Transformative Power of Prayer and Faith

Our prayers, it can seem like they're not, you know, we don't know what they do. We just, sometimes we hear a story like this and you find out what prayer does, but I just love that story. So prayer is powerful. All right. So last Sunday's service was a beautiful picture of God's abundance, wasn't it? [00:51:48]

All the instructions in the Bible are given to us in order to connect us to the one who can do all those things. So the things that God gives us to do are the things that transform our minds and bring us to a place of deeper intimacy and deeper trust in Jesus. [00:53:29]

Cast your burden upon the Lord and he will sustain you. You'll never allow the righteous to be shaken. So when we can continually, this is on a moment by moment basis, keep giving God our concerns, keep giving God our anxiety, the things that concern us, the things that weigh on us, we will not be shaken. [00:54:45]

We think it's up to us to stay away from sin. We have to try hard to do what God asks us to do, and we think that when we fail, Jesus will be disappointed in us or angry with us, but Jesus doesn't look at our weaknesses and get discouraged or angry. He knows it is all easily dealt with. [00:58:04]

Every time we see attitudes, thoughts, behaviors that aren't kingdom-like, we know from this verse that we can throw it off. We can allow the Spirit to renew our thoughts and change our attitudes. At the risk of being a broken record, one of the main ways we do that is by speaking truth over ourselves. [00:59:02]

Confession is not telling all your moral failures to somebody. When we confess, we are telling the truth about where we have deviated or moved away from what is true about God, ourselves, and others. Moral failures are the result of this deviation. [01:07:39]

So when we find ourselves doing something that we know is not kingdom-like, we have a bad attitude, we're being unkind, whatever that might be, we say, what am I believing that's causing me to act in this way that's unrighteous? This does not gel, this does not jive with who you say I am, Jesus. [01:08:50]

So any fear, guilt, or shame we experience are lies that attempt to draw us into sin, and we need to identify it and let Jesus tell us the truth about it. So do you remember my analogy from a few weeks ago where we're on the football team and we're on the offense, and the enemy is not the opposing team, the enemy is off to the side trying to constantly distract us and draw us into, get us out of the game, get us out of the kingdom, get us out of that unshakable kingdom that we can live in. [01:09:57]

I believe that any fear, guilt, or shame I experience is a false identity. I choose to believe what Jesus says is true about me. I wear my robe of righteousness that Jesus paid for on the cross. I am outrageous. I am graciously loved. Jesus delights in me. I choose to believe what you say about yourself, Jesus. [01:10:29]

When we say something about ourselves that is not consistent with who we are in Christ, he says we're lying. That's a powerful statement, isn't it? And I remember I wrote it down because I thought, I want to remember that. That this is, do not lie to one another. When we say something about ourselves that Jesus wouldn't say, we are lying. [01:11:13]

So I said, let it go. Go. Let it go. Confess. Confess. Confession is just telling God what he's already telling you. That's all it is. That's all it is. And he said, Lord, I've been holding onto this for 27 years. It's killing me. It's killing my marriage. And I knew it was wrong at the time. [01:17:15]

So I love that this all ends with unity because that's what really makes our body here an unshakable kingdom, is when we're connected. And vulnerability is, I know the guys hate that word, vulnerability, but it is a powerful, powerful thing when we're willing to share what's going on and what we need to have help with and work on. [01:26:49]