Reviving Prayer: Prioritizing Our Communication with God

Bible Reading:
1. Leviticus 6:13 #!!43:25!!#
2. 1 Samuel 12:23 #!!46:35!!#
3. Luke 11:1-4 #!!55:36!!#

Observation Questions:
1. What does Leviticus 6:13 tell us about our responsibility as believers?
2. In 1 Samuel 12:23, what does Samuel consider a sin against the Lord?
3. What does the Lord's model prayer in Luke 11:1-4 teach us about the structure and content of our prayers?

Interpretation Questions:
1. How does Leviticus 6:13 relate to our personal spiritual life and our relationship with God?
2. How does Samuel's statement in 1 Samuel 12:23 challenge our understanding of prayer and our responsibility towards others?
3. How can we apply the principles from the Lord's model prayer in Luke 11:1-4 to our daily prayer life?

Application Questions:
1. How can you ensure that the "fire" mentioned in Leviticus 6:13 continues to burn in your life? What specific steps can you take this week to stoke that fire?
2. Reflecting on 1 Samuel 12:23, is there someone in your life for whom you've stopped praying? How can you recommit to praying for them this week?
3. Using the Lord's model prayer in Luke 11:1-4 as a guide, what specific elements can you incorporate into your prayer life this week? How can you make your prayers more personal rather than transactional?

Day 1: The Importance of Prayer

Prayer is not just a religious ritual, but a vital lifeline to our relationship with God. It is a spiritual discipline that requires commitment and consistency. It is through prayer that we communicate with God, express our needs, and listen to His guidance. It is a sin to cease praying, as it disconnects us from our source of strength and wisdom. [47:19]

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 - "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

Reflection: Reflect on your prayer life. How can you make prayer a top priority in your daily routine?

Day 2: Setting a Time for Prayer

Just as we schedule our daily activities, we should also set a specific time for prayer. This discipline helps us to maintain consistency in our prayer life. Without a set time, days may pass without us realizing that we haven't prayed. Remember, prayer is not an option but a necessity for our spiritual survival. [48:04]

Ecclesiastes 3:1 - "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven."

Reflection: What time of the day can you set aside for prayer? How can you ensure that this time is not interrupted?

Day 3: Keeping the Fire Burning

As believers, we are the temple of the Lord. When we accepted Christ, a fire was ignited in our hearts. It is our responsibility to keep this fire burning by maintaining a vibrant relationship with God through prayer and obedience. Let's not allow the fire to go out. [43:25]

Leviticus 6:13 - "Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually; it shall not go out."

Reflection: What are the ashes in your life that need to be swept out to keep the fire burning?

Day 4: The Power of Prayer

Prayer is powerful. It can change situations, open doors, and bring about miracles. When we pray, we tap into the supernatural power of God. Let's not underestimate the power of prayer in our lives. Let's commit to improving our prayer life and see how God moves in response. [01:13:30]

James 5:16 - "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."

Reflection: How has prayer made a difference in your life? What situation in your life needs the power of prayer right now?

Day 5: Back to the Basics

The foundation of our faith is prayer. It is through prayer that we connect with God, seek His will, and receive His guidance. Let's get back to the basics and make prayer the cornerstone of our daily lives. Remember, every major event in our lives happens because of prayer. [41:37]

Matthew 6:6 - "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."

Reflection: How can you get back to the basics of prayer in your life? What changes do you need to make to prioritize prayer?

All right, wow, what a morning, huh? Didn't you love that? Man, Matt was wearing out that guitar, wasn't he? Wow, I love that!

Hey, could I just give you some, you know, we always talk about and ask you to be part of things that are going on. Let me just tell you what a great weekend we had this week of being for our neighbors. We say that a lot; we don't lock ourselves behind the four walls of this building, but we want to be for our neighbors.

So, Friday night, because of your generosity, we were able to host the high school football team and cheerleaders for dinner. Pastor Chris was able to do a devotion and minister to them and be with them on the sideline. Now they've asked him to come to some of the practices and things, making inroads, and so we just thank God.

