The ABC’s of Prayer

Our heart posture has to submit to when we pray.

We have to need Him.

We have to be dependent on Him.

Humility equals your dependence on God.

You have to really need Him.

I mean, really, really need Him.

Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing.

Most people interpret that as apart from me,

you can do something.

But prayer that works comes to God,

oh Lord, apart from you, I can do nothing.

Welcome to the City Light Church podcast.

Thanks for joining us today,

as we look into God's Word

and discover the hope and truth that He has for us.

If you want to connect with City Light Church,

feel free to visit us at citylightnyc.com

that's citylightnyc.com.

Pastor Boyan Jansik and his team

believe that the power of the Holy Spirit

is already working in our hearts and minds.

As you listen to today's teaching,

remember that you are deeply loved by God,

that you are surrounded by His grace

and that He has a real hope and a future for you.

We'll turn to somebody, welcome them to City Light Church.

We're so glad you're here.

We welcome you.

Those of you joining us online.

We're glad you're with us.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Jesus.

We had a baby dedication in the first service as well.

So that's quite a number of babies that we've dedicated today.

I made the Lord increase that.

More and more.

Supposedly people aren't having enough children.

We're trying to do our part in Jesus' name.

So get married and have kids.

Amen.

I mean, I would say more,

it was more complicated than that,

but get married and have kids.

Hallelujah.

If you're wondering,

well, how do I begin the first process?

I'm believing God for a spouse.

You came to the right service.

Because we're going to be talking about the power of prayer.

Amen.

And how to get results to prayer.

How to have effective prayer.

And that's important,

because not all prayers are the same.

And if you don't understand the concept of prayer,

you're not going to have prayer that brings results.

And it's okay to want results.

It's okay to want prayer that gets answered.

Amen.

And it's okay to notice that some people's prayers never get answered.

Okay.

You know, you can think these things and not be judgmental.

And not be harsh.

And not get any leadist attitude.

Not become arrogant or smug.

But you can still notice things.

Sometimes I feel that in an effort to be compassionate and loving,

Christians throw all judgment out the window.

And you're all judges.

I mean, you made a judgment what time to leave your house,

so you could be here on time.

Yeah.

At every red light, I made a judgment.

Mmm, I'm going to stop here.

I don't want to take it.

Right?

You're hungry.

You make a judgment.

You judge that you're going to eat.

And so I remember as a young Christian,

very early on in my Christianity,

I would notice that some people,

their lives just never changed.

You could tell after talking with them,

wow, your life has been the same for 20 years.

You're like the Lord.

You change not.

Except the Lord.

The Lord is okay for changing not,

because he's perfect already.

But you need help,

but nothing ever changes.

Yeah, you're always praying.

You always talk about,

I'll pray for you, and I'm praying,

and you're at every prayer meeting.

So I think it's safe to say,

you may be doing something wrong.

You know, it's okay to say,

you're a soup,

but your soup needs a dash of cayenne.

You're not seasoned right.

You might need a few extra ingredients

in order to work as a soup.

Amen.

And so when I first became a Christian,

prayer was this abstract concept.

Most people are terrified of praying.

I was, to actually speak to God,

my maker, my creator,

from my heart.

You ever talk to somebody and say,

let's pray and they,

they get terrified?

They don't, you know what I'm talking about?

You know, maybe you should ask a few of your friends,

will you pray with me?

They start trembling.

Well, what do I say?

I mean, if it's not pre-written,

everybody gets nervous.

And I was nervous.

I asked a person who led me to the Lord,

what is, how do I,

I knew I wasn't,

I wasn't comfortable praying.

And he said something that got me off to a good start.

He said,

praying is like picking up the telephone

and talking to your best friend.

That helped me a lot.

The idea that God now loves me and calls me a friend

that I can speak freely to him,

that helped me find him more approachable,

that I didn't have to be terrified of him,

that he actually welcomed me into prayer,

that got me off to a good start.

But a couple of years after that,

as I began to seek the Lord,

and I was called into ministry,

I was in my late teens,

I'm called into ministry,

and I would endeavor to spend time in prayer.

I fought to myself,

and even to the Lord, I expressed,

I want you to take me deeper in prayer.

I want to understand the principles that govern prayer.

Because sometimes I can just tell in my spirit,

I'm hitting bulls eye in prayer,

and other times I would just sense,

I'm off here.

And how do I learn how to pray better?

And thankfully, we don't have to just throw darts in the dark,

but God gave us a manual.

He gave us his word that has much to say on the topic of prayer,

and if we abide by the principles that God shows us in His word,

our prayer will be effective. Amen.

And I want every single one of you to be effective,

not to be forgiven here.

I know I can come across harsh.

Sometimes I say just to wake you up,

and for you to maybe collectively sigh or relief.

But you don't want to be 80 years old in a church,

attending every prayer meeting and still being a prayer babbler.

Just to pray and pray and pray.

Nothing happens, nothing changes.

You're celebrating the one answer you got back in 1962,

and a Christian's life should be dynamic,

and should be filled with the glory of God,

and prayers should be getting answered. Amen.

That's effective prayer.

Look at James, chapter 5, verses 16 and 17,

James 5:16

that's an insight into prayer,

and what prayer should look like.

The people I have in my life,

when they tell me they're praying for me, I get excited,

because I know their prayers work.

I know they know how to touch heaven.

If you don't get excited when someone says I'm praying for you,

it might mean that you've discerned that their prayers aren't that effective.

Maybe you're judging them based out of what you're experiencing,

that your own prayers aren't that effective.

You know, when someone says I'm praying for you,

it's like good luck with that.

