It talks about the armor of God for the first seven or eight verses, and then it ends with,
to all this, or wrap this all up or add to it, a prayer. So if you go to Ephesians 6.18,
at the end of it, after describing everything else that the armor contains, it wraps it up with Ephesians 6.18,
which says, And pray in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests.
With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. It seems to be the full stop or the hard stop to most things that God asks us to do.
And so one of the things I felt the Lord saying for us is, after the last eight weeks of teaching—and if you look at the last eight weeks of teaching,
it's about going. There was a series on Go, then there was a whole Ruah meeting that we had where it was,
be filled, be joyed, be convicted, be free and be on fire. And then last week we talked about what the gospel actually means.
And so I felt God saying, Okay, now can you pray? Can you pray so you can go? And so that's what we'll talk about today.
And so prayer must precede proclamation. Prayer must precede proclamation.
And it's not because it's a church thing to do. It's because again and again in the Bible, you see that it's the pattern that's followed.
So if you look at Acts chapter 2, you see that they gathered together in the upper room and they were fasting, they were praying,
they were together in one accord. And that's when the Spirit of God came upon the earth to transform these fishermen, these tax collectors, into witnesses.
So in Acts chapter 2, you see that. In Acts chapter 4, you see that again, that when they were beaten up and they were thrown into prison or when they were beaten up and told never to preach again,
they would go back and they would start praying again. And when they would pray, a boldness would come that would allow them to go.
You see that again in Acts chapter 13, where in Antioch, after the persecution that distributed the Church of Jerusalem all across the Middle East,
you see in Acts 13 the apostles, the teachers, the prophets, the equippers gathering, and they were again praying and fasting.
When the Spirit of God said to them, set aside for me Paul and Barnabas.
So there almost seems to be this precept in the New Testament that prayer must precede proclamation.
So the second thing is prayer is always propelled, prayer is propelled from a place of disadvantage, from a place of disadvantage.
From a place of disadvantage, from a place of disadvantage.
So be it what we saw with Gideon's 300, or be it a small church like ours in a city of 2.7 million people, or be it on Mount Carmel, where the odds were 450 to 1.
And it was wet bull versus dry bull, wet wood versus dry wood. The odds were always against and the odds are highly stacked.
And so prayer is propelled from a place of disadvantage.
The more disadvantaged you are, the more likely you should go towards prayer and then find that that's one of the favorite places God likes to operate from.
He operates from a place of disadvantage. He loves operating from a place of disadvantage.
And when he finds you two advantages, he actually whittles you down to size.
He goes from 30,000 people in an army, which already was facing another army of 300,000, and then brings it down to 300, which is just crazy.
So these are things that are for sure, these are patterns that have been preserved from the Old Testament onwards.
And the third thing is prayer must persevere. Prayer must persevere. Prayer must persevere.
And as you persevere, God makes, when you persevere, and you only see it when you persevere, God makes rain.
God makes rain from the cloud you formed in prayer.
You see that in 1 Kings 18, 44, where Elijah sends his servant.
I think that servant would have, I mean, he had such a workout that day because he's praying and then he'll have to go all the way up the mountain.
And then he goes and looks and then he sees nothing and then he says, I see nothing.
And then he prays again, six times going up Mount Carmel, man.
That's like doing grouse grind six times in a day.
And the sixth time he's like, I'm going to give him my resignation letter and thank God.
There comes a fist-sized cloud, that's cloud the size of your hand.
And so what we don't realize is that prayer must persevere because God makes rain from the cloud you formed in prayer.
We don't think like this.
Sometimes when small things happen when you pray, we don't even feel like we should talk about it.
Or sometimes when we talk about it, people look at it and say, oh, so he's encouraged with that?
Yes.
The world has this ability to shut you down if it's not phenomenal.
And so many of us keep quiet because we hear such phenomenal stories that the little stories fall by the wayside.
But we never realize that one of the things God loves doing is start with a hand-sized cloud.
That is a result of you praying because he makes rain from the cloud you formed in prayer.
Jesus does this with the two loaves and five fish.
But we keep it back.
So little things must be spoken of.
Little results you see in prayer must be spoken of.
We don't.
Because we think it's too small.
Every time I pray and something happens in a far-off country, which you'll not see results for for the next 14 years,
I'll still come and talk about it because 14 years later, that hand-sized cloud becomes rain.
That's why you can't...
Yeah.
Any questions before we go on?
Most everything that Acts 29 will start will be pretty small, guys.
Yeah.
Some churches are meant to do that.