Then yesterday, we had a great event, the first time ever here in Leesburg, and it won't be the last. This is Councilman Alan Riesman, who will be mayor in a year or two. We backed the blue yesterday. What did we do? We backed the blue! It was a 5K to support the Leesburg Blue Foundation. We raised almost thirty thousand dollars for them, and we had close to—yes, that's huge!—we had close to 300 participants for the inaugural 5K. Wow! Somebody said you wouldn't have 30, right? There were a couple of people, yeah.

But I think what's so exciting is that the Father's House was one of the main—I forget what level—Captain sponsor, which is like one of the top ones. We were on the top of the T-shirt! Wow! So I just want to thank the church, and I want to encourage you not only to get involved in your church but to get involved in your community. Amen? Thank you, Alan. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Now listen, I say that to say this: coming up on October 14th, we're doing a Walk for Freedom here in Lake County. Tanya's been working on this, and there are little brochures outside as you leave. Listen, sign up! This is to stop human trafficking, and it's important. I mean, we're living right now in a crisis time, so I'm asking everybody who comes to the Father's House to sign up for this walk. I mean, we had a 100-year-old lady walk last year. I mean, if she could do that, you know anybody can do that, right?

It's not a long walk; I don't remember how long it was, but it's not bad. They stop the traffic, do all that, but I need you to sign up, and I need you to pass the word to other people. Our goal this year is pretty big, and we'll share some of that with you, but I need you to be sure that you sign up. Will you do that? Sign up, get one of those cards, go on our website; you can sign up.

It's at 8 A.M. at Lake Sumter State College. It will be a showing of freedom for others, so please do that. Sign up!

And today, just because we love you so much and your faithfulness—you know, people that stay home, they don't get this—but because you're here and faithful, you never want to miss because we might surprise you with what we give away. So today, we have Michael and The Smokehouse Barbecue out there in the mobile truck, and we're going to give you free sliders, chips, and drinks. Then the Kona Ice people will be here, and you can grab a cone of ice just because we love you. We call it treats on the patio for you today. Sorry to those of you who stayed home and drank your coffee; you missed it! It's going to be great, and it's going to be a great time.

All right, and if you missed the first service, you can make it to the second service. You know, some of you, that will be motivation enough.

Let's pray. Lord, we love you. Man, we sang that song a few minutes ago; we sensed your presence. We thank you, Lord, for everyone who calls this their home. We thank you for those that are visiting and kicking the tires and seeing if this is a place for them. Thank you, Lord, for our city. We thank you for our leaders and our city.

Lord, we thank you; it was a great weekend this weekend, but Lord, even today is going to be an awesome day in which you speak to us. Lord, I'm just asking you to just speak to us today. Lord, I pray that you would help us to understand what you want us to understand today. Help me to say what you want me to say; don't let me say anything I shouldn't say.

Well, I'm relying on Holy Spirit anointing today, and I pray that at the end of today, you will be glorified, the saints will be edified, and the enemy will be terrified.

In the name of Jesus, the Protestant reformer Martin Luther once said this: listen to this: just as the business of the tailor is making clothes and the business of the cobbler is making shoes, so the business of a Christian is praying.

So here's my question: how's your business going? How's the business going? Look at your neighbor and say, "How's business?"

Let me just follow up with a few other questions: Are you satisfied with how business is going? Are you satisfied with your prayer life? Or do you ever feel maybe a little guilty because as you start to pray, your mind starts wandering, and it seems like you do more trying to pray than you do praying? Or maybe you hear stories about people who spend entire days in prayer and fasting, and you feel inadequate and defeated.

Or have you quit praying because the one prayer that you've been asking God to answer hasn't been answered, and so you just quit praying? Or are you like the little boy that the preacher asked him, "Well, son, have you said your prayers today?" He said, "No, sir, I didn't get in trouble yet today."

I think that's the story I just want to share with you. What I'm sharing with you today, I shared with our staff last week in our getaway retreat. By the way, I want to tell you another great thing in the Father's House: we've partnered up with Convoy of Hope, and everywhere you see a crisis, Convoy—you can hear us more about partnering up with other organizations in the near future because we've discovered you don't always have to reinvent the wheel. You find what God is doing, what He's blessing somewhere, and Convoy of Hope is over there.

I know that you've heard about the earthquake in Morocco. Convoy of Hope is already on the way there, and because of your generosity with your missions giving, we were able to give them over twenty-five thousand dollars this year in helping them make a difference in people's lives.

