Welcome to neurology one on one. We are going to learn about the who, what, when, why, where and how of prayer. We want you to master these fundamentals so that when we get into a more advanced strategies, you will be well grounded. So first of all, why should you pray? Why should any one of us pray? Well, we have the divine teacher, Jesus Himself.

If we behold Him fighting his battles, in prayer, Mark 135 says, and in the morning rising up a great while Before that, he went out, and he departed into solitary place and there, he prayed easy. Most people don't connect this, but the success of Jesus's life. Both from a spiritual, physical, even a leadership perspective, we can even say Jesus was one of the greatest leaders and greatest entrepreneurs and team builders. That is, he took 12 men and within a short period of three years reading them, they were able to turn the whole world upside down. But I want you to go back and study especially in the New Testament, you will find that almost every time it mentioned Jesus praying, something miraculous happened right afterwards, whether it's raising Lazarus from the dead, whether it's turning the water into wine, or whether it's multiplying the efficient loaves to that thousand skimpy.

Jesus always prayed. And we know that when we see him in any scene after prayer, something great was happening. And he, I believe, set the tone. Why indeed, should the sons and daughters of God be reluctant to pray when even the greatest of the grade needed to pray? So I believe that this is a divine invitation for you and for me to pray. Okay.

Let's look at Isaiah chapter 45 verse 11, he says, I asked me things to come concerning my sons and concerning the work of my hands. command you meet. This is the Prophet reminded us and given us that invitation, you know, to come to God in prayer. He also mentioned Come let us reason together, you know, bring your case before me and let us talk about Luke 18 and verse one Jesus himself against men always to create a not to faint. This again is an encouragement, to pray, and then one of the one that I liked the most he was for 16. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that women have a mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

This right here is telling us that we do not need to be afraid. Fear has told me we do not need to be fretful and worried and anxious. We have been given pretty much it command is not even a suggestion. It's a command to come to God bold and not with timidity. God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power, love. So Mike, so we can come boldly to the throne, that disrespectfully as we're going to see, but boldly, okay.

Now, why be spiritual dwarfs when indeed we can be spiritual giants? It amazes me how often we find ourselves in wilderness experiences of drought. Instead of having this, you know, powerful experience with God again, we need to see a resurrection of prayer, especially in the West, we see, it seems like many people on this side of the world are very spiritually malnourished. That is not an affront to the whole, but that is letting us know that there's only a few people really, truly, who are really caring the West, but we believe that we can learn so much more. And I praise God for my journeys travels throughout the world, especially in Africa, but we see places in Latin America and Africa especially. And now we see even China where the church is growing too fast.

There's, we see men and women emerging as serious people oppressed. And I think we can learn a thing or two from them. So basically how badly you want it. There's so much that is available. Right Ephesians 320 says known to him was able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that you can ask, think or even imagine, right? And not only that, what Jesus encourages us that he is even more willing to give good gifts to us than our earthly parents or to give to their children.

So there's unlimited power, through prayer. But we are not putting in the time to be able to tap into the divine prerogatives of God, or we rush into the throne of God. We are not willing to sit at his feet. I hope that this course will unlock something in your mind, in your heart in your spirit, that you will love prayer and not simply just want to speak words. Prayer, as we're going to see is more than speaking words, but nonetheless, what is prayer by itself? It involves in the spiritual community, we got a formula for words, we want to be careful with that one.

But prayer by itself, this is what we mostly know. Prayer means to offer devout petition, praise, and thanks to God, make earnest petition or request to God, it's making any treaty to God or something. And so we can find this in Webster's dictionary. Prayer by itself, my friends is really more than this. But these are how we can understand what prayer is. So that's the dictionary definition.

Now we want to look at the biblical definition. So what's the scriptural definition? First of all, prayer is making a request to God, Philip in force, simply bring in your request in whatever they may be. Right? It's not one thing or the other. It's this and that and a whole lot more.

Whatever requests you have, that will be that can be put in the form of a prayer to his communion. Talking to or with God, we see this again remember Hannah, when she needed a baby and she couldn't get any kids guess what happened, she went to speak to God, so much so that even the, the man of God priests, you know, thought that she was drunk and thought that she probably was mad, but the woman was actually communing with God. So this is talking to God. But again, it's more than simply Irwin words to him as we are going to study. That's why this whole this an entire course. Now just simply, you know, scratching the surface, we are dealing with the secrets of truly praying and interceding right, number three, meditating upon the Word of God on God Himself.

So this right here is one of the biggest secrets in the scriptures and I know many people again, even people of faith have a problem with the word meditation. But meditation does not have to scare you, right? So many times, there are good things that we can do as God's people, but because there might be some baggage attached to it. We went from it all together. And that's one of the reasons I think, in the West in particular, we don't see a lot more miracles and, and miraculous healings and these type of things because we run from it. Because you know, we live it on a negative and the devil takes advantage of it.

Well, the devil can take advantage of everything, but it's already there in the Bible. So notice the secret to David's success in Psalm one. He says he meditates on God's word day and night. Right? And when he meditates on God's word, he said, That's why he's able to be like that tree that's planted by the whims of waters that bring forth fruit in season, and whatever he does, prospers or succeeds. Right?

Joshua said the same thing, Joshua, one, eight, right, he said, this book of the law should not be part of your mouth, but you should meditate in a day and night, observe it, do what it says. And then you will make it with prospers. And then you will be what successful. So this is a secret meditation is a form of prayer. And so but what makes the difference between biblical meditation and those things out there that are so in the mystical realm, is that we are meditating upon God, Jehovah, the true God, the One God the Creator God, that's the one yeah, we, we are meditating upon his name, and we meditate upon his work. And that's what separates the type of meditation that we're talking about.