Some churches are meant to do big splash.
Some churches soft opening.
Some churches do not despite the day of small beginnings.
This is one of those churches.
It will always be tiny, but it starts as a seed and then it becomes a tree eventually.
And it takes time.
I've been watching a lemon grow on one lemon tree and it took nine months for one lemon.
So you can imagine what a tree... how long a tree takes.
Any questions?
James 517 makes an extraordinary claim.
He says that Elijah was a man just like me.
Most of us don't believe it.
I find it hard to believe.
When you hear of the phenomenal things he did,
when you hear that Moses and Elijah came down to visit Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration,
you think to yourself, surely he can't be a man just like me.
And yet, James 517 makes this extraordinary claim that Elijah is a man like us.
Elijah is a man like us.
In which case, it would be good if we imitated his MO, or his method of operation.
And so, what is one thing that you find common in Elijah's prayer
is that it doesn't matter whether he's raising a dead boy
or whether he's dealing with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.
It doesn't matter what he does.
He would follow this pattern.
See, pray, proclaim, persevere.
This was his pattern.
He would see first, or hear first, what God was going to do,
and then he would pray into it.
But then, he would not wait for the outcome or the results.
Much before the result was even visible, he would begin to proclaim it.
And then after proclaiming it, he would persevere to bring it to pass.
It's something that we don't do.
We change the order.
We do see, we do pray, but proclamation here comes at the end,
because what if it doesn't happen?
But this man would always go about it this way.
He would see first, he would then pray into it.
And once he starts praying into it, he would go ahead and proclaim it.
And then after proclamation, he would persevere so that it could be birthed through.
Any questions?
See, pray, proclaim, persevere.
Or if you want to use another P word, perceive, pray, proclaim, persevere.
Any questions?
How about the?
Yeah, so the unseen is the seeing.
The perceiving is the unseen.
He cannot see it for real.
But he either perceives it through hearing or seeing,
and then he begins to pray into it.
And after praying, he proclaims it.
After proclaiming, he just keeps at it, keeps at it.
So the result, he proclaims immediately.
And you can only proclaim a result when you actually believe it.
You can never proclaim the outcome if you don't believe it, because you're scared.
And you can't proclaim the outcome if you haven't seen it, and it's not God.
And you can't see it and begin to believe it until you begin to have conversations with him.
And so prayer is actually finding out, prayer is finding out what the Father wants,
finding out what the Father wants to do,
then standing in Christ before him and the world,
then asking him to do it,
then cooperating with the Holy Spirit
by either announcing it or actioning it.
It's beautiful.
So prayer is never playing a guessing game, never hazarding guesses and hoping it will work,
never coming up with earthly solutions and christening them in the name of Christ.
The prayer is finding out what the Father wants to do.
Once you know what the Father wants to do, then standing in Christ, as in he is your firm foundation.
It's in him, in his promises, in the words he's spoken, in the faithfulness of who he is,
in his ability to keep promises.
You stand in him before God, you stand in him, and before the world, you stand in him.
It's unshakable ground. Otherwise, it's very shaky.
You can't stand on a prophetic word if you don't think that it is Christ's faithfulness that you stand in.
Prophetic words won't help you. They'll encourage you, but you can't stand in it till you know,
this is Christ I'm standing in who has sent a word.
And then you ask him to do it. Now that he's said it, you do it, O God. You do it.
You're a covenant-keeping God. You do it. I've already begun to tell people about it.
But you do it. And then you cooperate with the Holy Spirit. What does that mean?
How do you want to execute this Holy Spirit? Show me. You want me to announce it? I'll announce it.
You want me to action it? I'll action it.
There's this thing of standing in the evil day. That's critical.
Those that don't persevere do not see the results.
Why? Because God is stingy? No. Because we have an active enemy.
Please understand. It's not because God is stingy. It's because we have an active enemy.
Where do you get that from, Jacob? You get it from the book of Daniel, for one.
Daniel, the moment you started to pray, God heard and he answered.
But for the last 21 days, you haven't received the answer because for the last 21 days,
the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece have opposed what was supposed to happen.
But I have fought against them and I've brought you the answer. Sure, it took 21 days.
It was not because God was hesitant in giving.
He said, as soon as you spoke, you need to understand, Daniel, that you are precious.
The words used are, you're precious in the eyes of God.
And as soon as you asked, the answer was sent.
Perseverance is not so that God sees your patience and your pushiness and says,
I guess he deserves it because he's really sticking with it.
Perseverance is what begins to shake years and years of satanic planning.
