Morning Prayer Summary for Friday, August 30, 2019

Dave shared…

I’m reminded of a scripture where the disciples approached Jesus and communicated with Him about Lazarus, His friend. Jesus said to His disciples He was about His Father’s work and He was doing the will of the Father, preaching and healing. They kept bothering Him. He kept pushing them off. They told Him, “We have to go back because your friend Lazarus is ill and we need to take care of that.” Well, Lazarus, we know was ill to the point of death. So he was gravely ill. That gives you a measure of how important the matter was. Yet, Jesus said, “Yes, I got it.” And He kept doing what He was doing. They came again and kept badgering him about it. Finally, He told them, “I get it.” The point with that example is that it seemed like Jesus didn’t care about Lazarus’ situation. But nothing could be further from the truth.

The scripture says Jesus said “I do nothing unless I see My Father do it. My life is not my own. My meat is to do the will of the Father.” He lived to do the will of the Father. That’s what He was saying.

Why this is important is because when you live to do the will of the Father, if we’re in that place when we have circumstances of life, we don’t freak out. Because the Holy Spirit never freaks out. I’ve never had a situation in my life where I’ve had a situation happen that was pretty serious where the Holy Spirit was freaking out about it. Never had that happen. I’ve had some traumatic situations happen in my life. I’ve had some near death situations.

Couple years ago, I had an accident. It was a near-death situation. And when I had the accident, I remember the peace of God was all over me. Even though the potential for death was there and I knew in my heart that if I didn’t get help right away, that I would die. Yet, there was peace in my heart. I had an accident a few years ago. I’m not prone to accidents, by the way.  I got hit pretty badly. I remember when I got hit, the first thing that came out of my spirit was not for me. I started praying for my wife. I was praying for my wife and I’m the one that’s injured! You’d think I would have been, “Lord, help me!” It wasn’t that way at all. I had complete peace. And that peace led me to pray for her. I prayed for her in tongues and then in English. After 3 to 4 minutes, I looked up—there she was! Less than 20 feet away. How was that possible? Her testimony is that the Lord led her to go this way to work. She got in the car and the Lord said “You need to go this way.” And she went that way. The point being is that there was peace in that situation. But it was orchestrated, just like your life is orchestrated.

We tend to think our lives are random. They’re not. If God could make a different fingerprint for every individual… Looking at the stars, the billions, the Bible says He knows each by name. What is His capacity? Your little life is not that big of deal. He can handle that. Not only can He handle that but He could plan it out. The Bible says while you were in your mother’s womb, He had it planned before you were even born. So if He planned that every day and you know that He planned it and you meditate on that, what do you have to worry about? To worry is to suggest that He took the day off today. To worry is to suggest that He is not capable of handling your life.

So Jesus is talking to the disciples and they’re the ones freaking out. Not Him. They’re the ones that noticed the fig tree withered. It wasn’t Him. He didn’t show up the next day after He cursed the fig tree. He didn’t come the next day and say, “Look, guys, it worked.” He wasn’t surprised. Why? He was just doing what the Father told Him to do. He knew that if He did what the Father said to do, everything was going to be just fine.

So this week, the Lord spoke something to my heart about life. Depending on what you do in your life, you have different responsibilities. Some people have a lot of responsibility. Like Pastor Mac has a lot of stuff going on. But in any case, we all have things. The Lord spoke to me and said, “As a believer, you should be enjoying life. You should not be focused on your things. You should be focused on My things. If you’re not enjoying life, then what’s the point?” Are you put here to just endure life? Endure disaster after disaster, accidents, problems, difficulty… all of these things? I hear people say all the time, “Life is hell.” Not necessarily from Christians. But people in the real world say how life is not a good thing. But that’s not the way it should be.