We're going to be doing some crisis intervention with storms, hurricanes, training you for that, and my goal is that we will absolutely be able to get a team together here so when there's a national crisis somewhere, we'll be able to get boots on the ground just as fast as we can. I'm thankful that we can hook up with people that are doing something to make a difference around the world.

All right, so what the Lord has been saying to me personally is just simply this: Terry, you got to get back to the basics. You got to get back to the basics. The thing that birthed this house was prayer. Every major event that we've had in the history of this church, 27 years, has happened because people prayed.

We couldn't find a building to purchase because at that particular time, we were like the only non-denominational church 27 years ago here in the city trying to start. Nobody wanted to rent to us, and everybody felt like if you didn't own property, you weren't invested in this community. So we prayed.

We couldn't find a place, but we decided at 10 A.M. and 10 P.M. that we would pray every day and ask God for a building. So the very first week we started praying, 10 minutes at 10 A.M. and 10 minutes at 10 P.M. a day, we had a building open up. The owner of that said, "I have no idea why this building opened up. I've rented to these people for 20 years, and they just turned in this week their resignation and said they didn't want to use this building anymore."

We just simply said, "Thank you, sir," and we moved towards that building. We took that building, we knocked out walls—I never got so dirty in all of my life—we cleaned out sewer pipes. We did everything we could to make that building what it should be because we believe that when God gives you something, you do the best you can.

But I'm here to tell you, if you'll catch the series "When the Church Prays," by the way, if you don't have your little bracelet "When the Church Prays," we got those out there to remind you to pray. But if you'll catch this about prayer, I promise you next year at this time, your life will be different. Can I get an amen from anybody who knows the power of prayer?

So here's a couple of scriptures. I'm not saying this is for you, but these are a couple of scriptures the Lord laid on my heart and also for our staff. Leviticus chapter 6, verse 13: the Lord says, "Remember, the fire must be kept burning on the altar at all times; it must never go out."

Now let me remind you, the fire in the temple there in the great place of offering sacrifices, man didn't start the fire; God started the fire. He came down and consumed the sacrifice and started the fire, and then He told the priest, "It's your job to keep this fire going. It's your job to remove the ashes of the morning; it's your job to put new wood on there; it's your job to make sure the fire never goes out."

Here's what the Lord told me: we are the temple of the Lord. The scripture says that we are the temple of the Lord. That should make us take a little bit better care of this temple in any one way, right? We should do that. But also, spiritually, we're the temple of the Lord, and when I gave my heart to the Lord, He ignited a fire on the altar of my heart.

Now it's my job every morning to get up, to sweep out the ashes, get rid of the clogs, get rid of the sin, get rid of all of that, sweep it out, and keep that fire going. Don't let the fire go out; don't lose the passion.

And I know you look at this deflated football, but I didn't have time to air it up. It came from a good friend of mine, Ron Zook, who used to be the coach of UF, and then he went to Illinois. Now he's back with the National League. But it reminded me that when I was praying this week of what I heard of Vince Lombardi—whether it's true or not—at the beginning of every season, he'd bring the teams together in the first session, and he'd hold up a football and he would say, "Gentlemen, this is a football."

In other words, we got to start as basic as it is. I don't want to talk about plays right now; we don't want to talk all about that, but we want to talk about the football. And I just felt the Lord say, "Tell the people we're going to go back to basics this morning."

We're going to say this prayer, and I got to thinking, "Well, Jesus, if you were to come today and speak to this church, if we're going to get back to the basics, what would you say to us as the basics of our prayer life?"

Now, I know some of you are far beyond this, and that's okay. Some of you have been granted, and God has given you a gift, and you're an intercessor, and boy, we thank God for our intercessors. Our intercessors pray over this building throughout the week. They walk around this property. Sunday, this morning, they walked around this property and gave a real big strong prophetic word of what God is doing, and I thank God for intercessors.

But some of us are not intercessors. Some of us are people that we're just praying, and we want to do better at our prayers, and sometimes some of us have never had anybody teach us the basics of prayer. We've heard other people pray; we try to copy their prayers, but we're just not sure.