You don't know how long it takes for the devil to set up a trap.
And then you persevere and you undo it in five days.
Any questions?
More than you?
Yeah, I think, I don't know if there's...
I might be wrong or I might be exaggerating, but I don't think I am.
I don't think there's anything that I have had happen in my life that was of any value
that happened without having others pray for or with me.
Can't think of anything.
Can't think of waxing, can't think of any trip, can't think of any struggle, any problem,
be it physical, financial, emotional, relational, can't think of anything that I would not have
or have not spoken to or did not include someone else to help me.
Not a thing.
I mean, I'm thinking about the last two weeks, can't think of a thing.
That's how it's supposed to be.
News to you?
Shouldn't be, because that's how it's supposed to be.
And not one person here, I'm talking about...
I go and talk to different people.
And some of them are nodding their heads.
Different people.
Because you can't do this alone, man. It's impossible.
You can handle one problem alone, but you think you have only one problem a week?
So much more than one.
So, yeah, I would say it's always with the help of others.
Two are better than one.
So you're agreeing with God and you're finding someone who agrees with God and agrees with you.
A threefold card cannot be broken.
The other thing is, guys, because we live in two realms,
because we live in two realms, as in we live here on earth, we also belong to God in heaven,
because we live in two realms, what often happens is whenever we are faced with situations,
we have earthly solutions that we ask God to bless.
And then there's a heavenly solution that we are supposed to find out.
The earthly solution comes quickly.
We kind of know.
But the time that we need to spend is, in this situation, what's the heavenly solution?
And I'm talking about earthly, godly solutions.
So something happens at Axemenian, something happens in your life, and instantly you know,
this is how we've always done it at Axemenian, this is how we've always practiced it biblically.
And so we immediately go to it when the default should be.
For every situation here that we face on earth, there are earthly solutions,
and there are heavenly solutions.
It's your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven, not your will be done here.
Sorry, it shouldn't be the other way around.
It's not earth's will that heaven should bless, it's heaven's will that should be done on earth.
And so there's always these two solutions we have, always.
Finances, there's that solution.
All right, I know this bank or I know this card, I know this way or I can do this, this and this,
and there's an earthly solution.
There's even earthly solutions in terms of praying.
Last time I prayed, this is how I prayed for the headache.
Let's do it again.
And you find that the headache gets worse.
There are divine solutions for every situation.
Any questions?
No?
Go ahead, Chava.
Chava, Chava.
Okay, go ahead, Chava.
Can they be the same as the heavenly solutions?
Yeah, they can be the same if you're finely tuned,
because sometimes the very thing that you thought of is the very thing God is thinking of.
So that's very possible.
And it's not a realm reserved for a few.
Any day that you're walking with God can be a day when most of the common sense solutions you come up with
are the common sense of God.
Yeah.
I mean, you heard the story from Nee.
He's driving, his gas tank is empty.
Earthly solutions, I can think of a few.
Call Brandon, tell him to bring a chopper and bail him out.
Okay, that doesn't work.
All right.
Just pray that you find the closest gas station.
Three, wrap yourself up in all the jackets you can find
and go under the seat of the van and hope you stay warm.
All kinds of earthly solutions.
But what did he figure out?
Let me start speaking in tongues and let this van drive.
He drove for 100 kilometers on an empty tank for the next 100 kilometers.
And so he drove for 100 kilometers on an empty tank.
Crazy, eh?
There are earthly solutions and there are heavenly solutions.
Always find the heavenly one, because it's so easy for us as experienced Christians to default to the earthly one.
I'm always shame-faced after I've tried the earthly one and it's failed.
I usually do that in secret.
This is before I ask anyone for prayer.
Quickly try the quick-shot way and then it says,
your application has been rejected.
Now you turn to God and to people.
Surely there were better ways to get taxes paid than going fishing,
but that was the divine solution.
We pray with God, not towards Him.
Please remember this, because we'll be, just like Ruwa,
we'll have a week shortly soon where we'll be practicing this.
We pray with God, not towards Him.
Not towards Him.
We pray with the answer,
not trying to find one.
That's how you pray. That's critically.
What a difference it'll make when this becomes normal across the earth,
that we pray with God, as in we agree with you.
We pray with God, not towards God,
and we pray with the answer, not trying to find one.
How do we not have to worry when we have that?
Do we think about how it works when we pray with God?
Yeah. How do we handle it when we think we've heard God,
we know it is God, we are praying with it and nothing is happening?
Isn't that discouraging?
