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#239 MADE TO PRAY (Part 6 - Discipleship) · The OneCry Podcast

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The greatest answer to prayer itself is God Himself.
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The greatest answer to prayer itself is that God draws near to us as we draw near Him.
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Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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Well, we're so excited to have you once again on the One Cry Podcast.
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And I'm Bill Auloff. This is my good buddy and friend, Kyle Reno, the infamous Kyle Reno.
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This past week, I was with one of the guys who was really instrumental, Kyle, in teaching you to pray.
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That's right.
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Andy Heiss, who's a pastor of Desperation Church in Alabama, and he's a wild man.
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He's just absolutely, he was a Coca-Cola salesman, God saved, started to help with the college ministry
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and the church that you were in, Gardendale Church in Birmingham, and then went and planted a church,
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and it just exploded. But he did it all on the foundation of prayer.
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And you told me as I was going over to preach this past week, Bill, you're going to encounter a church
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that is genuinely a house of prayer, and it is. It's extraordinary what God will do if we just pray.
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It's just nuts. And I know you've been teaching us these last weeks that we were made to pray.
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Yeah. Yeah, I think, yeah, a huge shout out, I would say, because you were just with him.
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He literally is, when I think about John the Baptist, I always picture Andy Heiss.
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Oh, yeah.
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He's just a maniac for the kingdom of God in all the right ways.
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And the thing that I told Andy being with him, you know, a lot of people build churches around a lot of things,
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and some of them are noble and good and understandable. Some are not.
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But I just don't know many that, by God's grace, are used to bring a church into being in existence
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that did it purely on being a house of prayer. And they did. They did it, bro.
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You know, Andy knows, I think he knew going in, I can't do this.
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Right.
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And so that dependency, what am I going to do? Well, I can bring God into the equation through prayer.
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Yeah.
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So I'm just going to figure out how to pray, and I'm just going to start doing it until I learn how to do it.
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And he's taught his church from the very beginning. He told him that.
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Well, I would say to everybody who's listening today, who's in a church, or is particularly if you're starting in church,
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start right now on the foundation. I mean, run the foundation deep.
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We're going to be a house of prayer, and it makes all the difference.
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So you've been teaching us how to pray.
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The Lord Jesus has from Matthew 6, and you've been opening that up and explaining it
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and kind of describing these different ships, as you call them.
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Just can you remind us of those and launch into this final one today?
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Yeah. Yeah.
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And today is sort of the sending you from that place of prayer into the battlefield in which we live.
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And so I've just, man, I've been spending so much time with this bill, and you know what it's like.
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I think so many times when you lean over a passage of scripture, really a section of God's word,
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the longer you lean over it, the more you see.
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And I have this, man, I have this in my spirit.
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I just think for all eternity past, the Lord Jesus, even knowing what he was coming to do on behalf of humanity
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and what he would teach in his physical life.
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Everything he believes, he just couldn't wait for someone to finally ask him how to pray.
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Because he's known communion with the Father for all eternity past.
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He comes here, models it perfectly in the way that he continually has this rhythm, this pattern
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that he returns to every day to pray, to be with the Father.
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And that he wants to teach us how to position ourselves to have this abiding relationship.
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So when they do ask, and I believe this is everything.
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When the disciples get the question, the request right, and say, Lord, teach us how to do that.
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Whatever that is that you're doing, teach us.
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I think he smiled. I think he smiled like, man, that's what I've been waiting to tell you.
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And then he gives them the Lord's prayer, which, I mean, you've talked about before, Bill,
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that I believe obviously can be recited and prayed word for word.
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The heart's what God measures, but I think what he's teaching them is an approach to prayer.
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How do you approach God through this prayer in a way that will open a whole world of prayer?
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And we talked about in the first brief synopsis, it starts with a relationship.
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It starts with getting to know God as Father, Abba.
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To get into those moments in prayer where you're present with God.
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To slow down enough to know, and I've said this through the series,
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the greatest answer to prayer itself is God himself.
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The greatest answer to prayer itself is that God draws near to us as we draw near to him.
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So it starts with a relationship. Be present with the Father.
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Take time to be loved by the Father.
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To our listeners today, I promise you there is ways that the Lord wants to love you as His son and daughter,
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but you've got to let Him love you.
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You've got to give Him the time to be present with the Father,
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and then to be grateful for that relationship we get to have.
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It moves from that once that's established, because everything flows from a relationship with God the Father.
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It flows from His presence, as we've talked about so often, Bill here.
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But then from there, rightly remember who we're with.
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Hallowed be your name.
