January 13, 2025 • 42 mins
Thanks for listening to this episode of A Worship Warrior's Podcast. In this episode, I, Sarah, talk about what prayer is and how we should be praying according to the Bible. Whether you are a new believer or a seasoned one, this episode is full of good lessons and reminders inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Links for this episode:
Praying the Bible by Donald S. Whitney:
Psalm Prayer Cards:
Praying Regularly Should Not Be Intimidating Blog Post:
Check out my:
Website: https://www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com/
Blog: https://www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com/blog
FREE Digital Resources: https://www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com/general-7
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Hey guys, welcome back to our Worship Warriors podcast.
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What's up guys, welcome back to our Worship Warriors podcast.
If you're new here, my name is Sarah and I have a podcast and a blog and I have a website
www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com.
I don't post regularly on the blog as of right now, but I do every now and then put stuff
on there as God leads and sometimes I will put stuff that is related to certain episodes
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of the podcast so you can kind of get double the amount of stuff on there.
I also have some free digital resources on my website, not a ton, but I do have some
and they have been helpful for me for sure and I'm going to have some more coming out
soon.
So yeah, if you guys saw the title of this, this episode is over prayer and this is a
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really good episode whether you are a new believer or maybe you're not a believer at
all and you are just trying to figure out why we crazy Jesus freaks are Jesus freaks
in the first place.
And so you're listening to this and you're like, okay, I'm going to learn more about
what these people think.
Or maybe you are a Christian and you have been for a while and you are close to God,
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but this would be still a very good reminder for you.
Yeah.
And also if you agree with me on this, I 100% would appreciate it if you sent this to a
friend.
Word of mouth is the best way to promote things in my opinion.
So yeah, send it to a friend, send it to someone who doesn't know God, send it to a family
member, a loved one, whoever.
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Yeah, or share it on whatever you want.
That would be great.
All right, so I'm just going to jump right into it.
So prayer.
First of all, let's talk about what prayer is.
Here's a three word definition for you.
Prayer is talking to God.
Shocker.
That's literally all it is.
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Prayer is communication with God.
It's not anything formal.
It's not like you have to sit down and or whatever be dressed nicely.
Doesn't matter what you look like.
It doesn't matter if you're in the bathtub.
It doesn't matter if you're in bed.
It doesn't matter if you're standing in your living room.
It doesn't matter if you're at church.
Like prayer is just simply talking to God and it could be like me standing at the sink
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doing dishes and saying, God, I absolutely hate doing the dishes, but obviously I need
to do them.
So can you please tell me why in the heck I have to do these things?
Like, why do I need to be doing this?
What is the goodness that is coming from this?
And just talking to him, like literally, it doesn't have to be a formal thing.
Just talk to him about whatever and anything you want to talk about.
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That is prayer.
And so yeah, it's as simple as that.
It's not as intimidating as it sounds.
You don't have to even address him as dear God or God or Lord or whatever.
Just start talking as if he's sitting right there with you because he is.
God is everywhere.
God is with us at all times.
So just imagine if you're in the car that he's just sitting right in the passenger seat
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with you and you just start talking to him.
Would you like if your friend was sitting in the car next to you?
Would you say, dear Angie, as she's sitting right next to you and then start talking?
No, you would just start talking to her.
Right?
So that's kind of how I like to think about it.
He's right there with you.
You're sitting there doing the dishes.
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He's right there with you doing the dishes with you.
Start talking to him.
You know?
Anyway, why is it important though?
That's like a big, big question.
I feel like a lot of people, a lot of Christians out there, a lot of non-Christians, or I guess
Christians, a lot of Christians out there are like, oh yeah, obviously we need to be
talking to God.
Like you should be praying.
But do they really understand how it's so important?
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Like it's literally vital.
It is essential to your relationship with God.
In any relationship, any relationship, it's important to communicate to each other.
You talk to each other, right?
You're not going to get to know someone better.
You're not going to become friends.
You're not going to get to know your kids, even if you don't ever communicate with them
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in some way, right?
In any relationship, it's important to talk to each other.
Y'all, God is God.
He is powerful.
He is all powerful.
He is all knowing.
He is all present or he's everywhere present, as some people would say.
If we are in need, why would we turn to someone else?
He's God.
He's literally the only one who can do anything and everything except for fail.
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Like he can't fail.
You know, he can't get better than that.
So what would turning to a person get you?
So it's important to pray to God instead of turning to others about our problems, about
our questions, about our joy, all of the things.
Because what are they going to be able to do for you?
They might be able to do something.
I'm not saying they can't do anything for you, but God is the one who can say, don't
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worry.
I'm going to change the entirety of this situation for my glory and for your good also.
Our friend can't say that.
They don't know the future.
They don't know what's in store for your life.
They don't know anything.
Just like you don't know anything, but you know God.
So why would you turn to anyone else?
So you need to talk to God.
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You need to pray to him.
It's important to pray to him because he is God.
In order to have a close, intimate relationship with him, we have to talk to him.
We must talk to him guys daily.
When we vent to God about all of the things we're struggling with, all of the good things
happening to us, all of the questions that we have, he's the only one who can constantly
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comfort us.
He's the only one who can constantly rejoice with us, answer us, and the only one who can
guide us.
You may have someone out there who can give you decent advice.
And I'm not saying you should never go to a wise person to ask for advice because God
actually tells us to do that.
So you do need to go to people for wise counsel.
But they're going to, well, if they're truly wise in God, because those are the people
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we should be going to for advice, those people are going to be getting their wisdom from
who?
God.
So firstly, you should be going to God.
He's the only one that can guide us along the right path.
And he will directly, like he will talk to us directly and show us directly how to do
those things.
And then other times, yes, he does guide us through other people's wisdom that he's given
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them or whatever, or their experiences that he's given them or allowed them to have or
whatever.
So like, yes, there is a time to talk to others.
But as far as prayer and how it's important, you need to be praying to God every day about
everything in your life because he's the one who's going to be able to actually show you
the way.
And he will actually be genuinely joyful all the time when you're going through something
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good, whether it be small or big.
There's not one single person out there, I guarantee you, unless it's maybe your mom
and maybe your dad.
But like, there's not one single person who's going to be excited like you are about every
single good thing that happens to you, not like God.
I guarantee you that.
Okay.
And the other thing about God is when we talk to him, we have to remember he's never going
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to leave us.
Like all these people that we go to, that we run to, they could leave us.
Even the ones you think won't be leaving us, that won't be leaving you because they seem
so loyal, they seem this or that.
They're a human being.
You really can't tell if they're ever going to leave you or not.
Not 100%.
You cannot absolutely say 100% without a doubt that no one's going to ever leave you or that
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someone is going to never leave you.
Another thing with that though is say they never actually leave you and they never forsake
you, quote unquote.
They're going to die, you know.
God is not.
He's always going to be with you.
So you could go 50 years without a loved one here on earth, but God is still with you through
all of that.
He is constant in our lives.
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He will never leave you.
So we can always rely on him.
We should be praying and we should want to be praying.
It isn't a checklist item.
It's not a task.
It's something that we should want to do.
And I feel like it's something that a lot of people are like, oh, I guess I should be
praying or whatever.
Or, you know, they do treat it like a checklist.
Like, okay, well, I read my Bible.
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I need to pray, you know, and then I can move on with my day.
No, it's something that it's like, Lord, man, I just love talking to you because it's so
freeing when I talk to you.
I have so much peace whenever I talk to you.
I get so much wisdom whenever I talk to you or, you know, or whatever.
Whatever it is, it should be something that you want to do.
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And if it's not something that you're wanting to do, if it seems intimidating or this or
that or the other, sorry, also, my heater just kicked on, but please just deal with
it.
So sorry.
Some people that bothers.
But it's cold outside, so we want to keep it on.
What was I saying?
Oh, sorry.
So if you are someone who does not have this desire to like just get up and start your
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day and just really talk to God and hang out with him, like literally just hang out with
him and you're treating this like a checklist item, or maybe you are not praying and not
reading your Bible and not obeying God at all, but you know you should be and you have
guilt and conviction about that.
I get that it's even though it shouldn't be.
I've been there.
It's hard sometimes to have that desire to talk to God.
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But the more we hang out with God, the more we want to because no one compares to him.
So the more you actually spend time with him, the more you allow him to talk to you, like
the more you listen to him, the more you talk to him, the more you start obeying him and
seeing the fruits of your faithfulness to him because of him, not you.
