Transcription
Whether you're new to faith or you've been following Jesus for years, learning to pray changes everything. Hi, my name is Michael and today I want to welcome you to a class that we like to call teach me how to pray.
This question is an age-old question that is literally the top three things that people want to know who are believers in Jesus and people who are non-believers. How do you pray? Well, I want you to know that you're in good company when you ask that question because the very disciples that walk with Jesus every day ask the same question in Luke 11:1. Let me tell you about the story. One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said, "Lord, teach us how to pray, just as John taught his disciples to pray." And today, that's what I want to do. After this small course, you're going to be confident that you have the principles to go boldly to God in prayer.
I want you to know that prayer is simply talking to God, communicating with him. This is not a religious routine, but the core of a real relationship with God. I grew up with one of the greatest prayer warriors I know, my mama, Pastor Brenda. Mama B, if you know her for real. You'll hear from her in an upcoming class. But we were at every prayer service from the time I came out of her womb. She used to wake up at 5:00 a.m., slap oil all on our faces, and we woke up to go to school like that. I'm not new to this. I'm true to this.
But for a time, prayer was just an obligation for me. I had no real connection for myself. I had to be at prayer. I had to go to church. I had to let the oil run down my face. But it wasn't until I had a real connection with God as a teenager. I used to play drums in a group called One Generation of Praise. And my mom would teach us to pray and she would tell us that what we should do should come out of the overflow of a relationship with God. And until that moment, I didn't realize that everything I did externally came from an internal power. It was something that God was developing in me that he wanted to release through my life. And that's when prayer became real to me. It be to be the way I connected and developed a relationship, a real relationship with God.
See, prayer begins with relationship, not obligation. And here at TC, we like to say prayer is our sauce. We put that on everything because it is our first response, not our last resort. So, what does that actually look like in my everyday life? I'm so glad you asked. Today, I'm going to give you the four core principles of prayer.
Number one, prayer is not about performance. It's about progression. See, prayer isn't about impressing God or impressing others. It's about knowing him and praying out of the depths of that relationship. That means you need to know a little Bible. And it's very simple cuz in Matthew 6:5, it says it like this. When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly and in the street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, this is all the reward that they will ever get. But when you pray, here's the instructions. Go away by yourself. Shut the door behind you and pray to your father in private. Then your father who sees everything will reward you. Another translation says he will reward you openly.
See, God already knows everything. The scripture is literally saying that to us right now. He already knows what you need. He already sees it from a different view. But he wants you to be the one to come to him with what's already going on the inside. So you might as well be humble, open, and transparent because he knows it anyway. That verse goes on to say in verse 7, "And when you pray, don't keep babbling like the pagans, the people who don't have a relationship with God, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him."
See, God is not looking for you to put on a show. He's looking for you to be humble, open, and transparent and have faith. And watch this, be authentic to what's going on and how you feel. That way, you can actually progress, not just impress. And this is why I want everybody to know that God desires for you to come to him with your authenticity.
So, I hear some of you saying, "So, why do we have to pray at all if God already knows what we need?" Because prayer aligns our heart with his heart. This is how you can say not my will but yours be done. Because God has a way that he desires for things to go, a design for them. And many times we fight that. But in prayer, what it does is it aligns our hearts. I don't know if you've ever had a car that was out of alignment, but that road is bumpy when you're trying to go straight and there's not alignment. God is saying, "Get in alignment with me. Let your heart be aligned with me. Cuz many of us just need to know what God wants and to actually align with that thing. How many of us have known the right thing to do, but we really didn't want to do it? That's when you go to prayer. God, I know you're saying for me to do this, but I have to pray until my heart aligns with that. The Bible tells us in Matthew 7:7, "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find." This is what I want you to understand. Prayer is not about performance. It's about your progression. And I believe that your prayer life is about to go to another level.
The second core principle of prayer, watch this one. Prayer forms proximity or intimacy. Just like any relationship, communication builds closeness. Now, what is prayer? Talking to God. How do you get closer in your relationship with God? Talk to him. This makes the proximity where you feel like you're miles apart, it gets closer and closer and closer. When we spend time around someone, you start picking up their habits, their dialect, their mannerisms. When we stay in proximity to Jesus, we begin to grow more like him and have intimacy in a natural way. It's not forced. It's not contrived. It's something that flows out of the literal overflow of our time together.
