Prayer

[0:00] During the course of this short series on what we looked at in the title of this building for growth We are looking at issues that we have to address personally If we are going to grow personally in our relationship with Christ And it is that personal, internal and spiritual growth which we seek first Now Jesus said in Matthew 6 verse 33 Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness And all these things shall be added unto you You might say well are we then being disobedient by looking first for growth within Rather than just seeking the kingdom of God out there or up there or whatever I would suggest no we are not being For I believe that that is where Jesus directs us to begin For he also said in St. Luke 17 verse 21 For behold the kingdom of God is within you And therefore if we are to seek to build that kingdom We must first begin inside in our relationship with Christ himself

[1:05] On the previous two occasions we have looked at the issues of expectation and belief As both a channel for and a symptom of the increase of our faith And at the practice of fasting as both an offering to God And a self-discipline for our own benefit As we mentioned last Lord's Day evening The practice most closely associated in Scripture with fasting Is that of prayer And we turn to that subject now this week And we see that even in the passage that we read this evening in Daniel That's what Daniel also does Verse 3 there Prayer is described in the larger Catechism number 178 as Quote The shorter Catechism number 98 is almost word for word the same

[2:19] But admits the words by the help of the Spirit But after the opening words Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God And adds the words for things agreeable to his will And indeed taken together These are not a bad summary of what prayer is about I personally think that the words for things agreeable to his will Convey an enormously significant truth Because all true prayer will be seeking above all else The glory of God And the doing of his will If we take our passage from Daniel As an example Daniel spends indeed a great deal of time Confessing the sins of himself and his people But what is he really seeking from the Lord?

[3:10] He is seeking the restoration of his people Israel To their own land And to the temple of Jerusalem That's what he gets down to Verse 16 on to 19 O Lord, according to all thy righteousness I beseech thee Let thine anger and thy fury Be turned away from thy city Jerusalem Thy holy mountain Because for our sins And for the iniquities of our fathers Jerusalem and thy people Have become a reproach to all that are about us Now therefore, O our God Hear the prayer of thy servant And his supplications Cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary That is desolate For the Lord's sake O my God Incline thy ear here Open thine eyes And behold our desolations And the city which is called by thy name For we do not present our supplications Before thee for our righteousnesses But for thy great mercies O Lord, hear O Lord, forgive O Lord, hearken and do Defer not for thy own sake O my God For thy day

[4:11] And thy people Are called Thy city And thy people Are called by thy name So this is what we find That is what he is asking for He is seeking the restoration Of the Lord's people To their own holy land And the Lord's city And the temple Specifically Of Jerusalem And these are all things Which are honouring to the Lord But they also benefit His people as well That's what he is asking for Why has he suddenly Set himself To ask for this Well because As we read in our passage Through the study of God's word He has just realised That God had promised That the exile would be For a limited number of years And that the fulfilment Of those years Was drawing very near This fact encourages And stirs up Daniel To pray with urgency For God to do And fulfil What he himself Has already said

[5:11] He will do In other words Daniel knows that In offering up Of his desires Unto God As the catechism would put it He is asking For things agreeable To God's will He knows he's asking For things agreeable To God's will Because he's asking God Simply to fulfil What God himself Has promised Through his work Now as I said earlier All through prayer Will be seeking Above all else The glory of God And the doing Of his will That will be The chief desire That we offer up Unto God But it won't be Our only desire Because we will Inevitably have Other lesser More personal More day to day But nonetheless Pressing needs That will come to those In due course You will often have heard Me and no doubt Many other preachers Say that the faith That we follow And practice Is not so much

[6:12] A religion as such As a relationship A relationship With Christ Which in scripture Is most often Compared to a marriage We looked at this A wee bit In the subject Of communication And one essential Ingredient For any such relationship Is communication And last month In February When we looked At the prayer meeting At the subject Of intercessory prayer We touched on this as well But it's worth Looking at again here Now whilst it is not Necessary in a marriage Say and the relationship With the Lord Is most often Compared to a marriage It's not necessary In a marriage For a husband and wife To be talking All the time To each other And indeed Words are not always Necessary in communicating It is certainly the case That one of the surest Signs of a marriage In trouble Is when the respective Partners No longer talk To each other At all Have ceased To communicate