The Bible says He gave us life more abundantly. Does that sound like the life that the world talks about? Yeah, I get why the world says it’s hell because it is for them. Because they have uncertainty. They don’t know. Everything is a crap shoot for them. Everything is unorganized and disordered and you never know what’s going to happen. You never know when your life is going to be taken. You never know when the circumstance… then you have the person during flu season, “If the flu season is coming, I know I’m going to get it so I’m going to get a shot.” They automatically turn to the idea that they’re part of that process of the negative, of the bad thing. But what if your mind was trained in such a way that you didn’t think about the negative happening, but you thought about the positive happening to you? What would that look like? You would say things like, “They got this shopping thing over at Cub and they give out a $500 shopping spree every day to one customer. And it’s random.” Would you think, I could be that customer. Or are you thinking, “look how many people go there. Probably 500 people an hour. That’s how many hours in a day. Okay, that’s impossible. I’m not going to waste my time.” Or are you going to wrap your mind around the possibility that God cares enough about you that if that’s important to you, then He could cause it to be. Wouldn’t that be a better deal? That’s the way we need to think in life. The Lord was showing me, “You’re busy and I get it.” He’s telling me I’m busy. “But that’s not as important as the things I tell you are important.” I have stuff to do. I have a business and I’ve got my family and I’ve got a lot of responsibility. People under me need me. All kinds of situations. And they come to me. It’s like “Papa Dave, I need this, I need that…” Would it be good for me to not have everybody coming to me all the time? And me not meeting everybody’s need? That would be a thought that I would have. Would it be good that we have employees that don’t complain and are happy in their job? Yeah! I go on down the line and I start thinking about all these possibilities. I know why the Holy Spirit is speaking to me about this. He says “Your mind is taking you places where you can’t receive, where your faith can’t engage. You live in a world where… if that’s going to happen, it’ll happen to me.” That negative thing. And that’s not okay. Because the Lord said this to me a few years ago. He said this about faith. I was praying one day and I asked Him, “Lord, You’ve been so good to me. I thank You for all the wonderful blessings You’re doing for me. I want to do something for You. I want to tell You I love You and how much I appreciate all the effort You put into me.” The Lord responded and I was a little surprised by it but it made sense to me. He said, “The greatest thing you could give Me is to honor Me with your faith. Every time you honor me with your faith, that makes Me feel better.” He has emotions. He feels. He hurts. The Bible tells us that. He said that to say this, that when you have trust in Him, He’s able to meet your need. And as a father, when your kids are taken care of and their needs are met, there’s nothing more satisfying than that. Parents always want their kids to do better than themselves. They want them to succeed, to enjoy their relationship with God, and move on higher than they did. The greatest joy I take in life is to see my kids saved and walking with the Lord and prosperous and doing well and raising their children in the admonition of the Lord. I’d rather have that than anything in the world. Right?

Well, now, the Bible says that you, parents, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does your Father in heaven desire to give you? So the Bible is exhorting us to say this is the thing that is most important is you honoring Him with your faith. Because by honoring Him with your faith, you’re saying, “Dad, I trust you. You can tell me anything and I will do it because I trust you. I trust that You’re looking out for my better welfare. I trust that everything you have for me in my life is going to be okay if You say it’s okay. Just give me the word.”

That’s why Jesus was so excited when He heard the Roman centurion tell Him, “You don’t have to come to my house. You can just tell me that it’s going to be okay and that’s all I need.”  Jesus made a big deal about it. “I haven’t seen such great faith in all of Israel.” He made such a big deal out of it because it was the most important thing. Because that’s what was important to Him and His Father. He knew what pleased the Father. That’s why He said I do nothing. It’s not my will. When He’s praying in the garden to the point of death, He’s saying not my will but thine will be done. Nevertheless thy will be done.” That’s what He said. He had feelings. He was struggling. Emotionally. He was told things by the Father to do that in His mind was hard to deal with. Does that sound like you? In times of trial, sometimes the Holy Spirit will say “Stop worrying.” Sometimes that’s not easy to do. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will say “You need to go to bed because you being up is worse than you being asleep. Cuz you’re just in the way.” Or sometimes the Holy Spirit will say, “You need to go shopping.” I’ve had the Lord tell me that during the worst financial condition I had, with mounting bills. The Lord told me to take my wife shopping. For a guy, that’s a big deal. That’s one of those, “Can I go to bed, instead?” Cuz I’m going to have to endure that spending process. That nonsensical extra pair of shoes or that purse or that whatever it is that she wants that I think is just a waste. Why do you have to buy a 500 or a 1,000 dollar purse? Why can’t you buy the one over here that’s 12 dollars? Don’t you know? Look at the bills. Yeah, He told me that. If the Holy Spirit is telling you to do that, you want to say, “Devil, get behind me.” But there’s a reason why God tells you to take steps of faith like that. I’m not saying God’s going to do that particular thing every single time. But He might tell you to do something like give money to missions or help somebody other than yourself. He might tell you to do things like that. And the reason He tells you that is for you. Not for Him. It’s not even as important, the person you’re giving it to as for you. When He’s telling you to give or do something, it’s for you. It’s not for anybody other than you. Yes, others will be blessed by that process and He’s got that going on, but the number-one thing He’s thinking about when He tells you to obey Him in a certain way is you. “If you just trust Me with this, I can get it to you.” Just drop this work situation and go on vacation. Yeah, but if I don’t do this and I don’t have this by Monday, the whole world is going to fall apart. Okay, you’re going to listen to Me and go on vacation or are you going to stay here and worry in your own strength and fail? Which one do you want to do? You don’t have enough to take care of you. That’s the way it is. You don’t have within your ability to create miracles. You do not have the ability to solve your own problems. Now you can do things that make you feel in my mind feel a certain way. But they’re not going to give you peace like the peace of God that transcends understanding. Because that peace is the peace that leads you to the other side. It’s that peace that in the midst of trial and tribulation, in the midst of the point of death that gives you the ability to stand and trust God and speak to the mountain and deny it to exist. It’s that peace that allows you to do that. And within you, you don’t have the ability to do that. I don’t care who you are in this life. Everybody has their breaking point. And guess what? I don’t want to get to my breaking point. I’m really not interested in even going close to my breaking point. All I want to know is “Lord, tell me what to do” and we’ll just do that and not think about the other.