How do we continue if we are discouraged like that,
is the question asked.
I would say, you know,
if we are discouraged like that, is the question asked,
and I would say, yes, it's true that we are discouraged,
it's true that we've stood and nothing has happened,
and that's when you turn to two things first, or three things.
One, His nature, two, perseverance, and three, to others.
That's my standard approach, it's a Bible standard approach.
Turn to one, His nature, as in, you're not,
before you go and say, you said,
you should also say to yourself, this is who He is.
Once you say, this is who He is, you can say, you said.
Otherwise, when I say, you said, I put Him in the dock.
Now He's in a court and I'm saying, you said, but you haven't.
But if I tell Him, if I tell myself or remind myself of who He is,
then when I say, you said, I'm not saying, you said and you haven't,
I'm saying, you said and I know you and I know how you do these things.
Second one, perseverance, to persevere,
which is what we talked about,
because there's an active opposition to what we're doing.
I'm not even bringing up faith because I expect faith to be a der, foundation.
And the third one is, now I turn to others,
because whenever my muscles begin to weaken and my shoulders begin to sag,
someone needs to come and become Aaron and Her.
And without that, it's very difficult.
Then a fourth way of really getting things going,
which we'll talk about a little later, is to go,
chava chava, meaning, not chava chava, okay.
I mean, Brielle, what's happening? What happened?
Let her sit here for a while. I think she'll be okay.
The pains of fatherhood, Derek.
Don't worry, Prashanth, it'll come your way.
He rebuked it in the name of Jesus.
Learn a trick or two from him, Derek.
Yeah, Dilna's laughing his head off saying...
Sorry, the fourth method is...
I just, that ABBA song is stuck in my head.
The fourth method is Romans 4.17.
But he was not discouraged, but he began to praise.
And we'll talk about it a little later.
I remember saying this a year ago.
D.L. Moody said it first.
And it says, the world has yet to see
what God can do
with a man fully consecrated to him.
The world has yet to see what God can do
with a man consecrated to him.
Or what if it is a church consecrated to him.
And so one of the things I want to do,
maybe in a week or ten days from now,
is we will get together corporately.
We will get together corporately
in a week or ten days from now.
We'll consecrate ourselves to prayer.
And since we started with the Hebrew word ruwah,
which meant the spirit,
we'll keep it Hebrew and we'll call it tefillah,
which means prayer.
And so the idea is, what would it look like
if we got together on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Thursday, like we did,
and we'll set the dates, we'll let you know.
But the church gathers corporately and says,
these are the things we pray for.
And it's very specific, and it's not coming together
and praying and doing the rounds.
But very clearly, these are the things we pray for.
And what does that look like then?
What does that look like then?
So that we learn how to pray and we also pray.
Prayer meetings are never supposed to be,
oh, let's all pray.
It's supposed to be places where we learn how to pray
and then we pray according to how we have learned.
It's very, if you go with what we have said,
that we need to know what God wants before we can pray.
We pray with the answer, not for the answer.
Then it's a very different type of praying.
When I was preparing these notes,
I was getting a little excited, partly because I think
the time is perfect.
I mean, there are different people in this church
who have desired this, but this is the right time for it.
And you'll thoroughly enjoy it, just like you enjoyed Ruwa.
And Derek and Dawn, just try to stay in town, yeah?
Consecrate ourselves for tomorrow.
That's in Joshua 3.5.
Consecrate ourselves for tomorrow.
Tomorrow what?
Joshua 3.5 says, tomorrow God will do signs or wonders.
What's our tomorrow?
Our tomorrow goes back to Hebrews 2.0
and the statement that we've been over many times,
and I'll go over again because it's important.
I am releasing a purifying fire from heaven
that burns up historical and religious junk.
And I will enter as the divine warrior.
Why am I writing this?
Because you need to understand what our tomorrow holds
and what we are consecrating ourselves in prayer for.
I will enter as the divine warrior,
as the divine warrior, setting young men and women free
from nations into the kingdom,
from nations into the kingdom, calling sons and daughters,
into a circle of abundance, dancing,
and joy before the lion and the lamb.
A torch bearing generation that will go forth
and not return empty.
That's our tomorrow.
That is what most of the prayer will be shaped around.
What's the anvil that we'll be shaping things around?
This.
Everything that we do will have something to do with this.
That's a huge task, a huge mandate.
You know, when David talks about,
I will follow your precepts, I will run in your precepts,
or when God says, I rejoice over you because you run in my precepts,
the word precept is actually appointed mandate,
appointed mandate.
