Rick Warren - The Prayer of Cleansing

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 has to

Rick with part one of a message called the Prayer

of Cleansing.

Let me ask you this morning, what's hindering your progress

in life? Growing closer to the Lord, growing closer to

your family, to other people. What's hindering your dream? What's

holding you back? What's slowing your progress. A lot of

times we want to blame external things. Oh it's the economy,

it's my boss, it's my relationships. I don't have enough money,

blah blah blah. But the truth is, what holds you

back in life is almost never external. It's internal. The

things that hold you back are are inside you. Something

gets entangled up inside you. Now what it is may

surprise you, But the Bible tells us that what holds

you back more than anything else is unconscious guilt from

unconfessed sin. You may not even realize that it's unconscious

guilt from unconfessed sin. When you hold on to hurts

inside you and habits and hang ups and regret and

shame and guilt, it just does a number on you

because you weren't made by God to go around carrying

a load of guilt. You weren't wired for that. In fact,

the Bible says this, and Hebrews up here on the screen,

Hebrews twelve one and two. Let us throw off everything

that hinders I mean, others hold us back, prevents our progress.

Let us throw off, let's get rid of let's dump

everything that hinders our progress, and the sin that so

easily entangles us and let us run with perseverance the

race marked out for us. Did you know that when

God made you, he has a race plan for your life.

It's already been marked out. God has a purpose, a

plan for your life that is unique, and nobody else

can fulfill that plan and purpose. And God says, I've

got a race that only you can run, and it's

already marked out. Now. The problem is, everybody else has

a race for your life too, And maybe your mom

wanted you to run her race, or your dad wanted

you to run his race, or you've got a boss

or a friend, or a neighbor or a spouse or somebody.

God loves you, and everybody else has a plan for

your life, and you guy says, no, no, no, no

time out here. I didn't make you to fulfill somebody

else's plan. I put you on this planet to run

the race that was marked out for you. The sad

thing is most people don't run it, don't know the race.

They get sidelined, they get sidetracked, they get tripped up,

they get entangled, they get tired, they don't make it

to the finish line. Very few people in life run

the race that God actually marked out for them, and

they end up living Plan bcde kind of thing instead

of the race that God marked out for you. Now,

the fact is God says we need to throw off

the things that hinder us, hindrances, and the sin that

entangles us. That's that unconfessed sin that creates unresolved and

unconscious guilt. Now, the fact is, none of us are fallowless.

We all make mistakes, none of us are perfect. We

all blow it, we all sin, we all flub up.

We don't measure up to our own standards, much less

God's standard of perfection. I actually have never met anybody

who claim to be perfect. We all know we're sinners.

We all fall short, we all don't do the right

thing every time. That's a pretty easy thing for us

to admit. But what happens is as a result of that,

because we are fault We are faulty. We make mistakes,

We have regrets, and we have remorse, and we have guilt,

and sometimes we have shame, and that guilt keeps us stuck.

It keeps us stuck in our past. We can't get

on with it because we keep thinking about what we did.

We get stuck in our pain, we get stuck in

our problems and we just don't make any progress anymore. Now.

A lot of times we know we're guilty, but we

try to deal with it in ways that don't work.

We deny it, we repress it, we suppress it, we

excuse it, we rationalize it. And you know what rationalize means.

It means to tell rational lies. That's to rationalize. When

you rationalize anything, you know it's wrong. What you're doing.

You're trying to convince with your mind what your heart

says is wrong. And rationalization is a battle between your

heart and your head, and you're trying to tell yourself

it's okay. When everything in your body goes it's not okay.

That was not right, that was wrong, and I feel

bad about it. I feel guilty about it. Now. The

truth is God doesn't want you walking around with a

load of guilt. A lot of people think God wants

us to feel guilty other time. Absolutely not. Guilt is

not a Christian emotion. In fact, it is the most worthless, unhelpful,

destructive emotion out there. God did not design your body

to carry guilt, and he doesn't want you carrying guilt.