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And once we come in confidence into the presence of God the Father,
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we are now with Holy God, who is ultimately other in every way imaginable,
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pure and righteous, and He's creator and sustainer and Savior and King.
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And we're encouraged in that as you learn how to pray,
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to learn how to take the time to rightly worship Him,
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to worship for who He is, and to worship for what He's done.
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And the truth is this, and Bill, you know this,
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if we did those appropriately, we wouldn't have much time to do anything else.
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To get to the place that you rightly worship Him for who He is,
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and to worship Him for what He's done.
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Now through that, what I think, man, Bill, I believe it's more,
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maybe you could stop and just unpack all these all over again,
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but I'll try to get us to the last part.
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But it's building, because once you know Him as Father,
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you've rightly worshiped Him as King of Kings, Lord of Lords, God Almighty.
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In light of that, we learn how to partner with God, this partnership,
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by saying, Lord, let Your kingdom come.
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Let Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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That's the picture in my mind is that God, through prayer,
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allows us to reach our hand up to Him and say,
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Lord, would You bring the kingdom of God right here into the lives of people,
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into the life of our church?
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Would You bring the kingdom of God to our city, to our state, to our nation?
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Would You bring salvation, renewal, transformation,
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the invasion of heaven here on earth?
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And it matters that the measure to which we see the kingdom of God
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is correlated to the way in which we partner with God in prayer,
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that we're reaching up to heaven consistently, keep on seeking,
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keep on knocking, keep on asking, which is right after the Lord's prayer in Luke 11.
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So you see all those things, that building momentum,
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and you get to this place where God actually cares about what you also need in life
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and give us this day our daily bread.
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And what I love about the Lord is the Lord cares about all the intimate details of our life
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and that He is teaching us in this part of prayer stewardship.
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Everything comes from Him.
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Every breath we have, every provision that's ever been made,
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all good and perfect gifts comes down from the Father of lots.
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And everything that we need, everything that we're going through
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is an opportunity to say, Hey, Lord, would You meet us in this specific way?
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And to realize in prayer that God actually cares about those things.
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And so we've got a decision to make in light of our genuine needs, not our greeds,
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those things that we want to invite God into and say, Hey, Lord,
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in light of raising five kids, you raising eight kids,
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in light of pastoring a church, in light of leading this business,
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and payroll's coming, Lord.
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We need some new business partners or we need favor in these things.
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And the Lord's saying, Ask. Ask.
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Everything you have comes from me anyway.
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It's teaching us that right dependence.
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So that's stewardship.
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And then what we looked at even last week is then this fellowship is the next one.
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It's the fifth ship in light of all of them.
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It's coming to that place of right confession and forgive us our sins.
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Those things that are, Hey, Lord,
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I know I'm forgiven through the finished work of Christ,
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but I'm still being transformed.
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I'm still being sanctified.
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And what these moments of confession give us is the chance to come clean
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and be continually cleansed by God,
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be continually cleaned up, coming into His presence.
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So to be free.
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And I think one of the biggest places, and Bill, you know this,
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the enemy works in shame and isolation.
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And a lot of people avoid the place of prayer because you're ashamed of yourself.
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You're ashamed.
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You know what you bring when you come into the presence of God.
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What God is saying is, No, come in here close,
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and I'll clean you up as you're honest with me.
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So, God, that forgiveness is experience,
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that freedom that you actually feel forgiven.
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But in light of that, as we forgive those who sinned against us,
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that there is that right looking out in this consistent pattern of light.
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You know what, Lord?
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I'm not going to let bitterness set up in my heart.
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I'm not going to let anger or resentment.
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I've been forgiven, so I'm going to forgive.
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So that's the five places we've been through the Lord's prayer,
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which I say each one of them,
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you could spend a whole time of prayer with the Lord, each one,
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or you could walk through them as you approach.
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That's five approaches, and then it ends.
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And I think this is where Jesus knows he's launching them out into mission.
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He's launching them out.
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They're going to have to return to this place of prayer, but he ends here.
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Luke 11 says, and lead us not into temptation.
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Also says Matthew 6, but deliver us from the evil one.
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And what I believe this last point of prayer, and Bill, you know this so well,
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and just following Christ is ultimately discipleship.
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It's coming to that place in prayer going like, Lord, today, I'm saying to you,
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I want to follow you.
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I'm asking you to lead us, knowing that you're not going to lead us to temptation.
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James says that.
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You're not going to lead us into bad places.
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You're a good shepherd.
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But there is one that wants to lead us.
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There is an enemy to our soul.
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There is even my own flesh man that wants to promote and even propel me toward things
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that would bring about destruction.
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But what I'm saying in prayer, and I think this is one of the greatest places
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that we can find ourselves every day, Lord, today, I sign up to follow you all over again.
