PRAYER AND PROPHETIC CONFERENCE 2011 MIKE BICKLE Transcript: 10/14/11. How to Develop a Strong Prayer Life

Transcription

1 Transcript: 10/14/11 INTRODUCTION I find that people who really love God dream of having a good prayer life. But when they look back over ten years, they don t. And that s one of the greatest sources of pain in the life of a person who really wants to go deep with God. They know prayer is important, but for some reason, they just can t quite get around to it. And just so you don t feel lonely in this, or like you ve been isolated by the enemy as the only guy who doesn t do it. That s the prevailing confession of on-fire believers all across the world. They feel the same way. So I m not trying to comfort you in your pain. What I want to do is give you some encouragement in how to get out of the pain. Not to feel, Well, at least everyone else is suffering, too; that makes me feel better. No, that s not the point of this session. Paragraph A. And again like always, we won t cover all the notes here, but I m just giving you something you can take home and look at in more detail if you want. Prayer has many different expressions. When we talk about a prayer life, what do we mean? And I mentioned four different expressions of prayer, though the list could be longer. Number one: I m talking about intimacy with God, connecting with God at the heart level as an individual, where you feel His love and you re strengthened to love Him in return. I call that intimacy with God. There s a second type of prayer called intercession, or interceding for revival. We re not praying for our own heart, but we re praying for the break-in of the Spirit on a geographic area or on the Church or in society. Then there s a third type of prayer where you re covering or you re praying for someone in a real specific way. You re locked in to an individual and asking for the provision, protection, and guidance of the Lord for that individual. And then there s praying for the sick. That s part of our prayer life, where you re praying for a person right in front of you. You re laying hands on them. That s a legitimate part of your prayer life. And we can give several different categories as well, but the idea is that there are many expressions of having a strong prayer life. B. A consistent prayer life and the emphasis is on the word consistent is essential. It s just not a grand idea; it s essential if we will walk in the fullness of what God has promised us. Everyone wants fullness, but there are certain conditions to walking in the fullness of what God has ordained for us, and a consistent prayer life is one of them. That s probably one of the most challenging aspects of this. PRAYER IS BOTH A PRIVILEGE AND A FIERCE STRUGGLE Paragraph C. What is prayer? Well, you could describe it in a number of ways. And the simplest way to describe it is, it s talking to God. That s obvious. But it s an amazing privilege. I want to put that before you. The idea that the transcendent God, infinitely superior to all others, actually wants to talk with us, is amazing. Sometimes I take a step back and go, Wait, prayer isn t just talking to You. It s the most awesome privilege, that He actually leans forward, so to speak, and He really wants to hear us. I mean, you can t get the attention of the rich and famous and powerful if you want it. They just don t have interest. But He is really interested. That s remarkable.

2 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 2 But it s not only a privilege, it s a fierce struggle. I don t know of anything that has more challenge to it than staying consistent in this area. There are so many reasons not to follow through hindrances, struggles, fears but if you know that and you sign up for it, then, when you experience the struggle, you don t give up. You think, You know, this is part of it. But it s also a miracle that the Spirit actually helps people like you and me to enjoy prayer. SOME OF THE COMMON STRUGGLES OF PEOPLE WHO ARE STARTING IN PRAYER I remember in my early days in the Lord, I really hated prayer. I mean I hated prayer. I was eighteen years old, in college, and my youth pastors told me, If you want to grow in God, you have to have a prayer life. I said, OK, I m in. I read some books on prayer. The most notable writer, for me, was a man named Leonard Ravenhill. Some of you know his name. He has written some of the classics. He went to go home to be with the Lord a few years ago. But from about 1930 to 1990, he had a massive ministry. Well, massive isn t the right word; it was challenging and inspiring. He wrote on prayer for fifty, sixty years. I would read his books and feel convinced that I needed to do it, and I would feel miserable about it. Then I would go to my little prayer room and I hated it. It was miserable. And so, to even the score, I said, Well, at least I ll just read more books about how I should do it. If I feel bad, maybe God will call it even. Well it didn t really work that way, but anyway. If you had told me back in my college years that one day I would be leading a prayer ministry, I would have siad, You ve totally got the wrong idea. I mean, I loved being active; I was not a settle down and talk to God kind of guy. And I really loved Jesus when I was eighteen years old; really dedicated. I would read the biographies of the missionaries and I was going hard for God; I really loved Him, but I didn t like prayer. I didn t like Bible study, I didn t like fasting, but I liked meetings. I loved meetings. I could go to meetings every day. I loved a meeting, a Bible study, worship, and everyone there. Yea, I loved meetings. But when the meeting was over, just me, God, and the Bible. I thought, Lord, I love everything about You besides talking to You and reading about You. I really love You, though. I mean, I meant it. I really did love God. I said, I ll go to meetings every day and I ll go on outreaches all day, but please don t make me sit down and talk to You. The Bible was super-confusing. But here s my point. Like I tell some of our students here, I really struggled with it. Because I know they re nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one years old. They re feeling the same and they re thinking, Oh you re being humble. You re trying to be nice. No, I really didn t like prayer and Bible study, but I loved the Lord. And I tell them, But now I love it. I don t mean I always love it. But many times over these last years, I find I love prayer and the Word. And I thought, What a miracle. And they would kind of roll their eyes and think, Well, you re supposed to, you re the IHOP-KC guy. Of course you do. I say, No, no you don t know. There wasn t one chance in a million when I was twenty years old that I would be the IHOP-KC guy. If you had told me that, I would have quit right then. I would have said, I ve been banished to Siberia. No, please, anything besides that.

