that there just might be some way you are guilty of the same behavior in some form, just repent of it yourself.

6. Go back to loving your spouse while pretending/imagining/feeling you are inside your own heart.

7. Go on to the next person you want to experience in a more loving way. 

Remember, this is not about them, this is not for them, this is for you.

ALSO - set standards of behavior for yourself and commit them to God. Choose how you would like to behave even in anger and ask God to renew your mind in this area. Romans 12:2. Instead of focusing on what you don't want (what we focus on we increase), focus on what you do want. Read the description of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4 and ask God what that would look like for you, in your circumstance. Simply ask the question, knowing the answer will come, may be in a dream, may be in the morning, maybe over the course of a few days, may be in a sermon, or some other means. Have faith - choose to expect an answer because I always say, what we expect we experience. 

There was a time when I noticed that when I really began praying daily for a certain change, and I also believed God would bring it about and I would pray daily for as long as it took, that it was taking about 30 days for me to see change.

It took 21 days for the angel of the Lord to break through the demonic army that was trying to prevent him from reaching Daniel with a message from the Lord. And Daniel was very practiced at prayer and Faith. 

Why do we expect we are going to get breakthrough immediately or else we are giving up?

Now, I see change much quicker because I have much less unconscious and conscious resistance and barriers to change and to God's way. For more understanding of how we block God from evidencing Himself in our awareness, go to my website www.thebrainretrain.com