SPEAKER_02: Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.
SPEAKER_02: I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_02: Embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Today, be encouraged with a word from my guest speaker.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Pastor Ryan.
SPEAKER_01: It's a joy to be here with you guys today and to be covering something that is one of the principal tenets of our Christian walk, our Christian pilgrimage as we wander this side of eternity, how we utilize it, how we grow in it, and what it can do for us and the power that it unlocks in our own lives.
SPEAKER_01: A seminal verse for us.
SPEAKER_01: If you have your Bibles, please open to 1 Thessalonians 5, chapter 5, verses 16 through 18.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll press in as kind of we think about how we pray, what it can do for us, and where it unlocks things in our lives, where it moves mountains.
SPEAKER_01: Paul writes, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything, give thanks.
SPEAKER_01: For this is the will of God in Jesus Christ for you.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ abiding in us, God's will manifest through him that we should respond these ways in our walk, in our journey in this life.
SPEAKER_01: To rejoice always, to pray without ceasing, and in everything giving thanks, for it is the perfect will of God.
SPEAKER_01: Last week Steve talked about the favor of God and how obedience brings the favor of God in us.
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk more about that in a minute, but let's first unpack kind of the Greek word in the New Testament for prayer, which it pops up over 120 times, and it's the most commonly used word in the Greek for prayer in the New Testament is proushka.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're that sounded Russian, I know, but I listened to Google translate like five times, and I'm pretty sure that's right.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're Greek, I'll accept your grace as we're all coming this side of the Christmas holiday.
SPEAKER_01: Great to see everybody.
SPEAKER_01: You guys look wonderful, by the way, and uh have endured the Christmas season with fervor, it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: So everybody's bright-eyed, bushy-tailed mostly except for you.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, that was a random point.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, wait, was that me?
SPEAKER_01: No, you're good.
SPEAKER_01: You and me, brother.
SPEAKER_01: Um, prose is broken down into two parts.
SPEAKER_01: The first part, pros, uh, a preposition that means toward or immediately before, and convey a sense of closeness to God.
SPEAKER_01: Eucra, a noun that means something spoken aloud.
SPEAKER_01: So we do discern now that there is something that is spoken toward God.
SPEAKER_01: This is effort, and there is an audible discernment in our prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So prayer is towards God and it is audible.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer, as J.R.
SPEAKER_01: Rice writes from his book Prayer, Asking and Receiving, says this.
SPEAKER_01: Too many people only window shop when they pray.
SPEAKER_01: They do not go after anything, and they don't bring anything home.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is a lovely sedan for sightseeing trip around the city.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is a truck, sorry, prayer is not a lovely sedan.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is actually a truck that goes straight towards the warehouse, backs up, loads, and comes home with the goods.
SPEAKER_01: Too many people rattle around their truck, right?
SPEAKER_01: Windows down, all over town, never back up to the warehouse.
SPEAKER_01: They do not go after something when they pray.
SPEAKER_01: When I read this, this was very profound and impactful in my own life because I realized Mandy and I had started a small group at Mountain Springs Church.
SPEAKER_01: Back when we moved to town, it was a group for young married couples with children.
SPEAKER_01: It was a self-help group to help us not murder one of them.
SPEAKER_01: So we had to encourage each other.
SPEAKER_01: And inside of that study, we started to realize that prayer, for me, I'm going, I'm taking assessment of my life.
SPEAKER_01: I grew up in church, godly parents, um, you know, dad, uncle, grandpa, all deacons, grandma was the bookkeeper.
SPEAKER_01: No, my mom was the bookkeeper, grandma was the secretary, handled the bookstore, all the things, right?
SPEAKER_01: I was in church all the time, three times uh on Sunday and every other day of the week, went to the Christian school there, and I was taking assessment in my early 30s and realized that my prayer life, my prayer strength, all of that had not been really grown, and I felt, well, I felt kind of um adolescent in that.
SPEAKER_01: And in one of our studies that we were taking these couples through at the back of the book was some prayers that were laid out.
SPEAKER_01: It was a two or three-page prayer, and it was beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: It was deep, it was invoking the triune God of the universe, praying in the Holy Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: And I just um went to my bride, they went to Manny.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Hey, I want to start kind of, let's try and I want to start praying this over our family.
SPEAKER_01: I felt a conviction to start doing so.
