Latest / The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast / 553 | The Elements of Prayer - Part 3 - Worship, Surrender & Petition

Transcript

553 | The Elements of Prayer - Part 3 - Worship, Surrender & Petition · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

0:05
She's a happy girl. Hello, friends, and welcome back to another podcast of Woman.
0:10
At the Well Ministries, where we believe that all of us have to come to Jesus
0:15
like the woman at the well in John chapter 4.
0:18
Our highest priority is making God real in your life.
0:21
Whether you are listening in our app, in your favorite podcasting app,
0:25
or on our website at watwm.org, we invite you to sit down with us as we look
0:31
to the scriptures to learn more about God and to strengthen your daily walk with Jesus Christ.
1:03
Prayer is a simple process of one's heart acknowledging the power of God,
1:08
trusting in Him, and pouring out all that is in it to a God that hears,
1:13
understands, and delivers.
1:15
Join us in this third part of our series on prayer as Kim discusses three of
1:20
the five elements essential for prayers that produce.
1:25
Hello, and thank you for joining us in this broadcast of Woman at the Well Ministries.
1:29
For this series that we're doing on prayer, we've chosen five elements for your
1:34
prayers that we feel that you should have in there in order to be effective in your prayers.
1:39
And let me start off from the very beginning by saying that prayer is an attitude of the heart.
1:45
In 1 Thessalonians 5, 17, he says, pray without ceasing.
1:48
In 1 Chronicles, he tells us to seek him continually and that the prayers can
1:53
be as simple as save me as we saw Peter do when he was falling in the water
1:58
and he reaches up to the only one that he knows that can save him.
2:01
He places his trust into the great Jesus Christ and he says save me and immediately
2:06
Jesus reaches down and saves him.
2:09
Prayer is not a prescription that I can say say these words and this will happen.
2:14
Prayer is an attitude of the heart. It is the way we communicate with God.
2:18
It says all about what we think of God It says all about who we think God is.
2:24
It says everything about our relationship with God is our prayer life.
2:27
If you've got a weak prayer life, you've got a weak relationship with God.
2:31
And let me tell you from the get-go that it is the same on His end as it has
2:35
always been. And that it's not Him that has moved away.
2:38
He is the same today, yesterday, and forevermore. He never changes.
2:42
If you've got a problem in your prayer life, it's with you.
2:46
Because God said He would hear our prayers.
2:50
If we would cry out to him in holiness
2:54
and in true faith believing that
2:57
he would answer us he tells us in jeremiah 33 3 that if we call unto him he
3:01
will answer us and show us great and mighty things which we know not he tells
3:06
us in matthew 7 7 that if we ask we shall receive if we seek we shall find and
3:11
if we knock it shall be opened unto us he tells us again in luke chapter 11
3:15
9 and 10 that very same thing.
3:17
Friends, he is pursuing a relationship with us.
3:23
And we need to pray to him. We need to speak to him.
3:28
We need to talk to him. And for the point of this series, we're going to talk
3:34
about five elements that I think if we placed in our prayer life,
3:38
we would see more results.
3:40
Because what it would do would begin to shape us into the people we need to be.
3:43
We need to have worship in our prayer. we need to surrender to the great I am,
3:50
placing our trust in him understanding who he is and we need to make our petitions
3:55
known to him we need to ask him for help,
3:59
And then the next lesson, God willing, and if he provides all the opportunity
4:03
and the time, we will do confession and thanksgiving.
4:07
So the five elements that we're going to talk about in this series on prayer
4:11
that we feel you should concentrate on as you begin to think about praying to
4:15
God is worship, surrender, petition, confession, and thanksgiving.
4:23
But again, I say, prayer is an attitude of the heart.
4:27
That I'm not going to tell you what words to say. I'm just going to tell you
4:31
to open up your heart and pour it out to Jesus because he's invited you to do
4:36
so. And oh, how he loves you.
4:39
And oh, how he loves me. Shall we pray? Our kind and most gracious,
4:44
dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we just pray that you would just come,
4:46
that you would just sit down beside of us, Lord, and that you would just speak to us.
4:51
Lord, we praise you for who you are. We praise you for what we know that you
4:54
do. We praise you, Lord, for being you.
4:57
Lord, we thank you so much for your son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross,
5:02
that we might have the right to come to you, and we might have the right to
5:06
speak to you, and that he bought the right for us to have a personal relationship with you.
