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#170 - "When You... Pray" (Part 2) · The OneCry Podcast

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  Music.
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  Man or woman who's been greatly used of God, who has not met with the Lord daily.
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  Music.
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  In a set time of prayer and the Word of God.
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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, welcome to the One Cry podcast. I'm Kyle Reno with Bill Eliff,
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  and we are humbled to have a few moments here with you to hopefully stir your
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  hearts as our hearts have been stirred for what God wants to do in revival and awakening.
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  And we need it right now, don't we, Bill? Oh, my stars.
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  I just tell you, it's the great hope and it's a great need and of everything
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  is for a manifestation of God's spirit.
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  And you know what's encouraging, Kyle, is we're seeing an unprecedented movement
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  right now happening, particularly among college students.
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  I know people, I don't know when you're listening to this podcast,
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  but right now, as we're filming this, there are unbelievable reports.
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  And I've been to several of these where, you know, 5,000 students will gather,
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  4,000 students and 300 will be baptized as a result of that.
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  And, you know, one of the earmarks of what's been a rising tide the last 10
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  years is a rising tide of prayer.
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  Yeah. And that's what we're going to talk about this morning.
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  Yeah. Well, we went. This is our third week. If you're here and this is your
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  first week, listen, every one of them stand alone.
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  But I encourage you to go back because there is things that in the last two
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  weeks specifically that we've learned through Matthew six. So just sort of set
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  it up, and we'll kick it to Bill.
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  We see in the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount,
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  specifically in chapter 6,
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  that the Lord gets at the end of it, makes some big promises to us about even
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  our anxiousness, makes some promises to us about not to lay up things on earth,
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  but to live eternally, live for things that will matter a million years from now.
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  And he has a therefore. In light of something, you should live for a million years from now.
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  You should live without anxiety or fear or worry. Well, what was there before?
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  Well, there was a lot, but specifically was three when you statements.
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  And I think the Lord knows that I'm going to teach you how to live free.
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  I'm going to teach you how to live really focused on things that will matter
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  a million years from now.
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  And so he gives us, hey, when you give, and as Bill said rightly last week,
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  there's an assumption built in that as a follower of Christ,
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  these things will happen in your life.
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  So when you give, when you're generous, when your hands are opened and things
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  come through you for the sake of
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  the needy and the purposes of God in the nations. and then when you pray.
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  And Bill, you really set us up last week, man, walking through even just the
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  spirit and the nature of prayer.
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  And I know you're going to continue that conversation today. So bring it, bro.
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  Well, I'm so excited to talk.
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  I love talking about this. In fact, I hardly want to talk about anything else at my age.
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  You know, you just see what's there. There's some things, there are many things
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  to talk about in the Christian life, and we do.
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  And pastors, you know, day by day, year by year, just teaching the whole counsel of God.
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  But there are some things that if you don't get this down foundationally,
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  you don't get everything else.
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  You know, that these are central to everything else.
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  And Kyle, we've talked about, we did a whole series on it. The central thing is the presence of God.
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  I mean, God designed us to be in his presence so that we can join him in doing what he does.
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  And you can't live in his presence if you don't pray.
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  Because prayer is a primary means, the word of God in prayer,
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  the primary means of having a relationship with God, and everything flows from
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  the presence of God in that relationship.
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  So he says, when you pray, and last week we saw, when you pray,
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  here's some things you need to do.
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  You need to enter in, you need to pray in the Spirit, you need to pray with
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  faith, you need to pray different kinds of prayer. But I want to talk for just
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  a minute, Kyle, and we can just talk back and forth a little bit about this.
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  When you pray is assuming you pray.
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  Right? Right. So I want to talk about the time when we pray.
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  When do you pray? Okay.
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  And I just want to mention four times to pray. Okay.
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  Really three and then a way to pray. First of all, I think a great habit in
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  our life is morning and evening prayer.
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  Now, I'm a morning guy. My wife's a night person, and we argue about this all the time.
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  You know, she thinks it's more spiritual at night.
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  And I'm just saying, well, no, no, it's not. It's in the morning.
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  Jesus got up a great while before day, et cetera. And then the other day she
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  pulled out a passage in Matthew that said, you know, Jesus while praying all night long.
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  You know okay well said well said but but
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  you but you can't you can't find
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  a man or woman who's been
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  greatly used of god who has not met with the lord daily in a set time of prayer
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  and the word of god so let me say a little something about just the reading
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  of the word of god don't be a slave to a Bible reading plan.
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  I use a plan and I have for 50 years just so I can read systematically through
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  the word of God, but I read until God speaks to me.