SPEAKER_01: And I would pray it word by word, and I would start to see things over time.
SPEAKER_01: God was starting to move things in the heavenlies, in our relationship, in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And certainly I was feeling things ignite in my soul and my desire for him.
SPEAKER_01: And ultimately I would change that.
SPEAKER_01: I had to read it word for word for many weeks, and then ultimately became I adopted it into my own prayer language and my own prayer style over my family as a husband, as a father, as their leader.
SPEAKER_01: And it was it was very impactful.
SPEAKER_01: I would say that was probably the first pivot or catalyst to where God was going to ultimately continue to grow and take me.
SPEAKER_01: So our journey as Christians, wherever you find yourself on the spectrum, if it's only right now thanking God for your meal and praying Him to give you a good night's sleep, there's a lot of other things on the other side of this that we can grow in.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you are mighty prayer warriors, spiritual warfare prayers, pulling heaven down, knocking, and destroying the enemy's gates and strongholds.
SPEAKER_01: And that is our desire.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we want to grow and gain, and that's where we would like to be.
SPEAKER_01: Mark 11, verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus writes, Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
SPEAKER_01: So we know that in prayer there's this piece that we have to have belief attached to it.
SPEAKER_01: We don't just send something up like a kite and hope that the wind's gonna catch it and it's gonna fly.
SPEAKER_01: We hope that no, we're actually sending up a prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We're having communion conversation with God, and we're gonna believe, because Jesus tells us to believe that when we ask, we will have them.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's another piece to that that we're gonna unpack here in a minute about God's will.
SPEAKER_01: This quote from Jay Oswald Sanders in his book Spiritual Leadership, I think captures a lot of this.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is the most significant, most universal, and most intensive expression of the religious instinct.
SPEAKER_01: It includes the simplest speech of infant lips and the sublime entreaties of an older age.
SPEAKER_01: All reach the majesty on high.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is indeed the Christian's vital breath and native air.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer in the biblical sense is an overarching term to describe the entire spectrum of expressions we offer to God.
SPEAKER_01: Thus, prayer includes praise and thanksgiving, adoration, intercession, supplication, shouts of joy, lifting of hands, the bowing, honoring, exaltation, intimate affection, the critical piece of repentance, surrender, bringing him our mourning, our pain, contemplation.
SPEAKER_01: There we engage in spiritual warfare, and prophesying can manifest in our prayers.
SPEAKER_01: So why should we do it?
SPEAKER_01: Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Walter Lewis Wilson, a preacher and pastor of the last century, had this motto framed and hung in his office.
SPEAKER_01: It's true then as it is today.
SPEAKER_01: Why pray when you can worry?
SPEAKER_01: And there it is.
SPEAKER_01: And I'd like to say that all of this pastoral staff team, as professional Christians, we never worry.
SPEAKER_01: When we feel it, we go right to a knee and we go right into the heavenly places, and we have battled that and conquered that dragon.
SPEAKER_01: No, in fact, it's something that is probably the most significant cancer to our spiritual walk, is what we do with our worry.
SPEAKER_01: And he did it as a reminder to himself that only prayer is the way to end your worries.
SPEAKER_01: The psalmist in 55, chapter 55, verse 22, writes, Cast your burden on the Lord, and he shall sustain you.
SPEAKER_01: When we give our burden, which we're never meant to carry, we give it to our Creator, our designer, and then he gives us something back in return.
SPEAKER_01: He gives us sustain.
SPEAKER_01: He sustains us in every aspect that we need it, from our physical to our emotional to our spiritual.
SPEAKER_01: Wherry stress will collapse us, will cause us to fold, and it will decay us.
SPEAKER_01: And it's where the enemy does his best work to hold you hostage.
SPEAKER_01: So when we give him our burdens, he sustains us.
SPEAKER_01: First Peter 5 7, casting all your cares on him, for he cares about you.
SPEAKER_01: If you have tattoos, I would recommend adding that one somewhere on your body.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't, write it on your mirror in the morning, read it when you get up.
SPEAKER_01: There's so many things we can put in front of us.
SPEAKER_01: But just as a reminder that we have a God of creation who cares about us and wants to take our cares from us because he cares for us.
SPEAKER_01: And renewing our mind there before we do anything else, before we pick up the phone, check the email, check the text, log into social media.
SPEAKER_01: If we could only start 2025, just renewing our minds with that verse.