5:11
Jesus Christ, we thank you for coming and living that sinless,
5:15
perfect, spotless life that would enable you to be the perfect lamb of God.
5:22
Lord, we realize that without you, we are nothing. And the Bible tells us that
5:25
we are filthy rags, our works of righteousness.
5:28
But that you come in and you impute your righteousness to us.
5:32
And thereby we can be called the sons of God.
5:35
Lord, we pray that you would just look into our hearts right now.
5:38
Lord, that you would remove any part of us that doesn't belong,
5:42
that you would remove any sin that might be there, dear Heavenly Father,
5:45
that we would be a holy, peculiar person set apart for service unto you.
5:50
Lord, we thank you that we know that you hear our prayers. We thank you that
5:53
we know that you know what we need before we even ask.
5:55
And Lord, we thank you that you're willing, capable, and are providing all that we need.
6:01
Lord, we ask that you would teach us to walk in your ways and that you would
6:04
teach us to live in your strength.
6:07
Lord, teach us to have a strong, healthy, vibrant prayer life.
6:12
And all these things we ask in Jesus Christ in the name and all of God's people said, Amen.
6:18
I can't help but think about when I think about exercising prayer,
6:22
thinking about all the time that we spend really working on exercise and the
6:27
absolute craze that the entire world has fallen into about exercise.
6:33
And don't get me wrong our bodies are the temple of god
6:36
and we need to maintain them so that we'd be fit for the service
6:39
of the kingdom of god we need to be as healthy living as
6:42
we possibly can that we might be able to be used to
6:44
the best of our abilities but my friend all
6:47
of that is for naught because bodily exercise profiteth little
6:51
we're told because all of that the heavenly father
6:54
said that if we don't have our
6:57
faith placed in him we might be fit
7:00
here but we're going to spend eternity in a
7:03
mighty hot horrible place but if
7:05
we could fit our lives spiritually then we
7:08
can live forever and ever and a body will never
7:11
die and we'll be in a place not made with hands eternal
7:14
into the heavens don't get me wrong whether you are a christian or whether you're
7:18
not you are going to live forever the question remains where are you going to
7:22
live christians will live forever in christ in a place beyond our comprehension
7:27
where the streets are gold a mansion not built with hands for each one of us
7:31
who have been called the sons of God,
7:33
who have claimed the name of Jesus, who have received him as Savior.
7:36
A place where there's crystal waters and you'll walk on streets of gold.
7:41
A place where the sun never sets and Jesus Christ is alive. And we don't have
7:45
to walk in faith, but we walk in sight over there because he's there.
7:49
Or a place not ever meant for anyone to go but the devil and his angels.
7:53
A place of eternal torments where the worm dieth not.
7:57
Where the flames look up and never consume you.
8:02
If you recall the rich man and Lazarus
8:05
the rich man looked up from hell and he said go tell my
8:08
brothers they don't want to come here and let me tell
8:11
you he speaks about it and he has all five of his
8:14
senses he can see he can hear he can taste
8:17
and he can smell and he can feel he is
8:20
well alive in that place they tell him it wouldn't do any good because we told
8:25
you and you didn't believe and we went back and told your brothers they wouldn't
8:28
believe either my friend that's the problem with some of you listening to the
8:31
sound of my voice you don't believe but there is coming a day when every knee
8:35
shall bow and every tongue shall confess that jesus christ is lord.
8:39
And you want it to happen on this side of the cross, on this side of judgment.
8:44
You don't want it to be when it's eternally too late. And he says,
8:46
depart from me. I never knew you, you workers of iniquity.
8:50
Friend, the first thing we need in order to have a successful prayer life is
8:55
a relationship with Jesus Christ.
8:57
The Bible says that Jesus Christ
8:59
only has to hear the prayer of repentance from a sinner, nothing else.
9:03
He's gracious and he's wonderful and he's marvelous. And it rains on the just
9:07
and the unjust. and you get the same sunshine and you get the same wonderful
9:11
provisions of oxygen and he gives you life just like he gives his children.
9:15
But my friend, you don't have a personal relationship with him and you can't
9:18
call upon him as a child calls upon his father because you don't know him that way.
