Equipped To Stand - Session 10 - Patty Clemons

Thank you for the opportunity to come in your praise.

I think you put your words in my mouth that I will not say anything that you wouldn't want me to say, but I would say what you want me to say in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I was thinking about prayer, and prayer is communion with God.

It is so intimate with God.

And I was thinking about this when we read the Lord's Prayer, everything is in the Lord's Prayer that we need.

Our daily needs, forgiveness.

But I was thinking about this because I don't know if y'all are like me, I get in my head a lot.

And the enemy starts lying to me about stuff.

But I love 1 Thessalonians says, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.

So what I've learned with prayer, if I go and get in prayer, the first few minutes when I wake up, it don't have to be a long time.

You heard that prayer.

It was very short.

I think sometimes we get religious and think we've got to pray for hours.

I'm not saying there's times that you don't need to pray for hours, but our God is so merciful and so kind.

Sometimes all you can do is say, Jesus.

That is prayer.

And I love that Hebrews 4, 16, so let us draw near with confidence.

Oh, I love this.

Draw close to the throne of grace that you may receive mercy.

That's another prayer that you can pray.

But I love the Lord's Prayer for this reason.

It talks about He will give us daily bread.

Oh my God.

Daily bread.

I don't know everybody here likes bread, I guess.

Okay, that maybe still better.

Um, I mean everybody, daily bread.

He gives us daily bread.

That means whatever we need, he's gonna give it to us for that day.

It reminds me of the scripture, he gives us brand new mercy and grace every single day.

So when we pray, it helps us not to lean on our own understanding.

Man, is that not a big one?

I mean, man, you lean on your own understanding, you're gonna get in fear.

Because when we think in our mind, that's where the enemy works.

I mean, he makes something little look so big.

So I love that in prayer in Philippians 4, 6 said, this is my favorite scripture.

Do not be anxious about anything.

I dealt with panic attacks for years.

And when I talk, I like to tell stories because I think people love to hear stories, real life stories.

And um I dealt with panic attacks so bad that one time I was driving and um I had a panic attack at the wheel.

And it was bad.

I just blanked out, I was gone.

And when I did, I hit this big wall because I had been anxious.

I had been worrying about it.

Do you know worrying will keep you even from praying?

Because why?

Worrying causes fear to come in.

So that morning I had a lot going on, and when I when I hit the embankment, my car was smashed.

It was totaled.

It was totaled.

And I remember after the accident was over, it broke my arm, it broke my leg.

It was bad.

And I remember when I came to and got myself back together.

This scripture became something so strong with me.

Do not be angels for anything.

That's why prayer is so important.

Because guess what?

You can talk to God.

I was watching a movie the other night and I was thinking things.

It wasn't a bad movie, so don't judge me.

It wasn't like a bad movie.

It was a Hallmark movie, everybody, okay?

So get it out of here.

And I was thinking something I shouldn't.

And I was like, oh, I would.

And I just felt not a voice.

I felt impressed, the Lord just said, You can tell me about it.

It's all right.

I done know.

So prayer is communicating with God.

Prayer will pull you through some of the awfulest times of your life.

I've had many challenges with that.

One thing I've learned about is this this is a confidence that we have.

If we ask God anything according to his will, it will be dying.

What are some of those things?

Faith, kindness, love, not having fear.

How about just having peace that passes all understanding?

I love the story where Jesus tells us in the Lord's Prayer, forgive those.

Forgive those people that have hurt you.

How can you do that?

You do it by praying.

You know what?

The more you pray, the more you take on God's character.

You can't help it, you just take on his character.

You start thinking, oh my God, that don't bother me like it used to.

Or maybe somebody that you didn't like, now you love them.

That's taking on the character of God.

I love my own story with that.

I was molested as a little girl for many years.

We won't go into that whole story.

It was a horrible time in my life.

But as I started praying and getting to know the Father and getting intimate with him, because that's what prayer is.

Intimate in to him is how I like to say it.

And I remember my stepfather, my molester, was dying.

And I had went before God and said, God, I don't want this man to go to hell.

And I had been in prayer.

When you get in prayer, you can do all things through Christ that strengthens you.

Because something inside of us, which is the whole precious Holy Spirit, empowers us to do the right thing.

So my stepfather was dying, and I went to the hospital, and I said, Lord, what do you want me to do here?

And I remember I had been praying.

God had done something in my heart.

That's what prayer does.

God will take your heart that is so hard and he will soften it.

That's what prayer does for us.

So I walked in the room, and there he was.

He was laying there dying.

He was my molester, the molester that had molested me.

And because I had been with Jesus and He had forgiven me for so much.

Do you all know that He's forgiven you?