[7:12] Communicating involves Both talking And listening If one writes Something Or sends a letter It means That it must be rent The information Must be taken in It means replying You know Not necessarily Even if not necessarily In the same medium You know You don't have to Write back But you can pick up The phone And talk Or nowadays You can text Or send an email And say thanks For your letter You know I got that And you can apply The information That's in it But you're Responding To it And the communicating Involves both This receiving And this sending A relationship Without communication Is ceasing to be A relationship It is dying Of cold And indifference Slowly But surely Better A passionate Than turbulent Relationship With blazing routes Followed by Mutual regrets And tearful And tender Making up Afterwards With promises Of future Appreciation

[8:12] Rather than Cold indifference Now Don't get me wrong Don't go home From church With a message Oh strengthen Your marriage I'm a blazing Rouse The minister Said so That'll help You know It won't Necessarily Always help It's not good To have blazing Rouse But at least It's communicated It's better Than cold Indifference It's better Than mutual Silence Now We're in a relationship With God Is concerned We shouldn't Get To the stage Where a blazing Rouse Boils up Especially since Unlike human Marriage partners God is both Perfect And sinless We've got nothing To complain against Because God Has never done Anything wrong But sometimes We think we do Sometimes Maybe we get The wrong end Of the stick Of what God Is doing Or what we think His plan should be Sometimes we think We do Have a grievance Sometimes the Rouse still Kicks off And I tell you Now with all Reverence It is better For your Relationship

[9:13] With the Lord Than it does It is better To have To enter Into that If you like Row With the Lord Rather than Switching off From God You read You read Some of the Psalms And you read What's going On there David clearly Sometimes thinks He has a Grievance So do the Prophets If you read Jeremiah And some of The others Say he feels Let down By God He feels That God Is ignoring Him He takes Issue with Some of the Things that God has Done Or allowed Or permitted He finds a Job as well But particularly It's there In the Psalms And some of The things God has Allowed David really Takes issues Of but almost Always in the Course of the Psalm he Works through His anger He brings It to the Lord he Pours out His frustration He works Through his Anger by Actually Articulating It and Expressing it Out loud Writing it

[10:13] Down Articulating It he Identifies What's really Bothering him You know Sometimes we're Conscious that It's boiling Up inside And we Feel this Sense of Frustration And hurt Or whatever But if Somebody would Say well What is That to He bothered You say Well I Don't know It's just Everything Everything's Going wrong I don't Know what's Wrong And if You were To try And tease That and Say well What are The things That are Going wrong What are The things That you Could agree And say That why Are you Feeling so Angry Or hurt Or agree Try Writing a List Try and Make it Writing it Down I thought You would Do this And instead You've done That and That's why I'm grieving That's why I'm hurting That's why I'm afraid Lord I'm afraid That maybe You're just Abandoning me And so on So writing It down And articulating It This is what David does That might Help us Too But he Identifies What's really Bothering him And it is As if the Lord Speaks back To him Between The lines

[11:15] And verses Because invariably As you read On David calms Down And switches Gradually From anger To acceptance And on To understanding And then Loving Praise Is this All one Sided On David's Part Well that's Impossible It's the Word of God Is it not Is it not God Who has Inspired David And all The other Writers Employed In scripture Is not God The Lord Speaking To David In each Line And paragraph To him Or to us Inspiring David To write Down what He does Inspiring David To articulate His frustrations And his Heart And his Pain And also As he Speaks Quietly Into his Heart Inspiring Him to Write down Then his His Soffering Attitude And his Calming Down And then Turning back To the Lord And putting His trust In the Lord And finally

[12:15] Concluding With praise To the Lord It is God Inspiring And breathing Through Each of These lines And verses And chapters And the Psalms And elsewhere It is a Two way Communication God is Using his Instrument His servant As his Penmanship There But God's Is the Authorship God has Written to Us his Letter of Love In the Holy Bible He may Have Written But we Are not As we Said When we Looked at The subject In intercessity We are not Communicating Until we Read it And until What we Read informs Our response God wants You to Talk to Him More than That he Wants you To get To know Him That means We have To read What he Has written And understand Who it is We are Approaching We have To listen As well As talk And we