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You want to hang out with him or you want to have an intimate relationship with him.
You want to repent and turn away from your sin and live like him and live the way he
wants you to.
You want to listen to him.
You want to talk to him or because he is that amazing and he brings so much peace and freedom
to your life that it just doesn't compare.
You don't want to turn back to the life you had before.
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I guarantee you, there is literally no doubt in my mind that the more quality time you
spend with God, the more you'll want to and the easier it will be to just start talking
to him like it's just part of your normal routine in the day.
Now I say all of this and I've kind of covered what I'm about to talk about, but I'm going
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to give you...
Sorry, I had to move the mic.
I'm going to give you some things to think about about your prayer.
I talked about how it's not a formal thing.
There is such a thing as corporate prayer and I do believe that to a certain extent...
Now this is kind of controversial, but I do believe to a certain extent that if you are
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praying in a corporate setting, sometimes I think that you need to be mindful of what
you're praying about and how you say it or how you go about it.
But also, it doesn't mean that there's a lack of genuineness.
You know what I mean?
You should still...
I don't know how to say that.
Oh my gosh.
Hold on.
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I have a funny story, but let me finish this.
It should still be genuine is what I'm saying.
It's not like you're faking it.
It's not a performance.
It should never be a performance.
Talking to God should just be genuinely you talking to God from your heart.
But I just say that there is some discretion in certain things as there should be in certain
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corporate settings during your prayer.
But in general, it's a very...
Well, still, even with that, it's not a formal thing where you have an outline every time
you pray and you stand up there and you're like, dear Father God, and you sound like
a robot.
It's not like that.
It's an informal, genuine, heartfelt thing.
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You're just talking to the creator of all.
You're talking to God genuinely, sincerely, y'all.
My funny story really quick, and then I'll get into the rest of this, is it's really
fast.
Anna Hutchinson, who used to be my co-host on this podcast, there was an episode, and
I can't remember which episode it was.
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It was so long ago.
There was an episode that we did, and we were trying to say whatever word I was just trying
to say.
Genuinity?
That one, is that right?
That sounds right, but I might be wrong, but it's genuine, being genuine.
And we could not say it.
I don't know how long it went on, but for that episode, it was like five minutes, probably.
I don't know.
I was literally just trying to say this word, and we could not say it.
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It was so...
It was funny.
It was hilarious.
Maybe only to us, but it was freaking hilarious.
Okay, moving on to the rest of this episode.
So I kind of talked about how to pray with the informal, heartfelt, genuine, and that's
true.
But I want to go over a little bit more of how we pray, because there are some things
in God's word where Jesus tells us how we should pray.
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There's no right or wrong unless you are being...
Unless you're not being genuine with it, there's no right or wrong, I should say, because you're
just talking to him.
How can you go wrong by talking to God, unless you're not truly talking to him and it's not
from your heart and it's not being genuine?
So how do we pray?
The first point I want to talk about, and the main one really actually, is humbly.
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We need to be humble when we're praying.
Genuine kind of goes along with humble, because if you're being humble, then we know you're
being genuine.
But you should be humbly praying.
In Matthew, there is a passage, Matthew 6, 5 through 6.
I have it right here.
I'm going to read it super fast.
And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray
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in the synagogues and the street corners, but they may be seen by...
That may...
Excuse me.
That they may be seen by others.
Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in
secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you.
Y'all, this is saying that this is not a show like I was talking about earlier.
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This is saying...
Well, for instance, just look at the picture.
Let's just say you do exactly what the scripture says.
It says, when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father
who is in secret.
Okay, so let's say you do that.
You go into your room.
It's just you.
No one else is in the house.
No one else is in the room, whatever.
You go into your closet.
A lot of people have prayer closets.
Go into your closet, shut the door.
No one else can hear you.
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It's just you and God.
Are you going to be a phony?
I hope not.
It's just you and God.
No one else is around you to judge your words.
It's literally just God.
It doesn't matter what you sound like.
It's just God.
It doesn't matter if you can't even get a full sentence out.
He's God.
He knows what you're trying to tell him.
He just wants you to try.
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He wants you to tell him.
He wants you to get it off your chest.
He wants you to come to him, let him wrap his arms around you, and also experience the
joys, experience your gratitude for him, your gratitude for all the things around you.
He wants to experience all of that.
Just look at that picture of you in your room praying to him.
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That is humility and being genuine.
That is you being genuine and you being humble.
Jesus prayed humbly all the time because if he didn't, well, he wouldn't be Jesus.
Jesus prayed humbly.
Most of the times that we see in scripture, he prays in private like that passage I was
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reading said to do.
Mark 135, Mark 646, Luke 516.
I didn't have them in my notes to read to you guys, but those are all examples if you
want to look them up on your own and read them about Jesus praying humbly and in private.
Honestly, I just encourage you to read that whole chapter around it too because that will
give you the whole context of each one.
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Those are just certain verses.
Jesus is one in the Trinity.
He is God.
Yet he completely humbled himself to the lowest degree possible for us.
Everything he said and did stemmed from that heart posture, that act of humility.
Every time he prayed, he prayed with humility, thinking of how God, including himself, because
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like I just said, he's one of the Trinity, so he is God, thinking of how God could get
the glory deserved through the salvation of humanity.
All of this was for the glory of God, but it also, God wants us to be saved and live
eternally with him.
Everything now because he loves us.
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So yes, it was for the glory of God firstly, but he does love us.
So he does want to experience this with us.
So Jesus had this heart posture for this reason, to glorify God and because he loves us.
Through our salvation, he will ultimately be glorified just as he deserves.
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Every prayer Jesus prayed that is recorded in the Bible shows all of what I just said.
That's a whole belief system and every prayer he prayed shows this belief system y'all.
Just go, I want you to think about that.
I want you to go read passages about Jesus, just talking to God and I want you to think
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how does him talking to God, even if it's one statement that he says in his prayer or
whatever, I want you to think how does this prayer to his father show this belief system,
show the reason he did it, show the humility, the heart posture of thinking of how he's
doing all of this on earth to glorify God and also because he loves us.
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How does this prayer show those two things?
I want you to really, like it's really, sorry I bumped the mic, it's really fascinating.
Really fascinating.
John 17, one through five says, when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes
to heaven and said, father, the hour has come, glorify your son that the son may glorify
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you.
Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you
have given him and this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God in Jesus
Christ whom you have sent.
I glorified you on earth having accomplished work that you gave me to do and now father,
glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
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This shows who he is as God, but it also shows how much he humbled himself here on earth
and it shows the belief system that I was just talking about of how he did all of this
for God and for us.
This John 17, one through five, that's what that was.
This shows exactly what I was saying.
It's literally the perfect passage to show what I was telling you.
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Wow, I don't even think I realized how perfect it was.
I knew it, but reading it just now on the podcast, that was so good.
Thank you God.
Another example of prayer in the Bible is what we call the Lord's Prayer.
Let's see, I have it here, Matthew 6, nine through 13.
I'm going to read it and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to break it down a little
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bit and show you some things.
The Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6, nine through 13.
Pray then like this, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our
debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for yours is the kingdom,
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the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
Now, the last part where it says for yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
Is not in every translation.
I found out that it's only, like you see it in certain manuscripts, but I could be wrong.
So please, I'm not a huge theologian or anything, but I don't believe it's in all the manuscripts
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from what I was reading.
But again, don't take me for my word on that because I'm not a big theologian.
I mean, I am in my own way, but I'm not super, super knowledgeable about some things.
So anyway, do your own research on that.
But I just loved that last little bit and I learned that when I memorized it as a kid.
So I'm going to take this though.
This is Jesus talking to the disciples.
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And so we see that Jesus gives an example of how to pray.
There have been people over the past several years, like decades and decades and whatever,
well, not just decades, centuries, where they believe that you are supposed to say this
specific words, this specific prayer.
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I do not believe that.
I believe that, I mean, you can be genuine in what you're saying.
If you're truly praying this, that's fine.
I'm not saying you can't pray that.
Pray scripture.
Praying scripture is amazing and you can pray this prayer.
But what I believe Jesus was saying was this is the type of stuff you should be praying
for because all of this is righteous things you could be praying for.
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And it's according to God's will to pray for these things.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this example prayer, break it down into topics
of what to pray for, which people have already done.