When your boss, when your parent, when your employer,
when your king, when your leader,
when the president gives you an appointed mandate,
as in this is the mandate for such and such a time,
when you run in it, they are pleased.
And so this then is our precept or our appointed mandate
that makes him happy.
I'm sending a purifying fire from heaven
that burns up historical and religious junk.
I will enter as the divine warrior,
setting young men and women free from nations into the kingdom,
calling them sons and daughters and calling them into a circle
of abundance, dancing, and joy before the lion and the lamb,
a torch bearing generation that will go forth and not return empty.
So when we have such a huge mandate,
praying together is what will then triumph.
You know, don't take this as an invitation.
I'm not inviting you because I don't know
whether that's what God wants or not.
But this morning I was thinking that April 10th to 13th or 14th,
if God allows, wouldn't it be phenomenal if we join about 2,000
or 3,000 young people that are gathering close to the border of Bangladesh?
What if all the young people that we knew were able to come there?
For three, four days they gather there.
You'll catch something because they have caught this to an extent
where they do not stay home. They go.
They go to different nations.
They go to really difficult places where your preferences
and beliefs are tested.
You'll see if God allows us to make it an open invitation
or to just leave it as is.
But praying together allows us to triumph over powers of darkness.
That's one of the things it does.
It gives us spiritual strength to witness.
And it transmits the power of the Spirit in us.
These are three things that will happen when this church will pray together.
One, triumph over the powers of darkness.
Two, spiritual strength to witness.
Can I have a little more volume, guys?
Three, transmit the power of the Spirit.
These are three things that will happen.
When this happens, this precept or mandate will come to pass.
Two, in Jerusalem as in Vancouver and in other places that we may go to.
Guys, the eye or the hand can only do so much.
So I'm not saying you guys are not doing enough.
There are individuals here who have done phenomenal things on their own strength
with their own resources, laying down their sacrifices and making great progress.
But the eye or the hand can only do so much.
As it says in Isaiah 65, verse 8, the wine is found in the cluster, not in the grape.
The wine is found in the cluster, not in the grape.
You can't squeeze enough liquid out of a grape to sell a bottle of wine.
It's found in the cluster.
Any questions?
This is a problem that is old. It's not new.
One of the things Satan loves doing is he finds out the strengths of a church
so that he can find the one place that...
He did this with Samson. Go find his strength.
And then once we know his strength and where his strength comes from,
we can subdue it by cutting it off.
And so it's the same with most churches and with this church.
One of the ways to subdue the strength of this church, not as individuals but as a group,
is by cutting off the one thing that we now need to do.
So Jacob, why didn't you do it before?
It wasn't that we haven't done it before, but this seems to be a concerted direct attack
that we are supposed to launch.
We've had times of prayer in the past, but nothing like what I believe is coming.
This is the same problem that befell the disciples when the boy with the demon came
and Jesus said this kind only comes out by prayer.
It's not nine.
So, hey, the cool thing about stuff that we do when God asks us to do it
is that he just takes over.
We don't have to do much.
We just have to show.
So what will it look like?
What will it look like as Yellet, as in Isaiah 54, Isaiah 50, verse 4, which says,
He wakens my ear that I may have the tongue of the learned.
He wakens my ear so that I may have the tongue of the learned.
So when we do get together, it won't be haphazard random praying.
It will be specific prayer that we launch into after we've heard.
So that's one.
Two, we pray onwards, as in onwards or outwards.
If you read 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 1 and 2,
Paul is saying to the Thessalonians, hey guys, can you pray
so that the messengers are strengthened and rescued,
the messengers are rescued, and the message speeds swiftly forward.
That the message speeds swiftly forward and the messengers are rescued.
And so this idea of onwards or outwards.
There's nothing we need, guys.
Acts 29, between God and you, everybody has what they need.
Really, think of that for a second.
Between God and you, I have everything I need.
Does it make sense?
No way.
I mean, if I had a need, I would come to you.
If I had a need, I would go to God.
Between God and you, most things we need are met.
Do I need prayer? I can come to someone.
Do I need help? I can come to someone.
Do I need advice? I can come to someone.
Am I afraid I can come to someone?
No?
Hello, it is yes.
It is.
Did you feel very encouraged when you were standing here and speaking
with a loud response?
Next one, unceasing. Unceasing.
When we say unceasing prayer, it's from Acts 12 to Acts 12, 1-5.
And Isaiah 62, verse 6-8.
So unceasing means prayer that arises from the church that just prevails.
It gives God no rest. It gives God no rest.
