Restless Ones - Pueblo Incense House of Prayer
A production of the Pueblo Incense House of Prayer. Our mission is to help normal believers sustain a life of worship and prayer by exploring what the scriptures say about the urgency of the hour we live in as well as how to grow in intimacy with God.
Restless Ones - Pueblo Incense House of Prayer
Conversation: A Prayer Life That Moves Heaven
In this conversation episode of The Restless Ones podcast, Brennan and Zach dive deep into what makes prayer truly effective, unpacking their recent teaching on James 5:13-18.
Key Topics Explored:
- Defining Effective Prayer: Understanding that effectiveness isn't just about answered prayers, but also includes the personal transformation and deepening relationship with God that comes through consistent prayer
- The Prayer of Faith: Exploring what biblical faith actually looks like—believing God is who He says He is and will do what He says He'll do, while taking risks that push beyond our comfort zones
- The Prayer of Righteousness: Discussing how righteous living isn't about meeting a performance standard, but about pursuing alignment with God's heart through relationship, confession, and genuine desire to love what He loves
- Practical Application: Learning to turn to Jesus first in every season—whether suffering, cheerful, or anywhere in between—and building faith through knowing God's Word, hearing His voice, and surrounding yourself with people who genuinely know Him
Throughout the conversation, Brennan and Zach share personal stories of wrestling with unanswered prayers, experiencing God as a true friend, and discovering that the goal of prayer isn't just results—it's relationship. They offer honest, practical advice for anyone wanting to see their prayers become more effective while growing deeper in friendship with Jesus.
Well, welcome back to the Restless Ones podcast. My name's Brennan. Here with Zach today.
SPEAKER_01:Hey everybody. Good to be with you.
SPEAKER_05:And we are jumping back in here. We've got a teaching. Uh Zach gave a teaching earlier on a prayer life that moves heaven. So we're going to be having a conversation around that.
SPEAKER_02:Come on.
SPEAKER_05:If you haven't listened to the teaching, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to that. Probably a number of the things that we're saying won't make a lot of sense if you don't have that background. So I'd encourage you to check that out. You can find it anywhere that you listen to podcasts, probably the same place that you're listening to this right now. Just scroll down a little bit and you should find it there. But we're going to jump in as I listen to your teaching, Zach. I feel like uh the main point in my mind was effective prayer. Yeah. Right? What is an effective prayer? What does that look like? How can we be effective? So let's just start there. What what in your mind like defines effective prayer? What would it actually look like for a prayer to be effective?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I think that there's probably an a multitude of ways to answer that. And first and foremost, I think it's worth mentioning that um effective prayer is not a bad thing. Like wanting our prayers to have real results and real effect is not a bad thing.
SPEAKER_05:Um that's a good point because you often feel guilty about like, well, you know, it's okay if some of them aren't answered and all that. But yeah, that's a good point. That it's okay to be bold and want an effective prayer.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. So I think that realizing that prayer has a purpose. And a lot of those purposes are somewhat measurable. And we can measure some of those like with answers. We pray for um somebody to be healed. Are they healed or are they not? Okay, they are healed. That was clearly effective, even if they're not healed. Maybe there was some effectiveness that happened there that can be measured. Or praying, one way you can measure the effectiveness of prayer is over decades. Like you pray and you talk to God for 20 years every single morning for two hours or whatever that looks like. And then you look back over decades and you realize that you've become very close to God. Like you are you are a friend of God, you know his heart. You can measure that, the effects that prayer has had on your life. And so I think there's a bunch of different ways to define it. It doesn't necessarily have to be just one way. Do your prayers get answered yes or no? Well, that's probably one metric on a whole list of different ways that prayer can be effective. But uh, in regards to this teaching, it definitely seems like there are some measurable results to the way that we pray.
SPEAKER_05:I love that. So you would say like effective prayer looks like sometimes prayers that's answered, and other times just the the personal change in our own hearts and our own walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_05:I love that. And I think that helps because that makes a lot more sense of prayer, because I know when we pray, things don't always get answered. That's just kind of sadly enough, that's just kind of the way it works. And so having in your mindset that yes, the goal is to get answered prayers, but also the goal is to grow your relationship with the Lord. Like I think having both both of those in mind is helpful to kind of lay that foundation. But today we're looking probably more at the answered prayer side of things. Um, so as we're looking to answer prayer, we want to see that happen. How can we be more effective? Like, how how can prayers be more effective in the sense of like when I pray, how is it that it makes a difference? Like, is it what I say? Is it my heart? Like, what what's gonna actually affect whether the prayer gets answered or not?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, you have to pray in King James Version. So you have to say the and thou and all of those. That's how you thus saith the Lord. It's so funny. One time my friend, when we were looking at different colleges, he went to this Christian college and he heard some guy praying, and he was like praying using the thou. So my friend comes back, he's like, bro, I met a real prayer warrior. He was praying in King James, and he was so serious. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. So um, no, it's not exactly what we say. I think a lot of it has to do with our heart posture and our perspective of who God is and what he says that he's gonna do. What makes prayer effective is that God is involved in it, which is a pretty big deal. Apart from God being involved in it, we're just saying words in rooms to ceilings. They don't reach anything. So the fact that prayer is effective means that we have a right perspective of God and we have a right perspective of what he wants to do, and we're simply coming into alignment with what he's already wanting to do. So we're discovering his heart, asking him, Lord, what's in your heart to do? Because there might be the person out there, and maybe by person, I mean me, that is praying, God, would you just make me so rich and never have to do any work for anything in my life that I can just chill? Yeah. Yeah, it's not just me. I can just chill and like enjoy all the stuff that I want to do. And God might think that's a cool idea, but that's not my best desire for you. I have a better strategy, a better way to see you grow in uh your relationship with me or with the people around you. And so we learn to to discover God's will and his desires, and then we learn to just come in agreement with that. And we can only have agreement when we have right perspective of who he is. And so prayers become effective when we pray according to his will in faith.
SPEAKER_05:I love that. And it's I mean, that's so biblical because Jesus says that, you know, if you ask anything in my name or in my will, in alignment with my character, it'll be done for you.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_05:Um, and just as you're saying that, like I feel like both aspects of what we talked about earlier of prayer kind of lead towards that. Of if you ask in alignment with God's will, then you get the answered prayer. Or if you maybe don't and you don't get that answered prayer, it's still growing your relationship with Jesus, which means you're gonna be asking in his will more and more. So I feel like even in a sense, both of those answers are like what happens when we pray, both of them kind of lead to that same lane of we know Jesus really well, and so we're praying effectively because we're praying according to his will. So I feel like either way we go in prayer, like it leads us to that same point.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, I I was even thinking in the teaching, I talked about the story of my dad when he had cancer. And I'm serious, man. We prayed every day. We uh his favorite number was five. He was wore number five in his baseball uniform, and so he's known by Fiverr. Uh-huh. And uh so every day at 5 55 p.m., our entire family would would take five minutes, take five, and pray for Fiverr. And we would pray for him and we'd pray for healing. And so I mean, every day, you know, since he had gotten his diagnosis, we prayed for healing and breakthrough, and we didn't see the result that we wanted. It was uh a long and hard road, and we didn't see that result. But in that journey, despite not getting the healing that we were longing for, I saw my dad get closer to Jesus than I'd ever seen him in my whole life.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:And I I saw me and those around me, we had unlocked a new uh perspective of how God loves and cares and sees. I mean, I got closer to God in the midst of one of the hardest seasons of my life, and it was just because we were praying all the time and we didn't get the answer. So that was still effective despite not getting the answer that we wanted. God was still doing something. So I would even say, despite him not getting healed, we still prayed effectively.