It shouldn't be that way.

I know there's a half a dozen men in my life,

when they tell me they're praying for me, it's happening.

My wife is praying for me, my mother is praying for me.

Stuff is happening.

Amen. If I'm going through something difficult,

and the past, especially before I met Emily,

my mom would text me and say,

I'm terrible praying for you this morning.

I know what that meant.

She'll start praying off in English,

and very quickly run out of things to say in English,

and then she kicks in into five gear and tongues. Amen.

Confess your trespasses to one another.

I do that a lot when I'm preaching to you.

And pray for one another that you may be healed.

The effective, the prayer that gets results,

red hot, fervent.

That's what it means.

Red hot, fiery, passionate prayer of a righteous man

avails much. What does it avails much mean?

It means it gets the job done.

It works.

God gave us this gift to communicate with him,

to ask of him, and it should make a difference in our lives.

We should not have a powerless Christianity.

Our Christianity is filled with power,

with our connection to the creator of the universe,

and through prayer, we're invited to change our surroundings.

Are you hearing me, church?

You're invited to co-create with God.

Yes, I said co-create.

You see it right in the book of Genesis,

right in the beginning of creation,

when God invites Adam to name the animals.

It doesn't mean that Adam then went to Tiger's name as Harry,

the elephant's name as Bob,

and that wall rest over there I'm going to call Gary.

To name the animals means that he now imparted the nature

and the purpose and the destiny of that animal.

That's what name means.

When Adam said you are a lion,

he was co-creating with God.

What was a lion then?

It was just something,

but when Adam said a lion,

it was your king of the jungle,

your carnivorous,

you have a roar,

you live in a pride with an ant.

He said you're an ant,

not Jeffrey the ant,

because Jeffrey is a better name for a giraffe.

No, he said you're an ant.

You can live 50 times your body weight.

You live in a colony,

you're a hard worker.

He was co-creating with God,

and when you pray,

you actually are now receiving God's invitation

to co-create with Him.

What does God want to create?

It wants to create your life.

It wants you to be a part of it.

It should be powerful,

and it should work, amen.

But some of us,

we just need a few dashes

of other ingredients.

If you're frustrated in your prayer life,

get ready for some holy ghost,

bam, cayenne,

to kick it up a notch.

Maybe some salt,

some pepper,

some of us need a little turmeric.

But we need some specific ingredients

to make our prayers work.

Hallelujah.

Ephesians 6-18.

Understanding prayer.

Prayer.

Pray at all times.

On every occasion,

in every season,

in the spirit,

and here, here,

it gets very telling,

with all manner of prayer,

and in treaty.

So we have to understand

there's different kinds of prayers.

Now, this really helped me

when I first found this out.

Because before,

I would just think all prayer is prayer.

And all principles

can be applied to all prayer.

But it's not so.

There are different kinds of prayer.

See, prayer is a giant umbrella term.

And underneath that umbrella term

could be worship.

That's a type of prayer.

If prayers just defined as communicating with God,

worship would fall under that umbrella of prayer.

Praying in tongues would fall under that umbrella of prayer.

Asking God for stuff

is the prayer of petition,

your petitioning for something you need.

That's a type of prayer

with its own specific principles.

Praying for someone else.

That's an intercessory prayer

that's under the umbrella of prayer.

Another kind of prayer

you saw in the Garden of Gethsemane

is Jesus praying the prayer

of dedication and consecration,

where He ends that prayer

with nevertheless not my will,

but yours be done.

Amen.

I had to pray that prayer this week.

I was really tempted to move to Florida.

My parents already have a place

on the water I was thinking

we're at the place right now

when we get a nice,

look at sunset views and all.

But I pray the prayer of consecration,

like Jesus.

Not my will,

but yours be done.

Lord, and you've called me to New York City

and this is where my home is.

And, ooh, I had to recalibrate.

Hallelujah.

But you see people slap.

They slap on Jesus' words,

not my will, but yours be done

to the end of every prayer.

How many of you don't raise?

You're not going to answer anyway.

But when people get nervous

or awkward in prayer,

you know,

they're praying, let's say, for their job,

for a spouse,

and they're praying,

and then right as they're praying,

Satan introduces doubt,

makes them feel like they're in worthy,

whatever the doubt may be,

and then they start squirming

and then they go,

well, nevertheless, not my will,

but yours be done.

You just canceled out your whole prayer.

You weren't dedicating and consecrating yourself

to a particular course.

So, you can't just put,

at the end of every prayer,

and not my will,

but yours be done.

You're supposed to know what his will is

when you ask for something.

Amen. Well, how do I know his will?

His word is his will.

You have to find scripture

that covers what you're asking for,

and when you see it in his word,

then you have confidence, amen.

Hallelujah.

For example, a man,

wants to get married,

doesn't say,

Jeffrey is going to find Susan

in the scriptures.

You can't stand that.

But you see in the scriptures,

he who finds a wife finds a good thing.

Oh, and then you read every good and perfect gift

comes from the father of lights,

with whom there's no variability,

and it's neither shadow of turning.

Oh, so Lord, good things come from you,

and he who finds a wife finds a good thing.

Now I have the word for that, amen.

Now don't have to go, God,

if it's your will, I see what your will is.

Amen.

This is going to help you, man.

So that your prayer,

you should not feel when you pray,

like you're a blind man with a stick,

just kind of fumbling around in the dark.

So I want to just teach on some principles

that will help you have effective prayer,

prayer that gets results,

that your whole week would change, amen.

And that this week would be better than last week.

And the next week would be better than this week, amen.

All right, number one,

the principle of dependence.