This is such a cool verse. Isaiah 62, verse 6-8.
Isaiah 62, verse 6-8.
This kind of praying, when we do it together, it's pretty amazing.
Isaiah 62, 6-8.
On your walls of Jerusalem, I have said, Watchmen,
all the day and all the night they shall never be silent.
You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest.
Listen to the next line.
And give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.
The Lord has sworn by his right hand, by his mighty arm,
I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies,
and foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you have laboured.
Start with verse 8, the promise.
And then what does God say?
Hey, make sure Acts 29, when I've given you a promise,
you make sure that you give me no rest till I establish it.
He's blooming, inviting us to give him no rest till it's established.
Talk about perseverance.
Any questions?
I am sure that when we meet together, there'll be a greater response than this.
Right now it's just a...
Yeah, go ahead.
Do you distinguish between...
You know in the Bible it says don't repeat prayer.
Yeah.
Where do you distinguish that from?
Yeah.
Repeated prayer has two ingredients in it that God does not like.
One, a lack of trust.
Two, impatience and craving.
When repeated prayer doesn't have those two ingredients, it's godly.
One is a lack of trust where...
Because it's a lack of trust.
That's Hebrew for lack of trust.
And then the second part is craving.
Where it says that Israel craved exceedingly in the desert.
So God gave them what they desired, but it turned to sodast in their mouth.
And so that's what happens.
So they crave for meat.
Give us meat, give us meat, give us meat.
And then they started puking.
So those are the two things.
You remove those two things and repeated prayer becomes what Jesus spoke of when he said,
remember that widow who just kept knocking at the judge's door,
remember the friend who goes knocking on his friend's door for bread?
Yielded, onward, unceasing, smiting.
This will be new for many of us, but that's the only way to learn, right?
Where we inflict loss on the enemy.
One of the scriptures that we can just read for a second is Psalm 149,
verse 6-9, Psalm 149, 6-9, Psalm 149, 6-9.
May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands,
as in the word and praise, to inflict vengeance on the nations,
punishment upon peoples, to bind their kings with fetters,
their nobles with shackles of iron, to carry out the sentence written against them.
This is the glory of all his saints.
Praise the Lord.
What does it mean to smite the enemy?
Where it's intensive, unrelenting battle prayers that take territory.
What does it mean to hold up a staff in your hands with two people supporting you if necessary,
and the moment you hold your arms up, it inflicts loss upon the enemy.
What does it look like? What is it in real life?
Some of us have tasted it, some of us will be introduced to it.
This is not... yeah.
Next one, enlightened prayer.
Enlightened prayer where it's Ephesians 1.17-18,
and Paul is praying for the church and he says,
Hey church, I pray God that God opens your eyes,
and that wisdom hits you,
and that your minds and hearts are enlightened,
that God reveals to you the purpose of your calling Acts 29,
the understanding of Hebrews, Hebrews 2.2.
What does it look like?
Let him show you how much he loves you.
Let him show you the riches he has for you as you go about his business.
Let him show you this.
It's prayer that enlightens the heart.
It's like, remember when you would have a math problem and you would never know how to solve it,
then someone would show you why it is a problem and how it should be solved,
and how it should be solved at Eureka!
Chava Chava!
I hope your folks are not listening to this teaching, Chava.
And then the last one is fullness.
Fullness.
Fullness is when... in the Bible there's always this thing called in the fullness of time.
So it's prayers from this Greek word called kairos,
and it's a real Greek word, I'm not faking it.
There's this word called kairos which means fullness of time, in the fullness of time,
at the right moment.
Prayers from kairos, as in from God's desire that,
hey, now is the time when this has to happen.
It breaks into history.
And it just grows rapidly.
Like if you go to Hebrides 1.0, two ladies, Peggy, Peggy, Sue, and I forgot the other lady's name,
80 year olds, praying, praying, praying, praying, years and years of praying,
and then in the fullness of time, one day, out of the blue,
God decides, alrighty, I'm showing up and I'm putting on the rits.
And he turns up in this little village, there's a guy called Michael Campbell,
who's doing a big conference, and he's sitting at the conference,
and he knows in his heart, gotta leave this conference, you gotta go to Stornoway.
He goes to Stornoway, lands there, and people are praying.
And he goes into this room, and he also prays.
Nothing's happening. People are just praying.
Nothing is happening. And then one guy gets up.
And he gets up, and he begins to pray.
And he says, you're a covenant-keeping God. You said.