SPEAKER_05:Come on. And I would almost argue that not getting the answer to your prayer sometimes like draws you closer to God than getting the answer. Yeah. Like I feel like there's something about the suffering, the struggle, the you know, expectations that were shattered. Like it it often it forces you to go back and get really deep and personal with God. Um which is probably a great segment into like the segue, into the first verse uh that we've been talking about. So uh the teachings around like James 5, yeah, and James 5, 13 through 18. And the first verse um says, Is anyone among you suffering, he should pray? Is anyone cheerful, he should sing praises. Is anyone among you sick, he should call for the elders of the church there to pray for him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And yeah, I just see in that like the responses to each different circumstance in life, right? So if you're someone suffering, if someone's cheerful, if someone's sick, there's these responses in each one, kind of as you laid out in the teaching, is prayer, right? Prayer is obviously prayer, praises. Um, singing praises is like a form of prayer, right? I mean, we're talking to God when we're singing, or at least should be, um, or calling for the elders to pray over you, right? And so yeah, I feel like we see in that that our response in every season is prayer, right? Whether it's we're getting the answers and everything's going well, and it's the cheerful singing praises type of prayer, or it's the really hard prayers not seeming to be answered, suffering kind of prayer. Like I think James is highlighting, like the response in every season is to pray.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, and even to your point of when we don't get the answer to our prayer that drives us back into prayer. I think it usually has the tendency to go either that way or the way of, oh, I'm offended with God, I'm mad at God, he doesn't exist, and so I'm gonna reject him. Yeah, but even in my circumstance, when my dad wasn't healed, like I believe in healing, I'm for it. I'll pray for healing all day long. And I'm not afraid when someone's sick or somebody has cancer, I'm like, oh, you know, God didn't hear heal my dad, so I can't pray for cancer. Like, that's not how I function. I believe in that. And I I think I believe in it more since my dad didn't get healed, because there was this new zeal that came in like Lord, you paid for this in the scriptures. I've got a theology that says you're a God who heals completely, but I didn't see it. So I had to come back to the Lord with my offense, with my unmet expectation, and rediscover his heart in it. And if we can continue to do that no matter what the season is, if it's a good season, sometimes it's easy to go to God, but sometimes it's easy to not. Right. All my ducks are in a row, I don't really need to pray. I don't need God in this season. But we've got to come before him prayerfully in whatever the season looks like and constantly discover his heart. I don't think that we ever discover fully who he is. I mean, for eternity, his his greatness is unsearchable. We're gonna just discover aspects of his character and his love that we don't understand today. So no matter what season that life brings at us or what season God directs us, uh a worthy response, a proper response is always to pray and bring him into it.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I love that. I was even we were praying that earlier today, uh, through James 5 in the prayer room here. And as I was praying through it, that's what I was thinking is like, wow, in everything that I'm going through, like the the response is always Jesus. Like something I heard, I don't even know if it's true, but they say, like, if you're in a crowd of people and something funny happens and everyone laughs, the first person that you look to is the one that you're most connected with, like the deepest friendship. Wow. It's interesting. It's actually pretty true. Yeah, I've told it out a little bit. It's it's fairly true. Um, because I think you want to share that moment with them. Like there's a bond there that you want to share the joy with.
SPEAKER_01:Have you ever had that moment where that happens and you look to someone, but they're looking to somebody else?
SPEAKER_05:I have. I have.
SPEAKER_00:It's the worst moment.
SPEAKER_05:Especially when you're thinking I'm your best friend, then like, oh, but you're not mine.
SPEAKER_00:Now I'm gonna just second think that through every time.
SPEAKER_05:And then that's that's when you go to God because you're suffering. Right.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_05:That's where that's there too. No, but I feel like that's what comes to my mind when it talks about like, is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises. Like, how often in our lives when something good happens, like, who's the first person we look at? Well, right? If we look at Jesus first, like I feel like that's what the call here is is like, look at Jesus because you want to share that joy with him, you want to know him, you want to be in friendship with him. And so when you're feeling cheerful, sing praises to Jesus, like look at him first. And but on the other side of the coin, right? If you're suffering, if you're struggling, yet again you you turn to the friend that you trust the most, you turn to the person you really need. And so it's James is going, That's Jesus again, like in every circumstance, no matter what you're in, yeah, the best response is to turn first to Jesus to look at him.
SPEAKER_01:Man, that's so good. Help me, Lord.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, not not like we we do that as well as we should, but but that's just so fun. Like I I love in this season, like I've had a rough time. I moved here to Pueblo about a year ago, and I've always lived with family my whole life, and so this is like the first time I'm not around any family, and so it's been hard. Like I feel like I haven't had a ton of friends and people around me. Like, I I do have a lot of friends here, but it's not family, right? There's a difference for sure. Um, and I'm growing and deepening the friendships, and so it's helping, but but I I felt very alone in a number of times. I'm living alone in an apartment, so that doesn't help. Um and but I found in this season like Jesus can actually be a friend to me, right? Like we always say that Jesus is my friend, but then in this season where I'm sitting alone, I'm like, Well, I'm gonna have to talk with Jesus, I guess. Like, you're gonna have to be my friend, and we're gonna have to have fun together. We're gonna have to understand how to have a hard times together and good times together. And so I've started turning to him first a whole lot more than I used to, which is probably the goal of this season for me, is yeah, that he's forming in me. But it's been so sweet because I found a side of Jesus that I've never known before, right? Like he's yeah, he's so fun. And when I'm feeling happy, he joins that. He's excited, he's happy with me, he jokes with me. Like just getting to hear his voice and hear him talk to me in this season, it's so so sweet. And then in those moments where I'm just having a really hard time, like he's so kind, so helpful to me in those moments. And you know, I don't want to romanticize it, it doesn't always feel that way of course on my end, but looking back over it, I can see how how he so gently helps me each step of the way. Um, like the other night, I was just really feeling lonely. And my tendency right now when I feel lonely is to just go to YouTube to kind of deaden it, drain it, drown it out, or whatever. Oh, yeah, exactly. And so I I was gonna do that, but it's a vicious cycle because as soon as you get done with it, you feel so much worse right afterwards. And so I'm like, I don't, I know what happens if I do watch YouTube, but I don't know what else to do. And but I was just so dead and so tired. I'm like, yeah, I'm just gonna do it. And I just felt the quietest little whisper of like, I have this Christian magazine laying on my desk, and God's like, you should read that instead. Just the whisper, and I was so upset, so frustrated, like, no, I'm not doing that. That doesn't sound interesting at all. But but I did, I did end up picking it up and I I read that instead, and it was so helpful because it it did distract me a little bit from what was going on, but in a way that was life-giving and helpful. And so I've just found God to be a friend so much more in this season than I've ever ever tasted before.