Like there are so many acronyms out there and a lot of them are based off of the Lord's
Prayer actually.
But if I were to just on the spot, sit down, open my Bible to this passage, read through
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this example prayer that Jesus is giving us and just jot down on the spot the topics or
the things that we should be praying for based off of this example prayer.
This is pretty much what I would, you would get something like this if you did this.
First off, we see praise, adoration and gratefulness.
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We don't necessarily see thank you God for this.
Thank you God for that.
But you would not, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
You would not be praying that genuinely if you weren't grateful for what God has done
for you and who he is and all of the things around you that he's given you.
So praise and adoration, genuine, like actual true praise and adoration to God comes first
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from a grateful heart.
So that's why I put that with it.
So praise, adoration and gratefulness is what we first would get.
Then, the next part is your kingdom come.
So sorry, I heard something weird.
I didn't know if it was my son.
Your kingdom come.
This in my opinion could be a couple of different things.
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Well, no, that's a lie.
This could be, to some people, they believe it could be a couple of different things.
Your kingdom come.
This first off could be us looking forward to the coming, the second coming of Christ
and the new heaven and the new earth and all of that at the end of times.
Right?
Okay.
I personally, just from my personal opinion, is that it's actually not that.
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What this means in my opinion is your kingdom come.
And we are saved and we have the Holy Spirit come inside of us.
We now have God's kingdom.
Well, we have God's spirit inside of us.
And so God brings his kingdom to earth through us, through the Holy Spirit inside of us.
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And all of the things that the Holy Spirit does through us, we are bringing kingdom to
the streets.
So this, in my opinion, is saying that you should be praying for other souls to be saved.
This is the kingdom in the streets.
This is the ministry that you're doing.
This is the people you're witnessing to, the people you are leading to Christ, the people
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you are praying for.
This is praying for other souls to be saved, in my opinion, bringing kingdom, the kingdom
of God to the streets of this world.
So praise, adoration, gratefulness first, kingdom in the streets, praying for other
souls to be saved.
That's the second one.
The third one is your will, God, not mine.
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This shows humility.
God, I know I'm a human being.
I know I'm selfish, but I want you, God, to show me what to do in life.
I want you, God, to show me where to go and what to say and who to talk to and all of
the things.
I don't want to be in control of anything.
I want you to be in control of everything.
This is humility.
The next thing is requests for our needs.
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Let me go find my place, sorry.
Where did it go?
Give us this day our daily bread, verse 11.
Give us this day our daily bread.
This is requesting our needs.
We need to come to God and request, say, God, I need this.
And it's not that God doesn't already know that.
He's God.
Of course, He knows what we need, but it's the act of our faithfulness and our belief
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in Him.
We come to Him and say, God, I need this, and it shows that we are aware that He is
the only one who can provide for us what we need.
So requests for our needs.
The next one in my...
Whoa, where did it go?
Yeah.
Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.
So first one, repentance.
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Forgive us our debts.
Repentance is not just asking for forgiveness.
It is, yes, noticing you did something wrong or I am a sinner, God, I need you, please
forgive me.
And then it is you turning away, actively using the strength that God gives you and
the self-discipline He gives you through that strength to repent, meaning to turn away and
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not do that sin again.
Repentance.
Next is help forgiving others.
And sometimes it's not, a lot of the time, it is not easy to just say, oh, that person
wronged me, I forgive them, it's fine.
It's so hard to do that most of the time.
For me, 100%, it is so hard.
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So there are many times when I say, God, I need your help.
I cannot forgive this person on my own.
I don't want to forgive this person.
I'm angry at them.
They wronged me.
I want them to know the truth about what actually happened.
I want them...
I want to step in and say, my two cents or whatever, but I don't need to be doing that
most of the time.
Most of the time, I just need to forgive and forget in a sense.
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Like, no, don't forget what they did and you're not going to, but forgive and forget in the
way that it's like, I forgive you truly.
And I know that you're not my enemy.
The devil is my enemy.
And that's what forgiveness should be.
And we need help with that.
So ask God for help.
Repent, ask Him for forgiveness, but then also forgive others.
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There's a passage.
Where was it from?
I think it's in Genesis, or is it Matthew?
Yeah, I don't know.
But it basically says that if you don't forgive your brother, then you're not going to receive
forgiveness from your father.
Like, God sees that it's so important that we forgive others.
And it's okay to ask Him for help because He knows we need help because we're human
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beings and He's God.
Then we see in this example of prayer is prayer against spiritual warfare.
It says, lead us not into temptation, verse 13, but deliver us from evil.
We should be praying against the devil, praying against the demonic influences of this world.
You need to be stomping on the devil.
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You need to be constantly praying.
Whenever you're praying against the devil, praying against spiritual warfare, this shows
and also helps keep you aware, but this shows that you are aware of what's going on around
you, aware that you need God's help and you can't do it alone.
And then it's you reaching out to Him and saying, God, help me.
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And that also keeps you on track to constantly be looking at Him to help you in the moment
of spiritual warfare.
So those are the things that you would probably get from this.
And so yeah, if you are prayer and also I would like to say, you don't have to be mentioning
every single one of these things that I talked about just now in one in every single prayer
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for it to be complete.
You could literally just be praising and adoring God and showing your gratefulness to Him,
thanking Him.
And that's a complete prayer.
You could only be praying against spiritual warfare and it would be a complete prayer.
You could only be asking for forgiveness and it'd be a complete prayer.
Like you don't have to be doing all, saying all these things, every single prayer.
The whole point of this example prayer that Jesus is giving us is to show us our, how
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our heart posture should be when we pray.
We should be praying genuinely, humbly and completely just fully surrendering every single
aspect of your, of our lives to God.
If you look at everything that I mentioned in this prayer, in this example prayer, the
things that we should be praying for, think about it.
It covers every single aspect of your life.
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Every single one of them.
There's not one bit of your life, not one nook or cranny of your life that would not
be covered if you prayed to God about all of these things.
Just think about that.
Think about all that, like go back, listen to what I was talking about again, jot them
down so you don't have to listen to me ramble in between.
Go back and jot them down and you just read through it and think, and you just pray through
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it, you know, write out your prayer and then go back and read what you prayed for and realize
it covers every aspect of your life.
It covers your relationships in every area, whether it be in your home, in your family
that maybe you don't live with, for your friends, for your coworkers.
It could be for you.
It could be for sin cycles you're struggling with.
It could be blessings that you have and you're praising God for it.
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It could be giving up control to God.
It could be you're maybe in need of food.
Maybe you're low on food and you can't afford it.
You know, finances, praying for what you need.
It's literally every aspect of your life.
And that's what Jesus is showing us in this.
How to pray and what to pray for.
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There's not one thing out there that you can't talk to God about and that's what he's showing
you.
You can talk to God about everything.
But to truly be genuine in your prayer with God or to truly be praying to God, you need
to be genuine.
You need to be humble.
The last thing I want to say about prayer is that, like I said before, it's informal.
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So I'm not going to go over that again because I already talked about it.
But I just want to remind you it's very informal.
It's not like this formal thing where you have to study and make notes before you pray.
You just start talking to him.
And then also though, it's constant.
First Thessalonians 5.16 through 19 says, always be joyful, never stop praying.
(31:02):
Whereas in some versions of the Bible it says pray continually or pray without ceasing.
Be thankful in all circumstances for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ
Jesus.
Now, in verse 17 where it says never stop praying, pray continually, pray without ceasing,
those phrases, I don't believe that this is saying that you need to wake up in the morning,
(31:24):
you need to get down on your face or your hands and knees and you need to pray and you
just stay there and pray to God all day.
That would be very unrealistic and actually it would be contradicting what God says in
other parts of the Bible.
I don't believe you have to get on your hands and knees three times a day, five times a
day or all day to be continuously praying.
I think that what this means, I wholeheartedly believe this, is kind of what I was saying
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earlier about where you're in the car or you're doing the dishes and you just start talking
to God.
God, like I was saying earlier, is with us all the time.
He is everywhere present.
He's present everywhere and that is so cool.
Also, we as Christians, because Jesus has already come the first time, because he died
on the cross for our sins, rose again from the dead, we have access to God through the
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Holy Spirit.
God is with you all the time, but through the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is inside
of you.
Not only is God next to you in the car, but he's also inside of you.
His Spirit is inside of you and the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity.
(32:33):
He is part of God.
He is God.
It's just constant.