Also beseech and notice this quality of prayer. Right? So the operative words, generally in bold, it's not just talking to God, beseeching God's like, pleaded with God, you know, earnestly asking not just simply, well, God, if you want to, you can, if you don't, then fine, you know, we talked about, you know, bring it out, where it's like pouring out your heart or your mind or your soul to God. Right? That's what it is, is that sometimes God is not answering many prayers immediately, because the people are not really their heart's not into it. So that's why I said these people worship with their lives, but their mind their hearts are far from me.

So sometimes we have to go deep within. And sometimes the prayer itself needs to mean something many times we pray, but it really doesn't mean anything. It's kind of like well You know if he wants to fly and if not fine, but it's not nothing to see. So, continuing prayer in the Bible is also this crying out notice again beseech it pleaded pour it up, cried out, you know, many times when, when when Israel was being invaded by different armies, you know they would cry out to God. You see, that's not just regular words was the last time Think about it. When was the last time you cried out to God or anything?

Like literally anything? When was the last time you cried out to God for something that was important to you? Or to someone else? Right? So it's no wonder we're not seeing certain things happening in our lives in the lives of others. And for certain prayers that we may be praying because these qualities and mingled with the prayer seeking God and making supplications again basically request in asking for things.

Okay, join here, but I like this one too. We draw near to God, you're close to God who will join it to you. So pray again can mean not simply wanting something from God, but just one To be more close to him, or closer to him. Bow in the knee is a phrase that we find in the Bible, which has to push has to do with prostrating yourself and being humble. Right? humble yourself before God, He will lift you up.

So many times are kneeling. That's why kneeling is one of the best postures. For being in prayer, though that's not the only one as we're going to see shortly. Now, prayer I want to remind you to is that prayer is also worship and praise to Almighty God. Okay. So when you are actually engaged in prayer, you are doing one of the best thing a disciple of all of God can do, because prayer itself is a form of worship.

So that's why sometimes Today, many people don't see prayer for what it truly is because we don't play and we see it as insignificant. But prayer is worship. Prayer is praise. Prayer is pouring out yourself to God and as we're gonna see prayer is actually work. Prayer is action oriented prayer is results oriented prayer good outcomes. Okay.

So to whom should we pray? This is very, very important. Again, this is what separates many of the things that we talked about because we are primarily focused on, you know, the service and worship of Jehovah God, right? God Almighty, the one who created heavens and earth. All right, so prayer involves us, you know, go into God and worshiping Him. And so the Bible gives us several references that we should only worship and to worship anything else or put to anything else would be considered idolatry, and even witchcraft.

So we have to be very careful. So again, in the 10 commandments, you know, we should have no other gods before besides Jehovah, we should not bow down and worship any of the image or make graven images are besieged any other entity, and so I believe This is what we share in here not of my own volition. But again, you see all the Scripture, scripture references, right? Prayer is an act of worship, if prayers an act of worship, then we have to be careful because when we pray, we are actually engaged in worship. So we don't want to worship anything else or anyone else. So God is the one who deserve worship.

So that's the one to whom we pray even Jesus himself as he was on this earth, He predicted the Heavenly Father. So we know that God Almighty is the one to whom prayers should be directed. Now, we must not put our total trust and confidence in people and things, as I'm going to share with you to see the scriptures to prove to prove this point is that, you know, many times, especially again, here, we have so much, you know, education and money and different things like that, that we really depend upon God as other nations. For example, again, we see a whole lot of miracles and powerful thunderous things happen in in other parts of the world. But on these Western shows, it's very difficult because most people You know, we are trained and ready to be independent. And so now again, that has its own benefits and its own things that we should, you know, be careful of.

But at the same time, when you are trying to worship and serve God, especially in these last days, you want to be somebody who is totally and confidently walk in, in harmony with God, trust in Him, believe in him. So many people are not really living by faith because it's the faith is taking God and His Word. Faith is believing that God will do what he says he will do. Fate is taking God's word and stepping out on it. And so many people can solve their own needs, right? You get sick and go to the doctor, we go to, you know, check out some body who have knowledge in this area.

You know, we need financial advice or you go there and they go to Wall Street guru all over the place. But yet, we don't find that God can give wisdom, knowledge and instruction in all of these things. One of the things that will set you apart from More people is that when you begin to truly take God at His word, and believe him and seek Him for divine wisdom, divine knowledge divided on the standard and that's why again you know in the book of Proverbs I the wisdom literature it says wisdom is the principal thing therefore get wisdom from it all you're getting get understanding, see wisdom, I'm telling you brings all other things image train. So we need to see God. And he says, If you love wisdom, must x James one five asked him, and he gives it liberally without restraint. And we prove, he gives liberally to those who ask now, the prophet Isaiah had this to say about the children of Israel.

He says war to the rebellious children, says the law that take counsel but notice but not of me. They're seeking counsel, the one counselor that from that, and that cover with a covering, but not from my spirit, right? We're trying to cloak our sins and hide our sin. Many people said they want to cover but you do you want to read God where God's rule of righteousness Is that what you're looking for? Or you're trying to find your own way? Okay, it continues that walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt.

Therefore this is the result now since they don't want to see God, since counsel said they don't want to be covered by His Holy Spirit. Since then I'd ask and counsel in his mouth, right guess what is going to happen now they want to trust in flesh, in man in stuff. Therefore shall the strength of fear will be your shame and the trust in the shadow of Egypt. Your confusion? Could it be why we are so confused today. Many people are confused about life, about relationships about you know what job to take, and what thing to do and what's my purpose, all these things we we are we are in total confusion.

Many people are living in lies of shame and so forth. Because when you make flesh your arm when you make flesh, your strength, you are actually treading on a foundation. That is not secure. Right? It's just like, you know, the foolish man who built his house on the sand according to Matthew chapter seven, right? You want is so solid foundation.

So God can give counsel that can go. He's the mighty counselor, he gives counsel to those who seek Him. But notice his contention against his people was that they and even call them rebellious because they did not seek Him. And so many of you today who are looking for breakthrough in your finances, in your health, in your relationship on your job, maybe maybe you're experiencing these things. I'm not saying always, but it couldn't be. You should know yourself this.

