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🙏 Lord, Teach Us to Pray: Why God's Voice Seems Rare and How to Return to the Roots · Divine Timing

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Church family, grace and peace be to you in the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me ask you
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: a couple of hard questions. Christian, when was the last
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  Speaker 1: time you really prayed? And when you did pray, what
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  Speaker 1: were your motives? Here's another one. When was the last
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  Speaker 1: time you truly heard the voice of God? Do you
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  Speaker 1: know what His voice sounds like? Do you recognize it
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  Speaker 1: when He speaks? I'm not talking about a fleeting thought
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  Speaker 1: or an emotion that comes and goes. I'm talking about
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  Speaker 1: that unmistakable prompting of the Holy Spirit, the moment when
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  Speaker 1: something within you knows, God is dealing with me. If
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  Speaker 1: you're struggling to answer those questions, you're not alone. In
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  Speaker 1: 1 Samuel 3.1, Scripture records a chilling reality. The word
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  Speaker 1: of the Lord was rare in those days. Think about that.
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  Speaker 1: God wasn't dead. He hadn't lost His power. He hadn't
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  Speaker 1: abandoned His throne. But His word had become rare. Israel
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  Speaker 1: was living through a period of terrible spiritual decline. Corruption
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  Speaker 1: had entered the priesthood. God's people had drifted. Spiritual complacency
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  Speaker 1: and unfaithfulness had taken root. And in the middle of
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  Speaker 1: that darkness, God called a young man named Samuel. Samuel
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  Speaker 1: eventually learned to answer, Now fast forward to the New Testament.
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  Speaker 1: The disciples came to Jesus with that same hunger. And
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  Speaker 1: think about what they asked him. They didn't say, Lord,
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  Speaker 1: teach us to preach. They didn't say, teach us how
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  Speaker 1: to perform miracles. They said, Lord, teach us to pray.
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  Speaker 1: And Jesus gave them a pattern. But notice where he
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  Speaker 1: didn't begin. He didn't begin with a shopping list of
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  Speaker 1: personal demands. He began, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be
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  Speaker 1: your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done. Do
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  Speaker 1: you see what Jesus did? Before asking for anything, He
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  Speaker 1: moved their attention away from themselves and toward the Father.
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  Speaker 1: Your name, your kingdom, your will. Prayer begins by bringing
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  Speaker 1: our will underneath His will. Then James 4, 2-3 hits
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  Speaker 1: us right between the eyes. You do not have because
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  Speaker 1: you do not ask God. But James doesn't stop there.
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  Speaker 1: When you ask, you do not receive. because you ask
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  Speaker 1: with wrong motives. Church family, have we turned prayer into
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  Speaker 1: some kind of cosmic vending machine? Put in a prayer,
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  Speaker 1: push the button, wait for God to dispense what we ordered.
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  Speaker 1: Are we seeking the will of God or asking God
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  Speaker 1: to bless an agenda we've already decided upon? In Gethsemane,
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  Speaker 1: Jesus returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. Couldn't
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  Speaker 1: you men keep watch with me for one hour? The
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  Speaker 1: spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. And maybe
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  Speaker 1: that question needs to echo through the church again today.
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  Speaker 1: Could you not pray with me for one hour? We
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  Speaker 1: tell people all the time, I'm praying for you. But
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  Speaker 1: are we? Do we actually take their name before the
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  Speaker 1: throne of God? Or has I'm praying for you sometimes
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  Speaker 1: become something Christians say because it sounds compassionate? Meanwhile, our
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  Speaker 1: phones get our attention. Our careers get our attention. Entertainment
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  Speaker 1: gets our attention. Our worries get our attention. Our comfort
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  Speaker 1: gets our attention. Everything gets our attention. And then we
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  Speaker 1: wonder why God seems so quiet. Church family, maybe we
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  Speaker 1: don't need another new technique for hearing God. Maybe the
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  Speaker 1: answer is much older and much simpler. Maybe it's time
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  Speaker 1: to strip prayer back to its roots. Reverence. Repentance. Persistence,
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  Speaker 1: pure motives, surrender. As I prepare for the upcoming live
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  Speaker 1: Divine Timing podcast on this very subject, prayer, there's something
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  Speaker 1: that really disturbs me. Muslims faithfully stop and pray five
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  Speaker 1: times every day according to their religious practice. Imagine that?
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  Speaker 1: Praying unknowingly to fallen angels and demons. Our Lord said
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  Speaker 1: of those who try to enter heaven another way, Ye
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  Speaker 1: are a thief and a robber. My personal favorite, Ye
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  Speaker 1: shall know them by their fruits. Hear me. Jesus Christ
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  Speaker 1: is the way, the truth, and the life. The only way.
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  Speaker 1: But here's the question that challenges me. If people who
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  Speaker 1: do not know Christ can demonstrate that kind of discipline
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  Speaker 1: in prayer, what about us? Church family, we serve the
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  Speaker 1: living God of heaven. We have been invited through Jesus
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  Speaker 1: Christ to approach the throne of grace. Think about the
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  Speaker 1: potential we've been given when God's people truly learn to pray.
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  Speaker 1: But we're powerless if we don't put our faith into action. I,
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  Speaker 1: for one, need to improve my prayer life. How about you? Yes? Okay.
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  Speaker 1: So let's practice doing it right. How? Maybe we need
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  Speaker 1: to stop merely asking God to speak. and start asking
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  Speaker 1: Him to teach us how to listen. And here it is.
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  Speaker 1: Are you ready? Drumroll. Open His Word. Seek Him there.
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  Speaker 1: Because I can tell you from my own life, when
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  Speaker 1: I sincerely seek the Lord in His Word, He never
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  Speaker 1: fails to meet me there. And perhaps our prayer needs
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  Speaker 1: to become as simple as Samuel's. Speak, Lord, for your
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  Speaker 1: servant is listening. Grace and peace until the morning star appears,
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  Speaker 1: brothers and sisters. I'll see you in the podcast.