And when you're in prayer, you learn that about God.

And I remember leaning over his bed and I said to him, You're dying.

He took my hand.

He said, Please forgive me for what I've done to you.

And immediately I led him to Jesus Christ.

And it was a real sorrow, a real repentance.

But I could not have done that unless I had learned how to pray.

It is so important we learn how to pray.

Prayer is not a religious act, it is an intimacy with God.

The Holy Spirit lives inside of us.

The Holy Spirit will teach us how to pray.

He's our teacher, he's our comforter, he's our helper, and he will help you pray.

I love this part of the scripture that says, even when we're weak, the Holy Spirit in us can pray through us.

And we won't get into that.

That might be for another time.

The Holy Spirit is in us, and the Holy Spirit will pray through us to the Father.

So I wanted you to be encouraged tonight.

If you don't have a prayer life, it's not a religious act.

I have friends I talk to every single day.

We can talk for hours.

And I have friends that, you know, we may say just a few words together, but with the Father, our Heavenly Father, who hurt in heaven, you can talk to him every single day.

You can talk to him when you're hurting, when you're driving to work, or maybe you just don't feel right.

You ever woke up one morning go something's off?

You know, you can talk to him about those things.

One thing I've learned in my journey with God is I can be honest with God.

I can be so honest with him.

He's all right.

He done knows what you're facing, he done knows what you're going through.

We're living in a time now where we've never been in this time.

I've never seen a time like this.

It's very dark.

And if you go out into the world and you have not spent time in prayer with the Father, those things are going to affect you.

But if you have spent, I want y'all to get this.

If y'all have spent time in prayer, you're going to affect the darkness.

Come on, you're going to affect it.

Because guess what?

The Bible says the light is on the inside of us.

He is the light in us.

And you can walk in, the darkness doesn't have to affect you.

The Bible says, let not your heart be troubled.

Be of good cheer.

You've overcome.

But how do we do that?

We do that by being intimate with the Father.

I'm not saying, please don't look at it as a religious act.

That's not what it is.

The disciples went to Jesus and said, Teach us how to pray.

At least think about that.

The disciples went to Jesus and said, Teach us how to pray.

Jesus didn't give them 10,000 pages how to pray.

He gave them a little thing to pray.

I think the Lord was showing us in that that we can just be ourselves and pray.

I'm very Southern, if y'all didn't know that by now.

But um, so I talked to God just just like I do now.

You know, I'm this is who I am.

You can be real with Him.

I love the story of David.

David was supposed to be in battle.

He decided to take a break.

Can I give y'all a little clue?

There's no breaks.

Did y'all hear what I said?

There's no breaks.

Don't take no break.

I didn't say you couldn't have fun.

I love to have fun.

The people that know me know that.

I'm not saying that's not what I'm saying.

There's no break in your prayer life.

Say something to God every day.

So David told his men, you go to battle.

He laid back, he just laid back down.

I guess he thought, well, I'm good.

Don't ever think you got it together.

I think a word was given on Sunday on humility.

When you have a prayer life, I promise, humility will start coming into your life.

It's a supernatural work.

You cannot do it.

So now David is thinking he's got it all together.

I've done that before, thinking, I got it together.

I can handle anything.

No, you can't.

You have to be prepared, and you're prepared by being with him.

So now David is thinking he can handle anything.

Remember what the word said.

Deliver us from temptation, not I.

We are a body.

We're all facing the same things.

We all face battles.

Now David looks out the window and he sees a beautiful woman.

He still thinks, Oh, I can handle that.

I've done that before.

He should have been out with the people on the battlefield.

He should have been out there because we are in a battle, people, but God has given us a solution in his prayer.

Now David goes back, and I'm not going to go on the whole story, but I love the story of David.

Now David has fallen into sins.

David never once stopped praying.

If you'll read the Psalms.

Never once.

He was still praying through everything he was going through.

And then all of a sudden, David now realizes he has sinned against God.

Wow.

You've ever sinned against God?

Of course you have.

Talked about anybody lately?

I just done that today.

You judged anybody?

We've all sinned and come short of God's glory.

But let me tell you something about prayer.

When you pray, you release every bit of that.

I like to call it you get clean.

I have a saying, get clean before God every day.

Because why?

He gives us new mercy and grace for each day.

So now David is in, he's he's in a mess.

Well, you know the story.

I'm about to go through all that.

But David now is in a mess.

David now has a son.

This is the part I love.

He still knows God and he has made a mistake.

Let me tell y'all something.

You're gonna make mistakes until Jesus comes.

But God is just and he's merciful, he's kind.

Now the baby, he's praying over his son that his son will live.

