S6E43-Fred Hughes

The Transforming Power of Prayer

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Broadcasting from the Golden Spread of Texas. This is the
Fred Hughes Show. With each episode we introduce to you
an inspiring person or message to help you grow and
unlock your potential in life. I'm Fred Hughes, professional photographer, pastor, teacher,

(00:26):
author and your show host. Thank you for joining us
and welcome this episode brought to you by the faithful
partners of Decision Ministry. Welcome everybody once again to the
Fred Hughes Show. We're so glad to have you and

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we thank you for joining us to the telecast tonight.
And I just want to remind you of our website
and I have let me put that up there right quick.
It's the word Decision a numeral one dot org. To
go there. You can find all kinds of good things. UH.
In particular, there's a couple of books that I've written.

(01:10):
One is UH is this one. It's called Beside the
Still Waters, and it has it has some really good
thing especially if you're needing to know about either salvation
or being filled with the Holy Spirit. That's what this
It's just just how do you have a relationship with
a God that you can't see? It talks about and

(01:31):
gives lots of good examples about how you have relationship
with God, and so it's it's very transformative. I believe
you would love I mean, I believe you had really
benefit from it, and it might be something that a
tool that you could use. Also, I have a little
book called Mister Fred's Box, and uh, it's chock full

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of a good ideas, good things for your little bitty guys,
and especially uh you know, has a lot of colorful
pictures on the inside of it. It comes in three formats.
You get the hardcover like this one, you can get
the digital format, or you can get a soft cover.
So there's all kinds of good things in there. I

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won't be labor that, but I'm real proud of those
two books. And I have a third one that's kind
of that I'm working on right now. It's called His
Great Love, and I hope to have that completed, you know,
somewhere down the road. I'm not really sure when I've
got got a lot of material and a lot of
things to cover and a lot of there's a lot

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of hard work to go on it. So it's not
going to be right away, but I'm excited about it
and I'm doing trying to do some due diligence to
get it, to get it to you tonight, I have
a great opportunity just to share something. It's not going
to be real long, but I'm going to put a
lot of scripture with it, and I just it's going

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to be one of those mess is that Oh yeah,
I know that already, But I think it's really really
important for us, especially at the at the time that
it is right now. I mean, we have such we
just have such turmoil in this in this world, and
we need to have some and we need to have

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some power that's behind it. And you know, if I
was going to give this thing a title or something
to be the transformative power of prayer, and we as Christians,
we we I don't think we have any idea what
you know, what it is that that prayer does. In fact,

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there's there's one of us. There is a scripture that
just says, you know, the prayer of a righteous man
or woman avails much. Let me just tell you we
can avail or that word avail means to prevail over.
And you know, we have the ability to prevail over
the things that are going on in the earth, to

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have to turn the atmosphere by our prayers, and we
just we just sometimes forget or are maybe we just
never knew that we have a lot of power in prayer.
So I want to talk about that tonight, and I
just want to, you know, encourage you in your prayer life.

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I want to encourage you as you pray for one
another that it will be powerful, that it will be
something that is positive in your life, that it will
be something that's powerful. And I want to give you
some scriptural basis or you know, kind of what some
things that you can kind of get behind tonight. And

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so I'm excited about having that opportunity, and so I
want to get started with it just just just right
right off the bat here. I want to I want
to just say that, know, our greatest weapon of combat
to be able to combat the darkness that's in this
world is prayer. That I know that's a mouthful, and

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I know some of you might not even believe that statement,
but I believe it's true. I believe it. I believe
I'll show you and demonstrate you to you in a
word that our greatest weapon, to our greatest weapon to
combat this darkness, even this deep darkness that we feel
like we're in sometimes is broken up and dispelled and

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pushed away by the power of prayer. So you know,
as if we grasp, we may grasp the need to
cry out, you know, to the Lord and Just and
just asking please give us revealed to me tonight the
transforming power of prayer that you have given me the

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ability to contact you personally and talk to you about
the things that concern me in my life right now.
And you know, he wants to He wants to talk
to you, He wants to tell you. He wants us
to have communication and relationship. And you know, listen to me,

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never doubt the prayers of of of the righteous people,
of saints, of people that are believers. Collectively we have
great power together. And you know, God, God all money
gives us. It gives to us the the authority to

