Rick Warren - The Prayer of Cleansing II

Hello, and thanks for joining us here on Pastor Rick's

Daily Hope, the audio broadcast ministry of Pastor Rick Warren. Today,

Rick continues teaching a series called Connecting with God the

Lord's Prayer. In these lessons, Rick shows you what it

means to truly be spiritually connected to God and to

each other through the power of God's Love and God's Word.

In just a little while, we're going to tell you

how to get the Lord's Prayer Words of Hope and

Happiness gift book. This life giving resource will help you

strengthen the hope of the children you love by introducing

them to the Lord's Prayer. Go to Pastorick dot com

to find out more, or text the word Daily to

eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four. That's Pastorick

dot com. Or the word Daily to eight hundred six

hundred five thousand and four. Right now, here's Pastor Rick

with part two of a message called the Prayer of Cleansing.

When my sister was young growing up, I used to

steal her money all the time. I knew where she

kept it. I'd go into her room, find her money,

take it. Go buy an album, Go buy comics, Go

buy some candy. She probably wondered where all her money went.

But I even figured out how you could take two

forks and stick into her piggy bak and shake it

upside down and the money would fall out. And I

had a great collection of comic books from all of that.

And God said, you know what, You've never confessed that

to her, and you need to get that right, and

you need to repay her. The second thing on that

list is I had been in an unreported accident as

a high school student. I had been with a couple

of friends of mine and we had been in a

parking lot one day at a store, and as we

were backing out, I backed into a car behind me

and smashed in the front of it. We got scared

and left. I didn't leave a note. I didn't tell anybody.

God said, you know that's wrong. You need to go

to the police department and you need to admit that

you were the one who bashed that in. See if

it's on the records, so you can repay whoever that

was for the damage it was done to their car.

The third thing was I was a member of a

small church and at that time I had really long hair, beautiful,

flowing blonde hair. I was in northern California in the

sixties and seventies.

What do you expect? Okay?

And my dad never had a problem with He said, son,

grow it while you got it, cause you ain't gonna

have it for long. So he never had a problem with.

But my pastor, this small church was kind of conservative,

didn't like guys wearing long hair in those days, and

he regularly talked about it and put me on the defense.

And I didn't like him, and so I told everybody

like him. I gossiped about him, and I just did

not do anything to build him up. I undermined him.

And God said, I don't care what he's done, what

his part is. You need to go and confess you've

had a bad attitude. You need to ask forgiveness. So

I finished that and I got in bed and God said,

you're going to do it. I said, nope, not a chance, Nope.

And God said, oh, really, have you thought about the

consequences of this.

Yep, you're going to do it? Nope?

And I began a battle in my mind with God

that night.

God, I really don't want to do this.

In fact, I'll do anything if you just forgive these

three things. It would be humbling, it would be embarrassing.

I would feel bad about it. I don't even want

to do it. It's going to cost me. God said, Rick,

this is a test. This is a test of your integrity.

Will you do what I tell you to do? And

let me tell you what integrity is. Integrity isn't being perfect.

Integrity is not never sinning. If that is, nobody's got

integrity because nobody's perfect. Integrity means being open and honest

and willing to confess where you are weak, where you sin,

and when you do wrong and get right. That's integrity.

It's not being perfect. Nobody's perfect. It means being honest

and authentic about your imperfections. I tried to do everything

with God. I tried to bargain with God. God, if

you'll forgive me, I will never do it again. God said,

don't make promises. Just go get it right. God, if

you will forgive me, I will never sin again.

Right.

Just go get it right, God, if you will forgive me,

I tried to bargain with God. I will read my

Bible every day the rest of my life. I will

tell somebody about Jesus every day. God said, domain promises,

go get it right. And I said, I don't want to.

He said, Rick, if you won't be real with me,

I won't be real with you. I want to bless

your life. I want to use your life. But if

I can't trust you in the little things of life,

how can I trust you in the big things of life.

This is a test.

I tossed and turned all night, from about midnight to

about five am in the morning, and finally I just

go okay, And I just finally said I would do

it so I.

Could go to sleep, but I didn't really mean it.

And I got up the next morning and it was

a Saturday, and I did everything except go make those

sins right. I did all my homework, I cleaned up

my room, I washed both of my parents' cars, I

cleaned up the patio, I offered to do errands for

my mom.

I was doing.

