What "Your Kingdom Come" Really Means | Dr. David Chotka

Most Christians have prayed the Lord's Prayer hundreds of times. But have you ever stopped to consider what you're actually praying when you say, "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"?

In Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. David Chotka, we explore one of the most misunderstood phrases in Scripture. Dr. Chotka explains that praying for God's Kingdom is far more than asking for His blessing—it's an invitation to submit to the reign of King Jesus and participate in His mission to push back the kingdom of darkness.

We also discuss:

•  What it means for God's Kingdom to come "on earth as it is in heaven" 
•  Why the Lord's Prayer is much more than a religious ritual 
•  How the Holy Spirit empowers believers to live as citizens of God's Kingdom 
•  The connection between spiritual warfare and the Lord's Prayer 
•  A practical way to pray Scripture that can transform your personal prayer life 

Near the end of our conversation, Dr. Chotka shares a simple illustration from 1 John that has already changed the way I pray for the people I love. It's practical, biblical, and something I believe you'll carry with you long after this episode ends.

Whether you've prayed the Lord's Prayer your entire life or you're hearing these ideas for the first time, this conversation will challenge you to slow down, think deeply, and pray with greater purpose.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

When you pray for the kingdom to come and the will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, you're actually saying things that most Christians haven't stopped to consider. When did the kingdom come to heaven? And if the kingdom is supposed to come on earth as it comes in heaven, what does that look like? And what does it mean for the believer? And the result is you find yourself in company you never expected. You find yourself with people that you just don't understand, didn't know before now. Because you have received the Spirit Jesus together. You're a people. Wow. That's amazing. You don't realize that what you've done is you have committed to the expulsion of everything that is demonic and evil from planet Earth.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Welcome to the Valiant Force Podcast, where we help men overcome life's doubt, show up better in the world, and become a valiant warrior for God. This is a place where we share practical strategies that will equip you on life's journey to help you become the man God's own defeat. Are you ready to overcome your doubt and fulfill your purpose just by giving? If so, let's go.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

Welcome back to part two of my conversation with David Chocta. I'm Mark Osborne. This is the Valium Forge podcast where Christian men come to forge purpose and strengthen Christ. Last week, my guest David Chocta challenged us with the way we think about the Lord's Prayer. He taught us that when Jesus taught us to pray our Father, he wasn't just giving us words to say. He was inviting us into a relationship that changes everything. Today, we pick up right where we left off when we explore what it means to pray, Your Kingdom come. But that's not all. Near the end of this conversation, Dr. David shared a practical insight and perspective about prayer that changed my perspective completely on how to pray for someone else and what to think about when I'm praying. Here is part two of my conversation with Dr. David Chocta. David, welcome back to the podcast. Well, thank you. It's a joy to be here. I think this is a divine appointment. Absolutely. Me too. From the listeners, listeners' perspective, it's only been a week, but for us it's been about eight months. That long. Wow. I didn't realize that it was that long between our two appointments. Okay. Maybe even longer. It was August 1st when I interviewed you the first time. August 1st last year. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great conversation. We get we got into the the Lord's prayer. Yep. We got as far as our Father. Oh my.

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Do you know? I'll just tell you something. Uh, it is the most important prayer in the New Testament. And the reason why I consider it to be so, um, I I can't remember if I said this in the first interview or not, but uh I had a defining moment where I began to analyze the roots of each of the key words in the Lord's Prayer. And here's what I realized the word father in Jewish history was never uttered by anyone unless they made a claim to be Messiah. I think I said that in the first interview. But if you follow each of the other key words, um the word heaven shows up 58 times in Matthew's gospel, the word name shows up 12 times. But the word kingdom, oh my, oh my, oh my, is that a loaded word? When you pray for the kingdom to come and the will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, you're actually saying things that most Christians haven't stopped to consider. So here's my question: When did the kingdom come to heaven? And if the kingdom is supposed to come on earth as it comes in heaven, what does that look like? And what does it mean for the believer? And so I began to do this research and I discovered something. There's uh there's a passage in the book of Revelation, and it's in the middle of the book, and it describes something that causes all of our minds to bend. So I'm going to play a little game with you just to get this in your head. So if I say the war, the word war, what comes into your brain? Armageddon. Okay, Armageddon. So what else comes into your mind with the word war? Anything else that comes into mind?

SPEAKER_04 4:26

Uh there's a there's a war in our minds. War is a battlefield. Um I'm thinking of Jesus riding the white horse. Oh, that's at the end of the book.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

