Lecture on the Importance and Practice of Persistent Prayer

Jesus uses this illustration for repeated day and night prayer and then God says I&#39;m going to answer speedily and I&#39;m thinking man I&#39;ve been banging on this door for 15 days you know when is this thing going to open he says I&#39;m going to answer speedly and he does there&#39;s a Tipping Point in prayer in which the answer is released and the answer always comes quickly but to get to that place where things shift sometimes takes persistence ever since I was a child I&#39;ve always had a fear of someone under my bed at night so I went to a psychiatrist and told him I&#39;ve got problems every time I go to bed I think there&#39;s someone under it I&#39;m scared I think I&#39;m going crazy he responded just put yourself in my hands for one year said the shrink come talk to me three times a week we should be able to get rid of those fears how much do you charge he asked $80 per visit replied the doctor I&#39;ll sleep on it he said I said 6 months later the doctor met me on the street he asked why didn&#39;t you come to see me about those fears you were having I responded well 80 bucks a visit three times a week for a year is over $122,000 my neighbor cured me for free I was so happy to have saved all that money I went and bought a new pickup truck is that so the psychiatrist responded with a bit of an attitude he said and how may I ask did your neighbor cure you I replied he told me to cut the legs off the bed ain&#39;t nobody under there [Applause] now oh goodness all right all right several weeks ago I I um during a message I I took a little detour for a few minutes and talked to you about the high price of prayerlessness and of course I would never mean this to be a shame ful message or uh some you know some harsh exhortation but instead an appeal uh that we could live sober minded and realize Jesus gives this overall commission and command and it has to do with the relationship with him and it&#39;s the invitation to pray at all times pray without ceasing I personally like to think that the prayer without ceasing is the substance of prayer and the hour or whatever you take is the iang on the cake the real substance of prayer is the fact that it is continuous fellowship with God and prayerlessness has effects on our lives that is uh is very very sobering so what I want you to do is I&#39;m going to I&#39;ve got six stories I want to tell you not sure if I have time for all of them but or six passages that we&#39;ll read and if we don&#39;t I&#39;ll just do it another time so but let&#39;s go ahead and start with the first one I want you to go to the Gospel of Luke chapter 22 this we&#39;re going to read a portion where Jesus is praying in the garden and this is where his sweat became as drops of of blood on his head the anguish his own prayer uh prayer time was physically having an effect on him where sweat became blood I don&#39;t think it was a watered or wine type thing I think it was actually um such pressure was on him in prayer that he physically manifested blood as sweat on his forehead right before this Jesus and the disciples had a conversation and in this conversation Jesus announced to them that they were all going to fall away and Peter made of course the statement they they they might but I won&#39;t and then Jesus said as a matter of fact Peter you&#39;re going to deny me three times and this is the prayer meeting that followed that warning that Jesus gave him so if you look at this with me let&#39;s go right to verse 33 we&#39;re going to jump jump in the middle of the story um because of how much we have to read tonight verse 43 then an angel appeared to him from Heaven strengthening him and being in agony he prayed more earnestly then his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground when he rose up from prayer and had come to his disciples he found them sleeping from sorrow then he said to them why do you sleep rise and pray lest you enter into to Temptation that is a stunning uh moment to me in Peter&#39;s life in that Jesus announced to him that he was about to deny him and yet he gave him access to a strength where Jesus would have been wrong he invited him into a time of prayer where had he had pursued he never would have entered entered into temptation temptation is an interesting thing because God never puts us in a position to be tempted the real issue of Temptation is that it&#39;s the individual&#39;s heart that translates a circumstance and makes it a Temptation an illustration that I give uh fairly often is let&#39;s just say Brian and I are going to a lunch and let&#39;s just say uh he&#39;s doing real good with the Lord doing well his finances are just in order he&#39;s just living in great Victory and I&#39;m living in great fear I just I just I&#39;m having a hard time I&#39;m afraid I&#39;m not going to be able to pay my bills I&#39;ve got this anxiety fear thing going on so we sit down at the restaurant and right next to the salt and pepper shaker is a $100 bill folded up but the waitress doesn&#39;t see it when she uh cleans the table and Brian excuses himself wants to go wash the fellowship off of his hands before before we have a have a meal together and uh when he goes I spot the $100 bill and it crosses my mind I could take that because she doesn&#39;t even know it&#39;s there and then I resist the temptation I go man that&#39;s just totally wrong what am I thinking I repent for even having the thought I don&#39;t take it Brian comes and sits down he notices the $100 bill he calls out the waitress by name he Andy look somebody gave you a really good tip it never crossed his mind now neither of us took the money but one of us was tempted heart condition turned a circumstance and made it a Temptation there are certain it&#39;s almost like doors on a stage there are circumstances in life and what prayerfulness does is it gives you a discernment on the nature of the door you don&#39;t even fall into the situation you don&#39;t even come to where you would be exposed in your weak place because prayerfulness prayerfulness has heightened your awareness of what&#39;s behind the door without the prayerfulness you may open the door you may fall into a Temptation and you may successfully hopefully resist the temptation but the point is is you want to go through life you you don&#39;t want to face things for which you have no Grace it doesn&#39;t mean you can&#39;t muster up the strength to say no to that temp Temptation Of course you can we all have a will and we can choose but what&#39;s tragic is some people because of prayerlessness live in a battle with circumstances they never should have had to face it it it um it dep it deplenish es is that the right deplenish it robs of strength it robs of creativity it robs of Natural Healthy authentic expression of who we are because we&#39;re having to constantly fight battles we were never designed to fight so he said pray that you wouldn&#39;t enter you wouldn&#39;t even go through the doorway of what would be appealing to you at some weak place place in your own life I remember years ago Paul man wearing was he he used to be a used to run a prison in the UK and a highly decorated prison Warden and I remember what he would do when he was working with the prisoner is is he would remind himself that he had the same potential to be where they&#39;re at that that they had and he would remind them they had the same potential to be where he was it&#39;s all Grace and what prayerfulness doeses is it makes us aware of unseen things that are actually more real than what is visible we&#39;re not talking about a Land of Make belief we&#39;re not talking about the power of suggestion and just getting us psyched up so that we don&#39;t fall into sin it&#39;s not that at all it&#39;s that we&#39;re actually drawing upon a strength that is superior to everything else we could possibly muster up and prayerfulness unclutters the eyes to see what is real amen turn uh in your Bibles to the Book of Matthew chapter 44 this one is um is really stunning to me Matthew chapter 5 you guys all still alive that&#39;s good I hate when people die in the meeting it&#39;s just a so depressing Matthew Chapter 5 I have an interesting verse here in verse 43 I want you to look at it with me you have heard that it was said You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say to you love your enemies bless those who curse you do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you that you may be sons of your father in Heaven let&#39;s take that last phrase pray for those who persecute you spitefully use you pray for them not against them pray for them so that you will be a son and or daughter of God now are you thinking there&#39;s an exhortation to pray I don&#39;t believe he&#39;s saying pray for those who oppose you and then you&#39;ll be born again we become Sons and Daughters of God in our faith in Christ that&#39;s what causes us to be born again what he&#39;s declaring over us is that when you pray when you exercise your right to come before the almighty God and you actually use it to pray on behalf of someone who has opposed you you&#39;re praying for not against when you do that it becomes clear to you and to the entire Spirit realm that you are a child of God it becomes manifested why because you&#39;re using your authority to come before a perfect father and you&#39;re using it to actually pray be uh for someone on behalf positively for someone who has opposed you your identity in Christ becomes Manifest this is interesting because uh we don&#39;t have time for it tonight but this will trigger something in some of you you remember in Romans 8 it says that all of creation groans that&#39;s creation praying all creation groans travailing waiting for the Sons and Daughters of God to be manifested what does this saying when you pray for those who have opposed you you pray for those who others would consider to be your enemy and you pray for their blessing you pray for their welfare you pray as the perfect father would pray then your identity becomes established firm and revealed see there are certain things that are being withheld of the purposes of God in the earth and they&#39;re being withheld as they will only be released to a people that have become manifested as the Sons and Daughters of God it is essential that we step into identity and one of the clearest ways is to pray