[13:15] Have to Wait upon Him And see How he Answers Us And when He does Answer We have To have The honesty To acknowledge That it Is him Answering It's not A coincidence It's not A heathen Lucky break As if there Were any Such thing It's not Fortune It's not Any of These Nonsense Things But rather We recognise That it is God And his Providence We pray And he Answer And there's Always The devil Going to Whisper In your And say Yeah Come on That was Going to Happen Anyway Wasn't it You didn't Really need To pray About that Did you Because obviously That was Going to Happen Anyway And faith Will respond Yes but the Fact is It wasn't Happening And I Did pray And now It has Happened I asked God for Help And look The help Has come And the devil Will still Say Come on Who do you Think They're Kidding That's That was Going to Happen Anyway That's Pure Coincidence You're Only fooling Yourself He is Always Going to Be whispering In your Ear He is Always Going to

[14:15] Be trying To dilute And to Break Down The effects Of your Relationship With the Lord It's like Somebody Whispering In the Ear In a Human Relationship Saying They don't Really Love You No They Actually They care More About Somebody Else They're Just Mucking You About They're Just Messing With You They Don't Really Care About You And if You Listen To This Poison It Will Likewise Poison Your Relationship When We Pray To The Lord When We Ask The Lord For His Help And When We Receive It You Have To Have The Honesty To Recognize You Ask And You Seek This Is One Reason Why It's Sometimes Helpful To Write Down The Things That We Ask And When We Ask And Then Perhaps It'll Be Weeks Or Months Later We'll Come Across This Written Note And We'll Come And Oh Yeah We did Pray About That That All Seems Like A Distant Memory Because It all Worked Out Fine And Obviously The Lord Answered That Prayer And We May Forget That We Asked

[15:16] But We Shouldn't Forget That God Answered That God Is Merciful And If We Are Going To Ask We Have To Have The Honesty To Acknowledge That It Is Him Answering When He Does So Communicate And Your Relationship Will Grow And As It Grows It Will Strengthen And As It Strengthens You As Half Of That Relationship Will Yourself Be Stronger And More Powerful Than The Word And The Spirit Of Christ Now Jesus Is The Ultimate Power Source In Heaven And Earth That Is What He Says Matthew 28 Verse 18 All Power Is Given Unto Me In Heaven And Earth Go Ye Therefore And Make Disciples Of All Nations By Pising Them In The Name Of The Son And The Holy Ghost All Power Belongs To Him So He Is The Ultimate Power Source In Heaven And Earth We Ourselves

[16:17] Can Have Strength Or Power To Do Anything Only To We Are Plugged In And Connected To That Power Source Disconnected From God Disconnected From Christ We Are No More Used Than An Electrical Appliance With A Plug But No Socket We Can Be Like A Brand New Toaster Or Kettle Or Any Other Kind Of Electric Appliance Or Microwave Or Anything Oh Great My New Piece Of Equipment And Then You Look Around On The Walls And The Selfies And There's No Sockets You Can't Plug It In All You Can Plug It In And Switch It On And All The Benefits And All The Efforts We Might Have And

[17:17] All The Churches And Buildings And Trappings Of Religion Are Just So Much Junk Unless We Are Plugged In To The Power Source Jesus Christ Unless We Are In Communication With Him Plugged In And Switched On And Receiving Of That Invisible Spirit Invisible Power Source Remembering That All Power In Heaven And Earth Is Given To Him And We Are Able To Do Anything Only To The Extent That We Are Connected In With Himself Disconnected From The Lord We Are No Use To Man Of Peace Prayer Then Is The Life Blood Of Your Relationship With God If If The Blood In Your Body Stops Moving Stops Flowing And Circulating It Is Because You Are Dead Nor Can The Blood Move Itself Which Is Why The Heart Has

[18:18] To Keep Pumping It You Can Have Rich And Nutritious Blood In Your Veins But If The Heart Stops Pumping It You Are Dead Not For Nothing That We Get We Said We Get A Not Just Physical Blood It Is To Be Pumping Around Your Beins It Is The Life Blood Of Your Relationship With The Lord That The New Heart Has To Keep On Pumping We Need To Keep That Life Blood Of Prayer Circulating Moving Flowing We Need To Have The Communication Going Backwards And Forwards Between Us And God Now Most Of What Passes For Prayer With Many People Is Completely Back To Front Let's Take The Marriage Theme Again And Bring It A Step Back To The Previous Stage Of Dating Now If You Were On A Date With Someone Who From Start To Finish Talked Only About Themselves What They Wanted What