This is a good first thing

to understand about our heart posture when we pray.

What catches heaven's attention?

What's the first,

what's the first our heart posture has to submit to when we pray?

We have to need him.

We have to be dependent on him.

Humility equals your dependence on God.

You have to really need him.

I mean, really, really need him.

Jesus said, apart from me,

you can do nothing.

Most people interpret that as apart from me,

you can do some things.

But prayer that works comes to God going,

Lord, apart from you,

I can do nothing.

In New York City, because in New York City,

most of you already done something,

just by being in New York City.

New York City has some very successful, ambitious,

and aggressive people.

The weakness of that is you can be proud, amen.

And by proud, I mean confidence in your own ability.

But either I'm going to be very confident in God's ability

or confident in my ability.

I've seen what I can do.

I'm not very impressed.

I've seen what God can do in spite of me.

That's very impressive.

Take, as an example,

Solomon,

the most prosperous man that ever lived.

The Bible says during his reign,

there was so much gold that silver was on the streets.

It was counted as nothing.

You know, what about months and most are nothing?

You actually calculate,

and it gives you the specific weight of Solomon's gold.

Nothing even compares.

And it was the most prosperous time in Israel's history.

And then you read in the scriptures,

when did that begin?

When did that favor, that blessing?

When did Solomon's whole life change?

It changed with one prayer.

He said to the Lord,

Lord, I'm but a little child.

He wasn't a little child.

He was a man already.

But he said, Lord, I'm but a little child.

Or go out unless you lead me.

That was a prayer of dependence,

of humility,

and the Lord liked that prayer so much.

He liked it so much that he said,

because you haven't asked for riches or wealth or honor,

now you're going to get riches and wealth and honor

and a lot more,

because you didn't think you were all that,

but you needed me.

So prayer is set off like an atomic bomb

when you first go in with a posture of God I need you.

Not I need you to kind of help me.

I got it, Lord, I got it like 80%.

But you know, if I fumble a little bit,

could you help me?

No, I need you, Lord.

That activates the power of God.

You see in the New Testament,

the people who got miracles from Jesus,

they really needed him.

And they knew that if Jesus didn't show up,

they were ruined.

That's why they legally pressed through crowds

to get to him,

to a roof-soft buildings to get to him.

Dangled like Zacchaeus off branches,

just to get to him.

Hallelujah.

In the Orthodox faith,

my parents and I were a part of

that's Christian Orthodox,

not Jewish Orthodox.

I've said Orthodox faith before

and people would after service,

I didn't know you were Jewish.

And although I'm a son of Abraham,

I used to belong to the Orthodox faith.

And in the Orthodox faith, the monasteries,

Emily and I, we spent a summer touring

these beautiful, famous monasteries.

We noticed the doors,

the frames are like three and a half,

it's like the hobbits, three and a half,

four feet high.

And I was shocked to learn that we had so many dwarves

in the ministry.

No.

But they would actually build those so low

because as you would enter the sacred space,

you would have to bend down so low.

And it's impossible to enter that sacred space

with your nose up and your chest down.

Now, they would do that physically.

I mean, it's good for, I mean, you could be doing that

and be filled with pride and arrogance anyway.

But it was a picture of how your inward

should be, even to match your exterior, your outward.

But it didn't always work out that way.

But you get to decide how you approach God.

And you look at the Psalms

and the psalmists are crying out,

Lord, I'm nothing, you're everything.

Apart from you, I can do nothing.

There's got to be a dependence.

It activates the power of God.

A question I'll often get from people is,

or a statement, statement kind of wrapped in a question is,

I feel like I'm bothering God with my little requests.

I'll only go with him,

I'll only go to him with the big things.

Why? Can you handle the little things?

I can't handle the little things.

You're never bothering God with the little things.

You're showing dependence.

Tell him the big things,

the little things,

the middle things,

tell him everything you need,

like the loving father that he is.

And you're never bothering him.

But you're showing dependence which activates his power.

Amen.

So the first principle is dependence on him, that humility.

And by the way, that word dependence is just a synonym for humility.

And this is why the Bible says that God resists the proud,

but gives grace to the humble.

I don't like it when Satan resists me.

How much worse is it when God Himself resists you?

And it says He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.

Psalm 6618, next principle,

is the principle of right standing with God or righteousness.

When you go to prayer,

and the reason why so many people tap out so quickly,

you know what I'm talking about, you go to prayer,

you have it in your head as you're going to pray,

oh, I'm going to have a time with the Lord,

and after 30 seconds you find yourself saying,

hey, amen, all right.

Let me see what happened on my phone in the meantime.

What's the catalyst usually?

What happens usually people get because when you go to prayer,

Satan goes with you.

He hates it when you pray.

He follows you into prayer.

And one of the first weapons he uses against you when you go to prayer

is guilt and shame and condemnation.

If you're honest, how many times you go to prayer

and the moment you go to prayer,

your sin record pops up in your mind and you just start.

And you know, Christians will say,

oh, the Lord is convicting me.

You know, Christians will say, oh, the Lord is convicting me.

The Lord is not bringing up all your sins as soon as you step into prayer.

I mean, that's terrible.

That would be like I haven't seen my son or daughter in weeks

and they finally come to me and I'm like,

all right, let me tell you everything you did wrong.

I won't want to see me very quickly.

No, that's Satan trying to get you into a place of shame and guilt

and condemnation to keep you from praying.

You got to go into prayer knowing a few things.

One that all of yours, all of your sins past, present, future

have been taken out of the way.

That because of the blood of Jesus,

neither God nor Satan can point to one part of you

and find one speckle of sin inside of you.

