Morning Prayer Summary for Friday, October 19, 2018

Dave shared…

As you get older, you learn more about yourself. The more you learn about yourself, the more you recognize the need for Christ. When you’re young and foolish, we tend to think we know everything. We think we have it all figured out. Smarter than everybody else. You got the world by the tail and your parents can tell you anything. What do they know? I remember thinking my parents weren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree. Now I look back and think “how far off can you get?” I have kids now. They’re respectful but they also think that way. You try to help them not make the mistakes you made. “You got to understand this is very, very…” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. Let’s move on.” It’s like an apprentice working with a young person, teaching them. If you’re a doctor, you’re teaching a young person something. Or if you’re lawyer or mechanic, whatever it is you do. You’re trying to teach a younger person something, it seems like the younger they are, the harder it is for them to learn something from you. Especially if you know you’ve done this a 1000 times, you know, you never do B before A.

I remember working on my car at age 18. I had a pickup. I was driving down the road and it stopped running. It stopped working but after I waited a short period time, it would start up again. But just for a little while. The next day, I said I was going to fix it. My dad was mechanically inclined. It would have been smart for me to listen to him growing up. But if you know everything, what’s he going to teach me? I bought a bunch of parts and tore into it. I did all kinds of things like rebuild the carburetor. Literally worked on it for 6 to 8 hours. I thought for sure it’s going to work. Everything that it could possibly be, I fixed. I pulled the part out and put a new one in or fixed or did whatever. I addressed every issue. With confidence, I turned the key and it started up. But then it died. I checked every single thing, you know, because I know everything. I’m frustrated after a day’s worth of work. What am I going to do? I’m leaning over the car looking at the engine. I didn’t even think about asking God about it. It didn’t even come to my mind. I don’t need Him for that. What does God know about mechanics? I’m leaning over the car and looking at the engine. I see this little box and it’s the fuse box. You can see there is one fuse that is burned out. One. I said, “No way. No Way! It can’t be that. That’s too simple. Too easy.” That would have taken me 10 seconds to replace. I spent the whole day working, striving, struggling. I pulled the cap off and put the extra fuse in. Turned the car on, boom, no problem. It worked fine after that. There was nothing wrong with the car.

How dumb can you be?

Yet, I knew everything. I can’t possibly be wrong. That’s really the story of life. Isn’t it? Us in our way and God in His way. At a young age, had I just sought the Lord about the problem, He probably would have allowed me to fix it quickly. I would have been out enjoying the day. But, no, I didn’t pray because I knew everything.

I was listening to Creflo Dollar yesterday. He was talking about this. I have children and I know exactly what that is about. I not only know it by experience but what it was like when I was younger. But as we get older, we get humbled because we’ve had many failures and mistakes. When I was fixing the truck I had a book. And I read exactly how to fix the problem. That wasn’t enough. God can save you heartache and difficulties, guilt shame, all the things that destroy your life and bring you low that caused you pain. He can solve it all. It has nothing to do with hours and hours of this or that. It has nothing to do with hours and hours of praying, either. I’m not here to say prayer is not good because I believe in prayer. I’m a prayer person. I pray all the time. I’m just saying we tend to patch the holes in our lives with what we think in our brains what we should do. When really it comes down to whatever the Holy Spirit tells us to do, that’s what we do.

And we have failure after failure and not necessarily things that end our lives but things like getting frustrated with something and you’re believing for something and our faith does not get fulfilled. A lot of it has to do with getting out of the way and letting the Lord work. Our biggest issue is not getting out of the way. That’s the number one issue we face as believers. We don’t know how to get out of the way. The quicker you learn how to get out of the way, the better your life is going to be. Simple but true.

I was sharing with somebody about this about prayer, going to school, getting educated, spent days and hours and years of schooling and all the things you learn about any particular subject that I was interested in. I’ve a hunger for learning. Whatever it is, if it meant school or picking up a book… and I’m still that way today. If you tell me something that’s interesting, I’ll go home and study about it. I’m naturally inquisitive. The more information you learn, the better equipped you are. Those are good things but those aren’t the things that save us or deliver us, or heal us and set us free. It doesn’t move you into the things of God. All your knowledge of the Bible will not save you. If you said to yourself every day, “I’m going to read for two hours a day,” that will not deliver you.

“Wait a minute, Dave. The Word works.”

Yes it does. But the Word works as the Holy Spirit leads and empowers it to work. The Word by itself apart from the Holy Spirit will not affect anything in your life. It’s the Holy Spirit breathed Word that changes your life. It’s a revelation from the Spirit of God on the Word that you read that will change your life. And it could be the Word of God and you might not even know about it. It could be something simple that the Holy Spirit says to you and that is the Word of the Lord for you. It will line up with the scripture. But that will change your life. Something simple like “Stop drinking coffee.” If you’re twitching and the Lord will tell you to back off from drinking so much coffee. That’s a word from the Lord. Or the fuse. Change the fuse.