3 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 3 That would have been a horrifying concept to me, not a glorious one. So I know from personal experience, if a guy like me can actually go from hating it and that s not exaggerated hating it to liking it, I know that you can too. IT S IMPOSSIBLE TO EXPERIENCE FULLNESS IN GOD WITHOUT PRAYER Paragraph D. Prayer is so necessary, so necessary. I mean, we can t go into the fullness of our calling or our experience in God without it. It energizes our spirit. If we get hold of this thing, let some months and years go by, and look back, our spirit will be significantly more energized in the right sense. The blessings will increase. There will be a change in the Church, in society. Change is affected through this. Prayer changes the spiritual atmosphere of a city or a ministry or a family. And what I mean is that the spiritual conflict between demons and angels is in the balance of people on the earth praying. When prayer increases, demons are minimized in their activity and angels are increased in their activity. GOD GAVE THE DOMINION OF THE EARTH TO ADAM AND HIS CHILDREN The Spirit does more if the people on the earth pray. And one of the reasons is because God gave the dominion of the earth to humans. God said, Adam, speaking not just to Adam as an individual but to the human race. He said, The dominion of the earth is yours. The affairs of the human race are now dynamically affected by what you do (Gen. 1:28-30, paraphrased). And when Adam sinned, the Lord said, The deal is still on. Even though you sinned, I m not taking the earth back. There s just going to be more darkness and destruction now. And the more people sin, the more darkness and destruction. I won t stop it, because I really gave the affairs and the government of the earth to humans. If those very humans say yes to the grace of God and they start agreeing with God and speaking God s Word, then light and Holy Spirit activity increases. And the Lord says, I ll do more if you ask for more because I really did give the government of the earth to human beings. And they can use that position in a good way or a bad way. And believers have the opportunity to engage, to release the Spirit more, but they really have to do it. They say, Oh God, why won t You do something? And God says, I ve given you the authority. I ve entrusted the earth to you. I m waiting on you. Call Me into activity. I won t do it if you don t call Me into it. Well then, do it, Lord! He says, No, no, a bit more than that. I want you deeply engaged in calling Me into it, and I ll engage Myself, says the Lord, to the degree that you call Me into the battle. And we like to trust the sovereignty of God. Lord, just do what You do when You want to do it. And the Lord says, It doesn t exactly work that way. I already gave the leadership of the earth to humans, so don t tell Me to do your role. I won t. GOD WON T DO OUR PART, AND WE CAN T DO HIS PART It s the story I often tell about the farmer and the preacher. And the preacher went home after church one Sunday to the house of the farmer. And the farmer is driving him down this great long driveway of thousands of

4 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 4 acres of this manicured farm. Everything is perfect. And the preacher says to the farmer, Farmer, the Lord really has blessed you. Look at this! Amazing! And the farmer said, When God had this place, it was a total mess. It s a true idea. God says, I won t pull the weeds and water the garden. I won t do it. I won t plant the seeds. You do that, farmer. But I ll produce the sun and the rain and the process of life. You can t do My part, and I won t do your part. You know, the farmer says, O God, plant seeds and pull weeds, please. The Lord answers, No. Please That farmer will starve to death. Please, if you love Me. The Lord says, If I love you, I won t violate My sovereignty-based order of the universe. He says, I won t do your part. I ll wait until you do your part and you call Me in and I ll do more. We can t do God s part, and God won t do our part. And if we call into the affairs of what s happening, much more happens. THE EARTHLY REALM HE HAS GIVEN TO THE SONS OF MEN I believe many people are going to be shocked on the last day when we stand before the Lord and say, Lord, why didn t You do more? I waited on you. I really gave the earth to humans. It was real. I ll never, ever take it back, ever even in the age to come. The redeemed will have a dynamic role in the government of the earth under Jesus leadership, and He will be the King of kings as a human, as a man. Fully God, of course, but He is a man governing the earth with humans. Because that s what God gave to Adam and He ll never take it back. A million years from now, that mandate will still be in place where God rules through people, because the earth realmly He has given to the sons of men. WE WILL OTHERS LOVE BETTER IF WE LIVE LIVES OF PRAYER Let s go to paragraph F. Prayer was never meant to be just duty-based or results-oriented. I was just talking about results a minute ago, about making a difference through prayer. But it s more than that. It s not just dutybased or results-oriented only. There are results that are directly related to prayer. But it s a place of encounter while releasing results. It s a place where we talk to God about releasing His power, but in the process of it God touches our spirit and renews us in love. Paragraph G. Look at the first sentence: We will love better if we develop a prayer life. People have said, Well, let s be practical. I don t have time to pray because I m committed to my marriage, my family, my marketplace assignment, my role in the neighborhood, whatever, whatever.