9:23
Oh, but I have good news. He said, whosoever shall call upon the name of the
9:27
Lord shall be saved if you'll trust in Jesus Christ,
9:30
leaning not on your own understanding but placing your faith in Jesus Christ
9:34
and you shall confess that he was raised from the dead,
9:36
thou shalt be saved and then
9:39
my friend you'll begin that life of walking with jesus christ and the holy spirit
9:43
indwelling inside of you begins to teach you and speaks to you and you begin
9:47
to have a conversation with jesus christ that for those who trust in him and
9:51
those who fully are walking in his ways and in his will never ceases and you
9:57
hear him when he whispers,
9:59
and you consult him about all things and you chat with him about the stuff that
10:03
you think matters and you chat with him about things that you think don't matter,
10:07
but he's an ever constant presence in your life.
10:10
And he's as real as the hand you hold. Reach out and touch someone right now.
10:15
Jesus Christ, your savior, is that real and that personal to you.
10:19
And he's longing for a relationship. And so when we come to him in prayer,
10:24
I believe we need to worship him.
10:27
What does worship mean? It means thinking about who he is and what he's done.
10:31
It means praising him for the God he is.
10:34
There is none like him. There was none before. There'll be none after him.
10:37
He is God. He's the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
10:41
Believe it or not, he loves you and he loves me.
10:46
Created me in his image. So when he looks down at me, though I am not perfect
10:50
and though I have many flaws, he sees the blood of Jesus Christ,
10:54
his son, and he sees me as the potential that he made me to be.
10:58
And he sees the one he died for. He sees the one he loves.
11:02
Oh, how he loves you. And oh, how he loves me. And oh, what a God we serve.
11:08
You understand that all things are under his feet. He created the heavens and
11:11
the earth. He created it all.
11:15
And much of it for us to enjoy. what a beautiful beautiful gift he gives us
11:21
when he paints the sky for a beautiful sunrise,
11:26
stop and think about it think about who he is
11:29
in hebrews chapter 13 and verse
11:32
15 it says by him therefore let us offer the sacrifice
11:35
of praise to god continually that is
11:38
the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name think
11:41
about who he is think about what he's done think about where
11:44
you were and where he's brought you think about where you
11:47
were headed and now where you're going think about what the wages of sin is
11:51
death but the gift of god is eternal life think about what it's like to never
11:55
be alone think about what it's like to have a resource that never runs dry think
12:00
about what it's like to have somebody who cares for you unconditionally think
12:03
about what it's like to always be loved think about what it's like to belong.
12:08
If that doesn't bring praise out of your lips, nothing will.
12:12
One of my preachers used to say when I was growing up, if that doesn't bless
12:15
your bluster, then something's broken.
12:17
Oh, he loves you so much that he's personal.
12:22
In Revelation chapter 4 and verse 11, he says, Thou art worthy,
12:25
O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things.
12:30
For thy pleasure they are and were created.
12:34
If you would, please turn with me to Psalms chapter 48.
12:38
One of the wonderful ways that we can begin to praise God is to read his Psalms.
12:43
And we begin to just be filled with the magnificence of who he is.
12:47
We begin to be filled with the absolute majesty of his power and his grace.
12:53
My heart bubbles over when I just remember what he said to me in Corinthians,
12:57
when he said, my grace is sufficient for thee.
13:01
My heart just bubbles over when I remember when he said that I've come to give
13:05
you life, that you might have it more abundantly.
13:07
My heart just absolute spazits when he says.
13:13
I love you. And he says that all over his love letter. From Genesis to Revelations
13:18
in chapter 48 of the book of Psalms.
13:21
Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God,
13:25
in the mountain of his holiness.
13:27
Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides
13:32
of the north, the city of the great king.
13:34
God is known in her palaces for a refuge. For lo, the kings were assembled,
13:39
they passed by together. They saw it and so they marveled. they were troubled and hasted away.
13:44
Fear took hold upon them there, and pain as of a woman in travail.
13:48
Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind.
13:51
As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts,
13:55
and the city of our God will establish it forever.
13:59
We have thought of thy loving kindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple.
14:03
According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth.
14:07
Thy right hand is full of righteousness.
14:09
Let Mount Zion rejoice. Let the daughters of Judah be glad because of thy judgments.
14:15
Walk about Zion and go round about her. Tell the towers thereof.
14:18
Mark you well her bulwarks. Consider her palaces that you may tell it to the
14:23
generation to follow. Oh.
14:31
As we begin to pray, we need to worship. One thing that does is it gets us in the right place.
14:37
It begins to let us see who he is and it strengthens our faith.
14:41
It strengthens our trust in him. It establishes that confidence that we have in him.
14:48
And it makes it easy for us to surrender.