So I just asked the Lord, "What would you say?" And here's a few things. Number one, if you're taking notes, make prayer your top priority. Would you say that with me? Make prayer your top priority.

When you read the Bible, that's God talking to you, but when you pray, that's you talking to God. I think we all need a 24/7 prayer life. We need to, but we need to know that there are times that we need to spend a little longer time with God at the beginning of the day.

Listen to this: as for me, 1 Samuel 12:23, this is another verse the Lord hit me with so strong: "As for me, I will certainly not sin against the Lord by ending my prayers for you." Notice what he says. Samuel said, "If I stop praying for you, I've sinned against the Lord."

And now the people were heathens; they were going away from God. They were running farther away from God than they ever did, and Samuel said, "Be it far from me if I fail to pray for you. I'm sinning against God, and I'll continue to teach you what is good and right, but be sure to fear the Lord and faithfully serve Him. Think of all the wonderful things He has done for you."

He says, "If I cease to pray for you..." So here's what the Lord said to me: if I cease to pray for you, if I cease to pray for this ministry, if I cease to pray for the other churches in our city, if I cease to pray for our president and our leaders, then I'm sinning against the Lord.

Now, I don't mean to be legalistic or try to beat you over the head, but I just want us to feel the passion of how important the basics are of prayer for our life. So make prayer a top priority.

Number two: set a time of prayer. If you don't set a time for prayer, what will happen is there'll be a few days run by, and you'll realize, "Man, I haven't really prayed." I'm going to tell you, you will not make it as a Christian without prayer.

I told my staff last week, "I don't care how good you are at everything you are; if you don't pray every day, you will not make it in ministry. You will fail. There's no way that you can do that."

People say, "But I just pray; I don't have a set time of prayer because I just pray when the Lord leads me." Well, we don't run our life like that. Your life is run on a schedule. You don't wake up one morning and say, "Oh, well, you know, I don't feel like going to work today, so I'm not going to go."

Don't tell me every day you wake up you feel like going to work. There are Sundays I don't want to get up and come here. Is that okay? Anybody else have a Sunday you'd just like to sleep in and not come? Okay, come on, be honest.

All right, there are times that you went to work when you didn't feel like going to work, but you know what? Your pay didn't change. If you went to work when you felt like it, you got paid a salary, but if you went to work when you didn't feel like it, you still got a salary.

I'm going to tell you that's how it is with showing up at a place of prayer with God. You show up, and you can just be honest: "I don't have much today, sir. I'm kind of tired; didn't even want to pray, but here I am because I have scheduled a time of prayer. I will not let anything interrupt my set time for prayer."

And I'm not telling you when that is. Some of you, it's like super, super early; some of you, it's another time. But you need to set aside a time that you're going to use that time for God.

And I didn't say you have to pray an hour a week. After next week, I'm going to talk about the value of praying short prayers. You don't want to miss that!

There was a young private during the Korean War. They were right on the front line, and there was a wounded soldier that got left behind. The sergeant said, "I'm asking somebody to volunteer to try to go rescue him, but I'm telling you, you may lose your own life because it's going to be so dangerous."

One private stood up and said, "Sir, I'll go if you'll let me go at nine o'clock." The sergeant said, "Well, nobody else is volunteering." Okay, so at nine o'clock, that private ran out of the bunker, ran out to the battlefield where everything was going. He grabbed the soldier in the midst of all the fire, he brought the young soldier back, and put him back in safety there.

The sergeant said, "But I've got to know, why did you want to wait till nine?" He said, "Because I knew at home my mother prays at nine o'clock, and I knew it would be all right."

Set a time for prayer.

Number three: set a select place of prayer. Here's what Matthew 6:6 says: "Here's what I want you to do: find a quiet, secluded place so that you won't be tempted by all the texts and the Facebook posts and all the TikToks and everything that comes."

Some of you need to shut off this distraction. Find a secluded place, and don't role-play before God; just be there as simply and honestly as you can. The focus will shift—look at this—the focus will shift from you to God, and you will be able to sense His grace.

He led them into a solitary place, and they prayed. He had a place; he was always going to a place or coming back from a place. Now, I know some of you have a prayer closet—maybe not as good as Roberta's prayer closet, but I'm envious, Roberta, when I saw your prayer closet.

