Foundations of Prayer Part 1

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. Goes into the hearts of the people, doesn't return void, it produces results. Hello. Hi. Hi. Nice to be here tonight. Before we get into the word, I just wanna share that I did bring my books with me.

0:40 This is Encountering God Through Prayer. This particular book takes the reader right from the very start. Where do I begin? You begin with 15 minutes. You find a quiet place in your house and you dedicate that place as your prayer spot. I teach the reader how to enter into the presence of God. Of course, if you're learning how to pray, you have to know the heart of the Father. Because the Bible says that when you come to God, you must believe that he is. Well, who is he? So we do put that particular information in the book and I go into, I take the reader all the way from to begin where you are, all the way to contemplative and meditative prayer.

1:28 So if you could help me, Pastor David, I'd like to give it to this man in the white hat. God bless you. This particular book is Decision Time. Now this is my now daughter-in-law and my son took this picture and I wanted to use the picture. I thought it was perfect for this book. Decision Time, The Place in Prayer of Surrender. This book is about one of the prayers spoken of in the Word of God, the prayer of dedication and consecration. Where you pray not my will, but your will be done in my life. It is the kind of prayer that you can pray repetitively, meaning over and over and over again.

2:12 It's the prayer that Jesus prayed when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane and he was having trouble not with his heart, his spirit. He was having trouble in his soul. He said, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful unto death. His disciples, as you know, didn't stick with him. But he prayed himself to a place of surrender and a place whereby he set in motion the will of God and a place whereby he was strengthened to do the will of God. Now you know we can't do it son or all when it comes from the heart. Now I wrote this book because when I turned 50, 17 years ago, I knew that, I know, I don't know, I know, I know, I know.

2:55 I don't mind telling my age. But I knew that God had something coming up the road ahead. And I'm gonna be honest with you and I know Pastor Tricia can testify. I didn't know if I wanted to do it. I had taken time off of ministry to raise my kids and they were coming into driving age and college. And I knew instinctively that on the inside of me, God was calling me back into the public ministry and I didn't know if I wanted to put up with the warfare, the rejection, the hell, the opinions of people, and so on and so forth. So it took me three months to, you know, I was ignoring God.

3:41 You know when God speaks to you, he's talking and you're supposed to go like this, but I was going like this. Kind of like what my dog does when he doesn't wanna like do what I ask him to do. How many of you have a dog? I have a little Shih Tzu. You know, I just was going like this because I didn't wanna look at him. I didn't wanna look at him. So anyway, three months after my birthday, I was in a workout class and I was laying on the mat and right during the stretch time at the very end, the Holy Ghost just came upon me. You know, the Holy Ghost can encounter you anywhere. Holy Ghost came upon me and I just surrendered to him.

4:25 I said, now my will, your will be done in my life and now we're continuing on. You know, it's not a time for us to retire. It's a time for us to re-fire. So I'd like to give it to this gentleman with the blue shirt. You guys good? Then I have this book, Receive the Steps to the Prayer of Faith. And I'll tell you this, again, this is my son's picture. Why did I write this book? I wrote this book because people are confused. They mix up the different kinds of prayer with different rules and that's why they're not getting results in their prayer.

5:05 So I received an inbox from a woman who's been in a lot of our Kingdom Intercessors United meetings where we bring churches together and we all pray corporately. And she inboxed me and she's like, I have some personal needs and I'm just gonna stay home all day and I'm gonna spend time in the presence of God and she was gonna pray it through. So I said, Lord, she's not praying right. She's using the prayer of intercession rules for the prayer of faith whereby the prayer of faith is the prayer you pray to get your needs met on your own.

5:46 You believe that you receive it and you have it and you thank God and you go forth and thank him. So that's why I wrote this book. I wanna give it to this young lady with the pretty hair. Lastly, my recent book is Contends, Stewarding the Hearts and Destinies of Our Children Through Prayer. I talk about in this book prayer alerts. I talk about the three dimensions of prayer. Do you know that there are other dimensions of prayer? We're speaking the word, there's praying in the Holy Ghost but this particular book I get into travail in intercession. I call it the inner workings of the Holy Spirit.

6:29 There's about 85 promises at the back of the book. I talk about the different generations, their strengths, their weaknesses. There's a lot of stories in here about people who have by the prayer of intercession prayed their kids through and out of drug addiction, alcoholism, sickness, so on and so forth. It is a different kind of praying and we're gonna talk about that actually next week. Tonight is foundational but weirdly, I'm gonna give you this book. My little cutie pie with the worship leader and married to Sebastian.

