CTN Episode 21 – Standing Firm in Troubled Times

0:00 You pray it and he can answer it. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. God will put the prayer in your heart to pray so that he can answer it. It goes into the hearts of the people, doesn't return void, it produces results. Hello my friends, welcome to Prayer on Purpose. I'm your host, Margie Florent. Today's episode and possibly next week's episode is going to be about following hard after God. And with this teaching, I'm going to go into the steps as to how to develop intimacy with God in the secret place. You know, we've been talking about it. I've been teaching about it. But I'm going to teach you exactly how to enter into the presence of God and develop a beautiful prayer life. Now, I do have my book, Encounter God Through Prayer, that goes into a lot of the teaching that I'm going to teach you today. But for me personally, I like to hear the teaching as well as read.

1:11 about how to navigate my prayer life so that's the beauty of what we're going to be sharing today is how to enter into the presence of god and develop our walk with him in the secret place but before we do i want to talk to you about a very um one of my favorite scriptures that comes out of psalm 63 And it's the Psalm of David. And as most of you know, David was a man who went down in Bible history as a man. who had a heart after God. He was totally devoted to God. He had a heart after God. He followed hard after God. And we find in Psalm 63 that David is in the wilderness. He found himself in a lonely place, a trying place. He was running, we think, from Absalom. And he was just in a very hard place. And that's where we're going to start our teaching today. coming from Psalm 63, a Psalm of David. He says here in this verse, Oh God, you are my God. He said, my soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. And the highlight verse is found in verse eight. He says, my soul.

2:31 follows hard after you, your right hand, it upholds me. So like we said, David wrote this psalm or prayed this prayer, I'd like to say, in a place where he was hiding in the desert of Judah. It was a hot place, a dry, lonely place. The Bible even calls it a wilderness place. We said that most likely Absalom had rebelled and was trying to take the throne. David was facing betrayal. The Bible says that David was, according to his own words, he was tired. He was thirsty. He was just escaping from the trial and the thing that had just been attacking him. And so he says out of the scripture, he says, but listen, in the midst of all this, in the midst of betrayal, in the midst of the fact that I'm facing this wilderness experience, in the midst of this horrific thing that I'm going through, and not only that, I'm in a desert. I'm in a dry and thirsty land.

3:37 He shifts gears and he goes into the scripture and he says, he says, but my soul follows hard after you, God. I'm not moved by anything. I'm only moved by the stability that I have in you. My soul follows hard after you. And I know. that your right hand will uphold me and i looked into the hebrew meanings of the word follow and the word hard i was very curious as to what david meant by that and in the hebrew the word hard my soul follows hard after you means to cling or to stick or to hold fast so my fault my soul is clinging to you God my soul is sticking to you God my soul is holding fast to you in this dry and thirsty land where there is no water in this time of betrayal and then I looked up the word follow and it's the same word that we find in Genesis 2 24 where God said for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and that word means to hold tightly. There are several prayers spoken of in the Word of God. The prayer of intercession is just one of those prayers spoken of in Ephesians 6 .18. And this particular book, Marked for Intercession, teaches the reader how to pray for your family,

5:10 how to pray for your friends, how to stand in the gap for a nation, how to pray for leadership, and it goes on and on and on. I would encourage you to get this book. and dive in deep so that you can be that man, you could be that woman that would stand in the gap and put up the hedge and be the love of God expressed in the earth. You can go to my website at margieflorent .org and not only will you find my book, but I also have a workbook that goes with the subject of marked for intercession. Okay, so he says, my soul clings close to you. I hold tight. So I looked at that scripture and it really spoke to me because it paints a vivid picture. And I hope it does for you like it did for me. You know, it paints a vivid picture that David was following. hard after God. He was not looking to the left. He was not looking to the right.