SPEAKER_01: See, prayer is the way to constant peace under any circumstance, anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: Are we going to have troubles?
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Are things going to hit our shoreline like a tsunami out of the blue?
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
SPEAKER_01: We see that from Andy's testimony, right?
SPEAKER_01: Life is going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Bad things are going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: But God will sustain, He will restore and bring us out of that storm.
SPEAKER_01: He promises his kingdom peace in the midst of them if we're obedient to take our burdens and cares to him, even if we can't explain it or understand it.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is a duty expressly commanded for every Christian all the time and about everybody and everything.
SPEAKER_01: Not to pray is a sin, the sin of which is disobedience in this Christian walk.
SPEAKER_01: Disobedience to the plain and often repeated command of God throughout his holy scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: So then we find ourselves in obedience to God when we pray.
SPEAKER_01: We should expect to also experience his favor from this action.
SPEAKER_01: So when we move ourselves into alignment in the posture of prayer, we're unlocking things.
SPEAKER_01: We're unlocking one, out of the act of obedience in prayer, the favor of God over our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And how do we know this?
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple things happening.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer unlocks the favor of God in our lives, and it's part of his kingdom design over kingdom, his kingdom creation and connection for us.
SPEAKER_01: We are in mutually blessed communion with God, and he loves this aspect of our relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is relationship with our creator.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus tells us this in John 14.
SPEAKER_01: In verses 13 through 14, he writes, Whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
SPEAKER_01: If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.
SPEAKER_01: So if we just pause on that for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're praying in the name of Jesus Christ, that brings glory to God.
SPEAKER_01: God gets glorified, that ignites something in him over you to bring favor into your life.
SPEAKER_01: So if we're missing that and we've not been praying in his favor and his will, then that's where we first start.
SPEAKER_01: We start bringing a heart of repentance, and then that brings us into alignment, and then we start praying in the name of Jesus to give us and discern his will.
SPEAKER_01: Now let me just clarify.
SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of Christians who pray in Jesus' name for his will, but his will could look something like, Lord, please smite my unholy neighbor for not raking their leaves and having their leaves blow into my yard.
SPEAKER_01: They know, Lord, you see that I have maintained my yard for the beauty of this neighborhood.
SPEAKER_01: Please smite my evil foe.
SPEAKER_01: It is your will.
SPEAKER_01: Probably not God's will, and he's probably not going to smite your neighbor for these things.
SPEAKER_01: So we have to seek the face of God in his kingdom to discern the will that we can then reiterate back to him.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's something that's unlocked.
SPEAKER_01: Praying in the name of Jesus brings glory to his Father.
SPEAKER_01: As Father myself, when I see my sons or my children, my daughters, when they see that, when I see them succeed, that brings me joy, that brings me happiness.
SPEAKER_01: And I, not that I'm glorified, but I would say that I'm excited for the success that they are receiving.
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's a small glimpse of God's heart when we acknowledge the perfect work of Calvary that He did for us, that we can intercede and pull down heaven through his name because He's done everything He needs to do for me.
SPEAKER_01: He's shown me all the love that I'm ever going to receive this side of eternity.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's ever going to show me that kind of love that Christ did on Calvary with His blood.
SPEAKER_01: So we pray in His name.
SPEAKER_01: And when we bring glory to God, we are in His favor.
SPEAKER_01: So pray in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 4, 16.
SPEAKER_01: This is another posture that we need to probably embrace as Christians.
SPEAKER_01: Let us come boldly before the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace in the time of need.
SPEAKER_01: We are all in times and in and out of times of need.
SPEAKER_01: You might be out of a time of need right now, but tomorrow's coming, and you'll be back in a time of need.
SPEAKER_01: You might find yourself in one right now.
SPEAKER_01: The thing is, is the scriptures, as the author of Hebrews is writing here, is that we have permission as adopted sons and daughters to come boldly before him.
SPEAKER_01: Much like my children did this Christmas with their lists.
SPEAKER_01: The younger ones.
SPEAKER_01: The older ones, they're a little more mature in their posture, but the little ones, they're like little vampires.
SPEAKER_01: And they were, you know, just being just being natural in what they do.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's no fault of theirs.
SPEAKER_01: They're just, you know, I have a seven-year-old who's thinking about the joy of what a ripstick or a new backpack or things of that nature would bring into his world.