Could it be that we are probably going through these things, because we're actually taking counsel from other people or other things instead of from God and His Word. There's another one king, he has it. He says he fell down through the letters in his upper chamber that was in some area, it was sick, but instead of seeing God guess what he did, he sent his messengers instead of to them go and inquire of the owls about the God of ekron whether I shall recover of this disease. And another scripture mentions also that the fact that, you know, people will go seek positions that are also seeking God Now, don't get me wrong, we need balance out, okay? I have folks in my congregation who are doctors and we are balanced like that, but here's what I'm telling you. If all you do is rely upon modern medicine, you will not really and truly be fully Well, we understand the data.

Modern medicine has many great things. You are, you know, you got, you need surgery, you need all of these different things, please, okay, by all means, but we realize that all the medications in the world is not making us healthier. Think about it, especially in the West, the West has the most diseases, people are experiencing physical, mental, mental, emotional, psychological, all kinds of challenges and issues right. And yet we have all this technology and all of this know how our knowledge and degrees And doctors of all humans and strike, but yet the people are more sick than ever. Right? Again in America for example, the healthcare industry is over a trillion plus dollar industry.

And it is the fastest growing because it is very sick the place where I live right now in South Texas, okay, if you go and search for health issues in Brownsville, Texas, in McAllen, Texas, just a law called Rio Grande Valley, you will find that it is the sickest place in the United States. Right What and yet we have all of this knowledge and information, but people are disobeying the simple principles that go lay down in his work in order to be healthy, and not only that, but even when they are on their, you know, you know, when they are given pronouncement sometimes that the doctors gonna solve the issue, they still want to see God. So if you're a person of faith, and yes, I want you to be balanced. Well, let me let you know No, you cannot only depend upon the physicians and modern technology to help you, you have to do and follow God.

And if indeed you are in a situation that modern medicine cannot solve, do not give up, because God is still in the healing business. So what happened to this king now, says the angel of the Lord said Elijah, Tish might arise, go out to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and so to them, is it not? Because there is not a god in Israel that you go to inquire of the answer but the God of ekron So God is having this controversy with this king, he said, you should you should know better. Right? Is there not a god in Israel? Is there no balm in Gilead right to heal the Sensex or is there an Obama Galia?

So that's kind of what we say in here. But now, therefore, that says the law is God's pronouncement, because of his disobedience. You shall not come down from that bed which you have gone up, but you shall surely die and allegedly party. So it has It has I died according to the word of the law which Elijah had spoken, Second Kings 124 and 17. So I'm giving you this because I want you to see that gold takes his people and their situation very seriously. We noticed in Exodus as well, the Bible says that because the people will follow God it says lives, they did not get sick.

The chute did not wear the clothes did not wear of God took care of them, because they were following him and he was leading them. But we see that many today are repeating and it doesn't have to be only health, it could be relationship with the other things. Sometimes like we said, instead of seeking God instead of, you know, committing ourselves to the power of Almighty God. We will go and try every living thing first, and then we come back to God. Now, again, we've shared so many different things that we have courses granted strategic secrets university or health as well, right? Are we again, with not only Prayer because some people pray, and then they don't do anything to take care of their health, okay?

Or they go God heal them. And they go back to the very same things that got them into this health predicament in the first place. So I know we have to be balanced, right? We're not saying this or that we're saying both this and that. What we're what I'm trying to get you to understand is this, that the Lord God wants us to put him first and foremost, because he can give wisdom. In one of my churches, we have a physician, his daughter was shouted to here.

And of course with a headshot, you know, with a bullet in your head, you should die. But again, if we want to rally together and pray and she's alive today, so much so that even after several years now, the fragments are starting to come out by themselves out of it, but she's leading a regular life. He's getting married soon. You know, so many different situations. We have a lot of folks dealing with with with cancer and different things like that, and of course their situations all of them don't make it but those who commit themselves to seeking God we see that they definitely are live what? For the most part what the doctors say that they should.

We have one brother, you know, three years it's been three years and he's still fighting right now we have a system when I first came to this area, not to give us six months, the five years yeah should be five years. powerful woman a prayer every time you go there, she's in a bubble, or happy mood, right? But they believe in prayer. We've gone to anoint our priests several times. We're not just one prayed several times. But God is making things happen in her life.

So let's continue. When should you pray? Now this has to do with timing of prayer. Okay, when should you pray again, we just mastered the fundamentals when I pray without ceasing is what I want you to be aware of. First and foremost be instant in prayer instant in season out of season, so pray anytime you need to add when the Spirit of God leads so that emphasis is always pray, don't give up. Don't lose heart.

Always be in prayer. There's no set time per se, but in Scripture though we do find several times, but I don't want you to be so bogged down with a time but what I want you to do is commit first to praying. And then of course, you can set up your regular prototype. Now Bible in the Bible, we find folks like Jesus, David and Daniel praying three times a day. Okay, Sam, as David said in Psalm 5517 evening and morning at noon will I pray, and so he cried out to God three times a day at least. We find also in the New Testament we have example of Peter, john Cornelius, Paul and Silas.

So it says they prayed at the hour prayer or the night owl, which today will be equivalent to in that time, it will be 3pm get accepted three and 10. And it says also Peter was prayed at the end. six hour which is 12pm on noon. And then if that meant that Paul and Silas even though they were in a difficult situation, they were in prison, but they were praying, okay, they were praying at midnight, so it doesn't matter. You can pray that morning, evening, no, early in the morning or late in the evening or even all night, as we saw, in cases with Jesus's life. There are periods of my life to where when I needed breakthroughs or answers, and I prayed all night long.

So we know that there is not one set time, but you should have a set time of course. But don't be bogged down by time or be so mad and beat up yourself if you miss a time of prayer. Okay, now here's another time when to pray during emergencies and national disasters. Okay. For example, when Peter was sinking remember that was an emergency he needed he cried out immediately prayer, and it has a chi when the Syrian army came up against that he took the mad at God. So whenever you find disasters, please find yourself in prayer, find God's people and band together.