for those who are opposed to there are Realms in God there are Realms in in manifestation of presence in Kingdom of power there are Realms in God that he has withheld only willing to release them Upon A people manifested as Sons and Daughters of God so what does this do causes the domino effect it positions us correctly as identified from Heaven you say well I was identified when you were born again he said do this so that you&#39;ll be ident identified as a son as a daughter of God something happens in the Unseen realm that doesn&#39;t happen another way some of you were here when I I&#39;ve done uh teaching on communion Benny and I like to take communion every day which means it&#39;s most every day and uh sometimes we do it together sometimes we do it individually I take supplies with me when I travel on the road and I just in Indonesia last week and would take communion before the Lord and there are a number of things that I do and I I won&#39;t take a long time to mention this but when I hold the bread I make confession by his stripes I was healed and I pray for those who need the miracle because the payment is in my hand it&#39;s the torn flesh of Jesus that was torn in the beating that he suffered by the stripes of Jesus I was healed is what the scripture says Benny actually somebody a friend of hers was dying had seven different diseases and uh she was in the hospital and she wrote Benny and Benny wrote her back a text or email and said take communion every day and gave her some instruction and within I don&#39;t know how long I think it was within a month all seven diseases were gone she was completely healed there&#39;s something about coming before the Lord with what he paid for you and for me so by his stripes I was healed but when I take the cup I pray over every family member I pray for uh my son Eric and his wife Candace for Kennedy and SAA I pray for Brian and Jen and Haley and ta Braden Moses I pray for Gabe and Leah my my daughter and son-in-law and I pray for their four kids Juda Diego Bell and Cruz and I pray over them each by name and I pray that prayer out of Jeremiah 24 that I actually started praying for my children before I found it was in the Bible when I found it it was in the Bible I thought it&#39;s legal it&#39;s a legal prayer I got so happy and I I&#39;ve been praying for them since they were very very little children God give them a heart to know you it&#39;s in Jeremiah 24 so I pray that over every family member I pray that God would help them to know his ways that he would they would hear his voice each one God has no grandchildren each one needs to be summoned by the father to himself and so I pray into that God let them hear and know your voice to be summoned to you when I&#39;m through praying for my family which I just I enjoy so much just in fact what I do is I make confession as I make a confession by his stripes we are healed when I hold the blood before the Lord I make the confession as for me in my house we will serve the Lord every single family member we will serve you with Purity with power we will do so with passion and great Zeal we will withhold nothing from you it&#39;s the great privilege of prayer but as soon as I&#39;m through praying for my family I I pray for three people that are international and two that are not International who have taken a position to oppose me as an individual to write against me to hold conferences against me and to do videos and write books that sort of thing and I bring their name to the Lord you see what they&#39;re doing takes great Zeal and great courage do I think they&#39;re accurate no of course I don&#39;t but they are offering something to to the Lord out of an offering of great courage and great risk they suffer for their decision I don&#39;t support the decision but I support them and so what I do is I bring their names before the Lord and I ask the Lord please cause them to prosper Spirit soul and body cause them and this is my the big thing I pray for is cause these men cause them all of their children and all of their grandchildren to serve you with great Zeal and great joy I want them to know the pleasure of having children that serve God and grandchildren I don&#39;t want any of them to fall away I don&#39;t want any of them to become complacent or cold-hearted and so I bring them before the Lord see this is what Jesus said he said when you pray for those who spitefully use you when you pray for on behalf of in supportive those who persecute you you are a son what else is there okay I&#39;m going to be a sun today I was before I prayed but something becomes pronounced and manifest when I begin to pray out of earnestness of my heart God cause these people to prosper bless them I don&#39;t pray that God would change their minds I don&#39;t pray oh God expose the error of their way I don&#39;t pray any of those things you never criticize a servant to its Master Proverbs warns against criticizing a servant to its master that is forbidden territory they are not my servant we had situations go on here at Beth many many many years ago and here in reading and people would come to me they say well what do you think about this and I would tell them no one can force me to have an opinion I am unwilling to take mental energy and put it into a situation for which I have no responsibility you do not criticize a servant to their master and so Jesus reveals In this passage one of the greatest things re that we need right now how many Believers are there in the world it&#39;s an extraordinary number of hundreds of millions I wonder what would happen to their posture before Kings if they simply gave themselves to pray for those who oppose them should go to the Book of James you all right yep me too me too a little messed up but I was messed up when I got up here so Chris o didn&#39;t help at all with that one we we we got a little little wreck down there in the front row second row third row how many of you in the back row got a little messed up too yeah that&#39;s right yeah turn in your Bibles to the Book of James and we&#39;re going to look at just one phrase out of one verse um and and the reason the whole verse the whole chapter obviously is always worth studying but I&#39;m wanting to take a phrase because that I I don&#39;t want to be distracted by the rest so hopefully that&#39;ll make sense to you we&#39;re going to take verse two you lust and do of chapter 4 James 4: two you lust and do not have you murder and covet and cannot con obtain you fight and War and here it is you do not have because you do not ask say this with me you do not have because you do not ask say it with me now you do not have because you do not ask say it again you do not have because you do not ask prayerlessness creates lack prayerlessness fuels lack prayerlessness is is what um prayerlessness is what lack wants to consume when we Face a need and there&#39;s prayerlessness it actually fuels lack instead of causes it to be solved and disappear you have not because you ask not so prayerlessness actually sustains need and lack many people walk around waiting for God to do something and what I&#39;ve been finding out and I&#39;m a slow and I do mean slow learner I&#39;ve been finding out most of the time he&#39;s waiting for me to do something I mean how many you understand we&#39;re not talking about uh as you thank God for the meal God thank you for the meal um and provide for us today amen I&#39;m not saying that prayer doesn&#39;t work but if you&#39;ve got a big need you might want to dig in a bit you might want to dig in a bit let the weightiness of what you&#39;re facing determine the weightiness of how you pray casual prayers get casual answers if if you are willing to live off of token answers then offer up token prayers but if you want heaven to move let your heart be moved he&#39;ll move as far as you move I&#39;m not saying at all that he can&#39;t surpass anything that we do and cry out and lift up he&#39;s God he can do whatever he wants but in his effort to raise us as Sons and Daughters of God that can carry responsibility into the Earth most of the time he looks for Earnest response in us to bring forth an Earnest response from him I I I hope that doesn&#39;t sound like a Works thing because I don&#39;t see it that way at all it&#39;s just you know what when you&#39;re on the altar you can pray earnestly when you&#39;re off the altar considering the concept of the altar you pray timidly I heard recently when you&#39;re on the altar you can pray earnestly it&#39;s when you&#39;re off the altar considering the concept of sacrifice that&#39;s where we pray token prayers amen bill that was a really good point why don&#39;t you it&#39;s too late Luke chapter 18 I&#39;m just teasing Luke chapter 18 Luke chapter 18 sorry I I have a gift of Torment I just just it&#39;s just what I do I torment people I My love language is teasing so I you know if I didn&#39;t tease you you could walk out of here wondering if I loved you but but there should be no question now read uh Chris read this this morning in uh I don&#39;t know one of our services we only had 800 services this no no not he read this this morning start uh with me with verse one it&#39;s a longer piece he spoke a parable to them men ought to pray and not lose heart so we&#39;re talking about pray prayer that&#39;s not just a petition prayer but it&#39;s persistent in its petition he said there was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man there was a widow in that City and she came to him saying get Justice for me from my adversary he would not for a while but afterward said within himself though I do not fear God nor regard man yet because this Widow troubles me I will avenge her lest by her continual coming she wear me out out the Lord said hear what the unjust said judge said and shall God and shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out to him day and night though he Bears long with them I tell you that he will avenge them speedily nevertheless when the son of man returns will he really find faith on the earth this is interesting because we have on one hand we the picture is of a widow that just keeps banging on the door of the Jud and then Jesus uses this illustration for repeated day and night prayer and then God says I&#39;m going to answer speedily he obviously thinks of speedily different than I do he says I&#39;m going to answer speedily and I&#39;m thinking