It's self destructive. It destroys your confidence, It damages your

relationships in ways you don't even realize, and it defeats

your potential. When you feel guilty, you're always afraid that

somebody's going to find out. If they really knew what

I'm like, they would not like me, If they really

knew my past, they wouldn't love me. God wouldn't love me.

And well, of course God knows everything your past is

still loves you. But they wouldn't love me, and you

walk around in fear a lot of the time. Sir

Arthur Connan Doyle, the guy who was the author of

all the Sherlock Home novels, was quite a prankster and

once he wrote an anonymous note to I think it

was thirteen key well known people in England, and the

note simply said, all is found out, flee at once

and I vacate about forty eight hours. About half the

people left the country because everybody carries a load. Now,

the truth is, guilt messes up your relationships. If you

don't understand, and just go watch some TV soap operas

and how guilt messes up relationships. The truth is when

you feel guilty, one of the ways it comes out

you get judgmental. Anytime you find somebody who's harshly judgmental,

you can know one thing, they feel guilty. Judgmental people

feel judged themselves, and they don't feel forgiven, so they

don't want anybody else feel forgiven. And the more guilty

you feel, the more judgmental you're going to be. It's

just a fact of life. When you are guilty, you

overreact to the weaknesses and other people often the same

weaknesses that you hate and yourself. When you feel guilty,

you indulge people. You spoil them, you buy them things

they don't need, because you feel guilty. When you feel guilty,

you avoid commitment in a relationship. Guilt can make you

physically sick. Psychiatrists and psychologists tell us that probably sixty

to seventy percent of all the people in the hospitals

today could actually leave the hospital if they knew how

to get rid of guilt and resentment, guilt over what

I've done to others and resentment over what people have

done to me. The Bible says this on the screen

Proverbs twenty eight. You will never succeed in life if

you try to hide your sins. Confess them and give

them up, and then God will show you mercy. Now,

I can't tell you how excited I am about this message.

Because of all the ones we've done in this series

on the Lord's Prayer, this one, the Prayer of Cleansing,

is the one that will personally revolutionize your life in

ways that you can't even imagine. It is personally revolutionized

my life. It set me free, this prayer, the Prayer

of cleansing. Forgive us our sins, forgive us our debts,

forgive us our transgressions. Depending on the translation you've got,

When you understand the Prayer of Cleansing and you practice it,

it opens the door to live a life of freedom,

a life of a clear conscience, a life of no guilt,

a life that is joyful, a life of blessing, and

a life that God uses. I want you to experience

that in your life.

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 Prayers 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 Fastorrick dot com. That's

eight hundred six hundred five zero zero four, or go

to Pastrick dot com. Thanks so very much. Were only

two days left to get your copy of the Lord's

Prayer Children's Giftbook, So don't wait.

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

Pastor Rick Warren.

I will never forget the time that I prayed the

prayer of Cleansing for the very first time. I was

just a teenager, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old, and

I remember that in my life at that point, my

walk with God had just gotten dull. There was no joy,

there was no thrill to it. There was. It was

just kind of ho hum. I didn't when I'd pray.

I felt like my prayers just bounced across the ceiling.

I didn't feel close to God, I didn't feel close

to anybody. Actually, my life was in a rut. I

was stuck. I was not making any progress. I wasn't

moving backwards, but I was just stuck in a rut.

So I remember one night I was still living at home,

about ten o'clock at night. Everybody had gone to bed,

had gotten quiet, and I went into my room and

I shut the door, and I sat down at my desk,

and I had a small light on at the desk,

and now the room was dark, and I got out

a yellow pad and I said, okay, God, well let's

just do some business here. I need to do a

little spring cleaning. I need to know anything that's between

you and me that's holding back the joy, holding back

the blessing, holding back what I know you're capable and

want to give in my life. And so God, whatever

you tell me, I'm going to write it down. I'm

just going to make a sin list, and I'm going

to list all the things that are wrong in my life,

and as you reveal them to me, I'll write them down.

