Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #169 - "When You... Pray" (Part 1)

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#169 - "When You... Pray" (Part 1) · The OneCry Podcast

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  If you're not talking to God, don't pretend you have a real relationship with Him.
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  You may be on your way to heaven, you may have come to know Christ as your Savior,
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  but you don't have the kind of relationship that God wants.
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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, hey, welcome to the OneCry podcast. We are honored that you'd give us some time.
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  I'm Kyle Reno with the infamous Bill Eliff over here on the other side,
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  the man, the myth, the legend.
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  He said it last week, so true. We're surprised you're here. I mean,
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  like that you'd give us some time.
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  And what I hope that happens is you hear what God's done in our hearts,
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  and we believe that he wants to do in our nation and revival and a real move of the Spirit.
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  So it's a privilege. I know that we started last week, Bill,
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  this new four-part series, Win You.
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  And we're really looking at Matthew 6 and in light of God's promise for,
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  hey, live a life where you lay up treasures in heaven.
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  Live a life that you're not finding yourself trying to grasp life and anxious about it.
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  And if you read from the end conclusion into the beginning, he's given us like,
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  hey, here's some ways to live.
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  And when you do these things, it promises a life that matters.
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  So when you statements matter. So you got eight kids. I got five kids.
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  We like talking about our kids. 13 total yeah so
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  you mean you got some when you conclusions with your kids right like I mean
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  you're gonna do this right you know like things you think so we have one I'm
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  not gonna sell out my which one if you know my kids you probably this out and
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  but we started noticing like you.
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  Hey, is that toothpaste on there from yesterday?
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  Or is that, like, why is that one toothbrush just got this toothpaste that looks aged? You know, and so.
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  Yeah, and it's hard. Yeah, it's hard.
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  And so, and I asked my son, so you'll know it's not my daughter.
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  Hey, you're brushing your teeth, right? Like you, you, you are.
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  And he looked puzzled and I went, oh, no, you're not. You're really not.
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  And so it becomes that when you moment, like, all right, son,
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  when you brush your teeth,
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  like for at least a minute, all the teeth in your head, like I was assuming
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  that this was, we'd already covered this ground, right?
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  But that assumption was wrong. Well, I think that Jesus is having one of those
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  moments, you know, with his disciples and with us going like,
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  hey, when you do this, when you do, right, you're going to do this.
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  And I know that the Lord spoke to your heart specifically about these next two
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  weeks, Bill, about just the nature of when you pray.
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  Well, yeah, you know, I always envision—,
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  when Jesus says these, when you statements that like, he's got on some glasses
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  and he, and he says, when you, and then he, and then he leans over his glasses
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  and say, you are praying, right?
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  When you, you are giving, right? I know you're doing it when you do this.
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  So, and then he gives us though, just, just these unbelievable divine words
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  that give us instruction.
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  Now, this is also this passage on prayer is also repeated in Luke when when
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  the disciples came and said, Lord, teach us to pray.
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  And this is the great Lord's Prayer. We call it the model prayer.
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  But you know, the most fascinating thing about this passage to me,
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  Kyle, is a lot of times we pick this up at verse 10, Matthew 6,
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  10, our father who art in heaven, but that's not where Jesus starts.
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  In fact, the Lord's prayer has 60 words.
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  I've counted them in my Bible, 60 words from 10 to 15, verse 15, on the model prayer.
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  But in verse 5, when he says, when you pray, till that Lord's Prayer begins, there's 128 words.
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  So there's twice as many words from Jesus leading up to prayer than the words
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  that actually tell us how to pray.
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  So let me just mention two or three things, and then we'll talk about it,
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  and then we're going to pray together.
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  And first of all, he says, when you pray. Okay.
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  Now, what that means is we must pray. We must pray.
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  There are 650 mentions of prayer in the Bible.
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  Now, this Bible that I have in front of me has 1,000 pages.
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  So just think about that. On 650 references in those 1,000 pages to prayer.
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  So Jesus talks about this. The Father talks about this a lot.
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  And the reason is, is because prayer is the way talking to God and letting him
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  talk to you is the way you build a relationship.
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  You and I don't have any relationship if we don't talk to each other, right?
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  We could travel in a car for 10 hours, but if we don't talk,
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  we don't get to know each other.
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  But if we talk, we get to know each other.
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  So God says, look, this is the way we're going to have a relationship.
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  And I want a personal daily relationship with you, God says.
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  That's why I created you and I've called you and I've given you purpose.
