Pray First – A Life of Prayer

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Have you ever um you ever met someone who prays better than you?

Come on, you ever been around someone and when they pray, it feels like all of heaven comes to a standstill and God's like, shh, shh shh shh, shh, shh.

And he's just listening to them.

You ever been around someone that when they pray, it feels like they have a direct line to God?

Like if you're older than 30 years old, it's the red bat phone.

If you're younger than 30, it's like God is in their DMs.

Like he just hears what they say.

Come on, anybody?

Have you had this?

When I was in high school, I went uh several times to the nation of Fiji, beautiful island nation off the coast of Australia.

And I went several times, and there was a man there that we ministered for all the time.

His name was Suleyasi Carulo.

The people affectionately called him Brother Suley.

This was me and my dad, not my mom, but she's lovely.

And then Brother Suley.

And when this man prayed, I'm telling you, it's like heaven came to a halt to listen to this man pray.

I don't know if you've ever had the moment when you feel like your prayers don't get past the ceiling or they don't get past the roof of your car.

And other people, it feels like when they pray, God hears them and God answers their prayers.

I'll never forget, we were in Fiji ministering for Brother Suley, and every day we would preach two, three, four times.

We'd do camps and schools and churches and big citywide gatherings.

And at the end of the trip, Brother Suley wanted to do something to bless us, and so he told us he was going to take us to a world-class meal.

Now, all week we had been in this third world country ministering, which was wonderful, but we just didn't eat a whole lot.

And I don't know how you roll, but when I'm traveling, like all I can think about is the food that I miss.

Anybody have this before?

You're thinking about Chick-fil-A or that Taco Bell Crunch Wrap Supreme, you know?

And I couldn't wait to get back home and eat some good American food, but this last day, Brother Sully was gonna take us for a meal.

And so we go to this meal and he takes us to like an Asian flare hibachi kind of place.

And then we go to the room and there's one round table.

There's about 10 of us, and we sit around the table, and a man comes out in a tall hat with the spatulas, and he's cooking in front of us.

And I'm telling you, it would have smelled good on any day.

But after a week plus of not eating normal, it was intoxicating.

I couldn't wait to eat this.

And he cooked all the food in front of us, he did all the tricks, and then he filled our plates with this beautiful food, and he left.

And all I could think of was, I cannot wait to eat every bite of this food, and then hopefully whatever my mom doesn't eat, she'll slide to me.

I just couldn't wait to eat.

And so I pick up the fork and I'm ready to do work.

And Brother Stooley stands up and he goes, wait, wait, wait, before we eat, let's offer thanks.

And I don't know how you roll, but I pray a lot.

And when it comes time to pray for food, I pray fast.

I get in and get out.

You know, something like, good food, good meat, good Lord, let's eat.

You know, I'm ready to go.

Father, son, holy ghost, one that's fastest eats the most.

Like, I can't wait to eat.

Brother Sue Lee stands up and he starts to pray.

And when he prays, it's like heaven came to a standstill.

He said, Our gracious Father in heaven.

Beautiful, booming, rich, deep Fijian accent filled the room.

And he prays a prayer that it talks about our food, but he just connected with God.

And I remember thinking, come on, bro, like wrap this thing up, lay on the plane, my food's getting cold, and 30 seconds in, I'm getting worried about my food, and then a minute goes by, two minutes in, I don't care about the food because God was with us.

Hey, what if that's how you prayed?

Not just for meals, but what if your life felt like you were so profoundly, intimately connected with God that when you prayed, people noticed?

Because that's not normal.

Like, like, what if we became the kind of people who literally pray first in every circumstance, in every situation, and in every season?

What if we were the kind of people so profoundly connected to God that when we prayed, it felt like he heard us and he answered.

The whole thesis for this whole series came out of the book of 1 Thessalonians.

Paul writes a letter to a church in Thessalonica, and here's what he says in 1 Thessalonians.

Let's go to that verse if we can, please.

He says, Rejoice always, pray continually, pray continually is a whole verse in the Bible.

If you're like, I'm not good at learning Bible verses, it's two words.

You got this.

Pray continually.

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

This verse, pray continually.

Another translation, the NLT, says, never stop praying.

