Latest / #Faith4TodayPodcast / 🎙️ EP45 – “The Life of Prayer: Communion Over Convenience” (John 17)

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🎙️ EP45 – “The Life of Prayer: Communion Over Convenience” (John 17) · #Faith4TodayPodcast

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  In John 17, we hear Jesus pray, and it's not just words, it's a
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  window into his heart. Prayer wasn't just a ritual for
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  Jesus, it was a rich relationship with the Father.
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  It was communion with the Father.
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  And in a world full of distraction and noise, he calls
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  us to return to stillness, to surrender, and to real intimacy
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  with God. This week, we're talking about a
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  life of prayer, how to move beyond just convenience, beyond
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  performance, and into a true rich union in connection with
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  Father Southern Spirit through prayer.
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  And because the most powerful prayer, it's actually the one
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  that you pray. Let's get into it.
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  Hey, welcome to episode 45 of the Faith for Today podcast.
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  My name is Matthew and I'm your host and I'm really glad that
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  you are here with us here on the Faith for Today podcast.
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  We're going to recap a Sunday message.
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  We're going to share a little bonus content beyond the message
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  and answer and respond to some questions that we've received
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  based on the message content, all with the hope and the design
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  to help you not just be inspired on Sunday, but to in the truth
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  into a life of loyalty on a Thursday.
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  So let's get into it today for a quick recap this week we looked
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  at what Jesus's prayer was in John 17.
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  It reveals to us some things about life of prayer.
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  Now prayer isn't just a a religious act.
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  It's how we communicate with God, how we come into alignment
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  with his heart. Prayer is not just reading
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  scripted prayers or list listing personal requests, though those
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  matter and can be a part of our prayer.
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  It's not less than that, but it is more than that.
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  Prayer is communion, it's conversation, it's connection,
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  it's intimacy with Father, Son, and Spirit.
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  Jesus modeled that for us. He often withdrew from the noise
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  of life to be alone with the Father.
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  And that's the pattern of spiritual maturity, isn't it?
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  Diverting our attention away from the world so that we can
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  devote our attention and affection toward God.
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  Jesus showed us that prayer isn't about convenience.
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  It's an act of consecration. It's what shapes our priorities.
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  It right sizes our ambitions, and it transforms our hearts.
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  We live in a culture filled with distraction, apathy, and pride
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  where where we chase comfort, entertainment, and achievement.
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  But prayer reorders our life. It reorders the affections and
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  loves and passions of our life. It calls men and women back to
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  holy ambition, to spiritual leadership in the home.
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  It's where we can intercede for others instead of arguing with
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  them. It's when we stop being consumed
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  by cultural battles, we can actually start engaging in the
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  spiritual ones. We find strength, clarity and
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  purpose again in our place of prayer.
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  Jesus prayed for His Father was in John 17, that we'd be 1, that
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  we know the Father, that we live in his glory.
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  That's intercession, standing in the gap for others out of love.
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  He also modeled this communion, this personal heart level prayer
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  that draws us close to God's presence.
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  Prayer moves us from the shallow distractions of the world to
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  surrendering our cares to resting in His love.
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  It's verbal, it's not silent, it's honest, it's not always
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  polished, it's continual, it's not occasional.
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  The most powerful prayer is the one that you actually pray.
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  This week we want to learn how to surrender our attention.
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  We want to pick a time, pick a place, pray out loud, and be
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  with God. God is waiting and wanting to
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  passionately commune with you in real life, in real time, and
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  that's why we want to live a life of prayer.
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  Let's get into some bonus content from the message.
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  One of the things that I wanted to mention right up top is
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  there's a few books that have been really, really personally
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  impacting my life when it comes to prayer.
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  Some things that I've really, really appreciated.
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  One book is called The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson, a great
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  book all about prayer and being consistent and praying big
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  prayers and trusting God in that process.
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  I think it's a fantastic book on prayer.
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  Another one that I love is the book called Encountering Jesus
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  Really by John Eldridge. His book previous to that,
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  Resilient, which came out right after Kovid, was really, really
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  helpful in understanding communing prayer.
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  In fact, I'll share some insights from that book here in
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  just a minute. But probably my favorite book
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  about prayer by far has been a book entitled Praying Like Monks
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  Living Like Fools from and, and it is a fantastic book that that
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  that that gets at the heart of prayer in such a beautiful way,
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  does a great job. In fact, the the different
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  chapters in the book kind of bring out different elements of
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  prayer, ways in which we engage in prayer, whether it be prayer
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  is a posture reminding us just to kind of pray as we can,
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  helping us learn what confession and the role that confession has
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  in prayer, intercession, the importance of adoration in our
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  prayer. What does it look like to to
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  partner or participate in prayer?
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  How do we live some things out and really engage with God's
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  Kingdom mission? Praying for the what loss?
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  It's just a great, great book about prayer.
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  I thought it was fantastic. Tyler Staton is the author and
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  he wrote in his book Praying like Monks, Living like Fools.
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  And it, it was really, really helpful.
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  In fact, his bonus chapter, like after the book was done, he kind
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  of wrote an additional chapter. And it was a chapter that lit a
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  fire in me as we were leading up to finalizing some of our
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  initial plans for our heart, for the house and our building
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  expansion. And so the Lord used it to
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  really mold something and burn something in me.
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  And it's not the only reason why in our new building, we're going
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  to have a prayer room, but it is a big reason why in our new
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  building. I really just wanted to lean
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  into prayer. I shared in the message how
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  prayer has been kind of a, a bit of a journey.
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  And there there's some reasons why I think we don't often build
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  a life of prayer, whether we, we, we don't think it's for us
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  or it's going to work for us. This might be good for other
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  people. It's not our personality or
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  we're not holy enough for God to answer our prayers or God
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  answers certain people prayers, but he doesn't answer our
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  prayers. I think that's a lie from, from
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  hell. I think it's a deception that we
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  buy into. And then another reason I
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  mentioned in the message was then that that it's too
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  vulnerable. It's too, it feels too weak.
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  Like I, I, and this was my struggle.
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  I just felt like praying for myself or, or really sitting and
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  allowing God's presence to fill me and to really commune with
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  God in prayer required a level of honesty, vulnerability, and
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  just putting myself in a place before God that just it didn't
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  work and I didn't like it. And the, the end result for me
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  was either I just was always asking God, like God, I want you
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  to do this. And I just felt really needy
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  and, and I didn't like that. And I think some of it came back
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  to a a heart posture that had to change in me where I found
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  myself always just kind of asking God for things.
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  And I just felt that there wasn't a real connection with
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  God in prayer, but rather just kind of like your God do my
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  bidding for me. And I began to discover in
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  Scripture that we, we, we present requests to God.
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  We don't get to demand and control God with our prayers.
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  And I think there was some incorrect teaching, incorrect
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  truth inside of me that I just had to confront.
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  And I was unwilling to confront it for a really long time.
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  Like somewhere in the deep parts of my heart, I thought that
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  prayer was about me getting God to do what I wanted to do.
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  And that's not really what prayer is.
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  Prayers about me coming with honesty, transparency,
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  vulnerability to really enjoy communion with him and
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  relationship with him. And it wasn't didn't feel very
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  productive for me. I didn't feel like I was
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  anything was happening. I wasn't making moves and things
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  weren't changing. Like I just wasn't just sitting
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  with God felt like a waste of time.
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  And since I've repented, I've really changed my mind and and
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  gotten to the scriptures to really understand that when we
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  ask, we seek, we nod. The the thing that we really
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  need is God to understand us, God to hear us and God to be
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  present with us. That's what we get in prayer.
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  We get God in prayer, which is why prayer is so incredibly and
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  important. And in the message I kind of
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  shared real quick different categories or types or modes of
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  prayer that I think are evident throughout Scripture and kind of
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  been a part of the Christian tradition for for a little
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  while. And let me let me walk you
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  through those types of prayers or, or modes of prayers, if you
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  will. You have scripted or written or
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  guided prayers. This is where you're either
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  using someone else's prayer, like somebody else has written a
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  prayer or a liturgy that you're reading or listening to.