6:18 He was looking unto the source of his help, the one who would help him, the one that would sustain them, the one who is and was an ever -present help in the time of David's trouble. He was following hard after God. He wasn't pulling away. And then when it says he was following hard, to me, that shows intensity. It shows his devotion to God. It shows that I am going to be intentional and my my pursuit of you is with intensity. So the message I received out of this and I wanted to share this with you today is that even in the hardest place that we all find ourselves in, it's important for us to cling close to God, follow. hard after him no matter what so as i reflected on that i thought you know what lord this really speaks to me in that knowing you and practicing your presence just helps to stabilize me stabilize my friends stabilize those of you that are listening to this teaching as not only stabilize us But it gives us the strength to endure the hard times and the lonely times that we may find ourselves in. So our souls follow hard after you, God. That's what we desire to do. But how do we develop this kind of friendship

7:49 and intimacy with God that David had? And that's what we're going to talk about today. So I want to just say this. This devotion and this kind of friendship. Is developed as believers under the New Testament. Through number one continual prayer. And I haven't really talked fully on that. We will at some point. Continual prayer. Whereby you walk with God. And in your heart you continually speak to him. As a man speaks to a friend. He's an ever present help. He's always there. He said I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. I am with you always. So on the inside of you. You are continuing to pray to him, to speak to him, to commune with him, like David said, in your heart. So it's continual prayer. And then there's the praying in your bed. And I like that one a lot. And we'll someday we'll do a whole teaching on that. That's where you're you've had a long day and you're laying in your bed and you're just talking to God and you're meditating upon him. in the night watches and then of course we can get to know god absolutely through reading the word of god through reading books through reading different translations of different scriptures but the area where we're going to focus today is what i like to call closet prayer and this is a very unique teaching and i've not really heard a lot of people teach on

9:20 this So I want you to really listen and take heed to what the Spirit of God wants to teach you as it relates to how to pray and how to develop intimacy with Him, specifically in this case, in the secret place of prayer, or what I like to call closet prayer. So how do we develop this kind of friendship with God? How do we develop... our closet time alone with Jesus. Let's look at Mark chapter four, verse 33. It says here in the scripture, and with many such parables, he spoke the word to them, his disciples, as they were able to hear it. So Jesus would speak to the multitudes and he would speak to the crowds and he would speak to them in parables and he would teach the crowds. But when he got alone with his disciples, And that's the emphasis of today. When he was alone with his disciples, the Bible says he did not speak to them in parables.

10:28 He explained, or another translation says, he expounded all things to his disciples. So there is just so much that the Father can teach us through our corporate meetings. But when we are alone with him, when we have a devotional time with him alone in the secret place, he can open up more of his heart to us. He can reveal the secrets of his heart to us. He can show us things and teach us things that he can't teach us and show us. In our corporate meetings, because I'm a minister and I'm a leader and I know how it is. When you have a corporate setting, there's only so much you can teach to the corporate body.

11:17 But when I'm alone with Jesus and I spend time in my quote closet with him, that's when I find that I'm cultivating a depth of my walk with him that I cannot obtain by just going to corporate meetings. So let's talk about this. So how do we get started? Now, I want you to understand that this is a very practical teaching, practical but powerful. Again, something you've probably never heard anybody teach. And I believe that the rising generations need to hear more of this kind of teaching because. I've heard a lot of the millennials and the Z's say to me, I want to have intimacy with God, but I just don't know where to begin and I just don't know where to start. So let's start. What is our starting place?

12:09 So how do we develop the practice of secret or closet prayer? Number one, decide on a time that works best for you. You will not be interrupted. Now, my friends, that means putting your phone aside, putting aside everything and say, you know what? I'm going to this is the time where I am going to devote my heart, my soul and my mind to my friendship and my prayer time with Jesus Christ. So you decide you say, what is a time that works best for you? Or for me, for me personally, for me, the time that works is in the morning. And as a matter of fact, Jesus said himself in Mark 135. Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, the Bible says he went out and he departed into a solitary place. And there he prayed. David said the same thing. He said in Psalms 5, 1 through 3, he said, early in the morning, I will seek you. Maybe some of you, the best time for you to pray is first thing in the morning. And you'll find that in your life and in your seasons of life, mornings may work for you for a long period of time. But as things change, or maybe you become a new mother. mornings don't work for you anymore.

13:41 So you've got to change it up. So this isn't like a rule and this isn't set in stone. You have to go with the flow of the rhythm of your life. Find a time that works best for you and make a decision. I like what I heard somebody say, make a decision. a quality decision that this is my time. This is my secret time alone with my heavenly father, where I'm going to devote my time to him uninterrupted. I'm going to lay aside any weight. I'm going to lay aside the distractions and I'm going to devote myself to him at this particular time. So find a place.