man I&#39;ve been banging on this door for 15 days you know when is this thing going to open he says I&#39;m going to answer speedily and he does there&#39;s a Tippy Point Tipping Point in prayer in which the answer is released and the answer always comes quickly but to get to that place where things shift sometimes takes persistence prayerlessness actually allows circumstances to be um uh prayer lessness allows the absence of breakthrough to become the norm and generally we come to the conclusion well I prayed and it just God sovereignly did not answer so the absence of an answer falls under under the category that we call the sovereignty of God and yet Jesus is saying persistence would have got the Breakthrough so we&#39;re talking now not just about a prayer prayed but a lifestyle of anchoring into something now I mentioned this I&#39;ve I&#39;ve done this teaching here uh several years back and I mentioned it in our conference this week and let me give you like the two-minute version Jesus said that we&#39;re not to use vain repetition in prayer in other words you&#39;re not to repeat a prayer over and over again because he knows what you have need of before you ask in the very next chapter he says ask and continue to ask the language there is a a a verb that says you do this but you continue doing it until this&#39;s breakthrough so in two chapters back to back one says ask and don&#39;t keep on asking the other one says ask and continue asking what&#39;s the difference come back next week and I&#39;ll tell you no what&#39;s the difference when he said don&#39;t repeatedly lift up the prayer for before me for something he said for your father father knows what you have need of before you ask this is pertaining to basic needs for me to say father would you provide food for me today and for me to ask him every five minutes is for me to question that he&#39;s actually a father because it violates his nature in his Covenant to me as a father who is committed to taking care of my my needs the persistence in prayer has to do with how we pray with our dreams the persistence in prayer I I I&#39;m supposed to pray for what I have need of God provide for us our our our food today I&#39;m supposed to pray for these things God I I need to buy coats for my kids before winter sets in I&#39;m supposed to pray for those things but those are basic human needs you lift them up and then you celebrate the fact that you serve a righteous and perfect father but when it comes to the unfolding of a dream God I&#39;ve got it in my heart to have this business oh God this thing has been in me for so many years and you fast you get before the Lord you cry out for breakthrough and you contend for this breakthrough why because persistence in prayer changes you and changes you to where you become a person that can properly Steward the answer that you just prayed for if he gives us much of what we ask for when we ask for it would kill us I I mean literally it would kill us why does God discipline his children is so that His blessings don&#39;t kill us we ask for oak trees he gives us acorns why can you Steward the answer in its embryonic form because in stewarding as it grows I become a different person my strength increases my resolve increases my sense of priorities change all of a sudden I have this willingness to pay any price because I can see something happening before my eyes I change with persistence in prayer and so this exhortation for persistence in prayer is connected to breakthrough and where there is not prayer and especially the prayer of persistence there&#39;s the absence of breakthrough all right we&#39;re almost done isn&#39;t that fun let&#39;s uh let&#39;s do two more we&#39;ll do uh Luke 11 let&#39;s back up a few chapters you guys all right everybody still all right I don&#39;t know what I would do actually I&#39;ve had times where I&#39;ve said are you&#39;re all right and somebody&#39;s yelled out no I wasn&#39;t sure what to do the only thing that works for me is just to ignore [Laughter] them now this this one is a little bit more abstract but I but I um if I could teach 20 minutes on this which I&#39;m not going to do I&#39;m going to take maybe three or four minutes five minutes if I could teach 20 minutes on this it would make a whole lot more sense I&#39;m just going to trust that you can work with it if you can&#39;t stick it on the shelf and see what happens in the future Luke 11 verse 24 when an unclean Spirit go goes out of a man he goes through Dry places seeking rest does anybody remember who the holy spirit is inside of us he&#39;s in us as a river in John chapter 7 the enemy is looking for dry places those who fail to connect with the flow of presence become a dry place and it&#39;s completely unnecessary you say a Christian uh I think it was John wiber that said uh that why would a Christian want a demon they make horrible pets so I always thought that was a pretty good answer but I remind you the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4 warned the church the most mature Church of all the letters received he warned them don&#39;t give give place to the devil it&#39;s not demon possession it&#39;s a place of influence Y which by the way in the Old Testament when the enemies of Israel gained influence in the city toaya I think it was toaya ended up moving into the temple where they kept the money if you want to know where the enemy wants to live in your temple he wants to live where the generosity lifestyle and I&#39;m not just talking about offerings and money I&#39;m talking about the way you look at people the way you look at human need the way you look at the power of your words to invest in someone it&#39;s that it&#39;s that seat of generosity that reveals we are like the father for God so loved the world that he gave and the enemy actually moved in took out all the possessions that were to belong in the temple and set up residence in this Temple it&#39;s crazy all right back to verse 24 I said I was going to teach on this for three or four minutes make that five or six all right let&#39;s try to get through this quickly when the unclean Spirit goes out of a man he goes through Dry places seeking rest finding none he says I will return to my house from which I came when he comes he finds it swept and put in order he goes and he takes with him seven other spirits that are more wicked than himself and they enter and dwell there the last state of that man is worse than the first this is a very fascinating story it does refer to a human being but it also how many remember when the Lord would speak of the House of David David was a man but he wasn&#39;t talking about his physical house right the House of David he&#39;s talking about the family line the house of Israel an entire nation so there are times where the scripture talks about the house of a man and the implications of much more far-reaching than just a human being and possessing his own physical body prayerlessness creates vacancy in the heart of a person this house was clean and swept and when the owner of the house didn&#39;t put furniture in the house in the place of where the enemy occupied it was left vacant I could take you through church history and I can show you where denominations and groups of people that were once powerhouses of the Gospel slackened off and ended up with vacant places that the enemy they once opposed came back seven times worse groups known for holiness became the seedbed of vast expressions of immorality and ungodliness the Very plac is occupied and I don&#39;t say that in as a as a criticism or or somehow to put people down I&#39;m just saying listen this is how the enemy works and prayerlessness is a vacancy because there&#39;s Furniture that&#39;s supposed to belong there in the house of my heart prayer is one of the couches and if I if I remove the couch there&#39;s a vacant spot and wherever there&#39;s a vacant spot the enemy wants to fill all right one more one more one more why don&#39;t you go to 1st Samuel chapter 12 let&#39;s get a little Old Testament action in this we can probably get about a hundred things on this list but I I had uh three or four of them written down and I I wanted to add a couple today for our our little talk first Samuel chapter 12 this is kind of a sobering moment with uh Samuel and Saul he gives him a warning verse 21 he sayso not turn aside then you&#39;d go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver they are nothing the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name&#39;s sake because it has pleased the Lord to make you his people verse 23 moreover as for me far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you now I don&#39;t know I&#39;ve read this verse for you know a long time and it&#39;s been one of those that has just stood out to me concerning the responsibility that we have for one another the responsibility that we have uh for leaders Etc but something hit me today when I was looking at this passage far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray I I don&#39;t know I I I don&#39;t understand it I&#39;m just I&#39;m marked by it as all I I I can&#39;t teach on it well but I&#39;m impacted by the fact that he says it&#39;s almost like here&#39;s a sinful act against the Lord but there wasn&#39;t a sinful act there was the stopping of a righteous act it almost looks like he&#39;s saying you know when you do this witchcraft you do this that this this junk that junk you&#39;re sinning against the Lord but for the prophet who knows what it is to Bear responsibility before God he said it would be a sin against God for him not to pray I&#39;m just here to encourage you that&#39;s [Laughter] all prayerfulness is a gift that we can carry throughout the day I loved blocks of time with refined Focus don&#39;t misunderstand me it&#39;s been a huge part of my life my goodness when I was a young man and was single I mean both ends of the day with extended periods of time as a pastor in Weaverville I remember just walking the city walking in the woods walking through the church I I walk when I pray because I don&#39;t get sleepy when I walk you know and I&#39;m able to to get a little bit more militant and aggressive it&#39;s just it&#39;s just better for me I I I can kneel and pray but I can also snore uh so I sleep is kind of like the kingdom of God it&#39;s at hand it&#39;s always right there it&#39;s it&#39;s a beautiful thing