And pray. Don't be glad at people's calamities no matter who they are, where they always be in prayer. When you see these things happening now, where should we pray so equally as important, you know, we should have a place to pray. But again, we're not limited. So we find several examples. You want to, of course, have your own upper room or secret closet, Matthew, six x, 113, and 14.

So you find a private place where you can go and commune with yoga, and that especially at home, find somewhere that you can go but again, don't make it complicated at your office, wherever you can just steal away and be at one with God in privately in private communion with Him. You want to be able to set aside that place. Okay? Then we have also in groups, whether it's two or three, so minimum one which is yourself, then even two or three people gathered together can be a family or Friends, right so we can meet at homes with even visitors and strangers. One of the things I encourage you is that if you are known to present times, or if you have guests that your house, don't change your prayer times for them or feel like you're offending them, no, no, there might not be people of prayer.

Right? You want to keep your house covered in prayer. So just because you have guests, some people are like that when they have guests we don't want to pray. Or you know, we put up our prayer time for the sake of our guests. No, that's your house, or you cover your house always with prayer, and have them join you if possible. Okay, if they don't know who it is enough to force but you say, Hey, this is the house of prayer.

This is our prayer time. And we want you to be part of it because you are on the roof. That's your house. So people prayed in prison by river on the beach, okay. And so the idea again, is just anytime be like Jesus, Jesus prayed on the cross, he put it in the wilderness, he put it on a mountain appear alone. And so all these are examples of places where we can pray.

So You see, because there are multiple places, that means that we don't have to pray in any one specific place. Pray while you're driving by don't close as while you're driving. Okay, please, we're gonna have some problems. So that's what I want you to understand. Where should you pray, pray everywhere. Now, how should you pray?

Now this course is all about, again, the mastering the strategies and mechanics of effective prayer. But nonetheless, again, these are the basic fundamentals that I'm going over here. We're not getting into the, you know, strategic, advanced strategies of effective prayers just as yet. But nonetheless, I want you to have some things so that we can begin I'm going to give an exercise at the end of this lesson, so we can begin praying. So I find it interesting that the disciples did not ask Jesus many things to teach them. Now, of course, they asked many questions.

But when it comes to teaching them something, they said, teach us to pray. Why do you think that is? I believe, because this Jesus's prayer like this saw the power and the impact that he had, when he pray this all things happen in miracles happening. Whenever he prayed, there was something happening again, go back and read it. Ideally, every time Jesus would pray, you will find that following in the next scene, something was about to happen. So how should we pray we should pray in solitude?

Privately, alone and in isolation or in secret? I think we talked about the secret closet earlier. So this is important because again, you want that things that only you and God should hear, right? These things are not for everyone. So you want to make sure that you are communing with God. Public prayer and prayer with other people is no substitute for your personal individual prayers.

There are many people think because oh, I pray with the church or I pray with family or friends or this retreat or whatever, then that is sufficient. No, no, no, no, no. You need to pray solo. You need to pray on All I even tell people when I go to hospital, your prayers more powerful than mine. My prayer is not better than yours because I'm a minister. No, no.

You help out with prayer because only you can pray like pray for you in that way, only you will cry out, really and truly for you. So anytime we ask other people to prefer us and they don't, they might say yeah, but prefer you, but they don't cry out to God. They don't be seach God like that for you. They just said a general stuff. Lord bless. so and so and help so and so.

Amen. No, you want somebody who's gonna tell who's going to intercede on your behalf, just like you work for yourself. So you are the best person to pray for you. There is no priests. There's no Pope. There's no rabbi.

There is no pastor who can pray for you like you can pray for you. And so all of us this course is for everyone and anyone it doesn't matter who you are. You are a child of God as a child of God. He wants you he wants to hear from you. He don't want to hear Only from somebody else on your behalf. He wants you to come and pray.

That's why he gives you the invitation. Now, prayer should not be too long, especially in public, right? So we're not saying that there's no room for long prayers, right. But again, in general, as a principal, when you're in public with others, like church or at some meeting or whatever, let your prayers be brief. But also Jesus caution that we should not use vain, repetitive words over and over. So some people want their prayers to be long, understood the same thing over and over again.

I've also seen people in places of worship man that, you know, they pray like the like, that's how they put in their private cloud. I'm just going to tell you this here. If you are not known to prolong at home, or in private, then don't come in public and try to play along because that probably might be a privacy call kind of a prayer. All right. So again, there's not nothing wrong with praying long prayers. But what I'm saying is it does not have to be long to be meaningful and it Especially Gary, we say public people have things to do.

There's a program going on and some people that they go on and on and on. I've seen some folks, I mean, we have Eloise in the church, and brother or sister just praying the hot offer ever. And I'm like, Lord help this old grandma. Because you know, they have them on their knees sometimes. And it's like, I know that she probably got arthritis or something. So be careful that you are not trying to appear eloquent.

Right? Don't you don't have to use eloquent words to impress God. God is not impressed by our praying. God wants to hear from you get so you don't have to try to impress them in any way. Now, short prayers are often sufficient as well. So for example, remember when Peter was thinking, he said, Lord, help me three words, Lord saved me.

That's it. You don't have to always be long. So sometimes short, sweet and to the point. tell God exactly what you need, what you want, and you don't have to make stuff up. And if you don't have anything to say Say nothing, right? That's why Ecclesiastes these five other places said, you know, when you go to the house of the Lord be more willing to hear than to pretty much speak or to offer the sacrifice of fools as one said, Don't cause your mouth.

Don't let your mouth cause you to sit around, right? You know, you can read Ecclesiastes chapter five verses one through seven for that. And I think we may have it here. You want to pray with your head bowed down to the earth, or kneeling, kneeling is one of the best postures. Now you don't have to always kneel and let me get you that right. But I'm telling you though, kneeling is something we see often in the Bible.