5 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 5 And the answer is, you ll love more deeply and more consistently if you take time to develop a prayer life because your spirit will be energized and empowered. It takes time to do it, but your love will be richer and deeper if you bring God into the dynamics of it. We could raise our families; we could cultivate relationship in our marriages, but if our spirits are anxious and dull and we have resentment and fear and bitterness and anxiety, we won t love well in those contexts. Moms and dads are far better at being parents and spouses if they take the time to get energized in their spirit. We will love better, more deeply, more consistently. Paragraph I. Why does God want us to pray anyway? Why did He invent this thing? I mean, we re really telling God what He tells us to tell Him. Prayer is not about giving God new information. He has plenty of information. He has all the information a lot more than we have. God, this city needs revival. The Lord doesn t say, Wow, never occurred to Me. Great idea. Prayer isn t about giving God information; that s not what it s about. Prayer is about talking to Him in that place, that stewardship role He has given us over that part of the earth over which we have influence, and using our delegated authority to impact that area, but it s more than that. When we pray, we re actually talking to God, and our spirit gets connected to Him, our heart does in a greater way. God has ordained the running of the universe through prayer because He wants to connect with His people. It s about relationship. HE DESIRES DYNAMIC INTERACTION WITH HUMANS ON EARTH As I mentioned last night, some people when they think of prayer, think God is raising up a work force and He is! But we re much more than a work force. He desires dynamic interaction. He wants partnership with us. He doesn t just want a free work force. That s not what He s after. I need more workers. That s a true point, but that s not the whole truth. He wants relationship. So He says, OK, here s what I will do. I will release My power and resource to the degree that you talk to Me. And in the exchange of talking to Me, we will grow in love. So I end up getting relationship with you, and the result is is that I change the world and release My power through you. Now we know that s pretty obvious, but it s really what s on His heart. I remember the time it was about twenty-five years ago. We have two sons. They re thirty-one and thirty-two years old right now. And back when they were five and six, I came home one day and my wife, Diane, was in the kitchen with one of my sons, about five years old. He was on the chair; they were doing the dishes. And he was totally soaked! My wife s hair was sticking up a bit, and there was a broken plate. Things were a little chaotic. I walked in and said, What s going on in here? My son turned around and he said, I did the dishes. And I said, Well, tell me about it. And my wife Diane said, Well, I took a plate and handed it to him. He washed it, and then I washed it. Then I handed it back to him. Then he put it away. Then he dropped it and he broke it and he got water everywhere. And everything is a mess. But he thought he did the dishes.

6 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 6 And immediately, I understood prayer. The man says, I built a mighty ministry. And the Lord says, Well, sort of. I handed you the dish. You washed it. Then I washed it. I gave it back to you. You dropped it, and splashed water all over Me and everyone else. But yeah you sort of did the dishes. You did build that ministry. My son was so proud. He was so happy: Look what I did! Instantly, I said, I get it. And the Lord is saying, Mike, I want you to tell Me what I tell you to tell Me. I ll hand the dish to you; you hand it back. I ll invigorate your spirit. I ll release My power. We will do it in friendship together. You ll love Me more, and I ll receive the joy of your friendship and the work of the kingdom will get done. That s how I ve ordained it. But I won t do it if you don t do it on My terms. And you must do it on My terms. You must talk to Me about it, because it s you that I want. My wife could have done the dishes twice as fast without my son helping. The Lord can build the kingdom much faster without using us, but He is committed to love. He isn t just a king with power; He s a bridegroom with desire. You could call Him a father as well. Letter I. Why does God want us to pray? He wants partnership. He wants partnership. Therefore, asking God for everything is foundational. He wants us to ask Him for everything. We know the passage Philippians 4:6: In everything by prayer... make your requests known to God (Phil. 4:6, pararaphrased). Now here s what we do in the everything, on all the issues of our life. We think of our need, but we don t actually take time to make request. We think of it: Oh, I need wisdom. Oh, I need my heart energized so that I walk in righteousness in this area of temptation. Oh, I need this relationship repaired because there s division and I need Your favor on it. Oh, I need Your creative wisdom so that I know how to better lead my family, lead the ministry, lead my assignment in the marketplace. We think about it and the Lord is looking at us saying, Go ahead. Say it Say it Oh I need money. I need wisdom. Oh I need encouragement. Go on I see you thinking it! Say it! The man never says it. The Lord says, I m waiting. Say it with your mouth to Me. The man says it to his friend: Oh I need money. I need wisdom. Oh, I m under so much temptation. The Lord says, Come on, lift your chin up a little higher. Say it to Me. I m waiting. I m waiting. And they ll think it for hours and hours and hours through the course of months. They ll say it to all their friends, but they won t ever say it to God. And God says, I m still waiting. I won t give it to you until you talk to Me. Because when we actually talk to Him, there s a connections that happens that builds over years. We don t feel the

