Prayer: The Place We Go

Breakthrough Church: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Breakthrough Church Podcast. Glad to be with you. Excited to share just some updates, some testimonies, and ⁓ just a word ⁓ just that I received ⁓ from the Word of God this morning in in my prayer time. and ⁓ sorry if my voice seems a little raspy. ⁓ I don't know what happened. I just I guess my voice gets lost every once in a while. But ⁓ hope you guys are doing well. This last weekend we had ⁓ church on Saturday and we are almost done with our journey through the book of Galatians. Galatians has been amazing and I it's been it's just a really great book for me personally. It's really ministered to me, especially when I start getting strivy and legalistic with my faith and walk with Jesus. And by that I mean whenever I whenever I start feeling like I have to perform to get God's favor and presence in my life, I go to Galatians and it always snaps me out of it. ⁓ because the main message is that the favor of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit ⁓ come to you, not by your performance, but only by faith in Jesus Christ. So if there's ever a time I'm feeling separated from God, I know it's almost always because I've added the law and started to strive ⁓ in my life. And I go back to the cross of Jesus and I place my faith again, not because I feel like I lost my salvation, but because the life of God that's meant to flow in and through me only comes. As I place my faith in the finished work of Jesus daily, continually in his love for me. ⁓ and and so ⁓ that's that's kind of where ⁓ I I was at this weekend and we're finishing up in Galatians six, ⁓ talking about reaping what you sow. And it was it was it really good. ⁓ very grateful for ⁓ that. ⁓ one of the testimonies from service I wanted to share was ⁓ At the end of service, just felt like the Lord maybe wanted to heal some people or a person. I didn't I didn't know, but I just called anybody up with chronic pain, chronic headaches, chronic back pain, or chronic knee pain. And as far as I'm as far as I know, I prayed for someone who has chronic back pain. She was complaining of sciatica going all the way down her leg, pain in the lower lumbar of her back towards like the right side, and was really struggling. And ⁓ after prayer, simple prayer, ⁓ her pain went away. ⁓ completely. The next morning, unprompted, she texted me and said, Hey, she's a one out of ten, maybe, and it's the best she's felt in a really long time. And guys, I'm just I'm so so convinced, even though if I'm being honest, there's some days where I waver in this, but I just fully believe that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, and the kingdom of heaven is the king himself, Jesus, his presence. The presence of the Lord is on the earth through the Spirit, and he is submissive. subjecting all things under the feet of King Jesus. And that's what ministry is. It's helping Jesus get what he paid for on the cross. And one of the things he paid for on the cross is healing. And so just to see, even just ⁓ on what some people might think is like a a minor healing, but for someone who has sciatica, you know how big of a deal that is. ⁓ just so grateful for that. There was some new people there on Saturday as well and ⁓ summers are tough 'cause people are traveling a lot. So we have some of our our core people that are out have been out, which is which is fine. I I was I've been out a couple of weeks, ⁓ here and there. So ⁓ but man, I just wanna I wanna I wanna share just a a bunch of random things on my heart right now. ⁓ ⁓ last week, as you know, I I spend Wednesdays ⁓ with the Lord and it looks different each time. Inevitably there's a good amount of prayer that happens and you just sitting in the presence of the Lord and fellowshipping with the Spirit. And ⁓ one of the things that I want to share with you is ⁓ how to posture yourself in prayer. and I talk about prayer a lot. Here's why I talk about prayer a lot. Outside of it being a meaningful rhythm for me and has been for years now, ⁓ I do think prayer is one of the primary ways we express and manifest ⁓ our relationship with Jesus. If someone came to me and said, Yeah, I have a vibrant growing relationship with Jesus. And I would say, Great. Well, what is he speaking to in prayer? Tell me about your prayer life. How's that going? And they said, ⁓ I don't pray that much. I would say, ⁓ well, then then you don't you're either deceived or you don't fully understand what it means to have a vibrant, growing relationship with Jesus. And there's no judgment. But what I'm saying is ⁓ the life that God has for you is is birthed in the place of prayer. ⁓ it's given to you by by grace through faith, ⁓ by the cross of Jesus, but the way that we actually punch the ticket, the way that we actually manifest it, the way that we say yes to it and walk in what Jesus has purchased for us on the cross, namely relationship with God and his presence with us is in prayer. You can't get it any other way. and and so when we're approaching prayer, it's not an activity that we're doing, it's a place that we're going. ⁓ the Bible Jesus himself talks about go behind ⁓ go into your room, close the door, and your father who sees in secret will reward you in secret. What does that mean? It means when you go to the secret place You will be rewarded with the a greater measure of the