it&#39;s always it&#39;s always ever present and I I I practice falling asleep in the presence I really do I practice it I do how many of you have pray you determined to pray and you fell asleep yeah how many of you how many of you felt bad after you fell asleep go man I just can&#39;t seem to stay awake I I get that I I&#39;ve done that a lot but you know when my kids would fall asleep in my arms I I never once got mad at [Applause] them I actually held them hoping they would so there is a spot for the earnestness in prayer position yourself physically to remain Earnest and if you&#39;re sleepy get up and walk I mean just let&#39;s be practical get up and walk if you&#39;re not kneel before the Lord do whatever but when you go to bed at night remember you&#39;re praying without ceasing I used I don&#39;t know if I if I still do this because I&#39;m I&#39;m sleeping but I used to Brian actually captured lyrics of Solomon uh in one of his songs years ago though I sleep yet my heart is awake that&#39;s significant now well we&#39;ll wrap it up with this but I want you to catch this thought God appeared to Solomon in a dream Solomon made a life-altering decision in his sleep God trusted him in his resolve to the will of God so completely that he allowed Solomon to answer him in his sleep and Solomon was the one who pinned these words though I sleep my body is shut down resting my heart is awake and I I uh I I used to wake myself up praying I didn&#39;t wake up to pray I&#39;d be praying while I was sleeping I took a CR a trip with Chris years ago Chris came with me to Colorado to do this ww thing and I would I would just pray throughout throughout the night not knowing it I was sleeping but my heart was exploding with cries to God what you want to do is you want to you you&#39;ll have you&#39;ll have a better day if you have a better night and you&#39;ll have a better night if you engage with him not over difficult matters take care of that while you&#39;re wide awake I made the mistake last night of stirring up difficult matters and lost a bunch of sleep as a result it doesn&#39;t happen much but it it it happened last night and I just I just broke one of those rules that I know better on you you don&#39;t bring up the difficult things in the middle of the night you know it&#39;ll probably still be there tomorrow so engage with them tomorrow but the point is is we have this lifestyle of continuous fellowship with him ongoing prayer pray without ceasing and that is the luxury of this relationship is that I live before him in Heavenly places before a perfect father who hears me I don&#39;t think you have to have long prayers to get big answers but I do think you have to have Earnest prayers to get big answers if you study the book of Nehemiah you&#39;ll find a series of prayers that he prayed that were only one sentence long the prayers of Nehemiah just look at the prayers of Nehemiah one sense long but when you&#39;re dug in to an issue and this request is not just a passive thing to your conscience that you have now prayed but you&#39;ve actually dug in regarding a matter and you lift up that prayer there are times where one sentence brings the Breakthrough so we don&#39;t earn breakthroughs in a sense of I&#39;ve got to pray for this one thing for five hours then I know there&#39;ll be a breakthrough I had a friend that he he was uh just contending with the Lord over something he said he said I&#39;m just going to I&#39;m just going to I&#39;m going to spend the entire night before before the Lord praying for this matter as soon as he knelt down the Lord answered it and just kind of ruined his whole night and he was so shocked but you know that&#39;s what you do you dig in and if he brings it quick then you say thank you thank you so much I would have just rather have slept so this is great news I will now sleep but here&#39;s this issue of failing this is scripture so I I want to be careful that I don&#39;t trigger the wrong message in you but if I&#39;ve been given an assignment to pray and I don&#39;t it&#39;s as though I did something against God the absence the withdrawing from an assignment is an aggressive posture against so why don&#39;t you stand let&#39;s pray all we used at Weaverville we used to do prayer meetings a lot I we had them for years 6 every morning or five I think five days a week and then every Friday night we started with this prayam we started at 11: at night because I I want to people have time with their families I just want them to miss sleep not family time just this hardcore inyour face kind of prayer stuff and there were times there was a number of folks there and for a number of years there were times where nobody showed up I remember Chris one time he led the prayer meeting for me I was out of town and nobody showed up for that particular week so he took the microphone and he was just praying loudly all these he&#39;s the only one in the room but he&#39;s going for it you know as though there was a crowd of thousands I love that and I I love the corporate prayer Gathering I I hope I&#39;m hoping our schedules are so challenging our use of facilities is so challenging I&#39;m hoping at some point we can have a facility that&#39;s just for corporate prayer Gatherings it&#39;s if if you if you saw we have a hundred events a year here constant Demand on every room in the building and it&#39;s just one of the greatest challenges and what frustrates me is one of the greatest criis in my heart is the corporate prayer meeting I I love agreement in prayer I guess what I&#39;d like to see all of us take home is just this increased mantle for prayer there was actually there&#39;s actually one particular soor I see if I can find this there&#39;s one particular part of this story I did forget one I I&#39;ll just mention it to quickly because it&#39;s it&#39;s just bizarre this is Old Testament as well I knew there was one to do with the Pres it&#39;s a it&#39;s a strange thing it&#39;s this one phrase is mentioned maybe seven or eight times in one chapter and it was this whole deal they had built a the Temple of Solomon and the Lord was instructing people listen when you when you get into a battle when you get into a conflict when you get in this situation or that pray towards this house and that that phrase toward this house pray and we don&#39;t pray towards buildings and the Lord himself would say there isn&#39;t a building you can make that I could inhabit you know completely and yet he created this this system of thought where people would actually face Jerusalem and pray toward Ward Jerusalem why not as a religious ritual why not because it&#39;s a certain uh you know it&#39;s East it&#39;s it&#39;s it has a certain direction a geographical Direction it&#39;s because God was there the point is prayerlessness accentuates the absence of the awareness of the presence of God prayerfulness heightens our awareness of presence it&#39;s not just praying for the big things it&#39;s the continuous Fellowship it&#39;s that keeps me connected to presence ongoing presence so that when an urgent thing comes up we&#39;re there we&#39;re instant in seon in seasoning out I remember back in the 70s this guy was was telling us um his upstairs uh bathroom uh it took forever to get hot water cuz the hot water was at the other end of the house and and it would he&#39; just have to you know all this water would go through just trying to wait for hot water to come and so he said I found out that if I turned it on just a little tiny bit at night before I went to bed it would just just slowly drip and it would keep hot water ready so that when I got up the next morning I would turn it on instantly hot water that&#39;s what praying in tongues throughout your day does yes that&#39;s that&#39;s what that&#39;s what that&#39;s what praying in tongue does that&#39;s what praying ongoing throughout your day just keeps you connected to everpresent hot water I&#39;m ready to act now all right why don&#39;t you grab a hand we&#39;re going to pray we&#39;re going to pray for the prayerfulness the prayerfulness of Christ to be restored to us as people the prayerfulness of Christ to be restored to us as people tell them what you want ask him to do it to you for you I&#39;m going to pray over you in a moment but you pray right now for yourself pray for the ones on your right and left pray prayerfulness prayerfulness the prayerfulness of Jesus Jesus the prayerfulness of Christ the ongoing awareness of presence the ongoing awareness of the person of the Holy Spirit expand us God in this next season that there be dramatic increase and expansion in our awareness of your presence of your heartbeat declare over the one on your right and left prayerfulness just declare the prayerfulness of Christ is upon you the prayerfulness of Christ say it with authority the prayerfulness of Christ is upon you the prayerfulness of Christ is upon you the prayerfulness of Christ is upon you now just hold your hands before the Lord I&#39;m going to pray for you and we&#39;ll ends father I do ask that you would release as a gift over every person you know what folks I&#39;ve never prayed for this in my life the prayerfulness of Christ there&#39;s something in that phrase that&#39;s supposed to take us into this next season Lord I do pray the prayerfulness of Christ The Unbroken Fellowship throughout the day between Jesus and and the father and the spirit of God who is upon him I ask for the prayerfulness of Christ to rest upon us and that we would Embark together on this relational journey in a dimension that is so new so exciting so impacting on every part of our life I pray this for the honor of the name Jesus everybody said amen amen amen you