When I think of the word war, I think of violence and blood and I think of death. Okay, yeah. That kind of thing. So then I take the word heaven and I ask people, what comes to mind when you think of the word heaven? So what what's the first word that pops into your brain when you think of the word heaven? Jesus. Oh, that's a wonderful peace, reconciliation, goodness, joy, all those kinds of things. And so it's a great surprise to open up the Bible and see those two kinds of things in juxtaposition together. And I'm gonna open up to Revelation chapter 12, and we're gonna look at verse 7, and it's a fascinating thing, and it relates directly to this thing that we call the Lord's Prayer. So when I get when I get to that spot, I'll read it to you, but it's a really remarkable thing. It's in Revelation chapter 12, and we're gonna start at verse 7. And I'm reading from the New American Standard Translation, and it says this There was war in heaven. Think about that. So the book of Revelation is actually uh a chiastic book. It means the big truth at the beginning, the big truth at the end, and the biggest truth is smack dab in the middle. Right. So at the beginning of the book, you have Jesus revealed to John the revelator, and then Jesus telling seven churches how they're supposed to live. And they're supposed to be revelations of Jesus to their respective cities. Two of those churches pull it off, five of them don't. And uh so you have the Lord correcting churches because they're failing to be a revelation of Jesus to their cities. And at the end of the book, you have this glorified, magnificent, beautiful church coming down out of heaven from God, shining with the glory of God, and the Lord's light shines through the walls of the city as the glory of God is revealed to nations that continue to exist, and the church is purified, and it's a revelation of Jesus to the creation. And smack dab in the middle of the book is this text about spiritual warfare, and it describes how Jesus gets raised and he gets seated in heaven, and as soon as he takes his seat in heaven, there's war in heaven, and the devil gets cast out. And there's this big fight between Michael the archangel and all the other satanic hordes that follow the unclean spirit out of heaven, and he's thrown down to earth. And here's what it says actually in the text: there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon, the dragon and his angels waged war, they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place for them found in heaven, and the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old, who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world, he was thrown down to the earth, his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come. So the kingdom came to heaven when the devil was cast out. And so when you prayed, your kingdom comes, you will be done. Like we always do in the middle of some trick, or at the end of the prayer meeting in the Baptist church, or how you get out of the room because you want to get out of the room because you're gonna say the Lord's Prayer Fast, you don't realize that what you've done is you have committed to the expulsion of everything that is demonic and evil from planet Earth. The kingdom comes to heaven when Jesus gets seated in heaven, and then the devil is cast out. The kingdom comes to earth when Jesus is seated in the throne of our hearts, and everything that it is demonic and evil gets cast out. And so when you say, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven, you are saying, Whatever is demonic, whatever is evil, whatever is contrary to the will of God, whatever is loveless, whatever is absolutely dehumanizing, I am at war with that until Jesus reigns on planet Earth in the same way as he reigns in heaven. Wow. That's a different kind of way of looking at the Lord's Prayer.

SPEAKER_04 9:02

Yeah, for sure. That's that's so deep. It's uh I've I've never I always look and I'm saying it, it's not negative, it's just it I always talk about a lot of times when I pray and I'm talking to men, you know, we need to become the men of God so we can help advance the kingdom. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about the kingdom because a verse that just popped in my head is the kingdom of God suffers violence and the violence take it by force.

unknown 9:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:30

Does that does that line up with that?

SPEAKER_03 9:33

Well, here's the reality. Uh, John the Baptist preached the kingdom and they executed it. And so Jesus was talking about the execution of John the Baptist when he rebuked a king for being ungodly. In fact, there's this interesting thing that happens with this word kingdom. So in the Old Testament, you see the roots of this doctrine of the kingdom. And here's who it looks like. Um, uh, you know, Samuel the prophet is rejected, and all the elders say, we want a king, we want a king, we want a king. Samuel's ticked off because he wanted his two sons to follow in his footsteps. The two sons are lousy, right? So they don't do what they're supposed to do. So the elders say, no, no, no. Give us a king just like all the other kings. And they actually basically say, We don't want a king in, we don't want you in place having to depend on whether or not your walk with God is good. We just want a standing army to protect us from the Philistines. So Samuel cries out to God and he says, This is bad. And then God says, It's worse than you think. They haven't rejected you. They've rejected me as king. And then he says, You give them a king and I'm gonna fix it. You see, the whole point of the judge was that the judge was led by the spirit so that the nation could be led by a judge who was led by the spirit. Right. Okay, and they reject that. And so Samuel looks around and he finds this guy. You know, he starts to pray. God says to him, I'm gonna send your king tomorrow. And there's this farm boy named Saul who's chasing donkeys. His daddy's lost his farm livestock, and he's trying to find these donkeys. And he looks in the distance and he sees this man coming toward him. And he's he's a head and a half taller than anybody else. He's got no money. You know, he walks up to this man, and the Lord has told Saul, uh Samuel, I'm gonna send you the king tomorrow, and he prepares a feast. Now remember, Samuel was seeing this guy, Saul, and Saul was chasing donkeys for three days. He's sleeping outside, he smells bad. He shows up at the feast in Judah, and everybody's inhaling. He's put at the head table, and he gets the best leg of lamb. And then Saul is taken out of the rooftop. He pours the priestly oil that was prepared just especially for the fragrance of kings and prophets onto the new guy and says, You are the one anointed by the Lord. The fragrance of kingship is now on you, and God has made you to be the king. And here's what's gonna happen: you're gonna get some gifts. There's gonna be some prophets coming down from uh uh prophesying, and then the spirit is gonna land on you, and when the spirit lands on you, your heart will be changed, and you will become the king. So the spirit lands on the man, he prophesies, and when he receives the spirit, he becomes the king. And you can't be the king unless the spirit's on you, because God wants to guide you by spirit for the kingdom to come. So the anointing on Samuel the prophet, which was prophet, priest, and king, gets divided, and now it's prophet and priest on him, and it's king on Saul. The spirit lands on Saul, and immediately he saves the Israelites from the attack of the Ammonites, etc., and he becomes the king because he's anointed to do this. And here's what happens to him he doesn't listen to the voice of God, and he tries to become a secular king, a king without the spirit, and he blows it not once, not twice, but three times. And then Saul uh, you know, abandons the thing that he was supposed to do. Samuel comes along and he hears the Lord say, I regret that I made Saul king. He's not listening to my voice. And so what happens is he goes up to this man, confronts him, he finally admits it, and then he says, The Lord is going to take the spirit from you and put it on someone better than you. So Saul grabs the robe of Samuel and the robe tears. And then he says, Stay here and honor me in the presence of all the people. And then he said, Then he hears this tearing cloth, and he says, No, it can't be. Here's what's happened. The Lord has torn the kingdom away from you like you have torn the robe on my on my cloak. And can you imagine this? Every time Saul heard somebody tear cloth, he would have thought, This thing's over. Then the spirit lifts off of Saul and it lands on David, the son of Jesse, and he becomes the king when he receives the spirit. So to be a king and to be in a kingdom is to be under the power of the spirit. So move all the way into the New Testament. And you have John the Baptist say the Spirit is gonna that there's gonna be someone who's Messiah, he's gonna show up, he's the anointed one, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and he will preach about the kingdom. And so the kingdom of God is attached to walking in the power of the spirit. And when you say yes to Jesus, you get the spirit that belongs to Jesus and participate in the kingdom. This puts you at warfare with the other kingdom, the kingdom of darkness. And so God wants you to enter into his kingdom by receiving his spirit, and once you receive his spirit, the king and you partner together to destroy the other kingdom, the kingdom of darkness. And the whole New Testament is about how the people of God, under the leadership of Jesus, receive his spirit so that they can be filled with the presence of God to disempower the unclean spirit that wants to attack. So it's kingdom versus kingdom, spirit versus spirit, power versus power. And the goodness of God shows up when you receive the spirit of Jesus and you're empowered to take a stand against everything that is evil and horrible and nasty. Wow. So when you pray for the kingdom to come, you're praying to receive the spirit and to be joined to the spirit of the king.