If me and my wife Natalie never talked, how do you think our relationship would work? How long do you think our marriage would last? Not very long. Why? Because our communication, watch this, forms trust. It gets us to a place where we understand each other and it gives us expectations for the future. Me and my wife have developed over the last 16 years of being married a great communication system sometimes to where we don't even have to use words to be able to know what each other's feeling. Why? Because we spend so much time together. Do you know the Bible tells us that God even understands our groans and our moans? That's a sign of prayer. He understands the he knows you're hurting in that moment or ah he he can tell you're excited about something. All I'm letting you know is the closer you get with God, the more that you will know how to communicate with him. It's because of these moments in life that we've chosen each other, me and Natalie, over everything else. And we can go through joyful moments and hard times. Why? Because we have formed intimacy. And that means into me see. God wants you to see into his heart and he wants to see into your heart. And prayer allows us to bring our whole selves joy, fear, doubt, anxiety, gratitude to God without feeling judged.
When I have a real relationship with someone, I don't got to fake it. I don't have to act like I'm feeling something I'm not. And with God, he wants the same thing. You have to make a decision that your current situation won't dictate your faith. But also, you never have to pretend with God about what you're feeling, what you're going through, and what really hurts, or what you're really happy about. My friends know the real me because I don't have to put on a filter around them. And you don't have to put on a filter around God. However you talk, pray to God like that. He's big enough to take your mannerisms, frustrations, and even your disappointments. His chest is so big that he can take his child beating on it. See, every time I'm real with God and I bring my real self to prayer, I leave better. I leave wiser. I leave more tender. I leave more secure. And I leave with greater joy because I have safety knowing that God accepts me just as I am. And I have faith that he isn't going to leave me there. I'm telling you, in my life, I've seen God take me from being somebody who was addicted to pornography and me bringing that real issue to God and him not judging me, but lovingly encouraging me to move forward out of that trap that the enemy had me in. I was able to say to God, "God, I'm tempted today." And I heard him saying from heaven, "And I'm with you today." That is real conversation. To be able to walk in what your real life is going through, but talk to someone who knows what your future looks like. That's what prayer does. And God desires honest conversations with you from you, not polish communication. Matthew chapter 6:6 says, "But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your father in private. Then your father who sees everything will reward you openly." And this is why prayer forms proximity into me.
See the third core principle of prayer is prayer shapes our perspective. I hope you're taking notes cuz this is some good stuff right here. You want to know how to pray? I need you to understand you got to get the perspective of God. There have been so many times that have thought a certain way. even as the lead pastor of transformation church and God flips the script on me as I start praying sometimes even just hours before I go out to preach or I'm about to lead a meeting he was like you thought you was going that way you prayed and I'm taking you this way but I'm thankful it's not left up to me to decide my own standards or what's going to happen because I don't have to conjure up how I should view something solely based on my own experiences or feelings. Why? Cuz prayer has the power to shape my perspective and it has the power to shape yours too. So that we see things the way he sees them. That's why Romans 12:2, this is how transformation church was founded. Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is. His good, pleasing, and perfect will. This is what God wants. his good, pleasing, and perfect will.
But the truth of the matter is, I don't be thinking like God all the time. Oh, come on. Let's be honest. Our thoughts aren't always the best thoughts. So, when we come to prayer, God says, "Let me shape your perspective. I know you wanted to hurt them, but maybe you should pray for them. I know you wanted to leave, but maybe I'm developing something in you that's going to turn you into the person you've been praying to be." That's why Isaiah 55:8-9 says, "My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."
I think about the time I took my wife Natalie to Paris. It was one of her lifelong dreams. I also was able to take her mom with us and so it was a beautiful trip. But the thing is I had seen Paris but I had seen it from the street. all the beautiful buildings and architecture and the sounds and the people and the baguettes. It was beautiful. But then we went to a higher location. We got to see Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower. It was one of the most beautiful experience of my life because I was at a higher perspective. This is what prayer does. It puts you on the elevator of your thoughts and takes you up to where God is. So you might be looking at your marriage from ground level. Prayer takes you up to a higher height. You may be looking at your kids from the ground level, but prayer takes you up to a higher height. You may be looking at your financial situation from the ground level, but when you pray, it takes you to a different place so you can get God's perspective and you can see it from there.