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  It's kind of a form of using someone else's words to pray to
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  God or engage with God. In fact, today on our social
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  media account today being when I'm recording this.
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  So Monday we've shared out for pastor appreciation month a
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  prayer that you can pray for your pastors of your church,
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  right? And specifically for us at our
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  church, here's a prayer that you can pray.
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  It's a written out prayer that you can pray.
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  So I think that's a way of praying, right?
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  Sometimes we just don't know what to say.
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  And it's good to go and, and read, read a prayer aloud.
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  It's, it's someone else's words, but it's your heart, your
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  desire, your you're borrowing their words to say.
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  I think that's great. I think in scripted written form
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  of prayers we have, this is where we pray Scripture.
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  The Psalms are a book of prayers.
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  You have some prayers in Colossians that are really,
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  really great. I think it's Colossians 1 where
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  Paul says he was a prayer and he says I pray this and he tells
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  them what he's been praying. Well, we can go and borrow
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  Paul's language, his words to pray for ourselves.
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  Ephesians, Ephesians 1, Ephesians 3 have kind of windows
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  of things that Paul is praying. Again, we can borrow his prayer
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  and then of course the Lord's Prayer.
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  Jesus said, pray in this manner and we can both use the Lord's
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  Prayer as a template of, of movements of our prayer, things
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  that we kind of categorically kind of walk through in prayer,
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  or we can just pray the Lord's Prayer.
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  I, I think there's something important about just praying the
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  the words of Jesus our Father was in heaven.
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  Holy is your name and walked it through.
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  I will often use the Lord's Prayer as a nighttime prayer
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  with my kids when they, when they were a little bit younger,
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  we would just recite the Lord's Prayer together.
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  I think that's a way of praying that's a mode or a type or a
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  path of prayer, scripted and written prayers.
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  The second kind of category or, or or or type of prayer is
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  personal petitions and requests. This is where we are making
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  requests to God. We are presenting requests to
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  God. And when you're making a request
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  to God, this is something Laura's has really set me free
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  on. You're not demanding or
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  commanding God to do anything. You are submitting a request to
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  the King. You are telling him what's on
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  your heart, what's on your mind, and you are presenting a request
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  to God, which means that you're not demanding an outcome, but
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  rather presenting and submitting something to God for his
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  outcome, for his will to be done.
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  And so you're coming with the sometimes you have a list,
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  right? I know people that are listeners
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  and they've got lists of people and situations and, and their
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  own life that they are continually praying for.
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  They they pray for lists. Some of you are more like me.
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  You're just going to pray off the cuff.
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  What are there things that come up and you're just going to pray
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  those things? It's not a consistent thing.
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  I don't pray the same thing every day.
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  I don't even pray the same thing every week.
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  But the only time I pray the same thing is Sunday before I
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  get up and preach. I have a liturgy or a a pre
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  written memorized prayer that I've written for myself that I
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  pray every Sunday before every message.
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  That's the only like consistent prayer I pray.
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  Otherwise, I'm pretty off the cuff.
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  Probably in the moment. I'm I'm kind of just going off
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  the cuff praying for things that pop into my mind.
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  And then other times of personal petitions and requests are just
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  when I'm prompted certain requests that like man, I forgot
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  to pray about that. Let me, the Holy Spirit kind of
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  reminds me to pray about something or I find myself
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  thinking about it an awful lot. And I'm like, I bet you God's
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  kind of prompting me to pray about this.
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  Let me, let me go ahead and pray about it.
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  So personal petitions and requests, that's another way of
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  prayer. It's instructed in scripture.
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  We're invited into that. And it's OK to pray for the
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  things that you need. You aren't being selfish when
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  you pray for the things that you need.
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  God wants you to pray and bring those requests to Him.
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  We're instructed to do that in the Scriptures.
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  Why? Because He cares, that's why he
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  really cares. And so we bring a request to him
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  with boldness, with confidence, and, and with assurance that he
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  hears us and that he longs to know what's on our heart and
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  mind. And we're sharing that with the
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  Lord. And we submit the request to the
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  King. And it's up to the King's
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  authority how those requests are responded to.
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  Then it's commuting prayer. Now we talked about commuting
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  prayer on Sunday. Jesus kind of models it really
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  well in John 17, which was our main text.
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  And in communing prayer, this is where the goal of this prayer is
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  to commune and had union with God restored, refreshed, and
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  strengthened. In other words, there's an
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  element of of awareness of his presence that is the end result
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  of this prayer. There is an awareness of his
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  love that is the result of this prayer.
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  And there are different movements to it.
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  I talked about how I start with adoration, then I go to kind of
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  casting my cares and releasing things that I'm carrying to God.
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  And then third, I just enjoy his presence and receive of his love
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  and, and, and his peace in that moment.
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  And this idea of praying like this kind of was introduced to
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  me by John Eldridge and author and therapist and speaker who
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  wrote in his book Resilience. It came out on the tail end of
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  the COVID years and he was writing about the importance of
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  getting to to to the depths of who we are.
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  In other words, Jesus said that out of your innermost being will
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  flow rivers of living water. And I think for many of us,
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  myself included, I don't always experience the river of living
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  water, of the life of the Spirit flowing in me all the time.
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  There are things that hinder me from getting to the depths of
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  that intimacy in union with God, getting to that place.
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  There are things that get in the way of me experiencing the
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  presence of God in a moment. I think that's what Jesus is
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  getting at in Mark when he, he says any anytime you say to this
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  mountain move, it'll be moved and you can ask anything of God
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  and he'll do it. And I've said in a few different
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  Times Now that whenever the Scripture says you can ask
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  anything in his name. It doesn't mean we can ask
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  anything in his name, but it is specifically talking about
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  anything that is in the way of your union with God.
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  You can ask God to remove it and he will.
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  God will always answer the prayer.
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  God, would you remove anything, any lie, any activity, anything
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  in my life that is keeping me from rich union with you?
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  Will you remove anything that is damming up the river of living
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  water from flowing into my life, being that living water that I
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  need to refresh myself so that I never thirst again?
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  Though? Would you be the one that
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  refreshes me? But would you remove everything
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  that is making that feel toxic that's in the root system that
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  is causing my fruit to not grow? In fact, Jesus curses A fig tree
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  and talks about the mountain all in the same text.
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  And I think they've linked those things on purpose.
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  Probably because the conversations happened like
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  that, right? Curses A fig tree.
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  He goes to the temple, overturns tables and talks about how the
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  how God's house is supposed to be a place of prayer.
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  And then on the way back they see the the fruit fig tree
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  cursed. And Jesus says, yeah, man, you
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  can ask God to to to, to, to remove anything out of your life
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  that is disruptive to the fruit of God growing in your life.
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  You can say to this mountain move and it'll move.
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  Why? Because mountains are a place of
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  encounter with God. But mountain also can be
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  obstacles, the things that limit our perspective of seeing God,
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  viewing God and experiencing God, encountering him.
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  And in communing prayer, we have an opportunity for God to remove
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  those things and us to cast our cares on those things.
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  And so John Eldridge talks about commuting prayer into 3
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  movements. He talks about the shallows, the
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  Midlands and the depths. Kind of the shallows are the,
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  the distractions where you're kind of like you're trying to
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  settle in. And so when you're in kind of
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  wading through the shallows, if you're going to get to the
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  depths, you have to go to the shallows first.
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  You start in the shallows and the shallows are where you begin
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  to look to heaven. In fact, I, I love, I want to
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  see if I can get it. The exact quote here in John 17
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  when Jesus begins his prayer and the first thing that Jesus does
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  in John 17 it says is that he he prays for himself.
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  In other words, he's praying for his union with God to be
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  restored, his glory and the things of God, this eternal life
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  to be to be flourishing. I love what it says though in
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  John 17 verse one says Jesus spoke these things, then he
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  looked up to heaven and he said, Father, the hour has come,
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  glorify your Son so that the sun may glorify you.
