Scott Moore: Welcome to the "Building Faith and Family" podcast with Steve Demme.  I'm your host, Scott Moore. Thanks for joining us today. Good morning, Steve. How  are you today? 

Steve: Good morning. I am surprisingly perky. 

Scott: Is your rib cage OK and all that? 

Steve: No. Still sore. I try to take less and less aspirin and stuff. I can feel a little bit  more when I don't take the stuff, but it's OK. Wait till you hear my latest adventure. 

Scott: All right. 

Steve: Last week, we recorded on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I didn't know if I was  going to be able to go to Colorado for the homeschool conference, but I was feeling I  thought I should, and I felt relatively OK. I got up, left plenty of time, got to the  airport. I was taking the parking shuttle to my gate when I got a text, "Your flight is  canceled." 

Scott: Great. 

Steve: This was an adventure. I looked a little bit later. I got another text, and they  said what my next flight was going to be. I almost was visiting you in Cincinnati  because it was going to leave about the same time, but it was going to stop and  spend about five or six hours in Cincinnati, then continue on to Denver. The problem was I had a 2:30 workshop in Denver, which is 4:30 Eastern time. I  thought, and I called the airline, and I said, "What are my options?" They told me. I  said, "What about that last one?" They said, "It leaves at 05:50." Gets in at  seven‑something because of the time change. 

I thought, "Wow. If I leave at 05:50, I might be able to do a Zoom call from the port." I  called the people in Colorado, and I said, "Here's what's going on. Do you think you  can set up a Zoom in that room?" They said, "Yes, we can." 

I started talking, and I found this security person. I said, though, "Where's the quietest  place in this airport?" They said, "The end of Concourse C." I proceeded to Concourse  C, sat there for about an hour, did my prayer time, but I don't think it was appropriate  to do a workshop. 

Somebody else, maybe it was the same person, told me, "There's also a Minute Suite."  That's what it's called, minute suite. You can rent a room in the airport to take a nap,  to do whatever. It's a little private suite. Cost you about a buck a minute, though, so  they should say buck a minute suite. 

Anyway. I went and talked to them. I said, "Do you have availability?" They did. We set  it up that at 4:15, I was going to do my Zoom call, but I had to leave exactly at 5:15  because I had to go to a different concourse to board at 5:20. 

Scott: That's cutting it close. 

Steve: I did a dry run, and I timed myself, and it was five or six minutes. I got into the  room at 04:15, set everything up, went over my notes, adjusted the lighting. At  04:30, I was on. We prayed. I talked. At 05:15, I said, "I really have to go." I shoved  everything into my briefcase and booked it. I made it for the 05:20 boarding and  made it to Colorado. 

Scott: Wow. 

Steve: How's that for an adventure? I received good feedback from the people that  were at the workshop. 

Scott: Nice. You didn't have massive amounts of turbulence that bounced your rib  cage or anything? 

Steve: No. In fact, I paid a little extra, and was blessed to be in the exit row. Scott: Nice. 

Steve: I had a little space. Another guy sat on the aisle, and I had the window. I guess  we both looked pretty big, and so nobody sat between us. We had a lovely flight  visiting and talking. He's now a buddy. I've got his cell, and I've gotta send him some  stuff. He didn't put his pods in and listen. We had a really nice conversation. Scott: Nice. 

Steve: What do you think of that? 

Scott: That's way different than my trip would have been. I would have been angry. I  would have given up, probably. I guess there's a reason I don't do that.  Steve: It was even a little bit outside of my comfort zone. I didn't know if I could do a  Zoom call from the airport, but I was able to do it. I made it in time. I got in about  8:30 to my hotel, which is 10:30 my time. Went right to bed, got up, spoke three  times Thursday, two times Friday, got up at 5:00, and came home on Saturday. Scott: Amazing. 

Steve: Not bad for an old guy with sore ribs. 

Scott: Yeah. Wow. 

Steve: My wife had ribs for dinner last night, and I said, "I'm taking those personally." Scott: That shouldn't be that funny to me. 

Steve: She was giving me a ribbing. 

Scott: There we go. 

Steve: We're back on track now. We've heard Steve's adventures, and now we're going  to go back to the original question about four podcasts ago. What do I do when I go  to a reunion, which I'm going to be going to this fall, or when people ask me, "OK.  You're not doing as much speaking"? 