Watch this video of our prayer closet. Pastor had asked me to share a little bit about my prayer closet, and I got this idea from the War Room when I saw the movie. But it does have to sub as a closet. I used to have a recliner in here, but I lost that space.

In here, I have my computer set up so that I can do my devotions, send to our YouVersion. Here is my prayer board where I have our church family, different members, family, people that I'm praying for. In here, I write whatever is pertinent to that particular moment. Some of my favorite books, of course, that I like to read, my prayer journals are in here. I have my prayer and worship, praise and worship music, and sometimes I like to bring in a slightly tighter focus, so I'm able to take that down and just bring Jesus into a real tight focus.

So here's my war room. Wow! Yeah, yeah! Ben said, "Pastor Ben, I wouldn't be who I am, and I wouldn't have the success, especially this new book that's taking off, and now it's going to go a lot of different places. I can't tell you everything, okay?"

But he said, "It's because that woman prays. That woman prays." You know, it'd be hard for me to be confined in a closet when I pray because I like to walk and get loud. I like to yell sometimes, but you need a place to pray—not just, "Well, when it comes on me."

I mean, some of you use your drive time. We're just talking about basics; we're not talking about something. But it's so easy to get so crowded that we don't do time.

Number four: make prayer personal, not transactional. Make prayer personal, not transactional. And what I'm talking about is the primary goal of prayer is God. The primary goal of our prayer is to be God, not, "I'm going to go, hello, hello, God, I got one, two, three things I need you to do for me right now in the name of Jesus. I'm out. See you later. Hope you take care of it."

No, we want it to be personal, not just transactional. That, "Oh, I've got to get this done; I've got to get this done." But no, it's, "I'm coming to be with my Savior, my Lord, my Redeemer, and my soon-coming King."

Number five: here's where it gets very practical. Follow the Lord's model prayer. The Lord's model prayer, verse 11 of chapter 11 of Luke says, "Now it came to pass as He, Jesus, was praying in a certain place. When He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, 'Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples.'"

And in this manner, therefore, Jesus taught them: "Pray in this manner, therefore, pray." Another translation says, "Say, Our Father in heaven." Would you just read it with me from the Sky Bible?

"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. Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

So the disciples didn't ask, "Lord, teach us to preach; teach us to do a miracle," but "Teach us to pray." Why? Because I think they saw something that wasn't transactional, but it was a relationship.

Remember, Jesus said, "The works that I do are what my Father shows me." When He was going to prayer, He was always going or coming from a place of prayer. And so they said, "Lord, teach us." And so He says, "Well, here's what—here's how to pray."

Here's a pattern. Now, this is not a formula. People say, "Well, what's the formula?" No, no. He says, "I want you to pray every day of my life for years now." This is a prayer that I pray, and I pray it out loud, and it's not something we just do by—because we have it memorized.

But every day, I'll start off and I'll pray, even before my prayer, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name," and I'll just walk on through that. But then after I say it, then I'll go back and I'll unpack it, as I'm going to share with you today.

And I'm just going to give you just an outline of how to pray. People say, "Well, how can I pray? Where do I do? Do I do the acts?" People say, "Well, start with adoration, then confession, then thanksgiving, and then supplication." Sorry!

And then there's the temple and all of those. But this is what I'm sharing with you now is something I've been praying for over 40 years of my life. When I went through a class with Larry Lee, that was 40 years ago. Wow, I'm old!

But anyway, I talked about, "Could you not tarry one hour?" But when I saw how he broke that down in simplistic—this is a football—when I saw how that God had given him nothing, he just unpacked this, it so changed my prayers.

I don't have to say, "Okay, well, now how do I pray?" No, this is what our Master said: this is how you say because subjects that we need to talk about and outline what we need is all here.

As we look at this, and there's 57 words in the original language, and it'll take you 22 seconds to read it. So here's how it breaks off. It starts off with this: here's, in my mind, this is how I see it. I want to lead off my prayer with focused praise. I want to lead with focused praise.

I want to start there with praise. I don't want to just rush in, rush, come in hot like a missile and then out, you know, really quick. I just want to come, and so that's why you have to have a time to pray.