SPEAKER_01:It's crazy. You talk about God like He's a real person.
SPEAKER_05:Isn't that weird? Yeah, that weird.
SPEAKER_01:But that's like so so much of us, like even in calling ourselves a house of prayer or people of prayer, praying people, like it's not what we do. Like, prayer really isn't something we do. I don't think about my relationships with my wife or my kids or friends and think, yeah, we're people of conversation. I don't like define us by what we do, we're a people of relationship because we're real humans interacting with one another, doing real stuff with one another. Yeah, and that's the desire of God's heart. It's not that we would just do prayer for him to get the results, and I need somebody to do my will, so let me have this guy pray and let's get stuff done. God could stamp his fingers and do whatever he wants, but the whole purpose of prayer, the whole purpose of have praying measurable prayers and getting results is to lead us into that fellowship and that friendship in every season, not just in the chaos moments and not just in the happy moments, but in every season when you're alone at home and thinking about watching YouTube or going to sleep or whatever, God wants to be a real person and a real friend to us through it all.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I feel like we so often miss that part. Like prayer is this weird spiritual thing that we feel like we do that doesn't quite make a lot of sense, but you know, you're supposed to do it, and so you say all of these words and stuff happens, right? And it's it's easy to fall into that mindset because that's kind of where a lot of us are at. But it's it's so much better when it is that, when it's you're talking to a person about real life and about stuff, right? And I love the point you made. I think it's such a good point we have to make over and over again. God doesn't need us, right? Like he does not need us to pray, he doesn't need us to worship, doesn't need us to do anything, yeah, but he wants us, right? He wants us to pray, he wants us to worship because he he's a God of relationship, right? Before, you know, etern and eternity passed, he was God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit in relationship with himself. Don't know how that works in the Trinity, but that's how that works, something like that. And so he loves bringing other people into that, into the relationship and the fellowship that he has. And so when we pray, his goal is that we would come into that, right? And I think that's probably why he doesn't work it so that all of our prayers are just answered perfectly, so that we pray exactly in line with his will every time. Because it it invites us into a deeper wrestle, a deeper pool, into like, all right, I'm I'm gonna have to wrestle through this, figure this out, and where do I go to wrestle it through? I go to God, right? That's the goal, anyway. To pull us to himself in every season, right? When we're suffering, when we're cheerful, praying, singing praises. Always the response is go back to God. Yeah, come back to him.
SPEAKER_01:So good.
SPEAKER_05:So I want to touch on, I feel like in my mind, there was two two primary points that it it kind of make our prayers effective or not effective, right? And again, when we say effective in this context, we're saying whether the prayer's answered or not. Yeah. Every prayer is effective in the sense that you're growing your relationship with Jesus, like we've been saying. But I think the first key is the prayer of faith, right? It's verse 15. It says the prayer of faith will save the sick person, the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he'll be forgiven. And so that that prayer of faith aspect, what does that look like in your mind in a practical way? Faith is a word we throw around all the time, but it's not often super clearly defined. So, like, what does that look like to you in a practical sense?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Practically, I think it's believing that God is who he says he is and will do what he says that he's gonna do. It's a confidence, it's a belief in the teaching I shared all the different versions of Hebrews 11 that define faith and that use words like assurance and certainty and belief that this is who God says he is, despite our circumstances, despite what things look like, it really is a confidence in the character of God and the desires of his heart. That's what I think faith is. I think, and that only comes through, I think that's why we've spent so much time talking about relationship, because that only comes through relationship, yeah, through knowing somebody. I know that my wife is going to do something when she says she is because I know her. Whereas when I meet the random person who says, Yeah, I'm gonna do this thing, I can't put all my you know, faith in them that they're gonna accomplish that thing, right? But it's because I know them. So I think faith, faith simply just means we know God, we believe God that he's a man of his word.
SPEAKER_05:And I think you had like a whole list in there of like when faith was effective, like seeing how it was faith so many times that brought healing, that brought breakthrough, right? When Jesus is ministering to people, he'll say things like, Your faith has made you well, right? And so I think faith it's it's such a key. And if it's that that belief in God, that confidence in who he is, who he says he is, like that makes so much so much sense. And it helps us to really go after like what God is, and it helps us to go after that relationship piece because then from that relationship comes the breakthrough, comes the answered prayers, right? And I think that's that's part of the design of God because if we were to get so many breakthroughs and answered prayers without the relationship piece, that's that's problematic, right? It causes issues when you see God's power move through you, but you don't have that in depth with him, like that so many issues come up with that um pride, all that stuff. And so I think it's the wisdom of God that faith requires that we go deep with him to get that faith, but then to see the breakthrough to be effective in it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I think there's an aspect of faith, like John Wimberough always used to say, faith is spelled R-I-S-K. So I think that there's also the aspect of risk and reach and going beyond what is what we presently see and believing something that rubs against that grain or something that feels contrary. And it's it's a tricky scenario because the amount of times that I've heard somebody who's gotten wounded because they didn't get healed, and the person who prayed for them said, You just didn't have enough faith.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like it's a the territory we're talking about is is a little a little treacherous, but there is that element because a lot of these people, like in the examples that we use in the teaching, I've got a whole table in the teaching in the notes. Go check it out. Um, where Jesus says, Your faith has made you well. Yeah, some of those people didn't have that relationship with Jesus, but they believed that he could heal, and they reached. I think of the woman with the issue of blood, and she had to fight her way through a crowd, and she just reached and touched his garment. And there have there has to be that reach and that longing and desire. I think that's an aspect of faith that is so important that it it it pulls us out of the comfort zone, it pulls us out of the the normal, the mundane, it's this desperation or this longing piece as well. Um that that's in uh alignment with the relationship piece. And I think together, if we really operated in that way, if we had a vibrant relationship with God, but we were also continually reaching desperate, hungry, and have a confidence, I feel like there would be a lot more answered prayers. And it's easier said than done because we just hit our 13-year mark as a house of prayer last week, and I don't know how many of our prayers have been answered, you know. So maybe it just means I need more faith.
SPEAKER_05:Come on. Do you think God ever answers prayers that are like faithless or that don't have that level of faith? Does he respond to those prayers?
SPEAKER_01:Oh man. Well, probably. I think so. I I think he answers I don't know, I feel like I've seen it happen in times where I have prayed with zero expectation. Okay, God, I'm just gonna throw this up to you. Will you do this? And then he shows up and does it. An example.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, let's go.
