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Why Prayer Fuels the Church
00:05:57
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| Pastor Rick, and if you would explain why a consistent prayer life is a key fuel to ignite the church and sustain its fire for God in these last days. | |
| Well, you know, one of the ways you know that your fires begin to go out is when you stop to pray. | |
| And it's something that, you know, if you don't pay attention, you kind of miss it. | |
| For example, When people are first filled with the Holy Spirit, they pray in the Spirit all the time. | |
| In fact, you can hardly stop them from praying in the Spirit. | |
| They're like a machine, just praying in the Spirit, praying in tongues. | |
| But isn't it amazing that as Christians kind of become more sophisticated, they kind of begin to drop that. | |
| And they don't even pray in the Spirit until they're at church or they're with other believers, or maybe if they're in an urgent moment. | |
| That is a real indicator that fire is in trouble. | |
| It really is. | |
| And I want to read you a quote from this book, page 62, an amazing quote of Leonard Ravenhill. | |
| Listen to this, Lori. | |
| Leonard Ravenhill said, no man is greater than his prayer life. | |
| I could stop right there. | |
| No man is greater than his prayer life. | |
| The pastor who is not praying is playing. | |
| I know a lot of pastors that are playing. | |
| The people who are not praying are straying. | |
| Is that convicting? | |
| We have many organizers, but few agonizers. | |
| Many players, but few payers. | |
| Few prayers, many singers, few clingers. | |
| Lots of pastors, few wrestlers, many fears, few tears, much fashion, little passion, many interferers, few intercessors, many writers, but few fighters. | |
| Failing here in prayer, we fail everywhere. | |
| That is amazing to me. | |
| And listen to this one. | |
| This one is also powerful. | |
| When we depend upon organizations, we get what organizations can do. | |
| When we depend upon education, we get what education can do. | |
| When we depend upon man, we get what man can do. | |
| But when we depend upon prayer, we get what God can do. | |
| And you know, Lori, in Jeremiah 33, 3, I know you know that verse. | |
| What does God say? | |
| Call unto me, and I will answer you. | |
| And I will show you great and mighty things that thou knowest not. | |
| And unfortunately, and yesterday, Maricella was talking about this. | |
| We do so many things. | |
| We have technology, we have microphones, we have the internet, we have so many things. | |
| But the one thing we don't have is what God can do. | |
| We have to call upon God. | |
| And Jeremiah 33, 3 guarantees, it is God's absolute guarantee. | |
| Call upon me, number one, and I will answer you, and I will show you great and mighty things that thou knowest not. | |
| Well, when you come to the book of Acts, you know, the people in the book of Acts did not have a lot of Bible education, but boy, they knew how to pray. | |
| In fact, the book of Acts begins with a prayer meeting. | |
| They called upon God, and God answered them and showed them the most amazing things. | |
| And it's just the fact that when you fervently pray, God moves. | |
| He moves. | |
| Now, I think the reason people don't pray, one reason, is because they're afraid that it means they have to pray for an hour or two hours every day. | |
| Don't do that. | |
| Just start somewhere. | |
| Just start somewhere. | |
| Carve out two minutes, three minutes, five minutes. | |
| When Denise and I go to bed every night, we join hands every single night and we just pray together. | |
| When we wake up in the morning, we do not lift our head off the pillow until we start our day in prayer because we are intentionally putting fuel into our flame. | |
| And I just want to tell you one more thing: in Psalm chapter 5, verse 3, King David said this amazing thing, Lord, this will help you. | |
| It'll help all of us. | |
| He said, In the morning, Lord, you'll hear my voice. | |
| In the morning, I will look up. | |
| Well, you know, if you read the book of Psalms, David was a man who really struggled with his emotions. | |
| He did. | |
| He had enemies in one of his marriages. | |
| He had enemies with his kids. | |
| He had enemies with his neighbors. | |
| I mean, David's life was just surrounded with emotion. | |
| And David knew that if he did not intentionally look up the very first thing every morning, that's why he said, I'm going to look up in the morning, then it would only take seconds before he started looking down. | |
| And I learned many, many years ago at a very difficult moment in my life. | |
| I had to be very intentional that the first thing I was going to do every single day was put the fuel of prayer into my heart and look up. | |
| Because if you don't look up, you're going to look down. | |
| You're going to get a text message, or you're going to get a beep on your phone, or your spouse is going to give you a look that you don't understand, or you're just going to wake up in a strange mood, and immediately things begin spiraling out of control. | |
| But here's the deal: putting fuel in your heart, all 10 of these fuels are so simple. | |
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God Will Answer
00:00:42
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| It is not rocket science. | |
| Anybody can do these things. | |
| But it's the simple things that really keep you ablaze. | |
| They just keep you ablaze. | |
| And prayer is one of those fuels. | |
| And if you look at the early church, what did they do? | |
| Jeremiah 33, 3. | |
| They called unto God. | |
| They called. | |
| That's the first thing you got to do. | |
| God says, if you'll just do that, I'll do the rest. | |
| I'll answer you. | |
| And I'll show you great and mighty things beyond your wildest imagination. | |