And so what I'll do is I'll just start. He says, "Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." So before I start unloading all of my lists, I want to remind myself to whom am I addressing?

See, if I talk to you, you might forget something. If I talk to you, you may not know the background to everything. But I'm sitting down, kneeling down, laying down, walking, and I'm talking to the creator of the universe. I'm talking about the creator of such beautiful heaven and earth and said, "I don't want to live here by myself, but I want to create man, and I want to breathe life into man so that they can be with me forever."

And then He sent His Son Jesus to pay for our sins. So I look at all of that, and I realize, and so here's a verse that's really helped me: Ecclesiastes chapter 5, verses 1, 2, and 7. "Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools who do not know what they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth; do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. He is in heaven, and you are on earth, so let your words be few."

Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Read this last phrase with me: "Therefore, stand in awe of God." I love that phrase! Don't just rush into His presence, but the first thing you want to do is realize the highest priority is to acknowledge and exalt the name of God.

Throughout the Old Testament, He revealed His name, and He said, "I am that I am." And so throughout the Bible, we learn how that He is—one of the phrases we learned that He is Jehovah Sid Canoe; He is the Lord my righteousness.

So when I pray, here's how I pray. I just come in there in the morning, and I have some praise music on, and I, you know, I'll sing off-tune, but I'll say, "You know, praise Him a little bit," or I'll listen to that or maybe read a scripture just in silence, come into His presence, and then I'll just start thinking, "Lord, I just want to praise You, Father God. I want to praise You right now. I want to exalt Your name because Your name is higher than anything else."

And You are Jehovah Sid Canoe; You are my righteousness. I am declared righteous because of the Lord Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross. And I thank You today that I am righteous; I am a righteous man, and I will live a righteous life.

And Lord, I worship You because You are Jehovah Mckettis; You're Jehovah who sanctifies, who sets me apart. I thank You today that the things in my life that are not of You, You are sanctifying those in my life today.

And I just thank You; I can't do it on my own, but You're sanctifying me. You're Jehovah Shalom; You are my peace; You're my wholeness, God. And I thank You today that I'm not worried about what's going to happen tomorrow; I'm not worried about what's going to happen today. You are Jehovah Shalom.

And by the way, I thank You that You are Jehovah Shama. I don't have that in your notes, but You're Jehovah Shama, the God that is already there. And I'll just take time and say, "Lord, I thank You. I don't know what tomorrow's going to bring, but I know You're already there. I know You're right."

And I just exalt You, and I thank You, and I worship You that I don't have to fear about tomorrow because You're already there. And I thank You, Lord, that You are Jehovah Rapha, who heals and gives health.

I thank You today, Lord, You're healing my neck; You're healing my knees; You're healing my legs; You're healing all these areas the enemy's attacking on me. And I thank You that I live holy before You, and I thank You not just for healing, but I thank You for divine health.

And I ask You to help me to take care of this body, take care of this temple by exercising, eating right, and I thank You, Lord, that I walk in divine health. I won't get old and on a bedpan somewhere with a lot of tubes stuck in my body, but when it's time for me to go home, I'll exit from this to the other by walking in divine health because You are Jehovah Rapha.

If you believe that today, give Him a hand clap and say, "Amen!" I worship You, Lord, because You're Jehovah Jireh; You're the Lord whose provision shall be seen. Yes, no matter what I need, Lord, You take care of that.

And I worship You because You're Jehovah Nissi; You're the banner that is over me. You know, when an army would go into battle, they would have a flag that would represent that flag. I'm telling you, when I go into battle, my flag is not the United States of America or the flag of Greece; my flag is the banner over me is Jehovah Nissi, the Lord God, and He is my victory.

We sang about it this morning. So in that just a few moments, I just—and I don't always walk through all of these. Sometimes I'll get to one or two, and then I'll just start praying in tongues and praying in whatever the Lord brings to me.

And I'm not saying—and sometimes that's as far as I get, but it's an outline I pray. And you say, "But Terry, there's no way in heaven I can remember all those words." I'll tell you one where you can remember: "I thank You; You are my Jesus, the name above every name."

That's the name of Jesus; every knee must bow, and every tongue must confess. And I'll tell you what they'll say in heaven: "Oh, hail King Jesus!" They'll join in your prayer as you herald the name of Jesus.