First off, the first step to praying continually is constantly being aware that God is with
you every single moment of the day.
When you're going to bed, when you're waking up in the morning, when you're in the car,
(32:54):
when you're at work, when you are going for a run, when you are talking to someone else,
it doesn't matter what you're doing, God is literally always with you.
That's the first step, is being aware of that.
The second step to praying continually is just talking to him about anything and everything
all throughout your day.
Obviously, whenever you are speaking to someone and you are the one speaking, you're not going
(33:18):
to be also talking to God in that moment probably.
It's just constantly being aware of his presence even in that moment and then talking to him
in your head maybe for a moment if something comes up and you're like, oh God, I don't
know how to say this to this person, help me.
Maybe you're done hanging out with your friend, you get in the car and you're on your way
home and you start talking to God about all the things that you talked about with your
friend.
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Then you get home and you get a call from someone saying you got a job that you might
have an interview for and you're super excited.
You start talking to God about how excited you are and how thankful you are.
Then you move on and you have to make dinner now because you're super hungry and you're
like, oh God, I am just so hungry.
Let's figure out what dinner is.
So you go do dinner and then you pray and thank him for your dinner and then you eat
your food and maybe you watch a show while you are eating your food and something funny
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happens.
You're like, oh my gosh, wasn't that hilarious, God?
Or whatever.
Then you go to bed.
You know what I mean?
You just are talking to him all throughout the day about anything and everything hard,
happy things, confusing things, questions that you have, whatever the heck it is.
You just talk to him.
He's always there with you.
(34:22):
You wouldn't have a friend in the car.
You wouldn't have a friend.
You wouldn't invite a friend into your life.
This is how I should say this.
You wouldn't invite a friend to go do something with you and then them get in your car and
you're driving and you just don't talk to them the entirety of the time you guys are
together.
That would be selfish and stupid and it would be like, what the heck is happening?
If I were a fly on your window, it would be like, what is going on right now?
(34:47):
Aren't you guys hanging out or something?
That would be stupid.
Why would you invite God and welcome him into your life and then ignore him the whole entire
time he's there with you, which is, here you go, forever?
Silly and stupid and selfish.
(35:09):
Just think about that.
I wanted to give you guys a few resources for prayer, but honestly, there are so many
books out there that talk about prayer and I haven't read all of them, obviously, but
the ones I have read are really good, but I'm not going to give you a bunch of books
because the best resources for prayer is your mind, heart, and the Bible.
(35:33):
But I am going to give you three resources.
Here's the first one, the Bible.
I say the Bible for prayer for a reason.
One, because without regularly reading your Bible and studying it, you are not going to
be growing closer to God as much if you're only praying.
(35:57):
I think I said that wrong, but hopefully you get what I mean.
Prayer and Bible reading go hand in hand.
The Bible is God's inspired word, but also along with the Bible being a resource that
I'm giving you, it's not only that, but it's also praying through the Bible, praying through
Psalms, praying through the New Testament.
(36:20):
Reading through a passage and whatever comes to mind as you're reading through it, pray
for that.
If you are reading through the book of John and God puts someone or something on your
mind while you're reading that passage, then start praying about it, start talking to him
about that thing.
(36:40):
Then say you move on to the next verse and something else comes to your mind, even if
it's just random, start praying about it.
I'm going to move on to the next resource because I'm going to talk about that a little
bit more of what I was just talking about.
The Bible, that's the first and really the only thing you need.
But then another added one that I would like to put is a book called Praying the Bible
(37:01):
by Donald S. Whitney.
John gifted this to my husband and I actually read it before he did.
He's read it too though.
This book, Whitney specifically talks about praying through Psalms and how amazing that
is and why that's important and why that's beneficial.
It's literally, no joke, life changing.
I believe it would be life changing for anybody to be praying through the Psalms.
(37:24):
This guy talks about that specifically, but he also mentions how you can pray through
other parts of the Bible, like I was saying to pray through John or whatever.
The method I was giving you just now of if something comes to mind as you start reading
through a passage, then start praying about it, that's the method that he basically gives
you through the Psalms.
If you sit down with your Bible and you open up to Psalm 101 or whatever and you're like,
(37:48):
okay, I'm going to sit down and pray through the Psalms right now.
Okay, you can go in and not have anyone specifically that you want to pray for right now.
You just open it up with the intention of praying through the Psalm in general about
anything and everything that God puts on your mind.
Great.
The best thing about it is you open it up, you start reading Psalm 101 and you just start
reading out loud in your head, whatever and whatever.
(38:10):
First of all, I would like to say it's really helpful if you set your mind and heart right
by saying or just acknowledging, Holy Spirit, I need you to just speak to me through this
passage.
I want to talk to you.
I want to talk to the Father about these things.
Even if this passage is kind of crazy and it talks about crazy things, I just want you
to bring to my attention the things that I need to be made aware of.
(38:35):
Then you start doing this.
You read through your passage, whatever God puts on your mind, even if it seems like it
has nothing to do with the passage, don't think it's a distraction.
Think of it as God prompting you to pray for something.
Then you start praying about that thing and maybe you start praying and you just don't
stop.
Pray for 10 minutes about whatever you read in relation to what God put on your mind.
Then you're done praying for that thing, so you move on to the next passage and you just
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keep going until maybe you have to go to work or maybe you just know that this is the end
of my prayer.
You feel it like, okay, Holy Spirit, that was a good prayer.
Thank you.
Then you're done.
Whatever.
That's kind of the method that he gives, but he also goes into a lot more detail about
it.
He also goes through a way to schedule what... Well, if you're reading through the Psalms,
(39:24):
for instance, what Psalm to read so you're not just randomly flipping through Psalms
or opening up your Bible and be like, okay, God, whatever I lead on.
It gives you kind of a rhythm of how you can read through all the Psalms, well, for the
most part, and not just be opening your Bible and spending 20 minutes trying to find which
one you want to pray through.
(39:44):
He gives examples like that too, or a method to do that too.
It's a really good, a very short read.
Also, my neighbor is so loud right now.
So sorry if you can hear all of the banging.
We live in an apartment, so you never know what you're going to hear.
Anyway, it's a short read.
It's a great read.
I do definitely recommend that one as just an added book, but if you don't have that,
(40:07):
totally fine.
It might... If you can't afford it, no big deal.
Just don't get it.
You have the Bible at least.
I kind of gave you a rundown of what to try, and maybe you can try it and see how you like
it.
Also, thriftbooks.com is where I get some of my books.
A lot cheaper.
They're used, and I love that.
Anyway, so there's that.
The Bible and Praying the Bible by Donald S. Winnie.
(40:30):
The last resource I'm going to give you is a free digital download that I will at some
point put up on my website, and it's Psalm scripture cards.
You can use these for whatever you want.
You can use these as just like hang them up in places to read and just to help you through
the day or whatever.
The intention behind me making these is for you to hang up on the doors or whatever the
(40:52):
walls in your home, and to pray over that room and over the people in your home through
that Psalm.
Right now, I don't have all the Psalms up.
I think I only have like eight, because the way that I would personally go about this
is hang them up on the doors and go through each room and pray every day or every few
days or whenever you feel... Or whenever you just... Whatever works for you, however
often and when you do it.
(41:13):
Anyway, and I would pray through the same one for a while, so like eight chapters for
me would be like a while.
You know what I mean?
So I think I only have eight.
I don't know when I'm going to put it up.
It'll be soon, either before this or when I put this episode up or maybe right after.
So I might have more.
I'm not sure, but I think as of right now, I have the first eight chapters, and you can
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tape those up, staple those up in your home and pray over your home, over your family.
And if it's just you living at home, pray for you and maybe your immediate family, like
your parents, whether you're close to them or not, or maybe your roommate or whatever.
This is just to really fight against the devil, and also it helps you stay on track when seeking
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God and to be constantly seeking God.
So yeah, all right, well, that's all I've got for you guys.
I hope that this benefited you a lot like it did me when I was making the notes and
even just talking about it on the episode.
Sometimes my words get a bit jumbled up because I talk kind of fast sometimes, so I'm really
sorry if that happens.
Also there's a lot of noise happening right now with the heater, the neighbor, my mic,
(42:20):
the way I'm having to hold it because I chose a really dumb spot to sit in while doing this.
I'm literally just having to hold the mic up, so I'm really sorry if it's making any
noise.
So sorry if that's distracting you.