Colorado is the last homeschool conference on my schedule. I don't have any  scheduled for next year. I'm still trusting God to see what I'm supposed to do. Scott: There are going to be little Math‑U‑See students all over America crying when  they don't get to see you. 

Steve: I'm getting quite a bit of emails from the customer service people at the  conferences saying, "Where's Mr. Demme?" I may have to go back and make some  appearances. What am I doing in the meantime? How am I still functioning in the  kingdom of God? 

Let's pray. Father, thank you for your leading. Thank you for healing for my physical  body. Thank you for making a way for that seminar to take place, and thank you for  being with all of us in all of our different situations. We worship you and commit this  time to you in Jesus' name. Amen. 

Scott: Amen. 

Steve: I'm going to go back a little bit because almost every talk I give, I try to share  what I call the good news, which for me, in 2012, I was able to apprehend or  comprehend the good news in a whole new way and deeper way, and it set me loose.  It set me free to run after God. 

I think I'd spent 38 years, as I said in the previous podcast, what I would call being in  the wilderness. God was leading me. God was real, but I was still struggling to believe  that He loved me and liked me and that I belonged. 

He set me free. It was two years after that that I waited on God for the first time, and  He showed up. I was sitting on that rock up in the Pocono Mountains, and God  showed up, and it was amazing. I didn't believe that He was real. I tasted Him. I  tasted. I experienced His presence. 

I thought, "Wow, that was so special." I went up to the same place the next day. Then  when I came home, I started taking walks. It was a couple years after that that the  Holy Spirit led me into Psalm 100. 

He's the one that said, "We're going to do something different today." I said, "What do  I do?" He said, "Sing," and then I sang. Then He said, "Give thanks." I gave thanks.  Then He said praise His name, and I praised His name. It worked, and I came into His  presence. 

As soon as I finished the last one, I went, "Wow. That's all from Psalm 100." I've read  my Bible enough to recognize that that language comes from Psalm 100. I came  home, and I got out my Bible, and I started digging into Psalm 100. That has provided  the template for what I've done ever since. 

When I come into God, when I draw near to God, I make a joyful noise, I give thanks, I  praise His name. I sing, and God shows up, and it worked. 

When I began doing this, I started feeling a little funny because I'd never heard of  anybody else doing this. I prayed, and I said, "Am I on the right track? Is this you?" In  other words, "Is this something I should continue to pursue?" 

When I prayed, this verse came to my mind, Psalm 50:23. I believe God brought it to  my mind. "The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me. To one who  orders his way aright, I will show the salvation of God." 

That was the phrase, "Ordered his way aright." That's the first time I had ever,  specifically, you might say, ordered my prayer. In the past, I had heard sermons on  A‑C‑T‑S, ACTS. When you come to God, A is adoration, C is confession, T is  thanksgiving, S is supplication. I like that, and that's what I had followed loosely for  many years. 

You first adore, praise His name, and then you confess if you have any sins. Then you  give thanks. Then you make your request, your supplications known to God. However  this was a new approach. Psalm 100 provided the template, and I followed it. If anybody's interested in this topic, I wrote a book called "Come Into His Presence"  based on Psalm 100, which you can access on Building Faith Families website. You click on the book, and then it's right there as a PDF because I think there's 40  prayers that I put together with the make a joyful noise, give thanks, praise His name,  and a hymn, all based on an attribute of God, and I used that for years. Then another verse which is similar is Psalm 5:1-3, "Give ear to my words, oh,  Jehovah. Consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of my cry, My king and  My God. For to You do I pray. Oh, Jehovah, in the morning, You hear my voice. In the  morning, I order my prayer to You and eagerly watch." 

Another translation says, "I prepare a sacrifice for You and watch." Both of those are  legit. I noticed that he ordered his prayer, which was similar to what it reads in Psalm  50, he orders his way aright. 

Right now, as I've mentioned several times, I go through what I call my ordered  prayers. This is what I call them. I give thought to how I pray, and how I come near to  God, and how I order my time when I'm in His presence. 

Psalm 109:1, "Be not silent, O God of my praise, for wicked and deceitful mouths are  opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They encircle me with  words of hate and attack me without cause. In return for my love, they accuse me."  He's under attack, but here's what it says, "But I give myself to prayer." I like that. Let's say I'm comfortable talking to people about God. I'm comfortable giving my  testimony, I'm comfortable speaking, I'm comfortable doing podcast, but I'm  becoming more and more comfortable talking to God for people, which it's kind of a  switch. That verse resonates with my heart. All these things are happening around  me, but I give myself to prayer. 