How do we never stop praying?

It's when we develop what I would call a lifestyle of prayer.

Where prayer is what we do.

It's prayer is we are always praying first.

This is the reason that last week, if you were here, we gave out these bracelets that say pray first.

And I love these bracelets so much because the bracelets are a reminder to us that in every circumstance, in every situation, in every season, we should pray first.

And I love how people love these.

People have told me, hey, how can I get more?

I've gave mine away.

A couple days ago, I was on Griffin Road in North Lakeland.

I pull up to a stoplight and a white pickup truck pulls up next to me.

I look over, and there's a man who looks at me and he goes, he does a double take and he goes, and he points at his bracelet.

So I want you to get one.

If you don't have one, get one.

But how do we be these people who pray continually, who pray without ceasing?

Well, I love what Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

said this weekend that we honor him.

He said this: He said, To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

Like it should be what we do, it should be the thing that is so natural to us that to not do it feels like we're missing out on something beautiful.

The brilliant British uh evangelist Smith Wigglesworth, which is a fun last name, he said, I never pray more than 20 minutes, but I never go more than 20 minutes without praying.

It should be so natural and beautiful that it is our very existence.

It feels as natural as breathing to us, that we are in constant communication with God at all times.

Now, to understand this, I want you to see what Jesus said.

In Luke chapter 18, Jesus was teaching, and it says, one day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

Like pray first, you know, and they should never give up.

He's teaching them that prayer should be a lifestyle.

It's more than just what we do, it's really an overflow of who we are.

I said this last week, and I want you to get this.

Prayer should be our first response, not our last resort.

If you were to audit your prayer life, let me ask you, is it something that you're regularly doing, or is it like the 911 emergency call?

Oh, God, step in.

Oh, God, help.

I need you, I need you, I need you in this moment.

I think for a lot of us, like our prayer life looks like a list of our demands, a list of our prayer requests.

And let me tell you this: God loves you and he cares about you and he's for you.

But what if it was the first thing we did?

What if prayer became the thing that we sought God first before everything else, instead of waiting until we ran out of options?

I believe it would change everything.

So here's the question.

Last week I gave you the model for prayer.

Jesus told us this is how you pray.

He prayed the Lord's prayer.

Today I want to talk to you a little bit about what it looks like for us and how do we do this?

How do we move prayer from the thing we know we should do, but if we struggle with it, to something that we can't live without?

How do we move prayer from that like religious obligation that we feel guilty if we don't do it enough, to the thing that gives us life?

And in one word, I think Jesus gives us the answer.

In the book of John, he says this: he says, I want you to remain in me.

This word is an important word.

The word remain in Greek is the word menno.

It literally means to like be with, to be intimately connected to, or to abide with.

He says, Remain in me, and I will remain in you.

No branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the vine.

Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

And then Jesus takes this simple principle and he makes it spiritual.

He says, I am that vine.

I'm the vine and you are the branches.

If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

Um, to try to explain it to you the way Jesus was explaining it.

I'm not much of an outdoorsman.

I don't really understand much of the outdoors.

I don't really love camping.

I think anything under a three-star hotel is roughing it, you know.

Uh a few months ago, I was at a store that's kind of a camping store, and I was buying something, and I said to the cashier, I said, Does this look like something I would normally buy?

She goes, Oh no, honey.

I said, What?

She goes, You look more like a pretty boy desk job kind of guy.

That hurt my feelings.

But here's something I need you to know.

Um, there is a tree that I love.

There is a tree that you'll, if you're new to Lakeland, you're coming at the best time because in a month from now, there's these trees, you'll see them all over Lakeland.

They're called tabiaboa trees, and they bloom yellow like this, and I love these trees.

They they are beautiful to me.

The yellow is so bright and so vivid.

A few years ago, I told a friend, Tara, who's one of the amazing people on our staff, I said to her how much I love these, and I was doing her wedding, and as a gift for officiating the wedding, she bought me a tabiaboa tree.

I got one in my backyard, and I can't wait every year for February for this thing to bloom.

Well, a couple days ago, I was out doing manly stuff.

Like, I'm not just a desk job pretty boy kind of guy.