Please just hope you were bearing with me.
But anyway, all right, well, I hope you guys have a great week.
I don't know when this is coming out, but have a great week, weekend, whatever, and
go share this with someone you love.
(42:41):
All right.
Hey guys, welcome back to our Worship Warriors podcast.
(00:07):
What's up guys, welcome back to our Worship Warriors podcast.
If you're new here, my name is Sarah and I have a podcast and a blog and I have a website
www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com.
I don't post regularly on the blog as of right now, but I do every now and then put stuff
on there as God leads and sometimes I will put stuff that is related to certain episodes
(00:28):
of the podcast so you can kind of get double the amount of stuff on there.
I also have some free digital resources on my website, not a ton, but I do have some
and they have been helpful for me for sure and I'm going to have some more coming out
soon.
So yeah, if you guys saw the title of this, this episode is over prayer and this is a
(00:54):
really good episode whether you are a new believer or maybe you're not a believer at
all and you are just trying to figure out why we crazy Jesus freaks are Jesus freaks
in the first place.
And so you're listening to this and you're like, okay, I'm going to learn more about
what these people think.
Or maybe you are a Christian and you have been for a while and you are close to God,
(01:14):
but this would be still a very good reminder for you.
Yeah.
And also if you agree with me on this, I 100% would appreciate it if you sent this to a
friend.
Word of mouth is the best way to promote things in my opinion.
So yeah, send it to a friend, send it to someone who doesn't know God, send it to a family
member, a loved one, whoever.
(01:35):
Yeah, or share it on whatever you want.
That would be great.
All right, so I'm just going to jump right into it.
So prayer.
First of all, let's talk about what prayer is.
Here's a three word definition for you.
Prayer is talking to God.
Shocker.
That's literally all it is.
(01:57):
Prayer is communication with God.
It's not anything formal.
It's not like you have to sit down and or whatever be dressed nicely.
Doesn't matter what you look like.
It doesn't matter if you're in the bathtub.
It doesn't matter if you're in bed.
It doesn't matter if you're standing in your living room.
It doesn't matter if you're at church.
Like prayer is just simply talking to God and it could be like me standing at the sink
(02:18):
doing dishes and saying, God, I absolutely hate doing the dishes, but obviously I need
to do them.
So can you please tell me why in the heck I have to do these things?
Like, why do I need to be doing this?
What is the goodness that is coming from this?
And just talking to him, like literally, it doesn't have to be a formal thing.
Just talk to him about whatever and anything you want to talk about.
(02:42):
That is prayer.
And so yeah, it's as simple as that.
It's not as intimidating as it sounds.
You don't have to even address him as dear God or God or Lord or whatever.
Just start talking as if he's sitting right there with you because he is.
God is everywhere.
God is with us at all times.
So just imagine if you're in the car that he's just sitting right in the passenger seat
(03:05):
with you and you just start talking to him.
Would you like if your friend was sitting in the car next to you?
Would you say, dear Angie, as she's sitting right next to you and then start talking?
No, you would just start talking to her.
Right?
So that's kind of how I like to think about it.
He's right there with you.
You're sitting there doing the dishes.
(03:25):
He's right there with you doing the dishes with you.
Start talking to him.
You know?
Anyway, why is it important though?
That's like a big, big question.
I feel like a lot of people, a lot of Christians out there, a lot of non-Christians, or I guess
Christians, a lot of Christians out there are like, oh yeah, obviously we need to be
talking to God.
Like you should be praying.
But do they really understand how it's so important?
(03:50):
Like it's literally vital.
It is essential to your relationship with God.
In any relationship, any relationship, it's important to communicate to each other.
You talk to each other, right?
You're not going to get to know someone better.
You're not going to become friends.
You're not going to get to know your kids, even if you don't ever communicate with them
(04:11):
in some way, right?
In any relationship, it's important to talk to each other.
Y'all, God is God.
He is powerful.
He is all powerful.
He is all knowing.
He is all present or he's everywhere present, as some people would say.
If we are in need, why would we turn to someone else?
He's God.
He's literally the only one who can do anything and everything except for fail.
(04:35):
Like he can't fail.
You know, he can't get better than that.
So what would turning to a person get you?
So it's important to pray to God instead of turning to others about our problems, about
our questions, about our joy, all of the things.
Because what are they going to be able to do for you?
They might be able to do something.
I'm not saying they can't do anything for you, but God is the one who can say, don't
(05:01):
worry.
I'm going to change the entirety of this situation for my glory and for your good also.
Our friend can't say that.
They don't know the future.
They don't know what's in store for your life.
They don't know anything.
Just like you don't know anything, but you know God.
So why would you turn to anyone else?
So you need to talk to God.
(05:21):
You need to pray to him.
It's important to pray to him because he is God.
In order to have a close, intimate relationship with him, we have to talk to him.
We must talk to him guys daily.
When we vent to God about all of the things we're struggling with, all of the good things
happening to us, all of the questions that we have, he's the only one who can constantly
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comfort us.
He's the only one who can constantly rejoice with us, answer us, and the only one who can
guide us.
You may have someone out there who can give you decent advice.
And I'm not saying you should never go to a wise person to ask for advice because God
actually tells us to do that.
So you do need to go to people for wise counsel.
But they're going to, well, if they're truly wise in God, because those are the people
(06:09):
we should be going to for advice, those people are going to be getting their wisdom from
who?
God.
So firstly, you should be going to God.
He's the only one that can guide us along the right path.
And he will directly, like he will talk to us directly and show us directly how to do
those things.
And then other times, yes, he does guide us through other people's wisdom that he's given
(06:30):
them or whatever, or their experiences that he's given them or allowed them to have or
whatever.
So like, yes, there is a time to talk to others.
But as far as prayer and how it's important, you need to be praying to God every day about
everything in your life because he's the one who's going to be able to actually show you
the way.
And he will actually be genuinely joyful all the time when you're going through something
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good, whether it be small or big.
There's not one single person out there, I guarantee you, unless it's maybe your mom
and maybe your dad.
But like, there's not one single person who's going to be excited like you are about every
single good thing that happens to you, not like God.
I guarantee you that.
Okay.
And the other thing about God is when we talk to him, we have to remember he's never going
(07:21):
to leave us.
Like all these people that we go to, that we run to, they could leave us.
Even the ones you think won't be leaving us, that won't be leaving you because they seem
so loyal, they seem this or that.
They're a human being.
You really can't tell if they're ever going to leave you or not.
Not 100%.
You cannot absolutely say 100% without a doubt that no one's going to ever leave you or that
(07:42):
someone is going to never leave you.
Another thing with that though is say they never actually leave you and they never forsake
you, quote unquote.
They're going to die, you know.
God is not.
He's always going to be with you.
So you could go 50 years without a loved one here on earth, but God is still with you through
all of that.
He is constant in our lives.
(08:04):
He will never leave you.
So we can always rely on him.
We should be praying and we should want to be praying.
It isn't a checklist item.
It's not a task.
It's something that we should want to do.
And I feel like it's something that a lot of people are like, oh, I guess I should be
praying or whatever.
Or, you know, they do treat it like a checklist.
Like, okay, well, I read my Bible.
(08:25):
I need to pray, you know, and then I can move on with my day.
No, it's something that it's like, Lord, man, I just love talking to you because it's so
freeing when I talk to you.
I have so much peace whenever I talk to you.
I get so much wisdom whenever I talk to you or, you know, or whatever.
Whatever it is, it should be something that you want to do.
(08:48):
And if it's not something that you're wanting to do, if it seems intimidating or this or
that or the other, sorry, also, my heater just kicked on, but please just deal with
it.
So sorry.
Some people that bothers.
But it's cold outside, so we want to keep it on.
What was I saying?
Oh, sorry.
So if you are someone who does not have this desire to like just get up and start your
(09:12):
day and just really talk to God and hang out with him, like literally just hang out with
him and you're treating this like a checklist item, or maybe you are not praying and not
reading your Bible and not obeying God at all, but you know you should be and you have
guilt and conviction about that.
I get that it's even though it shouldn't be.
I've been there.
It's hard sometimes to have that desire to talk to God.
(09:35):
But the more we hang out with God, the more we want to because no one compares to him.
So the more you actually spend time with him, the more you allow him to talk to you, like
the more you listen to him, the more you talk to him, the more you start obeying him and
seeing the fruits of your faithfulness to him because of him, not you.