He's praying, he's fasting, he's crying out to God.

God, please let my son live.

And now he's weeping, he's crying, and his baby dies.

I've had a son that died.

I know how that feels like it's not fun, it hurts.

And now David gets up.

He just gets up, he goes there, washes his face, and puts on his clothes, and the men around him thinks he's crazy.

What is wrong with you, David?

Your son has died.

But one thing, David had been in the presence of God.

Come on, people, he had been in the presence of God, and he suffered a loss, but he'd been in the presence of God and he knew God was in control.

Did you know when you get in prayer and you face a mountain and you know God's in control, you have a peace that passes all understanding.

You do not know how it's going to work out, but one thing you do know, you are confident of this one thing.

You have been in his presence, and he lets you know, let not your heart be troubled.

And now, this is what the Lord showed me not long ago because I had lost a son.

And David now is a broken man.

He is broken.

Let me tell you what prayer will do.

Prayer will break you, but it's a good breaking because you come out looking more like Jesus.

So now David is broken, and he's put God up, he's ready for the day, and now he's gonna get a revelation.

The greatest revelation you will get is when you spent time with him.

You spend time with him, he's gonna speak to you.

He's gonna speak something that will just go, oh my God, that's amazing, God.

So now David's troubled.

Now remember, he's broken, he's been in prayer this whole time.

And here's what the Lord says to him.

And he spoke to me because I've lost a son.

He said, My son will not come to me, but I will go to him one day.

That was a revelation David got in the midst of his brokenness.

But he had walked with God.

Come on, people, we are the body of Christ.

And when you spend time in prayer, you're gonna love your brothers and sisters.

We're all different.

I have people tell me I'm crazy all the time.

I think they mean that's a good crazy.

I don't know.

But they'll go, she's crazy.

But I've got used to it now.

I'm like, okay, I am crazy, but it's all.

Anyway, I'm just saying, when you spend time in prayer, you're gonna love each other.

You're gonna forgive each other, but you've got to get into his presence, and you've got to have a prayer life.

And remember, I'm not talking about religion.

Um that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about being intimate with him.

I've been through many trials.

I want to end with this little story.

I've been through many trials in my life, but we all have.

We've all been through so much.

We're all just broken people letting God heal us.

That's what we are.

And how does God do that?

By praying.

This is a confidence that we have if we ask anything according to his word.

What's his word?

Love, joy, kindness, forgiveness, all these things.

I started praying for my family over 20 something years ago, probably about 25 years ago.

Dysfunctional family.

Very dysfunctional.

I started praying for them.

The more I prayed, the worse it got.

Don't quit praying because it looks bad.

Keep praying.

That means something's happening.

That means something's going on.

I mean, my mom would get more angry, my siblings.

It looked like all hell was breaking loose.

Well, literally, all hell was breaking loose.

Why?

Because you were praying.

So don't quit praying.

So I kept praying, and about five years ago, my mom came to me and she said, you know, I think I'm going to go back to church, but I'm not coming to your church.

I was okay, that's fine.

So she decided to go with my brother, which was fine.

And she's been going and going.

So I started praying.

Oh my God, you're doing something.

You're doing something.

But because of prayer, I had to release forgiveness toward my mom.

Are y'all getting that?

And I released her.

And when I did, God started dealing with her.

Release people.

But you can only do it if you've been in prayer with him.

So she kept going to church.

And now I was seeing happening, something happened with all my siblings.

Something just started sprinkling down.

And last year, every single family member, we took a picture.

I have the picture.

We took a picture, and every one of us was together serving Jesus Christ.

That's what prayer does, people.

Let's give the Lord a hand right there, man.

That's what prayer does.

Every person has been restored.

Now they still think I'm a little crazy.

They still think I'm crazy for going to Africa.

They're all like saying, Oh, I said, please be quiet.

I'm going to be fine.

But I'm saying, this is what prayer does.

So I want to encourage each one of us tonight with this.

Ask yourself this question.

Each morning you get up, you have a choice.

We all do.

You have to choose.

This day, who will I serve?

Who will I serve?

Who will I serve?

And the enemy's gonna come so quick.

So this is what you have to ask yourself.

I love what Charles Stanley said.

He's with the Lord now.

He said every morning when I get up, the first thing I do is hit the floor.

Now I'm not telling you.

Sometimes hit the floor, we wouldn't get back up.

I'm sorry, I should have said that.

I was talking about me.

Sorry.

He said, the first thing I do is get on my knees.

And I say, God, I can't do this today.

But I'll welcome you, Holy Spirit, help me.

That's beautiful.

That's the posture we need to take.

Then at night, he said, This is what he would do.