I think about this and you have to be careful because once you learn this information, it will help you tremendously but you can’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Because I’m not saying the Word does not work, because it does. And it does make a difference. It’s absolutely important. But not as a replacement. And your prayer life as well. Sometimes you just need to go to bed and stop thinking.

I wanted to bring that out because I want help and I want my faith to work, I want my connection with God to work. I want when I pray that which I pray for, I want it to be. I don’t want to waste my time. If you’re praying for things and you’re not seeing results, that’s not good. Results are good. When the Lord speaks to us and says, “I want you to believe for this for the finances, for this thing I want you to do. Trust Me for that money.” He tells you “I want you to go on a missions trip” or something. He says, “I want you to trust me. I’m leading you to do this but I want you to trust me because in your mind you think you can’t afford it. But I’m not going to talk to you about the money. I’m going to talk to you about the trip. And I want you to trust Me that I’ll take care of the finances for that. So don’t think about the money. Just think about Me and what I’m telling you to do.”

“Yeah, but I can’t go if I don’t have the money.”

“What did I just tell you? I’m telling you what to do. I’ll deal with the other part. Just trust me.”

“Okay, Lord. I’m here but they want the money. What do I tell them?” In your mind, you can’t get past this certain point. So you won’t talk to God at the level He wants to talk to you because your mind won’t let you get to that place. And the key in that communication to you is to get past your limitation and start focusing on getting ready spiritually, what the Lord’s praying about those you’re going to go minister to, praying about that situation. When you start praying past that point, that’s faith. By doing that thing that the Lord is leading you and not focusing on the thing that you don’t have, by putting your hand to the things He’s telling you to do by praying, you are walking by faith. The thing that will limit you is when you start focusing on the thing He told you not to focus on and that will keep what you need for that trip from coming to you.

So you are involved because you’re doing what He led you to do. And if he’s telling you, you need to pray about the people you’re going to go minister to, focus on what you’re going to share, all these things. “Yeah, but the money, Lord.” That is the thing that will stop you from getting to the place God wants you to go.

That’s like me telling my kid, “Go to the grocery store and pick up milk and eggs.” Then he says, “I need money.” If I’m asking him to get milk and eggs, it’s my responsibility to give him money to get it. By him keep saying to me, “I need money.” I know you need money. I’m asking you to go do this. It’s you focus on what He’s asked you to do and He’ll focus on what He’s supposed to do.

The Bible says without faith it is impossible to please God. So a God of faith would never ask a person to not have faith. He’ll always ask you to do something in faith. Faith will always cause the connection with you and Him.

Why doesn’t He just do it? Why does He require faith? He wants us to have faith because faith connects you to Him. It’s that simple. Faith connects you to Him. It makes you one. Why? Because you need Him to do that which He’s asking you to do. If you need Him, you’re going to be looking for Him all the time. His asking you to walk by faith has nothing to do with Him teaching you a lesson. It’s not like, “I’m going to teach you a lesson; you’re going to trust me and that’s the way it is.” He’s a loving God. His asking you to walk by faith and trust Him has to do with relationship and communion. Any time you have to walk by faith and trust Him, there’s always going to be a communion.

Prayed…

Father, we come to You in the name of Jesus. We need Your help in this country… in our churches … in the political arena… amongst the people in every state… to help and love one another… not to be divisive and hateful… I ask for help for this country… help for the leaders… every leader in the Senate and the House… we pray for President Trump… we pray for those around him… speaking into his life… I lift up every state and senate race … I also lift up the voters… people frustrated with what they see… watching their nation go down… I ask in the name of Jesus to open their eyes and help them see the truth… let Your truth come out, Lord… let Your will be done today on earth as it is in Your heart… this is what we desire… Your will be done… the this nation… for the President… for the Senators… for the Congressmen… bring us together… this nation is one nation under You… we recognize You in every decision we make… I take authority over darkness that has caused division and strife… out of America… you have no control nor will we give you control in the name of Jesus… we will not yield to the temptation of strife and division… strife, you flee in the name of Jesus… lifting them up… every one of them… ho, ho, ho… labor, labor… lifting them up… so they could see the importance of … this nation is a great… You brought us to this place… we want Your plan, Lord… let it be made known throughout the nation… You bring them up … those who have been standing and waiting that have been sitting down, it’s time that You show them what’s important… bring insight to them… let them see how important they are to the process… those who have sat on the side and said, “I’m not this or that…” I pray that You bring them an understanding and enlighten them to know the hope to what You have called them to… You have a plan that we should do… more and more of them… that they all be made known… signs and wonders… in the news cycle… signs and wonders in the news cycle… miracles bringing Your plan Your Word out … signs and wonders bringing Your Word out… what you desire… that the angels of the Lord go forth and cause those things to be… go out and do the work of the Lord… cause them to go out in the name of Jesus… changing it up… no longer will we see but we will see unity… unity in Jesus’ name… we need Your help, Lord… we look to You to accomplish Your plan… we trust You… working together… no division… one reaching over… You have a better way… it is possible… labor enter into… peace… to extend a helping hand … continue to focus our attention on You and not on the news cycle…

Comments are closed.

Post Navigation