I've had people argue this with me.

People who, and it's always people who desperately need to hear this message

and I try to pound the blood, the forgiveness.

And you see their eyes darting nervous,

I know this is too good to be true.

I must punish myself.

There's questions like that.

How many of you see in the footage from the Philippines?

The Filipino Catholics?

Anybody from the Philippines here?

You know what I'm talking about?

The Filipino Catholics that self-flagulate,

that hit themselves?

Yes or no, they'll think I'm lying.

It's true, right?

Yes, right?

Okay.

I love that I can almost call out,

anybody like, and then hand goes up.

Do you know we have 80 nations represented at City Light?

So, these precious people,

and there's, by the way, there's areas in Latin America

where they do the same thing.

Because they don't understand forgiveness,

they don't understand that all of their sins

have been punished.

They have to help God out, apparently,

and punish themselves.

Why should you punish yourself?

When all of your sin has already been punished?

It's like the sacrifice of Jesus wasn't enough.

Well, it was more than enough.

The Bible says, once and for all,

and after that, he sat down.

If it wasn't enough, he wouldn't have sat down.

But he sat down and put his feet up

on his enemies who've been made his foot still.

You don't have to self-ladulate,

beat yourself up,

but people will do that in prayer.

Why? Because they're regarding iniquity in their heart.

See what that scripture says, Psalm 66-18.

If I regard iniquity in my heart,

the Lord will not hear me.

So, when you go to prayer,

what a Satan try to do,

get you to look at all the iniquity in your heart.

Get you to look at your mistakes,

your failures, your shortcomings.

You'll probably shut that up.

The blood of Jesus.

And the clear fourth, God's forgiveness

and his gift of righteousness to you.

I am forgiven completely.

Sometimes you just have to start the prayer off that way.

Lord, I'm praying to you knowing,

I'm forgiven completely.

I have right standing with you.

I can come boldly to the throne of grace.

I have access with confidence.

Satan has nothing in me.

You know who said that, Jesus?

He said, Satan has nothing in me.

Jesus can say that now.

He has nothing in me.

So, don't regard iniquity in your heart.

And there's Christians who think they're being humble when they do.

No, that's called being faithless, not humble.

Faith is saying, no, I am now the righteousness of God in Christ.

And when I speak,

because I am in Jesus,

my life is hidden with God in Christ.

When I pray to the Father,

it's the same as Jesus talking to the Father.

That is the glory of the cross.

That is the blessedness of this gospel.

That's how far we've been elevated.

Hallelujah.

Just that alone, if you would catch that,

it would quicken your prayers

and the results would start happening quicker and more.

Prayer would be more fruitful.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Jesus.

You know, that brought back so many memories.

That was my mom.

Do you remember when we started CityLight,

there would be like 15 people.

It would be so awkward.

If somebody opens up a piece of gum,

you know, like a candy and it's like,

it's right, everything is so loud.

And right in like this holy moment,

this phone would go off ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.

And my mom would be smiling back at me like,

whoopsie.

Hallelujah.

Praise God.

Thank you, Lord.

John 14 verses 13 through 14.

John 14:13–14

This is the principle of the name.

Jesus wouldn't tell us to use his name

over and over again if it wasn't important.

Now, of course, there's semi-believers

just so that I don't call them unbelievers,

but there's a lot of cultural Christians.

And when you, for example,

when I first moved to America in the early 80s,

they would show families saying grace on TV

and in the movies all the time.

How many of you remember that?

But they would never invoke the name of Jesus.

The prayers are always like Dear Lord

or Dear God.

Never the name of Jesus.

Why? Because that name is powerful.

And that name is actually the deal maker or deal breaker.

That's the all-access pass.

Have you ever heard a politician use the name of Jesus?

You know, they have the prayer breakfast, prayer, Congress.

They pray all the time, but it's always Dear Lord.

Well, you said, what does it matter?

It matters a lot because to somebody a tree is a Lord.

To somebody a cow is a Lord.

There's many, many different gods.

You look in the book of Acts

when the Christians were being persecuted specifically

the people persecuting them always brought up the name of Jesus.

Always, always.

Quit preaching in that name.

We forbid you to speak that name.

Don't talk about that name.

Even an atheist.

When they stub their toe in the middle of the night,

they don't say, oh, Buddha!

Muhammad!

Oh, Confucius!

When even an unbeliever is looking to invoke a powerful name

they say the name of Jesus.

Because the Bible says that he's given him the name.

And no other name is given amongst men under heaven.

Whereby we must be saved.

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow

and every tongue confess.

It's the name that's higher than every name.

He's giving you his name.

Think of it as an all-access pass.

And when you pray and specifically use the name of Jesus,

what are you actually saying?

Think about it.

When you say father,

in the name of Jesus,

you're saying, I'm not coming to you here alone, father.

Because if I came to you alone, I'd be disintegrated.

You know, if you got close, if you got in within 10,000 miles of the sun,

you'd be disintegrated.

Now imagine the maker of a million sons.

You're going to stand just Sasha into his presence and go, what's up?

No, I'm coming to you in the name of Jesus.

In and through what Jesus has done on the cross,

which has given me his righteousness,

make me a child of God,

cause him to be completely pronounced,

not guilty and forgiven.

Now I have the legal right to appear before you

and to request of you.

Hallelujah.

That's why the name of Jesus is so powerful.

That's why, look, you could be at a party.

When I first got saved,

I noticed that I was in high school.

Go to lots of parties.

I can talk to people about God.

I could get a cry to people around me.

Talking about just G-O-D is not that offensive.