SPEAKER_04 15:48

So I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a question. The way I see culture right now, I see a lot of people praying. People pray this prayer all the time, sometimes religiously. I pray it sometimes myself, and I pray it sincerely. It's gonna be a little more serious now that I really know the quote what you were saying. Right, right. And I I know just from reading the Bible and studying the Bible that I am a king, you know, because I'm the uh I have the Holy Spirit within me. But there are times that I don't live and always act like I'm a king, like I have the spirit on me. Well, and where where is the danger of us becoming like Saul where the spirit just leaves us?

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Okay, so when you try to do things for your glory and you try to create your own little kingdom, then the spirit of Jesus gets grieved. When you ask the Holy Spirit to direct you into kingdom service, and Jesus fills you with his spirit, he joins you to people who will serve the King of Kings. And I'll just say this to you. So there's there's a text in the book of Romans that describes what the kingdom is. And people have always tried to build little kingdoms for themselves, and Christians all through history have made the decision that they're gonna, you know, they're gonna say these gifts are mine, and I'm gonna do this, and that's not what the Bible teaches at all. Right. It says in Romans 14, the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Now, in the book of Romans, most people have assumed the book's about justification by grace through faith. There's two chapters on that. But actually, you know what the book's about? People fighting. It's about Jewish Christians not wanting to get along with Gentile Christians. And they're arguing about food laws, and they're arguing about worship days, and they're arguing about who's right, about whether it's Saturday or whether it's Sunday. They're arguing about the externals. And Paul actually devotes three chapters to Jew Gentile unity, and then in chapter 14, he brings the whole thing together and he says, Would you guys stop fighting about the externals? It's not about eating and drinking, it's about whether or not you as a community of believers are making each other more righteous by your godly walk together. It's about whether you as a community of believers are creating atmospheres of peace and whether you are creating joy in each other as you walk in the power of the Holy Spirit together. So I define these three identity markers this way: righteousness is a sweet walk with God and his people. If you get distracted from him, you're not walking in a righteous way. You're walking in your own stuff. And so righteousness will always drive you toward a closer walk with Jesus and his people. Peace is internal serenity. That is where you are experiencing union with the divine that leaves you with internal consolation that defies human imagination. And even when things are bad outside of you, things are good inside of you. And joy is internal celebration even in the middle of terrible trouble. Now, those three markers are supposed to show up in this thing called the kingdom. Anybody who says yes to being part of Jesus' kingdom is gonna have a sweet walk with Jesus, they're gonna have internal consolation, and they're gonna celebrate the goodness of God despite external circumstance, and they're not gonna do it alone. They're gonna do it together in a community of believers that has it has made a decision that God's rule is more important than theirs. If if your rule is more important than God's, you got a problem. Yeah, for sure. If if God's rule is more important than yours, you are participating in the kingdom. And so the whole point of Romans was not, oh, just this one thing. It was that the Jewish identity markers and the Gentile identity markers weren't identity markers at all. And the externals are replaced by union with Jesus to create a body of people who celebrate his goodness in the world. In fact, here's here's what here's here's what would happen. If there was a Jewish person in Rome who got saved and said yes to Jesus, he would have memorized the Torah as a child. He would have practiced uh circumcision of the males on the eighth day, he would have had Saturday, Sabbath, and he would have kept the food laws according to Leviticus 11, right? Now, if a Gentile in Rome heard about Jesus, he would have been participating in cult prostitution because that's how you worship the god Aphroditi, or he would have got himself drunk and intoxicated because that's how you worship the god Dionysius. You would have, actually, if you were a Dionysius or Bacanti's worshiper, you would drink wine until you were intoxicated with spirits, and then you'd ask the unclean spirit to prophesy through you. Now, let's say one gets saved and the other gets saved, one's Jewish, one's Gentile. Do you want to be together or do you want to be separate? They're so different. Yeah. That the Jewish guys were worshiping as Jewish Christians, and the Gentile guys were worshiping as Gentile Christians. And they weren't being the people of God together. The identity marker was not whether or not you had a background in Jewish law or in unclean spirit worship. The identity marker was whether you had laid both of those aside and were becoming a people of God under the influence of the spirit of holiness who would compel you to be joined to people with whom you've had no previous relationship, who are forging uh a warfare against everything that is awful and nasty to become a people of God that witness to the world about the goodness of God. Wow. That's just so different. In fact, it shows up in narrative in Romans 8. It says that when you're born again, it actually describes it. And he says, the spirit is given not to create fear. Why was he saying that? Well, he was saying that because the Gentile worshipers used to receive unclean spirits and it made them terrified. And so he describes the opposite here in Romans 8 when he's describing the conversion process. Let's see if you can find the text. It says, You have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear. Why did he write that? He wrote that because those Gentile guys would get filled up with unclean spirits and they'd be terrified. And he says the reverse has happened. He says, You have you have um received a spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out. Now pay attention to this from lecture one. Abba, Father. Yeah. Yet joined to Jesus privilege. We don't have the right to call God Father. Jesus did. His spirit is given to you and to me so we can be in his kingdom. It kicks out the dark forces and it melds us together with people we've never known before. And now a Jew and a Gentile with very different backgrounds experience the same spirit who makes them holy together. And the externals don't matter. So when you're saying your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven, you're saying, fill us with your spirit, make us a people, guide us by your leadership, break down the barriers that divide us, and make us a cross-cultural community that invites people to a dynamic engagement with the spirit of the living God so that everything that's evil can be kicked out.