7 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 7 connection in that moment every now and then we feel it a bit, but mostly we don t. But there are things that are happening that cause us to grow in connection. And the Lord says, I will starve you out until you ask Me. I didn t say in everything by thinking about it, I ll help. Or by telling your friends with complaints about it. I said, Talk to Me. Turn your attention to Me and tell Me what you re thinking. And in that turning of your attention, My Spirit will touch you more and more. Again, it s progressive small, incremental measurements with Him touching us, but we look back over ten years and the touch is profound. In James 4:2, He says, You have not because you ask not (Js. 4:2, paraphrased). You don t have because you never actually verbalized it to Me. You don t have to say it loudly, but you actually have to say it to Him. Because there s some dynamic that actually happens when you say it to Him. He didn t say, You don t have because you don t think about it. We think about it, but we still don t have. He says, You don t actually stop, look in My direction, and ask Me about it. THE LORD WILL BE VERY GRACIOUS AT THE SOUND OF YOUR CRY Paragraph J. Isaiah 30:18. This is one of my favorite prayer verses and promises in the Old Testament. This is an amazing passage. Isaiah 30:18-19, The Lord will wait that He might be gracious to you. He ll be very gracious at the sound of your cry or the sound of your prayer. When He hears it, then He will answer (Isa. 30:18-19, paraphrased). Let s read that again. The Lord will wait. Now we talk about us waiting on the Lord. We need to talk more about the Lord waiting on us. He says, I know you have need, but I m waiting. You won t say it to Me. And if you do, you ll limit it to ten seconds. You won t actually, in earnest, talk to Me about it. I m waiting. I m waiting. I m waiting. I want to be gracious to you. I have so many things that I want to do to you and through you. As a matter of fact, He says in verse 19, I wil be very gracious (Isa. 30:19, paraphrased) not a little gracious; very gracious. I have so much I want to do, but at the sound of your prayer, when I hear it, then I will begin to unfold and unlock the answer to you. THREE PRACTICAL ISSUES IN STRENGTHENING OUR PRAYER LIFE Top of page 2. Three very practical issues in strengthening our prayer life. They re so simple, you almost think they don t need to be said. I ve been saying these for thirty years, and I ve been surprised over the course of thirty years how many mature, committed believers still don t do this. And the net result is that their prayer life, though they wish it was growing, isn t growing. Number one practicality: set a schedule for regular prayer time. As simple as that is, it s profound. Set a schedule. You won t keep it all the time, but you ll keep it more often than not. If you don t schedule times to pray, and put it on your schedule like you do other things, I m predicting to you that you ll pray very little. The theory that you ll just pray on the run yes, you will, but mostly in a crisis when you re fretting. But if we have scheduled times to pray, we won t keep the schedule 100 percent, but we will pray more, and it s out of the overflow of those scheduled times that we do then pray on the run. But if you don t pray in concerted effort, in intentional times with the Lord, you won t pray in the everyday course of life unless you re under great stress. And our prayer life has a lot more to it than just crisis management.

8 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 8 Number two. Develop a prayer list. I have several prayer lists. I ve used them for thirty years. Develop a prayer list. And number three: have a right view of God. It s critical that we have, in the most general sense, a right view of God. When we set a schedule, it tells us when we will pray. When we get a prayer list, it s what we will pray. And a right view of God makes us want to pray. SCHEDULE A TIME FOR PRAYING EVERY DAY Paragraph B. When I was in college, I was trying to pray, and it wasn t working. I didn t like prayer at all. So a leader said, Here s what you do. Schedule a time every day. He said, Do you schedule a time? I said, No. Well, when are you going to do it? I don t know. You know, just sometime. I guess when the Spirit leads me or something, I m just going to do it sometime. He said, When? I don t know. He said, Well, it s not going to happen then. I said, That s a profound idea. Then he told me, Make a prayer list. Write down the things you want and pray the same list over and over and over time, that list will grow. I said, Really? I said, I m so desperate, I ll try anything. So I did it and I began to schedule every night in college: 9:00pm. I called it the dreaded hour. It really was. I lived in an apartment with some other guys all strong believers. And it would be 8:45pm, fifteen minutes until nine, the dreaded hour. I would start sweating and counting down: Oh, the prayer time is coming in fifteen minutes. It s ten minutes. It s five minutes. At 9:00pm, I would walk into the dreaded room of emptiness. I wish it was a joke. It was literal. I would sit in there and say, Oh God. Thank You for loving me. Thank You. I played college football. Lord, let me score some touchdowns. Let me get the girl. Let me make good grades. Anoint me. I looked at my clock: fifty-eight minutes to go. I m not joking. I had the schedule, but I didn t have a prayer list. I hadn t quite developed it yet. Lord, help me score some touchdowns Well I never scored any touchdowns. I was on the team, but never scored. I never scored, I didn t make the grades, but I got the girl! Thirty-five years later, I got the girl.