presence of the Father in secret. So what you receive in secret ⁓ is the very presence of the Lord, which is the very thing Jesus was after when he shed his blood on the cross. I hope you're tracking with me. But if you're looking at the cross and what Jesus did, what he purchased was a place for you in his presence. And when we go to prayer, we are walking into that place ⁓ of the presence of the Lord. And someone might say, Well, aren't we always in the presence of the Lord? Yeah, that's true. But when you look at scripture, look at church history, look sh look at how Jesus and his disciples walk, they they regularly, regularly retreated to the place of prayer where they intentionally set aside time in a specific place, saying, This time is devoted to me hearing from and talking to the Lord and being with him. ⁓ So when I'm talking about prayer, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a place that we go to relate to the one who has shed his blood for us and to experience his love and presence in powerful, profound ways. ⁓ so when we approach the Holy Spirit, when we approach prayer, I mean there's two things that I I've been learning about that just for some whatever reason don't come naturally to me. Maybe they come naturally to you, but Those two things are dependence on the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus. Here's what I mean. ⁓ so often when I approach prayer, my mind is on how am I doing in this moment? Am I doing the right things? Am I approaching the Lord in the right ways? And inevitably I think more about myself than the Lord. And it's hard to make that shift, to stop thinking about myself to thinking about the Lord. ⁓ But there's two things I've seen that I've really that these two things, the de the dependence on the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus, or the love of the Father, however you want to put it, those two things help me enter and stay in the place of prayer with the Lord. ⁓ dependence on the Holy Spirit. I can't pray outside of the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. I am now a temple of the Holy Spirit. That means that the Holy Spirit lives inside of me. ⁓ Because of that, ⁓ I am sealed until the day of redemption, the Bible tells us. That means the Holy Spirit in me is the down payment of what is to come. And the Holy Spirit makes that down payment by attaching it himself with my spirit. And so the the spirit of God is one with my spirit. When I'm fellowshipping with the Lord. The the goal when I'm going to the place of prayer, the goal is to tap into that union, the Holy Spirit and my spirit. That is very difficult to do when your mind is very distracted with a bunch of other things. This is why having an intentional time going to the place of prayer once or twice or three times a day is very helpful because it helps you learn to remove distraction, remove the things in your mind that worry you, that all those things. You can put those aside and begin to tap into the union that's already at play in your spirit with the Holy Spirit. And when you get to this place, you can you can get to this place in prayer where it feels like it's just you and the Lord, there's no distraction, and it feels like heaven on earth, and that you're really truly in the presence of the Lord. that's the goal of prayer. And and and and David actually says it in Psalm 109 4. He's talking about turmoil around him. He's talking about people accusing him and trying to attack him. And he says, but I give myself to prayer. And the Hebrew in that can actually be translated as I have become prayer. That there's a place in the presence of the Lord where prayer is no longer an activity or something, an idea you're thinking about. It's someone, something you're becoming. You can get so one with the Lord and tap into the union that's already true about you because of the blood of Jesus. That you and the spirit are one in time and space. And that's when what David said is you become prayer. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. But here's my point: that cannot happen apart from dependence on the Holy Spirit. He is the Lord. He is the one who initiates this. He's the one that leads you into it. Anytime you think you've figured prayer out or you really know how to do that, let me let me rephrase that. Anytime I Have felt like I've figured prayer out. I'll be honest, even this morning, it was, I was I was a little bit there where I approach the Lord like, yeah, I've done this before, I know how to pray. And it does not work. If I'm initiating, if I'm the one trying to go first, if I'm the one that's trying to lead the time of prayer, it is dry as a bone, guys. It's just the worst. And it feels like death. But when I quiet myself, allow my mind to go away. I realize that the presence of the Holy Spirit makes everything so much easier. And I can enter into prayer and I can really go for it. But but by go for it, it's not like I'm running after something solo. It's the Holy Spirit is putting something in front of me that I'm chasing after in this place of prayer. And and so I would say more often than not, it starts with the face of Jesus. The Holy Spirit loves to lead us to Jesus. And so if I'm in the place of prayer, I'm in tune with the Holy Spirit. The first and primary thing that's going to going to happen to me in that place is I'm going to experience the love of Jesus. When