So kneeling shows, again, reverence a basis to God. And so we want you to bet again, the best thing is to make sure you are kneeling in a heartbeat or if you're driving a car you can't meet right? So we're not saying kneeling means that you're more holy and righteous than anyone. But kneeling is appropriate for approaching a holy and divine God. Now, we should also pray with our hands lifted in And again, this is good when you're beseeching me when you're crying out. Some people may have all God, please, you know, and you will be seeking the Lord.

So some churches someplace to worship if they don't like to, to lift up their hands. They think you're crazy but again, maybe they don't read into scripture scripture say you can pray with your hands lifted up as you're worshiping God. Do you know that you could also be seated? Right David prayed seated. So sit in is a possible prayer as well. So you can pray while you're seated.

And if you're driving, generally you are seated. Somebody is in an airplane, hey, you want to pray before the plane takes off? you're seated. So again, it's not a particular house. So you'll notice in a trend here, right God wants to hear from you. He's not making stuff rigid and so formulaic that you know you have to do this in order for him to hear you know, he's giving you so many options.

You can play anytime you can play anywhere and here we said you can play almost anyhow. But you have to also use protocol. But when we say in is these us, if you put like this you are in the guidelines, in other words, but here's the thing, reverence I should have put this one when it comes to Neil and I'm bowing down, pray with reverence, humility, caution and be slow, right? He says, we have two ears so we can hear one mouth. be slow to speak, but quick to hear. Listen to what God is saying while you're praying as well.

Some people just come and talk to God, tell God everything they want, and then they leave. What did God do? He said, Nothing. I don't know. I just told him what I want. And that's a God is not a Santa Claus kind of a thing.

That's not how it works. Okay. You have to respect God though. He said, come boldly, he said, come boldly onto the throne of grace. But he says also we must be reverent. We must fear his name.

And so that's why we're talking about us come in with humility. Now we can pray also to dedicate and to bless again. Your town, your mouth, your lips have the fruit of Life and death. So you can bless again, you don't have to wait on a priest, the pope or Rabbi or a pastor or anybody to do the work for you an elder or a deacon deaconess, whoever, however you want to call it. Listen, you have the authority as a child of God, to be able to tap into God's divine resources and storehouse you have an audience with the God of the universe, you can go directly to him, okay? There is one mediator between God and man and that's Christ Jesus.

You don't need no intermediary to go between you and God, even Spirit helps to pray for you. So you can do the same thing as any rabbi, Pastor, priest and pulpit all of these other people who think they have the monopoly on approaching God. No, you can dedicate yourself you can dedicate your house, you can dedicate your children. You can bless them, right erotic benediction that, you know, it says all of us now we are a nation, a kingdom of priests. All right. So We are holy nation, a royal priesthood, the priesthood of all believers.

We are all God's ministers today. And all of it is spiritual gifts that He has given to everyone and different people. So you know that you have a gift from God and you can be able when it comes to prayer, prayer is not a gift. Prayer is something that every follower of GOD can and should be doing. Now, we must also pray with confession and repentance. And this is very crucial.

Okay, when we get into the next lesson, you're going to see how crucial This is. But repentance and confession helps to get the heart of the attitude right, and to clear up any baggage between us and God. So that's why it says in it, my people will humble themselves and pray. Third, from the wicked ways. All right, we got to do that. Some people don't want to turn from their wicked ways, but they want God to come and do things for them.

No, Isaiah 59 says there are basically that's the only reason why most president answer so you begin decide I want to jump the gun here. But again, it's not that he doesn't hear or you know, his ears heavier he can say it. No, he says because you're saying your iniquity, that's what separated from me and you. So, you take care of that the confession is a time taken care of any issues, any known things that we are doing wrong, we want to confess that now what prayer does all this is who this is this this is bringing that we will we will be trying to land this land the plane right now. What prayer does Do you know that prayer is actually work? You see, many people today lack power because they see, they don't see how effective and powerful prayer is.

They look at it as insignificant. And I find it interesting, especially here in the West, that you know, many churches there so much money has been spent on the church you have buildings that are now just use pretty much one day, a weekend, right? One Day weekend. And for those who have a service, which Normally a prayer meeting service during the week. Not many people are there. Oh, no wonder Oh churches in the West are weak and flabby.

Not growing, you know, losing members by the same. You know why one of the reason is this? Because they're not praying church. There's no power there. There is no power there. One of the foremost teachers of yesteryear said, he said, if the Holy Spirit of God, what are we drawn for most churches 95% of everything will come to you as normal.

Imagine that. Don't even miss the Spirit of God. Because many churches and preach in today is lifeless, lifeless, devoid of spirit devoid of power. Right. And so because the churches are not spending time in prayer, here's a statistic that we found from research. Let's just say most churches in the West I'm not we're in the West.

Now when I talk about Africa, Latin America and some Asian countries we talked about in the world. US, Europe underlied here's the thing of the people who attend churches on the weekend that one day on the weekend. Guess what? Only about 45 to 50 or 55%, maybe 60. If you're lucky, of the membership that actually attends and then off the membership who attends the one day a week during the week are permitted. Only about five to 10% of that number will actually be there present.

It is no wonder the churches are weak and people themselves are weak because they people are the ones who reflect the church, right? And they are the ones who make up the church. So the people are weak and the church is weak because they are weak in breath. Now, let's put that in perspective. Let's say a church has 100 people and it can be 10,000 whatever we use in it simple numbers but 100 members, okay, that means for the midweek service, I mean for the weekend. service your will have only 45 or 50 or 55 people 60 ish because we don't have a 45 to 60%.

So let's be generous and 60 people attend on the one day a week already, which is the weekend. Now join the week, a midweek press service which is normally here in West Wednesday or Tuesday night. You know, some people have it maybe other times but generally it's either Wednesday or Tuesday Wednesday. So of those who attend now on that one day on the weekend, during the midweek Now we take the same number that means only three to six people, right? Remember of the hundred, about less than 60 attend on the weekend. And during the week, only about three or six people will be present.