SPEAKER_01: And he was persistent with that.
SPEAKER_01: So we're doing an Ephesians study in my family, in my house, and Ephesians 3.12 says, Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: So I said to my kids, You're coming boldly and confidently into my presence, you know, after your wish list, I want you to take the same posture.
SPEAKER_01: Might you consider taking the same posture to the kingdom of God with the things that are also in your heart?
SPEAKER_01: And there's a really funny story that happened a week later in some devotionals that I'll share with you.
SPEAKER_01: Not so much funny, I think it was pretty impactful just to see how God was grabbing a hold of their hearts in this season of being intentional and my wife's idea to just go through and do devos every day with the family as we unpacked Christmas and Jesus' story.
SPEAKER_01: But let us be resilient, regardless.
SPEAKER_01: Even if we took the posture as young kids on Christmas with our persistent wish list to our parents, let us take the same posture towards God and come boldly before Him.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I had shared earlier in my early 30s that there was something that was unlocked in me and there was a catalyst that moved me into my prayer life.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that was also going to level up about five or six years ago.
SPEAKER_01: And since then, I think it was like in 2022, Mandy and I entered into the year.
SPEAKER_01: We decided to do a Daniel fast for the first part of January.
SPEAKER_01: And we took a challenge that we were going to pray for each other, and we were using these two books, The Power of a Praying Husband, The Power of a Praying Wife.
SPEAKER_01: Really great books in their context, because what they do is they give specific prayers at the end of each chapter in how we intercede for our spouse, the unique challenges that we face as men, the unique strongholds and struggles that women face, right?
SPEAKER_01: So we went into a 30-day challenge where we prayed over each other every day out of that scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And what was amazing was two things were happening.
SPEAKER_01: The kingdom of God was bringing deep unity and union in our oneness in our marriage.
SPEAKER_01: Another level of kingdom mystery unlocked, unfolded over us, and where we were leveling up in our relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And secondly, Holy Spirit was aligning those things, oftentimes in accordance with the prayer and the need of the individual in the same day.
SPEAKER_01: And I can't tell you how many times I would come home, Mandy would share a struggle that she was in that day, and I would think, okay, well, wait a minute, what did I pray?
SPEAKER_01: And I'd go back and I'd share with her, well, I was praying that over you around that time, and she was having relief in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: God was bringing spiritual ministry over her life in that moment and giving her relief in that response.
SPEAKER_01: And the same was true of me.
SPEAKER_01: She was doing the same, and we were experiencing this great spiritual orchestrated posture and dance as we moved through that month.
SPEAKER_01: And it was powerful.
SPEAKER_01: And I can't encourage you enough that if you're married and you're not praying with your spouse, start doing that today.
SPEAKER_01: If you are doing it, start asking God, where can I level up?
SPEAKER_01: Where can we take our prayer life as a couple and grow and seek the face of God together in that prosture and that journey?
SPEAKER_01: Prayer connects us to God's kingdom, to his throne room, and in Christ Jesus, we are permitted to enter boldly, and we are doing that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we don't pray those prayers every day, but it's a great resource, and we do go back and touch on those from time to time.
SPEAKER_01: But again, it leveled me up in the specific areas and brought awareness to the needs of my bride and how I can more effectively pray with her and for her.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer unlocks the power of the Holy Spirit in us.
SPEAKER_01: Samuel Chadwick was a Methodist minister and Christian influencer of the 19th and 20th, early 20th century.
SPEAKER_01: Known for his well-researched and creative sermons, he was having a dry spell in his life and sensing his lack of real power and intense hunger was kindled within him for more of God.
SPEAKER_01: At this point, he heard the testimony of someone who had been revitalized by an experience of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So with a few friends, he covenanted to pray and search the scriptures until God sent revival in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: One evening he was praying over his sermon when a powerful sense of conviction settled on him.
SPEAKER_01: His pride, blindness, and reliance on human methods paraded before his eyes as God humbled him to the ground.
SPEAKER_01: Well into the night he wrestled and repented.
SPEAKER_01: Then he got out of a pile, his pile of precious sermons, and threw them on the fire.
SPEAKER_01: Samuel wrote this of his experience that night.
SPEAKER_01: I cannot explain what had happened, but it was bigger than anything I had ever known.
SPEAKER_01: There came into my soul a deep peace, a thrilling joy.