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  And what I love is that Jesus's first thing is he looked to the
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  sun and said, God, your glory is what I'm after.
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  And so I think in the shallows, the first movement of commuting
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  prayer in the shallows is to remove your distractions so you
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  can look to heaven to to hollow and honor God, to lift and exalt
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  God. So if you're going to change
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  from from focusing on distractions, you need a new
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  focal point. That focal point is who God is.
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  When we give adoration and we begin to express our affection
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  for God, we are no longer giving our attention to anything else.
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  Our attention is now looking up to God, We're looking up to
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  heaven. So in the Shallows we just begin
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  to remove distractions by speaking praise to God.
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  The second movement of commuting prayers, what he calls the
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  Midlands. Where you're in the shallows,
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  you're moving to the kind of the Midlands of everything.
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  And this is where things can get murky and we can get caught up.
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  But this is where in the Midlands, we need to give our
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  cares to God if we're going to experience the depth of his
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  presence and communion. We have got to get rid of the
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  things that we're holding so that we can embrace Christ.
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  One of my life verses is in Philippians chapter 3 where Paul
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  says I've dumped it all in the trash so that I can embrace
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  Christ and be embraced by him. In other words, Paul is saying
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  there are, there are cares and concerns and perspectives that
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  I've held onto in my life that have kept me from embracing God.
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  And I am getting rid of those things so that I, I can embrace
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  Christ. And then he goes on to say that
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  because I've embraced Christ and I've been embraced by him, I'm
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  going to keep running my race. In other words, I'm full of the
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  life of God and I can go live a life for God because I've
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  embraced God today. So in the Midlands is where you
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  cast your cares on him, as Peter says, because he cares for you.
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  So in the Midlands, what, what do I do?
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  So first I start with adoration and praise in the shallows.
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  Then you get a little bit deeper into things and, and you begin
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  to cast your cares on God. You tell you surrender what it
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  is that you're worried about the, the meetings that you have
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  that day, the bills that have been coming in the fight that
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  you've had the, the thing you're trying to control, but you know
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  you can't control the, the worry that you have.
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  You begin to cast your cares to God and let him take them.
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  And you ask him, is there anything else God that's in the
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  way that I'm holding that I need to get rid of?
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  Is there a sin I'm holding on to?
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  Is there a habit that I need to change, which is their opinion
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  and perspective that I need to release?
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  It's in the Midlands that we unburden ourselves from the
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  cares of this life. And then once we've unburdened
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  ourselves because we've given those to God, we can step into
• 21:55
  the depths of His love, the depths of His presence.
• 21:59
  And this is where you get to enjoy his presence, His glory,
• 22:01
  communion with God. We get to enjoy the love of God.
• 22:06
  And when I step into the depths, I'm just Lord.
• 22:08
  Would you just show me your love today?
• 22:10
  Would you show me your presence today?
• 22:12
  Would you fill me here? Holy Spirit, fresh today?
• 22:15
  May I have commute? Would you restore my union with
• 22:19
  you right now? And I just get to sit and enjoy
• 22:22
  His presence in that moment because I started with
• 22:24
  adoration, I've cast my cares and now I'm able to embrace God
• 22:29
  and the love that He has. This is commuting prayer.
• 22:31
  It has been game changer for me. I've loved getting to do it.
• 22:35
  Sometimes I can do it in like 3 minutes.
• 22:37
  Sometimes I'll take you know, 13 minutes or 30 minutes.
• 22:41
  But commuting prayer is such a powerful mode of prayer.
• 22:45
  I love it. Other modes of prayer are
• 22:49
  praying in the Spirit, praying in tongues.
• 22:50
  I I do believe in praying in tongues.
• 22:52
  I still pray in tongues. Pray in tongues often, almost
• 22:55
  daily. Not quite, but almost the
• 22:58
  Scripture I think is, is, is that there's plenty of and I
• 23:02
  know, I know that there are other theological perspectives
• 23:05
  that maybe don't believe that praying in tongues is for every
• 23:09
  believer. Some believe that it's not for
• 23:11
  any believer. I'm definitely not in that camp.
• 23:14
  I do believe that it is the Holy Spirit is still active in full
• 23:18
  view and in full manner. And so I pray in spirit all the
• 23:22
  time. I pray in tongues.
• 23:23
  I pray in a heavenly prayer language, not necessarily
• 23:26
  publicly for show, but in following First Corinthians 14
• 23:30
  that says he who prays in an unknown tongue speaks mysteries
• 23:33
  unto God. And so I'm, I'm I'm willing to
• 23:36
  tap into that and allow the Spirit to pray through groanings
• 23:39
  through me and praying in the Spirit edifies myself.
• 23:42
  It builds me up, it strengthens my faith and it's something I
• 23:46
  need often. And then the last kind of mode
• 23:50
  or kind of type of prayer is intercession.
• 23:55
  And intercession we talked a lot about because Jesus models
• 23:58
  intercession, that says that he prays for his disciples and then
• 24:01
  he prays for all believers. He's praying for someone other
• 24:04
  than himself. And I think intercession is
• 24:06
  indeed that. It is praying for other people
• 24:09
  motivated by love, that they would see his glory.
• 24:12
  It's specific and it's on behalf of other people.
• 24:16
  And so that's what intercession is when you're interceding for
• 24:20
  someone else. Now we have some great examples
• 24:23
  of intercession and I didn't get get into this, but Hebrews 7
• 24:27
  verse 25 says therefore Jesus is able to save completely those
• 24:32
  who come to God through him, since he always lives to
• 24:36
  intercede for them. So there is an understanding
• 24:40
  that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God right now,
• 24:43
  embodied and enthroned next to God, and He is praying for you
• 24:49
  and He's interceding on our behalf.
• 24:52
  He's praying out of love. He's praying that we would get
• 24:54
  the glory of God and we would experience that in him.
• 24:57
  And he's praying that we would, that he's praying specifically
• 25:01
  for the things that we need and who we are.
• 25:03
  He knows Jesus is our intercessor.
• 25:07
  He is interceding for us. That's a really cool thing.
• 25:09
  I love that. Romans 827 says that he who
• 25:12
  searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit.
• 25:15
  Because he intercedes, the Spirit intercedes for the Saints
• 25:18
  according to the will of God. And so the Holy Spirit is our
• 25:23
  intercessor. Now I do believe that that is
• 25:25
  linked with a prayer language. And so when we're praying in the
• 25:28
  Spirit, we're actually praying through the Spirit and the
• 25:32
  Spirit is praying in US. We're partnering with the Spirit
• 25:36
  in prayer, and we are interceding according to the
• 25:41
  will of God. And I do believe that when we're
• 25:43
  praying in the Spirit, we are praying the will of God into any
• 25:48
  situation. But the Holy Spirit is our
• 25:50
  intercessor. Jesus is our intercessor.
• 25:53
  And we've been invited to step into intercession for other
• 25:58
  people, for our communities, for the world, for the sake of God's
• 26:03
  glory, coming down motivated out of love for them and praying
• 26:07
  specific things that God has on our heart.
• 26:10
  Because at the end of the day, prayer really is powerful.
• 26:14
  Now, I hit this really quick in the message, but I, I want to
• 26:16
  state it really clear. I mean, Jesus prayed some really
• 26:19
  big prayers and, and prayer is powerful because it not only
• 26:25
  creates outcomes, but really it changes us.
• 26:29
  Prayer by by default changes who we are.
• 26:32
  It helps us change. It invites God to work.
• 26:37
  God does not move unless people pray.
• 26:43
  I'm not saying God can't move. I'm not saying God is restricted
• 26:46
  or he never will. But primarily the way in which
• 26:49
  God begins to move is that his people pray.
• 26:52
  Like you see it so often, like there is a moment where somebody
• 26:56
  intercedes, somebody's praying. God longs for his people to
• 27:00
  partner with him in prayer. I think Jesus was fully aware
• 27:05
  that there was power in prayer. Why?