[19:18] They Needed What They Hooked For Ways In Which They Thought Perhaps You Might Be Improved A Bit But What They Wanted What They Needed But Never Listen Never Let You Get A Word In Edge Ways Never Noticed You Really Or Anything About You Except Maybe Things That Might Be Improved On Because The Whole Of It Was Really Just About Them Is That The Sort Of Person You Would Ever Want To Go Out With Again Is That The Sort Of Person You Ever Want To Spend Time With You Ever Want To Give More Of Your Precious Time To But If Say They Begin By Noticing You Appreciating Some Of The Effort You Made Admiring You Out Loud Praising Your Qualities Asking Your Opinions On Things Listening When You Talk And Occasionally Perhaps Briefly Speaking Themselves Which Of These Two Is Showing More Maturity More Consideration More Love For

[20:19] The Person They Are Talking To Which Would You Prefer To Spend Time With Most Of Our So Called Prayer Launches Straight Into The God Please Help Me With This And This And This Mode We Have A Shopping List To Get Through But We Don't Really Have Time To Stop And Listen For Any Of The Answers Because You Know Our Time Is Precious And God Already Knows What We Need Anyway So I Shouldn't Just Do It And The Fact That I Am Stopping To Take Time Out Of My Precious Schedule To Actually Ask Him For These Things Well He Should Be Pleased About That He Should Be Grateful Because I'm Saying What I Want And Actually Praying So You Know God Ought To Be Pleased With The Crumbs That I Throw Him God Knows What We Need Anyway So Why Just Give The

[21:20] Things We Need Without Being Asked But It Doesn't Actually Seem To Make Us Grateful Through Prayer Must Begin Not With Our Selves But With The Lord The More The Lord Gives To Us The Less Grateful We Are Now If We Were To Say To Our Great Grandparents We Could Speak Whatever Age We Are Let's Say You're Young Again And You Could Speak To But Does It Make You Grateful When You Turn On The

[22:20] Tap When You Throw The Kettle When You Run A Back When You Throw On The Shower Does That Make You Grateful Or Just Think This Is How Life Is Me To Do We Thank The Lord Or Do We Just Think Oh Anytime It Doesn't Work The Plugs And The Problem And The Problem Is All Gone Why Did You The Things That We Want And We Need Without Being Asked But He Likes To Be Asked And He Likes To Be Thanked When He Does Provide It True Prayer Must Begin Not With Ourselves But With The Lord I'm A Great Lover Of Mnemonics Of Little Means By Which Initials Can Help Us To Remember Things And For Me As Far As Prayer Is Concern I Love The Mnemonic Or The Type Acts Of Joy That's What Prayer Should Be Acts Of Joy So

[23:20] We Begin With First Act First Of Adonation That's How We Should Begin With Prayer We Shouldn't Come To The Lord And Say Well Lord I Want To Say Right Off I'm A Terribly Bad Person These Are The Bad Things I've Done I'm Guilty Of I'm A Terrible Person That's Not How You Start By Getting To Know Them A Bit You Start By Setting The Scene You Start By Mutual Conversation And When You Come To The Lord You Don't Start Launching It How Filthy You Are You Start With Adoration Of The Lord That's What Daniel Does Here In Verse Four This Is What We See I Prayed Unto The Lord My God And Made My Confession Oh Lord The Great And Dreadful God Keeping The Covenant And Mercy To Them That Love Him And To Them That Keep His Commandments Now Let's Say You

[24:20] Walk Into Some Majestic Church St. Paul's Cathedral Or Westminster Avenue Or Something Like That And The First Thing You Do Is Well Light Launching A Prayer The First Thing Wow This Place Is Built To The Glory Of God Must Be Some God That Those Architects Thought Was Worth Giving All This Time And Devotion To Now When We Were To Pray Outside We Would See God's Creation All Around Us So We Would Think Wow Nope Nope What A Great View We Got Here But Rather What A Wondrous Creation We Were Praying At Night Looking Up To The Stars Of Heaven And Say Well How Through