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bind and to and the power to really set free,
binding and loosing. He gives us that kind of you know,
the authority is one format of prayers that when you pray,
you pray in authority, and there's a great pay hour
behind that. And we can bind, we can lose, we

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can do those things. But the other part of that
that powerful thing is is to be able to set
captives free, to set free those things from people from bondage,
to loose the hold of the enemy upon you know,
someone that we're praying for. And so the power of

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our prayers, my brothers and sisters are is immense. And
I just want to impress upon you that that's the
truth tonight. And so I want to start with a
scripture here. It's Chronicles seven fourteen. I'm going to put

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that upon the screen here. You know, I think whenever
I put that scripture up there, I think I mute myself.
So I'm not going I'm going to flash it for
just a minute, but and hopefully give you enough time
to down the scriptures as I go. And uh, and
you'll have to kind of read fast tonight because I

(08:06):
do not know how to turn that off. I'm sorry.
I will try to get that figured out before I
do this the next time, but I believe it mutes
me every time I do that. So uh, anyway, I'm
gonna I'm gonna try to try to go and go
on and read it, read it to you quickly here.
If my people, I mean that, I mean, let me

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put it back up here and let you read it,
because I think my mute and my sounds going to
be muted to me. See second Chronicles seven fourteen. My
people who are called by my name will humble themselves
and pray and seek my face and turn from their
wicked ways. Then I will hear from heaven, and I

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will forgive their sins and heal their land. And that's
the same as as another scripture Jeremiah, and uh, it
just at the very very powerful. So first and foremost,
if we if we humble ourself, you know, the scripture
is real clear God God resists the proud, it says,

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you know, and and he humbles you know, He resists
the proud. And if we're we're we're clearly instructed to,
you know, submit to God resists the devil. And so
that's that's kind of our part is to is to submit,
stay submitted to God Almighty. Just stay in in tune

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and in touch with him and not in touch with
with with the devil and what he wants to the
lies that he has that he wants to give us.
And let me tell you, you know, if you if
you spend all your time in front of a TV
set or going to the movies or listening to what
the world has to say, you're going to hear a
whole lot more from the devil than you are from God.

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And so, you know, sometimes we need to learn how to,
especially in these days that are in front of us,
these dark days that we're living in right now, we
need to learn how to direct redirect our our thinking,
redirect our thoughts towards the things of God and and
to and to look up, you know, keep our our

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our our minds on things above instead of things beneath. Amen.
And so you know, it's a real powerful thing that
we do. Likewise, you know it even even especially young people.
It follow that second part. That second part says, it says,
submit yourself, submit yourself to some to to the elders,

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and and get and get to where you can you
can you know, hear good, wise sound counsel from somebody
that's been down the road and have already made a
bunch of mistakes and knows how to tell you how
to get there faster. There's no point and and and
re reinvent reinventing the wheel every time. Trust me, there's

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some there's some good counsel out there. And some of
these older people that are that that are around you,
you know, ask some questions, ask them about, you know,
how do you handle this, what what's the best way
to go with that? You know, and and you know,
uh what what's your experience in this area or whatever?
You know. I ask those questions, and uh so it

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did just say, you know, to humble yourself under the
under the mighty hand of God, that you may exist,
may exalt, that He may exalt you in due time.
That's first Peter five five and first five and six,
and that that is one of those deals. When me

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put it up here right quick, if I can first
Peter five, five through six once again once again. And
I think when I put that up there, it mutes me,
and so I'm gonna not leave it up there a
very long time. But I do want you to be
able to have enough time to where maybe you can

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kind of jop down some of these scriptures as we go.
You know, the scripture states that that we have not
because we ask not. And one of the things that
one of the reasons for that, that's in James four,
uh two and three. Let me put that up. But
basically it just says, you know, you have not because

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you asked not. You need you need to ask God
and you need to get answers from him. You need
you know I will, he says, I will answer you
and show you great and mighty things which you do
not know yet. And so you know, for those things
places where we don't know the answer, we don't have
a solution, uh you, we can turn to God through

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prayer and we can find out we can. We can
ask him and he will will tell us this. This
is James fourth two and three. It tells it kind
of it's it's it's really an outright promise that he
will show us the things that we need to know.
He will, he will reveal to us. You know, uh

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that that's powerful and yes, it's it's true. God does
does you know he he he's a He's a powerful,
powerful God and he's and he does he does great things.
Scripture says, you know, like I said, has that that
Scripture says you have not because you just yes, Ma.

