| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Focus On Worship
00:04:04
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| And you said the role of confession of sin needs to be very, very important in your prayer role or prayer time. | |
| Could you explain that to us? | |
| Yes, you know, Jim, I think it's interesting that that seems to be the one element that's left out of a lot of prayers. | |
| And I know for myself, I've been so superficial at times that I don't see my own sin. | |
| For instance, you know, we live in the southeast and we have these little gnats that are called no seeums and they'll bite the fire out of you, but you don't see them, you know. | |
| And sin in my life, I call it a no-seum, that I don't know that it's there until it bites the fire out of me. | |
| And so we need to spend time. | |
| I begin my prayers in worship so that I just focus on who God is and his greatness, his glory, his goodness, his faithfulness. | |
| And then after I focus in on who he is, and that puts everything else in proper perspective, you know, my life sort of falls into place. | |
| But then I move from worship into confession because in the light of who he is, I see myself. | |
| And the light of his glory and the light of his word can go into those deep recesses of my heart where I tend not to look and bring sin to my mind that I need to confess. | |
| And it doesn't have to be big sin like lying or stealing or adultery, but just not being kind to a child or being rude and impatient with the staff person or, you know, sin. | |
| And I'm forgiven because when I went as a little girl, when I received Christ as my Savior, he forgave me of all of my sin, past, present, future. | |
| But I come back to him in confession that I would be cleansed, that my relationship with him would be unhindered, that he could fill me with the Spirit. | |
| So, you know, the Bible says that if we regard sin in our hearts, then God won't hear our prayers. | |
| So we need to have clean hearts. | |
| We need to be right with him on the inside. | |
| So the confession is very important. | |
| And then from confession, I move into thanksgiving. | |
| And that's easy because I'm just thanking God that he's heard my confession, that the Bible promises that when I confess my sin, he's faithful and just and not only have forgiven me, but to cleanse me of all unrighteousness. | |
| And then at that point, I want to thank him for the answers to prayer, the things he's done for me. | |
| And I know we've talked in the past, I've been on something of a cancer journey. | |
| And that was after my husband went to heaven, my father went to heaven, and then I've battled cancer. | |
| And I ask God, give me eyes for your blessings. | |
| I don't want to focus on my pain, my loneliness, my grief. | |
| I want to focus on you and the blessings. | |
| And he has done that for me so that every day I'm so aware of the blessings and the goodness of God. | |
| I've never lost my joy. | |
| And there have been tears. | |
| I mean, you know, there have been grief, but joy is deeper than that. | |
| And I've never lost my joy. | |
| I've never lost my peace. | |
| And so I want to spend time, I want to cultivate just what I would call an attitude of gratitude. | |
| And then from that point, after worship, thanksgiving, confession, excuse me, worship, confession, then thanksgiving, I want to move into intercession and pray for those that either God brings to my mind or pray for those I have on a list. | |
| I pray for people who lost their spouses about the time that I did or others who are going through cancer. | |
| Or, you know, certainly our president right now and his wife with COVID and other leaders, our state senator has had COVID. | |
| And there are other people and this whole election just praying God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | |
| And so after having spent time in worship and confession and thanksgiving, then I believe my heart is prepared to intercede. | |
|
Finding a Prayer Pattern
00:00:40
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| And it doesn't mean that during the day you can't cry out to God and ask for his help in something, or you hear about a friend and you pray right there for that friend. | |
| I'm not negating that. | |
| I'm just saying that set-aside time, when you spend time in serious, what I call the Daniel prayer kind of prayer, then you have a pattern like that. | |
| It's not a formula. | |
| You don't have to be rigid about it. | |
| I don't pray in that pattern every time I pray, but to have those four elements helps give my prayer some structure to make sure that it's meaningful. | |
| And you'll find that pattern in prayers in scripture. | |