SPEAKER_01: Peace and joy.
SPEAKER_01: We read that somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: That goes beyond our understanding.
SPEAKER_01: And a new sense of power.
SPEAKER_01: My mind was quickened.
SPEAKER_01: I felt I had received a new faculty of understanding.
SPEAKER_01: Every power was vitalized.
SPEAKER_01: My body was quickened.
SPEAKER_01: There was a new sense of spring and vitality, a new power of endurance, and a strong man's exhilaration in big things.
SPEAKER_01: Afterward, a powerful work of God in the way of revival would come to him and his congregation.
SPEAKER_01: Over the coming days and weeks, many would come to faith in a way that they had never experienced before.
SPEAKER_01: He had put away his knowledge of what he thought and how he should operate and tapped fully into the kingdom of God through prayer and seeking God's face through his word.
SPEAKER_01: Chadwick was a man of prayer and urged other believers to do so.
SPEAKER_01: And he penned this phrase, and I think this is something that we should take heart as Christians, the power that we have against the enemy's strongholds.
SPEAKER_01: The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't really want to do that.
SPEAKER_01: It goes against my nature.
SPEAKER_01: It does, it goes against our fleshly nature.
SPEAKER_01: But he says, He fears nothing from the prayerless studies, the prayerless work, and the prayerless religion.
SPEAKER_01: He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Because he sees in the fourth dimension the connection of God the Creator and his beloved creation coming together in union against him and bringing his strongholds down.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer ignites our souls with fresh fire.
SPEAKER_01: We need fresh fire to flourish in this Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew 26, 41.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is in the garden and he's imploring his brothers to pray with him.
SPEAKER_01: Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation.
SPEAKER_01: The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
SPEAKER_01: See, prayer gives us focus, and our spirit is designed to need it.
SPEAKER_01: But our flesh will fail us, and we are vulnerable to sin and temptation without prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We need prayer for our daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: It's our communion with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer aligns us with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I've read Romans 8 a lot in my life over myself when I've needed times of refreshment, when I've needed times of encouragement, when I've needed times to instill and renew my identity where I've been.
SPEAKER_01: And in the middle of that chapter, Romans 8 26, likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought.
SPEAKER_01: But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
SPEAKER_01: There are times when we are so desperate that we just groan, we reach out, and we are aligned because God sees our sincerity.
SPEAKER_01: And then we get utterance later.
SPEAKER_01: But even on our behalf, in that immediate need, we have our aid, our helper, the great helper that Christ left us this side when he ascended to the Father to sit at the right hand.
SPEAKER_01: We have the Holy Spirit intact.
SPEAKER_01: Connected to us, interceding on our behalf.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is the main way in which we pursue God and His kingdom in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: We're sitting around and we're having uh one of our Christmas devotionals and we did some prayer and worship.
SPEAKER_01: Uh kind of checking in with the family afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: It was one of our Saturdays.
SPEAKER_01: Then my seven-year-old just kind of comes out of the blue with this revelation in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: And he can't really explain everything.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Dad, you know the thing in the middle of the tree?
SPEAKER_01: You know, the thing that holds the branches.
SPEAKER_01: The trunk?
SPEAKER_01: He goes, Yeah, the trunk.
SPEAKER_01: He goes, The trunk is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He's looking at our Christmas tree, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're having our prayer time there.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, the trunk is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And the branches, well, the branches are us, our family, the Christians around us.
SPEAKER_01: And the little lights on the tree are the fire, the light that's inside of us that we get from Jesus as he stains us.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like going, He's the vine where the branches?
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Where's he going with this?
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, and the star on top?
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's God sending light over everything.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going, brother, you should teach on Sunday, bro.
SPEAKER_01: So my seven-year-old's blowing minds, and it's just, I love it because God is bringing revelation to the childlike faith and mind of us.
SPEAKER_01: And it's just a reminder for all of us as adults that we don't become cynical so far as that we move out of reach of God's kingdom, his philosophies, the way that he lights our love worlds up and reminds us that he is the bright shining star above all of us, lighting us up and lighting this world up, and that we each carry a fire inside.
SPEAKER_01: Tozer writes this, and I think it's true today as it was when he penned it.
SPEAKER_01: The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire.
SPEAKER_01: Acute desire must be present, or there will be no manifestation of Christ to his people.
SPEAKER_01: He waits to be wanted.