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  And then I stop there and just spend time taking in and I may get five verses
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  into my reading, or I may be five chapters into in my reading.
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  So reading the word of God and
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  then praying it, really praying it in is so critical. But here's the key.
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  This should be experiential prayer, not perfunctory prayer, not duty bound prayer,
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  not I got to go through my list and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
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  Now you don't always feel like praying. Doesn't matter.
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  I don't always feel like taking a bath, but you know, it's a pretty good thing to do.
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  So I come to the Lord. I enter into his presence.
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  I read his word. I listen to him and I pray.
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  And my goal there is to meet with Christ and encounter him because that's what
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  builds a relationship with him. So morning and evening prayer.
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  If you don't have that habit.
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  I just saw another study done, and this was done on seminary students.
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  And it's said that the average seminary student today spends seven minutes a
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  day and say the word of God in prayer.
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  Now, that won't get it. I don't care who you are, how smart you think you are.
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  And by the way, that seven minutes of a day, I've heard that same statistic.
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  That's been the average for many, many years for most pastors.
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  And we wonder why our churches are dying.
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  Well, they're not connected to God. The pastor's not listening to the Lord.
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  He's not getting his directions. He's not getting God-initiated thinking and
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  leadership that comes only from heaven's throne.
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  So this comes by the daily delivery and it takes a sacrifice to make this decision.
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  Secondly, I would say, when do you pray? I would say everything prayers,
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  morning and evening prayers, and now everything prayers. You say,
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  Bill, what do you mean? Everything prayers?
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  Listen to this little verse, Philippians 4, 6.
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  Be anxious for everything. Is that what it says? No, it says, be anxious for nothing.
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  Now, let's just get honest. This last week, did you worry about anything?
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  So, Bill, I've been worrying every day. I was up last night,
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  couldn't sleep, worried about something.
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  My finances, my kids, my life, my job, whatever it is.
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  That's, I think, a sin. Because God says, worry about nothing.
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  So I can't do that. Well, I can't
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  either, unless I adjust my life to the second part of that statement.
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  Be anxious for nothing, but in everything.
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  By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
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  of God, and then the peace of God will just mount guard over your heart, right? In everything.
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  I think the Bible is very accurate, every word of it.
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  And this same idea is presented over and over again from God to us.
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  Here's one verse, three words, pray without ceasing.
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  Prayer with no interruption.
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  Pray and keep praying and pray about everything. So that means when you get up, you pray.
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  When you feel your heart getting a little worried, you pray.
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  When you're bored, you pray.
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  When you go into a meeting, you're praying, Lord, fill me, flood me, flow through me.
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  When you have to make a decision, you're praying. When you're talking to somebody,
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  you don't know what to say, you're praying, right?
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  I am reading again right now a classic little book by Brother Lawrence called
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  Practicing the Presence of God.
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  I'm reading it because I'm writing a book on the present-centered life.
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  And, you know, I read that early on, and I've read it, you know,
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  a couple of times, perhaps maybe more.
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  But I'm reading it now in a whole new light.
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  And listen to what Brother Lawrence said. Brother Lawrence said,
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  I decided that I wanted to do everything for the love of God.
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  I didn't want to do anything for me, anything for a selfish motivation.
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  I just wanted to do everything.
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  I wanted to love the Lord my God with all of my heart.
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  So I wanted to constantly be adoring him and praying to him.
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  So I just keep my mind focused on him all day long.
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  Now, you may think that's impossible, but it's not.
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  It's not. It's a matter of desire and direction.
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  And Brother Lawrence said that in his work, he worked in the kitchen in a monastery.
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  He said, all day long while I was working, I was just praying.
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  I was just thinking about God. I was just meditating on a scripture.
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  And he said, I found myself.
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  It was hard at first, but after a while, I found myself constantly in the presence of God so much.
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  It was so natural that being out of the presence of God seemed unnatural.
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  I wrote in the margin of that book, oh Lord, let that be me. I want that to be me.
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  That being in your presence in unceasing prayer is so natural that to be out of that is unnatural.
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  He said when the bell would ring and they would call them in the monastery to
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  prayer times, he said, I really didn't, I didn't really want to go to those
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  prayer times because I was already praying.
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  And I just continued my prayer during the prayer times. And when we got up at
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  the end of the prayer times, I just kept praying just as I was praying all the time.
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  It was just natural. It was the way of my life.
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  The way of my life.
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  This is everything prayer. And this is the key, one of the keys to the present-centered life.
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  So morning and evening prayer kind of begins my day there.