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And it's one of those things that that sometimes we
we we asked everybody else, but we don't get around
asking God and then waiting long enough to hear him
getting quiet, getting in a little place to where we
can turn it be turned aside and hear his voice,
and and and spend a little time to wait until
he gives you an answer. Spend enough time there to

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where you know, God has a chance to be able
to speak to you, and he's just like any other person.
He is a person, and he he you know, he
may may or may not, you know, answer you right off.
You know, he may. It may be that he he
wants to show you some things, or he wants to

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point out some other other things. So be tentative to
listen to what he has to say, because it may
be the connect the dots thing that he gives you
where you can really come into greater understanding because you
took the time to listen to him and look up
what else he wanted to tell you besides what you

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at the moment want. And so sometimes that's it's just
a it's a growth process and it's whatnot. You know.
Scripture states, make up make up your mind and do
and do the things that you need to do. And
so Deuteronomy twenty nine, I want to I want to

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kind of put it up here real quickly. I mean,
it's Jeremiah thirty three, call me and I will answer.
Proverbs is the one that I just had up there,
and it's kind of an important verse, so I want
to back up and grab it right quick too. It's
it's the glory of God to conceal a thing, but

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it's the glory of kings is to search out a
thing and find it. You know. That's a troubling scripture
to me, because I don't why why would God hide
things from you? Well, he hides something from you so
that you can find it. He he doesn't just put

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it up on a big, you know, wall where you
can't miss it or anything. He wants you to search
for He want they want. He wants you to inquire
of him, you they want. He wants you to diligently
search the scripture and his heart and then when the
revelation comes, it'll be meaningful to you. It will be

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powerful to you. And I think, and you know, and
this is this is what you know if you're a
king and and the Bible says we are kings and priests,
and so sometimes we sit in that kingly ruling, you know,
like a king. We have a kingdom that we are
in charge of, and He gives us that. Uh, you

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know a domain which we establish and rule over, and
and and and and rule, you know, and and rule
with some authority in and so we are kings. And
it just says, you know all to me. In other words,
every king needs to be searching out what God has

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to say about how to run their kingdom and how
to operate in the influence that God's given them really
really important. And so you know too, where it says,
you know, the glory of God is to conceal a thing,
but the glory of kings is to search it out,

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to search out a thing and find it and get
the answer and then rule and reign and in Jesus' name.
So now is the time really to to be unlocking
the good treasures that God has stored up for us,
because he has he has in this secret place he

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has He is hidden away for us wonderful treasures for
our un our uncovering by by having fellowship with Him,
by spending time in his word, by spending time and
you know, in the king, in his presence, And that's
how we mine out those precious gems that He has

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hidden away for us to discover. My I mean, you know,
I'm a decided about that you know, uh, in Deuteronomy
twenty nine, twenty nine, I will get to that one
now that the secret things belong unto the Lord, our God,
but the things which have which are revealed, belong to

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us and to our children forever that we might do
all of the word words of this Wow, you know
it He equips us to be able to fully function
in the Word of God, and we can bring order

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into our life, and we can bring authority forward by
just by just you know, engulfing the things that He
has for us, devouring the Word of God and getting
very rich in it, but also you know, operating in it,
because going into the secret place and find getting hold

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of what God has for us. And we do that
by prayer mainly, I mean prayer and reading of the Word.
And remember, you know, the disciples said, listen, we're gonna
we're gonna set aside, you know, uh, certain men to
do some work at on on tables and whatnot, so
that we can do by we can uh, we can

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uh devote our time to prayer and the reading of
the Word, preaching of the you know, and so to
seek out as a king, as a priest, you know,
we need to spend time seeking out that the mind

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of God, seeking out the presence of the Holy God
who made us, and having communication with him on a
constant basis. And that, my friend, is really what prayer is.
To set yourself aside for the study of the reading

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of the Word of God, and also to just get
into his presence. And you know know who he is.
You know, he said, be still and know who I am.
That's so powerful, so powerful. So you know, it says,

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let me go on to another one that I think said,
let me see if I can pull it up. Job
twenty two twenty eight. Job twenty to twenty eight. Let
me see if I pull that up. Okay, job twenty
two twenty eight. And if you notice I had a
little note or two down there at the bottom of that.