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  And I've sent my son and I sent my spirit and I'm preparing a place in heaven
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  so that we can have this relationship.
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  But you've got to talk to me. You've got to talk to me.
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  And let me just pause right here and just say, if you're not talking to God,
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  don't pretend you have a real relationship with him.
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  You may be on your way to heaven. You may have come to know Christ as your Savior,
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  but you don't have the kind of relationship that God wants.
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  So when you pray, first of all, means we must pray. Secondly,
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  we must enter in to his presence consciously in prayer.
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  Now, these first verses...
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  Uh, Jesus is very specific about this.
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  He says, when you pray, don't pray like the hypocrites. They just want to be seen by men.
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  Don't come in with fancy words.
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  Uh, don't come in doubting because God knows what you need.
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  Even before you ask him, uh, don't, don't come in here and use meaningless repetition, right?
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  So he tells us all these things about how we enter his presence.
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  All right, Torrey, I've shared this quote before in his little book, How to Pray.
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  He says, most prayer, both public and private, is not really unto God.
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  And I read that. I thought, what in the world is he talking about?
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  And he goes on to say that we rush into the presence of God to lay our requests
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  before him without even taking a moment to become aware of who we're talking to.
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  And he says we must come and gain a conscious awareness of the presence of God.
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  And this can only be done by the spirit.
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  So we rely upon him to help us get there.
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  So to that end, he says in verse six, and here's where I want you to camp for a moment.
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  He says, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door,
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  and then pray to your father who's in secret.
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  And your father will reward you for this.
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  So I don't think he's talking about a literal closet.
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  I think he means this. I visualize it like this. There's a wall and a door,
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  and we enter in literally into the throne room of heaven.
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  We have a right to come in there because of Christ.
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  We have gained access because of his blood, and we can come at any time boldly
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  into the throne of grace to receive mercy and help.
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  Even when you're most sinful is when you most need to be there because only
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  he can clean you and fix you up and make things right.
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  So we enter into his presence and we shut the door on everything,
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  everybody, all the thoughts of the day, other things.
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  Sometimes when I'm praying in the mornings, I'll just keep my notebook handy
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  there. I always have that.
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  And if thoughts come to me about the day, I just jot them down so I could just forget it, right?
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  I'm shutting the door on that because I'm about to have an audience with a king.
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  I mean, just think about this. I'm about to go into the throne room of heaven
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  and talk to God just as a friend talks to a friend. What a privilege.
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  And so we've got to consciously enter in. I've got a good friend, Nathan Lino.
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  And we were ministering together overseas this summer to some missionaries.
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  And one of the missionaries asked him, said, how do you how do you meet with
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  the Lord in the mornings?
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  And he said, and it just totally resonated because this was my experience also.
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  He said, well, I first take time to enter into his presence,
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  to consciously become aware of the Lord.
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  He had a little way that he did that through the Beatitudes.
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  My way of doing that is Matthew 6, 6, of just opening the door,
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  entering, and stepping into his presence.
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  Maybe just worshiping him, singing, listening to some music,
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  whatever it is that just takes me into the presence of God.
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  And then I go to listen to him through his word and then going to prayer and
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  praying all of that, all of that in.
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  So we must pray. When you pray, we must pray.
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  When you pray, we must enter in consciously into the presence of God.
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  That one truth revolutionized my praying more than anything else that I've ever done.
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  And then thirdly, we must pray in the spirit.
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  Now, that's not directly addressed in this passage, but in several places.
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  Think of, for instance, Ephesians 6, where he says, listen, we're in a battle
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  against principalities and powers.
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  And so you've got to be strong in the Lord and you've got to put on the full
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  armor of God and you've got to stand.
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  But then here's the battlefield and pray.
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  Pray, and he says, Ephesians 5.18, with all kinds of prayer,
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  pray at all times in the spirit,
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  with all perseverance for all the saints.
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  There are four alls in that passage, but this little praise in the spirit,
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  what does he mean by that?
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  Is that some kind of weird, I've got to kind of have this strange mystical experience?
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  I don't think that's what it is at all.
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  I think it means that I have to rely upon the Spirit to help me commune with
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  the Father, just like I have to rely upon the Spirit to do anything.
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  Without Him, I can do nothing, right?
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  Let me just tell you real practically, just to give you an illustration.
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  Administration, I was in a meeting the other day.
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  It was a board meeting for a Christian college that I deeply love.
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  And we were in this incredible moment.