Jesus uses this illustration for repeated day and night prayer and then God says I&amp;#39;m going to answer speedily and I&amp;#39;m thinking man I&amp;#39;ve been banging on this door for 15 days you know when is this thing going to open he says I&amp;#39;m going to answer speedly and he does there&amp;#39;s a Tipping Point in prayer in which the answer is released and the answer always comes quickly but to get to that place where things shift sometimes takes persistence ever since I was a child I&amp;#39;ve always had a fear of someone under my bed at night so I went to a psychiatrist and told him I&amp;#39;ve got problems every time I go to bed I think there&amp;#39;s someone under it I&amp;#39;m scared I think I&amp;#39;m going crazy he responded just put yourself in my hands for one year said the shrink come talk to me three times a week we should be able to get rid of those fears how much do you charge he asked $80 per visit replied the doctor I&amp;#39;ll sleep on it he said I said 6 months later the doctor met me on the street he asked why didn&amp;#39;t you come to see me about those fears you were having I responded well 80 bucks a visit three times a week for a year is over $122,000 my neighbor cured me for free I was so happy to have saved all that money I went and bought a new pickup truck is that so the psychiatrist responded with a bit of an attitude he said and how may I ask did your neighbor cure you I replied he told me to cut the legs off the bed ain&amp;#39;t nobody under there [Applause] now oh goodness all right all right several weeks ago I I um during a message I I took a little detour for a few minutes and talked to you about the high price of prayerlessness and of course I would never mean this to be a shame ful message or uh some you know some harsh exhortation but instead an appeal uh that we could live sober minded and realize Jesus gives this overall commission and command and it has to do with the relationship with him and it&amp;#39;s the invitation to pray at all times pray without ceasing I personally like to think that the prayer without ceasing is the substance of prayer and the hour or whatever you take is the iang on the cake the real substance of prayer is the fact that it is continuous fellowship with God and prayerlessness has effects on our lives that is uh is very very sobering so what I want you to do is I&amp;#39;m going to I&amp;#39;ve got six stories I want to tell you not sure if I have time for all of them but or six passages that we&amp;#39;ll read and if we don&amp;#39;t I&amp;#39;ll just do it another time so but let&amp;#39;s go ahead and start with the first one I want you to go to the Gospel of Luke chapter 22 this we&amp;#39;re going to read a portion where Jesus is praying in the garden and this is where his sweat became as drops of of blood on his head the anguish his own prayer uh prayer time was physically having an effect on him where sweat became blood I don&amp;#39;t think it was a watered or wine type thing I think it was actually um such pressure was on him in prayer that he physically manifested blood as sweat on his forehead right before this Jesus and the disciples had a conversation and in this conversation Jesus announced to them that they were all going to fall away and Peter made of course the statement they they they might but I won&amp;#39;t and then Jesus said as a matter of fact Peter you&amp;#39;re going to deny me three times and this is the prayer meeting that followed that warning that Jesus gave him so if you look at this with me let&amp;#39;s go right to verse 33 we&amp;#39;re going to jump jump in the middle of the story um because of how much we have to read tonight verse 43 then an angel appeared to him from Heaven strengthening him and being in agony he prayed more earnestly then his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground when he rose up from prayer and had come to his disciples he found them sleeping from sorrow then he said to them why do you sleep rise and pray lest you enter into to Temptation that is a stunning uh moment to me in Peter&amp;#39;s life in that Jesus announced to him that he was about to deny him and yet he gave him access to a strength where Jesus would have been wrong he invited him into a time of prayer where had he had pursued he never would have entered entered into temptation temptation is an interesting thing because God never puts us in a position to be tempted the real issue of Temptation is that it&amp;#39;s the individual&amp;#39;s heart that translates a circumstance and makes it a Temptation an illustration that I give uh fairly often is let&amp;#39;s just say Brian and I are going to a lunch and let&amp;#39;s just say uh he&amp;#39;s doing real good with the Lord doing well his finances are just in order he&amp;#39;s just living in great Victory and I&amp;#39;m living in great fear I just I just I&amp;#39;m having a hard time I&amp;#39;m afraid I&amp;#39;m not going to be able to pay my bills I&amp;#39;ve got this anxiety fear thing going on so we sit down at the restaurant and right next to the salt and pepper shaker is a $100 bill folded up but the waitress doesn&amp;#39;t see it when she uh cleans the table and Brian excuses himself wants to go wash the fellowship off of his hands before before we have a have a meal together and uh when he goes I spot the $100 bill and it crosses my mind I could take that because she doesn&amp;#39;t even know it&amp;#39;s there and then I resist the temptation I go man that&amp;#39;s just totally wrong what am I thinking I repent for even having the thought I don&amp;#39;t take it Brian comes and sits down he notices the $100 bill he calls out the waitress by name he Andy look somebody gave you a really good tip it never crossed his mind now neither of us took the money but one of us was tempted heart condition turned a circumstance and made it a Temptation there are certain it&amp;#39;s almost like doors on a stage there are circumstances in life and what prayerfulness does is it gives you a discernment on the nature of the door you don&amp;#39;t even fall into the situation you don&amp;#39;t even come to where you would be exposed in your weak place because prayerfulness prayerfulness has heightened your awareness of what&amp;#39;s behind the door without the prayerfulness you may open the door you may fall into a Temptation and you may successfully hopefully resist the temptation but the point is is you want to go through life you you don&amp;#39;t want to face things for which you have no Grace it doesn&amp;#39;t mean you can&amp;#39;t muster up the strength to say no to that temp Temptation Of course you can we all have a will and we can choose but what&amp;#39;s tragic is some people because of prayerlessness live in a battle with circumstances they never should have had to face it it it um it dep it deplenish es is that the right deplenish it robs of strength it robs of creativity it robs of Natural Healthy authentic expression of who we are because we&amp;#39;re having to constantly fight battles we were never designed to fight so he said pray that you wouldn&amp;#39;t enter you wouldn&amp;#39;t even go through the doorway of what would be appealing to you at some weak place place in your own life I remember years ago Paul man wearing was he he used to be a used to run a prison in the UK and a highly decorated prison Warden and I remember what he would do when he was working with the prisoner is is he would remind himself that he had the same potential to be where they&amp;#39;re at that that they had and he would remind them they had the same potential to be where he was it&amp;#39;s all Grace and what prayerfulness doeses is it makes us aware of unseen things that are actually more real than what is visible we&amp;#39;re not talking about a Land of Make belief we&amp;#39;re not talking about the power of suggestion and just getting us psyched up so that we don&amp;#39;t fall into sin it&amp;#39;s not that at all it&amp;#39;s that we&amp;#39;re actually drawing upon a strength that is superior to everything else we could possibly muster up and prayerfulness unclutters the eyes to see what is real amen turn uh in your Bibles to the Book of Matthew chapter 44 this one is um is really stunning to me Matthew chapter 5 you guys all still alive that&amp;#39;s good I hate when people die in the meeting it&amp;#39;s just a so depressing Matthew Chapter 5 I have an interesting verse here in verse 43 I want you to look at it with me you have heard that it was said You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say to you love your enemies bless those who curse you do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you that you may be sons of your father in Heaven let&amp;#39;s take that last phrase pray for those who persecute you spitefully use you pray for them not against them pray for them so that you will be a son and or daughter of God now are you thinking there&amp;#39;s an exhortation to pray I don&amp;#39;t believe he&amp;#39;s saying pray for those who oppose you and then you&amp;#39;ll be born again we become Sons and Daughters of God in our faith in Christ that&amp;#39;s what causes us to be born again what he&amp;#39;s declaring over us is that when you pray when you exercise your right to come before the almighty God and you actually use it to pray on behalf of someone who has opposed you you&amp;#39;re praying for not against when you do that it becomes clear to you and to the entire Spirit realm that you are a child of God it becomes manifested why because you&amp;#39;re using your authority to come before a perfect father and you&amp;#39;re using it to actually pray be uh for someone on behalf positively for someone who has opposed you your identity in Christ becomes Manifest this is interesting because uh we don&amp;#39;t have time for it tonight but this will trigger something in some of you you remember in Romans 8 it says that all of creation groans that&amp;#39;s creation praying all creation groans travailing waiting for the Sons and Daughters of God to be manifested what does this saying when you pray for those who have opposed you you pray for those who others would consider to be your enemy and you pray for their blessing you pray for their welfare you pray as the perfect father would pray then your identity becomes established firm and revealed see there are certain things that are being withheld of the purposes of God in the earth and they&amp;#39;re being withheld as they will only be released to a people that have become manifested as the Sons and Daughters of God it is essential that we step into identity and one of the clearest ways is to pray for those who are opposed to there are Realms in God there are Realms in in manifestation of presence in Kingdom of power there are Realms in God that he has withheld only willing to release them Upon A people manifested as Sons and Daughters of God so what does this do causes the domino effect it positions us correctly as identified from Heaven you say well I was identified when you were born again he said do this so that you&amp;#39;ll be ident identified as a son as a daughter