Cause people just interpret like you're talking about the universe.

Or, you know, some abstract creator.

But I noticed the moment you say Jesus,

record scratch.

That's when it gets real.

Cause there's power in that name.

So use his name.

And use it often.

Hallelujah.

Look, I know I'm going through some of the basics.

Yet we'll have 21 days of prayer and fasting

and then I'll still see a good chunk of people

not using any of these principles.

It's true or false.

Right, and you go.

And I'm going through the basics.

That's why it's good to go through the basics.

Vince Lombardi to start of every season with the Green Bay Packers.

Vince Lombardi, world renowned coach.

And then professional football players.

And he would start every football season.

How many of you know what he would say?

Say it?

This is a football.

To a bunch of professional football players.

In the NFL.

This is a football.

In other words, nobody's beyond going through the basics.

And if Vince Lombardi thinks you need to know that this is a football,

you probably need to know this is a football.

Amen.

And some of you were not going, yeah, praying the name of Jesus.

Well, yeah, what else am I praying in?

I got this, man.

Listen.

Listen and apply, hallelujah.

Oh, glory to God.

Hebrews 4.16.

Because we're going to get some prayers cracking up in here.

People who can shape and shift their own environment through prayer.

Hallelujah.

And having a successful and dynamic prayer life makes you very attractive to the unbeliever.

Because they're looking for Christianity that works.

And they're looking for somebody who says little cute religiousisms.

I'll pray for you.

Well, they might be thinking, please don't.

There's nothing of your life that you should advertise to me.

Hallelujah.

But the Lord actually, his desire is to lift you up.

Do you know what the word blessed means?

As several meanings.

One of the meanings is empowered to prosper.

Another meaning is to be envied.

The Lord knows how the sinner thinks.

And the sinner is very rarely moved without truism.

But they are moved by envy.

And one of the definitions of to be blessed is to be envied.

God's desire is to lift you up and raise you up.

So unbelievers will go, wow, what a life.

I want to have what they have.

I want to serve this incredible Yahweh God through Jesus.

I want to serve him because that relationship is working for that person.

Hallelujah.

The next principle is the principle of boldness.

Because prayer will not work if you're mousy.

You don't see mousy prayers anywhere in the Bible getting answered.

You won't see timid prayers getting answered.

I've heard people say, well, that's just my personality.

Then change it.

But I would beg to differ that it's not your personality.

I've had lots of quote unquote shy timid friends.

They're only shy or timid in specific scenarios.

You put them in the right scenario or become a lion.

I have no shy and timid people who love cake.

They're very shy and timid.

Then try to take a piece of cake from them.

What happens to your timidity?

Oh, your love for cake is greater.

Don't ever partner with that demon.

Don't partner because a demon comes and says, well, you're just shy.

And then you go, yeah, I'll make my whole personality about that.

No, don't partner with a demon that's telling you your shy.

In the scriptures, Paul wrote Timothy and said, God has not given you a spirit of timidity.

But of power and of love and of a sound mind.

And please don't ever think like, for example, my wife.

Don't ever think she's timid.

My wife may be quiet, which is actually a beautiful biblical trait.

Where Paul instructs wives to have a quiet spirit.

There's no timidity about her.

Touch your kids, see the lioness come out.

Don't love her cooking. See the lioness come out.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

So this boldness is fueled by understanding who you are and who you are as a child of God that has been made righteous.

A sin consciousness will cause you to be timid.

A righteousness consciousness will cause you to be bold.

Sin makes cowards out of men.

If you are regarding iniquity in your heart, if you haven't embraced the blood of Jesus and the new creation, the new birth, you'll always be timid.

What's the first thing Adam did after he sinned?

God rhetorically asked him, where are you Adam?

And his response was, I was afraid and I hid myself.

Sin and a sin consciousness will cause you to be a hider.

But you have been made clean.

You have been forgiven.

You've been pronounced just, which means not guilty.

So that should produce in you a boldness.

And yes, Satan will come.

If you're not solid in this truth, he'll come and challenge it at the start.

And you'll go to pray and he'll try to play a movie of all your sin for the last year.

Just play it in your mind.

And you have to learn how to address the devil.

I feel this in my spirit right now.

Some people talk to the devil too much.

Some people don't talk to him at all.

You got to talk to him just right.

And command him.

Devil stop.

I break your power in Jesus' name.

I've been made the righteousness of God in Christ.

The Bible says I've been made perfect.

Yeah, but you fell.

The Bible says a righteous man will fall down seven times,

but each time get back up again.

Hallelujah.

Yeah, but the Lord has forsaken you.

The Bible says that he'll never leave me nor forsake me.

Even for short people.

It says, low, I'll be with you, even to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Hallelujah.

Colossians 4.2.

There's a principle of praise.

Of being grateful.

When you have faith and you truly believe God has heard your prayer,

there should be a gratitude that it's expressed,

but sincerely from your heart.

See, early on when God was teaching about prayer,

I was really like kind of overwhelmed and down about something.

So I had the, you know, the horse face.

You're down.

And I went to pray.

I prayed.

And when I said amen, I got up.

I still had the horse face.

The long face.

And as I was getting up and my face hadn't changed at all,

the Lord arrested me and said, do you believe that I've heard you?

No, you don't.

If you believed your face would be different.

There'd be a hallelujah that comes out of your lips.

If you actually believe that the answer is on its way now,

then why are you still down in the dumps like you just talked to the wall?

So oftentimes that tension between praying and then receiving that time space,

that can be shortened in proportion to how much you praise him.

So once again, because here we have different cultures.

And this is just for some cultures.