14:24 Or find a time that works best for you that you will not be interrupted. Number two, find a spot in your home that you can call your prayer closet. Now I'm going to read you Matthew 6. You've probably heard me read this before, but it's good. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Another one of my favorite scriptures. It says here in Matthew 6, 6. But when you pray, go into your room and when you have shut your door, pray to your father who is in the secret place and your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Another translation says, and when you pray, go into your closet and shut the door.

15:14 Now, for me, when I was in Bible school, that's what I literally did. I literally. I literally would go into a literal closet. I would shut a literal door. And that's my time that I would spend alone with Jesus. So find a spot in your home. It may be a closet for you. Or it may be an office. Or it may be a corner of a room. It may be the corner of your house. It may be by a window. So make a decision. I'm going to have this time. And I'm going to have this place where I devote myself in my place of prayer to the presence of God. And I am going to seek his face.

16:02 OK, we're going to get into more of this teaching. But before we do, we're going to take a break here. The Lord spoke to me one day. He said, So I wrote this book with that in mind. Encountering God through prayer. Simple strategies to develop a powerful prayer life. reader from the very basics. Begin where you are. Begin with 15 minutes.

16:45 Find a quiet place in your house. Go into a closet if you have to. Shut the door. Just begin where you are. And I teach the reader about the heart of the Father. Because if you don't know who God is, you're not going to understand his character and his nature, and you'll be afraid of him. So I go into the heart of the Father. Who is the Father? What's his character? What's his nature? And then I take the reader all the way up into what I call contemplative prayer. So if you would like a wonderful resource on how to begin your prayer life, I encourage you to get this book, Encountering God Through Prayer.

17:32 Go to my website at margieflaurent .org. Okay, let's continue in our teaching. So we said, how do we develop the practice of closet secret prayer? We said, decide on a time that works best for you, that you will not be interrupted. And number two, find your quiet spot. Okay, number three, begin where you are. Now, this is very important because sometimes people make a New Year's resolution, especially and they say, OK, I'm going to spend an hour with God or two hours with God. And that's going to be my New Year's resolution. And they start out. And because they have not developed their capacity for secret prayer, they start out. And what happens, I've seen a lot of times is they get. I've seen people get burned out or they get discouraged or they think that God's not there or there's no presence of God or it feels dry or they feel like God feel like God's not there, even though that we know that he is.

18:42 So here's what I would say to you. I would say to you in developing your practice of secret prayer, begin where you are. OK, make a decision. am going to spend today at this time and at this place, 15 minutes in the presence of God. And that's a realistic way to start your walk with him. It doesn't have to be an hour. Although Jesus said to his disciples, couldn't you watch just one hour? So I think, I think the goal should be for us to stretch into an hour, although that's not a rule. It's more like a discipline. But I would just encourage you to begin with 15 minutes.

19:27 And when you do, we've said it in a previous episode, get your journal, have a Bible, get it or a devotional book or any kind of book that you're reading. Have it all there with you. But begin. with 15 minutes that is a realistic goal begin right there and i will be honest with you you're going to begin with your 15 minutes and as you develop and cultivate cultivate the practice of secret prayer what's going to happen is after your 15 minutes after doing and practicing your prayer of time with him you're going to begin to desire and crave more of god because what happens is Prayer goes from a sacrifice to a joy. So in the beginning, it's a sacrifice. Okay, I'm laying aside and you feel, okay, I'm going to pray. I really want to develop intimacy with God. But eventually what happens is it becomes a joy. Because you're in his presence. And in his presence is fullness of joy. And so you begin with your 15 minutes. But after a while, you'll find that you desire and you crave more than just your 15 minutes. Not out of duty, but out of relationship. Because you tap. into his heart and because you tapped into his heart and you've entered into that his presence and you've entered into that place of joy in his presence you're gonna want to spend more and more time with him

20:59 so that's what I would encourage you to do begin with your 15 minutes but know that that 15 minutes is going to grow so prayer goes from a sacrifice to a joy and then Just like every one of us, we have a desire. So we have a desire to get close to God. We'll take that desire. And then what happens is with that desire, enter into your quiet space. And then what will happen is it becomes a discipline. Now, what's a discipline? Discipline is training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior. So what will happen is. You'll start with a desire to know him, to become deeply and intimately acquainted with him. You're in your spot. You have your books. You have your Bible. You have that time. And then you have to be disciplined.