But I'm not rushing in; I'm just coming. You see, what happens is we start in prayer, and we're so focused on the mountain, the impossibilities, but up above what we see as impossibilities is a God who's sitting there, and Jesus is sitting at His right hand.

And when a mountain hits my way, Jesus doesn't jump up and say, "Oh, I didn't see that coming!" Nothing comes into my life that doesn't cross His desk, and He says, "He can handle that."

And you see, if I start my prayer off by focusing on Him, I mean, didn't your spirit just light up a little bit? So that's the first thing I do.

Second, in this prayer is what Jesus said: begin to align with His plans. What's His priority today? He says, "Lord, Kingdom come; Thy kingdom come." Establish the priority.

Remember when Todd Beamer on the American Airlines flight made that flight? You've heard that. If you haven't, go on YouTube; you need to hear that. And as he's talking about what they're going to do, they're going to stop this plane that didn't know where it was going to crash, but they understood what was happening, and it was headed for the White House.

And so he's talking to the operator. Before he finishes, though, he says, "Would you pray the Lord's Prayer with me?" And if you'll listen to that, they'll pray the Lord's Prayer with that operator, and then he'll say, "What was the phrase?" He said two words: "Let's roll!"

Let's roll! In other words, "Lord, we're believing right now; we're believing right now, God, that Your kingdom will come; Your will will be done."

So when I pray, after I walk through that praise time, I start saying, "Lord, I pray Your kingdom come; Your will be done in my president. I pray for my president. I pray that if he's never had an encounter with You, he'll have an encounter. I pray for Your kingdom come; Your will be done."

You said the heart of the king is in Your hand, and You turn it whichever way You want. And I'm coming to You today, and I'm declaring the kingdom of God and the will of God be done in President Biden's life and in all of our other leaders, in our governor, in our mayor, in our councilman here.

I declare that before I ever get to my family. I am praying for this nation that I love with all of my heart because I'm a part of the kingdom of God, and He said, "Wherever you go, pray God's will to come."

And then I say, "Okay, God, I pray Your kingdom come; Your will be done in my lovely wife, Anita. Lord, help her with all of her growling stuff that she goes through and all how she treats me bad." No, no, I don't deal with that. I'll deal with that.

And then I'll say, "And Lord, I pray Your kingdom come in my daughter Kelly, who's in Greece today. I pray Your kingdom come in Shade, Zion, Raelynn; they're my heritage. Regardless of how they get sidetracked, they'll come back and they'll serve You with all of their heart."

And I pray for Tara and Duran Greer and Sydney. Your kingdom come; Your will be done. And I pray for my staff: Your kingdom come; Your will be done.

And I'll just pray individually. "Lord, I pray for Maggie today; I pray for Lonnie, and Your kingdom come; Your will be done." And I just walk through them.

I mean, I get through all of them. I pray for you too, Chris. I know he's worried. And then I pray for you, "Lord, You know who's coming to church Sunday, and I pray Your kingdom come."

You know what His kingdom is? Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. If somebody says they're part of the kingdom of God and there's no righteousness, peace, and joy in their life, they're just fooling you.

And then after I do that, I just say, "Okay, Lord, is there somebody else that You want me to pray for?" And I'll just spend time for that.

See, what I'm trying to do is align me with what He's already doing. When I heard this week what Convoy of Hope was doing and the impact they're making around the world and how that on the Forbes list, they're like one of the top non-profit organizations that monitor people of how they spend their money, I thought, "Oh man, God, I thank You for hooking us together, and I thank You for what the future is going to be here."

And I could just see God working with them in so many different ways. So I want to align with what God is doing.

The next little thing is I'm going to take time now to ask for daily provision. And I get—I get notice all the things that happen there, but notice what doesn't happen. You haven't really gotten around to all how sad and sorry you are, how many times we interpret, "Lord, I ask You to forgive me because I'm such a failure. I ask You to forgive me, Lord, because I haven't been praying like..."

And we start our prayers like this, but Jesus didn't put that down there until the very next one. And the very next one simply is I say, "Clear the air; forgive me as I forgive others."