[25:34] As A Friend But Never Forget Who God Is Never Forget His Goodness His Power His Majesty Adoration Must Come First That Is The A Secondly Then When We Have Set The Scene But Second When We Have Come With This Adoration And Recognize Who The Lord Is Then As We Then Look At Ourselves And We See Ourselves By Contrast With The Lord We Can Only Have One Conclusion It's Like You May Be Coming To Some Convention Or Let's Say You've Got A Science Convention And You've Got Your Own Invention That You've Made And You're Bringing It So Proud And You've Got Your Place On The Exhibition And You've Your Number And You're Bringing It And You're Looking Around The Opposition And They're All Like Fantastic Projects And All These Incredible Looking Things And You Look At Your Everything And It Doesn't Look So Great After All And We May Think Hey I'm The Guy

[26:35] And You Come Into God's Presence And You Adore The Lord And Recognize Who He Is And How Great He Is I'm Nothing I'm Just The I'm The Clay From Which God Has All The Sins I've Committed When You Think Of All The Things I've Done Against His Son Jesus Christ When You Think Of How Ungrateful I've Been When You Think Of All The Things I Haven't Thanked Him For And All The Sins I've Committed Against Other People I Think You'd Be Hopeless You'd Be Thinking Oh No Lord I Haven't Got A Chance Unless You Remember What Christ Has Done For Sins Adoration And Confession And We Will Always Have Plenty To Confess Anytime You Think Well I Can't Actually Think Of Anything Bad That I've Done Today I'm Coming To The Lord But I Can't Think Of Any Sins That I've Committed And Maybe Yesterday Or Last Week I Think I've Actually Been Pretty Good Then Stop And Think Who

[27:35] You Are And What You Are In Relation To God Certainly Works For Me Stop And Think Well Who Am I In Relation To God How Soon Full Is My Life How Far Do I Fall Short Compare Myself Not With The Person Next Door Or With Somebody Else That I Happen To Know Has Done Something Bad And I Get To Feel Good Because I Haven't Done That Don't Compare Ourselves With ourselves Compare Yourself Of Christ And Then You'll Soon Get A Sense Of Perspective Confession Then After Confession There Has To Be Thanksgiving Because The Reason We Are Encouraged To Confess Our Sons Is So That We Get Them Out And Off Our Chest And Out Of Our Heart And Recognize The Truth Of What We Are Guilty Of And Where We Have Fall Short Confession Means That We Are Cleansing Out Our Heart You're Not Going To Shock God With Anything You Tell Him He Already Knows It He Knows What's In Your Heart He Knows All He That You Forgotten To Confess

[28:35] As Well So Get It Out There Get It Cleansed Away And Thank The Lord For The Fact That He Has Gone To The Cross In Order To Make Your Forgiveness Possible He Has Gone To The Cross And Suffer The Agony Day And The More You Stop And Think About Crucifixion Any Time I Think I Not Too Guilty Today This Has Been A Clean Day Let's Have A Simple Day Then You Stop And Think Of A Crucifixion And You Think About What The Lord Went Through And The More You Think About It The More You Recognize This Is What He Did For The Likes Of Me Because There Wasn't Any Other Way To Do And Then You Feel Smaller And Smaller And Smaller And Then Your Thanksgiving Has A Right Perspective Because Then You're Thanking God First And Form For What He Has Done For All That He Has Given For All That He Has Provided You're Thanking The Lord Above All For For The For Sin In Jesus Christ Because Alongside Great As His Gifts

[29:35] Are Alongside The Clean Water And The The The The The The The For The The The The The Everything In Heaven And Earth Because It Is The Greatest Miracle Of All That Only God Himself Could Have Thanks Giving It Is Not Explicit Here In Daniel's Prayer But It Is Always Necessary For Existing Blessings For Ordinary Benefits For Family For Loved Ones For Health And Strength For Freedom And More Particular Personal Blessings Or Answers To Prayer But Above All For What Christ Has Done For Us We Must Have Thank For Us And Then The S Of The Word Act Is Supplication That's More What We're Used To The Things We're Asking For Supplicating The Lord Praying For Him To Do And Answer The Things That We Are Asking For And That's What Daniel Is Getting Round To In Verses 16 To 19 After He Has Set The Asking