9 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 9 HOW TO INCREASE YOUR PRAYER LIFE TENFOLD IN THE NEXT YEAR Anyway, let s look at paragraph C. I will make a bold statement to you. I ve said this statement for probably twenty years. I ve been teaching this concept for thirty years, but probably in the last twenty I ve made this statement. Here it is. I ll say it boldly. You ll pray ten times more in the next twelve months if you get a prayer list and a schedule. There s an exception here or there. You won t pray twice as much; you ll pray ten times as much in the next twelve months if you schedule a time daily or near daily. Put it on your calendar or your day planner or whatever you have, and get a prayer list. I ve made this statement for maybe twenty years. And I ve known many who love God. I mean, they re in the kingdom; they re in ministry. They love God. And they say, No, that s legalism. I say, It s not legalism. That s not even what the definition of legalism is. The fact that you would do something with consistency isn t legalism. Legalism is about the motivation: you re doing it to earn God s favor. You re not earning anything. You re positioning yourself to grow. That s called discipline. When someone doesn t like discipline, they call it legalism to try and get rid of it. But they still lose out on the benefit of the disciple, even though they ve got a rationale to get rid of it. They feel good about not being disciplined, because they call it grace. Grace isn t about aimlessness and just doing what comes and living without any direction. That s not what grace is. Grace is about being empowered to do the things that God has put in our life to do. No, that s the wrong definition of legalism. And so years will go by. I m talking about people in my congregation. I ve pastored for about thirty-five years; these are people I ve known for years. And so three years go by. I talk to the strong man of God. OK, three years have gone by. Have you got your prayer list? No. Have you got your schedule? No. Have you prayed more in the last three years? No, I hardly ever pray. That s my point. And my point isn t to win an argument; my point is to help the man. I say, I promise you it will happen. And I ve got many satisfied customers over the years who come back and say, Mike, it s amazing. I walked with God for twenty years, and I never did it. I set the list in motion the next year, and now I have a prayer life. It s amazing. I m starting to like prayer. Why didn t I do this twenty years earlier? So I challenge you. I ve had a consistent prayer life, and I ve been teaching on prayer, for thirty-plus years. I didn t like it on the front end. But I assure you: this really will make a radical difference and you ll feel God. Not every time, but you ll feel God a whole lot more in your prayer life than you do now if you don t do this. I challenge you: try it for one year. Better yet, try it for three years and then look back and see if it doesn t

10 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 10 radically change you. Again, I say this tongue-in-cheek, but I ve had many satisfied customers. They say, It really works. Why didn t I start this earlier? FELLOWSHIPPING WITH GOD THAT OUR HEARTS MIGHT GROW Paragraph E. Now when I make my prayer lists, I have several of them. I deviate from it anytime I want. And I omit parts of it. For example, I ve had this prayer acronym I ll talk about in a few minutes called F-E-L-L-O- W-S-H-I-P. It s a ten-letter acronym. F stands for the fear of God; E stands for the prayer of endurance. And I have it at the back here. And sometimes I ll skip five of the ten and I ll focus on the other five. You don t have to do all of them every time, but I have my target. Or sometimes I m going down my prayer list, and that s just prayer for my heart to grow. The FELLOWSHIP prayer is based on the concept of fellowshipping with God for my heart to grow. And sometimes I ll pray four or five of those ten subjects, those ten letters in the word FELLOWSHIP, and I ll have one or two and I ll go way off the subject. And I ll just follow it. If the wind is blowing, so to speak, go with the inspiration of your heart. You don t have to finish the prayer list every time. But many times, I sit down to pray. I mean, I m the IHOP- KC guy. I started IHOP-KC. I m supposed to like prayer. I go to the prayer room. I ve taught on prayer for thirty years. I sit down in the prayer room. I m not talking about ten years ago; I m talking about a week ago. And I sit there and say, OK, this is my prayer time. There s a great worship team up front. I say, I don t know what to pray. My mind is blank. I know what to do! I don t really need to look at my prayer list because I ve got it memorized because I pray it all the time. I say, Go down your prayer list. I start going. I say, Oh, I remember what I m supposed to pray now. And then I pray. Sometimes it s boring and oppressed and it s nothing. Other times I get inspired and I get all new requests, and then I even write those down. But many times when I start my prayer time, it s like I m completely blank. I say, I should know by now what to pray. I wonder what my interns would think if they understood that I don t have a clue what to pray right now. Oh, praise God for the prayer list. I look at it and I say, There you go. I remember. That s what I m supposed to pray. My point is, in all the years that I ve been doing this, it still has a huge impact on my heart if I just do this. And again, I ll get off the subject anytime I want. But I like that prayer list, because I don t always have sharp thinking and clarity and I don t feel connected. And I need a target to aim for. And I pull out these lists and I say, Yes, there you have it. And I pull out the names of the people I pray for regularly. I say, Of course. I pray for Lou Engle! But when I m sitting there, getting ready in the prayer room, I forget about Lou Engle. I say, Who s that guy? I ve got about ten. OK. Allen Hood, who s going to preach tonight. I pray for Allen on a regular basis. I say, I can t think of anyone to pray for. I mean, it s bizarre! I open my eyes and I say, Oh yeah, Lou. Sure. I remember. Now I know that sounds a little strange, but that s really how it works. I go down my prayer list and I say, Yeah, I got it. PRAYER LISTS OF INTIMACY, PETITION, AND INTERCESSION Roman numeral III. Now when you re developing prayer lists, I have three different types of prayer lists to develop. Number one: prayer lists related to your intimacy with God. These are prayer lists that strengthen your spiritual life, and that help you love God more.