SPEAKER_01: Too bad that with many of us, he waits so long, so very long.
SPEAKER_01: The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods, all testify that we in this day know God only and perfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.
SPEAKER_01: See, church prayer grows our faith, and when exercised, we are strengthened in faith and grow in awareness and sensitivity of the things of heaven and God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: I think about this as I think about my own life.
SPEAKER_01: Faith enables our spiritual sense to function, and it is what we are designed to do.
SPEAKER_01: Where faith is defective, the result will be an inward insensibility and a numbness to spiritual things.
SPEAKER_01: Our faith needs to be connected and connected to God's kingdom through prayer so that it is not defective, it is effective.
SPEAKER_01: And I was reminded of a prayer warrior, and as I'm thinking about my grandmother, who was just, she was a godly woman of God.
SPEAKER_01: She was a prayer warrior, she read God's scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: I never heard a curse, terse word, or anything profane come out of this saint's mouth my whole life.
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember anything like that.
SPEAKER_01: But I remember her prayer.
SPEAKER_01: She was vigilant in her prayers.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes she would take me to school in the mornings, and I was in elementary school, and before we'd get out of the car, she's like, you know, I pray for you, and I know that the world's gonna get hard and the enemy's gonna try and take you down, and you could fall into sin.
SPEAKER_01: And just so you know, that I pray that He, the Lord, would take you out of this world, that He would essentially kill you, before sin would ever enter your world to destroy you with the enemy's hands.
SPEAKER_01: And so she's like, I'm praying on your behalf, I'm interceding, and I would get out of the car in fifth grade and be like, that was that was really heavy, grandma, for like fifth grade.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I like still working on breakfast.
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I know for a fact that I am here and I'm where I am today because of the prayers that she was seeding for me in my life.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think about my grandma in the 3D in this earthly dimension of when she was walking the earth, and you know, she was feeble, she was, you know, an elderly woman.
SPEAKER_01: And then I asked God for a fourth dimension kind of visual of that.
SPEAKER_01: I just had this picture of grandma, you know, in her older age and just a prayer warrior, and she's like yoked, man, just like and just tearing down the kingdom of darkness and interceding for her beloved people.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, that's that's grandma, you know, and so I don't underestimate the intercessory prayer spiritual warriors of this church and never discern anybody by their uh you know, earthly expression or physical appearance, because I know there's absolute spiritual monsters in a positive way for God's kingdom on the inside.
SPEAKER_01: People who are skeptical of prayer's validity are usually those who do not practice it seriously or fail to obey when God reveals his will.
SPEAKER_01: We cannot learn prayer except by praying.
SPEAKER_01: There's no philosophy that's ever taught a soul to pray.
SPEAKER_01: The intellectual problems associated with prayer are met in joy of answered prayer and a closer fellowship with God.
SPEAKER_01: C.
SPEAKER_01: S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis in the efficacy of prayer writes this prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things is a small part of it.
SPEAKER_01: Confession and penitence are its threshold.
SPEAKER_01: Adoration, its sanctuary, the presence, the vision, and enjoyment of God, it's bread and wine.
SPEAKER_01: In it, God shows himself to us.
SPEAKER_01: That he answers prayers is a corollary, and not necessarily the most important one.
SPEAKER_01: But from that revelation, what he does is learned from what he is.
SPEAKER_01: A petitionary prayer is both allowed and commanded of us.
SPEAKER_01: My deep desire to connect with God, to bring reality of personal loving dependence on Christ developed from a desperation that hit me, and I had to know if Jesus would respond to me as he described in the Gospel of Luke and the story of the prodigal.
SPEAKER_01: There began a season in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I began to prayer walk with Jesus, and in that journey of posture, of repentance and complete openness, seeking him, asking, knocking on the door, I felt in those moments deep sonship, truly beloved, and I felt him present a robe and a ring and the spiritual sense of restoration.
SPEAKER_01: And that work would continue in my life.
SPEAKER_01: But it had to begin with me acknowledging the things that he already knew.
SPEAKER_01: He was just waiting on me to acknowledge them so that he could unlock something in my prayer life so that it wasn't just this far-off, distant God of the universe, but that he would walk with me, and Jesus and I would go to these places together in a spiritual context, and we would be able to explore and ponder and have contemplation about the woundings and the hard things and the pains of this life.