Yeah, it's easier to pray.

Some cultures just are more expressive.

But I really don't care about my Serbian culture, your culture,

I like Bible culture.

And the Bible culture says shout to hallelujah.

Amen.

Bible culture says to praise him.

Praise him in the morning.

Praise him in the evening.

Praise him all day long.

Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it,

with not moaning and grumbling and complaining, with thanksgiving.

Hallelujah.

In fact, I try to pray for things only once.

Because if I keep praying for the same thing 50 times,

probably 49 of those times was with doubt and unbelief.

So my prayer is once, I don't get, you don't have to get legalistic about this.

But I pray once and then until I see it manifested, I'm praising him.

Thank you, Lord, that it's coming.

Thank you, Lord, that you heard my prayer.

You're a good, good father.

You're on my side.

Lord, you make a way where there seems to be no way.

I just, I love you, Lord, you're always been good.

You'll continue to be good.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.

Some of you, I know this in my spirit.

You're like a 10-minute praise festival away from getting your answer.

You are.

You just need to lock yourself in your room and be silly for 10 minutes.

I say be silly because in your mind you call yourself silly,

but you need to just forget.

That's why revival is important.

And you know when the power of God pushes,

matches you, you go dancing and spinning and,

oh, hallelujah, you don't care what anyone thinks.

And now you're alone in your room and you're wondering,

what would the walls think?

You need to close that door and dance like David Dance.

Amen.

Praise him.

Get silly.

You say, how do I know if I'm doing it right?

When Satan is telling you you're being a total fool,

you're doing it right.

Then praise him some more.

It expedites the answer.

Hallelujah.

Oh, here's a good one.

The principal of forgiveness.

First Peter 3.7.

Husbands likewise dwell with them.

Who's them?

The wife.

Dwell with them with understanding.

That word understanding there in the Greek means study.

So husband, study your wives.

No, really, you got to study them.

Study the calendar.

Study them.

Giving honor to the wife.

As to the weaker vessel.

And as being heirs together of the grace of life,

that your prayers may not be hindered.

Now look at that.

That means if there's, now this doesn't really apply to me

because my wife never, ever makes a mistake.

I don't really ever.

But for those of you lesser beings out there

that are married.

Here's it.

And you said, well, you know, a man's like,

you know, why it's picking on me?

Where's that good scripture to the wife?

Well, you wanted to be the head of the home.

Congratulations.

Now you get to lead in forgiving first and loving first.

And yeah, that's how works. Amen.

But I want you to catch the spirit of this scripture.

It means that if you're in bitterness and unforgiveness,

your prayers will be hindered.

And what we're talking about here is having effective, powerful prayer.

And really, I started with this marital one.

It applies.

Whether you're married or not married.

It applies in every sphere of life.

The greatest teaching on prayer, in my opinion, is Jesus in Mark 11.

Mark 11.23.

He talks about speaking power.

If you say to this mountain, be removed.

It'll be removed.

Next verse, Mark 11.24.

He talks about the power of prayer,

which so everything's you desire.

When you pray, believe that you receive them.

And you shall have them.

And then the next verse, in that same teaching on prayer,

says, and when you stand praying,

if you have a problem with anyone, forgive them.

Because bitterness and unforgiveness will mess up your prayer life.

Now, you have a choice to make right now.

All of us have something in common.

We have people in our lives that have hurt us and have offended us.

Some terribly, some deep deep wounds, I get it.

You have a choice to make.

You can either enjoy the feeling that you have from hanging onto that bitterness.

Or you can love yourself enough to release them, cancel all their debts,

and clear the air so you can pray with authority.

The choice is yours.

Matthew 5 verse 23 to 24.

Matthew 5:23–24

You show me somebody who lives in bitterness.

I'll show you somebody who's not getting answers to prayer.

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,

and they remember that your brother has something against you,

wait for it.

You won't believe what he says in the next verse.

There it is.

Leave your gift, therefore, before the altar, and go your way.

First, be reconciled to your brother,

and then come and offer your gift.

This is Jesus speaking.

So in order to have effective prayer and a clear relationship with the Lord,

you've got to forgive others.

And if you ever need motivation on why you should forgive others,

just remind yourself of all of the stuff that the Lord has forgiven you of,

and then multiply that by about 10,

because the other times 10 comes from all the stuff you don't even know that he's forgiven you of.

He's forgiven you.

You didn't even ask for forgiveness.

You didn't even know you needed it.

And when you meditate on how much you've been forgiven,

you'll be more inclined to extend that same forgiveness to others.

And powerful is the person who can say,

you know what, I don't hold a grudge against anybody.

Free is that person who can say, I don't wish anything bad on anyone.

I've forgiven.

And if you really want to know you forgiven them,

oh, you're going to love this.

Get them an anonymous gift.

Like if there's that one person in your life,

you just don't know if you're forgiven or not.

And by the way, the process of forgiving someone could take weeks.

It could.

It's not just one decision, because tomorrow you're going to hate them again.

And you'll forgive them, then the next day you'll be reminded.

You'll see an old email or someone will bring their name up.

You really want to kill that thing?

Give them an anonymous gift.

And make sure it stays anonymous.

You cannot stay bitter and give to someone at the same time.

Hallelujah.

People were into the preaching up until I got up to this part.

Tell us more about how awesome we are.

John 157.

The principle of the Word.

I bring this up all the time during 21 days of prayer and fasting.

In order to get what you want, what you want,

has to be in line with what God wants.

That's the big tension, isn't it?

Well, how do you know what God wants for you?

It's in His Word.

His Word is His will.

Now, I know there's some things you need to work out there.