(09:55):
You want to hang out with him or you want to have an intimate relationship with him.
You want to repent and turn away from your sin and live like him and live the way he
wants you to.
You want to listen to him.
You want to talk to him or because he is that amazing and he brings so much peace and freedom
to your life that it just doesn't compare.
You don't want to turn back to the life you had before.
(10:16):
I guarantee you, there is literally no doubt in my mind that the more quality time you
spend with God, the more you'll want to and the easier it will be to just start talking
to him like it's just part of your normal routine in the day.
Now I say all of this and I've kind of covered what I'm about to talk about, but I'm going
(10:41):
to give you...
Sorry, I had to move the mic.
I'm going to give you some things to think about about your prayer.
I talked about how it's not a formal thing.
There is such a thing as corporate prayer and I do believe that to a certain extent...
Now this is kind of controversial, but I do believe to a certain extent that if you are
(11:05):
praying in a corporate setting, sometimes I think that you need to be mindful of what
you're praying about and how you say it or how you go about it.
But also, it doesn't mean that there's a lack of genuineness.
You know what I mean?
You should still...
I don't know how to say that.
Oh my gosh.
Hold on.
(11:25):
I have a funny story, but let me finish this.
It should still be genuine is what I'm saying.
It's not like you're faking it.
It's not a performance.
It should never be a performance.
Talking to God should just be genuinely you talking to God from your heart.
But I just say that there is some discretion in certain things as there should be in certain
(11:48):
corporate settings during your prayer.
But in general, it's a very...
Well, still, even with that, it's not a formal thing where you have an outline every time
you pray and you stand up there and you're like, dear Father God, and you sound like
a robot.
It's not like that.
It's an informal, genuine, heartfelt thing.
(12:09):
You're just talking to the creator of all.
You're talking to God genuinely, sincerely, y'all.
My funny story really quick, and then I'll get into the rest of this, is it's really
fast.
Anna Hutchinson, who used to be my co-host on this podcast, there was an episode, and
I can't remember which episode it was.
(12:31):
It was so long ago.
There was an episode that we did, and we were trying to say whatever word I was just trying
to say.
Genuinity?
That one, is that right?
That sounds right, but I might be wrong, but it's genuine, being genuine.
And we could not say it.
I don't know how long it went on, but for that episode, it was like five minutes, probably.
I don't know.
I was literally just trying to say this word, and we could not say it.
(12:53):
It was so...
It was funny.
It was hilarious.
Maybe only to us, but it was freaking hilarious.
Okay, moving on to the rest of this episode.
So I kind of talked about how to pray with the informal, heartfelt, genuine, and that's
true.
But I want to go over a little bit more of how we pray, because there are some things
in God's word where Jesus tells us how we should pray.
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There's no right or wrong unless you are being...
Unless you're not being genuine with it, there's no right or wrong, I should say, because you're
just talking to him.
How can you go wrong by talking to God, unless you're not truly talking to him and it's not
from your heart and it's not being genuine?
So how do we pray?
The first point I want to talk about, and the main one really actually, is humbly.
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We need to be humble when we're praying.
Genuine kind of goes along with humble, because if you're being humble, then we know you're
being genuine.
But you should be humbly praying.
In Matthew, there is a passage, Matthew 6, 5 through 6.
I have it right here.
I'm going to read it super fast.
And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray
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in the synagogues and the street corners, but they may be seen by...
That may...
Excuse me.
That they may be seen by others.
Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in
secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you.
Y'all, this is saying that this is not a show like I was talking about earlier.
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This is saying...
Well, for instance, just look at the picture.
Let's just say you do exactly what the scripture says.
It says, when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father
who is in secret.
Okay, so let's say you do that.
You go into your room.
It's just you.
No one else is in the house.
No one else is in the room, whatever.
You go into your closet.
A lot of people have prayer closets.
Go into your closet, shut the door.
No one else can hear you.
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It's just you and God.
Are you going to be a phony?
I hope not.
It's just you and God.
No one else is around you to judge your words.
It's literally just God.
It doesn't matter what you sound like.
It's just God.
It doesn't matter if you can't even get a full sentence out.
He's God.
He knows what you're trying to tell him.
He just wants you to try.
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He wants you to tell him.
He wants you to get it off your chest.
He wants you to come to him, let him wrap his arms around you, and also experience the
joys, experience your gratitude for him, your gratitude for all the things around you.
He wants to experience all of that.
Just look at that picture of you in your room praying to him.
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That is humility and being genuine.
That is you being genuine and you being humble.
Jesus prayed humbly all the time because if he didn't, well, he wouldn't be Jesus.
Jesus prayed humbly.
Most of the times that we see in scripture, he prays in private like that passage I was
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reading said to do.
Mark 135, Mark 646, Luke 516.
I didn't have them in my notes to read to you guys, but those are all examples if you
want to look them up on your own and read them about Jesus praying humbly and in private.
Honestly, I just encourage you to read that whole chapter around it too because that will
give you the whole context of each one.
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Those are just certain verses.
Jesus is one in the Trinity.
He is God.
Yet he completely humbled himself to the lowest degree possible for us.
Everything he said and did stemmed from that heart posture, that act of humility.
Every time he prayed, he prayed with humility, thinking of how God, including himself, because
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like I just said, he's one of the Trinity, so he is God, thinking of how God could get
the glory deserved through the salvation of humanity.
All of this was for the glory of God, but it also, God wants us to be saved and live
eternally with him.
Everything now because he loves us.
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So yes, it was for the glory of God firstly, but he does love us.
So he does want to experience this with us.
So Jesus had this heart posture for this reason, to glorify God and because he loves us.
Through our salvation, he will ultimately be glorified just as he deserves.
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Every prayer Jesus prayed that is recorded in the Bible shows all of what I just said.
That's a whole belief system and every prayer he prayed shows this belief system y'all.
Just go, I want you to think about that.
I want you to go read passages about Jesus, just talking to God and I want you to think
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how does him talking to God, even if it's one statement that he says in his prayer or
whatever, I want you to think how does this prayer to his father show this belief system,
show the reason he did it, show the humility, the heart posture of thinking of how he's
doing all of this on earth to glorify God and also because he loves us.
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How does this prayer show those two things?
I want you to really, like it's really, sorry I bumped the mic, it's really fascinating.
Really fascinating.
John 17, one through five says, when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes
to heaven and said, father, the hour has come, glorify your son that the son may glorify
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you.
Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you
have given him and this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God in Jesus
Christ whom you have sent.
I glorified you on earth having accomplished work that you gave me to do and now father,
glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
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This shows who he is as God, but it also shows how much he humbled himself here on earth
and it shows the belief system that I was just talking about of how he did all of this
for God and for us.
This John 17, one through five, that's what that was.
This shows exactly what I was saying.
It's literally the perfect passage to show what I was telling you.
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Wow, I don't even think I realized how perfect it was.
I knew it, but reading it just now on the podcast, that was so good.
Thank you God.
Another example of prayer in the Bible is what we call the Lord's Prayer.
Let's see, I have it here, Matthew 6, nine through 13.
I'm going to read it and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to break it down a little
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bit and show you some things.
The Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6, nine through 13.
Pray then like this, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our
debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for yours is the kingdom,
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the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
Now, the last part where it says for yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
Is not in every translation.
I found out that it's only, like you see it in certain manuscripts, but I could be wrong.
So please, I'm not a huge theologian or anything, but I don't believe it's in all the manuscripts
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from what I was reading.
But again, don't take me for my word on that because I'm not a big theologian.
I mean, I am in my own way, but I'm not super, super knowledgeable about some things.
So anyway, do your own research on that.
But I just loved that last little bit and I learned that when I memorized it as a kid.
So I'm going to take this though.
This is Jesus talking to the disciples.
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And so we see that Jesus gives an example of how to pray.
There have been people over the past several years, like decades and decades and whatever,
well, not just decades, centuries, where they believe that you are supposed to say this
specific words, this specific prayer.
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I do not believe that.
I believe that, I mean, you can be genuine in what you're saying.
If you're truly praying this, that's fine.
I'm not saying you can't pray that.
Pray scripture.
Praying scripture is amazing and you can pray this prayer.
But what I believe Jesus was saying was this is the type of stuff you should be praying
for because all of this is righteous things you could be praying for.
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And it's according to God's will to pray for these things.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this example prayer, break it down into topics
of what to pray for, which people have already done.