• 27:08
  Because prayer is verbal, and when we're praying verbally, we
• 27:12
  are speaking life and communion with God there.
• 27:14
  There's something powerful that happens.
• 27:16
  Jesus knew there's power in prayer.
• 27:18
  I think it's important. This isn't lame.
• 27:20
  It's actual like spiritual life. I I think all of life is
• 27:26
  spiritual. I think all of life is physical.
• 27:29
  It's both physical and spiritual.
• 27:30
  Those things are linked together and and what what God always
• 27:34
  does is is he works with inside out.
• 27:38
  He works from the invisible to the visible and prayer is a way
• 27:41
  of bringing the invisible realities and desires of God
• 27:45
  into the visible reality of of his of the world in which we
• 27:49
  live. This is why we pray your Kingdom
• 27:50
  come, your will be done on earth like it is in heaven.
• 27:54
  So, so God, would you allow the things that you desire that are
• 27:57
  unseen to become seen on the earth.
• 28:00
  And so prayer is a powerful, powerful thing.
• 28:04
  Prayer has a way of, of resisting the enemy, moving the
• 28:07
  enemy. In fact, Jesus prays even in
• 28:09
  John 17 that that we would be 1. He prays that we would be
• 28:13
  protected from the evil 1 the schemes of the devil.
• 28:16
  He prays that we would experience God's glory.
• 28:19
  He prays that we would be sanctified, that we would have
• 28:22
  illumination of the truth. Like Jesus prays some really big
• 28:25
  things, but his prayer is powerful James tells us that the
• 28:30
  effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous person produces or
• 28:34
  avails much because there is power in our prayer, there is
• 28:39
  power in a unified prayer. In fact, one of the most
• 28:42
  powerful forces of prayer, and I do really do believe this, it's
• 28:48
  when a husband and wife are on the same page, in union together
• 28:52
  with God, submitted to God in his word, and they pray
• 28:55
  together. When a husband and wife pray
• 28:57
  together, they, they are so unified.
• 28:59
  They are so in agreement. They are so in one with each
• 29:03
  other. That man, that is a powerful,
• 29:05
  powerful prayer. And so I think those things are
• 29:07
  really, really important. I think many of us struggle in
• 29:11
  our lives with sinfulness because we're trying to live in
• 29:18
  this life by willpower alone. But you cannot overcome
• 29:23
  sinfulness with willpower. You you can do some things, you
• 29:27
  can, you can grow in some ways, but you cannot break the power
• 29:31
  of sin with your willpower. You need the Holy Spirit's power
• 29:36
  to overcome those forces of sin with with the self-control that
• 29:41
  the Spirit is is birthing and bringing inside of you.
• 29:44
  Like you need more than just willpower.
• 29:47
  You need the Holy Spirit to empower you to live and do those
• 29:51
  things. So there is power in that.
• 29:53
  In fact, Jesus said there are certain demonic things that you
• 29:57
  can't rebuke or cast out from your midst without prayer and
• 30:03
  fasting. So there's something powerful
• 30:06
  about these these things where where we aren't living by
• 30:09
  willpower, but we are being filled the spirit and living
• 30:12
  according to the power of of the Spirit.
• 30:15
  First Timothy 612 says fight the good fight of faith.
• 30:18
  Take hold of eternal life to which you were called and about
• 30:21
  which you have made a good confession in the presence of
• 30:24
  many witnesses. Take hold of eternal life.
• 30:27
  There is a fight, but it is a spiritual battle that is lived
• 30:31
  out in a physical world and he says take hold of eternal life.
• 30:35
  Well, what is eternal life when we talked about it in the
• 30:37
  message, Eternal life is union with the Father, Son and Spirit.
• 30:41
  It is the spirit life filling your life right now and ongoing
• 30:47
  into the life in the world to come.
• 30:48
  Eternal life is God's way of saying or the New Testaments way
• 30:53
  of describing union with God, relationship with God, knowing
• 30:57
  God John 17 and verse 3 and this is eternal life that they would
• 31:02
  know you the way. Sure, he didn't say this is how
• 31:05
  you have eternal life. He says this is eternal life
• 31:10
  that we would know the father and the one that he sent Jesus's
• 31:13
  son. So union in relational knowledge
• 31:17
  and understanding and experience of God the Father, Son and
• 31:21
  Spirit is eternal life for us and and Timothy says Paul says
• 31:26
  that Timothy take hold of that eternal life.
• 31:28
  Fight the good fight. How do we fight?
• 31:30
  We fight in prayer, and in prayer we take hold of the
• 31:34
  eternal life that God has for us.
• 31:36
  John 1721 through 23 says May they all be one, as you, Father,
• 31:40
  are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that
• 31:45
  the world may believe that you sent me.
• 31:47
  I have given them the glory you have given me so that they may
• 31:50
  be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me,
• 31:54
  so that they may be made completely one for the world.
• 31:58
  They know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have
• 32:01
  loved me. What a what a prayer Jesus
• 32:05
  praised. I think it's incredible.
• 32:11
  I love that he prayed this prayer and he's what is he
• 32:14
  praying? He's praying for us to
• 32:16
  experience eternally that we would be 1 with the Father, Son,
• 32:21
  and Spirit. Then we'd have union.
• 32:22
  And in that union we would receive God's glory, the same
• 32:26
  glory that God gave Jesus. What was the glory that God gave
• 32:28
  Jesus? He gave him the Holy Spirit.
• 32:30
  He gave him union with the Father.
• 32:32
  He gave him an unveiled face to encounter God.
• 32:35
  And when Jesus died in the veil and the temple was torn in two
• 32:38
  and the Holy Spirit poured out on the day of Pentecost, we have
• 32:41
  been given the very abiding, embodied presence of God in us
• 32:45
  so that we with unveiled face can come and behold His glory,
• 32:49
  His goodness, we can experience him.
• 32:52
  So what do we get in prayer? We get God, that's the point.
• 32:56
  And Jesus is praying that we would get a hold of God.
• 32:59
  We would get union with God in prayer because that's the whole
• 33:03
  point of prayer that we would get him.
• 33:05
  And that verse 23, I am in them and you are in me.
• 33:08
  So that they may be made completely one that that that
• 33:14
  could be talked about in terms of unity with all of the body of
• 33:17
  Christ. But it also can reference you
• 33:21
  being whole, you being one. You're not fragmented anymore.
• 33:26
  You're not broken down anymore. You're not disengaged from the
• 33:30
  real life of God. No, you've been received the
• 33:32
  Spirit, the ruach of God, the breath of God is now living in
• 33:36
  you and the Holy Spirit. And so you are now in union with
• 33:40
  God, not in full unveiled face where we can see God face to
• 33:46
  face. No, no, not yet.
• 33:47
  But we will one day. The Holy Spirit's a down
• 33:49
  payment, a guarantee of those things that are to come.
• 33:52
  But we get a taste of the glory now because He's making us,
• 33:56
  complete us completely. 11 in our own soul, body and spirit,
• 34:03
  that the world may know that you have sent me and that you have
• 34:06
  loved them as you have loved me. In other words, God saying, I
• 34:10
  want you to be whole and one of the ways you get to be made
• 34:13
  whole is that you receive the love of God just like Jesus
• 34:17
  received the love of God, that the goodness of God would be
• 34:20
  there. Revelation 3 and verse 20 last
• 34:23
  verse on this point is this. He says, see I stand at the door
• 34:26
  and knock. Anyone who hears my voice and
• 34:29
  opens the door, I will come in to eat, come into him and eat
• 34:34
  with him and he with me. In other words, the point of all
• 34:38
  of this is Jesus bringing us to union with Father, Son, and
• 34:43
  Spirit so that we can receive of His love.
• 34:45
  We can have communion, we can share a meal together.
• 34:47
  We can we can be with God that there's this, there's union with
• 34:50
  God. We were made for that kind of
• 34:52
  glory throughout of the Scripture.