Everything except that which I really needed to do. That night,

I had been invited to be a guest speaker to

a youth meeting, a youth rally at a small church

about thirty miles away. I got in the car, drove

over to that church, and I spoke. That night, I

shouldn't have spoken. I was out of fellowship with God,

out of fellowship with other people myself. God's power and

presence wasn't there. God's blessing was there. The words were

just bouncing off the wall. And I went home very

discouraged and very defeated, knowing that God was withholding his

blessing in my life. My dad, who was a pastor,

asked me, said, Rick, can you go tomorrow up to

a little town about sixty miles from here and can

you fill in there for the pastor there who's sick.

And I said sure, So I drove an hour north

and I went to this little church and I spoke

that morning, and I spoke that evening, and all afternoon

I just wrestled with God, knowing that there is something

intentionally between me and God that I was refusing to

get right. I knew it was wrong, but I would

not give in. And to speak to this group was

a waste of their time and a waste of my time.

And there was no blessing, no power, no grace. And

I was discouraged and depressed and defeated, and I knew

this wasn't working. I got in the car and as

I was driving back home that night in the dark.

I finally just broke down and said, Okay, God, I

am so sorry. I'm never going to allow any little

thing to get between me and you if I know

it willingly. I will confess it when I make mistakes,

when I sin, when I blow it, and I commit

to getting this right. I got home and my parents

and my sister were sitting in the living room watching television.

Now to show you how long ago this happened, my

parents were watching Bonanza.

Okay, so it's that old, all right. And I walked

in and I didn't even say anything.

I just walked over to the television in front of

them and flipped it off, turned it off like that,

and I turned it around and said, I don't need

you to do anything, but I need somebody to just

confess this to and I need to get it off

my chest. I've already confessed it to God, I need

to confess it to somebody else. And I need to

ask you to pray for me that I will have

the courage to.

Go get these three things right.

And I admitted those three things there to my parents

and my sister. I have this scar from my sister no.

I made that part up.

And so I just a minute, and I got on

my knees in the living room, and I bowed, and

I began to cry and weep and weep profusely, and

my parents and my sister began to pray for me.

And I felt the power of God fall on my

life like I have never experienced before or since. And

I could feel the blessing of God flowing into my life.

And I could feel the power of God flowing into

my life, and God saying, you pass the test, and

I'm going to use you. I'm going to bless you

and make you a blessing to other people. And that

power flowing into my life was the turning point in

my life. I want this so badly for you. You

have no idea how much God wants to use your life.

You have no idea how much God wants to bless

your life. The things He could do in your life

would astound you if your.

Life was a clean vessel. But you've got to do

business with God. You've got to pray the prayer of cleansing.

This is Pastor Rick's daily hope. We're so glad you're

with us today. Rick will be back in a moment,

but first, recently, Pastor Rick had our graphic designers create

a beautiful, frameable version of The Lord's Prayer that you

can download for free right now by visiting Pastorick dot com.

That's Pastorick dot com.

Perhaps the most important role you can play in the

life of a child is teaching them to trust God

through prayer. It's the key to living with hope. Jesus said,

we should always pray and never give up. That's why

it's important to strengthen the hope of children by introducing

them to Jesus's model for prayer at an early age.

And we're excited to tell you about a very special

resource to help you do just that. It's called The

Lord's Prayer Words of Hope and Happiness. This book brings

the poetic scripture of the King James version of the

Bible to life. Readers young and old will enjoy thoughtful

insights from New York Times best selling author Pastor Rick

Warren and stunning illustrations by award winning artist Richard Jesse Watson.

It's sure to become a meaningful bedtime ritual, a treasure memory,

and a lasting legacy that bears good fruit for generations

to come. This wonderful book is a perfect way to

share the beauty and richness of the Lord's Prayer with

the children the Lord has placed in your life, and

we'll send it to you to say thanks. When you

give a gift to Daily Hope, your gift will be

used to help take the good news of Jesus Christ

to people everywhere. Just call eight hundred six hundred five

zero zero four or go to Fastrick dot com. That's

eight hundred six hundred five zero zero four, or go

to Pastor Rick dot com. Thanks so very much. Today

is the last day to get your copy of the

Lord's Prayer Children's Gift Book, So don't wait.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope once again. Here's

Pastor Rick Warren.

I want to give you now, very simply, real quickly,

the six steps on the path to a clear conscience.

There is no reason you should leave this building with

any guilt in your life.

Whatever guilt you've.

Been caring for weeks or months or years, you need

to deal with it. Now make business with God and

go out with a clear conscience and be guilt free.

How do you do it? Six steps on the back

of your outline. There here's the steps. Number one, I

review every area of my life. That's the first step.