SPEAKER_04 23:48

So when you're saying that, you're not praying for yourself. You're praying for the entire body.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

Yeah. Well, first of all, to be in the kingdom means to receive Jesus' spirit. That's the first thing. Right. Yeah. But as soon as that happens, you get joined to other people who've received Jesus' spirit. That's what happens as soon as that takes place. The result is you find yourself in company you never expected. You find yourself with people that you just don't understand, didn't know before. And now, because you have received the Spirit of Jesus together, you're a people. Right. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah.

unknown 24:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

There's a when people think about the Lord's Prayer, they think of this ritual thing that happens in a Catholic worship server. Right. Or they think about the end of the Baptist prayer meeting where you say fast to get out of the room. Or you think about how you met together as a board of elders and you want to close the meeting so you say the thing. Yeah. Not even beginning to consider that this is participation in the divine nature, and this is sharing the spirit of Jesus so that God's rule can cast out everything that's evil and demonic.

unknown 24:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:58

I I've and I brought this up the last time. I've used this prayer just because, you know, I don't know who it was. Maybe you brought it up, but there's this there was somebody who just prays all the time. Yeah, you were the one. We had this conversation. There's somebody who just prays all the time. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And we how do you how do you continue to prayer? Because you run out of stuff to say. Like we could probably talk a couple hours on this podcast, but eventually we're going to run out of words. You know what I mean? So sometimes I would just repeat the Lord's Prayer just because it's what I knew to pray.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Well, straight up, a lot of people do that. In fact, it's a it's a wonderful framework. What I've done is I've I've written two books on this. I have an introductory book called Six Short Steps to Pray the Prayer. And in that book, basically I give the outline of the six movements that are found in it. And I have a much larger book called Living Out the Lord's Prayer, where I talk about the deep content. But I can say this to you: the easiest way for that prayer to become vital, dynamic, and real to you is to inhale with each phrase Our Father in heaven. And picture with your imagination being joined to Jesus and being participant in heaven. And to say it until your body relaxes into the routine and the rhythm. And as you are praying that prayer, you discover that you are how do I say this? You are focusing on the things that matter to Jesus. What I teach in seminars is you're not just supposed to pray with words, you need to pray with every faculty of what it means to be human. In fact, the thing that's astonishing about the gospel tradition is just this. God entered into human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. Here's what it means: there isn't a core puzzle of Jesus' body that wasn't infilled with divine power. His brain was filled with this, his eyesight, his hearing, his thinking, his believing, everything he did was infilled by the powers of heaven. And every part of who Jesus was was involved in his praying. In fact, you know this. Whenever we go through Easter, we always get to this thing called Gethsemane where Jesus praises his garden. He groans. His body sweats blood. He hits the ground and he cries out in anguish prayer as he's praying. He was praying with his whole body. Yeah. Every part of who he was was praying. In fact, it says in the book of Hebrews that his regular practice was to go off by himself and to cry out loud with loud crying prayer and tears as his regular practice, because all of his body was engaged in his prayer life. Now, what I do with this, I have fun with this when I go into a church and I want to teach this principle, and I and I get them to look at me and I say, no, listen, I want you to be very careful. I want you to look me in the eye, and then I'll pick somebody from the congregation. In fact, I just did a seminar where I did this. I was in Nebraska uh two weeks ago when I did this. I said, now look, use all your powers. Concentrate. Whatever you do, do not think of an elephant. And boom, the picture. The picture of the elephant comes into the brain. Right, right. Yeah. As soon as you said that, it's the first thing I thought I was. Exactly. And all your listeners who are listening are going to say the same thing. So then I said, no, look, here's the point. Words are code for pictures or emotions or whatever it is that's behind the word. In fact, every language has code for every kind of thing. So if you're speaking French, a window is la fenêtre. If you're saying it in Spanish, it's La Ventana, right? But as soon as you say those utterances, the people in that language group have this concrete thing come into their brain. So what I do with people is I said, look, if you want to pray the scripture, you can pray until your words run out, but what are you going to do then? And so I take them into a scripture that has a visual attached to it. So my favorite to get this started is in 1 John chapter 1. I'll just say it to you. In 1 John 1:5, John the apostle says, This is the message we have heard from him proclaimed to you. And then he says this God is light.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