• 34:55
  John 17 one and two, John 17 five, John 1713, John 172223 and
• 35:02
  24 all talk about glory. This idea that we would receive
• 35:07
  God's glory, that we would experience God's glory, that we
• 35:09
  would, like Paul says with unveiled faces in Corinthians,
• 35:14
  experience the glory of God and be changed from glory to glory,
• 35:19
  from goodness of God to goodness of God, from strength of
• 35:22
  fidelity in him to strength of fidelity in him.
• 35:26
  Because like Moses on Mount Sinai who met with God face to
• 35:30
  face, he asked God to show him his glory.
• 35:33
  And God says, I will let you see my goodness.
• 35:36
  My goodness will pass before you.
• 35:38
  So the glory of God is His goodness.
• 35:41
  His goodness is seen in his unmerited favor.
• 35:44
  His unmerited favor is His Spirit that pours out a gift of
• 35:50
  himself into US. What is God's goodness today
• 35:54
  that we can experience here? It is is you experiencing the
• 35:57
  person of the Spirit filling your life where you can have
• 36:02
  union, communion, relationship, abiding with God the Father, God
• 36:08
  the Son and God the Spirit that you were made for that kind of
• 36:12
  glory. And that's the beauty of what
• 36:15
  Jesus modeled in his prayer in John 17 into a few questions and
• 36:20
  response that came in. So here's the first question,
• 36:24
  Who is the quote UN quote, son of destruction?
• 36:27
  And can you expound on the next phrase that Scripture might be
• 36:30
  fulfilled? Quote UN quote?
• 36:31
  Yeah, let me read the the the whole verse to you.
• 36:35
  It's John 17. Jesus is praying for his
• 36:39
  disciples specifically, and he says verse 12, while I was with
• 36:45
  them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given
• 36:47
  me. I guarded them and not one of
• 36:49
  them is lost. Accept the Son of destruction so
• 36:53
  that the Scripture may be fulfilled.
• 36:56
  I believe that Jesus is talking about a couple things.
• 36:59
  One, he's referring to his 12 apostles specifically.
• 37:03
  That's who he's praying for and that's who he's referring to.
• 37:06
  That these were the ones that God wanted him to bring into
• 37:11
  this apostleship. And he's specifically referring
• 37:14
  to Judas, who would betray him as the son of destruction, the
• 37:17
  one who would experience destruction and because of the
• 37:21
  betrayal of Jesus. And, and this was to fulfill
• 37:25
  scriptures. Scripture in the Old Testament
• 37:27
  had prophesied and pointed to that there would be someone who
• 37:31
  would betray Jesus, betray the Messiah and be used in the
• 37:38
  revolt that would allow for the the whole crucifixion and being
• 37:43
  turned over to the Pharisees and then to Rome and all of that.
• 37:47
  In fact, the Psalm 41 eight through 9 kind of reference that
• 37:51
  one of his friends would betray him and that would be lost
• 37:55
  forever. I this is a song that was
• 37:57
  prayed. In fact, another kind of
• 37:58
  interesting link in this, I think, is that that Jesus knew
• 38:03
  Psalm 41 was referencing Psalm 41 specifically in this prayer.
• 38:08
  And Jesus, like his ancestor King David, Jesus in a Davidic
• 38:14
  way was praying a prayer that David prayed, was praying a
• 38:18
  prayer that would link him as the son of David, the coming
• 38:25
  king. In that same way, betrayal on
• 38:28
  that level was something those coups only happened to royal
• 38:32
  people, right? And so there's this kind of
• 38:35
  motif in the Scriptures of Jesus as king, which is a reality.
• 38:40
  And because Jesus is king, he's similar to the son of the
• 38:44
  lineage of King David and a new David, if you will, the full
• 38:48
  fulfillment of the one that would come in this way.
• 38:51
  And like David would liberate his people and return them back
• 38:53
  to, to to glory, if you will. And here's Jesus in a Davidic
• 38:58
  way, expressing the same pain that David experienced of
• 39:02
  betrayal of someone close to him.
• 39:05
  And so Jesus was kind of referencing that, reiterating
• 39:09
  that. And I think that's exactly what
• 39:10
  it was. I think Jesus knew exactly what
• 39:13
  the Father was planning to do. And Jesus, in previous
• 39:17
  scriptures, I think it's 13, had already released Judas to go and
• 39:24
  do what was in his heart to do. I think that the point of it is,
• 39:28
  is that we, we can eventually be turned over to our evil desires.
• 39:35
  We can be turned over to our hardness of heart.
• 39:38
  I think Jesus continually helped correct the disciples
• 39:41
  understanding and protect their heart from growing in the wrong
• 39:46
  direction. In fact, multiple times he
• 39:49
  corrects John and James, he corrects Peter.
• 39:51
  He keeps them from arguing about things.
• 39:54
  Why? Because the yeast of Herod and
• 39:56
  the yeast of of the Pharisees was a legitimate concern that
• 40:00
  they would become toxic in themselves that the good things
• 40:03
  that God was growing in them and their faithfulness to Jesus as
• 40:06
  Messiah. And their loyal allegiance to
• 40:09
  him was growing, but now there was coming a point where there
• 40:13
  were competing allegiances in their heart.
• 40:15
  They would continually argue about things that would divide
• 40:19
  their loyalty and trust in who Jesus really was.
• 40:23
  And here's Jesus saying I've I've the name you gave me,
• 40:26
  Father has given me authority to protect them because of they're
• 40:32
  under my protection, they are following me.
• 40:34
  They are in submission to me. And because they are men under
• 40:37
  the authority of Jesus, Jesus's authority is able to protect
• 40:41
  them from the schemes and the work of Satan.
• 40:44
  But there was one who despite all of that, continue to allow
• 40:49
  his heart to be hardened. And he stepped into rebellion as
• 40:53
  he betrayed Jesus and the Satan had already gotten into his
• 40:58
  heart and it was hard and he was prideful and he was convinced.
• 41:03
  And he was walking in an obstinate disbelief of Jesus as
• 41:07
  the Messiah. And because he could not get
• 41:10
  over the fact that Jesus wasn't the Messiah in the way that he
• 41:15
  wanted the Messiah to come. Because the reality is, like
• 41:17
  Judas, we all have to come to grips with, do we get Jesus on
• 41:22
  our terms? Where are we going to accept and
• 41:25
  trust Jesus on his terms? And, and it's an act and A and,
• 41:29
  and a wrestling of our loyalty and our allegiance to Jesus as
• 41:33
  King. We don't get King Jesus on our
• 41:36
  terms. We get them on his.
• 41:38
  And Judas, like so many others who have followed him throughout
• 41:42
  history, want to craft Jesus into their own image, to their
• 41:47
  own purpose. And it didn't work.
• 41:50
  And Judas's heart was hard. And Judas eventually was
• 41:53
  released by Jesus, turned over to his own evil desires, where
• 41:58
  Satan had gotten into his heart. And I think there are moments in
• 42:02
  all of our lives where if we keep being hard of heart, Jesus
• 42:07
  will turn us over to our own rebellion, our own evil.
• 42:10
  That's why Paul says turn this person over to Satan.
• 42:15
  Why? Because they have unrepentant,
• 42:17
  they are unwilling to accept Jesus Lordship and the way of
• 42:21
  Jesus. And so in their rebellion and
• 42:24
  hardness of heart, you have to release them to their desires
• 42:28
  and release them to those things.
• 42:30
  And that's what Jesus was talking about.
• 42:32
  And Jesus was referring to Judas and it fulfilled the prophetic
• 42:35
  scriptures as well. Second question, what does it
• 42:41
  look like to live in the world but not of the world?
• 42:46
  Like how do we walk that out? How do I go to work and take
• 42:50
  Jesus with me? I think this is a really helpful
• 42:54
  and important question. Number one, make no mistake,
• 42:58
  Jesus was praying here. Not that we would be taken out
• 43:02
  of the world, but that we would be protected in the world.
• 43:05
  I have to think of it like this. We don't need to isolate our
• 43:09
  lives, but we do need to insulate our hearts.
