Sunday Feb 15th | Favorable Conditions for Prayer pt2

Now I wanna emphasize the word favorable because I understand that some might hear what I'm saying and go, what? I have to be completely sinless before God will hear and answer my prayers. And if this were the case, he would never hear and answer any of our prayers, people. Christ died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. He was buried, and three days later, he rose from the grave. The bible says all who've repented of their sins and placed their faith in him for salvation, they are given the righteousness of Christ, and they possess the privilege and promise of being heard by God and answered by him in prayer. [00:42:04] (38 seconds)  #FavorableInChrist

you know that if you own a cell phone, you understand that in order to communicate effectively with others through that cell phone, there needs to be the right conditions. Right? I mean, we we understand that there needs to be a connection. You need to be connected to a service provider to effectively communicate with your cell phone. We also know that we need to be correctly aligned. You have to be dialing the right number. We also know that you need clear reception. And if you're not connected, if you're not dialing the correct number, and if there's not clear reception, communication on a cell phone is not very effective. Well, the same can be true for prayer. [00:27:47] (41 seconds)  #PrayerConnection

You know, I've told you guys for years that I you know, while every pastor delights in hearing a great sermon, I actually delight in hearing God's people respond and do what God said. And so to to walk down after a message where we touched on passive resignation, kind of this idea that we pray and whatever your will is as if our prayer will accomplish nothing, and to walk into that kind of testimony and hear how God answered is just an amazing thing to me. And I wanna tell you, if you've got stories like that, don't keep them to yourself. [00:08:03] (37 seconds)  #ShareAnsweredPrayers

Are you praying privately for something that God may be waiting to answer through the prayers of others? Over the years, I have noticed a lot of privacy and prayer among the people of God. A lot of us now, for some reason today, when we are faced with something we don't wanna tell anyone. And I understand that we come up with reasons for this, but it's at least a valid consideration if there is added power in corporate prayer. And if there are only some prayers that God will answer by his people praying together, might he not be answering you because you haven't shared it with anybody else and ask them to join you in praying for it. [01:01:17] (39 seconds)  #InvitePrayerSupport

For years, it has been well known by pastors. If you wanna have a service nobody will attend, call it a prayer service. I I'll I'll share you I'll share with you a real true story. At my last church, as we began to lead them to be a praying people, we took one Sunday morning and said, hey. You know what? I'm not gonna preach that day. We we sang a few songs as people came in, but we we would just spent the whole morning in prayer. Well, as people came into the service, and our greeters shared with them, hey. Things are changed up a little bit today. We're gonna be praying. People left. They left. [01:03:16] (42 seconds)  #ValuePrayerGatherings

I hope this is as profound for you as it was for me. Mathis says this verse implies that there are some answers to prayer that we simply will not get without involving others in our praying. God means for some answers to prayer to await the joining of others with us. Yes. We pray alone for our personal needs, and God is pleased to answer, but there are times that God's means includes the leaders of the church or just the simple prayers of a fellow believer with you. [00:57:27] (35 seconds)  #AnswersThroughUnity

So the remedy to impurity in prayer is confessing our sins to God and turning from them, and the promise of God is he'll hear, he'll answer our prayer, he'll forgive us our sins, and there's more. Confession and repentance will clear the static on the line and open the way for clear communication to God once again. [00:45:25] (27 seconds)  #ConfessAndClear

So we're not to pray meaningless, repetitious prayers. Rather, we are to pray meaningful, sincere prayers to God, earnest prayers to him. And to pray earnestly means we're to pray with a sincere, intense conviction to God. An earnest prayer is one with emotional intensity, and an earnest prayer might even be a prayer that's prayed more than one time. So not meaningless repetition, but a repeated prayer with intense conviction. [00:46:33] (33 seconds)  #EarnestPrayer