And in him, there's no darkness at all.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

Now, two verses later, he defines the light. He says this if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin. Not Tai Sam. That's really good light. So I say to people, okay, so look, in 1 John, the darkness is sin, the darkness is murder, the darkness is trouble, the darkness is anxiety, the darkness is any kind of sin issue that you have. Whatever the darkness is, this is the thing that Jesus wants to save you from. And by the way, he invites you into light. And I'll just say this to you. Listen, if you walk in the light, that means Jesus wants you there. He's already in the light. It immediately produces fellowship. And oh, by the way, whatever your sin issue is, it gets wiped out immediately because the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. As soon as you show up with that light. So let's say you got a heavy-duty sin issue in your life and you want to repent of that and you don't know how to pray, you don't feel good enough to pray. What I would say to the person is, I want you to picture inky black darkness. Do you live at that address? And they'll nod their head. Then I'll say, Okay, I want you to see a pool of light, and that's God's light. And then I'll read 1 John chapter 1, verse 7. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. So it takes a second and a half. I don't care what your inky blackness is, I don't care what your sin issue is. Can you leave your darkness and walk into that light? Then I get them to say, breathe in. I said, breathe in. God is light, breathe out.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

Sin issue God. And they'll say, now here's what I want you to do.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

I want you to say this scripture that God is light. And they'll say, God is light. In him no darkness at all.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

No darkness at all. Okay. Put yourself, leave the dark, walk into that light. Stay there. Can you do that? And they'll say, Yeah, I can. Okay, now Jesus is washing away your sin. Because that's what number seven says. He's there. Can you stay there? They'll say, I think so.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

I said, okay, stay there. Now listen, what are you praying about? And they'll say, What my son is my son is wandered. I said, Can you bring your son into the light? They'll say, Yeah, I can do that. Okay, well, picture him there. And now the darkness is in, like, let's say he's a drug addict and he needs to get delivered from the drug addiction. You bring him into the light with his drug addiction, and you let the love of Jesus wash over him. And every time you breathe, God is light. In comes the light. In him's no darkness at all. You breathe out, the darkness leaves. You don't have to have words to pray like that. When you're driving in the car, you can picture your son in that pool of light. When you're working at your computer, you can picture your son in that pool of light. When you're shopping for groceries, you can picture your son in that light. When you're gassing up the car, you can picture your son in that light. When you're going to university, whatever you're doing in any hour of the day or night, when you go to bed at night, you can say that scripture and picture your son in that light, and you can leave him there. And you don't need words to pray the scripture.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Right. Stays with you. I love that. It's actually not hard at all.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

In fact, you you can do you probably have people you're praying about. Yeah. Okay, so right now. Yeah. There's all kinds of issues in life. Every life, every person that's listening to this program has got five or six people they love, and those five or six people have chosen something ugly or dark or wrong, or they've met got fired, or they've got cancer, or whatever the issue is. All you have to do is breathe in. God is light and breathe out the darkness. Picture the person in that light and let Jesus wash over them. And any hour of the day or night, you can return to that picture and keep them there. And that's prayer. Now you may find yourself using words. You may say, My next door neighbor's got cancer. God is bad. He's he's in trouble. Father, I'm gonna bring him into your life. And there he is. Jesus, you're in the light, because the text says if we walk in the light as he's in the light, that means Jesus is there. Jesus, would you put your hand on my neighbor's back? Would you put it on his head? I can see you doing that.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Touch him and heal that cancer. Touch him because he needs you. And then you picture Jesus doing that. And anytime you think of your neighbor, that thought comes back to you.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

And you just keep him there. That's called praying in the spirit. And that means you don't have to use words to pray. Now, are words helpful? Words are helpful if they focus you on God's grace moving into a life. Words are distraction if they get in the way of you praying. And so makes total sense. Absolute sense. And so you you learn the picture. Another one, I have a buddy named Maxie Dunham. He prays this way Christ in me, the hope of glory. And he breathes, every breath he takes, he says, Christ in me, the hope of glory, until he becomes consciously aware that his whole being is filled up with hope. And God gives it. Christ within me gives birth to glory. And then he prays for whatever the matter of the day happens to be. Whether it's a neighbor or a friend or a family member or the book he's writing or whatever he's doing. He says, Jesus always brings hope. He always brings glory. And Christ in me gives birth to hope and gives birth to glory. So I'm going to put myself there. And then I use the what I call the prayer of my imagination where I picture the person. And then it's a very easy thing to start to pray that God's kingdom would come and God's will would be done.