I get and by experience the love of Jesus, I mean that the love that Jesus showed me on the cross is no longer an idea, but it's a reality in my heart. It's it's so real to me. It's like what Paul said in Galatians three. Wasn't it before your very eyes that Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? No, that's actually not true. They weren't in Jerusalem when Jesus died. Jesus didn't die in Galatia. What he's saying is that the preaching of the gospel was so anointed by the Spirit that when they heard it, it was as if they were seeing Jesus die on the cross themselves with their very own eyes. Excuse me. That that is what happens when the Holy Spirit anoints your time of prayer. Jesus becomes so real to you. ⁓ one other thing before I move on to the love of Jesus. ⁓ I've noticed that whenever I feel like I'm not in the spirit and I'm in the flesh in a place of prayer is I get really serious. Like I try to get really ⁓ religious. ⁓ I'll furrow my brow even more. Sometimes, you know, furrow my brow, not just physically. Cause sometimes I'll be in the spirit and my brow is furrowed because I'm like feeling the the heaviness of the glory of God. But ⁓ I I'll get real serious. I'll just like start posturing myself and I'll start doing all these things. And I notice that I'm changing behaviors, trying to think that that's gonna like make something happen. ⁓ and so the flesh feels so down, it feels so heavy, ⁓ it feels so burdensome. But when I'm in the spirit, it's so light, it's so easy. It's like golf. If you know golf, when you try to hit the ball really hard, you don't hit it as hard. You don't hit it as far. But when you just slow and easy swing with good rhythm and good flow to it, it just let the club do the work. It's like whoosh and it just soars and it's a beautiful ball flight. It's the same in prayer. When you're trying hard, you're not gonna get anywhere. But when you just stop trying, when you invite the Holy Spirit and you allow your spirit to rise above distraction, rise above circumstance, rise above people that are saying things about you, rise above. You just let the Holy Spirit elevate your spirit to this place of peace. It's so easy. And when you're there, you're like, whoa, this is way easier than I thought it was going to be. What is happening right now? And sometimes that can cause you to go back into your flesh because you're like, it's too easy. It shouldn't be that easy. But what I have to remember is Jesus said his burden is light and his yoke is easy. So when we're in the place of prayer, we should experience lightness and easiness, right? Okay. ⁓ That's almost that's a little bit of like how I've learned to enter the presence of the Lord in prayer. It's really light, easy by the Spirit. He initiates, He leads, He's the Lord. And I'm trying to tap into the union that's already true about my spirit with the Holy Spirit. And I'm trying to manifest that in in time and space so that I can really ⁓ be a convergent space where heaven and earth are touching each other. Does that make sense? Maybe not. Maybe it does. It makes sense when I say it. I don't know if it actually makes sense though. That that kind of that's that's how I think about it is like heaven meets earth when I tap into the union of the spirit and my spirit in the place of prayer. ⁓ so I've done that many times, but ⁓ and that's what I'm learning to do, but but one of the things that'll happen is I can get sucked out of that moment very quickly. And I'll give you one guess as to what can suck you out of the moment with the Lord. Yeah, it's the flesh. It's performance. It's me trying to maintain it myself. It's I this is the thought that I'll have. I'll have the thought, ⁓ man, am I gonna be able to keep this up? I don't think I can keep this up. I don't know if I could keep feeling this way. I don't know if I can if I can stay here with the Lord. And I start doubting my ability to stay in the place of prayer with the Lord in his presence. ⁓ and that's so twisted because I wasn't even the one that got me there to begin with. This is this is the the crucible of the secret place. This is what the fire. It's the, it's the the furnace of prayer. It stokes the flame for Jesus, but what it also does, it burns up you. It burns up your efforts, your performance. So whenever you're in the place of prayer, trying to stay in the presence of the Lord, staying aware of the presence of the Lord, things are gonna start to happen that are gonna distract you and try to try to shake you out of that. And those are the very things God's trying to burn up and destroy in you. So for me, it's performance. It's like I'm trying to perform for God. So as soon as I start thinking, I can't keep this up, I've got to maintain this somehow, I start retreating from the Lord. He didn't go anywhere, but I've now removed myself from an awareness of his presence because now I'm more aware of myself and my own performance than the Lord Himself. So this happened to me this last Wednesday when I was praying, spending time with the Lord. And I I was able to catch myself for one of the first times. It was such a it was such I felt like it was such a win for me. Because I thought, man, I I I normally would just go down this rabbit hole and this spiral down about how I'm not good at this. But but I stopped myself and I said, I just need to remind myself of the love of the Father, the love of