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  Everything prayer keeps my day there. And then sometimes what I would call intensive
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  prayer, intensive prayer. And there are those just moments.
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  You know, my dad is in heaven now, but he was my greatest counselor.
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  And, you know, I didn't talk to him every day. But, boy, I'm telling you,
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  he was a pastor like me, and he was just so wise.
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  And I called him a billion times.
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  And I just need your help, dad. I need to talk to you about this.
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  I need, what do I do right here?
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  And it was an intensive moment. And sometimes we'd have a long conversation over several days.
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  Now I've got five boys that are pastors, sons or sons-in-laws,
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  and we have those same kind of conversations now, these intensive conversations.
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  There's sometimes when Jesus himself went away and spent the whole night in prayer.
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  The whole night in prayer, the Bible says.
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  And what was that about? Well, often you'll read it was before times of great ministry.
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  It was after times of great ministry when he needed to be refreshed in the Lord's
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  presence. It was before he chose the 12 and he needed to make sure he got this right.
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  So sometimes we need intensive times of prayer. And we're going to see it our
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  next podcast and fasting.
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  To get us where we need to go and accomplish the work God has for us to do.
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  So we could talk about this a lot. Let me just give you one final little story. And Kyle.
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  You'll be interested in the story.
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  A few weeks ago, I was in New York for a meeting.
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  I don't go to New York for meetings, but it was a prayer meeting,
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  a prayer group that I'm a part of.
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  And we were meeting at Brooklyn Tabernacle.
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  And so we had spent time with Jim Cimbalo.
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  We were going to his prayer meeting that next night.
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  And we had a meeting of our ministry group. And it was in a building away from Brooklyn Tabernacle.
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  And they gave us the wrong address. Yes.
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  So I got up, you know, I'm I'm I walk out my hotel at eight o'clock in the morning
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  and I don't know if you've ever been in Brooklyn, in the bowels of Brooklyn
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  at eight o'clock in the morning, but it is not a pretty sight.
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  And I mean, there's just this mass of humanity, thousands of smells,
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  every language under heaven going on.
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  You have to be careful because, you know, somebody will go to the bathroom on your feet.
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  I mean, literally, if you don't watch where you're stepping and and the smell
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  of marijuana and other drugs is just everywhere. It's just everywhere.
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  So I'm walking and I don't really want to be here.
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  I would rather be at home in my recliner or my safe little study in my church.
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  And I'm walking through this and I don't like it.
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  And then I can't find the place and I get irritated. I just can't walk a block
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  and another block and and I'm going to miss my meeting.
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  And finally, I found a guy who knew where the meeting was. And he said,
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  oh, you know, here's where it is. I said, thanks.
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  So I began to walk again. It's going to take me a while to get there.
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  And in about 10 steps, the Holy Spirit just said to me, Bill,
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  do you know we could have been talking this whole time?
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  And I said, oh, Lord, I have just wasted 30 minutes that I could have spent in your presence.
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  And so I said to him, Lord, good morning.
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  And we began a conversation. Now, what I'm going to tell you,
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  you're going to think is a preacher story.
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  But something happened to me as the Lord was talking to me and I was talking to him in five minutes.
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  I fell in love with New York City.
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  I mean, it was the weirdest thing. Suddenly, I just started thinking about Brooklyn
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  Tabernacle and how they were reaching these people.
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  And all of a sudden, I saw the people around me in a whole different way.
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  And my heart just bled for them. And I just loved them.
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  Now, what was that? Was that some worked up love?
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  No. No, what happened was I got into the presence of the Lord and in his presence,
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  our heart starts beating in unison with his heart and his heart loves people
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  from every tongue, tribe, nation, and people.
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  And so, Kyle, I think this little phrase, when you pray, here's how you do it.
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  But when you pray is important. Yeah, no doubt.
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  I know for me, you know, there's something very spiritual about the nature of prayer, right?
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  That we as flesh and blood humans are walking into the presence of a God we
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  cannot see, but we can know and have conversations and commune with.
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  And like there's something beautifully, you know, spiritual about that.
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  But it also has to be practical.
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  You know, like we need to know, like you should be able to read and measure
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  my days from God's perspective, but also in even specific ways of what times are given to God to pray.
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  You know, like with you, like to know that there's morning times,
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  that there's evening times, and then there's any time in between that can be redeemed.
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  You know, I find as I'm growing in my relationship with God that there's never
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  a bad time to pray. Oh, Lord.
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  Yeah, there's never a bad time to pray. On the way to a lunch meeting,
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  in the midst of that meeting, as you leave that meeting,
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  as I'm sitting at a ballgame watching my son play, you know,
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  and I'm asking for God to do in him bigger than that which is athletic,
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  that everything's an opportunity if we'll get God's perspective.