And he begins to pray. And he says, I don't know about the rest of the people here,
but you're a covenant-keeping God. You want clean hands, pure hearts.
Well, as far as I know, my hands are clean and my hearts are pure.
So God, are you gonna keep your covenant, or aren't you?
And boom!
It's crazy, man. I assure you, I will see those days.
It is not a statement of faith. It's a statement of fact.
I don't need faith for this. I know it's a fact.
Because I know the nature of God in some areas.
And what this church is meant to do, I know.
So that's not this week, but likely next week we'll start this process.
And so the best I could come up with was Yusuf.
But it may not be spelled right.
But I tried playing with it different ways, and was coming up with words that didn't mean anything.
This was the closest to a name, so if you want to hang on to Yusuf, you can.
But then we had Dwaag, and some other words too, so let's not confuse the whole thing.
So what do you do between now and when this starts?
Practice at home.
Doing what?
Devoting.
Or preserving.
Time.
For prayer.
How much? Be generous.
Persist.
And remain with it.
Every day.
See if you can do it.
You know the strange thing is other faiths do this, eh?
Right now there's this festival in India called Shivratri.
People persist. People are praying.
They got no problems dedicating time. It doesn't matter how busy they are.
Prime ministers, presidents, they all spend time doing this.
Other faiths do. Our faith has gotten so relational that we don't think we need time.
Try that with your wife. It doesn't work well.
Other faiths do. So practice at home, eh?
Devoting and preserving time.
Find a time that is more than you can handle and less than what is unreasonable.
More than you can handle, less than what is unreasonable.
Just for this week, just practice it.
How will it help you?
Prayer forges relationship with God.
Relationship fuels faith.
Faith finishes his will on earth.
It's very simple.
Prayer forges relationship.
Where just finding this time and spending it with him, where it becomes very easy to talk to him.
You're so confident of him.
You're so friends with him.
You're so reverent of him.
Yet there are those moments where you can go jumping into his lap and then bowing at his knee.
And so faith forges relationship.
Relationship fuels faith.
Faith finishes the will of God.
It's very simple, but it's constant.
It's constant.
Faith forges or fragrances relationship.
Sorry, prayer fragrances.
Prayer, if you were to look at it as conversations that are relational and intentional, then prayer forges relationships.
Relationship fuels faith.
Faith finishes his will on earth.
The other thing I want us to do this week is can you have two rooms in your heart?
And if you want to make it practical and have more than one room in your house,
then you have two rooms in your heart and in your physical home where first you begin.
The first room you enter, you join creation, the mountains, the seas, the trees, and you just engage in a time of worship.
Do that first.
And then after that, go into the other room, be it your heart or be it an actual room.
After that, go into the other room and there begin to pray.
You know, if you practice this and you get it into your heart, you'll find it very helpful
because usually when circumstances are threatening, when you have challenges in our life, when you have urgent needs in our life,
we go to prayer too soon.
Do not go to prayer that quickly.
If there's an urgent, difficult circumstance and challenge in your life, go to this other room first where you behold majesty.
As you behold majesty, you become what you need to be for the situation.
As you behold majesty, you begin to see who he wants to be in the situation.
Too often in a crisis, in circumstances that are difficult, in need, we go to prayer too soon.
And then there's this desperate help me prayer which has very little faith, very little trust, is hoping.
It's like throwing coins into a well.
It's wishful prayer, not hope-filled prayer.
Hope-filled prayer comes because I have just seen him.
I mean,
Sing that 18 times and then go to your next room.
You will finish in prayer in 1.8 minutes.
What would have taken you? 180 minutes.
Why? Because you have just found him.
You have just recognized who he is.
You recognize who he is going to be in the situation.
You recognize how he thinks of you in the situation.
When you move from this room to that room, you are now spending less time in prayer and more time beholding him.
Whatever you behold that you become, either for your ruin or for your restoration.
Any questions?
They all did this in Joshua 5.13, Matthew 17.1, Acts 18.9, Acts 27.23.
When you realize the majesty of God, then prayer becomes easy.
Why do we worship before we do things?
Same reason.
Realize the majesty of God.
We sang, I mean we have never done this before.
People taking flags. Why? Because the king was here.
The bridegroom was here. The bride is responding.
The king was here and the people are responding and they are waving flags.
And yet you knew as you did that, that something was transpiring and majesty was here.
Some of us shouted, some of us wept, some of us waved flags.
But you knew.
At that moment you can face things that you would not be able to face when you walked in cold.
What if this becomes a practice every day?
I'm done. Any questions?