Jesus. And when I reminded myself of his love, my performance became irrelevant because his love comes to me ⁓ independent of my performance. So when I'm meditating on this unconditional, steadfast love, it just, ⁓ my gosh, it just like catapults me back into that place. It anchors me. That's what anchors me in the presence of the Lord in the secret place. It's the love of God for me, not my love for him, which then makes me love him. And then when I started to remember his love, I started to thank him and love him back. And it just increased. And then I surrendered to the Holy Spirit. And I'll spare you details and stuff, but it led me to this. deep encounter with God and and and and and just seeing his face and and my heart coming alive and to another level, it felt like. And it was amazing. But but what it got what got me there was dependence on the leadership and presence of the Holy Spirit and being rooted in the love of God to stay in that place. ⁓ and so ⁓ there's probably a lot more I could say. I'll stop there. It's about 17 minutes of stuff right there. Actually probably more like 14 because I shared a testimony. But I I just want to encourage you. If you have a daily time with the Lord, here's what I want encourage you. Add another time to go to prayer once a week and extend it. Tell yourself, like let's say you spend 30 minutes in the morning with the Lord. ⁓ on Fridays or Saturdays, whenever you can, say, I'm gonna spend one hour with the Lord. And I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna trust the Holy Spirit to lead me into the heart of God. And And so go to a secret place, your room, your prayer room, prayer closet, wherever you go, sit on the floor or your favorite chair, and and sit there with your palms open and just say, Holy Spirit, I'm here. I want to know you. I want to be your friend. And then just trust him and wait. And don't do anything until you really sense him nudging you to do something. Just wait on the Lord. There's no pressure, no rush. You're not trying to accomplish. Just depend on the Holy Spirit. Keep your mind on the in unconditional, steadfast, immovable love of God for you. And just watch him work. Watch him move close. Watch him nudge your heart to open the scriptures to a certain passage. Watch him just lead you like he wants you to partake of him. He is so accessible and so there. He's so there for you. And trust that and go to him in prayer. Now, if you don't have a consistent time with the Lord, Do what I just said, but just do it for a little bit each morning. I advocate the morning because it's the best way to start your day. To awaken your heart to the goodness and love of God. So just go to the Lord in the early in the morning and pray and say, Holy Spirit, would you come? And just wait on him. Just wait on him. Let him nudge you. Let him lead you. He's so precious, guys. He's so good. The Spirit of God is so good, so tender. He's our best friend. He's the presence of Jesus on earth today. And so If you're in the presence of the Holy Spirit, it's as if you're in the very presence of Jesus Himself. So invite him and tell Jesus you love him. And there's no rush. It's just, it's romance. It really is. I know it might sound strange for some of you, especially if you're guys, but it's romance. He wants to romance you. He won't you're his bride. He's your bridegroom. He loves you unconditionally. And the only thing he wants back is your love, your consecration, your total commitment to him, his heart and his purposes. And ⁓ and so I just I'm so expectant that as as we commit to this, not just once a day, not just once a week, but as we commit to being people after the heart of God in prayer, daily for months and years on end, I believe there will be great revival and awakening that happens in your heart, in your family, and those that are lost around you and the sick around you, they'll be healed, saved, delivered. You'll just see stuff happening because you will become a convergence space, a space where heaven touches earth. in time and space and others will see that and some will be drawn to you and drawn to Jesus. Some will be repelled by it. And we just have to be okay with that. That's how it goes. But ⁓ just praying for you guys. Let me end with this last little encouragement for you. In Micah five, it's talking about a ruler that's going to come from Bethlehem, ⁓ which means house of bread, by the way. Bethlehem means house of bread. And this is where Jesus came from. It's where David came from. And it says that in Micah 5 too, but you, O Bethlehem Ephratha, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Ooh speaking of Jesus, guys, therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth, then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel, and he, Jesus, shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall be their peace. When you go to prayer, may the Lord, the shepherd of the flock, shepherd you in strength and in the majesty of the name of the Lord our God. Receive the strength of Jesus in the place of prayer. We're not meant to do this alone. We can't do this alone. So in the secret place, Jesus wants to impart to you fresh strength. And he wants to reveal to you the majesty of the name of the Lord our God. So let's do it. Let's get to let's get with the Lord. Let's pray. Look forward to hearing testimonies. And we'll talk to you next time. See y'all.