So God, whatever you want to say to me, say

to me now, because I want to do a little

spring cleaning. And I sat there and within a few seconds,

I just started thinking of things that I knew were

wrong my life, and I began to write them down

on this yellow pad. If it said you've been jealous

about that person, I wrote down jealousy with that person.

If it said if God or you were impatient with

that person, I wrote impatient with that person. You lied

to that person, I'd write that down. You exaggerated about that,

I write that down. You had lust about this person,

I wrote that down. Whatever God showed me, I wrote

it down. You stole something, you said something wrong, you

were unkind. And I just began to write down the

things that came to my mind that I knew were wrong.

Where I've been lazy, I was lazy. Where I was prideful,

I was prideful. I filled up a page, I filled

up a second page, filled up a third page. I thought,

I'm going to write my first book, Driven Sinner, a

list of Rick Warrens sins. And I had about four

pages at the end. And when I finished it, it

was about midnight. And I looked at that and I thought, Man,

that is ugly. There's no wonder God isn't blessing my

life that I feel far from I don't feel close

to God. But I knew enough of the Bible that

I knew first John chapter one, verse nine, from memory,

if we confess our sins, God is faithful to forgive us,

to cleanse us of all of our sins, and to

forgive us from all of our unrighteousness. And so I

knew God said, if you confess, it all forgiven. And

so I wrote first John one nine over each of

those pages, knowing that God was forgiving me simply because

I had admitted them and confessed them to him. And

I was sorry about it. And so I went back

and I I crossed out each one. I was just

going to burn the paper. I certainly didn't anybody reading it.

I was going to burn the paper. But I left

on there, uncrossed out the sins between me and another

person that I knew I needed to make restitution for.

And there were three on that page. Now, I want

you to know that since then, your pastor has done

much worse sins than these things. But this is what

God revealed to me at that point in my life,

seventeen eighteen years of age. The first thing you revealed

to me is that 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 wanted where

all her money went. But I even figured out how

you could take two forks and stick into her piggy

bake 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 you, 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 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, and so

you can repay whoever that was for the damage that

was done to their car. The third thing was I

was a member of a small church and the past

at that time. I had really long hair, beautiful flowing

blonde hair 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 I didn't 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 gonna do it.

I said, nope, not a chance, nope. And God said, oh, really,

have you thought about the consequences of this, y Yep,

you're gonna 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 gonna 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. Let me tell you what integrity is.

Integrity isn't being perfect. Integrity is not never sinning if

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 will 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, don't make 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.

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 Pastor Rick.

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 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 bestselling 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. 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 we'll send

you this powerful resource. Or you can visit Pastororrick dot com.

That's eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four or

Pastorerick dot com. They are only two days left 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've often said that I'm addicted to change lives.

It's what keeps me going. One good story from you

can keep me going for another month to hear how

God's working in your life. It just keeps me motivated.

So you bless me with your stories. Here's one that

came from a woman named Tania, who's a brand new believer.

She wrote, Pastor Rick, I'm a new person in Christ

and I'm learning more and more every day. My supervisor

here at work came in about a week ago and

told me about your Daily Hope devotional and your broadcast.

I am now hooked. Listening to Daily Hope each morning

has become a blessing to my soul. It's really helped

me to implement the Word of God in my daily life. Well, Tania,

this is why we do what we do. This is

why we do Daily Hope for people like you, people

who want to grow, who desire to grow, and who

take the time to grow by getting into God's Word

on a daily basis. Now, I want you to notice

something about Tania's story. She didn't find the Daily Hope

broadcast or podcast on her own. It was her coworker

who told about Daily Hope. Who have you told? You

may have been listening to Daily Hope for weeks, or

months or even longer. Would you be an agent of

love and an agent of hope and tell four or

five people this week? Look for somebody today, Send an email,

write a text, call somebody in a phone and say

this has helped me in my spiritual life and I

want to pass it on to you that Daily Hope

can help you grow in your faith and in your

walk in Christ. Thanks for listening today. Be sure to

join me next time as we continue to look into

God's word for our Daily Hope and tell somebody about it.

God bless you.

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 pastor rick dot com.

This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and

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