Transcript Prayer: Part 3 of 3(000,000)

Prayer: Part 3 of
3(000,000)
Sue Bohlin
November 19, 2002
Prayers we pray
persistently (review)
• “God, show me where I’m being
deceived.”
• Prayer for protection of
ourselves and others
How Do You Cultivate a Love
Relationship with God?
• Ask Him for a
child's heart
(Bailey’s Jesus)
• Ask Him for a
lover's heart
toward Jesus
• The Sacred
Romance (John
Eldredge and Brent
Curtis)
How Do You Cultivate a Love
Relationship with God?
•
•
•
•
•
Gratitude / God Sighting Journal
Give
Spend time with Him
Praise music
Seek freshness in His word: The
Message
"Are you tired?
Worn out?
Burned out on religion?
Come to Me.
Get away with Me
and you'll recover your life.
I'll show you how to take a real rest.
Walk with Me and work with Me watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
I won't lay anything heavy
or ill-fitting on you.
Keep company with Me
and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
Jesus
Listening Prayer:
How Do You Know God's
Voice?
• Relationship means one speaks, the
other listens, and vice versa
• “My sheep hear My voice” John 10:16
• Christianity is supposed to be
supernatural
• Check it out with the Word, with wise
counsel, with circumstances
• Go to where the peace is
Listening Prayer:
How Do You Know God's
Voice?
•
•
•
•
Munich
Ray: God's no to Chicago
You don't always know it's God
Curt: ”There's the girl you're going to
marry"
Learning to Listen to God
1. Quiet your heart and spirit before
God
2. "Lord, do You have anything You'd
like to say to me?"
3. Read through a passage of scripture
with an attitude of expectation that He
wants to speak to you
Learning to Listen to God
• Different from reading the Bible to
check off your "to do" list
• Different from Bible study
• Read it until He stops you. Then
listen.
Learning to Listen to God
4. Isaiah 55:1-2
– "Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no money come, buy and
eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money
and without cost. Why do you spend money for
what is not bread, And your wages for what
does not satisfy?”
5. Be alert around water (bath, shower,
pool)
Praying in Jesus’ Name
• Star Trek: Jean-Luc Picard's "Make
it so”
• Christian belief that saying "In
Jesus' name" forces God to make it
so
• That's a belief in the power of words
to create or change reality: sorcery.
Praying in Jesus’ Name
• Christ’s death on the Cross is what it
cost to:
– Pay for our sins
– Reconcile us to God
– Give us the authority to approach God
• We must never pray as if we
deserved to be heard.
• On the other hand. . .
Praying in Jesus’ Name
• “Therefore let us
draw near with
confidence to the
throne of grace, so
that we may
receive mercy and
find grace to help
in time of need.”
Hebrews 4:16
Praying in Jesus' Name
Means:
• We approach the throne of God with
a conscious identity of who we are
• We pray the same way the Lord
Jesus would pray.
• HWJP? (How Would Jesus Pray?)
– In confident expectation of being heard
– In humble submission to the Father's
perfect will
Praying in Jesus' Name
Means:
• Praying on the basis of the authority
Christ Himself granted us.
– “Is anyone among you sick? Then he
must call for the elders of the church and
they are to pray over him, anointing him
with oil in the name of the Lord; and the
prayer offered in faith will restore the one
who is sick, and the Lord will raise him
up, and if he has committed sins, they
will be forgiven him." James 5:14-15
The Role of Faith
• Word-faith praying is
– Deciding what you want
– Confessing with your mouth that God
has done it
• The power is in your faith, not really
in God
“Many sincere Christians have been
influenced by the sorcerer's gospel to
imagine that faith has some power in itself.
. . .To them faith is not placed in God but is
a power directed at God, which forces him
to do for us what we have believed he will
do. At the very least this makes God
subject to alleged "laws" that we can
activate by "faith"; at worst it eliminates
God from the process altogether, putting
everything in our own hands and thus
turning us into gods who can make
anything happen by our "power of belief."
If everything works according to such "law,"
then God is no longer sovereign and there
is no place for grace. All one needs to do is
to exercise this "power of belief." That is
the basic idea behind sorcery.
Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon,
The Seduction of Christianity
The Role of Faith
• We need to have faith in GOD, not
faith in our FAITH
• We need to trust God, believing that
• He CAN do whatever we ask
• We submit to His will regardless of
what it is
The Role of Faith
"God, I believe you can do what I'm
asking.
I trust You to do what is best here.
I ask for ______, but I want your will to
be done."
Faith That Moves Mountains
• "Truly, truly I say to you, whoever
says to this mountain, 'Be taken up
and cast into the sea, and does not
doubt in his heart, but believes that
what he says is going to happen, it
shall be granted him." Mark 11:23
• This kind of faith is a gift of God, not a
work of the flesh.
Faith That Moves Mountains
• "20 Reasons We Do Not Receiving
Healing" essay:
– "If you use 'If it be thy will,' you are
destroying faith. God said already that it
is His will."
• Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane:
"Please let this cup pass from me, but
not My will but Thine be done."
Faith That Moves Mountains
• Mountain-moving faith is a spiritual
gift (1 Cor. 12:9)
• Don't feel guilty if God didn't give you
the gift of supernatural faith!
• Experiencing God author Henry
Blackaby has the spiritual gift of faith
Prayer and the Law of
Agreement
• "Again, I tell you that if two of you on
earth agree about anything you ask
for, it will be done for you by My
Father in heaven. For where two or
three come together in My name,
there am I with them." Matthew
18:19-20
• Context of this passage: church
discipline