7:10 I don't know, maybe there might be a little baby in the oven someday. You might need that book. They're cute, aren't they? So tonight I'm gonna talk to you briefly. We're gonna go 45 minutes tonight. I'm gonna talk to you about foundations of prayer. Now Pastor Tricia is exactly where a lot of the other leaders are in our region. It's time to lay a foundation, foundational truths. And when I was sitting there, I could just see the Lord just kept showing me, I'm laying a foundation. It's foundational time. Some of you may know some of this but I know that the Bible also says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

7:56 And tonight we're not only gonna lay foundational truth but we're going to starve your doubts and feed your faith. Amen. Amen? Okay, so it is very important that we build our lives and churches first of all on the word of God. How many of you know that's true? Because Jesus said that when the winds come, Matthew 7, 24 and 25, when the winds come, he said, whosoever hears these sayings of mine, he said, and does them, I will liken him unto a wise man who built his house upon a rock.

8:41 And when the winds come and the storms come and beat against your house, your house won't fall. Why? Because you studied to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Your house will not fall because you put the word of God in your heart and the word has not returned void but it has accomplished and produced something in your life and in your heart and that is faith to move mountains, faith to overcome adversity. Okay, so we need to make sure that we build our churches, build our lives on a beautiful devotional time in the word of God, amen.

9:23 So when these things come, we're not shaken. We know that the word of God is forever settled and that we can stand on the promises of God, that all the promises of God are yes and amen. Okay, but it's also important that we develop a vibrant life of prayer. Jesus said, and he didn't say it, he quoted from it, the Bible says, my house will be called a house of prayer. So we build our lives on the word of God. We build our churches on the word of God but it's also important that we have a vital, intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ through prayer, amen.

10:12 So let me ask you a question. What's more important on a bird, the left wing or the right wing? I love birds. I've got two feeders on my windows and I specifically attract the red birds. Yeah, so I like to watch the birds. And it's a horrible thing when one of the birds hits the window because they break a wing and sure enough, that bird is laying there and I've been known to pick the bird up and pray over it. So if one of those wings are broken, that bird can't fly.

10:54 That bird needs both wings in a healthy manner to fly. Right? What's more important for you and I as Christian believers? We need a balance. Everyone say balance. We need a balance of the word of God, putting the word of God, teaching the word of God, devotional time, but we also need a vibrant prayer life with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So I'm gonna be honest with you. For me, it was way easier for me to spend a lot of time with God and pray because that's my heart. Even when I was a little girl, I used to sit in the back of my yard and pray for the Lord.

11:39 I used to look up at my yard and I used to look up and I would sit on a tree stump as a little girl and I used to look up into the sky and I wanted to see God's face. I didn't even know that that was in the Bible. Are you listening? How many of you wanna see his face? And I used to hide in bushes and I just wanted to know him. But so it was easy for me to be a person of prayer and wanna seek his face and learn of him and all of that kind of intimacy with him. But God had to deal with me. He said, you need to spend more time in my word because you, girl, need both to fly.

12:22 And so therefore, I had to bring more of a balance into my walk with God. So for me, what I did, and maybe this is gonna help you, this was not prepared, what I did is I created a lot of audio CDs. Now, we'd call them podcasts, whatever. I can't keep up. How many of you can keep up? I just can't. We created a lot of audio media scripture tapes with different subjects. And so what I would do, like if I had one on faith, I would read my own voice, my media person, read all the scriptures on faith, right? Or if it was the heart of the father, all the scriptures that talk about the heart of the father, or love, the love scriptures I've been listening to a lot lately, because I need to walk more in love.

13:12 So I would just put the word of God in my heart by just listening. Again, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. I didn't necessarily put those CDs on or those tapes on to get a teaching. I just wanted the word of God to go into my heart because the word of God doesn't reach your void. It is an incorruptible seed that goes into your heart. It lives and abides forever. It divides the son, or soul, and spirit, and you're able to discern the thoughts and the intents of the heart. So I just kept putting the word of God, putting in the word of God, putting in the word of God, and then, you know, now we have podcasts, we have all kinds of things.