11 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 11 Number two: prayer lists petitioning for my personal prayer life, where I pray for my ministry and I pray for God s blessing on my personal life. I pray for breakthrough in the inner man. I pray for my circumstances. I pray for my personal ministry, that the Lord would anoint me. And I have lists for each of these. And the breakthrough of the inner man and my intimacy with God they overlap of course. And then number three: I have intercessory lists, where I pray for God to stop abortion. I pray for God to send revival. I pray for God to anoint our worship teams in a new way. And I have lists that I go through and pray for. So these are three different prayer focuses, and I have lists that are related to each. Again, sometimes in my intimacy with God focus, I don t even want to ask for anything; I just want to love God. I open my Bible and say, God, I love You. I want to give my love to You. I want to honor You and I just want to tell You how I think about You. I m not asking for anything in particular; I m just talking about You and I m enjoying You and Your Word. I m talking to You when I read the Bible. And we ll look at that in just a minute, about how to talk to God while reading the Bible. Paragraph C. I have a few prayer lists there. They re also on the Internet, on our website. And again, you can download them electronically and change them. You might say, I don t like this one or that one ; or, I want to do it differently. That s cool. But if you don t have a prayer list, use mine to get jumpstarted, and then change it. Change it a hundred times! Little by little, day by day, add another or take a line out. But I urge you to get one. THE ESSENCE OF JOYFUL PRAYER: BEING FASCINATED WITH A FASCINATING GOD Top of page 3. It s essential. I don t want to spend a lot of time on this, but it s essential to have a right view of God. A right view of God makes all the difference in the world, because if your view of God is that He s an angry taskmaster, that He wants you to endure a conversation with Him to pay the price for power, you won t go nearly as far in God. I ve heard people talk about that over the years. They say, You know, we have to pray and pay the price. And behind that logic is a boring God. And if we can endure a boring God long enough, He s obligated to give us power. And so I ve heard about paying the price in prayer. And I don t like that. I used to use that concept, by the way. And then over the years I said, That s not right. If there s a price I m paying in my prayer life, it s confronting my own prayer life and compromise. That s how I m paying the price, to press through my dullness. Because when we have a right view of God, He is the most fascinating, exhilarating being that exists Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons. And when I get a right view of Him, there s nothing about gritting my teeth to endure a boring conversation with a boring God. When I see more and more the truth of who He is, He s exciting and fascinating. He s exhilarating to our spirits. But we have to get a right view of God first. He isn t an angry taskmaster. He is an indescribably, beautiful, radiant person, who loves you deeply and who is more committed to you than you are. And when I begin to understand this, then I have confidence in my spirit. Because then I want to run to Him instead of from Him when I see my own weakness. So often I see only an angry coach or an angry taskmaster who yells when I fail, and I don t want to get yelled at. I want to run from Him until I fix it; then I want to come back and present myself. But the Lord says, If you understand Me, when you fail, you can run to Me, not from Me. You can open your spirit, not do what Adam did: go and hide under a fig leaf go and hide under some religious concoction of

12 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 12 your own making. You don t have to hide from Me. I know your weakness. I delight in you. I love you. I actually enjoy you, and I want you to let Me help you. THE NUMBER ONE EMOTIONAL NEED IN THE HUMAN RACE A right view of God radically changes our prayer life. When our interns come in, that s the first thing I do: I labor on getting them to see a right view of God. I ve written about ten books, and most of them are on the subject of the right view of God. There s so much to say about it. I wrote a book entitled Passion for Jesus. And people say, How do you get passion for Jesus? I say, I can tell you the answer. It s not confusing. You understand Jesus passion for you. The book is really titled wrong. It s really not a book about passion for Jesus. It s really a book about Jesus passion for you, which awakens your passion for Him. But I like the title. But my point is this: when we begin to understand how kind He is, how committed to us He is, how filled with understanding He is about our weakness and our failure, we can open our spirit and run to Him, and we can have the assurance, the confidence, the assurance that He enjoys us even in our weakness. I believe that s the number one emotional need in the human race. I can think of about ten basic emotional needs that are critical. The number one emotional need in the human spirit is the assurance that God enjoys us even in our weakness. When we have the assurance, not the I hope He enjoys us, but the assurance that He actually enjoys us in our weakness I m talking about a mature believer who wants to obey God who comes up short if we feel He s smiling at us and enjoying us, then we will grow. We ll keep coming back to Him. YOU LL NEVER MATURE UNTIL YOU KNOW HE ENJOYS YOU Some people have the idea that God enjoys us after we grow: we spend ten or twenty years in immaturity, and God is looking at us the whole time, feeling mad and sad. We picture Him saying, You know, don t do that again. How many times am I going to tell you not to do that again? It s like, Oh no, here you go again. Don t tell Me your sob story. No, that s not the voice of God. That s the voice of Mom or Dad or coach or someone else. That s not God s voice. And so we have this idea that we ll struggle for ten or twenty years, and then we ll finally be mature. When we get mature, then God says, Now I enjoy you. Beloved, the opposite is true. You ll never mature until you know He enjoys you. He doesn t enjoy you after you mature; that s the way to maturity, because you have an open spirit and you keep coming back to Him. Who wants to come to someone who s going to scold them? We ll find a hundred reasons not to settle down, dial down, and talk to Him if our image of God is wrong. I have that here in this paragraph, the rest of this whole section here. He s a tender father. God is our tender Father. Jesus, who is God as well, is a passionate bridegroom. But God is tender with us. God has great desire for us. He isn t offended or confused by our failure. He gets it. He gets it better than we get it. This is one of the number one things that King David had that was so radical in his generation, because he lived 1,000 years before the birth of Christ. He understood the emotions of God second to no one in the Old Testament. I mean, a thousand years before Jesus, there wasn t a lot of insight into God s emotions. We had Moses, who lived 500 years before David. Moses talked about the God of power, the transcendent God with great authority where the mountains shook and the people trembled. And God is truly transcendent and