21:55 You have to say, I'm going to stick this out. I'm going to lean into God. I used to say press in, but I learned leaning in is more of a rest when it comes to our time with God. A pressing in really speaks more of works. This is more of an entering in. to rest you enter into rest and what happens is you it develops a discipline of prayer and and you just do it no matter what you feel no matter how what's going on in your head it's a discipline and then eventually your prayer time will become trust me a delight and this is where it begins to get fun okay you look forward to your prayer and devotional time And it becomes fun. You start understanding how to tap into his heart. You start to understand the rhythm of prayer. You start to understand how the Holy Spirit will lead, guide and direct you in prayer. You start to understand what a prayer burden. feels like you'll start to understand that the gifts of the spirit can begin to operate in your prayer time and in your prayer life and it just begins to get fun because as we learn how to pray and develop the practice of secret prayer you'll find that god you know is searching for intercessors and you'll find at times in your devotional time he may place a burden and a prayer assignment on you in the secret place

23:27 of prayer and that's when it becomes You know, instead of just having everything, you know, all lined up how we're going to pray, the Lord will start to have spontaneous things happen in our prayer time and in our prayer closet. i'll give you an example from my own life when i first began to develop the practice of secret prayer like i said i would go into a literal closet shut a literal door and that helped me to be centered and focused the room was dark there wasn't distractions believe it or not back in the day we didn't have phones And so I used to go in with my list, my prepared list. I took what the Bible says in Timothy. Pray, first of all, for those that are in authority. And I'd pray for the president, the vice president and those that were in authority. And then I'd have my list and I'd pray for people that were that were in my family. I would pray for my friends.

24:22 And as I continued in prayer and as I practiced and spent time in his presence, one day he spoke to me. Where does he speak? He spoke deep down on the inside. He spoke these words and he said, Margie, he said, I just like you're led by my spirit in your everyday life. He said, I also desire that you be led by my spirit in the place of prayer. And so that's when it began to get fun because I'd go in to my closet. I'd shut the door. I'd spend time with him. I still, you know, would pray for the president and the vice president. But I also was open for manifestations of the gifts of the spirit. I was open to the Holy Spirit dropping in me prayer assignments, praying. about things that I had no natural knowledge of but the Holy Spirit knew because he searches the hearts he knows what is in the mind of God he knows what's going on in our families he knows dangers that may try to come the way of some of our loved ones and so I began to be open and receptive to the Holy Spirit leading me and guiding me into the place of prayer. And that's when it really became fun. Now, incredible. We are actually running out of time, but I really want

25:55 to encourage you. Not to stop here, to tune into the episode part two next week. Continue to learn how to pray. Continue to dive into these teachings. Now, before we close, I'm going to go ahead and pray a prayer for you. So, Father, I just pray for my listeners. Father, I pray for them. I pray the prayer that you spoke, that the Apostle Paul spoke out of Ephesians chapter one. I pray, Father, that the eyes of their heart and that the eyes of their understanding would be opened and enlightened, flooded with light. I pray that they would come to know and understand the wonders of your heart, that you would lead them and guide them into depths of your heart and places of prayer that they have. I've never walked into before. I pray that you would anoint them with fresh oil in the secret place of prayer. OK, so don't mix our next episode. We're going to go ahead and we're going to begin to teach you how to pray in this secret place. My book, Contend, Stewarding the Hearts and Destinies of Our Children Through Prayer, is one of my most favorite projects thus far. In this book, I teach the reader how

27:27 to pray effectively for their children, their grandchildren, and the rising generations that are in the earth today. Make no mistake about it. There is war over the hearts and the destinies of our children. And this book will equip you as to how to pray. pray effectively for those young people. In this book, I teach you about the power and the purpose of praying in tongues. I show you what a prayer alert looks like. There are sample prayers. Not only that, there are outlines at the end of each chapter. So if you run a Bible study, you can use this book as a springboard to teach others how to pray for their children. Pick up your own copy.