We know that we live in a world that from day to day, you don't know what's going to  happen. People are being attacked individually. Nations are warring against nations.  This is a good time to give ourselves to prayer. 

This is a good time to focus on spiritual warfare because we can't do much until we  first bind the strong man, which leads me to the best, if I can put it this way, ordered  prayer in the Bible, and you could probably guess where it is. It's in Matthew 6, similar  passages in Luke 11. 

Jesus was in the middle of the sermon on the mount. He was teaching his followers,  and he uses this three‑word phrase, three times in the first three verses. "When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray  in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly, I  say to you, they have received their reward." 

Verse 6. "When you pray, go into your room and shut the door, and pray to your  father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you."  Verse 7. "When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they  think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your  father knows what you need before you ask Him." 

Interesting. He tells us that God knows what we need, but He still wants us to ask  Him. Verse 9, "Pray then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your  kingdom come. Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily  bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us  not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." 

We've added, "For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Forever,  amen." This was the prayer that He gave to His disciples in Luke 11, after they asked  Him, "Teach us to pray like John taught his disciples to pray." 

John was teaching his disciples a way to order their prayers, and then the disciples  asked Jesus. Here, this is right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. As I pray this prayer, which is what I do when I don't have time to sit in front of my  laptop and follow one of my six‑page ordered prayers ‑‑ sorry, they are six pages  now ‑‑ but when I work through those, it takes time. It takes some energy, it takes  some effort, and it takes place of being quiet and still and having my computer  accessible. 

Sometimes I do what I call my shortcut, which is this prayer. The more I pray it, the  more meaningful it becomes. Our Father in heaven. Just to be able to say father  blesses me, for we've been adopted in Christ. 

Hallowed be Your name. That's like saying praise Your name. Hallowed. Your name is  holy. Your name is special. Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. This is  asking God to let His kingdom come, His will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. 5

That's a powerful prayer, and it reminds me when I pray it of that wonderful promise,  whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will  be loosed in heaven. This is what we're all about. 

As one of the greatest promises that God gave to us in our prayers, especially in  spiritual warfare, we can bind things. When our binding happens on Earth, it's  reflected in heaven. 

There's a war going on in heaven. We know that. Michael, Gabriel, and the angels are  fighting the devil and the demons. I have a conviction that we can push the battle  through by simply praying on Earth and believing that it's also done in heaven. It's not enough to simply fight. We need to pray that God will let His kingdom come,  His will to be done on Earth as it is in heaven. When His kingdom comes and His will  is being done on Earth as it is in heaven, this is what I'm looking forward to. Then give us this day, our ‑‑ I did some work in that word, daily bread. It's only used  twice. I think it's probably more accurate to say our necessary bread. Give us what we  need, which is consistent with God, who promises to meet our needs, and forgive us  our debts. 

I move around sometimes because I'm on the road and I go to different churches, and  some churches are trespasses. It's OK. Same idea. Forgive us our trespasses as we  also have forgiven those that trespassed against us. We say that quickly because we  want to be forgiven, but you and I have talked at length about this on these podcasts. We don't want to forget that verses 14 and 15, "For if you forgive others their  trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others  their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses." Boy, that's a  powerful statement there. 

Yes, we want God to forgive us our debts, but we have to be forgivers before we'll be  forgiven. That's what that passage says. Then verse 13, which I skipped over, "Lead us  not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." 

I look at that, and I say, "Lead us not into temptation." Help us to be strong. Help us  to be separate. Help us to be salty. Help us to be on fire for God, and deliver us from  evil because we do have an enemy. Spiritual warfare has never been needed as much  

as it is now. We need God to deliver us from evil. We need to bind the strong man. All those components are present in this prayer that he taught his disciples. At the  very least, if I'm in the middle of something, or the other day, we had people over for  Father's Day, I didn't have time to get off by myself for half an hour and pray. I simply  went out in the yard and I prayed this prayer, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your  name," etc. 