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  I won't describe it to you, but it was just a really neat moment.
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  And the president had asked me to pray.
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  Well, I didn't want I want to get up there and impress everybody and try to
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  show them I knew how to pray. What a stupid thing.
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  And so here's what I did. I said, Holy Spirit, would you pray through me? Just pray through me.
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  And I have to tell you, and I've had this experience many, many times,
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  as I began to pray, the Lord put words in my mouth that voiced what was in all of our hearts.
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  And it was just this very special spiritual moment. And I believe God heard
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  and will answer those prayers.
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  I went and sat down and a guy said, man, that was an incredible prayer.
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  And then I tried to think about what I had said and I didn't really know.
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  I couldn't recall it. I think it was just the Lord said, look, I prayed that prayer.
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  I don't want you to rehearse it because you'll get proud thinking you did that.
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  There's something about learning to pray about your praying and ask the Holy
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  Spirit to pray through you. So we've got to pray.
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  We've got to enter into his presence when we pray. we've got
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  to pray in the spirit letting the
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  holy spirit help us pray sometimes with
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  groanings too deep to be uttered and then
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  one final thing kyle and that is we must understand the kinds of prayer he goes
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  on and in verse 10 and following and says pray like this our father who art
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  in heaven hallowed be thy name that's a prayer of adoration thy kingdom come
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  thy will be done That's a prayer of aligning,
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  alignment, I like to say.
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  We align ourselves with heaven.
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  Give us this day our daily bread. We're praying about our daily provisions.
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  Forgive us our sin as a prayer of confession and repentance.
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  Lead us not in temptation. These are prayers of spiritual warfare.
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  So different moments call for different kinds of prayer. And that's why in Ephesians
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  5, he says, or 6, he says, with all kinds of prayer.
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  Prayers of intercession for people, prayers of supplication,
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  prayers of grief that we pray, that we're just crying out to God.
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  All these different kinds of prayers. Listen, if you're going to become a master at anything,
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  become a master at talking to God, because there's nothing more important than
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  your communion with God.
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  And and kyle he's teaching us here
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  in this passage when you pray and he
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  just gives us i think honestly in this in
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  these these uh 10 verses here
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  i think he's giving us everything we need to know yeah about everything we need
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  to know about about prayer it's worth studying isn't it amazing just this thought
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  in my spirit even as you're sharing god has everything to gain by teaching us
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  how to commune with God. Oh, man.
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  Yeah, so this is why he's the hero. We never are.
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  You know, our prayer life's never the, man, look how great we pray.
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  But instead, in humility, to approach this like, just like you said,
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  Holy Spirit, pray through me.
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  Just to even approach it, Lord, help me meet with you.
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  Help me to distinguish the place, the time. And once I get there, know how to pray.
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  And God's already said yes to that.
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  Just to our listeners, just the engagement and pastors that are thinking about their local churches.
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  To do everything we can to help
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  people believe that God wants to help you learn how to pray. Yeah, yeah.
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  You know, I can't tell you. You know, Kyle, you know this because we serve together in a church, uh.
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  Uh for years and we still do our staff met every week just to pray no other
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  agenda no tactical no nothing it's
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  i i've always felt like it was the most important meeting of our church,
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  and and when our elders met for two hours every week the first hour was just
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  the word of god and prayer.
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  And when I finally started thinking right about this, I would come to those
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  meetings praying about those prayer times.
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  And because I said, Lord, I don't want our staff to think that prayer is this boring, useless thing.
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  So Father, would you just ignite this prayer time by your spirit.
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  And, uh, you know, I've been through a million boring prayer meetings and I
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  don't want to ever do it again.
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  I don't want to ever, and I don't have to, because just what you said,
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  the father wants to meet with us more than we even want to meet with him.
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  But we need to pray when we, when you pray, pray about it, pray about your prayer
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  times and then enter in His presence and do it the way He tells us to do it.
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  He says that. I mean, what I love about this scripture is, and I totally agree,
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  in these passages alone, you can learn everything you need to know to have a
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  powerful, effective, life-changing, world-shaping prayer life.
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  Because He has everything. God's not trying to hide this from us.
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  He's saying, come this way. Let me teach you. And I remember,
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  Bill, and we've all had those moments.
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  And then I'm going to help lead our people to pray here that are listening.
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  But I've had those moments where I've personally walked away from times thinking,
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  I mean, I just gave God some time, but I didn't really give God my attention.
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  Wow. I checked the box here.