• 43:12
  In other words, we don't need to live separate, nor do we need to
• 43:16
  try to assimilate into culture to where our life looks exactly
• 43:19
  like the world. No, no, we're not of the world.
• 43:21
  We don't look like the world. Jesus even prayed that we
• 43:24
  wouldn't look like the world. But we are in the world and as
• 43:28
  exiles in this place, we need to recognize that we are called to
• 43:33
  live in a way that looks, sounds and acts like Jesus.
• 43:39
  So that's I think what we do. The question is not, do you know
• 43:44
  the Scriptures? The question isn't, do you wear
• 43:47
  Christian T-shirts? Do you vote a certain way?
• 43:50
  Those are not questions of spiritual maturity.
• 43:53
  The mark of spiritual maturity is that we are becoming a people
• 43:58
  of Jesus love that we are becoming people of agape that we
• 44:02
  are being formed and fashioned into the image of Christ so that
• 44:06
  we live, sound and love like Jesus.
• 44:11
  That we are people who are who are slow to anger that that we
• 44:15
  live out first Corinthians 13 that we're not rude or that that
• 44:20
  that we're not self seeking. We're not keeping records of
• 44:23
  wrong. We're we're, we're believing the
• 44:25
  best of other people where our hope is steady and strong,
• 44:28
  right? That's that's becoming a person
• 44:29
  of agape love. 1st Corinthians 13.
• 44:32
  I think it looks like us demonstrating and living out the
• 44:36
  fruit of the spirit, Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness,
• 44:39
  goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that
• 44:42
  we demonstrated the fruit of the spirit.
• 44:45
  And I think prayer, especially communing prayer, is the way in
• 44:50
  which we allow God to cleanse the root system of our soul so
• 44:55
  that our fruit that is produced in our life is good.
• 44:59
  So it does look like Jesus. And so that we can work in the
• 45:03
  world but not be slave to the world, that we can serve the
• 45:07
  people around us and not be sinful like the people around
• 45:12
  us. I think another way that we
• 45:14
  bring Jesus to work with us is we, we, we live out Colossians
• 45:18
  right as we work as unto the Lord, not unto man.
• 45:22
  And whatever we set our hand to do, whatever our hands find to
• 45:25
  do, whatever it is that is our quote UN quote work in this
• 45:28
  season, we do it with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength
• 45:31
  as unto the Lord. So you show up on time, I think.
• 45:35
  I think followers of Jesus ought to be the best employees ever.
• 45:39
  Like we show up on time, we do really good work, we don't take
• 45:42
  shortcuts, we're honest. We need to respect other people,
• 45:46
  We need to refuse to gossip. We need to not complain and moan
• 45:51
  about everything. We need to communicate.
• 45:54
  We need to exceed the expectations and do more, go
• 45:58
  beyond what is even expected us. Why?
• 46:00
  Because we are stewards who are not just accountable to an
• 46:03
  earthly boss, but we are stewards who are accountable to
• 46:05
  God and how we show up in in the workplace.
• 46:09
  I think that ought to be us. I think we ought to be those
• 46:12
  people. And so when we live that way,
• 46:15
  we're actually being people of love who show up in the world,
• 46:19
  not looking like the world, but having salt, having the God
• 46:24
  flavor in the world that we bring out and help preserve
• 46:28
  people and point them back-to-back to God.
• 46:31
  And so I think that we, we, we, we work in the world, but we
• 46:35
  don't come slaves of the world. We are in the world, but we
• 46:38
  aren't sinful in the ways of the world.
• 46:41
  And I think that's a big part of what it means to live and work
• 46:46
  like Jesus as a person of love in in our midst.
• 46:50
  Here's the next question. It says, so Satan can't read our
• 46:53
  minds, but he can hear what we say on certain topics of prayer.
• 46:58
  What if we don't want the devil to hear what we're communicating
• 47:01
  to God? Before I get too deep into this,
• 47:08
  I'm going to take some more coffee here.
• 47:10
  I think it's a really interesting question.
• 47:12
  First, let me say this really clear.
• 47:15
  Satan is a spirit being who cannot be everywhere at all
• 47:21
  times. So Satan isn't everywhere.
• 47:24
  He's only in one place at one time.
• 47:26
  Now there are many Nieman's now there are many evil malevolent
• 47:30
  spiritual forces at play. And by and large the enemy has
• 47:37
  learned humanity enough and has infiltrated the the the leaders
• 47:43
  in certain areas to where certain systems and settings
• 47:48
  have already kind of given their allegiance and gone the way of
• 47:52
  the world. Where greed, where power in
• 47:56
  control, where selfish pleasure are at the root of what these
• 48:01
  systems and structures and are already doing that they're
• 48:05
  perpetuating evil on his behalf, even though he may not be
• 48:09
  present in every person or individual.
• 48:13
  That's kind of how Satan has always worked behind the scenes
• 48:16
  to influence structures and systems to perpetuate evil and
• 48:20
  to drift people away from God. Kind of like strongholds, if you
• 48:24
  if you will. He does it in in individual
• 48:26
  people's lives as as well. So while there are many demons
• 48:30
  around, all demons and spiritual, evil, spiritual
• 48:33
  beings and Satan himself are limited to singular locations at
• 48:38
  any one time. They are not all knowing, they
• 48:41
  are not all powerful, and they are not omnipresent.
• 48:44
  Only God alone is those things. So secondly, that means Satan
• 48:51
  and his demons cannot read minds.
• 48:53
  Why? The ability to know the hearts
• 48:55
  and thoughts of people belong exclusively to Yahweh.
• 48:59
  However, demons are and have been observing humans for
• 49:04
  thousands of years and can make educated guesses about our
• 49:08
  thoughts, carefully studying our behaviors, reactions and
• 49:11
  weaknesses knows kind of how to get at the root of who we are.
• 49:14
  They can overhear our speech. That is true.
• 49:17
  And they can use their long experience to potentially even
• 49:20
  anticipate what we might be thinking, what we might do next.
• 49:24
  And some people have even reported that some some do
• 49:27
  believe that that that demons can suggest certain things.
• 49:30
  I, I, I am one of those. I think that the enemy can come
• 49:33
  around and plant thoughts into our mind and inspire our
• 49:36
  thoughts or imaginations incorrectly.
• 49:39
  That's called the spirit of fear, by the way, that that's
• 49:42
  one of the ways that fear works. It's these thoughts that come
• 49:45
  into our mind that we have not been guarding our mind and, and
• 49:48
  all of a sudden we are now living with thoughts and
• 49:52
  imaginations that are fear rooted in the spirit of fear
• 49:57
  that move us away from God, move us away from being people of
• 50:00
  love, move us away from experiencing God's power and
• 50:04
  we're living in the wrong, the wrong way.
• 50:06
  Nonetheless, I digress, the biblical guidance is that we
• 50:11
  would submit to God first and then resist the devil,
• 50:15
  recognizing that our human vulnerabilities to various
• 50:19
  influences that that could manipulate or or deceive us.
• 50:23
  I love how John Mark Comer identifies it in his book Live
• 50:28
  No Lies. He says the way the enemy works
• 50:30
  today is through lies that take root and placate to the disorder
• 50:35
  desires in US and that have been normalized in the sinful society
• 50:39
  so an enemy can implant a thought to us that isn't true.
• 50:44
  It feels right though, because our our desires aren't rightly
• 50:47
  ordered. We have some disordered things,
• 50:49
  a sinful disordering within us, some passions that are unholy in
• 50:54
  US. And then we look around at
• 50:56
  society that is sinful, that is demonstrating and living in the
• 51:01
  very thing that we feel or desire in our heart.
• 51:03
  And we're like might not be that bad.
• 51:05
  And that begins to create strongholds and patterns of
• 51:08
  living in our own lives so that we with one thought, end up just
• 51:12
  perpetuating again our own evil and the the way of the enemy
• 51:17
  rather than living in the way of way of God.
• 51:19
  And so when we pray, and it's important to know we are talking
• 51:23
  to God, can the enemy overhear us?