13 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 13 awesome. But the people from Moses to David, for 500 years, didn t have a lot of insight about God s emotions. They had insight into His power. David came along, and what he encountered was groundbreaking. It was radical. It was unprecedented. He came and talked about the God who enjoyed him. People thought, Where s this guy getting this information? I mean, David had more insight on God s emotions than any man in the Old Testament. Then Jesus comes and takes it up many notches and says, It s not just that God enjoys you. For I love you in the way the Father loves Me. And look here in paragraph B. John 12. When He s praying to the Father, He says, Father, that the world would know that You love them with the same intensity that You love Me. Jesus said, I want to tell you disciples, My Father loves you in the same intensity with which He loves Me. He went way beyond David. I mean, He took it to a whole new level. Well, I m going to move on from the right view of God; but I can t emphasize it enough: it s not enough to have a prayer list and a scheduled prayer time. We have to have a view of God that gives us confidence to approach Him and a God who s exciting and fascinating and exhilarating. And then we re on a Holy Spirit treasure hunt. And then we can t wait to get alone with God to talk to Him and open His Word and see what He says about Himself. It changes everything. HOW TO TALK TO GOD IN A WAY THAT EXCITES OUR SPIRIT Let s look at Roman numeral V. It s our final big point here: how to talk to God in a way that excites our spirit. I call it intimacy with God. And the phrase I ve used through the years is pray-reading the Word. What I mean is this: we read the Word, but we don t just read it for information. We read the Word and turn it into dialogue while we re reading it. When I discovered this, it changed my prayer life. This is different than the prayer list. I have my prayer list, but what I really love is to read the Bible and to turn it into dialogue with a person. It s exciting. My spirit gets exhilarated. I love it when the truth about God, a little fragment of information, a little morsel of truth, touches my spirit in a new or fresh way. And I say, Oh, I love this feeling that I get when I talk to God about God. So I have my prayer list, but I also have this commitment to pray-read the Bible, to read it and talk to God while I m reading it. Let s look at it. Joshua 1:8. This Book of the Law (Josh. 1:8). You can write the phrase, The Bible, the Scriptures. This Bible shall not depart from your mouth. You shall meditate on the Bible night and day. When Joshua said, Book of the Law, our language would be the Bible. And this is actually the Lord speaking to Joshua, saying, Joshua, I know you re the captain of the army; I know you re the head of the nation, but take time. If you ll meditate night and day on the Bible, here s what s going to happen, Joshua: your way will be prosperous and you ll have success. I ll change you on the inside, and that will be the foundation to changing things on the outside. We often focus on how to change things on the outside, and we don t see the dynamic connection between what s happening on the inside to what happens on the outside. We say, Lord, change my circumstances.

14 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 14 And the Lord says, If I change you while I m changing your circumstances, your circumstances will stay changed. But if I give you optimum circumstances but you don t change through your fear and unbelief and compromise and wrong perspective, over some years your circumstances will go right back to where they were. So He tells Joshua, Meditate on the Word. It will change you on the inside. And in the context of that, I ll change the outside and there will be sustainability in the new, blessed circumstances. Well, paragraph A. The Bible gives us the conversational material that we need. I have my prayer list: that s conversational material. But then when I m done with my prayer list, I want to talk more to God. We have sixty-six books of the Bible. The Lord says, Pick one. Open it up and talk to Me. That s your conversational material. It makes prayer enjoyable. YOU STUDY THE SCRIPTURES, FOR IN THEM YOU THINK YOU HAVE ETERNAL LIFE Paragraph B. John 5: Back in my college days this verse radically changed my life. It was like a bolt of lightning of understanding hit my heart. I was doing my prayer time; I was even doing my prayer list, and I was studying the Bible. And the prayer time was boring because my spirit was still dull. It takes a little while for our dull spirit to connect with God. And my image of God, my ideas of God were wrong. I saw Him more as an angry coach, and I was gritting my teeth to endure talking to Him. And I had a wrong idea of God in those days. But I studied the Bible for hours a day. I didn t like Bible study, but I felt like I had to like it. My youth leader said, You have to study the Bible or you re never going to grow. And I said, Oh man, this is boring. So I would go book by book through the Bible with commentaries. And I would say what the teachers in the commentaries said. I had my notebook and I would take my notes. I was studying the Bible for hours a day, but I was duller in my spirit than ever. I said, Lord, I m backsliding. I m praying an hour a day, I m studying the Bible many hours a day, and my spirit is duller than ever. I said, What s the deal? My youth leaders told me I would be on fire for God. I love You, but the Bible is more boring, prayer is more boring and I m doing it more than ever. And I can just imagine the Lord smiling, you know, although I didn t know that then. But looking back He was smiling and saying, Come on, little guy. Just stay with it. You ll get the breakthroughs. I will help you. And I stumbled into this verse, because I happened to be studying the gospel of John, chapter by chapter, with commentaries. And I got to chapter 5. And in verse 39, Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees. He says, You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life (Jn. 5:39-40). So let s look at it again. He said, You search the Scriptures. You study the Bible all day long. That was me. At that point in time, I was studying hours a day because prayer was boring. So I thought, I ll try Bible study. You know, something has to work. I can t walk with God for fifty more years bored every day.