of God something happens in the Unseen realm that doesn&amp;#39;t happen another way some of you were here when I I&amp;#39;ve done uh teaching on communion Benny and I like to take communion every day which means it&amp;#39;s most every day and uh sometimes we do it together sometimes we do it individually I take supplies with me when I travel on the road and I just in Indonesia last week and would take communion before the Lord and there are a number of things that I do and I I won&amp;#39;t take a long time to mention this but when I hold the bread I make confession by his stripes I was healed and I pray for those who need the miracle because the payment is in my hand it&amp;#39;s the torn flesh of Jesus that was torn in the beating that he suffered by the stripes of Jesus I was healed is what the scripture says Benny actually somebody a friend of hers was dying had seven different diseases and uh she was in the hospital and she wrote Benny and Benny wrote her back a text or email and said take communion every day and gave her some instruction and within I don&amp;#39;t know how long I think it was within a month all seven diseases were gone she was completely healed there&amp;#39;s something about coming before the Lord with what he paid for you and for me so by his stripes I was healed but when I take the cup I pray over every family member I pray for uh my son Eric and his wife Candace for Kennedy and SAA I pray for Brian and Jen and Haley and ta Braden Moses I pray for Gabe and Leah my my daughter and son-in-law and I pray for their four kids Juda Diego Bell and Cruz and I pray over them each by name and I pray that prayer out of Jeremiah 24 that I actually started praying for my children before I found it was in the Bible when I found it it was in the Bible I thought it&amp;#39;s legal it&amp;#39;s a legal prayer I got so happy and I I&amp;#39;ve been praying for them since they were very very little children God give them a heart to know you it&amp;#39;s in Jeremiah 24 so I pray that over every family member I pray that God would help them to know his ways that he would they would hear his voice each one God has no grandchildren each one needs to be summoned by the father to himself and so I pray into that God let them hear and know your voice to be summoned to you when I&amp;#39;m through praying for my family which I just I enjoy so much just in fact what I do is I make confession as I make a confession by his stripes we are healed when I hold the blood before the Lord I make the confession as for me in my house we will serve the Lord every single family member we will serve you with Purity with power we will do so with passion and great Zeal we will withhold nothing from you it&amp;#39;s the great privilege of prayer but as soon as I&amp;#39;m through praying for my family I I pray for three people that are international and two that are not International who have taken a position to oppose me as an individual to write against me to hold conferences against me and to do videos and write books that sort of thing and I bring their name to the Lord you see what they&amp;#39;re doing takes great Zeal and great courage do I think they&amp;#39;re accurate no of course I don&amp;#39;t but they are offering something to to the Lord out of an offering of great courage and great risk they suffer for their decision I don&amp;#39;t support the decision but I support them and so what I do is I bring their names before the Lord and I ask the Lord please cause them to prosper Spirit soul and body cause them and this is my the big thing I pray for is cause these men cause them all of their children and all of their grandchildren to serve you with great Zeal and great joy I want them to know the pleasure of having children that serve God and grandchildren I don&amp;#39;t want any of them to fall away I don&amp;#39;t want any of them to become complacent or cold-hearted and so I bring them before the Lord see this is what Jesus said he said when you pray for those who spitefully use you when you pray for on behalf of in supportive those who persecute you you are a son what else is there okay I&amp;#39;m going to be a sun today I was before I prayed but something becomes pronounced and manifest when I begin to pray out of earnestness of my heart God cause these people to prosper bless them I don&amp;#39;t pray that God would change their minds I don&amp;#39;t pray oh God expose the error of their way I don&amp;#39;t pray any of those things you never criticize a servant to its Master Proverbs warns against criticizing a servant to its master that is forbidden territory they are not my servant we had situations go on here at Beth many many many years ago and here in reading and people would come to me they say well what do you think about this and I would tell them no one can force me to have an opinion I am unwilling to take mental energy and put it into a situation for which I have no responsibility you do not criticize a servant to their master and so Jesus reveals In this passage one of the greatest things re that we need right now how many Believers are there in the world it&amp;#39;s an extraordinary number of hundreds of millions I wonder what would happen to their posture before Kings if they simply gave themselves to pray for those who oppose them should go to the Book of James you all right yep me too me too a little messed up but I was messed up when I got up here so Chris o didn&amp;#39;t help at all with that one we we we got a little little wreck down there in the front row second row third row how many of you in the back row got a little messed up too yeah that&amp;#39;s right yeah turn in your Bibles to the Book of James and we&amp;#39;re going to look at just one phrase out of one verse um and and the reason the whole verse the whole chapter obviously is always worth studying but I&amp;#39;m wanting to take a phrase because that I I don&amp;#39;t want to be distracted by the rest so hopefully that&amp;#39;ll make sense to you we&amp;#39;re going to take verse two you lust and do of chapter 4 James 4: two you lust and do not have you murder and covet and cannot con obtain you fight and War and here it is you do not have because you do not ask say this with me you do not have because you do not ask say it with me now you do not have because you do not ask say it again you do not have because you do not ask prayerlessness creates lack prayerlessness fuels lack prayerlessness is is what um prayerlessness is what lack wants to consume when we Face a need and there&amp;#39;s prayerlessness it actually fuels lack instead of causes it to be solved and disappear you have not because you ask not so prayerlessness actually sustains need and lack many people walk around waiting for God to do something and what I&amp;#39;ve been finding out and I&amp;#39;m a slow and I do mean slow learner I&amp;#39;ve been finding out most of the time he&amp;#39;s waiting for me to do something I mean how many you understand we&amp;#39;re not talking about uh as you thank God for the meal God thank you for the meal um and provide for us today amen I&amp;#39;m not saying that prayer doesn&amp;#39;t work but if you&amp;#39;ve got a big need you might want to dig in a bit you might want to dig in a bit let the weightiness of what you&amp;#39;re facing determine the weightiness of how you pray casual prayers get casual answers if if you are willing to live off of token answers then offer up token prayers but if you want heaven to move let your heart be moved he&amp;#39;ll move as far as you move I&amp;#39;m not saying at all that he can&amp;#39;t surpass anything that we do and cry out and lift up he&amp;#39;s God he can do whatever he wants but in his effort to raise us as Sons and Daughters of God that can carry responsibility into the Earth most of the time he looks for Earnest response in us to bring forth an Earnest response from him I I I hope that doesn&amp;#39;t sound like a Works thing because I don&amp;#39;t see it that way at all it&amp;#39;s just you know what when you&amp;#39;re on the altar you can pray earnestly when you&amp;#39;re off the altar considering the concept of the altar you pray timidly I heard recently when you&amp;#39;re on the altar you can pray earnestly it&amp;#39;s when you&amp;#39;re off the altar considering the concept of sacrifice that&amp;#39;s where we pray token prayers amen bill that was a really good point why don&amp;#39;t you it&amp;#39;s too late Luke chapter 18 I&amp;#39;m just teasing Luke chapter 18 Luke chapter 18 sorry I I have a gift of Torment I just just it&amp;#39;s just what I do I torment people I My love language is teasing so I you know if I didn&amp;#39;t tease you you could walk out of here wondering if I loved you but but there should be no question now read uh Chris read this this morning in uh I don&amp;#39;t know one of our services we only had 800 services this no no not he read this this morning start uh with me with verse one it&amp;#39;s a longer piece he spoke a parable to them men ought to pray and not lose heart so we&amp;#39;re talking about pray prayer that&amp;#39;s not just a petition prayer but it&amp;#39;s persistent in its petition he said there was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man there was a widow in that City and she came to him saying get Justice for me from my adversary he would not for a while but afterward said within himself though I do not fear God nor regard man yet because this Widow troubles me I will avenge her lest by her continual coming she wear me out out the Lord said hear what the unjust said judge said and shall God and shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out to him day and night though he Bears long with them I tell you that he will avenge them speedily nevertheless when the son of man returns will he really find faith on the earth this is interesting because we have on one hand we the picture is of a widow that just keeps banging on the door of the Jud and then Jesus uses this illustration for repeated day and night prayer and then God says I&amp;#39;m going to answer speedily he obviously thinks of speedily different than I do he says I&amp;#39;m going to answer speedily and I&amp;#39;m thinking man I&amp;#39;ve been banging on this door for 15 days you know when is this thing going to open he says I&amp;#39;m going to answer speedily and he does there&amp;#39;s a Tippy Point Tipping Point in prayer