SPEAKER_04 36:19

When I try to pray, when I'm trying to think of words to say, it it feels awkward and cumbersome. And I I it's just been like kind of a habit, a spiritual discipline. Maybe you tell me if I'm I'm right or wrong. And you probably you may have noticed it when we before we started this session, I prayed. I always start with Jesus. Thank you for your love, your mercy, and your grace. And it I for me, I don't know if that's my way of bringing myself into the light, because my first what I've always been taught is you start with thanksgiving, start with gratitude. So I thank him for his love, his mercy, and his grace. But then when I'm like, okay, I got something specific to pray for, and I'm trying to think of words and just in my flesh, you know, I want to sound elegant, like I know what I'm talking about, like I'm a I'm a person who prays all the time. And I hear these guys pray these amazing, powerful prayers, and there's nothing wrong with them. It's just I want to be like that. But I think I think that maybe I'm I'm in the wrong spirit of trying to be like somebody else and trying to want to sound like I got it all figured out. How how would I deal with that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

Well, straight up, the the first movement of the Lord's Prayer is to if what you just said is exactly right. You thank him for his mercy, for his grace. In fact, in our first video, I talked about being joined to Jesus' privilege. We don't have the privilege of access to the Father. So that's the perfect way to begin. Um, what I do when I pray is to just picture myself inside this amazing thing called grace. And I and I thank God for that. That's that's the first movement. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. And the movement actually requires that you praise him, that you set him apart as holy and who you are. I wouldn't be concerned about the words that I say so much as the attitude of my heart. Now, when you move to the second movement, your kingdom come, your will be done. That's when you start saying, okay, what do you want done with this matter that I am praying about? And you're not praying about your purpose, you're praying about God's intervention inside the thing that you've got to consider. So if is is this something that's going to make the kingdom grow? Is this God's goodness? Is this selfish on my part? Is it helpful? What are you asking me to pray into? And I would use that picture that I just gave you. And then whatever picture comes into your mind, if words start to come out of your heart when you're thinking about the thing that God might be asking you to do, pray that. Don't worry if it sounds pretty or if it sounds ugly. So in fact, one of the most powerful prayers in scripture was when Simon Peter was going into the water and he says, Help! Jesus grabs him and pulls him out and gets him to the next the other shore. So that was prayer. It wasn't eloquent, it wasn't pretty. It was encounter with the personality and the nature and name of Jesus. The goal of prayer is not to sound eloquent. The goal of prayer is encounter with the powers of heaven. And so I would not be at all concerned about whether or not it sounds pretty or it sounds ugly, or whether it's I would be concerned if it's honest. I'd be concerned if it was forthright. And I would be concerned on whether or not it was rooted in selfishness or the advance of the Lord's rule. So it in my mind, the only thing I can think to tell you is that the best prayer is honest prayer.

SPEAKER_04 40:03

The best prayer is simple prayer. Right. Just having a conversation with Catholic. Absolutely right.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

Yes, having a conversation. And sometimes I need other people to pray with. So in fact, today I prayed with two different people because I'm trying to navigate an issue that I can't figure out. And sometimes when I can't see the forest for the trees, I need to have a conversation with someone else who's prepared to pray with me. So I have a I have a prayer partner named Brent, and he lives a province away from me. I'm in Canada, by the way. All right. Yeah. Remember that. He's one of my great friends, you know, and I've prayed with this guy many a time. And uh, when either one of us is confused, we call the other. And so today I did. I said, I have to figure this out. And he said, What are you trying to figure out? And so I told him. And he said, Well, why don't we put this before the Lord? And then we will start to pray. And we will pay attention to what I just told you, this righteousness, peace, and joys him. Okay. So if it makes me more godly, more like Jesus, that's good. If it distracts me from Jesus, that's bad. So if he says, Is this something that makes you more like Jesus? And my answer is yes, then I can say, All right, then I'm going to pray this way. Now, it's really exciting when both of you together experience internal consolation or this thing called peace rising inside of you while you're praying about the matter. That's called the witness or the testimony of the spirit. And if you are struggling with knowing whether or not God is talking to you about such and such a thing, should I take this job? Should I stop giving to that organization? Um, is it appropriate for me to come alongside this person and help them with this? Maybe I should leave them alone. Whatever you're whatever you're praying about. When you're praying with another and you and your prayer partner together both experience a closer walk with Jesus, internal consolation rising, and joy, while you're doing it together, that's God saying, absolutely right, you're doing the right thing. If you're distracted from Jesus while you're praying, something's wrong. If your peace diminishes while you're praying, something is wrong. If your joy vanishes while you're praying, something is wrong. In fact, I'll I'll even tell you, I was praying about having a conversation with someone in my church, and I wasn't sure if I should say something or say nothing. That was the conversation, right? And so I called up my buddy Brent and I said, Hey Brent, what do you think of this? And he said, What's your motive? You want to help him? You want to hurt him? And then we started to pray. And he said, All right, here's what's going to happen. You're going to see him on such and such a day. I said, Yeah. He said, All right, when you're with him, if he raises it, can you speak gently to him about this matter? I said, I don't know. I think I'm mad. He said, Well, if you can speak gently to him, then God would be pleased. If you're going to be harsh, it's not going to be good. And so we prayed together about whether I should have the conversation. And both of us had a rising sense of peace together while we considered the matter about my talking to that man. And uh then we when both of us sensed that it was so, we realized that the Lord had spoken because it wasn't just me doing my own stuff. I was confirming this with another person who was looking for the three, the same three identity markers. You're looking for an increase of the presence of Jesus, you're looking for an increase in peace, and you're looking for an increase in joy. And when both of you have the same thing happening when you're praying about a matter that you need to weigh, that's much more likely. Likely to be God saying yes than when you're doing it in your own stuff.