14:51
Because you see, without him, we are nothing.
14:54
1 Peter 5, 6 says that we are to humble ourselves, therefore under the mighty
14:58
hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.
15:02
Oh, you want to be glorified, glorious? You want fame?
15:08
Just surrender to the will of God. Let him work his perfect will in you.
15:13
Let him, let his plans for you that he has, that he tells us in Jeremiah 11,
15:18
29, 11, let them come to fruition and be obedient.
15:23
Obedience is better than sacrifice, you know.
15:26
And then he will raise you up beyond your wildest imaginations,
15:33
beyond the amazing dreams that you thought you had. I have dreams. I had dreams.
15:40
And I had plans, but they weren't his plans.
15:44
And in my wildest imagination, I could never have thought the joy, the peace.
15:52
The amazing contentment i have in walking
15:55
close to jesus christ and my plans would have kept me far from that because
15:59
i was looking for worldly fame and i was looking for worldly recognition and
16:03
i was looking about all the things i could do on my own and just sort of hiding
16:07
behind look at me i can quote scriptures look at me i go to church look at me
16:11
i don't do anything wrong,
16:12
but my heart wasn't in the right place and god knew that god loved me so much
16:17
that he took me to a place where I could not choose anything but him.
16:21
And so those worldly desires that I had to be something that was different than
16:26
he wanted me to be, to be that professional athlete that was going to take me
16:30
away from what he wanted me to be, and there's nothing wrong with athletics
16:33
and don't ever go away saying that Kim Miller ever said there was.
16:36
They're a wonderful form of entertainment and exercise and a wonderful form
16:41
of fellowship that we have.
16:43
But when it becomes your God, your G-O-D, your little G-O-D,
16:47
there's something horrible about it.
16:49
And it became what I lived for, and it became what I really wanted.
16:53
And it was what I thought. I even told God how I could serve him.
16:56
If he would just let me win Wimbledon, I'd surely give him more than a tenth
16:59
of my time, and I would tell everybody in the acceptance speech, oh, how I love Jesus.
17:04
But you know, my life would have not shown that, because it would have been
17:07
dedicated to something far different.
17:09
And God had set me aside and apart to teach his word, and what an honor that
17:13
was, and I just couldn't see it, and I just didn't believe it.
17:18
And it was difficult for me to surrender. And it was difficult.
17:20
And you say, well, Kim, you certainly don't have the fame and the glory that
17:23
you would have had if you'd have won Wimbledon. Not here. Most people don't know me.
17:27
But you know what? When I close my eyes and pillow my head at night,
17:30
I have a peace that passes understanding and a joy unspeakable and full of glory.
17:35
And I can hear him whisper.
17:37
I wouldn't trade being able to hear him whisper for anything.
17:42
And he talks to me. And you can think I'm crazy if you want to.
17:44
But I'll just know that you don't have the relationship with him that I have
17:47
if you argue me that he doesn't speak to you.
17:50
I don't hear his audible voice, but I feel it in my heart, and I see his hands
17:55
move in my life, and I watch him rearrange things for me so that it works out
17:59
for my good, and I see his grace just poured out upon me.
18:02
I see his mercy bestowed round about me. I see his presence at all times,
18:06
and I'm never alone, and he said he'd never leave me nor forsake me,
18:09
and he said I could pray to him, and he asked me to pray to him,
18:12
and he said he would sup with me. You better believe we're having conversations.
18:15
You better believe we're talking. You better believe we're hanging out.
18:18
I'm claiming his promise that he said that if I would just open up the door, he'd come in.
18:24
And friends, he's no respecter of persons and I'm nothing special.
18:26
He'll do the same for you. But it requires you surrendering to him.
18:31
In Psalms 37, verses 3 and 5, he says, Trust in the Lord and do good.
18:36
So shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed.
18:39
Delight thyself also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
18:43
Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.
18:47
It's time that we got out of the way and let God be God.
18:51
None of this co-pilot stuff. He doesn't need you to help him travel through
18:55
this world. He needs to let you let him travel through you.
18:59
The other and final element that we're going to speak with in this portion of
19:03
the messages in this series on prayer is petition.
19:07
We've spoken about worship. We've spoken about surrender. And we're going to
19:11
talk about petition now in the next lesson, the Lord willing.
19:13
We're going to speak about confession and thanksgiving.
19:16
In James 1 verses 5 and 6, he says, If any of thou lack wisdom,
19:20
let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not,
19:24
and it shall be given him.