You can plug those numbers in on any size church and you will find the same thing. It is no wonder God's people lacking in public But why should we be so powerless? When prayer is so powerful? Look at what prayer does. When we weren't, we weren't. But when we pray God works, how would you like to a god to take care of your business?

Just like we seem to, you know, in many places throughout the Bible in the Old Testament in particular, you know, when it will pray God, he says, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. You will not need to fight this battle because the battle is the law and law use all forms of battle strategy they could not comprehend and do that on their own. You see, Tresor heaven ordained means of success, prayer most Heaven, right? Prayer moves, the arms that move the world, prayer moves the arm of omnipotence, my brothers, my sisters, whoever you are watching, listening to this training, you need to recapture the power of prayer. The prayer of faith is your weapon by which you may successfully resist every assault of the enemy. Again, we cannot fight this spiritual battle.

In carnal armor, we're trying to fight spiritual battles by using carnal, earthly fleshly things. So that's why I'm saying, Yes, I have academic credentials, right? I have certifications and all of that kind of stuff in different areas. But my thing is, too many of us are dependent upon those carnal things. My friends, there are things that only the Spirit of God can do and show you. God's revelation is what we need more than anything else.

We need divine wisdom and counsel, prayer and faith will do what no power on earth can accomplish. No power. Look at this. Let me give you two examples real quick. We go back to the Old Testament story of Daniel, remember Daniel and the three Hebrew boys. They went to the Babylonian university to finance the Kings University, along with all the other wise men and all these people, and but they were the top of their class.

Why? Because they did stuff God's Will But notice whenever you can as I had a problem, he had this dream that no one could tell him or interpret. Then what happened? He said to call all the wise people, all the the people with the doctorate degrees and master's degrees, and all of that stuff, and they came, and they could not reveal this wisdom to the king. Daniel and his friends also could not do it, even though they were educated in the Babylonian University. But Danielle, and those Hebrew boys knew God and they had power with God in prayer.

So what did they do? Daniel and his friend went to pray, and they sought God, and God was revealed to them this mystery. And when they came now to the king, Daniel did not take glory to himself. Daniel didn't say, Oh, it's because of your training and my knowledge. No, Daniel said, No, it is the God in heaven. That's why we say you worship the one true God Jehovah who created the heavens and earth, He said, God, Jehovah Jaqui, he is the one who will reveal and give these secrets and his knowledge to us.

God is a reveal of secrets and mysteries. That's what I'm telling you that separates God's true followers in these last days from other people is that if you know and understand the divine mind and will of God, it says, even Scripture says, we have the mind of Christ, we suppose to be able to understand the mind of Christ. If you don't understand the mind of Christ, something is missing. So that means you have the ability to tap into divinity, you have the ability to tap into God's omnipotence, Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent. You have the ability to be able to know things that no one else on this earth can know. But it takes revelation that's why it's in the last days I will pull up my spirit upon all flesh your sons and your daughters shall prophesied.

You see, young man's will have visions, and the old folks will have dreams. Why? Because God reveal secrets in dreams. How is that? For you? Are you?

Are you experiencing that? No many of us are experiencing these things. But when I go, that's why I'm saying, with no child with over 26 different countries when I travel overseas, these are the things that I see on a regular basis that I hear about on a regular basis, because these people are not dependent upon our staff. So we see the churches in the in the West, they're dying and so forth. And we keep buying books and more books and more courses and more seminars and more workshops and conferences and the like, and you keep going there with the churches keep down the people keep leaving and all of this stuff because we would not put in the work of prayer is he would not put in the work of prayer. This was the same thing we St. Joseph.

Joseph went down to Egypt as a slave as a foreigner, somebody who had no inklings of becoming great, but yet because it was faithful to God, God bless him, and he did not take well to himself, right. He was able to interpret again the king had a dream no one none of his wise people got interpreted, and the king himself declared And isn't there is a person in whom is the Spirit of the Living God, because he knew that Joseph was doing the work of God. And Joseph himself said, it is not in me to be able to tell the king what you dream, but it is God God has given Pharaoh this dream, because he has established it, it is certainty. One quick story. Now I'm telling you these things because I want to boost your faith and I want to boost you and encourage you to pray.

Okay. Now, in a there was a district in Zimbabwe is one particular faith group. And for 20 years, they only had about 202 hundred of something, I think 220 something members, people have faith in that particular committee or district. Then they send this young pastor there. And this young pastor, he had not gone to new theological schools or seminaries or had big degrees. No, he had his Bible, and he had prayer.

So remember, 20 Two years, only 200 and something folks in two years of him being in that new district. God added to the kingdom 20 something thousand people in two years remember 20 years only 200 and something. But in two years, two years, over 20,000 people in the interview he was there was an article written on there and they interviewed him. He said, I prefer four hours a day. And my wife joins me for prayer. That's the secret simple to simple.

These are the ones who should be given us the church, good seminars, and and so forth and evangelism seminars, but we on the west, we always think we can just go tell the churches in Latin America and overseas, you know, we need to humble ourselves. You know, I see that don't get me wrong. My background my training also. And my main degree in ministry is in again, evangelism, short missions, evangelism and church growth. So I know what I'm talking about here. But I find it interesting that these are the guys who are getting into the real results, but they're not the ones teaching us.

We are the ones who think we can just teach everybody because again, there's a difference between being a professor and being a practitioner. You don't want to be a professor pray you want to be a practitioner of prayer. You want to be one who is applying the principles and the secrets of prayer. God, we don't have to have degrees and titles or accolades behind your neck. If you have them fine. We don't dis denounce them.