I thank You, Lord; cleanse me. Cleanse me from pride; cleanse me from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. Cleanse me, Lord, from the sins of commission, then the sins of omission. Lord, keep me free. I plead the blood over my life right now in the name of Jesus.

And then what happens sometimes—and I don't like this part—the Lord will bring somebody to my mind, and I'll see their face right here. Why am I looking at that sorry face? They're dead to me.

The Lord says, "Because if you want Me to forgive you, you've got to be willing to forgive people who've hurt, offended, misused you." So we're clearing the air, asking for—you can't bluff God; you can't out-talk Him.

And then take authority over the enemy: "Lead me not into temptation." Lord, I know the enemy will come against me like—once the person said, "Lead me not into temptation; I can find it all by myself."

So there, I'm just simply saying, "Lord, I just pray that You would help me in this, Lord, that I would have victory. I pray for Holy Ghost power. I pray for a refilling of the Holy Spirit."

And in the midst of all this, I may spend some time praying in tongues, praying in the Spirit, walking, listening to God, being quiet, hearing Him. But I'm just giving you an overview, and again, you don't have to work through all of these. You can get to one or two of them to get through however it is.

And then we end out with praise, right? We end out with praise: "For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever."

So here's what I'd like you to do: I'd love for you to begin praying out loud your prayers. I love some of the old prayer meetings we used to have where people prayed out loud. I was raised in a Pentecostal church, and I do not devalue my Pentecostal heritage. A lot of crazy stuff went on in church, but I'll tell you one thing about it: they knew what it was like to have a prayer meeting.

They didn't get in the back room and pray, and everybody just sort of be quiet, but they started praying loud, rebuking the devil, calling on the name of Jesus, pleading the blood of Jesus. And as a kid, I learned how to pray in some of those prayer meetings.

They're liable to take a bottle of anointing oil and put it in their hands and slap it all across your face and pray, "Oh God, use him; keep him from evil." And we learned as a child to pray out loud in those prayer meetings.

I'm praying, "God, give us a new generation of men and women and kids who learn to pray out loud and are not ashamed or afraid to pray out loud." How are your kids going to hear you pray if you don't pray out loud?

Some of you, your kids have grown, and they've gone away from the Lord. Why have they gone away from the Lord? Well, you just go back and you talk to the Lord, remind Him of how you dedicated them to Him.

I'm telling you, if we'll catch the value of this, what this says on this little race, "When the Church Prays," your life next year will be so much more impactful.

How many of you today would say, "Terry, I'd really like for you to pray for me that I can just improve my prayer life"? Or maybe it's not good; maybe it's really good, but you just say, "You know, I'd like you to pray for my prayer life." Would you raise your hand?

And I'm including me in this prayer. Would you bow your heads and would you receive this prayer? And those of you that are watching online, God, I'm asking You to do something supernatural and draw us to You.

It's dangerous what I'm asking, Lord, but I'm asking to do whatever it takes for some of us to recognize that we need to get in a place that all we have and all we need is You. And if all we have is You, that's all we need.

And God, I pray throughout this day that all of us will become more aware of Your presence.

1. "Lord, we love you. We sing that song a few minutes ago, we sensed your presence. We thank you Lord for everyone who calls this their home. We thank you for those that are visiting and kicking the tires and seeing if this is a place for them. Thank you Lord for our city, we thank you for our leaders and our city." - 37:54

2. "Just as the business of the tailor is making clothes and the business of the cobbler is making shoes, so the business of Christian is praying. So here's my question, how's your business going? Are you satisfied with your prayer life?" - 38:26

3. "Before I start unloading all of my lists, I want to remind myself to whom am I addressing. I'm talking to the creator of the universe. I'm talking about the creator of such beautiful Heaven and Earth and said I don't want to live here but myself but I want to create man and I want to breathe life into man so that they can be with me forever." - 59:38

4. "If we'll catch the value of this what this says on this little race when the church prays, your life next year will be so much more impactful. How many of you today would say Terry I'd really like for you to pray for me that that I can just improve my my prayer life?" - 01:13:30

5. "Make prayer personal not transactional. The primary goal of Prayer is God not I'm going to go hello hello God I got one two three things I need you to do this for me right now in the name of Jesus I'm out see you later hope you take care of it. We want it to be personal not just transactional." - 54:48