I review every area of my life. We call this

making it a personal moral inventory or a a personal

spiritual assessment. And what you do is you sit down

with God in a quiet space, by yourself, all alone,

when you're unhurried, and you do what I just told

you about I did.

God.

I'm gonna do business with you, and I'm going to

make a list of anything that's between me and you

that's wrong in my life that I feel guilty about,

consciously or unconsciously. Help me to know the things that

I know that are wrong and the things that I

don't know that are wrong. The Bible says in Lamentations

Chapter three, let us test and examine our ways.

Now you get off by.

Yourself with a pen and a notepad, where you're totally disturbed.

You ask God to reveal your sins, and you say, Lord,

in clearing clear my mind, let me give you a

verse to write down. Psalm one thirty nine, twenty three

and twenty four. Psalm one thirty nine, twenty three and

twenty four says this search me O, God.

And know my heart, test me and know my thoughts.

Point out anything in me that offends you, anything, and

lead me along the path of everlasting life. That is

the prayer saying, God, turn your spotlight on my innerside

to find the stuff that's entangled me, that's hindering me,

that's holding me back. Now you take your time. You

don't rush it. You don't say, God, I got five

minutes for you to reveal every sin I've ever done.

Now you take your time, and you.

Say write it all down, and say, well, couldn't I

just think it? Might have to write it down. You

have to write it down. Writing makes it specific. Thoughts

disentangle themselves through the flips and the fingertips. You talk

it and you say, and you write it. If you

haven't written it down, you haven't really thought about it.

It makes it specific. By the way, it's also cathartic.

It helps get it out of you and onto the paper.

You want to get the gunk out of you. Now

you're gonna burn this paper later on, but you just

get it out of you. The Bible says this, if

we judged ourselves in the right way, God would not

judge us. Now to get you started. I've written here

a personal spiritual assessment, and if you open it up

inside it's a sin list. Here's a personal spiritual assessment too.

The following is a list of common sins that prevent

God from blessing and using our lives. As you prayerfully

read this, examine yourself and circle or highlight or underline

the areas that apply to you. You don't even have

to write them down. I'm making this easy. You just

read it, go yep, that's me, yep, that's me, yep.

You underline it, you circle it, you highlight it, and

then when you get to get at the end, you go, now, God,

is there anything else? And you write down those things too.

And nobody else is going to see this. It's just

between you and God. It's a personal spiritual assessment. By

the way, we'll put it on the website too, so

those of you are watching.

On the internet can download it, and those.

Of you who would like other copies can download it too. Now,

nobody else is going to see this. Now, let me

ask you a very important question. How serious are you

about God blessing your life? How badly do you want

God's blessing in your life? Oh, I'd like to have

it enough that you're willing to be gut level honest.

Are you willing to be honest to God? Are you

willing to be honest with yourself? Are you gonna lie

to yourself? Are you going to be willing to be

honest with other people? Are you going to just live

in denial? Denial in God's blessing do not go hand

in hand. Friend, You are seconds away from liberation. You

are seconds away from a feeling of cleanness and joy

and purity that you haven't had ever, that you've never experienced.

You are seconds away from a total freedom in your

life that could set you free from some habits and

hurts and hang ups that are messing up your life.

I want to ask you to do this today. Don't procrastinate.

There's nothing more important than your life than to have

the blessing of God. Go home today, get alone by yourself,

read through this and do a personal moral inventory. That's

step one. Now, once you've done that, you do step two.

Here's the second step. I repent of every sin. First,

I review every area, and then I repent of every sin.

What does it mean to repent? It means three things.

It means, first, I take responsibility for my sin.

Yep, I'm not going to blame anybody else for this.

Second, it means I turn away from those things. And

third it means I turn toward God and his grace

and say, God, I don't want to be that anymore.

I take responsibility, I turn away, and I turn.

Two. That's what it means to repent. Now what do

you do on that?

The Bible says this, let us turn again in repentance

to the Lord. Let us lift our hearts and hands

to God in heaven and say we have sinned and rebelled.

You write it down, you accept responsibility. What does it

mean to repent? Well, first, I don't rationalize it. I

don't say, well it was no big deal. Well it

was a big deal. You wouldn't have remembered it. I

don't minimize it. I don't rationalize it. I said, well,

it happened so long time ago, or it was just

a stage I went through, or everybody does.

It doesn't matter.

You don't rationalize, you don't minimize, you don't accuse, you

don't excuse. You don't blame others, Well it was mostly

their fault. Well it may the ninety nine point nine

percent their fault. God says you accept responsibility for your

one percent or point one percent?