[30:39] The Things That He Began The Prayer For This Is His Supplication This Is His Prayer These Are The Things He Needs Just Now And He Is Asking The Lord To Fulfill What God Himself Has Promised So He Knows He's Asking According To God's Will So That's The Acts Adoration Confession Thanksgiving And Supplication Get Those In Order And It Will Help Us To Order Our Prayers Are Right We Mention Acts Of Joy What About The Of Well That's If You Like Almost Like A Set A Set Category Because There's Two Ways In Which Outside Of Church Of Course We Should Be Encouraged To Pray One Is One Self Oh One Self Whether He She You Me One Self Alone Jesus Talked That When We Pray We Should Go Into Our Closet And Shut The

[31:40] Door We Should Find Somewhere Secret Where We Will Shut Out Everything Else And Pray And Focus Upon The Lord Alone Every Individual Needs That It's Great To Be In Church With The Lord People It's Great To Have What We'll Come To In A Minute Family Worship As Well But One Self Alone We Need That With The Lord Just As You Know Think Back To The Relationship The Marriage Thing Any Relationship That Is Only Able To Actually Progress If You're Meeting Along With Her Family Or Your Family Or His Family Or Whatever As Long As There's Always Other People You Never Get A Moment To Your Selves You Never Get Any Time Alone Your Relationship Doesn't Get A Chance To Blossom To Grow To Go Any Deeper With Each Other So Likewise If It's Only With Other People That You've Got Time With The Lord That's Going To Stump Your Relationship So Likewise

[32:41] One Self And Again The F And The All That's All Family Family Worship Is That Which Has Declined In Our Nation And In Our Ireland Whether Because People Are Always Busy They're Always At Jobs Or Sports Things Or Events Or Meetings Or Whatever Family Worship When That Is Allowed To Go Families Begin To Disintegrate Families Begin To Fall Apart When They Are Not Bonded And United By The Cement The Glue Of The Love Of The Lord Now It's Not Foolproof You Get Plenty Of People Of Course Nowadays Which All Intents And Purpuses Evens And Yet If I Remember Doing The Books With My Old Uncle Whatever His Name Was Or We Would Visited My Granny's House And The Books Would Come Out And We Would All Have Worship Together And There Would Be That Wistful Tone In Their Eyes As To All The Good Days Long Gone And You Would

[33:41] Want To Say There's Nothing Stopping You Doing It Now Do You Pray With Your Wife Or Desires And Delights And Demands That Those Who Would Seek To Be Covenant Families Under Him Would Worship Together When That Goes So Many Other Things Will Go As Well When That Influence And That Input And That Discipline Has Began To Disintegrate And It's Not Easy To Do You Know Maintaining The Time Maintaining The Appointment It Is A Discipline It Is Something That Has To Be Maintained It Has To Be Worked At Anything Worth Having Has To Be Worked At Every Athlete And Businessman And Successful Person In The World Knows They Have To Work At Their Thing Their Business Their Work Their Profession In The World They Have To Give It Their Time They Have To Give It Their Attention Family

[34:42] Worship Is Worthy Of The Attention Of Anyone Who Seeks To What Should Be The Focus Of Our Prayers Jesus Others And Yourself In That Order When We Pray Christ Should Be First And Foremost Jesus Always First And Foremost He Must Be The Focus Of Our Prayer He Must Be The Fulfillment Of Our Prayers He Is The Power Source Of Our Prayers Everything Must Be Brought To Him Jesus Always The Center And Soul Of Our Prayer Life And We Think Oh Well What About Other Religions And The People That They Pray To What About The Prophets That They Pray To And All Their Gods And So On That They Pray To Such Prayers They Are Just Noise They Won't Get Above The Top Of Their Heads They Will Not Enter

[35:43] Into Heaven God Cannot Receive That Which Is In The Name Of Something Other Than His Son He Can't Receive Any Prayer That Is Not In The Name Of The True God He Will Not Be Answering Such Prayers Other Than In Wrath Or Anger Unless They Are Truly Seeking The Truth As It Is In Christ Jesus It Might Be That Somebody Who Doesn't Know The Lord Personally But Wants To And Doesn't Know How They Should Pray Or Using The Name With Jesus But They Only Want To Find They Are Sincerely Seeking They Want To Know More And Yes The Lord Will Look With Mercy On That But Stubborn Pagan Prayers In The Names Of False Globets Or False Prophets That Are Accompanied By Attacks On The Lord's People Or Upon His Church Or His Day Those Will Not Get Above The Tops Of Their Hits There Is So Much Noise Using Our Oxygen For Others To Breathe And Bringing Judgment Upon