Like I said, I have them okay, but that's only because man looks on the outside at some man in the demo fair God, so I covered the bases there, but I know that promotion doesn't come from the east nor the West. It is God who lives up one puts another down. See, that was my motto in the military. How did I skip promotion after promotion? It was only because of God. Right?

I took a master's in project management graduated 4.0 GPA not because I'm smart man, I only took project my Because of the prospects and again, not only that, but because I know he said you must be wise as serpents and harmless as understand what's happening in these last days because he has given me a revelation of why we need to be quick as well, because the people of the world will respect God. So now we understand something here though. But in that class, check this out. There was one class in particular, it was risk analysis, and I absolutely understood nothing. I had the textbook professors, explanations, nothing, I could not comprehend anything in that particular course. But again, I'm one who loved the Bible.

I take it as it reads. And so James, one fact one of my favorite verses, he says, If you lack wisdom, ask God He will give it to you liberally, liberally without reproach without upgrading. And so I said, God, if you can give me wisdom in spiritual matters, then surely you can do it in temporal matters as well. And so when you pray, now, you know God is going to move an answer in ways that you don't, you know, expect so you want to be able to still have expectations high but be free to allow God To answer it his way, because sometimes he sent the answers, you know, in very peculiar packages. So I needed a website actually strategic secrets, I needed his website design. This was when I first had this website.

And so I paid $700 to get this website design, but I noticed the guy's resume who was designing my website, and it says here was PMP, which is a certified project management professional. And I'm like, Hey, this is the course I'm taking. Maybe he knows, send them a little email. I said, Hey, man, I'm struggling with this particular class. Do you have any information or anything that probably can explain better to me, and guess what the guy actually was from India, not in the US. This guy's built my website from India.

And he has a master's degree in the same thing I'm trying to take and I just say, Can you send me information he sent me one PDF, not a textbook. Not long, long stuff. But what he sent me I was able to comprehend I was able to understand for that particular course and assignment. Now, when I finished the course, I not only got a grade of an A for that course, when the professor also took my assignment to revamp the entire course and create a new course outline from what I did for my assignment and up to this day, I'm still not wanted to present their on that particular aspect. But when I needed the wisdom for that time, the Lord was able to provide why because I trusted and I prayed and I asked him for wisdom even in that stuff. When I wanted to do ministry and missions again to say my God, I need to buy books I need to reach people I didn't take at that time.

Any calls on book writing and publishing No, as the god I want to write books give me wisdom and understanding to be able to write them. Bam, give me an understanding to publish them. Bam, stuff came, the Lord can bless you gotta stop praying, timid, pray on things that you can only ask God for certain so called spiritual things. No, God will bless you in spiritual temporal because God is neither secular and Spiritual God, he was just one thing. God sees you as one individual. He doesn't leave you, when you leave a place of worship or when you go to work or at school.

No, God is with you all the time. So God is not is not into the spiritual and we compartmentalize our life. No, I'm telling you, you can pray about every anything because prayer and faith will do what no power on earth can accomplish. So I hope that really encouraged you. Now let's bring it in for a real ending has a good preacher would say, I want to finish this section with seven benefits of prayer. If you're not experiencing the benefits of prayer, then you need to go back and recapture what prayer can do.

So again, these are incentives now, for you to go out and live a life of prayer and success. Number one peace of mind who does not want peace of mind? Many, many people are depressed, discouraged and in despair today, they need peace of mind. God says he will give us peace not like the world gives. He gives us a peace that surpasses all understanding. So if you need peace, prayer can put you in possession of it.

Forgiveness, right people need to forgive themselves. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things for people to do. And that's why we care again, mental emotional, psychological baggage, right, divine wisdom and guidance. This is exactly what I was talking about here. Especially this right now is what's needed. We need people who understand God's plan for this world.

We need people who are enlightened in harmony with God's will for Planet Earth, and more people who have that ability, we'll be able to be the movers and shakers in our times. We need stronger faith and trust in God. Prayer is what puts you in possession of that access to heavens abundant resources, there is no scarcity in heaven, my friend, whether you need resources for your business or ministry, you need resources to be able to start some nonprofit organization, or to just be a blessing to your family and friends and others. People, if you know how to pray like George Mueller, and all these faithful folks of all friend, you can do so much for the kingdom of God. Blessings and miracles. Yes, pray for blessings perform miracles.

Don't be afraid. Like most people have fainted they think, Oh, you know, it's presumptuous to pray for miracles. Listen, the Bible is replete with miracles. We're not saying you're going to be miracle chasers, right. Jesus clearly said to that blessing to those who believe without seeing, but many people, especially in the world, they need to see before they can believe mantha He says, that's one of the reasons he also gave prophecy. Now when it comes to pass they may believe.

So don't think again sometime again. Because we think the devil manipulate something that we should not be doing it. You don't know this is foolishness because you can become hardened and also miss out in the way God is doing things. And not only that, but I fear for many people of faith because that was exactly the attitude of the Pharisees that when Jesus began doing miracles And Jesus began, you know, doing all these wonderful things. They were even calling him Beelzebub, they were calling him the devil Can you imagine? So if we're not careful, because we are anti miracles, and anti, you know, these great things that God can do, when we see them, we might see we might be attribute in the works of God to the works of the devil.

And be very careful. Be very careful of that. Now physical, mental and emotional and spiritual healing. Oh, this is to me, one of the biggest, biggest need of our world right now. People are emotionally mentally and physically, you know, malaise. They are in deep trouble.

And so we need you to understand that even in this regards, that there is power in prayer, Newsmax health says science proves the healing power of prayer. Now, more and more medical research from leading hospitals and universities across the US has shown conclusively that a belief in God is really good for How by making you healthier, happier, and even helping you to live longer. Who does not want that? And again, this is medical stuff. Now this is scientific. Okay?

Not that we need science to validate but it is good when science does. Studies have shown that prayer can prevent people from getting sick. And when if they do get sick prick and help them to get better faster. This is according to Dr. Harold kornek. from Duke University. He also says an exhaustive analysis of more than 1500 reputable medical studies again, not just 100 or just a few hundred reputable medical studies, what did they indicate that people who are more religious and who Premo have better mental and physical health?