What am I saying?

Listen very closely. The greatest hold up to the healing

of your hang up.

Is you.

You're not waiting on God. You're not waiting on anybody

else the hang ups in your life. The greatest hold

up to your hang up is you. God wants to

heal it in your life.

Now.

The Bible says this up here on the screen. If

we claim to be without sin, we're just deceiving ourselves.

We're living in a world of illusion.

What the Bible says, we're acting in a fantasy world

where we're pretending.

We're faking it.

If we claim to be without sin, we're just deceiving ourselves.

We're certainly not deceiving God, and we're not even deceiving

anybody else, because everybody else knows you've blown it. We

just deceive ourselves. It's self deception and the truth is

not in us. Now, listen very closely to this. The

things that defeat you in your life, the self defeating

habits in your life that you don't like about you.

Who would you like to get rid of them.

You will stop defeating yourself when you stop deceiving yourself.

This is Pastor Rick's daily Hope. We're so glad you're

with us today. Recently, Pastor Rick had our graphic designers

create a beautiful frameable version of The Lord's Prayer that

you can download for free right now by visiting Pastorick

dot com. That's Pastorick dot com. Rick will be back

in a moment, but first, Perhaps the most important role

you can play in the life of a child is

teaching them to trust God through prayer. It's the key

to living with hope. Jesus said, we should always pray

and never give up. That's why it's so important to

strengthen the hope of children by introducing them to Jesus's

model for prayer at an early age. With this in mind,

we're excited to tell you about a very special resource

to help if you do just that. It's called The

Lord's Prayer Words of Hope and Happiness. This book brings

the poetic scripture of the King James version of the

Bible to life. Readers young and old will enjoy thoughtful

insights from New York Times best selling author Pastor Rick.

Warren and stunning illustrations by award winning artist Richard Jesse Watson.

It's sure to become a meaningful bedtime ritual, a treasured memory,

and a lasting legacy that bears good fruit for generations

to come. The Lord's Prayer Words of Hope and Happiness

is the perfect way to share the beauty and richness

of the Lord's Prayer with the children. The Lord has

placed in your life and will send it to you

when you give a gift to Daily Hope to help

take the good news to people everywhere. Call eight hundred

six hundred five thousand and four to support Daily Hope

and will send you this powerful resource. Or you can

visit Pastor That's eight hundred six hundred five thousand and

four or Pastorick dot com. Today is the last day

to get your copy of The Lord's Prayer Children's Gift Book,

so don't wait. Here's Pastor Rick with a letter from

one of our listeners.

You know I love getting these letters from you when

you write in from all around the world. My prayers

at Daily Hope will bring that hope that we find

in God's Word to people in every nation. Here's a

note from one of our listeners who actually lives in India.

Dear Pastor Rick, it's a great honor for me to

share how I get blessings from the Daily Hope Devotional

every day. It's already been a year and a half

that I've been reading the Daily Hope Devotional and I

thank God for these I also share these devotionals through

social media like Facebook and WhatsApp, and I send the

daily devotions to forty different pastors and fifty different lay

leaders and to some of my church members and friends.

I send them all over Central India and to almost

five hundred people across the country. Thank you so much

for this Daily Hope Devotional and may God continue to

use every reader who have been called by God for

His purposes with blessings. Reverend Langkim, pastor of the Kookie

Baptist Convention, Manipur, India. Well, I love how a Pastor

Lampkin is using Facebook, He's using What's app to share

these devotionals with hundreds of people in India. Do you

realize that when you tell anybody about this broadcast or

when you pass on the written devotional, you're actually partners

with us in sharing the Gospel all around the world,

and the Bible says that his partners and ministry we

will share in the rewards together. Now, this is something

anybody can do, and if you haven't thought about it,

start making a list of people you could tell about

Daily Hope.

You could do this.

Anybody can do this, and if you go to our

website Pastorick dot com, you can share it by broadcast,

you can share the devotional, you can share it on

social media with just one little click. Do you realize

how easy it is. We're trying to help you, help

share the gospel which God has called all of us

to do. Our ability to reach people all around the

world is a direct result of your prayers, your financial support,

and your willingness to tell others. So from the bottom

of my heart, I just want to say to you,

thank you, I love you, and I thank God for you.

And join me next time as we continue to look

into God's word for our Daily Hope.

If you'd like to let Rick know how this broadcast

has blessed your life, please write in at Rick at

Pastorrick dot com. That's Rick at pastorrick dot com. This

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