SPEAKER_01: And felt him father me through his spirit and heal me to a place of wholeness and fullness that I never even thought was really possible.
SPEAKER_01: And that I'm not unique, church.
SPEAKER_01: That is an offering to everybody.
SPEAKER_01: He wants that for each of you this year.
SPEAKER_01: You 10x your prayer life when you lead with repentance and empty yourself before the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Our hearts and desires are revealed in our prayer private times, the private times with God.
SPEAKER_01: This is where our prayer takes deep root and can flourish.
SPEAKER_01: David models this behavior with a beautiful prayer out of Psalm 139.
SPEAKER_01: It's an invitation specifically in verse 23 through 24 to the Lord, to know him.
SPEAKER_01: He's inviting God to know him, to know and search his heart, to test him, and then to lead him.
SPEAKER_01: Those are the I think the key ingredients to David's prayer in Psalm 139.
SPEAKER_01: God, search me, know me, test me where I'm weak, and then lead me because I want to follow your ways.
SPEAKER_01: Very human man, broken in many ways, but we see him model and walk a posture of faith and prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Praying the Psalms is a great place to start if you've never started to pray and practice praying the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: They're kind of modeled and set up for that exact thing.
SPEAKER_01: We sow into our lives when we seed it with prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So prayer is the sowing of God's will and favor in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Recently, Pastor Al, just within the last 48 hours, took a trip with Pastor Josh and another guy named Scott Powell, and they took a trip around the state of Colorado, got back last night, this morning, one in the morning, and they went to the four corners of our state and they put prayer stakes in the ground.
SPEAKER_01: Every stake.
SPEAKER_01: And went there, and I guess they had to even like jump and like sneak into a reservation, kind of throw something in the bush.
SPEAKER_01: There was kind of a funny story.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I can't really get caught hammering something in a reservation, so they're like, bless it, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: But that was just one corner.
SPEAKER_01: But it's really cool.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so they were the fifth team, so far as we know, to go around the state of Colorado and proclaim and consecrate Colorado for the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, praise God in God's revelation and his benevolence and majesty.
SPEAKER_01: Guess how many miles to the tenth of a mile that entire trip took them?
SPEAKER_01: 2,025 miles.
SPEAKER_01: We're heading into 2025, church.
SPEAKER_01: Where are we gonna sow?
SPEAKER_01: What are we gonna sow into for this year?
SPEAKER_01: Sowing means investing and devoting time to prayer when it doesn't feel productive.
SPEAKER_01: If you'll keep sowing in prayer and the word, you'll eventually reap a rich harvest that will ignite your spirit and bring the kingdom of heaven in your life.
SPEAKER_01: As Christians, we honor and believe in this principle of sowing and reaping.
SPEAKER_01: So don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_01: There's always a delay in the process of what we sow and when we reap.
SPEAKER_01: Every moment you spend sowing in communion with God through prayer is an investment into your internal inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Don't quit.
SPEAKER_01: When you feel ineffectual, that's the time to bear down, get stubborn, and invest to a greater degree.
SPEAKER_01: Your prayers and God's word being sown into your heart today are going to germinate, sprout, push down roots, and thrust up branches and produce fruit in your lives.
SPEAKER_01: This Tuesday, starting at 6 p.m., we're gonna meet as one body with one voice, and we're gonna seek the face of God.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna try and pull down heaven together to be in one accord with two or more gathering and see what he wants to do in our families, in our church, in our city, in our state, and in this nation for 2025.
SPEAKER_01: Want to encourage you to come and join us.
SPEAKER_01: We have some awesome times around the midnight hour, so just want to encourage you guys to join those men out there.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta do Steve's part, right?
SPEAKER_01: Challenge the guys, because you know we do it.
SPEAKER_01: So we'll see you at the early hours.
SPEAKER_01: I know he'll be here.
SPEAKER_01: I'll see him there too, and we look forward to seeing some of you guys.
SPEAKER_01: So if your husband snores, that's a good time to wake him up, roll him out of bed, and send him to church, and we'll see you guys for prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Learning to pray the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible is essentially one massive prayer book, church.
SPEAKER_01: Almost every page has a prayer prompt.
SPEAKER_01: As you take time in God's word, not only is your meditation sweet, but you find yourself spontaneously talking with him in response to the text.
SPEAKER_01: Prayers like for me, oh God, please leave me today besides still water.