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I'm going to just kind of make sure that I'm
being heard here. But so here's job twenty two twenty eight.
Here it is. It's good. You shall also decide and
decree a thing, and it shall be established for you,
and the light of God's favor shall shine upon your ways.

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Go twenty to twenty eight. I think that's in amp APM.
I mean it's amplified PC Bible anyway. I like the
way it reads and everything. But here's the deal. It
just says. It says that you shall decide. You have
to You have to kind of make up your mind.
You are a king, you are a priest. You're going

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to have to decide how you want to rule, and
you want to study, and you want to come up
with the best information. You want to gather information from
other people. You want to check on the word of
God to make sure it lines up with that, and
then you want to spend time inquiring of the Lord.
But it's ultimately it's your decision. It's your call, because

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you will are the king. You are the priest in
charge of what's going on. And so write this down
if you will, because you shall that that little verse
at the end, I mean Job twenty eight, it starts out,
you shall also decide, and so decide That means make

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up your mind. That means you've got to make the call.
You've got to call the shot. Here, it's up to you.
You make up your mind first as to what you're
going to do, and then you shall decree, shall decree
a thing. In other words, you need to speak it.
You need to declare it. You need to put it

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out there, because what does a what does a king do?
He decrees a thing and it and all of the
kingdom rallies to fulfill that declaration that he has voiced.
And you know what, it works the same way for

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you and your kingdom. You decree a thing, you speak it,
and it goes out into the atmosphere and it notifies
both Heaven and Hell as to your intention, as to
your decision, what you want to do, and then it

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says that it will be established. It will be established
for you. Wow. So whenever we speak, our voice, our
our words have something. Our prayers to God go up
and and and and he and we ask we decree

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a thing by asking him, and then He comes along
and fulfills that thing. He puts it, He puts the
motion of the kingdom behind it, and it and it
and it will come to us as a fulfillment of
our declaration. That's prayer. I mean, let me tell you

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that to decree a thing, to to set it, to
make up your mind, and then to the decree a thing,
to tell God what it is that you've made up
your mind on and then and then as long as
it lines up with his word and his will and
and and and that's your job to make sure that
it does those things. But once you get that thing

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and you begin to decreate and declare it, God himself
moves on his word and joins up with your declaration
and causes it to be Listen to me, prayer is powerful,
and I just want to emphasize to you. Sometimes maybe

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we don't think about how powerful, how much authority there
is in the prayers that we have, and sometimes we
just don't pray very well. We're a little timid because
we don't know what to pray, perhaps, and that's where
we need to be studying the Word of God. We

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need to be attending in fellowship and getting around other
believers and and communing about the things that are going
on in the world and the things that affect us,
and we need to set it all together in agreement
in prayer. The prayer of agreement is such a strong,

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strong weapon. So when we set ourselves together with others
and we get into agreement, there's even multiplied power and
authority that sets out to accomplish what we've sent it
out to do. So you know, to it is really, really,

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really important. I want to move on and catch the
next scripture here once again. Once again, it's a you
know that it's a very powerful it says, well, but
I want I want you to we can do nothing
more powerful than than praying. I just I want to

(26:17):
reaffirm that right quick and and and then I want
to just talk about the prayer that kind of goes
along with that and that, you know and uh psalms.
Let me let me see if I can get Yeah,
I really can't. I think I think I turned my
sound off again. Let me put it back up. Anyway,

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when whenever you whenever you declare and decree a thing, it,
you know, God puts his shine, his shine on it,
he puts his his light up on it. He he
lights it up, he brings it into into reality, he
puts it, he makes it to be seen and and
and and come to life. And so you know that

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that's the that's the bottom line declaration that comes from that.
So I want to kind of close tonight just like
I said, I want to. I want to keep this
short and sweet, and I'm sharing quite a bit of
scripture with you, but I think it's really important. But
during these days that we have you know, we need
we need to be keeping our focus on Christ the

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King and and and he is the Prince of peace.
But if we want to if we want to be
in peace, we do that through praying and ask seeing
the Prince of Peace to come in and deposit peace,
deposit joy, deposit the things of heaven. We need to
keep our our focus on things above and not not

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things beneath. You know, down at the things of this
world are are terrible right now, we're we are we
have a lot lot of negative thing But we overcome
that by shining that light, just as that last scripture
was saying, well, it shines the light of God on it.
And we can only do that if we're full of God.