I cut this tree down all by myself, everybody.

This was a branch on the tree, but it was growing in a weird spot, and so I gathered up all of my courage and went out there and I cut this thing down.

And here, here's what I want you to see.

Um, if I had left this branch connected to the tree, in one month, this whole branch would have been illuminated with bright yellow leaves.

But I cut it off.

Let me ask you a question.

If I set this outside on my back patio and I gave it a front row seat to my tabiaboo tree, when the tabiaboo blooms, will this bloom?

No, you know it won't because it's disconnected from its source.

You understand this?

I think a lot of Christians are like, God, why won't you do this?

And God, why won't you show up and God, God, God, and we blame God for everything when we've disconnected ourselves from the source that gives us life in the first place?

Like you need to understand God loves you, He wants to bless you.

But He does all these things when we're remaining in Him or connected to Him like a branch to a tree that gives it life.

Like, what would it look like if all of us just made this decision that we're gonna be the kind of people who are intimately connected with God and we do this through prayer.

Okay, let me give you three thoughts, and then number four can change your whole life.

Let's talk about prayer for a moment.

But number one, we gotta talk about the priority of prayer.

Let me say this to you.

A lot of people say things like, Well, I want to pray, but I'm so busy.

I got a lot of plates spinning, and I've got these papers due for school, and I've got so much work, and my kids are driving me crazy with their schedules.

Let me say this to you.

You have time to do everything that's important to you.

Because you make time for what matters to you.

Prayer needs to be a priority, and here's the reason it's because God must be first.

What do you mean?

Theologically, we would call this the preeminence of God.

It means he must be number one, and nothing else can be number one in our lives.

I think this is the reason that we should pray first thing in the day.

When you wake up in the morning before you check your phone and your email and your stocks and whatever you check on your phone, before you check that, what if you gave God the first few minutes of your day?

Good morning, God.

Can't wait to experience everything you have for me today.

Give God the first of your day.

I think it's important that churches on the first day of the week, and I love that you prioritize getting into the house of God on the first day of the week because it's saying, God, I put you first in my time, first in my week.

I'm a big proponent of the biblical principle of tithing.

Tithing is bringing back to God the first 10% of any money that God blesses me with, I bring it back to him as a tithe.

Scripture teaches that when we tithe, God blesses the rest.

But it's funny.

Um, here's a quick observation.

In every church in America, January is usually one of the lowest giving months.

Why is it?

Well, let's tease it out.

What comes before January?

Christmas.

And people buy Christmas gifts.

Nothing wrong with that.

I love blessing people, I love blessing my family with amazing gifts.

Nothing wrong with that.

But I think as you pay attention to the churches in America, Christians are paying off in January what they spent in December, you understand, and so God gets a little less.

Let me ask you a question: what message does it send to God?

I'm not here to judge you.

I'm just saying I don't want Christmas to be first.

I love Christmas, I love giving gifts, but God must be first.

In the same way, prayer is the way that we connect to and communicate with God.

It must be prioritized.

I love the story of Daniel.

In the story of Daniel, there's a moment where there's these people that are close to the king who are trying to trap Daniel in some sort of like, some sort of scandal.

And so they they know Daniel was a man of prayer, so they go to the king and they say, King, we love you so much.

In fact, you're so good that you're a God.

We think that everyone should worship you and know other gods, and so they issued a decree.

He says this in Daniel chapter 6, 6, verse 10.

Daniel 6 · chapter mention

It says, When Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened towards Jerusalem.

And notice the priority.

It says, three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

Every single day there was a time set aside for him to connect with God.

He made an appointment and he was gonna keep it.

Let me offer you a thought.

If you're a schedule-driven person, like if you live your life based on your calendar, schedule time for God.

And here's another piece of advice don't break your appointment with God.

If you have if you schedule time during the day where you're gonna take 10 minutes, you're just gonna spend this time connecting with God, and someone says, Hey, do you got 10 minutes?

Maybe later, but I've got an appointment right now and keep it.

Why?

Because God is my priority.

Are you with me on this?

Let's go to number two.

We talked about the priority of prayer.

Number two, we need to talk about the place of prayer.