SPEAKER_01: I could really use some refreshment.
SPEAKER_01: The language of Scripture becomes the language of your prayer life.
SPEAKER_01: And there are many benefits to praying God's word.
SPEAKER_01: It is powerful for many reasons.
SPEAKER_01: His word is living and alive.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 4 12.
SPEAKER_01: Praying the word instills in us confidence because we are praying according to God's will.
SPEAKER_01: 1 John 5 15, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him.
SPEAKER_01: When we pray back the scriptures, which are meant for us, back to him, it's this cycle, this beautiful kingdom cycle that starts to unlock things in us.
SPEAKER_01: Our soil gets fertilized, his seed gets planted, and a harvest begins to take root.
SPEAKER_01: The tongue has the power to speak life and death as we read in Proverbs.
SPEAKER_01: But as we speak God's word back to him, our tongue is ignited by the fire of heaven rather than the fire of hell.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have time today, but I want you to contrast later Acts chapter 2, 3 and 4, when tongues of fire rested on them.
SPEAKER_01: And James 3, 6, where the tongue of fire is an evil thing and can destroy and tear down.
SPEAKER_01: We have to choose, church, and when we pray back God's scriptures in Him, our tongues are ignited with the fire of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Praying the Psalm is a great place to start if you've never done so.
SPEAKER_01: We had this regular routine of praying, and still is today.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say that we don't do it every day, but even just praying the whole armor of God every day, because you're in a spiritual battle, whether you recognize it or not, but you might as well be suited and booted for that.
SPEAKER_01: So even getting in that posture and praying the full armor of God, coming to the conclusion so that you are prepared when the evil day comes against you.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 6 18 says, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
SPEAKER_01: Praying without ceasing, praying about everything and everyone, always.
SPEAKER_01: He wants us, God wants us to live in a way that allows us to pray at any moment.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is never reserved for a certain time or place.
SPEAKER_01: We were at the table on Tuesday morning, one of our cadre members was sharing this principle in life and how he walks into a grocery store, not even knowing what he's going to eat that day, but he prays, God, what do you have for me?
SPEAKER_01: And he takes him to a sale on Bratwurst.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, that's what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01: And he does.
SPEAKER_01: He's so devoted to committing things to prayer in every aspect.
SPEAKER_01: And it was just a beautiful example of faithfulness and obedience to pray about everything.
SPEAKER_01: And that we would all be encouraged in that.
SPEAKER_01: For me, church, worship sets my heart in the right posture and aligns my spirit with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about PBJ, Prayer, Bible, and Journal.
SPEAKER_01: I always add the W at men's conferences because worship for me, as it is meant to for all of us, unlocks something, it realigns, and it calibrates our soul with the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And then from that place, my connection to heaven is clear.
SPEAKER_01: I can fear the frequencies.
SPEAKER_01: I can feel the frequencies of heaven, and the static noise of life is muted, and the enemy is silenced in my mind.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes if you're feeling stuck in your ability to enter in and engage in prayer, start with worship.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever gets you there, start to exaltate and adore the kingdom of heaven and the Father.
SPEAKER_01: I gave myself a challenge in preparation for this message, consequently, for the new year, that I was going to engage in some more significant time of daily prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And in the mornings, my my goal is the intercessory prayer for my family.
SPEAKER_01: And in the afternoon, I was intercessing and praying for the church body, you guys, and our staff team.
SPEAKER_01: And then in the evenings, I've been taking my heart and supplication to God for my own life and my needs for what he wants in 2025.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know where that's going to lead, but I want to be sincere, and I know that I want to, the desires that are growing in me through the connection and the catalyst of the Holy Spirit is that a desire and an excitement's growing, and I don't know where this is going for our lives.
SPEAKER_01: But I know that when the evil day comes and when trials happen, I'm going to be more resilient.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be strengthened to overcome the evil day.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to discern the will of God for my life, for my family, for the members of this church, for our staff team, and for our city and nation and this state.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to keep going.
SPEAKER_01: Because in James 5 16, and I'll end with this, we're encouraged to be effective in our prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We're to be fervent in our prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We're to be righteous so that our prayers will be an aid, a help, and a service to the kingdom of God in defeating the enemy, bringing healing to the body, and spreading the light of his glory in our communities.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Forn for War podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholtonline.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.