SPEAKER_01:Very fresh example. So Monday mornings we pray for um more restless ones. Those are people who commit to an hour in our prayer room and uh they say yes, they sign up, they show up to the same prayer meeting every week. Yeah, and we've been praying for 80 restless ones for three years at this point, every Monday.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And some days I show up expectant with faith and excitement. And Monday, I prayed a prayer and said, Lord, we need more restless ones. We need more singers and musicians. My voice is tired. Um I'm hurting my voice, God. Like, send somebody. But we haven't you we get restless ones not every day, not every week, not every month, even. There's some months where we don't get any new restless ones. And so, truthfully, Monday, I don't think I had any faith for it. I was just praying it in the routine and out of obedience and doing what we're doing. And I prayed it, and then by the end of the day, we had a new restless one who was a singer and a musician. I said, hmm, well, maybe God answered my prayer, or maybe there was somebody else in the room we had who had more faith and agreed, but I don't know, man. I think that the Lord will take even the weakest yes and do some big things with it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But there's certainly something to living a lifestyle of faith and praying in faith uh continually that at least James is telling us at toward the end of his life that this is important. You want to see healing, you want to see breakthrough, then pray in faith.
SPEAKER_05:I think we can say though, like, even if you don't feel like you have faith, pray anyway. Sure. I think we can agree on that.
SPEAKER_01:Like we always say it counts. Like, all right, that counts. That one counted.
SPEAKER_05:Yep, even if you're not feeling it, right? And you don't always have to feel it for it to be faith either. Like it's not just necessarily an emotion.
SPEAKER_01:Come on, that's good.
SPEAKER_05:Confidence in God doesn't always look like an emotion. But yeah, I think of like uh the father, I forget what his son had, like a demon possessed, I think was his son, and you know, he comes to Jesus and he's like, if you can do anything, will you heal him? Right. And Jesus is like, if I can, anything's possible for the one who believes, right? He's pulling on the hey, you need to have faith. Yep, right? He's asking for faith from the father, and I love the father's response because it's my answer so often is like, I believe, help my unbelief, right? It's like that ain't belief, brother. Like that is not belief. You're going, yeah, I believe you. Help me to believe you. That's that's not, but like he engages in it, right? He's he's talking to Jesus and effectively, in effect, prayer, praying, right? Because he's talking to Jesus and he's asking for help in that area where he's he's wrestling with belief. He recognizes I need to believe, but I don't. I can't. And so he's honest with Jesus about that, and then Jesus heals his son. So I feel like there's a place for that too. God's so kind, like I don't think it's a a rule, if you will, like a hard fast. If you don't have faith, I'm not doing anything for you. Right. I mean, he came to earth and sent his son to die for all of us when all of us were sinners, so he doesn't need us to pray to show up.
SPEAKER_01:He oddly has a lot of faith in our response back to him that he would do that. Like God, like God, the fact that he would send his only son to die so that we might accept him. He like he puts a lot of faith in his creation, in the ones that he loves. It blows my mind that he does that. Like he risked everything for all of us that while we were still sinners, and I find that I find that crazy. I find that hard to believe that God would do that, that he would send his own son because he he really believed that this was gonna be worth it. He really believed that this was actually gonna, he was gonna get what he was longing for. And it's not every human. There's some humans who reject Jesus, and I'm sure that that's painful. But to me, that looks like a crazy demonstration of faith. And maybe it's more so faith in his own perfect plan, but maybe it's also faith that uh love, like genuine love, needs some sort of response. Like there needs to be some expression of love that's returned that that he has faith in. But the fact that God did that 2,000 years before you and I were ever here shows that, and he did it for you, and he did it for me. Yeah, shows that to some degree he had faith that we would we would respond to his love, respond rightly to it.
SPEAKER_05:Wow. That's crazy to me because you know, when we're talking about we have faith. In God, we as humans are wrestling to believe the perfect and good character of God, right? That's our wrestle with faith is He is good and perfect and everything, but we struggle to believe that, right? And so our faith, our faith is is help me to believe who God is, and that's my where my faith will come from. But then you you flip that around, like you're saying, and God's faith, like it's not in perfect good creatures at all, right? Like he he came down, he came down trusting like that we'll believe in him. And obviously, you know, we don't need to get into the sovereignty of God, yes or no, how all that works. Hard to say. We might get canceled real quick, but but I think that's beautiful that God was willing to, in a sense, put faith or belief that we're gonna respond to what he did. Yeah, that's really cool.
SPEAKER_01:Such a risk. I mean, from the garden. Here's man, here's a tree. Don't eat from the tree. We'll take the risk. And he takes the risk from the very beginning on humanity. So that to me, that gives me a lot of boldness when I think of risking and praying risky, scary prayers. I'm like, well, God, this is what he does. He kind of risks things. That's the that's the nature of the God that I follow. He doesn't play by the safe rules. So often when God does stuff, it feels like the 11th hour and he comes through, or it feels like there was no way, you know, it's Israel backed up against the sea.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Are you kidding me, Lord? And then he splits the sea and like totally breaks the rules. There's just always this, it feels like there's a level of risk in following God. And I think that happens as well in the place of prayer, that we would be people who would take a bit of a risk and pray and do some things that don't quite make sense. Maybe not weird things, but pray prayers that don't quite make sense to our natural pattern of thought.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Which makes sense. Makes sense. Um like everything that Jesus did on earth doesn't make natural sense to our minds from the way he taught to the miracles that he did, right? Like, who would have sat sat down and saw the crowd of 5,000 and said, Oh, let's just make bread appear out of thin air? Like that would not have been my thought. Yeah. Wouldn't have been my first thought. But everything that Jesus does is so outside of our norms that yeah, I feel like we we need a little bit more of that, the faith that goes, hey, you can do things that don't make any sense that we've never seen before. Right. I think I think even that requires a little bit of God, God creativity, God wisdom of going, hey, think about this. Like, what if I did this? What if I did it in this way? I think that that's needed. We needed some more of those prayers that are like I guess creative is the word I'm looking for. Like creative prayers that are like, God, do it. This, which is completely unexpected. We've never seen something like that before.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I'm so the king of of just going by what I see and by what like logically makes sense. Okay, God, we need money. It's always my I'm always talking about money on this podcast. Maybe let's do something else. God, I need breakthrough. And it has to be done this way because this is how I understand and how I see it. But truthfully, whenever those things happen, whenever we get breakthrough, whenever I see that, it's almost never according to my pattern of thought or that what I thought he would do.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:If I I probably should track them and count them because almost every time it comes from a different angle. It comes from, oh, yep, this was different. And so I think that truthfully, that's probably limited my effectiveness in prayer because I'm too busy praying according to my own pattern of thought. And God might be leading me outside of that to pray differently and to see things differently. And um we've gotta we've gotta learn to get in that space more and more because it's who he is. If that's who he is, that's the way he's gonna lead us. And we're just we like to be comfortable and we like to be safe and pray. Yep, obviously the A plus B equals C, and God's like, but here's a new letter you've never heard of. God math.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. Do you ever feel like God likes keeping us on our toes? Yeah. I feel like I feel that every once in a while in my life. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like you didn't have to do it that way. You just kind of did to just keep me on my toes. Yep. Insane. Uh he's he's something else. When you really get to know the character of God, like it's it's so interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_05:So interesting to me. Because we we hold him up in this, you know, pious, ooh, he's God, whatever. But you get down to the nitty-gritty, you start interacting with them, you read like the Psalms and stuff, and it's like it's a little bit more to you than I thought. Like, you're you're not normal. Like the way you do things, the way you act, the what like I don't this is weird, and it's a little disturbing sometimes when you get into it. Like, because I'm like, you didn't have to do that, right? But you did. What why? I don't understand you, right? But it's so it's that tension as you start to get to know him of like you're weird, but you're good. Like, I I love one of my favorite quotes. Um, it's from C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia. Um, it's like the first book, Lion Witch in the Wardrobe, uh, which isn't technically the first book if you're a nerd. Oh, come on. But anyway. Come on now. Um I think it's the first one he wrote. Could be wrong. Anyway, um, so in that book, uh, two beavers are there, and the four kids, the heroes of the story, are just entering Narnia and they're talking with these two beavers. And Lucy's hearing, you know, the king of this place is Aslan, who's the God figure, right? And she's hearing about him and she's like, Oh, he's a lion? Like, oh my goodness. And Lucy's like this young girl, and so she asks, she's like, Is he safe? And Mr. Beaver goes, Safe? Who said anything about safe? He's not safe, but he's good. Come on, and it's like, ah, that so describes God because yeah, he's not safe. Right, no, you get to know him and he'll he'll mess your life up a little bit, right? And things just don't go the way you're wanting them to go, and it's not safe by any means. It's the risk you're talking about, right? But he's good, right? And that's the tension we have to hold it's gonna be a wild ride, but he's good. Yeah, he's good.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. I was thinking about this Instagram reel I saw. I don't know why it popped in my brain, but it was this video, AI, of course, nice of Jesus, and he's getting confronted by a police officer, like Jesus, which he probably would have for doing something, and the police officer is like, Okay, turn around, put your hands behind your back, and they're right by a pond. And Jesus just sprints and runs across the pond. Like, so what's the what's the police officer gonna do? But he like has such a personality, so weird. Yeah, and I think about this all the time with people who don't have genuine relationship with the Holy Spirit, and they think, oh, the Holy Spirit thing, like he's so weird, and I've seen it. I mean, living in this house of prayer space and the charismatic space, yeah, the Holy Spirit does weird stuff, but it's not because the Holy Spirit is weird and Jesus is really rational.
SPEAKER_04:Ah, come on. Jesus is weird, and we're kind of weird.
SPEAKER_01:So that together is is a recipe for weirdness, and so it's not that we just want to say, well, let's get together and just be all weird and goofy because but realizing that his ways are not our ways, and he's he's so not limited to our our rational understanding of things, he'll operate outside of that. And I remember it's a cliche, but I remember the first time I heard it, so a mentor told me, Um, like when you meet your own human limitations and your own human understanding, that's where faith begins. And so when we realize I can't do this, when we realize I'm limited by this scenario, this circumstance, when I've come to the end of myself, then faith actually starts there. And so I was like, oh, well, how do I come to the end of myself more and believe that this is a crazy uh crazy prayer? But that's really where we kind of need to live is realize that Jesus is not living according to our limitations. I think about the fact that we're gonna die one day, and that's looming over you and I. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we realize we have this limited amount of time to do things that we want to do, to do things that we feel like God has told us to do. And sometimes the pressure of just we're gonna die is living there, and it puts a certain uh spin on life. But Jesus, who exists outside of the limitation of that time and that finality, um he's so not rushed when I'm rushed, he's so not anxious when I'm anxious, he's so not bothered when I'm bothered. He's and that's weird, that's different. Like when we're living in a uh in a certain current and he's just moving to a different current, we feel like that's weird, but it's only because he he's not confined to the way we think or the way that we have to be confined to in this age.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, come on. I I think that's so cool, and it's so biblical too. Like it, what is it? God's power is perfected in my weakness, right? Where we're weak, he is strong, right? And so I think that makes so much sense. The faith would come from that place. And I feel like God God puts us in those scenarios kind of on purpose, like to call that faith out to to display in a guess in a sense that we're weak, we cannot do it, and he has to do it, right? He has to be the one to do it, and I think that brings him glory afterwards because we go, well, that was not me. Totally for sure, right? Like I think of you mentioned it earlier, the Israelites backed by the sea. First off, God's weird. Why would you do that? Straight up. Just just take them out. Like you could you could just wipe out the Egyptian army back in Egypt. Why why back them against the sea and then wait so that they see them coming about to kill them, and then you open up the sea and do it in a way that none of them had any expectation of. Or Gideon's army, right? Why are you knocking down the people just down to 300 to be able to do it? Right? It's I think he loves displaying our weakness and his strength in that, right? Like causing us, forcing us, maybe is a wrong word, but very gently pushing us into recognizing our own weakness. Yeah. And that's where that's where his strength comes, right? That's where that faith kicks in because we have nothing else. Yeah, there's no clear way that we can get out of it. That's interesting. Like, I I think of this book I read, uh, The Art of War. It's like an old, old book back, I believe from like China, like probably thousands of years ago, something like that, like really old. Uh people read it and it's all of these strategies on how to win war. Right. And one of the things it says is uh never back your enemy into a corner. Right. And it says, and if you can, back yourself into a corner, which is so interesting. But it talks about this story of a general. They were fighting on like this plane, and there's like a canyon on one side, and he maneuvered his troops to have their backs against the canyon, allowed the opposing enemy to like cover the rest of the plane, so they had no way out. And then he looked at his troops and said, Look behind you. There's a canyon, look in front of you. You better fight. Oh my god. And then they fought, right? Because of course you're done, right? You have to get out. And so I think God puts us in those scenarios. And right now I'm wondering, like, should we put ourselves in those scenarios where there's no way out? You you cannot get out of this apart from God, right? I think that's that's the faith that like kind of can get you in trouble, if you know what I mean. Like that, that that zeal and that faith of like, no, I'm gonna do this, back myself into a corner, so to speak, because then only God can do it. Right. I think that's that's the mindset, I think, of when like people don't take their medicine or things like that, which it's a whole thing there, you know. We can get into that, but but I think that's that's when done correctly, that's the mindset is I'm in a corner. I want this to be God and God alone, and I know He can do it, and so I'm not gonna use human means to have a safe way out in the back just in case God doesn't show up, right? It's backing yourself into a corner and going, no, it's it's gonna be God or it's gonna be nothing. I think that's that's a beautiful faith that the Lord loves. Not recommending you get off your medicine right now, right? But there's a time and a place for that, I feel like.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. That's so good. And it's so scary.
SPEAKER_05:Faith is risk and confidence in God at the same time.
SPEAKER_01:Come on.
SPEAKER_05:All right, let's move to second key point, I feel like. Um we're saying, you know, for prayer to be effective, we gotta have faith, right? We gotta take those risks that puts all our confidence in God, right? It's we believe who he is, so we're gonna take the risk and that step out. And then the second point um at the end of verse 16, it says the prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. Elijah was a human being as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the land produced its fruit. And so it's that first one is the prayer of faith, the second is the prayer of a righteous person. It's very powerful in its effect. So, what do you think about that? Like, what do you think of this righteous person? What does that look like? Are we talking justification, sanctification? What is the term righteous here highlighting?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So in the teaching, I I broke down both pieces of it. We are righteous. You and I today are righteous before God because of the blood. It's not gonna change. Unless we throw it away and reject it, we're like, all right, we don't want this, have it back, whatever, God. People are gonna get mad that I said that.