For example, it's in God's Word that He wants you to prosper, right?

It's in God's Word that He wants you to be fulfilled.

It's in God's Word that He wants you to live a joyful, vibrant,

for lack of a better term, successful life. Amen.

That's in His Word.

But where you're going to work and how you're going to work may not be in God's Word.

Right?

You want to work for Google?

It doesn't.

You know, I shall.

Yay.

You will, you and all your generation.

And there I shall multiply you.

No.

But maybe you want to work for Google.

Because you want to get in there.

No, never mind.

So what do you do that?

You have God's Word, you have His will?

You talk it through with the Lord.

That's what being sensitive to the Holy Spirit is.

You present your options to the Lord and you let Him speak to you

and then He will guide and direct you.

But you still come to Him based on His Word.

If you just ask Him without the Word undergirding it,

your confidence in it being answered will be zero.

That's why people, when they approach God without the Word,

they don't know what His will is.

So then just tack on at the end of the prayer.

Yeah, but nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you.

Come to God with His Word.

Come to God and when you ask for Him,

present His Word to Him.

And my words abide in you.

You will ask when you desire and it shall be done for you.

Hallelujah.

And I pray that God would raise up a group of people

here that will obey this.

I love you, church.

But the unfortunate realities is always a chunk.

They can be in 100 services and they'll never ever apply

anything that's taught.

That's very sad for me.

That's statistically speaking, there's a chunk here who'll just go.

And they'll never ever do anything with it.

And the book of James that says,

be doers of the Word, not just hearers only.

A long time ago, a woman who was a part of our church for years,

she got hit with a terrible disease.

She heard these sermons for so long.

And she came up for prayer and said what she was hit with.

And me, I just said, what healing scripture are you standing on?

And she went, the one, the one, you know,

that one about him being hit, beaten for our healing,

you know, that one.

I'm going if I got sick.

And you asked me what healing scripture I was standing on.

I'm going to rattle off 10 verses that I know better than I know my own name.

That's how you got to be.

The Word of God is powerful.

The Word of God is life.

Don't you dare get frustrated at God not answering some prayer

and you have a memorized 10 scriptures that tell you you have that.

Get upset at yourself.

Rattle your own self.

Memorize scriptures that memorize the,

there's over 7,000 precious promises that he's already said amen to.

All you have to do is claim them for yourself.

But if you're not even willing to do the work of finding 10 promises

that apply to your life, God doesn't owe you a thing.

I love you.

I've got to tell you that.

There's got to be a shaking out of a spiritual apathy,

a complacentness of this weird case to ask to rob.

Well, if God wanted it, he'd just give it to me.

No.

You'd be blown away if you knew what God wants for your life.

You've got to shake yourself out of the mediocrity and plug into him.

And what he wants for you, it's in his Word.

Hallelujah.

He said, Blessing, I will bless thee and multiplying, I will multiply thee.

Hallelujah.

Just Psalm 23, once you're cup to overflow.

Just that, just the picture of that.

A cup that overflows.

Some people looking at a tin cup,

they've been rattling in the prison cell.

And then look, there's five drops in it.

He wants that cup to overflow.

That's his style, everything he does.

He gives in, he gives in excess.

Hallelujah.

Worship team, come on up.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Jesus.

Mark 11, 23, I'll close with this.

It's the principle of specificity.

When you pray the prayer of petition,

that is, you're asking God for something.

I'm going to tell you, the shorter your prayer is, the better.

Can you believe that when you're asking God for stuff,

you're praying too long, that's probably maybe your biggest problem?

Aren't you glad you have a pastor that's telling you to pray less?

Who does that?

Most pastor, pray more.

Secret is praying less.

I heard that from a preacher once, called Jesus.

When he said, don't think you'll be heard for your much speaking.

Now, do I pray at length?

I'm asking him for stuff.

How many different ways can you ask?

Whenever you listen to someone, asking for something,

they get all nervous and they're asking for 10 minutes.

He gets it.

You're just talking a lot.

You know why you're talking a lot?

Because of a lack of faith.

So you think you're going to convince God by using a lot of words.

And Jesus said, you know who does that?

The heathen, the pagan.

Don't think you'll be heard for your many words.

90 plus percent of your praying should be prays and worship anyway

and sweet fellowship with the Lord.

But when it comes to something you need, be specific and be quick.

I'm telling you there's a secret to that.

By the way, it's just me telling you I saw it in the scriptures.

It resonated in my spirit.

Then when I studied the great men of God of the last 300 years,

you'll see every single one of them will say what I'm saying in one version or another.

Over and over again.

Be quick.

Because when you talk at length, you got what's the point of you talking at length?

Do you think you need to describe the problem to God?

Then explain to him the 10 different ways he's going to meet your need.

Give him a few ideas.

You know, if I were you and you were me, God, let me suggest you how I would go about this.

But be specific.

Faith by definition has to be specific.

For surely I say to you, Mark 11, 23, whoever says to this mountain be removed.

Not a mountain.

This mountain.

A specific mountain.

Whoever says to this mountain be removed and be cast into the sea and does not doubt in his heart.

What believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Jesus.

Luke 17, 6.

You know, Jesus over and over again, he pushed people to be specific.

He would come up to them and say, what do you want me to do for you?

What do you want me to do for you?

And he made them get specific.

They couldn't just say, well, you know, I want a better life.

All right, here's a gift basket and jugger water.

That makes things better.

No, specifically.

Why don't you get together with the Lord tonight and get a little more specific and dream with God and talk about your future with God and invite him to architect it and ask him,

how can I help you build my life up, Lord?