SPEAKER_04 44:04

Yeah. Where two or three agree.

SPEAKER_03 44:07

Yes. And the agreement is around who He is, and it's around the kingdom, which is the presence of the Spirit bringing these three things righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Man.

SPEAKER_04 44:19

I could I could probably talk to you for hours. Literally, I think I've learned more about prayer in the last 45 minutes than I've learned in the last 40 years. Thank you very much. I know, I know men are going to be enlightened by this conversation. But before we end, can you uh tell us what what the books are, how we can find them, and if you have any resources to help with people around those?

SPEAKER_03 44:45

Of course, it all depends on where your men are coming from. But the easiest way to find out where I am at is to go to my website, which is three W's and Spirit like Holy Spirit and Equip like Equipment. Put the two words together, spiritequip.com. And when you go to that website, you'll see all the resources that I've produced. But uh the thing that I just told you about the Lord's Prayer, uh, if if if your guys are wanting to get started and they want to just learn how to pray the Lord's Prayer pattern in a hurry, the best way to do that is to um is to get this new book that just came out. It was published in October of 25. It's called Six Short Steps to Pray the Prayer. And this is on Amazon, or you can get it at a bookstore if you want it. And um, what it is, it's it breaks down each of the keywords and it has a one-day reflection around each of the Lord's prayer pattern movements. And uh that will get your guys praying quickly. But the thing I just told you about hearing the voice is found in a book called, Hey, are you there? It's me, God. How to listen, test, and know when God speaks. And that has a foreword by Jack Canfield. What I do in that book is I tell, can you imagine this? I tell stories about hearing the voice. And then I link it to a scripture passage, and then I get them to think about what it is that they're reading and reflect and record on that. I do that for five days in a given week. And then at the end of the week, we summarize that and have a reflection time. And there's a bit, there's uh actually a video in the front of the book where you can click on a QR code and get 10 minutes of teaching. But what I do in that book is I teach people to listen to the promptings that are already happening to them to them. In fact, I'm convinced of this. I am utterly convinced that every Christian on earth has heard the voice. I am convinced of it. They haven't been trained to pay attention. Now, what I just told you about righteousness, peace, and joy is in that book. And listen, I can tell you this. I go to, I've been to 23 nations and I've spoken to crowds as large as 50,000 and as small as five or six. In every, and it doesn't matter whether they're Catholics or Baptists or Pentecostals or Mennonites or Presbyterians or whatever kind of Christian you want to call yourself. When I ask this one question, the answer is always the same. How many here have sinned? And every hand goes up, and they say, Oh, yeah, that's me. Okay. Now, after you sinned, how many here have felt convicted that that was wrong? Every hand goes up. I said, That's the voice of Jesus. He's telling you that's a bad idea. Now, when you ask the Lord to show you how to fix that, did you feel God, did you feel relief in your soul that you confessed your sin? And they'll raise their hand and say, Yes, I did. I said, That's the voice of Jesus. He's giving you consolation. And then have you, and when you prayed, when you're guided to a pathway to fix that, did you sense his favor on you? And all the hands will go up and they'll nod their heads and say yes. I said, then you have heard the voice of Jesus. Now, we always say the voice has to be the big angel showing up and talking to the virgin or the star in the sky moving, or it has to be something coming out of the stereo or something. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And by the way, I do believe in those things. They're happened, they're in the scripture, but the primary means by which the Lord speaks is the increase or the withdrawing of his presence. And his presence is mediated by righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. So I wrote the Hey God book to teach people how to pay attention to the voice. I give 25 different ways that Jesus speaks. And then I have a week that's dedicated to using a process to discern what you're supposed to do with what you've heard. But um, if if you want to learn how to listen to the voice, the easiest way to do that is to go on Amazon or go into your bookstore and order this book. Hey, are you there? It's me. God. How to listen, test and know when God speaks by. Yours truly, David Chopkin. And uh that book will guide you in steps to pay attention to when the presence of the Lord is moving you to take a decision or direct your steps.

SPEAKER_04 48:54

Do you have audible versions of those books?

SPEAKER_03 48:56

I have audible for the Lord's Prayer Book, the two of them, and I have an audible version for my healing prayer book, but I don't yet have an audible for my for my uh Hey God book. Hey God, okay. But I think I need to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:10

Do you do you do the audible?

SPEAKER_03 49:12

Yes, I do. In fact, this book is Do you laugh through these books? I do. Awesome. Anyway, this one is on Audible. I've just written a commentary on Mark's Gospel. It's called Mark My Words. And I walk people through it. I I did my own translation of Mark's Gospel into contemporary English. It does sound like a Canadian, eh? So, you know, how do you scroll Canada? It's C A N D A. At any rate, I just did that book, and I just did that, I just recorded that on Audible, and I am right now as we speak recording this one, Living Out the Lord's Prayer on Audible. This now has uh the uh the printed text and an ebook, and I just I'm teaching this locally, so I've made it convinced that I'm gonna record the book and then upload it quickly so that it's available uh to study as people listen while they drive. So I'm just I just began that project as we speak.