Take the same position again, humble himself, and say, God, if I hurt you in any way today, or if I greet your Holy Spirit, would you please forgive me?

That's how he lived.

That's a prayer life.

That's what I feel it is.

We start out with God, then we end up with God.

Because we all mess up till today.

So I want to leave you with this thought.

You never know what you're gonna say.

We are in a battle, but God's done won the battle.

You can't take a break.

You gotta keep praying.

But you also can have joy while you're praying.

The Bible says the joy of the Lord's our strength.

Did you know Psalms 2, 4 says, God sits in the heavens and he lies?

We can have joy, people.

And we get that by praying, being with Him.

So I want to end by saying this tonight.

Do what David does.

Search me, oh God, know me, try me, see if there'd be any wicked way in me, oh God.

And then ask God.

If you don't have a prayer life, ask God, God, give me the strength to take away 10 minutes, five minutes, or whatever to spend time.

With you.

I promise you it will be worth it.

People will come up and say to you, What has happened to you?

I have people now that used to judge me.

We have a tendency to do that.

We have a tendency to judge people before we get to know them.

Once you get to know them, oh my god, I just judge that part.

You know how you quit doing that?

In prayer.

The Lord showed me this yesterday.

The Holy Spirit knows every intention of your heart.

And man, he'll go in there and search that out.

That's why sometimes we don't want to pray.

You know why?

We're like, I like that.

I don't want to pray right now.

I'll just keep that for a few days.

It feels good.

I'm gonna keep that for a few days until you start feeling his conviction.

And you feel the Holy Spirit convicted to saying, Come away with me.

Come away with me.

Because I want to show you something.

And guess what?

Prayer does.

As soon as God shows you that place inside of you, mercy.

He takes it right.

You go with him.

He takes it off of you.

Who the right man would want to walk around in bondage with chains on you when God has given us a way to walk free.

It's having one of the greatest relationships you can have in your life.

It's spending time with your Heavenly Father.

I would encourage you tonight.

Bonnie, remember the Lord's prayer.

They talked about us.

Not me, not I.

We have to decrease so that he can increase.

And we can only do that.

So don't take this as condemnation.

It's not, it's an encouragement to know the one that loves you more than anybody.

Em is beloved.

It's beautiful.

Emmy's beloved.

And we are just broken people allowing God to change us.

Those who are thirsty, come is it with him.

Challenge you this.

If you have a pearl off, that's awesome.

If you don't, maybe you need to increase it.

You know why?

God knows everything you're going to throw.

Not everything.

He just wants us to be prepared.

If we're not prepared, he'll have somebody comes along and walks right beside you to help you.

So as the body of TCC, I want to challenge us to put the purple.

Maybe you should do 10 minutes.

Maybe you do 15 miles.

Because I believe in the last days was the win, people by the love of God.

It's the love of God.

Perfect love cast out fear.

And I want uh to be a church that prays without a prayer comes worship.

I mean it's love.

That's a god, I'm so thankful that God didn't give up on me.

I'm so blessed that he walked through the fire with me.

I'm so thankful that he's still working on me.

But I can look back and see every time I prayed, God didn't answer right away to stop my family.

It took 27 years.

Am I really God?

But God answers.

Why?

God is not a man that he can lie to us.

So we are in the battle.

End with this story.

I'm not a storyteller, but I'm not telling stories.

I think I'm a storyteller.

How's that?

I have this picture at my house, and she has this lady on a beautiful wedding garment.

Another meaning, yes, beautiful.

Anyway, she has a beautiful wedding garment on.

But she has her dress pulled up a little bit, and she's got combat notes out.

The other day I had another meeting to do with some people that had they want me to speak.

All of a sudden, the Lord is about to make something about that, and this is how I'm gonna end this.

And I'm gonna shop.

I don't know if I tell y'all that's gonna be as clear.

She was just dancing, rejoicing, and she was just praising God, and all of a sudden this battle came toward her, and she just pulled that dress off and put her boots down on the devil's head and said, I have the victory in Jesus Christ.

We are his bride, but we also know how to do more.

You're you're fighting me.

I'm probably not here to stream.

Um, I've been doing these meetings for like 27 years.

Um, we made it here at 630.

We have works.

And um, I'll speak.

I just asked somebody else to speak with me.

Happy miniature helps me.

Evan will be with us this month.

And um, I'll never mind her.

I usually pick somebody out to speak.

She does everything I need.

She's gone whatever.

But anyway, I'm saying uh it's wonderful.

We let the Holy Spirit move, we have worship, and we have a prayer team that prays for people.

So I would love for y'all to come.

We will be going to Africa September the second.

I will have one in September and October.

Then we take November and December off.