Prayer strengthens our spiritual awareness and silences the voice of Satan. That's why you have to get the perspective of God. And that's why I want you to know that Matthew 26:41 is for you. It's for all of us to watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but many times the flesh is weak. Can we be honest? Sometimes we know what we supposed to do, but our flesh is weak. What prayer does is strengthen you. And this is what God invites us to do every day. This is not just for emergencies. This is for all things. God is not trying to just speak to you when everything's going wrong. He wants to speak to you all the time. The Bible talks about praying without ceasing. And this is not just you're walking around praying all day. This is keeping the open connection to God at all times because God wants to speak to you about your daily experiences about the things that hurt your heart, about your daily joys and failures and the struggles that keep you tied up. He has something he wants to say.
I told somebody the other day that I come from the era where me and Nat used to fall asleep on the phone talking to each other. Now, I know some of y'all too young for that, but in this day and age, there are people that keep the FaceTime on. And me and Nat, when we're apart, there are times that she's cooking, cleaning, but I have her put the FaceTime on because I just want to stay connected. I might be in a meeting or about to do something and go speak, but we keep the FaceTime on. Why? Because if there's anything we need to say, we don't even have to call and connect with each other. We're still connected. This is what God wants from you. Stay connected. And I heard a quote from Smith Wigglesworth. He said, "I never pray for more than 20 minutes at a time, but I never go 20 minutes without praying." This is a life that is of prayer. And that prayer shapes your perspective.
The fourth core principle of prayer and the last one for today is prayer takes practice. Prayer takes practice. Practice. Practice. Yes, prayer takes practice. The more you do it, the more comfortable you get at it. The more you do it, the more calm you are in the presence of God. And the more you do it, the more it comes like second nature. I heard it said like this, practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent. And the more you practice prayer, prayer will become a permanent fixture in your life. You got to do it. And you got to keep doing it. And after you do it, you got to do it again. It reminds us that we are never alone, that we have somebody we are connected to. Prayer anchors us when life feels overwhelming. It keeps us spiritually connected instead of emotionally isolated. And that's why you and I have to always pray. Proverbs 3:5 and 6, it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him." That's in prayer and he will make your path straight. I don't care who you are, where you've been, and what you think you know. Prayer is something we should always practice.
So, let's recap. The four core principles of prayer is prayer is not about performance. It's about progression. Number two, prayer forms proximity and creates intimacy. Number three, prayer shapes our perspective so we can see things higher like God sees them. And number four, prayer takes practice. Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent.
I am so proud of you for completing this class and I hope that you have a deeper understanding of how prayer is powerful for every situation that you are facing. If you want to learn more about prayer, I did a message in our charged up series all about it. And I want to help you understand how to use this in your everyday life. And maybe some of you want to take another step. And I want you to go to Uver Bible app and download one of our many Bible plans on prayer and fasting. Let's take an action step together. I want you to set aside a consistent daily time to just simply be with God. We call it the thirsty 30 around here. 10 minutes of prayer, 10 minutes of reading the word. You can start in the New Testament. And 10 minutes of worship. And transformation worship has tons of music that can help you take this step. And this will get you into the practice of his presence. I encourage every person that is listening to me that all of these videos, all of these courses, all of this disciplehip is to help you become the greatest version of you and equip you to be everything that God has called you to be. I encourage you to finish every one of these courses so that you can be strengthened and have all the tools you need to practice his presence.
Today I want to pray for you. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray for my brothers and my sisters and I thank you that inside of them a very vibrant prayer life is beginning. I thank you, Father, that they will hear your voice and a stranger they will not listen to. I thank you that they know that the effectual fervent or the consistent and strong prayers of righteous people they work. And today, Father, I thank you that there will be no situation they will ever face that they do not come to you in prayer with. Let them have courage to come boldly before the throne of grace and ask for whatever they need in the time of help. And I thank you that the weapon of prayer would see families saved, people healed, and lives turned to you. Thank you that prayer is our first response and not our last resort. Today we are open to a vibrant, exciting, miraculous prayer life that starts with a decision to pray always. We give you glory, honor, and praise for it in Jesus name. Amen.
Well, I hope you feel as excited as I do because I'm telling you, I see your prayer life exploding. This has been class one of this course, Teach Me How to Pray. And you got to watch the rest of the videos cuz I'm telling you, by the end of this, it's going to transform your prayer life. Get ready to live a transformed life.