I want you to notice the example in Jesus' life, Mark chapter 1.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

It says this.

Very early in the morning, there's the priority.

He's making time to connect with God.

While it was still dark out, Jesus got up and left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed.

Other translations say a certain place.

Some scholars believe that this place that they're referencing is what we call the Garden of Gethsemane.

We usually talk about the Garden of Gethsemane in the story of the Easter story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

But many people would say that this was the certain place he would go, not because it was so quiet, and it is, and I got to go there a few years ago.

It's a beautiful, serene place in the middle of all the busyness of Jerusalem.

But the reason they think he went there is because this place had a unique vantage point where you could look out and you could see the city of Jerusalem, the city that Jesus profoundly cared about.

So he'd go to this place so he could see the thing that he's praying for.

You need a place where you connect with God.

Old school Christians might call this the prayer closet.

It may be a closet you go sit in, maybe it's not, maybe it's just a chair that you can have, or it's a place on your back patio where you sit and you overlook whatever's in your backyard and you pray and you connect with God.

Some years ago there was a business principle popularized.

The business principle was called the third place.

Third place was this: you have home, that's first place.

Then you have work or school, that's second place.

But the theory was that everybody needs a third place where they connect.

For some people, it's the gym, uh, for other people it's church.

For some people, um, Starbucks came in and tried to like be the third place.

That's why they built their stores with seating the way they have it, so people can come there not just for coffee, but to connect.

And if they connect, then they're gonna buy the coffee.

You understand?

And here's what here's what experts have said.

In the last few years, our third place has shifted from a place that we physically connect to a place where we digitally connect.

So we wake up and we check our phones and we check the internet and we check whatever's happening on social media, we check the news, and let me say this to you here's something I've learned for me.

If my phone is open, I get too many notifications, there's too many distractions.

If my computer is open, there's too many things I can check that fight for my attention.

God needs a place for me.

I need to give God a place where I'm not distracted by anything so God can get my best.

I'm not picking on anybody.

This is the reason I got rid of wearing an Apple Watch.

I like the Apple Watch.

It was fun to know how many steps I took in a day, but it was always a distraction.

And it's hard to connect relationally when you're always distracted.

The same is true with God.

It's hard to connect with Him when you're always distracted.

Number three is this.

We've talked about we need a we need a place of prayer and a priority of prayer, but number three is we need a plan of prayer.

In the same way that if you had never exercised before and you walked into any gym in America and you just did three minutes on this machine and one minute on this machine and you ran for a few minutes, is it good?

Sure, it's better than nothing, but you're never gonna see the progress you want until you have a plan in place.

The same is true with prayer.

Luke chapter 11, it says this about Jesus.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

This is once Jesus was in a certain place.

We talked about that a moment ago.

As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.

Like you need a plan for it.

And Jesus said, This is how you should pray.

You need a model.

That's the reason last week we spent time going through the Lord's Prayer.

One of the next two weeks, I'm going to teach you another prayer called the Tabernacle Prayer, which is another model.

And the point of the model is not for you to go formulaic.

The point of the model is for you to have a way to systematically connect with God and to be intentional about the words that you say.

Now, if you do all those things, numbers one through three, are they good?

Yes.

But it's really easy for you to do all those things and to check your religious God box to feel like you did enough.

And it can become formulaic, and things that become formulaic get forgotten.

They get tedious.

If you do all three consistently, is it good?

Sure.

But if you don't do number four and don't understand number four, none of it will make sense.

Number four has the power to change your life because it's not just the place or the priority or the plan, it's the persons of prayer.

I want you to notice this is pluralized.

There's an interesting verse.

It's at the end of 2 Corinthians where Paul gives a benediction.

A benediction is a closing prayer, and in this is something beautiful for us as a way to connect with God.

2 Corinthians 13, 14.

He says, the amazing grace of the Master Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of God, the Father, and the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

He ends by reminding us that it is a person that we're connected to.

It is God.

Now I need you to understand this because some of you have never been taught this.

Our God that we worship is one God in three persons.

God the Father, God the Son, Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit.

And what's so interesting that we need to understand is it is one God in three persons, and all three persons have a unique personality.

And when you understand this, it changes how you pray and how you encounter God.