• 51:26
  Well, sure, if he's present. But remember he only can be in
• 51:29
  one place at one time. And, and so if you have resisted
• 51:33
  the enemy, if you are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, you've
• 51:37
  been anointed and filled to overflowing with the Spirit in
• 51:40
  your life. There's no room and you've
• 51:42
  closed the doors and the windows and the access points to the
• 51:45
  enemy getting in. You can pray with freedom in
• 51:48
  knowing all things. And if you are worried that
• 51:50
  there might be an opening in your heart and mind, bitterness,
• 51:53
  unforgiveness, sexual sin, unrepentant anger, things that
• 51:59
  have misaligned some areas of unbelief or rebellion in your
• 52:04
  heart, you've played around with witchcraft or seances and evil
• 52:07
  spirits. And you've been, I'm honestly
• 52:09
  entertaining evil spiritual realities to your life,
• 52:15
  especially this time of year. And you've opened yourself up to
• 52:18
  those things. Well, there might be some evil
• 52:21
  influences that have been trying to wreak havoc in your life and
• 52:23
  you've given them access to that.
• 52:24
  Well, you need to submit to God, repent of all those things that
• 52:28
  may be unbelief or unforgiveness, whatever, and
• 52:31
  then resist the enemy. And Scripture says when you
• 52:33
  resist the enemy, he will flee. James.
• 52:37
  James teaches us that. And so when you're coming to
• 52:40
  prayer, you don't want the enemy to hear you resist him, rebuke
• 52:43
  him, cast him out first, make your heart cleansed in terms of
• 52:47
  being submitted to Lord, and then continue to to pray and
• 52:49
  talk to God. But by and large, most of the
• 52:52
  time the enemy isn't at anyone place.
• 52:55
  I mean, he only can be at one place at one time.
• 52:58
  And the other evil forces are only in one place at one time.
• 53:02
  They are not, please hear me. They are not omnipresent, all
• 53:07
  knowing, nor all powerful. They do have knowledge, they do
• 53:11
  have power, and they can be in places, but they're not Omni in
• 53:15
  that in that sense. In fact, another thing that I
• 53:17
  think is really important, this is 1st Corinthians 14 verse 2.
• 53:24
  It says when we speak in an unknown tongue, when we pray in
• 53:27
  the Holy Spirit, when we pray in tongues, we are speaking to God,
• 53:31
  not to man, and we are uttering mysteries that only God can
• 53:36
  understand. In other words, the one type of
• 53:39
  prayer that Satan can cannot understand is when we are
• 53:42
  praying in the heavenly language, can't understand it.
• 53:46
  No one understands it except God alone, and God alone can reveal
• 53:51
  interpretations and understandings of what we've
• 53:54
  prayed if we've asked and if it's necessary.
• 53:57
  But when we're talking to God, we don't have to have an
• 53:58
  interpreter because we're not talking for us and we're not
• 54:01
  talking for anybody else's benefit.
• 54:02
  When we're praying in times we're actually talking to God.
• 54:04
  And in so doing, Scripture says that we are uttering mysteries
• 54:08
  unto God that God understands, but no one else, not even Satan.
• 54:14
  What's the next question says, why is prayer so essential?
• 54:18
  Like not optional for a mature life of faith?
• 54:24
  It's essential for so many reasons.
• 54:25
  Prayer is the way in which we commune and connect with God.
• 54:29
  The the end result of prayer is God.
• 54:33
  The end result of our prayer isn't God acting on our behalf.
• 54:37
  The end result is God interacting with our life,
• 54:41
  growing in US. I think when we pray, it brings
• 54:44
  us a sense of wholeness, perfect peace by keeping our mind on him
• 54:49
  as we read in Philippians 36 and verse 7, prayer is verbal,
• 54:55
  remember, And because prayer is verbal, it renews it.
• 54:58
  It it changes the way that we think Prayer is verbal.
• 55:02
  So it really, so when we're talking and we're casting our
• 55:05
  cares to God, we are releasing lament, releasing grief,
• 55:08
  releasing anguish, releasing and naming the cares of our life
• 55:12
  that we are holding, that we're trying to control.
• 55:15
  And so in so doing, by releasing those things to God, we can
• 55:19
  receive his wholeness, his oneness, His union, his love,
• 55:24
  his perfect peace. I think prayer is so essential
• 55:28
  because it invites us to push aside distractions.
• 55:31
  Listen, the distractions of this life absolutely erode the work
• 55:37
  of God in our lives. And this is the parable of the
• 55:40
  sower where Jesus is the cares of this life, the deceitfulness
• 55:43
  of wealth and the desire for other things.
• 55:45
  Come and choke out the word of God in US.
• 55:48
  Come and choke out the fruit, the results, the the, the, the,
• 55:53
  the growth that can happen in our life.
• 55:55
  Why? Because the cares of this life,
• 55:57
  the distractions of our world compete for our attention.
• 56:01
  I've said it before, time is no longer money.
• 56:04
  Your attention is now the currency of our day.
• 56:08
  Why? Because what you give your
• 56:10
  attention to, you will give your affection to.
• 56:15
  And what you give your affection to ultimately has your loyalty
• 56:21
  and trust. Why?
• 56:23
  Because love and trust go hand in hand.
• 56:25
  And the more affectionate you are for things of this world,
• 56:29
  the more your loyalty and your allegiance are to those things.
• 56:32
  And those things cannot save you.
• 56:35
  Those things cannot deliver you from the enemy.
• 56:37
  Those things cannot make you whole in your soul.
• 56:40
  Those things cannot bring eternal life abounding in you.
• 56:45
  Only God can do that. And when we give our attention
• 56:49
  to God, that's what we're doing. We're giving him our affection
• 56:52
  and our attention. And when we are praying, we we
• 56:55
  begin to recognize that there are barriers.
• 56:58
  We have to acknowledge that convenience, unbelief, busyness,
• 57:02
  pride or fear of rejection are holding us back and that's why
• 57:10
  we don't pray and in prayer. So when we step into a life of
• 57:13
  prayer, we are, we are resisting convenience, we are resisting
• 57:17
  unbelief. We are resisting busyness.
• 57:20
  We are, we are, we are saying no to the barrier of pride and no
• 57:23
  to the barrier of of of a fear of being rejected.
• 57:27
  And it calls us back into devotion instead of distraction.
• 57:31
  It invites us to consecrate our lives instead of living with
• 57:34
  convenience. This is why prayer is essential.
• 57:38
  Prayer also puts us in shared mission union with God that
• 57:44
  overflows into love for people as we intercede for them.
• 57:48
  So prayer also has a way of putting us on mission with God
• 57:51
  to love others, to care for them, to see, see things change,
• 57:54
  to be his agents in the world. So prayer is absolutely
• 57:57
  essential for a life of faith. I said on Sunday that we read
• 58:04
  God's word to grow in information and knowledge of
• 58:07
  God, but it's in prayer that we grow in our understanding of who
• 58:11
  God is because we experience him.
• 58:15
  Scripture gives us information, prayer leads us to encounter
• 58:20
  him. Scripture describes who God is.
• 58:24
  It's in prayer, in his presence, in our communion with him that
• 58:27
  we can grow in our understanding, where we have
• 58:31
  real data experiencing who he who he is.
• 58:36
  And I think prayer is absolutely essential for our lives.
• 58:40
  And, and in fact, I'll go as far as to say this, you will not
• 58:45
  live out the purpose of God and you will not grow as a follower
• 58:51
  of Jesus without living a life of prayer.
• 58:55
  Jesus modeled it and he taught us to do it because we've got to
• 58:59
  step into it. Here's the last question.
• 59:04
  How do I go from worry to intercession?
• 59:06
  Like what happens when I'm praying and I've done all the
• 59:10
  steps, but I don't even feel like I've communed?
• 59:13
  We're connected with God. What then?
• 59:16
  I think this is a legit thing. I think it's important to
• 59:21
  remember to pray out loud. Why?
• 59:23
  Because it actually unleashes the life of God from our mouths.