How do you want me to align myself?

This is why we're going to have right now.

We're going to close the service soon and have ministry time.

And we encourage our ministry team to always inspire and provoke the people coming for prayer to be specific in that prayer.

Because if we're not half the time, people will come up and go, just pray for me.

We'll pray for what?

We'll just pray, whatever God puts on your heart.

No, no, no, no, no.

I'm not a prophet.

I'm a heart.

You want me to do all the work?

You can't even tell me what you want.

How lazy am I going to be if you're still the well or whatever God puts on your heart?

Whatever you think I need.

I don't know you.

I don't know what you need.

So we train our ministry and say, what's the number one thing you want God to do in your life?

We're trying to force you to get specific.

If you're wondering why they ask that, that's why.

Because you want vagueness, you'll get more vagueness.

You want answers and power?

Be specific.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Let's pray right now.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the amazing gift that is prayer.

That we get to communicate with you.

And we get to ask of you.

Lord, you said you received not because you asked not.

Then you commanded us to ask so our joy would be full.

I pray, Father, for a revival of prayer at City Light Church.

That people would be emboldened and filled with the Holy Spirit.

That they would pray boldly and with specificity in the name of Jesus having forgiven all other offenses.

Lord, let people begin to co-create with you.

And design with you the life you have intended for them.

Let there be a sweeping of mighty prayer through our church.

Prayer that's effective and fervent.

And that gets results in Jesus name.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Well, I just want to draw your attention to our end of the year offering.

It's November.

It's that time of year again.

If you would just look at this card, it should have been on your seat.

We're launching our first fruits, end of the year campaign.

One side of that card has that title.

The other side shows what's come in to City Light Church in previous years.

What's come in this year.

And how our finances have been allocated.

If you notice, and this needs to be corrected.

I don't want to ever look in the review mirror and see that we were financially stronger in the past.

And if you actually think about it, because we had six locations.

Excuse me, we had four locations, six weekend services back in 2019, 2020.

It's amazing that when we consolidated all in Queens, this is a testimony to the Lord.

Because the giving could have gone down by 75%.

Instead, if you look at the highs, I'm specifically showing you the bottom left hand corner.

If you look at that, the Lord really sustained us.

Because right now we have about, what does it say?

How many do we have on an average Sunday?

316 people?

See, that number used to be between six and 700 people.

But it's all spread out through six weekend services in four different locations.

So the finances actually are awesome, considering that half of our people either got upset at me during COVID or moved to Dallas or North Carolina or South Carolina.

And if you ever get upset at me for anything I say now, hang on.

Just don't leave right away.

Hang on for an extra six months so you can see I'm right again.

Hey, man.

Before you get better, I upset.

Just hang on.

Forgive me in that moment.

Receive the word for me.

And I go, you know that he was right again.

Praise God.

What a way to take a special offering.

So what is the first fruits offering?

It's for people who maybe haven't tied and given offerings to make them up.

It's for those who have given tides.

If you want to go above and beyond your normal tides and offerings, it's our end of the year campaign.

It's a time for you to say this is the first fruits before we even get to 2026.

I'm giving by faith and I'm believing that 2026 is going to be an exemplary year.

You will never get any pressure.

Some of you you're waiting for pressure.

You're not going to get it.

Some of you you're just waiting.

I don't know what you're waiting for.

You've been given the word of God.

You see that the word of God works.

The word of God should be enough that it says it works.

I know beyond any shadow of a doubt every Christian will make a living by their giving.

Your giving goes into your future and opens doors and nothing else can.

There is nothing that you release now that doesn't enter your future tomorrow.

Your giving actually makes a way for you.

When God's eyes were scanning the earth in Acts chapter 10 looking for who was going to be the first Gentile to proclaim the gospel,

Acts 10 · chapter mention

the Bible says his eyes landed on Cornelius.

Not because he had such a cool sounding name, but he says it says that his prayers and his giving have come up as a memorial before God.

Your giving actually gets God's attention.

Yes, it does.

It shows that there's been a deep work of the Holy Spirit done in your life and then money doesn't rule over you but you rule over money.

And God can entrust you with more money because money is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.

And that's what this special offering is about.

We have a goal of a hundred thousand and I don't want to be meeting that like around Christmas time.

Let's just blow that thing out the water by November. Amen.

So what should you give? Ask the Lord and give whatever he puts in your heart to give.

There's a special drop down menu so you can specifically designate it to the first fruits under the year offering.

And then like every good church will have a chart and a graph.

I love that part.

And we can watch your rise.

I hope not to watch your rise too long. Amen.

Let's be done in a month.

So give with a glad heart if you want prayer.

Our ministry team will meet you over by the blue light special.

They love to lay hands on your minister to you and pray for you.

Don't be shy.

They won't ever ever hurt you.

It'll be very, very gentle.

I pray for you and everything you've given, every seed you sowed,

that every tie, then offering, come up a mighty harvest to you.

We give praise to the Lord.

Where the scripture says that he takes pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.

Where the scripture says that he causes an overflow.

That when he fed the 5,000, the Bible says all had eaten and were full.

And there were 12 baskets of leftovers.

That is your way, Lord.

Full list and leftovers.

In Jesus' name.

Be blessed, city light.

Be blessed.

This is the city light church podcast.

If you've missed any part of today's message,

or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jansik in city light church,

visit us at citylightnyc.com.

That's citylightnyc.com.

Feel free to visit us online or in person anytime.

We would love to connect with you.

We pray that you have been encouraged today.

That you have been reminded how much God loves you.

And that you are surrounded by grace.

Thank you for listening.

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