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You know, how are you going to let your little
light shine? Remember the little Sunday school verse or whatever,
you know, let my little light shine? Well, if your
light is going to shine, if you are going to
be a shining light and reveal you know Christ too.
A desperate people that live around you. I mean there's

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people everywhere and they all are looking for something. They
know that their ability is limited because they keep you know,
losing funds, and things get higher and more difficult to
even even if you're well feet, you still are struggling
because you're paying tons of taxes and your I mean,

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there's just all kinds of things that are pressing in
on I don't care what level economic level you are at.
I don't care what you know, how how healthy or
unhealthy you are. You have, you have needs that need
to be met, and I'm just telling you, prayer is
the answer. Prayer is is the thing that can change

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every situation, because that's how we communicate, that's how we
hook up, and we ask God to give us those
things to declared to free and to receive from Him.
And I'm just so so so important. I want to
put up one last scripture here that I and and

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then I want to kind of just wrap it up.
Let me give you one more scripture that I think
is very powerful. It's in Isaiah Isaiah sixty three. I
mean Isaiah's twenty six three, and the Cannibal verset down

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there is Romans six twenty. So that scripture is Isaiah
twenty sixty three. And never forget that it is God,
the God of peace, that crushes the devil, that crushes
and puts him under our feet, gives us the power

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and the authority to walk right into the situation and
have power over it. But we do that through prayer.
We get these things from God and Romans six sixteen twenty.
Is is the verse that you know, never never, never

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forget that we have the power to crush him sixteen twenty.
Look it up. It's a powerful verse. Those are those
are all Those are all verses that have have have
a confirmation for me anyway of the power of the prayer,
of the presence of God in our life, and the

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opportunity for us actually to flow in it, and to
know that. You know, it is God who is taking
care of fame, but he chooses to do it through
us because He gives us power. He is endowed upon
us power to take over and authority. Power and authority

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and the word. So you know the word, and you
know power and authority. They come. They flow through both
the Word and his presence. You know, the Word will
confirm what happens in his presence. His presence will confirm
the Word of God. Together it will give us knowledge,

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understanding and do upon us the power to rise up
in his authority and his ability to decree a thing
and see it come to pass, brothers and sisters, we
need to step it up a bit in the department

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of prayer, right. So I hope I've encouraged you just
a little bit and stirred you on to just a
little bit more. I desire very much like Aull said
once and in one of his scriptures, he says, I
wish above all things that I could impart some spiritual
gift to you, some spiritual blessing to you right now.

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And so I hope and pray that that is the case.
And for you today, I hope and pray that you
know Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior. I pray
that you understand that you can be filled with the
Holy Spirit and empowered to do great exploits in the

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Kingdom of God. And I pray that you will step
right into that and never forsaking yourself, the assembling of
yourself with other people other believers, but rule and reign
in Jesus' name through the power and authority that you
can receive through prayer. So good, let me pray for you, Father.

(33:32):
I thank you for everyone under the sound of my voice.
I thank you for tonight's opportunity to just stir up
and to stir up to remembrance the good things that
you have for us, and to make it possible for
you to flow in through us to others. I thank

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you that you give us a word of reconciliations so
that we can reconcile our life and get it straight
with you. But I also thank you for the opportunity
that you give us the ministry of reconciliation. In other words,
we can share that reconciliation that you have provided for

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us with others as well. God bless you, and tune
back in with us each Thursday at seven am, and
I promise we'll have someone or something that we can
teach you or hand to you that will be a
blessing to you. Tell other people to ring those little bells,

(34:41):
and you do it too, and that helps our broadcast
to kind of go out just a little bit more.
But we thank you. Share it, share the broadcast, tell
other people about it, and ring those little bells and
blow those whistles or whatever it is that you do
on there. It really does make a difference. Thank you
so much, and we'll see you next Thursday. God bless you.

(35:09):
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(35:30):
This is the Bread Hugh Show. Signing off,