The first thing he says is he says, the amazing grace of Jesus.

I love this.

I want you to think about why did Jesus come?

Jesus came, and our Sunday school answer would be to die on the cross for our sins, and that is true.

But like if that was the whole purpose, Jesus didn't need to wait 33 years.

He could have been born and just died on day two.

Could have done that.

Another reason Jesus came was to live, to understand you.

He came to live so he would understand the stuff you go through, the challenges you face, the mental struggles you feel, the anxiety that's plaguing your heart.

He came so he could understand the human experience.

Hebrews chapter 11 says that he is sitting at the right hand of the Father, mediating for us.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

What does it mean?

It means that anything you go through, he's able to say to God the Father, Oh, I know what that's like.

I've been there.

I remember struggling to sleep.

I remember how they felt.

He's our great mediator.

He gives grace to us.

Hebrews chapter 4 says it like this.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

He says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.

It's not like we're dealing with someone who doesn't understand the struggles of this life.

He says, but we have one who has been tempted in every way.

This word tempted is an interesting word.

It doesn't mean tempted to sin, it means someone who's felt all the conditions of the human experience in every way, just as we are yet was without sin.

So what is our response?

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Because of Jesus coming, the grace that he so freely offers allows us to connect with God in such a different kind of way.

Because we're connecting with the God who knows us and loves us, but he understands us.

So you can approach him with confidence, knowing that he'll love you.

I think for some of us we we struggle with this.

We're like, what, but I don't have it all together.

What do I do?

Look what Paul says in the book of 2 Corinthians.

He says, My grace, talking about Jesus' grace is sufficient for you.

For my power is made perfect in weakness.

You don't have to have it all together to come to him.

Just come to him.

I love the adjective amazing because of all the words that we could use to encapsulate the beautiful grace of God.

No word feels adequate.

You could come up with a litany of words and none of them would work, but amazing seems to cover it all.

It is the amazing grace of Jesus that saved us.

It is the amazing grace of Jesus that allows us to come close to God again.

It says that he's sitting at the right hand of the Father advocating for you.

We connect with him that way.

The second thing in the benediction is we need to experience the extravagant love of the Father.

Now, why does this matter?

I think a lot of us we we're good with the idea of Jesus.

The picture we have of Jesus in our mind is full of love and wonderful.

But the idea of a father is hard for us.

Many of us struggle with the picture of a father because our earthly fathers were so jacked up.

They were abusive or they abandoned us.

They never showed us love and affection.

They were never proud of us.

They were always on our case.

Some years ago I preached a sermon called Daddy Issues.

Talked about God the Father.

Came off the stage and there was a man who had his head down and he came up to me and he goes, I can't do it.

He said, Do what?

He goes, I can't do the father thing.

And he went on to tell me the stories of abuse he walked through with his father, and he goes, I can do Jesus as King, Jesus as Lord, Jesus as master, I can do the father being the master of the king.

I can do all those things, but I can't do father.

I wonder how many of us we need to be healed in the same way where we can start to see him the right way.

Why does this matter?

It's because how you see God affects how you relate to him.

What picture do you have of God the Father?

I can show you something just as funny.

Um, for Christmas, my family bought me a daily calendar of far side comics.

These to me are some of the funniest comics ever.

And this is one of my favorites because this is how a lot of people view God.

This is God at his computer.

There's a man walking underneath the piano, and God has a big button that says smite.

Like he's gonna punish us.

And that's the picture we have of God, that he's this angry killjoy just waiting to zap us for everything that we do wrong, and we miss the point.

It's never been punishment, it's always been the extravagant love.

What is extravagance?

To give over and above.

What did God give over and above for us?

The life of his son.

Doesn't get more extravagant than that.

So I want you to see two verses.

The first one is in the book of Ephesians.

This is actually a prayer that Paul writes.

We don't get a lot of written prayers in the Bible.

And Paul writes, For this reason I kneel before the Father.

That might sound like submissive or submitted.

If you've watched the TV show, The Crown, everyone who comes into the Queen's presence lowers their head and bows.

It's not that.