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Today, I want to follow you into what lies ahead of me,
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knowing that that's going to mean radically standing against the enemy.
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Let me tell you what I think, Bill, and let's talk about this for a little bit.
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In this prayer, it's interesting that Jesus was moving us first to foster our conversation
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with the Father from the very beginning.
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And I think in many ways, he's leading us at the end of this prayer
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into our confrontation with the enemy.
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We were starting in that place like, hey, Father, and we're getting to the place
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at the end of this now.
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Now, I know there's somebody out there.
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There's a whole demonic realm that is wanting to lure me away.
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It's the picture that Paul references in Corinthians when he says,
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I'm afraid that you'd be led astray from a sincere and a pure devotion to Christ.
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It's making us aware, aware of the enemy, not intoxicated,
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not looking for him all the time behind every corner.
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But as I'm following you, Lord, I want to be aware of him.
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As I'm following you, I want to be aware of him.
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And prayer is that place where we rightly see where we are before we step into.
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Lord, I know the Lord has used this in your life before, Bill.
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I tell you, Kyle, I was just thinking as you were rehearsing that whole thing,
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every pastor that's worth his salt has taught his people how to pray.
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And there's no better model than what Jesus gave.
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But it's always been fascinating to me that of all the things he could have said,
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he gives us these six movements, these six pieces.
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He could divide it in different ways.
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You can name it different things.
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But you just walked us through a real easy way to remember that.
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And it all ultimately ends in us stepping out of our prayer into the world and facing the enemy.
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And he's everywhere present.
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And he's constantly whispering.
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And I tell you, if you're not aware of God's presence, you're missing it.
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And if you're not aware of the enemy's presence, you're missing it.
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And I've often told this story that back in 2011 when we experienced five weeks of just this extraordinary every night,
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three to four hours movement of God, we were so careful not to quench the Spirit.
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And I realized that even just personally, I was just praying without ceasing.
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I was praying about everything, what I watched, what I put in my mouth,
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what I listened to, what I said.
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And it got quiet and I could hear the Lord in that rarefied air of a season of his manifest presence.
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But I heard another voice too.
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And I was constantly hearing these whispers, just these temptations.
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Somebody would say, well, how did it go yesterday?
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And we spontaneously baptized 14 people.
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And this little voice would say, just tell them 15.
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Well, that's a lie.
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He was tempting me to lie.
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And the only reason you lie like that and exaggerate is to exalt yourself.
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And that's going on all the time.
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And a lot of the things that are going on in your head that you think are just you are the fiery darts of the wicked one.
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So this prayer of, Lord, deliver us from temptation, I think kind of means, Lord, don't let us,
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protect us from something that's beyond our ability to deal with.
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What the limits are, where we are, not your limits, but where we really struggle.
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So deliver us from that, God.
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And don't lead us in a temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
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We can't do this without your help.
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And it's a necessary, it's a critical and necessary part of prayer.
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And so beautiful.
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You know, I was just thinking, Kyle, as you were talking, and when I teach through the Lord's Prayer,
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sometimes I put a little clock up on my PowerPoints and show just movements of 10 minutes.
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You know, as we adore the Lord, 10 minutes, as we pray about his will to come, 10 minutes.
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And I just show people how easy it is.
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You can pray for an hour just like this.
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If you follow this pattern.
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And that's why he gives us this guide.
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And it's a wonderful way to lead a group in prayer.
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I have hundreds of times have led groups, just walking through, entering into the Lord's presence,
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adoring him, you know, praying for his kingdom to come, his will to be done, etc.
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And just walking through, I never get through it in an hour or hour and a half.
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I can never get all the way through it.
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Because we get, you know, we just get stuck on one part of that.
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And I think that's the way it should be.
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Yeah.
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And the Lord knowing what's coming out of these places of prayer, these moments of prayer,
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that we're walking into war.
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And so I just think about if a good general has, you know, those that are captains and leaders of an army in a strategy session,
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if he doesn't rightly make them aware of what they're soon to face, he'd no longer be known as a good general.
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Yeah.
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And what we've seen is so many aspects of who God is in the midst of this prayer.
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That he's a father.
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That he's worthy of our worship.
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That he wants us to partner with him in prayer.
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That he actually cares about our needs.
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That he wants to keep us fresh and clean before him and living without shame and all those.
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But the Lord is a warrior.
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The Lord is his name.
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Right.
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And when you get to the end of this, I mean, I see the part of him eyeball to eyeball like,
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Now it's rubber hit the road.
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Like you're about to enter into this.
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I want to make you aware that you need to make sure you're following me.