Like there are so many acronyms out there and a lot of them are based off of the Lord's
Prayer actually.
But if I were to just on the spot, sit down, open my Bible to this passage, read through
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this example prayer that Jesus is giving us and just jot down on the spot the topics or
the things that we should be praying for based off of this example prayer.
This is pretty much what I would, you would get something like this if you did this.
First off, we see praise, adoration and gratefulness.
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We don't necessarily see thank you God for this.
Thank you God for that.
But you would not, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
You would not be praying that genuinely if you weren't grateful for what God has done
for you and who he is and all of the things around you that he's given you.
So praise and adoration, genuine, like actual true praise and adoration to God comes first
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from a grateful heart.
So that's why I put that with it.
So praise, adoration and gratefulness is what we first would get.
Then, the next part is your kingdom come.
So sorry, I heard something weird.
I didn't know if it was my son.
Your kingdom come.
This in my opinion could be a couple of different things.
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Well, no, that's a lie.
This could be, to some people, they believe it could be a couple of different things.
Your kingdom come.
This first off could be us looking forward to the coming, the second coming of Christ
and the new heaven and the new earth and all of that at the end of times.
Right?
Okay.
I personally, just from my personal opinion, is that it's actually not that.
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What this means in my opinion is your kingdom come.
And we are saved and we have the Holy Spirit come inside of us.
We now have God's kingdom.
Well, we have God's spirit inside of us.
And so God brings his kingdom to earth through us, through the Holy Spirit inside of us.
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And all of the things that the Holy Spirit does through us, we are bringing kingdom to
the streets.
So this, in my opinion, is saying that you should be praying for other souls to be saved.
This is the kingdom in the streets.
This is the ministry that you're doing.
This is the people you're witnessing to, the people you are leading to Christ, the people
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you are praying for.
This is praying for other souls to be saved, in my opinion, bringing kingdom, the kingdom
of God to the streets of this world.
So praise, adoration, gratefulness first, kingdom in the streets, praying for other
souls to be saved.
That's the second one.
The third one is your will, God, not mine.
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This shows humility.
God, I know I'm a human being.
I know I'm selfish, but I want you, God, to show me what to do in life.
I want you, God, to show me where to go and what to say and who to talk to and all of
the things.
I don't want to be in control of anything.
I want you to be in control of everything.
This is humility.
The next thing is requests for our needs.
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Let me go find my place, sorry.
Where did it go?
Give us this day our daily bread, verse 11.
Give us this day our daily bread.
This is requesting our needs.
We need to come to God and request, say, God, I need this.
And it's not that God doesn't already know that.
He's God.
Of course, He knows what we need, but it's the act of our faithfulness and our belief
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in Him.
We come to Him and say, God, I need this, and it shows that we are aware that He is
the only one who can provide for us what we need.
So requests for our needs.
The next one in my...
Whoa, where did it go?
Yeah.
Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.
So first one, repentance.
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Forgive us our debts.
Repentance is not just asking for forgiveness.
It is, yes, noticing you did something wrong or I am a sinner, God, I need you, please
forgive me.
And then it is you turning away, actively using the strength that God gives you and
the self-discipline He gives you through that strength to repent, meaning to turn away and
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not do that sin again.
Repentance.
Next is help forgiving others.
And sometimes it's not, a lot of the time, it is not easy to just say, oh, that person
wronged me, I forgive them, it's fine.
It's so hard to do that most of the time.
For me, 100%, it is so hard.
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So there are many times when I say, God, I need your help.
I cannot forgive this person on my own.
I don't want to forgive this person.
I'm angry at them.
They wronged me.
I want them to know the truth about what actually happened.
I want them...
I want to step in and say, my two cents or whatever, but I don't need to be doing that
most of the time.
Most of the time, I just need to forgive and forget in a sense.
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Like, no, don't forget what they did and you're not going to, but forgive and forget in the
way that it's like, I forgive you truly.
And I know that you're not my enemy.
The devil is my enemy.
And that's what forgiveness should be.
And we need help with that.
So ask God for help.
Repent, ask Him for forgiveness, but then also forgive others.
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There's a passage.
Where was it from?
I think it's in Genesis, or is it Matthew?
Yeah, I don't know.
But it basically says that if you don't forgive your brother, then you're not going to receive
forgiveness from your father.
Like, God sees that it's so important that we forgive others.
And it's okay to ask Him for help because He knows we need help because we're human
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beings and He's God.
Then we see in this example of prayer is prayer against spiritual warfare.
It says, lead us not into temptation, verse 13, but deliver us from evil.
We should be praying against the devil, praying against the demonic influences of this world.
You need to be stomping on the devil.
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You need to be constantly praying.
Whenever you're praying against the devil, praying against spiritual warfare, this shows
and also helps keep you aware, but this shows that you are aware of what's going on around
you, aware that you need God's help and you can't do it alone.
And then it's you reaching out to Him and saying, God, help me.
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And that also keeps you on track to constantly be looking at Him to help you in the moment
of spiritual warfare.
So those are the things that you would probably get from this.
And so yeah, if you are prayer and also I would like to say, you don't have to be mentioning
every single one of these things that I talked about just now in one in every single prayer
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for it to be complete.
You could literally just be praising and adoring God and showing your gratefulness to Him,
thanking Him.
And that's a complete prayer.
You could only be praying against spiritual warfare and it would be a complete prayer.
You could only be asking for forgiveness and it'd be a complete prayer.
Like you don't have to be doing all, saying all these things, every single prayer.
The whole point of this example prayer that Jesus is giving us is to show us our, how
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our heart posture should be when we pray.
We should be praying genuinely, humbly and completely just fully surrendering every single
aspect of your, of our lives to God.
If you look at everything that I mentioned in this prayer, in this example prayer, the
things that we should be praying for, think about it.
It covers every single aspect of your life.
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Every single one of them.
There's not one bit of your life, not one nook or cranny of your life that would not
be covered if you prayed to God about all of these things.
Just think about that.
Think about all that, like go back, listen to what I was talking about again, jot them
down so you don't have to listen to me ramble in between.
Go back and jot them down and you just read through it and think, and you just pray through
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it, you know, write out your prayer and then go back and read what you prayed for and realize
it covers every aspect of your life.
It covers your relationships in every area, whether it be in your home, in your family
that maybe you don't live with, for your friends, for your coworkers.
It could be for you.
It could be for sin cycles you're struggling with.
It could be blessings that you have and you're praising God for it.
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It could be giving up control to God.
It could be you're maybe in need of food.
Maybe you're low on food and you can't afford it.
You know, finances, praying for what you need.
It's literally every aspect of your life.
And that's what Jesus is showing us in this.
How to pray and what to pray for.
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There's not one thing out there that you can't talk to God about and that's what he's showing
you.
You can talk to God about everything.
But to truly be genuine in your prayer with God or to truly be praying to God, you need
to be genuine.
You need to be humble.
The last thing I want to say about prayer is that, like I said before, it's informal.
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So I'm not going to go over that again because I already talked about it.
But I just want to remind you it's very informal.
It's not like this formal thing where you have to study and make notes before you pray.
You just start talking to him.
And then also though, it's constant.
First Thessalonians 5.16 through 19 says, always be joyful, never stop praying.
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Whereas in some versions of the Bible it says pray continually or pray without ceasing.
Be thankful in all circumstances for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ
Jesus.
Now, in verse 17 where it says never stop praying, pray continually, pray without ceasing,
those phrases, I don't believe that this is saying that you need to wake up in the morning,
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you need to get down on your face or your hands and knees and you need to pray and you
just stay there and pray to God all day.
That would be very unrealistic and actually it would be contradicting what God says in
other parts of the Bible.
I don't believe you have to get on your hands and knees three times a day, five times a
day or all day to be continuously praying.
I think that what this means, I wholeheartedly believe this, is kind of what I was saying
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earlier about where you're in the car or you're doing the dishes and you just start talking
to God.
God, like I was saying earlier, is with us all the time.
He is everywhere present.
He's present everywhere and that is so cool.
Also, we as Christians, because Jesus has already come the first time, because he died
on the cross for our sins, rose again from the dead, we have access to God through the
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Holy Spirit.
God is with you all the time, but through the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is inside
of you.
Not only is God next to you in the car, but he's also inside of you.
His Spirit is inside of you and the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity.
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He is part of God.