13:54 But I just want to encourage every one of us, as we go into these two nights, two Wednesdays of teaching on prayer, make sure you have a balance of the word of God and prayer. Don't make the same mistake I did. Okay, now what are the rewards and benefits of being a person of prayer? Psalm 16, 11 says, "'In his presence is fullness of joy.'" When you're a man and a woman of prayer, you are strong because the joy of the Lord is our strength. So when you're a man and a woman of prayer and you're spending time in the presence of God, it strengthens you with might by his spirit in your inner man.

14:39 You're in his presence, you are downloaded with his presence, which a part of his character is joy, and that joy is your strength. It strengthens you, okay? What else? When you are a person of prayer, it creates intimacy and friendship with God. Prayer produces intimacy. I just wanna say hello to everybody online. You know, this gospel of the kingdom is gonna be preached to all nations and then the end will come. The word of God is going forth and it doesn't just stop right here with us. It's gonna keep going and going and going and going and going.

15:23 But prayer produces intimacy. Prayer produces intimacy with the one you pray to. You are changed into the same image from glory to glory. Show me your face, I wanna see your face. I wanna know and learn your ways. Teach me your ways, oh Lord. Even on my bed, I meditate about you day at night, right? Prayer produces intimacy with the one you pray to. Here's a good one with the one you pray for. You don't wanna pray for that person, I don't like them. How many have some people you don't like?

16:04 How many have some people that have despicably used you and persecuted you and hurt you? You know, the Bible says pray for your enemies. Bless those that curse you. When you pray for your enemies, you know what happens? You begin to see them the way God sees them. And you know what I learned a long time ago, I'm still grasping it, but hurting people hurt people. So if somebody's hurt you and been mean to you, I would just wanna encourage you to pray for them. You don't have to necessarily be reconciled to them. Sometimes we need to go no contact to protect ourselves.

16:44 And that's healthy, and that's a healthy boundary. But we can pray for them in the secret place. You know, the Bible says, though I'm absent in the flesh, I'm present with you in the Spirit. We can pray for them and not even be in their presence. So prayer produces intimacy with the one you pray to, the one you pray for, and King of Kings, the one you pray with. So when you all gather together, and you all pray with one another in one accord, in one place, there's a meshing, and there's an intimacy that's produced in and amongst you. And God said, that's when I can command my blessing.

17:27 So prayer produces intimacy with the one you pray to, the one you pray for, and the one you pray with. What else about the rewards of being a person of prayer? Is everybody good? Listen, I'm just going really fast here. Are you good with that? And Ray, I gave him a ton of scriptures. So I just believe that the Spirit of God just wants this word to go out and go into your hearts because he's doing a new thing in the prayer ministry here in and amongst us, not only collectively, but in and amongst you individually. He is doing a new thing. He wants to take us to another level, but he's got to lay some foundation here.

18:10 So what else is good about being a person of prayer? It says here, Hebrews 11, six, without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and he is what? He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. I'm gonna read another scripture, and then I wanna comment. Matthew 6, six, but when you pray, go into your room, that's a secret place, secret chamber, an intimate place. And when you've shut the door, pray to your father who is in the secret place, and your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. I love that part about the God who sees.

18:51 You think you're in your prayer chamber and you're all by yourself. He said, my eyes will be upon you, my ears will be open and attentive unto the prayers that are made in this place. He sees you when you pray, whether you feel like it or don't feel like it. We're not moved by what we feel. We're moved, see, by what the word of God says. The word of God says he sees you when you pray. And he's got his eyes wide open. And for some that have father issues, he's not looking at you and he doesn't have an angry face. He's looking at you and he's smiling. Because for many of you, he's saying, well done, thou good and faithful servants.

19:33 You've been faithful over little, I'm gonna promote you and you'll be ruler over much. That's why we can't look at ourselves. We look at all of our weaknesses and all of our stuff. And you know what the Lord said to me one day? He said, the more you look at yourself, the more you are a crippled person. He said, I want you to look unto me, the author and the finisher and the perfecter of your faith. Don't look at yourself, look unto him. We are what we are by the grace of God anyway, aren't we my friends, right? But this part about the reward, this is my personal opinion, this is what I would like.