Isn't that just what we just spoke about? The power of prayer is multifaceted. The power of prayer can do one But we have to rediscover it. What else does prayer do? Okay, according to and McCaffrey from Harvard now medical school, she found that one third of Americans say that they use prayer to facilitate healing and that 69% of respondents claim that prayer, improve their health. And we see this happening throughout you know, whether it's online and offline in the news like, you know, for example, Web MD ran an article can pray heal CNN, when religion and medicine meet Time magazine investigating the power of prayer, Washington Post, researchers look at prayer and healing the USA Today.

Display have the power to heal. So regular people that knows everywhere everybody is interested in this phenomenon of prayer. We've had we have I've even seen articles that even some places that are like communists that don't believe in God and Jesus and those type of things. Even they themselves are also seeing the benefits and experimented with Because you see, one of the thing is that even when people just know that somebody else is praying for them, they tend to feel better. It's like a real little reassurance. And that's why when you go to the hospital and you pray for people, they just feel good, knowing that someone cares and that itself, listeners, okay?

Now, spiritually, it is the fastest way and it is the key to reconnect, if you want to reconnect, if you want to be restored, if you want to be refreshed and revive. We need to connect with prayer. All the great revivals of yesteryear were predicated upon prayer. And I wonder why it is today. After over 100 plus years, we still lack worldwide revival. Could it be that many of God's people are not praying, and they're not joining with others who are praying indeed, I'm telling you, if you want to find the fastest way to reconnect with the Almighty God if you want to be restored and refreshed, spiritually Physically, mentally, emotionally.

If you need that revival, then prayer. I recommend it highly to you. I hope that helped you. Okay, so now let's apply what I want you to do. I'm going to give you a challenge. It's a 90 day challenge.

There's gonna be no one day and one week. No, I'm going to give you a 90 day challenge. Okay, this is application exercise you need to do every one of these things that I'm going to ask you right now. I want you first of all to prepare a bold prayer list. What What am I being bold? Think of the things that you feel that are hard and impossible for you.

Okay? We know that nothing is impossible. But there must be things that you know that to you. They are big. In other words, they are things that people cannot solve, because trust me, somebody can solve your problem. You really don't have one.

Right? If money can solve your problem, I know you have money in your pocket. You don't have a problem. But if you don't have money, or you really have a big problem, then you Yeah, that's what we talked about stuff like That. So prepare a bowl prayer list. I want you to find several things that you're going to pray for over the next three months.

These may be things that you know, haven't happened in a while, I want you to begin praying for them, using the strategies that we have covered. Now. What do you need God to do for you spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, professionally, on your job, academically, financially, what it is that you want God to do for you remember, he said, come boldly with your needs, right? Next, what problems are you or a friend or a relative are clearly currently facing that you need God's intervention? In other words, no one else seems to be able to solve or help this problem or we just need God's hand in it. We need God's hand to make it right.

What one thing more than all others would you like God to help you with? What is one thing that is really pressing or weighing down upon you that you really, really need to see God saw For you? And finally, how will you like God to use you to be a blessing to others? I want you to think boldly here because many of us, again, we still seek and what's the whole purpose? Are we living too small? Listen, in the last days, God is looking for men, a woman who can, you know, be like Jacob, who says, I will not let you go until you bless me?

Who would be like Joshua, who can say Joshua said lore Hall of the sun and the moon and keep them in their place until I slay my enemies. Can you imagine that? And the Bible says, no one else ever since no mortal man has ever had such a request from God be like his entire who, even though he was given a pronouncement that he was going to die. God extended his like 15 years because he prayed. Not only that, but when the Prophet says I'm going to give you certainty, a guarantee that God would do that. He says, should the sundial will forward or backward because it's easy for the sundial to go forward.

I want you to Put it back. That's the kind of stuff that we talked about. It's not greediest simply the righteous takes by force. And these last days, we cannot be praying these little, you know, giant by prayers, microwave prayers, quickie prayers. We can't do that with God right now. We need met a woman who will tarry with God, who will who will labor in the garden of prayer like Jesus, and pray for more than just the 510 minutes that we normally do.

Some people go through an entire day not even praying for 10 minutes. Okay, I'm talking about pouring our hearts and our souls to God, right? Let's be like Elijah, that Who? When Elijah was going off the scene, he didn't just say, give me you know, I want some of your spirit. Or let me just take a mental note. Elijah said, I need a double portion.

He was not being greedy. Hey, he saw what Elijah Elijah was doing. He said, Listen, if I'm gonna be the new pop, I need to not just do what you were doing. I need to be able to do more. That's, that's my kind of. That's my kind of prayer.

That's the kind of stuff I love to hear how people pray like that. And so I want you to put your big bold prayer requests before God and see what God can do for you. He is willing to do great and mighty things. Sometimes we simply don't receive because we don't ask, and we don't receive big because we act small. All right. So God wants to do for you.

This is your 90 day prayer, exercise and challenge. Do not go on to Section two, or the next module on till you have completed this exercise. Is there anything too hard for God? Genesis 1814, and Jeremiah 3217 and 27. We want you during this course to pray only, bold, audacious prayer bold blessings. Bold benediction.

Ask God for miracles as God for mighty things. And you will see what he does in your life as well because it will be Quiet you. It will require you to tell with him It will require you to change, it will require transformation in your life. And trust me, that's what he's longing to do, because he has worked for us to do that only we can do when we own fire with him again. So that's the ology one on one. That's the first module.

I hope that you enjoyed it. But now, now that you know these things, you will only be blessed if and when you do them. The blessing comes with the application. Remember, there's a difference between professors who know and practitioners who do so we are giving you the knowledge. So now that you know, let's go ahead and apply it. Let's go ahead and practice.

I'll see you in the next module.