• 59:26
  Life and death are in the power of our tongue.
• 59:29
  Not in our thoughts, not in the internal things, not thoughts
• 59:33
  alone, vibes alone. No, no, it's in the power of our
• 59:36
  tongue, the things that we say. So most of us don't feel like
• 59:40
  we've connected with God because we've not actually communicated
• 59:43
  to God. We've just thought things and
• 59:46
  we're like, well, God knows my thoughts.
• 59:47
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 59:47
  But he wants you to talk and say them out loud because when you
• 59:50
  say them out loud, you actually have to own them.
• 59:52
  You actually have to be honest about them.
• 59:54
  You actually have to to bring those to God.
• 59:56
  In fact, God is the one relationship that you can say
• 59:59
  any and everything to, like any and everything, and He will
• 1:00:02
  never misunderstand you. I think for me, one of the
• 1:00:06
  reasons or one of the hardest parts of of growing in prayer is
• 1:00:10
  I have just felt that God was rejecting me in my prayer.
• 1:00:13
  Like somehow. And so this fear of rejection
• 1:00:16
  has kept, kept me for so many years to actually coming into
• 1:00:21
  the presence of God, into the experience in God.
• 1:00:24
  So I would settle for just telling God what I wanted him to
• 1:00:27
  do rather than taking the risk of inviting him to come and be
• 1:00:32
  present with me and to commune with me.
• 1:00:35
  And so I would rather just tell God stuff rather than actually
• 1:00:40
  receive love from God because I was afraid that I would be
• 1:00:42
  rejected. I've also found myself in
• 1:00:46
  moments where like, I'm not sure that worked.
• 1:00:48
  And here's why I feel like it doesn't work.
• 1:00:49
  And I'm just going to be real honest.
• 1:00:51
  I'll start by by giving God praise and I'm being verbal.
• 1:00:54
  But then as I've I've talked for a little bit, my mind gets
• 1:00:57
  distracted and I stop talking and then I drift away.
• 1:01:01
  And then I come back to just like silent prayer rather than
• 1:01:03
  verbal prayer. And of course, I don't feel like
• 1:01:06
  I connected with God. Why?
• 1:01:07
  Because I didn't actually talk to God.
• 1:01:11
  I talked to him for a little bit and then I just sat silently
• 1:01:13
  thinking. And they didn't actually like,
• 1:01:17
  we didn't actually like do the real steps.
• 1:01:20
  We didn't really actually connect and commune with God all
• 1:01:23
  the way through. We got distracted, we got
• 1:01:25
  sidetracked, and we just allowed our thoughts to wander and call
• 1:01:29
  it prayer. And I think there's a difference
• 1:01:32
  there. And it requires a little bit of
• 1:01:33
  discipline. Building a life of prayer does
• 1:01:36
  require discipline. Discipline isn't always easy.
• 1:01:41
  Discipline is always awkward at first.
• 1:01:43
  Like have you ever tried to do a new exercise or try something
• 1:01:47
  new for the first time? You're just not good at it.
• 1:01:49
  It just feels awkward, like you're, you're, the muscle
• 1:01:51
  memory isn't there. You're trying to like bend and
• 1:01:54
  get the form right and it's just like awkward.
• 1:01:57
  But over time, the discipline to do that exercise actually helps
• 1:02:02
  you develop strength to where you know how to do it, you're
• 1:02:06
  aware of it and you can just muscle memory get right into it.
• 1:02:09
  And it's it's almost no work at all.
• 1:02:12
  I think the same is true with prayer.
• 1:02:14
  It feels awkward at first talking to somebody out loud and
• 1:02:17
  like nobody's present completely awkward.
• 1:02:20
  Similar to like lifting your hands in worship, like you lift
• 1:02:23
  your hands. It just feels awkward because
• 1:02:25
  you've never done it. Here's why it's awkward, and
• 1:02:29
  here's why it's hard. Because you're not just forming
• 1:02:32
  a new pattern, you are deforming old patterns.
• 1:02:38
  You're actually engaging in corrective formation because
• 1:02:43
  your form of living life has been counter to the way of God
• 1:02:48
  and you have been formed in the way of the world and now you're
• 1:02:52
  learning how to be formed in a spiritual way.
• 1:02:55
  And that formation, that spiritual formation is counter
• 1:02:59
  formation. You're so you're not just
• 1:03:02
  starting something new from scratch, you're starting
• 1:03:05
  something new that is fighting old, old muscle memory.
• 1:03:09
  And so you're wanting to go this direction, but you're trying to
• 1:03:12
  be aligned to a new direction. And that's why a life of prayer
• 1:03:16
  can be difficult. That's why it feels like, man,
• 1:03:18
  this just isn't easy or it's not as smooth or, and then we start
• 1:03:22
  to over romanticize it or we start to compare it or, or
• 1:03:25
  something along the way. And as we just stop all together
• 1:03:28
  and we don't need to give up. We need to keep at it.
• 1:03:31
  We need to live a life of prayer and to get better at it.
• 1:03:35
  I'm still getting better that communing prayer.
• 1:03:38
  I'm still getting better at interceding for others out of an
• 1:03:41
  act of love rather than longing for certain outcomes.
• 1:03:45
  I'm still getting better at at at reading scripted prayers and
• 1:03:49
  and borrowing the language of other people.
• 1:03:51
  I'm still getting better at all of these things.
• 1:03:54
  It's it's a practice, not perfection, not a performance.
• 1:03:58
  It's an ongoing practice of our spiritual life.
• 1:04:01
  And that spiritual life is a formation that is counter
• 1:04:05
  formation where we're undoing wrong ways of doing things,
• 1:04:09
  where we're undoing old patterns of distraction, where we're
• 1:04:13
  undoing old patterns of self-reliance.
• 1:04:16
  And now we're relying on God. We're undoing patterns of
• 1:04:19
  silence and just internalizing thoughts and worry.
• 1:04:23
  But now we're actually growing into talking with the Lord, The
• 1:04:28
  reason? Prayer and talking to God,
• 1:04:31
  casting your cares on Him helps you live with less worry, to not
• 1:04:38
  worry or be anxious, but in everything, through prayer and
• 1:04:41
  supplication and think with Thanksgiving, letting your
• 1:04:44
  requests be made known to God is that in that act you are
• 1:04:48
  verbally articulating and stating, here's the problems I'm
• 1:04:52
  facing. Here's the cares that I'm
• 1:04:54
  having, Here's the control that I'm surrendering.
• 1:04:57
  And in so doing, you're letting go of worry so that you can
• 1:05:01
  experience the trust of God. You can experience the presence
• 1:05:05
  of God, You can experience the joy of God.
• 1:05:09
  You are casting your cares on Him.
• 1:05:11
  He already cares about you, and He's going to lift your burdens
• 1:05:15
  and worries. And that's how we can find rest
• 1:05:17
  for our souls and why we can walk with less worry because
• 1:05:22
  we're actually confessing and saying aloud some things.
• 1:05:26
  We're bringing it into the light, we're saying it out loud.
• 1:05:30
  And that is how we unburden ourselves.
• 1:05:32
  And we can move from worry to intercession or into prayer.
• 1:05:36
  And in so doing we find wholeness and peace and union
• 1:05:39
  with God. Because the end result of prayer
• 1:05:41
  is not that we get God to do what we want him to do.
• 1:05:44
  The end result of prayer is that we get God himself.
• 1:05:49
  He is the aim of our prayer. He is the aim of all prayer.
• 1:05:53
  And in so doing, we can experience rich union and
• 1:05:57
  connection with Father, Son, and Spirit.
• 1:06:01
  Hey, well, that wraps up this episode of the Faith for Today
• 1:06:03
  podcast. Hey, would you share this
• 1:06:05
  episode, invite others to subscribe, listen along, and
• 1:06:09
  man, we'd love to hear what you were learning from today's
• 1:06:12
  episode. Tag us on social media.
• 1:06:15
  Hey, until next week, just no friends.
• 1:06:16
  You are loved.