In that ancient Jewish world, when a boy would come to his father, he would kneel before his father, and a loving father would put his hands on the son, not in rage, disappointment, or anger, but he'd put his hands on his son as a symbolic way of saying, I love you.

It's like an anointing or a blessing over his son.

Every time we come into God's presence, it is him lavishing his extravagant love on us.

Here's the picture you should have of God.

Multiple times in the Old Testament, there is a picture of God, several phrases said over and over and over again.

Here's David's account in Psalm 103.

He says, The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever.

He does not treat us as our sins deserve.

Come on, can somebody say amen to that?

He doesn't repay us according to our iniquities.

And then he gets poetic.

He says, For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him.

And fear isn't like being worried, fear is honor him.

He says, For as high as for as far as the east is from the west, so far he has removed our transgressions from us.

And then here's another picture of the Father.

As the Father has compassion on his own children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear or who honor him.

Gotta see the Father the right way.

Then this last one might be the most important one.

He says, May the amazing grace of Jesus, the extravagant love of the Father.

And then he says, the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit.

I think a lot of us we have a picture of a father, whether good or bad.

We understand the concept of a son, but what is a spirit?

What does it mean?

We tend to reject the things we don't understand.

The problem is if you do this, you might miss out on one of the greatest adventures of your life.

What is the Holy Spirit?

Who is the Holy Spirit?

Listen to me.

He's God in us.

Jesus said this, John chapter 14.

John 14 · chapter mention

He said, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor.

We'll come back to this word, but this is a reference to the Holy Spirit to be with you forever, the spirit of truth.

This word counselor in Greek is the word parakletos.

Parakletos literally just means one who comes alongside you.

This is what the Holy Spirit does for us.

It's that when you leave a church service or revival nights or a prayer group, when you leave your access group, when you leave a time of prayer with God, you're not leaving alone.

The Holy Spirit is God who comes alongside and walks alongside you in every circumstance and in every situation of your life.

Let me talk to the person in the room who's struggling with loneliness.

You're never alone because the Holy Spirit of God is with you.

To the person who's paralyzed, trying to make a decision.

You don't have to be paralyzed because you have the wisdom of the Holy Spirit with you.

To the person who can't figure out what their next step in life looks like, the Holy Spirit is your guide.

To the person who's struggling with thoughts that are invasive, the Holy Spirit is your counselor.

He is with you in every circumstance and in every situation of your life.

So when you pray, do all the stuff, have the place and have the plan and have all those things.

But remember, what you're doing is you're connecting with the persons of God.

You get to experience the amazing grace of our Lord Jesus, the extravagant love of the Father, and you get to have intimate friendship with the Holy Spirit.

Quick side note: this is a way you can pray.

This is a bonus for your service.

You get to thank Jesus for his grace.

Jesus, you saved me.

Something amazing happens when you remind yourself how far you were from God before Jesus.

The amazing grace of Jesus.

Thank him for his grace.

Connect with your heavenly Father and remind yourself of his extravagant love poured out for you.

And then thank the Holy Spirit for being with you in every circumstance, in every situation, in every decision, in every season.

And watch what happens as you pray.

Prayer will move from the thing you have to do to the thing you get to do.

Prayer will move from that thing that feels like an obligation to something that you cannot live another moment without.

When you connect and realize that the point of prayer is not just telling God all the stuff you need, the point of prayer is being connected to the source that gives you life.

Can I get a good amen from somebody up in here?

Will you bow your head and close your eyes with me all across this place?

So, God, that's our heart.

All we want to do is to be connected to you.

Profoundly, deeply, intimately connected to you.

God, in the same way that a branch can't survive without being connected to its source of life, we can't exist without being connected to you.

So, God, that's our heart's cry.

We want to be near and close to you.

God, there's some stuff we need to work on.

We need to prioritize prayer.

We need a plan.

We need to carve out some space and a place for it, and all that stuff's good.

But may we be reminded that the purpose of prayer is connection to you.

God, I pray this week as we spend time with you that we will experience anew the amazing grace of Jesus.

The extravagant love of the Father.

And the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit.

God, my prayer is that a new excitement, a revival of our souls will come to be because we've experienced you.

You are what it's about.

You are the goal.

We love you and we thank you for that, God.