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  And I'm just at this point in walking with the Lord, by God's grace,
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  I recognize that more now, and I'm like, I don't want to do that.
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  That's not good for me. It's sure not glorifying of God.
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  There's just so much more. And I've been in those moments where I prayed with people.
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  I remember walking away, and this is on me. I'm not making this reference to
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  the – but I had another pastor, and we served in close proximity together,
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  and we decided to spend some time praying every week.
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  And we spent an hour, and we talked a lot, and then we prayed some.
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  And then I walked away, and I thought, I don't think we ever one time engaged God.
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  God wasn't even in the conversation. And if the Lord answered everything we
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  asked, nothing would have changed.
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  That's going to change. And it was just a convictional moment in me going like,
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  I'm never going to do that again.
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  Like, I don't want to. There's so much more. Well, if you don't consciously,
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  this is why entering in is so important.
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  Yeah. If you don't consciously enter in. Yeah. And I just, I cannot stress that enough.
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  Then you're just often just spouting off human initiated words.
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  Yeah. But if you enter in and you look to him and, you know,
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  Kyle, a lot of times now, as you mature a little bit in prayer,
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  a lot of my praying is not asking him stuff.
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  I mean, it's not telling him stuff or asking for stuff. It's asking him questions.
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  Yeah, talking. Father, what do you want to be?
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  What do you want to do about this? What do you want me to do next?
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  How should I feel about this? What should I say? and then listening.
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  That's what a conversation is.
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  It's a two-way street. And Rosalind Rinker said prayer is a conversation between
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  two people who really love each other. Amen.
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  Amen. Yeah, John Stott, when I heard years ago how he engaged the Lord each
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  morning with a good morning, Lord.
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  Yeah. And I thought, oh, wow, that's the spirit. I can't wait for next week,
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  Bill, even to just continue to take this thought and build upon it.
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  So let's do this in a minute. Bill, why don't you help our people that are listening
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  pray and ask, what adjustments again?
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  What is this call from God through the Scripture to enter into the secret place
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  and pray? What things can we apply?
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  And I think it's not just practices and practice helps.
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  It's just catching the spirit of it you know exactly and that this is an invitation
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  from God to come and see it so let's just do this it just take wherever you
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  are driving down the road enter in consciously mm-hmm realize that the blood
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  of Jesus Christ was spilled.
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  So that the veil would be torn through his resurrection, that we might even
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  now, even now, enter into the throne room of grace and mercy to a secret place.
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  Bill, won't you pray for just what's next for each one of us? Amen. Amen.
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  So, Father, what a privilege to be in your presence.
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  And, Lord, to be here with many people.
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  Lord, we have people who listen literally all over the world.
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  And what a wonderful thing to think that we're all coming from India and from
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  South America and from Atlanta,
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  Georgia, and from Seattle,
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  Washington, and we can all come into the throne of grace to receive mercy and
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  find grace to help us in our time of need.
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  So, Father, I just want to pray. I just want to ask you one thing.
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  Lord, would you teach us how to pray?
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  Would you teach us how to enter in consciously?
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  Would you teach us how to become aware of your presence and be willing to take
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  the time to just sit before you and wait on the Lord and listen to you?
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  Would you teach us how to rely upon your spirit who lives within us to literally
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  pray through us and help us in our praying?
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  Lord, you promised promised that in Romans 8.
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  And so, Lord, would you take us there? And.
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  Would you show us how, like you told us to, to pray all kinds of prayer all
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  the time in the spirit with all perseverance for all the saints.
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  And Lord, we want to tell you that we love you and we want to know you more
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  and show us that the means for doing that is your word and prayer.
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  That incredible combination of word driven, unceasing prayer.
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  So we we ask you all that in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
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  Well, again, honored that you'd give us some time.
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  If this has helped you, share it with somebody else. Just take a few moments
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  and send a text or link or whatever it might be.
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  And Kyle, let me remind people, on the OneCry.com website, there's some resources there.
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  One of them is our little book on Simply Prayer. error.
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  And we actually walk right through this passage in more detail.
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  And so if the podcast today has stimulated something in your heart,
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  you can go there and get that book.
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  You can get that book most places, Amazon, whatever, but you can get it on our
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  OneCry website and Simply Prayer, I think it'll be a help to people.
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  That's right. Awesome. Well, again, thank you for your time.
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  Man, we look forward to next week, part two of this, really,
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  about when you pray. Until then.
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  Music.