What does this have to do with prayer? I’ll tell you. So many times in life we spend so much effort praying about things when all our praying is worthless. “Dave, that seems weird…” No! Sometimes our prayers can be worse than praying. It would be better if you went to bed. Because our prayers are motivated by what we think and motivated by what we see and motivated by the natural circumstances and all you’re doing is having a form of religion and working yourself into a tight spot where you have no ability and God’s not going to get involved in that. Because He’s not going to do anything to help hurt you. It’s like a drug addict who has to have a fix. Well, I tell you what, if you give me a little bit of drugs then I’ll be okay. No. If I’m a father I’m not going to give my kids drugs. Because I know the end will lead to destruction. But what I might offer him is, Listen I can’t give you drugs but I can give you … and then offer him the solution. But in order for me to do that in order for you to receive from me as your father, you’re going to have to lay down the idea of drugs. And you’re going to have to take up the idea that I give you and trust me that what I tell you is the right way. Remember, we’re the ones that got us in the mess, right? And He’s trying to get us away from that thinking and get us into a place where now we’re praying, “Lord, not my will but thine will be done. Concerning this situation, I bring it up to you. I know this about Your Word. I know that You desire for me to live in peace and be prosperous and have good success, I know that it’s Your plan that I be this…” You can pray the scripture, right? And you can even ask if you don’t understand. And that’s okay. But whatever you ask, be prepared to hear whatever He tells you and be okay with that. That’s the challenge we have in prayer sometimes. We ask and then we have this idea of the way it should be solved or dealt with. And anything we hear beyond that, we don’t listen to. I’ll give you an example of that.

Several years ago, I had a financial situation where I didn’t have the money to buy a certain thing but the Lord asked me to buy. And it was expensive. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. I didn’t have that. I kept praying, “Lord, You asked me to do this and I need it but I need the money to buy it. So You’re going to have to give me the money.” The Lord said, “You don’t need the money. You need the equipment.” That made no sense to me because I live in a world where you need money to get the equipment. I prayed, “Lord, I know You said that but this guy is calling me and he needs the money. What do I do about him?” He said, “You don’t need the money, you need the equipment.” He was trying to get me off the idea that I needed to collect all this money to solve this problem. That’s where my mind was. What He ultimately showed me was through the experience… by the way I did get the equipment and He paid for it completely. So the guy called me up and said, we’re going to discount the equipment. We have a sale and we’re going to discount it from 125 down to 80 thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money. I said, that’s a good deal, but that’s 80 thousand I don’t have. It didn’t matter if it was 125 or 80, still money I didn’t have. I prayed, “He discounted it and we’re getting closer. If we can get him to zero, then we’re there.” Well, He said the same thing to me. In my mind I’m thinking. You keep saying that but it doesn’t make any sense to me. The guy called me a few weeks later and says, “We’ve got this financing thing. We’re going to send the equipment. You don’t have to pay for it for 90 days.” I said, “Okay.” I’m thinking, but in 90 days I got to come up with 80 thousand dollars. Then I remembered what the Lord told me and I just said, “Okay, send the equipment.” Cuz He said I didn’t need the money. I needed the equipment. And this qualifies in that circumstance. He sent me the equipment. Now I’m on the hook for 80 thousand dollars. So in my mind, “Okay, You told me to do it so I’m going to do it and You’re going to have to figure out the 80 thousand dollars.” In the 90 days, we had it completely paid for. We had people giving us money for that piece of equipment. I had a company that we were doing business with and they bought all this business up front at the beginning of the year. They called me and said, “We’re deciding we’re not going to do that project anymore so we’re canceling it.” I said, “What! You can’t do that.” I said, “I’m already planning on having that…” They said, “Oh don’t misunderstand. You don’t have to do the work but we’re still going to pay you.” Yeah! That happened! Wouldn’t you like that to happen to you.

I had that happen to me just the other day. You heard that hail storm that came through? I’m working on my house. We’re getting ready to sell it. I said I need a new roof. But I don’t want to spend the money to do it. It’s not that I don’t have the money. I didn’t want to spend it because I’d rather put that on my new house. Guess what I got? That can happen to you. How do I get these things to happen in my life. It has to do with living like Jesus did and saying, I’m going to cast that. That’s Your deal, not mine. I’m going shopping. Let me know when You got that figured out, Lord. When I took that step of faith by accepting that piece of equipment, that is what I was telling the Lord with my faith. I was saying, “You got 90 days. That’s your deal, not mine.” Guess what? He was faithful. And it doesn’t matter if it’s 90 or a million.

If you notice what Pastor Mac had done recently, he put himself in that same situation. That’s why I’m excited about it. Because guess what’s happening? And guess what is coming? When you put yourself in that situation, get ready because God’s getting ready to take over your life and start doing things in your life that you couldn’t do for yourself no matter what you did or how hard you tried. You don’t have what it takes but He does. And if it’s that healing touch, that miracle you need for your children, or if it’s thing… whatever that circumstance is, give Him a shot. Let Him prove to you that He is faithful and able to meet your need individually because He loves you. Give Him the opportunity to show you.

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