I like to call it the shortcut, but it does have many of the same components as what I  normally do when I start with Psalm 100 and then move through the different aspects.  That's what I'm going to try to tell people, I give myself to prayer. "What are you doing, Steve?" I'm ordering my prayers to God. I'm giving myself to  prayer. I am spending more and more time talking to God about people instead of  talking to people about God. OK, brother, how are you going to respond to that? Scott: I'm looking at that passage and how he sandwiches that. If you look around the  prayer part there, couple things jumped out at me. One was God is really not happy  with people who make a big show of praying. 

He says pretty clearly, "Don't be like the hypocrites. They love standing in the  synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others." They've received their  reward in full. Like OK. That sounds like it's pretty important to Him.  He says it again later on fasting right after. He's got what we call the Lord's Prayer.  Then He says right after that, "Forgive others, or you won't be forgiven." That verse  packs a punch anyway, but you stick it right there after the Lord's Prayer. We really  don't look at that one very often.  

Then in verse 16, He talks about fasting. Again, with the hypocrites, "Do not look  somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show you their fasting.  Again, they've received their reward in full." 

He sandwiches it together. "Here, this is what you do," but then the two pieces of  bread of the sandwich are, "Don't be like the hypocrites, and don't make a big show of  it. This is between you and God."  

Steve: Amen. 

Scott: Then if you keep going, then He's got a whole section on storing up treasure in  heaven, and don't worry. That's so comforting. He puts this whole big part about  don't worry about your life, what you'll eat or drink, and wear, and all that. I'm like,  "Wow." It's like He's trying to make it as simple as possible. Here you go. This quick little 20‑second prayer is really all you need. God knows He's taking care  of things. There's nothing wrong with praying longer than that short prayer. That's a  wonderful thing to pray, but again, it's let's not make a show of it, and please, let's  not worry about everything. Let's actually trust Him when we pray. Steve: Amen. On my computer, I have this little bar up at the top that I can quickly  highlight words and change the color of them without going to format and all that  kind of stuff. I have highlighted four phrases in those 11 verses, "When you pray,  when you pray, when you pray," and then, "When you fast." 

He's assuming that we're going to pray and fast. He doesn't say, "If you decide to, or if  I lead you to." He says when. I looked up that word, and that's basically what it means.  It's translated almost every single time, when you pray. 

This is something that it's assumed that we should be praying, but I have never  before been so intentional, if I can put it that way, about ordering my prayer, giving  myself to prayer, and setting aside time for prayer. I used to be much more diligent  about reading my Bible than I was about praying. Now I think I'm balancing it out a  little bit. 

Scott: Then we can also jump over to 1 Thessalonians to one of our favorite verses,  "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing," or pray continually in some translations. "Give  thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Steve: Amen. 

Scott: You add that in there, it's like, "OK, you can pray all the time." We actually  should live a life of praying like breathing. 

Steve: Yep. I'm still struggling with that, and passages like "Give thanks in all things.”  It's rained so much here that I feel like I'm living in the Amazon rainforest. I found  myself cursing rain. I shouldn't say cursing it, but I was like, "Man, I'm tired of this  rain." Then I remembered that and said, "Oh, thank you for rain. Thank you in all  things."  

Scott: I didn't say I'm good at all this. It's amazing how succinctly Jesus puts it, and  then Paul adds on a little. 

Steve: That's the thing. It looks like it's almost off the cuff. His disciples say, "Hey,  teach us how to pray," and he comes up with that, but that's after. He's 30, and he  spent 30 years drawing near to his dad and learning how to pray. He packs a punch in  that, as you put it, succinct prayer. 

It's five lines on my computer as I'm reading it right now, yet there's so much packed  in there. I find myself really sensing things happening in the spiritual realm when I  take the time to stop and deliberately pray that prayer. 

Let's close with it. Father, thank you for giving your son these words. Thank you,  spirit of God, for inspiring Jesus to teach us in such a way. We're happy to close this  with those words. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come  today. Your will be done today on Earth, just as it is in heaven. 

Give us today our necessary bread. Give us what we need. Forgive us our debts, as we  also have forgiven our debtors, with your help. Lead us not into temptation, but  deliver us from evil because we know that yours is the kingdom, yours is the power,  yours is the glory, forever and ever, amen. 

Scott: Amen. That's our show for this week, folks. Thanks for joining us for the  building faith and family podcast with Steve Demme. If you have a question for the  show, email Steve at spdemme@Gmail.com. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week.