SPEAKER_05:But we've just trampled on Calvinism's tote twice.
SPEAKER_01:Why not? Why not? Let's let's go at it. We love our Calvinist friends. But they knew they knew we were gonna love them. So boy. Oh no. What is this episode three?
SPEAKER_00:Oh god.
SPEAKER_05:Already gone. We didn't even talk about the Nephilim. We're gonna get there again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so that is um being justified. We've got the blood of Jesus and we're covered. Praise God. We are justified before him. I love that. And I think that prayer of a righteous includes part of that reality.
SPEAKER_04:100%.
SPEAKER_01:But also there's the practical outworking of a righteous lifestyle. It's that we would I I always say it like this living a righteous lifestyle is doing the stuff that we ought to do in light of what he's he's done. So, yes, are we covered in the blood? Yes, but we we that that saves us from something, but we are also saved unto something, and that is a kingdom lifestyle that's a that's a righteous living that's in alignment, loving what he loves, hating what he hates, walking in agreement with him, and those are real decisions, those are real human interactions that we have, and those are real um heart-level uh stuff, it's our dreams, it's our motives, our desires, all of those things are there's a working out of righteousness in being sanctified that takes place over the course of our life. And so I believe that if we're just gonna live in opposition to God's ways, if we're gonna live in willful compromise, we're not living a righteous lifestyle, though we might be covered in his blood and justified. Yeah, it's kind of crazy what his grace and his blood is able to do. And so, what I believe James is saying here is not okay, you're covered in the blood, so you can pray anything and it's you're gonna accomplish a lot. I think what James is saying is if you're living a lifestyle where you're loving what he loves and you're hating what he hates, beyond just the words of saying it, your prayers are gonna carry some weight and they're gonna accomplish a lot.
SPEAKER_05:I think it's interesting that in verse 16, like if you read the whole verse together, um, it says, Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. So I just think it's interesting that it's like it's got confession of sins right before this. Yeah. I feel like that's that's a key to highlighting that this isn't just the justification part, right? This is the the sanctification, if you will, the fighting against the flesh, the confession of sins unto me coming that righteous person.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Um how do I phrase that? Like how righteous do you think you have to be to see your prayer get answered? Like to be an effective prayer, what level of righteousness do we have to be living in to start seeing that kind of effectiveness?
SPEAKER_01:Oh man, I don't know. I I feel like he's so ready to just take our first willingness and do it. And it's weird because I think about men, even over the past few years, with a lot of the big leaders who have sort of fallen, yeah, who really did a lot for the kingdom. Seems like some of the prayers they prayed were even answered.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But a lot of them, a number of them, I mean, they were living double lifestyles, and they were not living righteous lifestyles, and they were making really bad decisions too. And so it seems like that God is looking for willingness and partnership. And so I don't know if there's a the sort of black and white answer, okay, you've crossed the threshold of righteousness. Um now your prayers can be effective. It's really hard. I think at the end of the day, I just want to err on the side of always confessing, always realizing that I'm I'm kind of a mess and I sin every day. And Lord, I'm just gonna come before you and admit that and say, help me to change my mind. That's why we take time every day in our prayer room to pray prayers of alignment.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Because the truth of the matter is we're constantly walking out of alignment with God. We've got desires that go unchecked, we've got motives, thoughts, decisions, interactions, all of those things have got to come into alignment with Jesus. And so I don't, you know, I don't know. I really don't know if there's a good answer for what level of righteousness. And I don't know if God sees it that way either. I it's a really hard thing to make into something formulaic. Yep, ding ding ding, you've you've you're righteous, and I don't know. Maybe I just should have said I don't know.
SPEAKER_05:Real. Real. Why why do you think though, like, why does he want us to be righteous? If we're down here praying, we're in a sinful world, we're we're all sinful, right? We all have that flesh. Why does he ask that then? Like, what difference does it make if I'm living a holy lifestyle or not? Like, why does he reach and ask for us to be righteous for our prayers to be effective? What difference does it make?
SPEAKER_01:I think this goes back to some of what we talked about in the beginning, but I'll say it differently. I'll say I think God is a quality time guy. I think that living in righteousness is about learning to love what he loves, and we are we're discovering the desires of God and how actually those desires are better than all of the other desires. His ways are excellent. And so I I think the journey of um growing and maturing in righteousness is about really being formed into the image of God, realizing that some of the lesser pleasures that we have, or some of the less lesser pleasures that culture around us offers, those don't quite satisfy like the things that he's about and the thing that he pursues. When I think of love, I think of God's love versus some of the ways the world or culture or even church culture defines love. We want the authentic type of love, the 1 Corinthians 13, the love that's always patient and kind and doesn't boast. We want the better thing, and God's desire is that we would have the better thing. God's desire is that we would love what he loves because his desires are perfect, his longings are perfect. And so I think that's really the answer to the question is it's a it's a journey of becoming a suitable companion, like formed in his image that looks like him, that that is about the same things he's about. There's nothing that makes my heart more happy than when Chelsea enjoys something that I that she once didn't, but but she enjoys it because I enjoy it, and she genuinely enjoys it. And there's the difference. Like I'm a I'm very much a quality time guy.
SPEAKER_05:Nice.
SPEAKER_01:And so when she will sit down and watch a Bronco game with me or something like that, like I know she doesn't like it, but over time I've seen her start to like lean into some of those things and like it. And I get so excited because we're just hanging out, having quality time. So, really, that is the journey of righteousness. It comes back to quality time versus just okay, here's do all the right things. Um when we when we get in that place, it's like um what he says in John 15 if you remain in me and my word remains in you, then you can ask anything you wish. Because our desires will be in alignment with his. We're we're loving what he loves. We we'll want what he wants, and and that's what makes things effective is the fact that we're we're starting to look like him.
SPEAKER_05:So maybe that's why it's difficult to say like what's the the standard of how much righteousness you have to have, right? Sure. Maybe it's not about you know, God draws a line on the wall and says, until you can jump in this high, I'm not gonna answer your prayer. Yeah. Right? It's less about like working out to try to meet that standard to finally be able to get into his favor to get it. Like I think it is that it's more of that relationship piece, that aspect of he wants us pursuing it, going after it. Uh, I think of Psalm, not Psalm, Proverbs 15, 9. Could be wrong. Don't cancel me if it's wrong. It's in the Bible, right? It's I love what is it in Hebrews where it says somewhere in the scriptures, it says, and I was like, Yeah, that's amen. Even the Bible writers didn't know it. But I think it's Proverbs 15, 9, somewhere around there. It says, the Lord loves the one who pursues righteousness. Come on, right? And it's that pursuit. It's not that you are righteous, you don't have to be righteous for him to love you or to answer your prayers, like in the full, complete, perfect sense, right? That's glorification that happens at the end. Yeah, but he loves the one that's pursuing it, the one that's reaching for it. And so, in my mind, that would probably be what he's talking about here, right? Even the example he gives, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful in its effect. Elijah was a human being as we are, and he prayed earnestly, right? We think back into Elijah, not perfect. Correct, not perfect, right? There's one point where he's complaining to God, like, I'm the only one, what good's my life? I'm the only per prophet left of all of Israel, no one else cares to praise. Right. Like he's human too. He he had some sin, but he's the example here, and so I think it's it's that one that's reaching, the one that pursuing righteousness. I think that's the prayer that's powerful, and that's the prayer that moves heaven.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. There's the the there's the real reach and the real desire that really means something to God. I think of the the dude on the cross next to Jesus. That guy was not perfect. He was dying as a criminal. Yep, totally didn't do the right stuff. Like so unrighteous, but there was the reach in his heart. I I want to be with you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like he recognized in that moment, and that recognition, the repentance piece, the I'm turning my mind around. I'm I I'm changing things because I want to be like you. I think that moment alone where it's genuine and it's authentic before God, that moves his heart in ways I don't even think we quite realize.