[36:43] Those Who Make Them Jesus Must Always Be The Focus Of Our Prayers Jesus First Secondly Others The Old Enjoy Our Intercessions Must Be Outward Looking They Must Be Whether For Members Of Our Family Or Extended Family Or For Those In Our Church Or Conlegation Or The Wider Branches Of The Church Always For The Good Of God's Kingdom For The Needy For The Poor For Those Who Are In Danger Yes We Have To Remember All Those In Need We Can't Name Them All Each Time But It Doesn't Do Any Harm To Make Use Of Prayer Booklets And Notes And Missionary Prayer Notes To Focus Our Thoughts On Different Days Others Must Always Be In Our Prayers Us Four May May That Is The Caricature Prayer Used To Be In Old Scots It's

[37:43] Not True Prayer It's Just About Me And Mine It Has To Be Outward Looking It Has To Have A Concern And A Burden For Others You Know Paul Wrote Bear You One Another's Burdens And So Fulfill The Law Of Christ Jesus Others And Yourself Why Acts Of Joy Last Of All Me Myself I That's So Often Our Prayers Are Back To Front It's Always Straight In There Lord This Is What I Need This Is When I Need It Give me This This This And This Right You Gotta Go Amen Bye There's No Reverence In That There's No Truth Seeking There's No Love In That There's No Time No Patience For Others There's No Focus Upon Any Of Things That Are True Or That Are Real That Is Not You Know The Cite The Catechism There's No Way That Is Offering Up Of Our Of Our Pleas Or Our Prayers And Offering Up Our Desires To God In The Name Of Christ By The Help Of His Spirit

[38:44] With Confession Of Our Sins And Thankful Acknowledgement Of His Mercies That's Just A Shopping List It's Just A List Of Demands So Often We Put Others Behind And Our Sells In Front That There Ought To Be Jesus Others And Yourself There Is A Place For Praying For Our Ourselves The Lord Knows That We Have A Great Concern For Our Own Needs Our Anxieties Our Hopes And Tears Yes You Do Need To Pray To Yourself You Have The Opportunity To Pray To Yourself You Know That You Are Praying To One Who Knows You Better Than So Remember The Adoration And Confession The Thanks Givings And Supplication Acts One Self And Family Of Joy Jesus Others

[39:44] Yourself Prayer Should Be Acts Of Joy Make Use Of Written Helps Make Use Of Prayer Guides Make Use Of Booklets Don't Set Yourself High But Unrealistic Standards Because As You Keep Failing Then You'll Become Discouraged And Give Up Sometimes It May Be Useful To Have A Prayer Guide For Your Quiet Time And You Can Shade In The Boxes Each Day When You're Able To Do It Myself My Wife Used To Do That Some Years Ago And It's Quite A Challenge Always As You Shade Them I Say I Man To Keep My Time With The Lord That Day And You Shade In The Box And You Wife You Wife To Do It Even Our Pride You Might Say Or Even Our Pricked Conscience To Keep Us At It You've Got To Keep At It The Woman Who Invented This This Method Of Shading And Of Oxygen Keeping All The Things

[40:44] Joined Up She She She Reckoned It Better To Do Even 15 Minutes A Day And Do It Regularly And Consistently Rather Than To We Probably All Tend To Think Of Prayer Like An Auto Bank You Know You Peep All The Buttons You Stick Your Card In And Out Comes What I Need Right Away There In Practice In Reality It Is Probably More Like A Savings Bank You Keep Carefully Putting Away The Time Keep Putting Away The Requests With The Lord Keep On Maintaining That Relationship Keep On Sticking Away Your

[41:44] Savings And Your Pennies Of Prayer Time And Priority With The Lord And You Will Gradually But Surely Find Not Only That You Have Everything You Need Upon Earth And Abundance More Than You Thought You But Also That You Have Made Up For Yourself Treasure In Heaven Also Away Your Treasure Is There Will Your Heart Be Also Acts Of Joy Never Be Afraid To Come To The Lord In Prayer Because He Is Waiting To Hear From You Let Us Pray