20:17 What is the reward? I used to ask my friends, what do you think the reward is? Nobody has an answer. Maybe you guys, everybody has an answer over a different opinion. Do you know what I would want that reward to be personally? I would want it to be, when I come out from the presence of God after my secret time with him, I would love it if the reward is, his presence is upon me and I go my way and he gives me rest. I would love it if I was a fragrance of Jesus everywhere I went because I went into the presence of God, I communed with him and that presence is on me and when I leave, I'm mantled with it.

21:03 That's why sometimes we go places and people react and you don't know why. Well, because you're a carrier of the presence of God and when you seek him, you will find him. When you knock, the door will be open. When you spend time with him, you become what you behold. You become like him and you carry his essence with you. Listen, there's something true about that. Have you ever hung out with somebody and you can still sense their essence? Yes, spiritual things are transferable. You gotta watch who you hang around with. They're transferable through the laying on of hands, you better watch who lays hands on you.

21:47 It's transferable through you associate with and it's transferable with whom you sit under. That's why when I come here, I get all revved up in the prophetic. Revved up in the prophetic because you pick up the spirit of the church wherever you go and who you sit under. I know that's right. So when you pray, the Bible says, now you can't see this either, but this is by faith. But listen, heaven is for real. I'm telling you heaven is for real.

22:27 Heaven is for real. We're here on this earth, but this is just our earth suits. Do you understand that? You are a spirit, you have a soul and you live in a body. This is your earth suit and when you leave, you're gonna be with Jesus and all your relatives and everybody that's up there in heaven. So this is really happening. When you pray while you're here on this earth, your prayers go up before the throne room of grace and they are like an incense.

23:08 Well, who said that? The word of God. So when you pray, know that that's exactly what's happening. Okay, Catherine Coleman once said, well, we're doing great on time. The greatest power given to any individual is the power of prayer. How many of you know that Catherine Coleman operated in signs and wonders and miracles, the working of miracles, the gift of faith and the gift of healing? She operated in the three power gifts that I'm believing God for to manifest in this day and in this hour that you and I are living in. If Catherine Coleman got to see it, I wanna see it. We have not seen those three gifts manifested in my lifetime, but we've seen of the revelation gifts, we've seen the utterance gifts, but how many of you know there's nine gifts of the Spirit?

23:58 So she said the greatest power given to any individual is the power of prayer. She had a life of prayer, Easter, and she had a life of surrender. I think that's a very powerful combination. Jesus in his earthly ministry was a man of great prayer. Have you ever thought of that? Have you ever thought about that online? Jesus was a man of great prayer. That's why when the disciples came to him, they said, Lord, you know, we've been watching you. And sometimes you disappear. And sometimes you disappear all night.

24:39 And sometimes you go up into a mountain by yourself. There's a lot of things that you're doing and we're kinda getting a drift that you're praying to your Father in secret. And they watched him. Don't you watch people that are successful? And they watched the power went out of him and into people's bodies and people were healed. He always ministered out of his overflow. He never ministered leaders out of his reserved. Why? Because he was a man of prayer. So they watched Jesus. And one day they came to him and they said, Lord, teach us to pray.

25:19 Yeah, we could go to Bible school. We could learn how to preach, homiletics. We could learn how to move in the gifts of the Spirit. We could learn all these things. But I think the greatest lessons we can learn is lessons on prayer. Everything flows from our intimacy with God. Amen? Okay, Leroy Brownlow once said, let us not neglect prayer just because we do not fully comprehend the infinite power of the God who's thrown we kneel. I do not know everything about gravity, but I know it works.

26:07 We're gonna talk before closing and demonstrating prayer. The four foundations of prayer. Let's talk about what we do know. How do we get knowledge of what we do know because we go to the scriptures? What did God say about prayer? Number one, you have to ask. Ask, seek, request, and inquire is mentioned 100 times in the Bible. Ask is mentioned 33 times.

26:47 When God says something one time, he means it. When God says something 33 times, you better believe he's trying to get your attention. John Wesley once said, it seems like God is limited by our prayer life that he cannot do nothing for humanity unless someone asks him, why? I'm gonna say something and I've had multiple times where I could feel people putting on the brakes, but I'm gonna prove it to you in the scripture. God is not running everything in this world.

27:27 He does not have anything under control, everything under control. Can I re-say it? God is not running everything in this world. He does not have everything under control. Prayer is necessary because man is God's avenue into the world. Therefore, it is necessary that you ask. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's podcast.

28:10 It has been such a joy sharing this time with you. For more inspiration and resources on today's topic, please visit our website at margiefleuron.org.