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  Well, and in that moment, the ball field becomes this sacred tabernacle. Yeah, holy ground.
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  You know, going down the road in the car, I enjoy listening to the radio,
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  you know, the news or some music or whatever it is.
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  But, oh, my goodness, how much time can be redeemed by turning the radio off
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  and just praying, just praying. Unless, of course, you're listening to the One Cry podcast. Yeah.
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  That's going to help you pray. That's going to help you pray.
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  Well, you know, and I'm thinking like just to redeem the ride,
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  you know, like redeem the ride that you're on, you know, between here and your
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  workplace. Why don't you make that a prayer closet?
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  You know, and I remember, Bill, you've heard me say this before.
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  I came to know the Lord, 19 years old. I was learning how to walk with God.
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  God awakened a passion. First book I ever read, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire.
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  When I say first book, first book in my life that I read.
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  This was even before C-Spot Run, right?
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  Yeah, no, I never read a book from front to finish through my whole high school career.
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  So I might say something about the Alabama educational system, but I did.
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  But when the Lord awakened my heart, He also awakened my mind.
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  And so I started reading, and I read that book first, which changed everything.
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  Well, I had an hour and 10 minutes. I was doing school four days a week.
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  It was an hour commute there and back. And the Lord just told me,
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  don't turn the radio on one time.
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  Right. And that year, I learned how to pray.
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  I never that entire year turned that radio on in that four-day commute.
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  And I would talk to the Lord, had prayer cards. I'm going driving,
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  looking through prayer cards.
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  And it changed my life. Yeah. It changed my life, and I learned how to be with
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  God in a setting that wasn't just in the quiet time setting that I had.
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  And just think about this.
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  If you had run that radio nonstop for four years, what would you have gained? No.
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  What would you have gained? Yeah. A bunch of you to worry about stuff,
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  a bunch of worthless trivia, you know. And yet you get to sit in the presence
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  of God every day in this hour commute.
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  So we redeem the time. We redeem the time. And I just, I can't say this enough.
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  This is the whole thrust of this book that we're writing, and we hope will come
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  out soon, The Presence-Centered Life. you can live in unceasing communion with
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  God in his presence all day long.
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  That's right. And read about Brother Lawrence practicing the presence of God.
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  And I just, I don't want to, I hesitate to even say this because it sounds weird,
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  but I'm seeking with all of my heart.
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  I have been for a while to live that way.
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  God can take you there. He can take you there. It'll be the greatest adventure
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  of your life. That's awesome.
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  Well, yes. Well, let's do this. Let's just pray.
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  And I want to do this. I want to pray for our listeners real quick.
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  And I know we often ask you to pray with us, and you should.
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  And obviously, if God's prompting your heart to pray right now, awesome.
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  But I feel in my heart and my spirit, I just want to pray for you,
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  and then we'll conclude this.
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  Lord, thank you for this truth. Thank you that Bill has been on a journey with
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  you for a long time about learning how to practice your presence.
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  And the reality is, Lord, there's just always more.
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  There's always more with you. There's always more in your heart.
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  You have paid the ultimate price so that we might know you, that we might converse
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  with you, have conversations, just good talks.
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  And so I'm going to ask for our listener even now.
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  Lord, for me, I want this, but I know Bill wants this.
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  But I pray for those that you have drawn to this moment.
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  I just pray that you would birth faith in them now, faith to believe that you
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  want to be with them, that you want to talk with them, that you want them to
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  learn how to talk with you.
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  And I'm asking, Lord, I'm asking in Jesus' name for a breakthrough in every person's prayer life.
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  I pray for, Lord, I pray for some distinguishing moves that mornings,
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  car rides, lunchtimes, afternoon walks.
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  Times knelt by bed before they go to bed, that, Lord, that you would start redeeming
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  moments and making them manifest moments in their lives, moments where they meet with their God.
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  And so I just bless them in Jesus' name today with the experience of your presence like never before.
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  And I pray that through that the world will be impacted. I pray in Jesus' name.
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  Amen. Amen. Well, Bill, thank you, man, for sharing that.
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  And as Bill says often, there's great resources on OneCry.com.
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  You know, if this has impacted you, and I know it has, if you just spend some
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  time, maybe go back and slow it down and listen, make some more notes on some
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  of these things. If it's impacted you, share it with somebody else.
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  You're going to be sharing next week on when you fast. Yeah.
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  And the Lord has taught you a lot about that, so I'm really into that.
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  Music.