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Man plans his steps, you know, in this.
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You got it in your own heart.
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But you better let me direct where you're going.
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Because if not, you'll get off.
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Like in a bad way and look up and you're just a few steps from a season of life and destruction.
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And so I think about it in what you just said, Bill.
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In the everyday practice of prayer.
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To even think about getting to that place tomorrow morning.
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This afternoon where you say, Hey Lord.
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Now as I'm walking out of this.
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I'm going to talk and commune with you throughout the day.
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Yeah.
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But I'm walking out of this dedicated time to pray.
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I just want you to know I want to follow you all day long.
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Right.
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I'll follow you all day long.
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And I am asking you to make me aware of my own flesh.
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And make me aware of the direction and the pull of this world.
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And make me aware of the evil one.
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That is when he does.
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I'm going to when you make me aware of that.
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I'm going to reject that.
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I'm going to follow you.
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I'm going to stand against that and step into what you're calling me to.
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I think, Kyle, just one other thought before we pray together.
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I think the reason we don't spend time praying this way.
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And really spiritual warfare prayers about the enemy.
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Is because we don't realize we're in a battle.
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That's right.
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We don't understand that we have a great mission.
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And it's to make disciples of all nations.
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And it's to evangelize the world.
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It's to bring in his kingdom.
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So if you're sitting around and you're not engaged in that,
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Satan doesn't have to work with you much.
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Because you're already ineffective.
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You're already immobilized.
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You're already neutralized in terms of God's great mission.
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But when you start realizing, man, I'm here on purpose.
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And God has a part for me to play.
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And there are people that I need to talk to with bold witness every single day.
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Then I promise you Satan and his minions are going to be stirred up.
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And they're going to do everything they can to distract you.
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To pull you away.
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And to close your mouth and just keep you off mission.
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So this is rightly, as you say, kind of the last thing that he comes to.
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And says, now, Lord, I'm walking out the door on this mission field.
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And I'm going to battle against the enemy.
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But protect me from him and keep me where I need to be in the battle.
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For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
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So, Kyle, we walked through a wonderful overview of this the last few weeks.
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I would tell our listeners, if you missed any of these sessions,
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go back and listen to them.
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And get the whole flow of this series we've been going through.
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That you are made to pray.
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You cannot function without praying effectively.
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And God has given us some great teaching on how to do that.
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So, Kyle, would you lead us in just a final prayer that God would take us there practically.
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And all that that means.
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Yeah, let's do it.
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So let's just enter into the presence of the Lord even now.
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And I would say to all of our listeners, just let's echo one more time here
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that I hope that we'll end up praying thousands of more times on earth
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to say to the Lord personally, Lord, teach me how to pray.
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Yes.
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So, Lord, I come in the authority of Jesus Christ.
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And I ask you even now in our nation and among the nations
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that you would raise up a people that know how to enter the presence of the Father.
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That know how to be with you.
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That know how to worship you in spirit and in truth.
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That know how to partner with you in prayer.
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To know how to be dependent upon you for everything.
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To know how to walk in close fellowship, Lord.
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Being sanctified season after season, Lord.
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To know how to walk in close fellowship with other people.
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And to know how to follow you from the place of prayer into the war zone.
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And to stand against the enemy, Lord.
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To know how to converse and have conversations with you.
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And, Lord, how to stand in confrontation against the enemy, Lord.
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So I just ask in the name of the authority of Jesus
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that you would take this world that you have opened to us in prayer
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through your prayer, Lord, the Lord's prayer.
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And that you would teach us to pray.
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And, God, I pray it would be so helpful that it would awaken a movement of prayer.
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A movement, God.
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So I pray for personal conviction to every listener.
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What are you saying to them?
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What does more time with God look like?
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So, Lord, we love you.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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For what you have spoke to us in these weeks.
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Keep speaking, we pray.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
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Amen, amen.
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Well, thanks so much for joining us today.
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And, man, what a great season we've been in.
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And next week, I think there's going to be some more good stuff.
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I'm not sure when it will be.
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And I hope you'll join us because I know what we're going to talk about next week.
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And it's very informative and exciting.
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And I think it will be real helpful to you.
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So come back and tell others to join us.
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And the great thing about these podcasts is you can go online at OneCry.com
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and look through the list and listen to any of them, anytime.
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We had one pastor in Africa who somehow found this online.
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And he sat down over a course of weeks and listened to all, I think, 200-plus podcasts that we have so far recorded.
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And now is taking them to other pastors and other churches.
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So, anyway, I don't expect you to do that.
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But just know that this is accessible to you and to your friends.
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And we hope you avail yourself of that.
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So we'll see you next time.