15 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 15 That s unthinkable to me. I said, I have to get a breakthrough. Because I know what kind of people you are: this is not a small thing. The idea of being bored with God was an unthinkable burden to me, that I was going to live before God bored in my spirit. I said, No, no; I refuse to live this way. I refuse! But I don t have a clue how to get through it. And I was even doing regular fasting, and none of it was working. I said, I have to do this. Again, I had a wrong view of God, and a few other issues that the Lord wanted to settle in my life where my spirit could connect in a consistent way. So I read verse 39: You search the Scriptures... I said, That s me. I m searching the Scriptures! Jesus is addressing the Pharisees. He says, You think that by studying the Bible you have life. All you re doing is acquiring information about the Bible. I said, OK, I searched the Bible. I think that if I do Bible study, my heart will get anointed. Yes, that s what I think. No, the Lord is saying, the Bible is just a neon sign pointing to Me, to My heart. It testifies of Me. It s telling you what s in My heart. That s what it is. Here s the key verse verse 40. He tells the Pharisees, You are not willing to come to Me that you may have life (Jn. 5:40). And this is how I heard it in my heart: Mike, you study the Bible all day long. You don t know the Bible is a neon sign pointing to Me. You re not willing to talk to Me. Talk to Me when you read the Bible. Come to Me, not just to get your sins forgiven the day you re born again. Talk to Me all the time when you read the Bible. And the light went on. Somehow when I read the words, Come to Me, it translated into, Talk to Me. I said, I ll talk to You when I read the Bible. I thought, What am I going to say? I ll do it. I was so excited because I knew I had received something. I was about twenty-years old at the time, and I said, OK, this might be it. And I had just an exciting sense in my spirit. PROMISES TO BELIEVE, COMMANDS TO OBEY Paragraph C. I categorize in the broadest sense, because if you categorize the Scriptures, there are many other ways to do it than this. But in the broadest sense, I categorize the Scriptures in two broad categories. There are promises that we re supposed to believe. God says, I love you. That s a promise to believe. I ll forgive you. That s a promise to believe. I ll direct you. That s a promise to believe. That was one category of Scripture, and the second was, Exhortations to obey. Bridle your tongue. Make a covenant with your eyes. Use your money in the way I tell you to use it. Do this. Do that. They were exhortations that I was supposed to obey. So some passages I m supposed to believe. Other passages I m supposed to obey. And it s not like we tear them apart, because they re all dynamically overlapping.

16 Transcript: 10/14/11 Page 16 Top of page 4. So when I read the passages that exhort me to believe something like, I love you; I ll forgive you, here s what I begin to do. Paragraph D. First, it s very simple, but it really matters. There are a hundred different passages where the Lord says, in essence, I love you. God so loved the world, for example (Jn. 3:16). I would stop and say, Thank You that You love me. It was amazing how much difference that made. When I stopped just underlining it and studying a commentary, I stopped, I looked at a real being, a real person, and I said, Thank You that You love me. And I stopped there. I paused. And I said, Really. Thank You. Then I would pray the second thing: Show me more that You love me. Give me more insight. There they are, the two simple, little applications. When it s a prayer, when it s a Bible verse that s exhorting us to believe something, thank Him for it and then ask Him to show it more to you. But the key is that stop your study; you pause and you talk to a person for a few moments, and maybe only thirty seconds, ninety seconds, two minutes, three minutes. Now sometimes I ll stop and say, Thank You that You love me or Thank You that You forgave me. And I ll make a declaration of thanksgiving: You re the God who loves me. You re the God who cares for me. And all of a sudden I ll just start saying more. And the Holy Spirit will get involved. It s my words, but all of a sudden I m making these other statements like, Lord, when I don t even think You re watching, You care so much. I mean, simple, little statements, but I feel His presence. I would write that down: Even when I don t think He s watching, He cares so much. They re simple, little phrases, but in the dialogue of actually thanking Him for a very simple truth and then asking Him to show that truth to me, what happened was that I moved out of the mode of studying into the mode of conversing with a person. And in essence Jesus was saying, Now you re searching the Scriptures, but you re coming to Me. You re talking to Me now. Now My presence will begin to touch you. It was amazing how that changed me. I began to love; I couldn t wait until I got to the next verse and saw what it was. And some verses were purely informational explaining how Jesus went from Nazareth to Galilee. I didn t stop and say, Thank You that You went to Galilee. I would read the next verse, where He healed the sick; and I would say, Thank You that You healed me. You really do heal me. Show me Yourself as the healer. Talk to me. Why do You heal? And then I would start thinking of more statements. I would always start with those two: Thank You, and, Show me more. And out of that I would say more things. And even the next day I couldn t remember what I said the day before, because the Spirit starts helping you. Even though you don t even know that much, it s the Spirit, but He s giving you words as you re talking. And once you start in the dialogue, that little trickle, that little, trickling stream becomes a flowing river. All of a sudden I m talking to Him, and sometimes I spend five or ten or fifteen minutes on the same verse. And I feel touched; I have tears in my eyes. I ve written down a whole page of thoughts; and I didn t even mean to write it all down, I just didn t want to lose the feeling in those thoughts. And I thought, Wow. One verse, fifteen minutes talking to the Lord. And I can t wait until the next verse. What s the next verse going to say?