SPEAKER_04:Come on.
SPEAKER_01:Which is the power. I mean, go going back to confession.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Confess your sins to one another. That should be something we do way more in the church and in communities with we we I think a lot of times we don't, um, because people have been wounded. You confess your sins, and then the entire church heard about it, and now you're it's awkward. So whatever. But we've got to learn to confess our sins and our shortcomings and our brokenness where we have not lived out the practical righteousness. Confess that to one another, and that begins the process of repentance, and that begins the process of of walking in righteousness, and that has some power to it, man. It's it will it will change the way communities interact and the way that friends interact. It's a powerful thing to to admit our sin and our weakness and say, Okay, God, I realize who I am. I'm not living in this false righteousness, this false self-righteousness anymore. I know who I am before you. I'm utterly dependent on you, but here I am. And then he still uses uses us when we're there.
SPEAKER_05:Come on. That's interesting. Like I feel like so much of everything we've said kind of weaves together. Of you know, we talk about first building that relationship with the Lord, having him be the first thing we turn to in every season. And I think as we've talked about what is faith, how does that work, how do we get that, because the prayer of faith is effective. What is righteousness? How do we get that? Because the prayer of righteousness effective. I think it's all goes back to that relationship piece of we get more faith because we know who God is, right? As we believe more in the goodness of God, as we believe more in his character, it builds the faith aspect and we can believe, well, he's gonna do this because I know him. I know who God is, and I know this is in his heart and know that's his character. And then the righteousness piece is the same, right? We want to grow to be more like Jesus, we want to be conformed to his image. And so as we build that relationship, like it it makes our prayer more effective and we have the ability to live that aligned lifestyle, right? The more aligned we are, I think the more effective our prayers will be. Because we're praying in alignment with his will. Like Jesus says, you know, so many times. If you pray, you know, according to my will, it'll be done for you. And so I think I guess what we're saying is that it it's all about relationship. If you deepen your relationship with God, you go deeper with him, then your prayers are gonna become more effective as you build out that that relationship piece with him.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Amen to that. I was thinking of a question to put you on the spot. So a common thing people ask, and probably will ask after listening to um the teaching and this conversation, they'll say, Okay, so how do I grow my faith? I get the relationship, become a friend of God, but really, how do I boost my faith? What would you say? I have some thoughts, but I'll uh I'll let you talk first.
SPEAKER_05:That's a good question. How would I get more faith? Right, how would I grow my faith? I feel like for me, from what we've talked about, right, faith is that confidence in God, it's that belief in his character, what he says. And so I would say a number of things, but I think it boils down to get to know God. Yeah, right. However that looks, typically I would turn to like reading the Bible, praying God's word, right? Reading the Bible, what does it say about God? What is his character? What does he look like? What does he act like? Who who's he what is he about, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So many of us say we love God, but we don't really know him.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:We don't know who he is, what he cares about. Like, I often think, like, what if I sat down with a believer and asked them, so who is God? Like, but tell me for real, like, what's his personality? If you were to put him on the Enneagram, what would he be? Right? Like, do you know him or do you just know a few things about him, a few of the quote Christian phrases that we have, right? And so I think getting to know God is really what stirs your faith because the one that knows God, that's the one whose prayer really gets answered. Come on. Because they know what's in his will, they know what's not. Um, I think of Jesus as a the prime example for that, right? He said um in don't know where, somewhere in John 5, 6, somewhere like that. Somewhere in the scriptures. Somewhere in the scriptures it says um he says that I only do what I see my father doing. Right? And so he says that, but then he also says, right, if you do anything in the will of the Father, it will be done for you. So Jesus is the prime example of I only do what is in my father's will. And so you look at Jesus' prayers, they all got answered.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Every prayer he ever prayed was answered. Why? Because he did only what he saw the Father doing, he was so intimately involved with the Father, he knew him so well. Mm-hmm. That when he prayed, God answered every time because he knew exactly what what the will of the Father was. So in my mind, that's the prayer of faith is the one that knows God from that deep level and can say, No, this is God's will. Right. And I think the first part of that is from the scripture. You have to know God's word to get to know his character. Second part of that is you have to know the voice of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Right? Because there's aspects of things that Jesus did that you don't find in the Bible. Not that it's contrary to the Bible, but like go spit in the ground, make mud, and rub it on the guy's eyes. I don't read that anywhere in the Bible that I'm supposed to do that. Right. Jesus had to be in tune with the spirit, right? Just like we do. He had the spirit in him. And when the spirit said, hey, spit on the ground, make some mud, put it in the guy's eyes, he had to know that was the spirit. That wasn't just my own mind doing some crazy thing. Right. And he so he knew God from the scripture, but he also knew him in that personal relationship aspect of talking to him on the inside, talking to the spirit, fellowshipping with him. Right. And so I think both of those in tandem is what results in that faith of I know the scripture, I know this is in alignment with God's character, and I know his voice, and I know he's saying it's for right now. And so I act on it. And that's what brings the effect of prayer. That's what a prayer of faith is in my mind.