He is God.
It's just constant.
First off, the first step to praying continually is constantly being aware that God is with
you every single moment of the day.
When you're going to bed, when you're waking up in the morning, when you're in the car,
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when you're at work, when you are going for a run, when you are talking to someone else,
it doesn't matter what you're doing, God is literally always with you.
That's the first step, is being aware of that.
The second step to praying continually is just talking to him about anything and everything
all throughout your day.
Obviously, whenever you are speaking to someone and you are the one speaking, you're not going
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to be also talking to God in that moment probably.
It's just constantly being aware of his presence even in that moment and then talking to him
in your head maybe for a moment if something comes up and you're like, oh God, I don't
know how to say this to this person, help me.
Maybe you're done hanging out with your friend, you get in the car and you're on your way
home and you start talking to God about all the things that you talked about with your
friend.
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Then you get home and you get a call from someone saying you got a job that you might
have an interview for and you're super excited.
You start talking to God about how excited you are and how thankful you are.
Then you move on and you have to make dinner now because you're super hungry and you're
like, oh God, I am just so hungry.
Let's figure out what dinner is.
So you go do dinner and then you pray and thank him for your dinner and then you eat
your food and maybe you watch a show while you are eating your food and something funny
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happens.
You're like, oh my gosh, wasn't that hilarious, God?
Or whatever.
Then you go to bed.
You know what I mean?
You just are talking to him all throughout the day about anything and everything hard,
happy things, confusing things, questions that you have, whatever the heck it is.
You just talk to him.
He's always there with you.
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You wouldn't have a friend in the car.
You wouldn't have a friend.
You wouldn't invite a friend into your life.
This is how I should say this.
You wouldn't invite a friend to go do something with you and then them get in your car and
you're driving and you just don't talk to them the entirety of the time you guys are
together.
That would be selfish and stupid and it would be like, what the heck is happening?
If I were a fly on your window, it would be like, what is going on right now?
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Aren't you guys hanging out or something?
That would be stupid.
Why would you invite God and welcome him into your life and then ignore him the whole entire
time he's there with you, which is, here you go, forever?
Silly and stupid and selfish.
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Just think about that.
I wanted to give you guys a few resources for prayer, but honestly, there are so many
books out there that talk about prayer and I haven't read all of them, obviously, but
the ones I have read are really good, but I'm not going to give you a bunch of books
because the best resources for prayer is your mind, heart, and the Bible.
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But I am going to give you three resources.
Here's the first one, the Bible.
I say the Bible for prayer for a reason.
One, because without regularly reading your Bible and studying it, you are not going to
be growing closer to God as much if you're only praying.
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I think I said that wrong, but hopefully you get what I mean.
Prayer and Bible reading go hand in hand.
The Bible is God's inspired word, but also along with the Bible being a resource that
I'm giving you, it's not only that, but it's also praying through the Bible, praying through
Psalms, praying through the New Testament.
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Reading through a passage and whatever comes to mind as you're reading through it, pray
for that.
If you are reading through the book of John and God puts someone or something on your
mind while you're reading that passage, then start praying about it, start talking to him
about that thing.
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Then say you move on to the next verse and something else comes to your mind, even if
it's just random, start praying about it.
I'm going to move on to the next resource because I'm going to talk about that a little
bit more of what I was just talking about.
The Bible, that's the first and really the only thing you need.
But then another added one that I would like to put is a book called Praying the Bible
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by Donald S. Whitney.
John gifted this to my husband and I actually read it before he did.
He's read it too though.
This book, Whitney specifically talks about praying through Psalms and how amazing that
is and why that's important and why that's beneficial.
It's literally, no joke, life changing.
I believe it would be life changing for anybody to be praying through the Psalms.
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This guy talks about that specifically, but he also mentions how you can pray through
other parts of the Bible, like I was saying to pray through John or whatever.
The method I was giving you just now of if something comes to mind as you start reading
through a passage, then start praying about it, that's the method that he basically gives
you through the Psalms.
If you sit down with your Bible and you open up to Psalm 101 or whatever and you're like,
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okay, I'm going to sit down and pray through the Psalms right now.
Okay, you can go in and not have anyone specifically that you want to pray for right now.
You just open it up with the intention of praying through the Psalm in general about
anything and everything that God puts on your mind.
Great.
The best thing about it is you open it up, you start reading Psalm 101 and you just start
reading out loud in your head, whatever and whatever.
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First of all, I would like to say it's really helpful if you set your mind and heart right
by saying or just acknowledging, Holy Spirit, I need you to just speak to me through this
passage.
I want to talk to you.
I want to talk to the Father about these things.
Even if this passage is kind of crazy and it talks about crazy things, I just want you
to bring to my attention the things that I need to be made aware of.
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Then you start doing this.
You read through your passage, whatever God puts on your mind, even if it seems like it
has nothing to do with the passage, don't think it's a distraction.
Think of it as God prompting you to pray for something.
Then you start praying about that thing and maybe you start praying and you just don't
stop.
Pray for 10 minutes about whatever you read in relation to what God put on your mind.
Then you're done praying for that thing, so you move on to the next passage and you just
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keep going until maybe you have to go to work or maybe you just know that this is the end
of my prayer.
You feel it like, okay, Holy Spirit, that was a good prayer.
Thank you.
Then you're done.
Whatever.
That's kind of the method that he gives, but he also goes into a lot more detail about
it.
He also goes through a way to schedule what... Well, if you're reading through the Psalms,
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for instance, what Psalm to read so you're not just randomly flipping through Psalms
or opening up your Bible and be like, okay, God, whatever I lead on.
It gives you kind of a rhythm of how you can read through all the Psalms, well, for the
most part, and not just be opening your Bible and spending 20 minutes trying to find which
one you want to pray through.
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He gives examples like that too, or a method to do that too.
It's a really good, a very short read.
Also, my neighbor is so loud right now.
So sorry if you can hear all of the banging.
We live in an apartment, so you never know what you're going to hear.
Anyway, it's a short read.
It's a great read.
I do definitely recommend that one as just an added book, but if you don't have that,
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totally fine.
It might... If you can't afford it, no big deal.
Just don't get it.
You have the Bible at least.
I kind of gave you a rundown of what to try, and maybe you can try it and see how you like
it.
Also, thriftbooks.com is where I get some of my books.
A lot cheaper.
They're used, and I love that.
Anyway, so there's that.
The Bible and Praying the Bible by Donald S. Winnie.
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The last resource I'm going to give you is a free digital download that I will at some
point put up on my website, and it's Psalm scripture cards.
You can use these for whatever you want.
You can use these as just like hang them up in places to read and just to help you through
the day or whatever.
The intention behind me making these is for you to hang up on the doors or whatever the
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walls in your home, and to pray over that room and over the people in your home through
that Psalm.
Right now, I don't have all the Psalms up.
I think I only have like eight, because the way that I would personally go about this
is hang them up on the doors and go through each room and pray every day or every few
days or whenever you feel... Or whenever you just... Whatever works for you, however
often and when you do it.
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Anyway, and I would pray through the same one for a while, so like eight chapters for
me would be like a while.
You know what I mean?
So I think I only have eight.
I don't know when I'm going to put it up.
It'll be soon, either before this or when I put this episode up or maybe right after.
So I might have more.
I'm not sure, but I think as of right now, I have the first eight chapters, and you can
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tape those up, staple those up in your home and pray over your home, over your family.
And if it's just you living at home, pray for you and maybe your immediate family, like
your parents, whether you're close to them or not, or maybe your roommate or whatever.
This is just to really fight against the devil, and also it helps you stay on track when seeking
(41:58):
God and to be constantly seeking God.
So yeah, all right, well, that's all I've got for you guys.
I hope that this benefited you a lot like it did me when I was making the notes and
even just talking about it on the episode.
Sometimes my words get a bit jumbled up because I talk kind of fast sometimes, so I'm really
sorry if that happens.
Also there's a lot of noise happening right now with the heater, the neighbor, my mic,
(42:20):
the way I'm having to hold it because I chose a really dumb spot to sit in while doing this.
I'm literally just having to hold the mic up, so I'm really sorry if it's making any
noise.
So sorry if that's distracting you.
Please just hope you were bearing with me.
But anyway, all right, well, I hope you guys have a great week.
I don't know when this is coming out, but have a great week, weekend, whatever, and
go share this with someone you love.
(42:41):
All right.
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