19:26
But let him ask in faith nothing wavering for he that wavereth is like the wave
19:31
of the sea driven with the wind and tossed if you lack something ask of god
19:36
if you lack wisdom and some of you out there i'm fairly certain do and as i
19:40
do myself often we need to ask god and he said he'd give it to us.
19:45
One of my favorite passages of scripture is Hebrews 4, 14 through 16.
19:49
And he says, Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into
19:53
the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
19:57
For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
20:00
infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
20:04
Let us therefore come boldly.
20:07
Did you hear me? That isn't Kim speaking.
20:10
That's the holy word of God. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of
20:14
grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
20:21
You see, we don't have to feel like we're going to God with just a laundry list
20:24
of what he can do for us, just a shopping cart for him to fill up with blessings.
20:29
We come to God in a relationship. We come to God and we talk to him and we've
20:34
established a relationship and therefore we have the right to ask him.
20:37
And then we can ask him of him what he will because he knows that we trust in him.
20:42
He knows that we're putting ourselves aside and letting him be God.
20:46
He understands place with him and he knows that we understand our place with him.
20:51
You know, some of us go to God and tell God what to do. Who do you think you are?
20:55
Let's go back to the beginning. You're a poor, wretched, sinner,
20:59
dirty, rotten, scallywag.
21:01
You ain't got nothing worth a dime. You come into this world with your works like filthy rags.
21:07
But Jesus Christ comes into your life, and he washes them white as snow,
21:10
and he imputes his righteousness to you.
21:13
Let's remember he created you, and he has plans for you.
21:17
Let's remember he didn't have to consult you to make the heavens and the earth,
21:21
and he didn't have to consult you to make the fish of the sea.
21:23
He didn't need to consult you for anything then, and he doesn't need to consult
21:26
you for anything now, but he chooses to use you in his service,
21:30
giving you the opportunity to serve him, giving you the opportunity to affiliate
21:34
with him, giving you the opportunity to associate with him, and you can be like
21:38
Paul and say, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,
21:41
but it is life to me.
21:44
And when we pray, that's where we need to be.
21:47
We need to have the position right. And I'm not talking about on your hands
21:51
or knees or prostrate on the ground or walking.
21:53
You pray any way you want to, anywhere you want to. It's a condition of the heart.
21:57
You can pray going down the road. I've never been so glad in my life the cell
22:00
phones come out because now people just think I'm on the telephone.
22:02
And then I've got some headset or something that I'm talking into.
22:05
Instead of me just waving my hands and having a full-fledged conversation with
22:08
the God of the universe right there with me.
22:10
But the people driving by me now, they validated that I'm saying because they
22:14
just assume I'm talking on a phone.
22:16
I've been talking like that for years before cell phones ever came out.
22:21
My friends, as we begin to look at prayer and as we begin to close this lesson
22:25
and begin to do the next lesson,
22:27
I want you to see that there are five elements that we've brought out that we
22:31
feel that are necessary to be in prayers to get our prayers to be fruitful and
22:34
as powerful as they can be.
22:36
And the three elements that we've spoken about in this
22:38
message is that we want to have worship in them we want to
22:41
be surrendered to god and we want to make petitions and in
22:45
the very next part of this series we'll talk about confession and thanksgiving
22:48
but don't ever forget prayer is a condition of the heart it's not a said written
22:55
recipe it is coming to jesus and looking up to him as simply as peter said save me.
23:13
Us in today's podcast. You can visit the show notes for quotes from today's
23:17
podcast and scripture references.
23:19
We pray today has been a blessing and we encourage you to reach out to us through
23:23
our app, our website, or our Facebook page.
23:26
You can find our app by searching for Women at the Well Ministries in your app
23:30
store or through our website at watwm.org.
23:34
We're on Facebook at facebook.com slash watwm.
23:39
If you visit our website, you'll be able to subscribe to Bible Bits,
23:42
a daily devotion written by Kim and delivered Monday through Friday by text message.
23:47
Woman at the Well Ministries is a non-profit organization dedicated to serving our Heavenly Father.
23:53
And it is through your loving and generous support that our ministry continues to bless others.
23:58
To learn how to partner with Woman at the Well Ministries, please visit our website.
24:02
Thank you to the Gospel Group Fudge Creek for letting us use their hit song, Happy Girl.
24:07
We greatly appreciate your prayers. We are praying daily for our listeners.
24:12
Remember that God loves you. You are loved.