Cool. I'm going to ask Don and Dilna and Evan and Nii to come up and close us in prayer.
What? All guys? Yep.
So what are they praying? They're praying that, oh God, the time is now.
Oh God, we are ready. Oh God, we consecrate ourselves.
To consecrate is to set yourself apart as sacred and devote yourself to someone who is in great respect.
So let these men pray and then we'll stop. Yeah?
We just want to align our hearts with what you've called us to do.
Thank you so much that you're drawing us into, for many of us it's new, it's unseen, it's exciting.
It's something that we have desired for a long time.
It's deep in our spirits and we want it to manifest.
And you see it. You're calling us out into it.
You're readying us for it.
Many of us, individually in our quiet times with you, you're already readying us for it.
And you're calling us to go deeper, to do it as a body, to step out into something new, something fresh.
For many of us, it will spark something, it will start something that we've been wanting to see.
We've been desiring to come out in our lives, but we don't know how. We don't know how to do it.
So thank you for this time.
Father, we thank you for this opportunity.
I remember once Jacob said, you're setting us up.
You're setting us up, Father, to witness what you're planning to do in this place.
So Father, we lay our hearts down and we say, we surrender completely, Father.
Give us everything we need.
Father, we are so helpless in this, but at the same time we don't need faith to see what you're planning to do.
We know it is happening. We know it is coming.
It is ours to experience. It is ours to lead.
So Father, we, with a heart of when, Father, when, when, Father, when can we step right into it?
When, Father, when are you sending your chariots of heaven down to earth?
When, Father, are you setting the hearts in fire?
When are you, Father, breaking chains and leading these young men and women into this church, Father?
When, Father, so that we can just walk right into it, Father?
Till that day, Father, we want to hold our hands up in the high and just praise you with expectation that you are doing something and we will witness it.
So we bless you, Father, and help us, Father, to have our hearts strong in you.
Strong in you, Father. May it not waver. May it not doubt for a second, Father. May it not doubt like Peter.
Father, we are on the water. Now there is no doubting.
In your precious name, Jesus. Amen.
Abba Father, thank you. Thank you for this, Lord. Thank you that you want, you are calling us deeper, Lord.
As deep calls to deep, Lord. Lord, as reminds me of that song, Oceans, Lord.
You call me out upon the waters, the great unknown, Lord. But you are here with us, Lord. You are here.
So we just put our trust in you, Lord. Lord, we just love that song, Waymaker, Lord.
Lord, we just say who you are this week. Say who you are, your nature, Lord.
You are Abba Father. You are our friend. You are our healer. You are the promise keeper.
You are the covenant keeper. And we bow down to you because you are majesty, Father. You are majesty, Father.
So we declare this, Lord, this week, Lord. Let us create space for you, Lord.
Let us create space for you, Lord. Let us create the space for you to just, for us to acknowledge who you are, Father.
And then call upon your name and see you clearly, Lord. We ask that we see you clearly. We ask for more, Lord.
We want more. We want more. We want more. And that is our prayer. We say, Abba, we want more.
So thank you, Abba, for this and take us deeper. In Jesus' name. Amen.
In the name of Jesus. Father, we thank you for what you are doing in our life in this season, O God.
We thank you, Father, because we know that you are the potter and we are the clay.
Lord, we are saying that I should begin to break us and mold us again this season for what you are about to do.
Lord, we relieve ourselves to you and we offer ourselves to you to make us into what you want us to be for the season.
We are your workmanship. Lord, we say that this season, every part that needs to be broken, O God, we are saying that we are open to being broken and being molded back together again.
Father, we thank you. We thank you because we know that in this season, your word says that they will hold forth to the scad of he that is a Jew and say, take us up to the mountains of your God.
That word is being fulfilled in our lives in the name of Jesus. Your word says that when they saw them, they knew they had been with Jesus.
Father, we know that that testimony will go with us even after this season in the name of Jesus.
Lord, every feeble knee amongst us shall be strengthened in the name of Jesus. There shall be no one feeble amongst us in the name of Jesus.
Father, we thank you. We thank you because we know you are doing exceedingly abundantly above all that we can never ask or think.
Lord, we thank you. We thank you. Your word says as you are so we are.
Father, we thank you. Your word says as you are so we are.
Men will see us and see solutions in the name of Jesus. After this season will become problem solvers.
In the name of Jesus, men will see us and have hope in the name of Jesus.
Father, we thank you. Lord, we are open. We are asking that you break and you mold us into whatever form you want.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Father, we give you praise. For in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.