SPEAKER_04 50:09

I would think just listening to your books on audible will bring joy to people. Well, I hope not so.

SPEAKER_03 50:17

Anyway, I like to laugh. I I like I laugh when I pray too, by the way. I do. I laugh when I pray and I laugh when I teach and I tease people and I tell them stories. Because Jesus joy. Yes. And actually, I think he teased the crowds he was in. I really do. I mean, uh, so there's a farmer sowing some seed. You see, see that farmer out there sowing that seed? Look at that bird that's coming down, taking that seed. And he wouldn't use the illustration about the sower and the seed because there was this guy planting right beside him, and I suspect he watched, he made the crowd look at the guy, you know. Think about this with Simon Peters. There's gonna be a poll tax, and he doesn't have any money. And he says to Simon, um, do you think we're supposed to pay that poll tax? And Peter says, Well, maybe we should. He said, No, no, no, no. The sons of the kingdom don't pay it, the the foreigners do. But look, get yourself a rod and go down to the water. Throw in that line there, you're gonna catch a fish. It's gonna have a coin in its mouth, and then pay the tax. So this is what it means. Somewhere in the past, some guy in a boat dropped a coin. It went over this side of the boat, the fish caught the boat, caught the thing, and then Jesus of Nazareth arranged for this guy to catch that fish so he could pay the poll tax to satisfy some jerk who wanted to collect money that wasn't owing to him. So, I mean, it's a hilarious story, but Matthew said that.

SPEAKER_04 51:39

It is, it is.

SPEAKER_03 51:40

It's a ridiculous story. So, how does God supply? Sometimes he supplies by making a curmudgeon be satisfied by ordaining for cash to come through the fish's mouth when it's unexpected. And Simon Peter was the guy who throws the line in the water and catches the fish to pay the nasty jerk who didn't get who wasn't who was trying to collect money that didn't belong to him anyway. Anyway, the Bible's filled with stories just like that.

unknown 52:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 52:05

In fact, what I what I teach in the Hey God book is God will speak Mark to Mark using Mark's background to speak to Mark. God will speak David to David using David's background to speak to David. God will speak Susie to Susie and Jack to Jack and Peter to Peter. Here's how he called Simon Peter. The guy was fishing. He was exhausted. He says to him, throw at your nets for a catch. And Peter says, I've done this all my life. You're a teacher, I'm a fisherman. Leave me alone. He throws the thing out and he fills two boats with fish. He speaks Peter to Peter. When King David sins, he remembers God knows that David was a little farm boy who raised sheep and that Saul tried to kill him. And he talks about a rich guy stealing the ew lamb from the little guy. David gets angry, and then he then Nathan says, You were a shepherd, you know better.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

You're the man. God speaks David to David. The woman at the well needs water.

SPEAKER_03 53:12

He speaks the woman at the well to the woman at the well. God will speak you to you. He'll use your history to intertwine what you're learning and discovering and believing to create an event that causes it impossible for you to ignore what it is that God's saying to you.

SPEAKER_04 53:29

That's I'm getting goosebumps because like I've talked about this so many times, how my history has led me to where I'm at now, and how I knew everything that happened in my past was God telling me to do what I'm doing right now.

SPEAKER_03 53:46

Yes. And he'll take a stream of your history and intertwine that with an event, and the two will come together, and suddenly the thing explodes in front of you, and you say, God has spoken. He spoke Mark to Mark. That's how you know it's the Lord. And when he speaks Mark to Mark, he makes you more like himself as you accomplish the thing that's before you.

SPEAKER_04 54:12

Amazing. David, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. I will be inviting you again because I I I enjoy I enjoy you a lot.

SPEAKER_03 54:25

Well, it's a great it's an honor to be on your podcast, and I I'm thankful that you've got an audience that would like to learn and grow in the things of Christ, and I will do anything I can to help anybody grow in the gospel.

SPEAKER_04 54:36

Awesome. Thank you very much for coming on. God bless you. God bless you too. As I reflect on this conversation, one thing keeps coming back to me. Prayer was never meant to become a ritual. Jesus gave it to us as a way of aligning our hearts to the kingdom and God's will. I was especially challenged by what Dr. David said near the end, where he was talking about learning to pray with Scripture and learning to step into God's light instead of focusing on our darkness. That's something I personally want to grow into. So I mentioned this last week, and I'm challenging you again. This week, as you say the Lord's Prayer, slow down, think about each phrase, ask yourself, what are you really praying? And then pray it with intention. One more thing I'm gonna challenge you with, and I didn't put it in the link last week. I did put his website in the show description, but I'm going to put a link to the book, the five days, or I think seven days, the book on how to pray the Lord's Prayer. And it's a seven-day devotional. I'm going to put the link to that in the book and the Hey God, it's me. Are you there book? Also, I myself am going to go out and get these books. And I would love to hear if you got the books and what you thought, and if you had any questions, I have personal contact with Dr. David now when he is in town and not on a mission trip doing God's work, working for his kingdom. I can ask him questions. If you have questions, you can reach out to me and I will ask him a question. I will get back to you as soon as he gets back to me. Thanks for spending time with us. If this conversation encouraged you or challenged you, I'd love it if you share it with someone else who needs to hear it. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and all the support that you give. I really appreciate it. With that, stay strong, stay valiant, keep forging your path, and be blessed.