in which the answer is released and the answer always comes quickly but to get to that place where things shift sometimes takes persistence prayerlessness actually allows circumstances to be um uh prayer lessness allows the absence of breakthrough to become the norm and generally we come to the conclusion well I prayed and it just God sovereignly did not answer so the absence of an answer falls under under the category that we call the sovereignty of God and yet Jesus is saying persistence would have got the Breakthrough so we&amp;#39;re talking now not just about a prayer prayed but a lifestyle of anchoring into something now I mentioned this I&amp;#39;ve I&amp;#39;ve done this teaching here uh several years back and I mentioned it in our conference this week and let me give you like the two-minute version Jesus said that we&amp;#39;re not to use vain repetition in prayer in other words you&amp;#39;re not to repeat a prayer over and over again because he knows what you have need of before you ask in the very next chapter he says ask and continue to ask the language there is a a a verb that says you do this but you continue doing it until this&amp;#39;s breakthrough so in two chapters back to back one says ask and don&amp;#39;t keep on asking the other one says ask and continue asking what&amp;#39;s the difference come back next week and I&amp;#39;ll tell you no what&amp;#39;s the difference when he said don&amp;#39;t repeatedly lift up the prayer for before me for something he said for your father father knows what you have need of before you ask this is pertaining to basic needs for me to say father would you provide food for me today and for me to ask him every five minutes is for me to question that he&amp;#39;s actually a father because it violates his nature in his Covenant to me as a father who is committed to taking care of my my needs the persistence in prayer has to do with how we pray with our dreams the persistence in prayer I I I&amp;#39;m supposed to pray for what I have need of God provide for us our our our food today I&amp;#39;m supposed to pray for these things God I I need to buy coats for my kids before winter sets in I&amp;#39;m supposed to pray for those things but those are basic human needs you lift them up and then you celebrate the fact that you serve a righteous and perfect father but when it comes to the unfolding of a dream God I&amp;#39;ve got it in my heart to have this business oh God this thing has been in me for so many years and you fast you get before the Lord you cry out for breakthrough and you contend for this breakthrough why because persistence in prayer changes you and changes you to where you become a person that can properly Steward the answer that you just prayed for if he gives us much of what we ask for when we ask for it would kill us I I mean literally it would kill us why does God discipline his children is so that His blessings don&amp;#39;t kill us we ask for oak trees he gives us acorns why can you Steward the answer in its embryonic form because in stewarding as it grows I become a different person my strength increases my resolve increases my sense of priorities change all of a sudden I have this willingness to pay any price because I can see something happening before my eyes I change with persistence in prayer and so this exhortation for persistence in prayer is connected to breakthrough and where there is not prayer and especially the prayer of persistence there&amp;#39;s the absence of breakthrough all right we&amp;#39;re almost done isn&amp;#39;t that fun let&amp;#39;s uh let&amp;#39;s do two more we&amp;#39;ll do uh Luke 11 let&amp;#39;s back up a few chapters you guys all right everybody still all right I don&amp;#39;t know what I would do actually I&amp;#39;ve had times where I&amp;#39;ve said are you&amp;#39;re all right and somebody&amp;#39;s yelled out no I wasn&amp;#39;t sure what to do the only thing that works for me is just to ignore [Laughter] them now this this one is a little bit more abstract but I but I um if I could teach 20 minutes on this which I&amp;#39;m not going to do I&amp;#39;m going to take maybe three or four minutes five minutes if I could teach 20 minutes on this it would make a whole lot more sense I&amp;#39;m just going to trust that you can work with it if you can&amp;#39;t stick it on the shelf and see what happens in the future Luke 11 verse 24 when an unclean Spirit go goes out of a man he goes through Dry places seeking rest does anybody remember who the holy spirit is inside of us he&amp;#39;s in us as a river in John chapter 7 the enemy is looking for dry places those who fail to connect with the flow of presence become a dry place and it&amp;#39;s completely unnecessary you say a Christian uh I think it was John wiber that said uh that why would a Christian want a demon they make horrible pets so I always thought that was a pretty good answer but I remind you the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4 warned the church the most mature Church of all the letters received he warned them don&amp;#39;t give give place to the devil it&amp;#39;s not demon possession it&amp;#39;s a place of influence Y which by the way in the Old Testament when the enemies of Israel gained influence in the city toaya I think it was toaya ended up moving into the temple where they kept the money if you want to know where the enemy wants to live in your temple he wants to live where the generosity lifestyle and I&amp;#39;m not just talking about offerings and money I&amp;#39;m talking about the way you look at people the way you look at human need the way you look at the power of your words to invest in someone it&amp;#39;s that it&amp;#39;s that seat of generosity that reveals we are like the father for God so loved the world that he gave and the enemy actually moved in took out all the possessions that were to belong in the temple and set up residence in this Temple it&amp;#39;s crazy all right back to verse 24 I said I was going to teach on this for three or four minutes make that five or six all right let&amp;#39;s try to get through this quickly when the unclean Spirit goes out of a man he goes through Dry places seeking rest finding none he says I will return to my house from which I came when he comes he finds it swept and put in order he goes and he takes with him seven other spirits that are more wicked than himself and they enter and dwell there the last state of that man is worse than the first this is a very fascinating story it does refer to a human being but it also how many remember when the Lord would speak of the House of David David was a man but he wasn&amp;#39;t talking about his physical house right the House of David he&amp;#39;s talking about the family line the house of Israel an entire nation so there are times where the scripture talks about the house of a man and the implications of much more far-reaching than just a human being and possessing his own physical body prayerlessness creates vacancy in the heart of a person this house was clean and swept and when the owner of the house didn&amp;#39;t put furniture in the house in the place of where the enemy occupied it was left vacant I could take you through church history and I can show you where denominations and groups of people that were once powerhouses of the Gospel slackened off and ended up with vacant places that the enemy they once opposed came back seven times worse groups known for holiness became the seedbed of vast expressions of immorality and ungodliness the Very plac is occupied and I don&amp;#39;t say that in as a as a criticism or or somehow to put people down I&amp;#39;m just saying listen this is how the enemy works and prayerlessness is a vacancy because there&amp;#39;s Furniture that&amp;#39;s supposed to belong there in the house of my heart prayer is one of the couches and if I if I remove the couch there&amp;#39;s a vacant spot and wherever there&amp;#39;s a vacant spot the enemy wants to fill all right one more one more one more why don&amp;#39;t you go to 1st Samuel chapter 12 let&amp;#39;s get a little Old Testament action in this we can probably get about a hundred things on this list but I I had uh three or four of them written down and I I wanted to add a couple today for our our little talk first Samuel chapter 12 this is kind of a sobering moment with uh Samuel and Saul he gives him a warning verse 21 he sayso not turn aside then you&amp;#39;d go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver they are nothing the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name&amp;#39;s sake because it has pleased the Lord to make you his people verse 23 moreover as for me far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you now I don&amp;#39;t know I&amp;#39;ve read this verse for you know a long time and it&amp;#39;s been one of those that has just stood out to me concerning the responsibility that we have for one another the responsibility that we have uh for leaders Etc but something hit me today when I was looking at this passage far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray I I don&amp;#39;t know I I I don&amp;#39;t understand it I&amp;#39;m just I&amp;#39;m marked by it as all I I I can&amp;#39;t teach on it well but I&amp;#39;m impacted by the fact that he says it&amp;#39;s almost like here&amp;#39;s a sinful act against the Lord but there wasn&amp;#39;t a sinful act there was the stopping of a righteous act it almost looks like he&amp;#39;s saying you know when you do this witchcraft you do this that this this junk that junk you&amp;#39;re sinning against the Lord but for the prophet who knows what it is to Bear responsibility before God he said it would be a sin against God for him not to pray I&amp;#39;m just here to encourage you that&amp;#39;s [Laughter] all prayerfulness is a gift that we can carry throughout the day I loved blocks of time with refined Focus don&amp;#39;t misunderstand me it&amp;#39;s been a huge part of my life my goodness when I was a young man and was single I mean both ends of the day with extended periods of time as a pastor in Weaverville I remember just walking the city walking in the woods walking through the church I I walk when I pray because I don&amp;#39;t get sleepy when I walk you know and I&amp;#39;m able to to get a little bit more militant and aggressive it&amp;#39;s just it&amp;#39;s just better for me I I I can kneel and pray but I can also snore uh so