SPEAKER_01:So good, man. That's such a great answer to that question. I think about how when I have seen God work, when I have seen him do something, how how much that builds my faith and expectancy. We talked on uh a podcast not too long ago with a kingdom connection and how we prayed for specific things and God answered those prayers. And so every time I come and pray for her again on the prayer mic, and she's got similar requests, I'm saying, God, you did it. I believe it. I saw you do it. You answer those. So I know you can, I know you're willing. So do it again. And that builds my faith over and over. So the more we even see the testimony of Jesus played out, the more we we've got faith and expectancy to see him do those things. So when when somebody asks, How do I build my faith? Well, let's look for the testimony of Jesus all around us. I tell people, what do you believe God can do? What is something God cannot fail at? And a lot of times they're like, Oh, I don't really know. And I always tell them, Well, think about the sunrise. The sun has risen every day, unless you're in Alaska, of course. The sun has risen every day for your entire life. So tonight, before you go to bed, pray, Jesus, I have faith and believe that you can you'll raise the sun tomorrow, that there's going to be light. Start there. You believe you you've got confidence that it's going to happen and it's God who's doing it. So pray that. And pray that and let that be the starting point on your journey of what God can do. And the more you start risking, okay, Lord, whatever, you know, whatever's next in in life, I believe you can direct me today to a divine conversation with somebody. I believe that you will send somebody that I need to encourage. And you start believing these things that maybe you don't feel like uh are normal, but you start leaning into the character of God and his desires, what he can do. Lord, I do believe that this person I'm praying for, that you can heal them, you will, because I just saw you heal somebody's broken arm last week. You can do this. Or you know, you hear like a testimony from Forrest Frank where he gets miraculously healed in his back after, poor guy, man, that had to hurt just falling down and getting hurt. But then he gets miraculously healed. I believe God can do it. So if you did it for him, then I know you can do that for this person that I'm gonna pray for. So you just start to grow your faith with things that you have confidence, you know that he's gonna do. Start with confidence, with assurance. Sun's gonna rise tomorrow. Pray for it today that it would rise tomorrow. That's that's that's a practical exercise of working out faith and letting it grow a muscle.
SPEAKER_05:Come on. I thought of this verse uh in Jude. I didn't know where I was, looked it up, you know, because I didn't want to do somewhere in the scriptures again.
SPEAKER_01:Time would be a charm.
SPEAKER_05:That's right. Well, we don't believe in charms.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. Yeah, that's right. We've we've already been canceled. We're good.
SPEAKER_05:You're not listening by now, anyway. Well, if you are, I'm gonna stir it up a little bit worse here. Uh it says, but you dear friends, as you build yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting expectantly for the mercy of our Lord for eternal life. And so, I mean, I think when I read that verse in past times, I've always thought of our most holy faith as just the general I'm a Christian. But I wonder if it's like specifically this is how you build your faith. Right. Your belief in God, your confidence in God, right? It's as you build yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. And for those of us who believe in tongues, I think that's what he's talking about, right? I think he's talking about that building yourself up in tongues because he uses the same language in 1 Corinthians, where it talks about tongues is for building yourself up, right? Edifying yourself. And so I think praying in tongues is a way to build your faith on a practical level. If you want to continue to build your faith, pray in tongues. Or if you disagree with the whole praying in tongues thing, or don't think praying in the Holy Spirit means that, I would think it means at least fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit. Talk to him, right? Because it's that's also great. That'll also build your faith, right? I think it's what I was saying earlier of you got to know the word, but you also got to know the spirit speaking inside of you. And so I think praying in the Holy Spirit is one of the ways that we build ourselves up in our most holy faith.
SPEAKER_01:So good. Paul said he prays in tongues more than everybody, praising the spirit more than everyone. He says praying the spirit at all times. So that's that's a good way to build faith. I remember when I first started preaching, I was 16 years old and I had nothing to say. Like, what was I gonna say? I knew nothing. I hadn't even read the Bible cover to cover at 16. Somehow I was preaching at church. And um because I didn't know what to say, I was constantly in this place of Lord, you've got to do something. And so I'd pray in tongues for uh hours before I'd preach because I needed something, and hopefully God used that. I'm sure he did. But I just remember those moments where I literally at the beginning of my faith journey, um, it was just this utter dependence on God to do something and bring breakthrough, and it would build me up. It would I would come out of those prayer times confident that God was gonna use me as a mouthpiece, that God had something to say. I would come out actually feeling a difference, which is significant. That you would feel confident, that you would you would have a um a desire to do the things he's asked you to do, and it feels scary and that he's gonna show up.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I think that's faith. I mean, that's exactly what we were talking about earlier. You're in a position where you can't do it, right? You're backed into that corner, and so it brings that desperation, that that reach and that faith of God's gotta be the one to break through. It's so good. So I feel like if people are listening to this, what are like the practical things of if they want to put this into practice right now, what do they do? What do they walk away with? Yeah, like how how do we how do we move forward?
SPEAKER_01:Man, first and foremost, I would say have a time of repentance. Let's together acknowledge our sinfulness, let's acknowledge our brokenness, and let's acknowledge our desperate and urgent need for God. Let's start right there. Let's let's let's be poor in spirit and and recognize that we are like spiritually bankrupt without God involved in our lives. I would say let's pause the podcast right now and spend the next day repenting and reflecting on who you are. And then I would also say from that place, we need some perspective of who God is. If we're gonna have faith, it's like you were saying, we've got to know this God that we're talking to. So I'd say get plugged into prayer meetings, read the Bible, talk about the Bible with people. It's one of the reasons we're here doing it because we need more faith. Yeah, the things God is inviting us into. We need more faith to believe for those things. So get around people, talk about Jesus and and begin activating the muscle of faith by praying and put God to the test a little bit, take a little bit of risk. Come on. When you pray a prayer, don't just say, Lord, would you just bless my day? Amen. Like pray something specific. God, put somebody in my path that I need to encourage.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And do it by however you want. Put yourself, you know, put yourself against the the uh wall, so to speak.
SPEAKER_05:Come on. And I would I would add on that as well. Like, I feel like learning to be friends with Jesus. Obviously, it's the season I'm in right now, so that's what comes to my mind. But that first verse of, you know, when you're suffering, pray, cheerful, sing praises. I think take that and throughout the rest of even just this day, when you're feeling down, pray, right? When you're feeling happy in moments, sing praises. Try to be have Jesus be that first person that you look to in every moment. And I think to what your point of like building yourself each other up in faith, I think on the other side of that, like be friends with Jesus first, yeah. But also find some friends that have faith, right? Nothing builds your faith like a friend who really believes it, who really cares, who really wants to go after it. That's why in our prayer room model we have everyone comes up and prays on the mic and goes through, right? Because when someone there has faith and they're like, no, I believe it, right? When maybe you're not feeling the 80 restless ones today, maybe Mary gets up there and is she's feeling it, right? And she prays it, then it stirs us up, right? If you get around those people that really care about it, really have faith. And I would say, how do you know if someone has faith? The ones that know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, come on.
SPEAKER_05:The ones that really know God. And you can tell when someone really knows God, the way they talk about him, it's it's different. It's different than just the the cheap, you know, Christian phrases that we all throw around. They they say something about God, and it's like, oh, that that came from somewhere. Like you you have history there. Get around people like that, and they are the ones that will stir you up, they'll stir your faith.
SPEAKER_00:So good.
SPEAKER_05:Alrighty. We're gonna wrap it up there. If you want to dig into some more of our teachings, conversations like this, or some of the blog posts and things like that, you can look us up online, Pueblo Insights House of Prayer. This is the Restless Ones podcast that we have. If you want to check out that Kingdom Connections podcast that Zach was talking about earlier, we sit down with Patricia McNutt and she describes how as she jumped on with our praying, what God did when she started having her business join with our prayer room, what that looks like. Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_01:You need a little boost into your faith to go listen to that podcast.
SPEAKER_05:Come on, come on. Yep. So find all of that online on our website on the podcast place that you're listening to right now. I think we're on YouTube as well. So go check out those resources and we'll end it there. Cool. God bless y'all.