I sleep is kind of like the kingdom of God it&amp;#39;s at hand it&amp;#39;s always right there it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s a beautiful thing it&amp;#39;s always it&amp;#39;s always ever present and I I I practice falling asleep in the presence I really do I practice it I do how many of you have pray you determined to pray and you fell asleep yeah how many of you how many of you felt bad after you fell asleep go man I just can&amp;#39;t seem to stay awake I I get that I I&amp;#39;ve done that a lot but you know when my kids would fall asleep in my arms I I never once got mad at [Applause] them I actually held them hoping they would so there is a spot for the earnestness in prayer position yourself physically to remain Earnest and if you&amp;#39;re sleepy get up and walk I mean just let&amp;#39;s be practical get up and walk if you&amp;#39;re not kneel before the Lord do whatever but when you go to bed at night remember you&amp;#39;re praying without ceasing I used I don&amp;#39;t know if I if I still do this because I&amp;#39;m I&amp;#39;m sleeping but I used to Brian actually captured lyrics of Solomon uh in one of his songs years ago though I sleep yet my heart is awake that&amp;#39;s significant now well we&amp;#39;ll wrap it up with this but I want you to catch this thought God appeared to Solomon in a dream Solomon made a life-altering decision in his sleep God trusted him in his resolve to the will of God so completely that he allowed Solomon to answer him in his sleep and Solomon was the one who pinned these words though I sleep my body is shut down resting my heart is awake and I I uh I I used to wake myself up praying I didn&amp;#39;t wake up to pray I&amp;#39;d be praying while I was sleeping I took a CR a trip with Chris years ago Chris came with me to Colorado to do this ww thing and I would I would just pray throughout throughout the night not knowing it I was sleeping but my heart was exploding with cries to God what you want to do is you want to you you&amp;#39;ll have you&amp;#39;ll have a better day if you have a better night and you&amp;#39;ll have a better night if you engage with him not over difficult matters take care of that while you&amp;#39;re wide awake I made the mistake last night of stirring up difficult matters and lost a bunch of sleep as a result it doesn&amp;#39;t happen much but it it it happened last night and I just I just broke one of those rules that I know better on you you don&amp;#39;t bring up the difficult things in the middle of the night you know it&amp;#39;ll probably still be there tomorrow so engage with them tomorrow but the point is is we have this lifestyle of continuous fellowship with him ongoing prayer pray without ceasing and that is the luxury of this relationship is that I live before him in Heavenly places before a perfect father who hears me I don&amp;#39;t think you have to have long prayers to get big answers but I do think you have to have Earnest prayers to get big answers if you study the book of Nehemiah you&amp;#39;ll find a series of prayers that he prayed that were only one sentence long the prayers of Nehemiah just look at the prayers of Nehemiah one sense long but when you&amp;#39;re dug in to an issue and this request is not just a passive thing to your conscience that you have now prayed but you&amp;#39;ve actually dug in regarding a matter and you lift up that prayer there are times where one sentence brings the Breakthrough so we don&amp;#39;t earn breakthroughs in a sense of I&amp;#39;ve got to pray for this one thing for five hours then I know there&amp;#39;ll be a breakthrough I had a friend that he he was uh just contending with the Lord over something he said he said I&amp;#39;m just going to I&amp;#39;m just going to I&amp;#39;m going to spend the entire night before before the Lord praying for this matter as soon as he knelt down the Lord answered it and just kind of ruined his whole night and he was so shocked but you know that&amp;#39;s what you do you dig in and if he brings it quick then you say thank you thank you so much I would have just rather have slept so this is great news I will now sleep but here&amp;#39;s this issue of failing this is scripture so I I want to be careful that I don&amp;#39;t trigger the wrong message in you but if I&amp;#39;ve been given an assignment to pray and I don&amp;#39;t it&amp;#39;s as though I did something against God the absence the withdrawing from an assignment is an aggressive posture against so why don&amp;#39;t you stand let&amp;#39;s pray all we used at Weaverville we used to do prayer meetings a lot I we had them for years 6 every morning or five I think five days a week and then every Friday night we started with this prayam we started at 11: at night because I I want to people have time with their families I just want them to miss sleep not family time just this hardcore inyour face kind of prayer stuff and there were times there was a number of folks there and for a number of years there were times where nobody showed up I remember Chris one time he led the prayer meeting for me I was out of town and nobody showed up for that particular week so he took the microphone and he was just praying loudly all these he&amp;#39;s the only one in the room but he&amp;#39;s going for it you know as though there was a crowd of thousands I love that and I I love the corporate prayer Gathering I I hope I&amp;#39;m hoping our schedules are so challenging our use of facilities is so challenging I&amp;#39;m hoping at some point we can have a facility that&amp;#39;s just for corporate prayer Gatherings it&amp;#39;s if if you if you saw we have a hundred events a year here constant Demand on every room in the building and it&amp;#39;s just one of the greatest challenges and what frustrates me is one of the greatest criis in my heart is the corporate prayer meeting I I love agreement in prayer I guess what I&amp;#39;d like to see all of us take home is just this increased mantle for prayer there was actually there&amp;#39;s actually one particular soor I see if I can find this there&amp;#39;s one particular part of this story I did forget one I I&amp;#39;ll just mention it to quickly because it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s just bizarre this is Old Testament as well I knew there was one to do with the Pres it&amp;#39;s a it&amp;#39;s a strange thing it&amp;#39;s this one phrase is mentioned maybe seven or eight times in one chapter and it was this whole deal they had built a the Temple of Solomon and the Lord was instructing people listen when you when you get into a battle when you get into a conflict when you get in this situation or that pray towards this house and that that phrase toward this house pray and we don&amp;#39;t pray towards buildings and the Lord himself would say there isn&amp;#39;t a building you can make that I could inhabit you know completely and yet he created this this system of thought where people would actually face Jerusalem and pray toward Ward Jerusalem why not as a religious ritual why not because it&amp;#39;s a certain uh you know it&amp;#39;s East it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s it has a certain direction a geographical Direction it&amp;#39;s because God was there the point is prayerlessness accentuates the absence of the awareness of the presence of God prayerfulness heightens our awareness of presence it&amp;#39;s not just praying for the big things it&amp;#39;s the continuous Fellowship it&amp;#39;s that keeps me connected to presence ongoing presence so that when an urgent thing comes up we&amp;#39;re there we&amp;#39;re instant in seon in seasoning out I remember back in the 70s this guy was was telling us um his upstairs uh bathroom uh it took forever to get hot water cuz the hot water was at the other end of the house and and it would he&amp;#39; just have to you know all this water would go through just trying to wait for hot water to come and so he said I found out that if I turned it on just a little tiny bit at night before I went to bed it would just just slowly drip and it would keep hot water ready so that when I got up the next morning I would turn it on instantly hot water that&amp;#39;s what praying in tongues throughout your day does yes that&amp;#39;s that&amp;#39;s what that&amp;#39;s what that&amp;#39;s what praying in tongue does that&amp;#39;s what praying ongoing throughout your day just keeps you connected to everpresent hot water I&amp;#39;m ready to act now all right why don&amp;#39;t you grab a hand we&amp;#39;re going to pray we&amp;#39;re going to pray for the prayerfulness the prayerfulness of Christ to be restored to us as people the prayerfulness of Christ to be restored to us as people tell them what you want ask him to do it to you for you I&amp;#39;m going to pray over you in a moment but you pray right now for yourself pray for the ones on your right and left pray prayerfulness prayerfulness the prayerfulness of Jesus Jesus the prayerfulness of Christ the ongoing awareness of presence the ongoing awareness of the person of the Holy Spirit expand us God in this next season that there be dramatic increase and expansion in our awareness of your presence of your heartbeat declare over the one on your right and left prayerfulness just declare the prayerfulness of Christ is upon you the prayerfulness of Christ say it with authority the prayerfulness of Christ is upon you the prayerfulness of Christ is upon you the prayerfulness of Christ is upon you now just hold your hands before the Lord I&amp;#39;m going to pray for you and we&amp;#39;ll ends father I do ask that you would release as a gift over every person you know what folks I&amp;#39;ve never prayed for this in my life the prayerfulness of Christ there&amp;#39;s something in that phrase that&amp;#39;s supposed to take us into this next season Lord I do pray the prayerfulness of Christ The Unbroken Fellowship throughout the day between Jesus and and the father and the spirit of God who is upon him I ask for the prayerfulness of Christ to rest upon us and that we would Embark together on this relational journey in a dimension that is so new so exciting so impacting on every part of our life I pray this for the honor of the name Jesus everybody said amen amen amen you

Transcript for:Lecture on the Importance and Practice of Persistent Prayer

Transcript for:
Lecture on the Importance and Practice of Persistent Prayer