#170 - "When You... Pray" (Part 2)

Music. Man or woman who's been greatly used of God, who has not met with the Lord daily. Music.

In a set time of prayer and the Word of God. Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening. The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports. Well, welcome to the One Cry podcast. I'm Kyle Reno with Bill Eliff, and we are humbled to have a few moments here with you to hopefully stir your hearts as our hearts have been stirred for what God wants to do in revival and awakening.

And we need it right now, don't we, Bill? Oh, my stars. I just tell you, it's the great hope and it's a great need and of everything is for a manifestation of God's spirit. And you know what's encouraging, Kyle, is we're seeing an unprecedented movement right now happening, particularly among college students. I know people, I don't know when you're listening to this podcast, but right now, as we're filming this, there are unbelievable reports.

And I've been to several of these where, you know, 5,000 students will gather, 4,000 students and 300 will be baptized as a result of that. And, you know, one of the earmarks of what's been a rising tide the last 10 years is a rising tide of prayer.

Yeah. And that's what we're going to talk about this morning. Yeah. Well, we went. This is our third week. If you're here and this is your first week, listen, every one of them stand alone. But I encourage you to go back because there is things that in the last two weeks specifically that we've learned through Matthew six. So just sort of set it up, and we'll kick it to Bill.

We see in the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount, specifically in chapter 6, that the Lord gets at the end of it, makes some big promises to us about even our anxiousness, makes some promises to us about not to lay up things on earth, but to live eternally, live for things that will matter a million years from now. And he has a therefore. In light of something, you should live for a million years from now.

You should live without anxiety or fear or worry. Well, what was there before? Well, there was a lot, but specifically was three when you statements. And I think the Lord knows that I'm going to teach you how to live free. I'm going to teach you how to live really focused on things that will matter a million years from now.

And so he gives us, hey, when you give, and as Bill said rightly last week, there's an assumption built in that as a follower of Christ, these things will happen in your life. So when you give, when you're generous, when your hands are opened and things come through you for the sake of the needy and the purposes of God in the nations. and then when you pray. And Bill, you really set us up last week, man, walking through even just the spirit and the nature of prayer.

And I know you're going to continue that conversation today. So bring it, bro. Well, I'm so excited to talk. I love talking about this. In fact, I hardly want to talk about anything else at my age. You know, you just see what's there. There's some things, there are many things to talk about in the Christian life, and we do. And pastors, you know, day by day, year by year, just teaching the whole counsel of God.

But there are some things that if you don't get this down foundationally, you don't get everything else. You know, that these are central to everything else. And Kyle, we've talked about, we did a whole series on it. The central thing is the presence of God.

I mean, God designed us to be in his presence so that we can join him in doing what he does. And you can't live in his presence if you don't pray. Because prayer is a primary means, the word of God in prayer, the primary means of having a relationship with God, and everything flows from the presence of God in that relationship. So he says, when you pray, and last week we saw, when you pray, here's some things you need to do.

You need to enter in, you need to pray in the Spirit, you need to pray with faith, you need to pray different kinds of prayer. But I want to talk for just a minute, Kyle, and we can just talk back and forth a little bit about this. When you pray is assuming you pray. Right? Right. So I want to talk about the time when we pray. When do you pray? Okay. And I just want to mention four times to pray. Okay.

Really three and then a way to pray. First of all, I think a great habit in our life is morning and evening prayer. Now, I'm a morning guy. My wife's a night person, and we argue about this all the time. You know, she thinks it's more spiritual at night. And I'm just saying, well, no, no, it's not. It's in the morning. Jesus got up a great while before day, et cetera. And then the other day she pulled out a passage in Matthew that said, you know, Jesus while praying all night long.

You know okay well said well said but but you but you can't you can't find a man or woman who's been greatly used of god who has not met with the lord daily in a set time of prayer and the word of god so let me say a little something about just the reading of the word of god don't be a slave to a Bible reading plan. I use a plan and I have for 50 years just so I can read systematically through the word of God, but I read until God speaks to me.

And then I stop there and just spend time taking in and I may get five verses into my reading, or I may be five chapters into in my reading. So reading the word of God and then praying it, really praying it in is so critical. But here's the key. This should be experiential prayer, not perfunctory prayer, not duty bound prayer, not I got to go through my list and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Now you don't always feel like praying. Doesn't matter.

I don't always feel like taking a bath, but you know, it's a pretty good thing to do. So I come to the Lord. I enter into his presence. I read his word. I listen to him and I pray. And my goal there is to meet with Christ and encounter him because that's what builds a relationship with him. So morning and evening prayer. If you don't have that habit. I just saw another study done, and this was done on seminary students.

And it's said that the average seminary student today spends seven minutes a day and say the word of God in prayer. Now, that won't get it. I don't care who you are, how smart you think you are. And by the way, that seven minutes of a day, I've heard that same statistic. That's been the average for many, many years for most pastors. And we wonder why our churches are dying. Well, they're not connected to God. The pastor's not listening to the Lord.

He's not getting his directions. He's not getting God-initiated thinking and leadership that comes only from heaven's throne. So this comes by the daily delivery and it takes a sacrifice to make this decision.

Secondly, I would say, when do you pray? I would say everything prayers, morning and evening prayers, and now everything prayers. You say, Bill, what do you mean? Everything prayers? Listen to this little verse, Philippians 4, 6. Be anxious for everything. Is that what it says? No, it says, be anxious for nothing. Now, let's just get honest. This last week, did you worry about anything? So, Bill, I've been worrying every day. I was up last night, couldn't sleep, worried about something.

My finances, my kids, my life, my job, whatever it is. That's, I think, a sin. Because God says, worry about nothing. So I can't do that. Well, I can't either, unless I adjust my life to the second part of that statement. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything. By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known of God, and then the peace of God will just mount guard over your heart, right? In everything. I think the Bible is very accurate, every word of it.

And this same idea is presented over and over again from God to us. Here's one verse, three words, pray without ceasing. Prayer with no interruption. Pray and keep praying and pray about everything. So that means when you get up, you pray. When you feel your heart getting a little worried, you pray. When you're bored, you pray. When you go into a meeting, you're praying, Lord, fill me, flood me, flow through me.

When you have to make a decision, you're praying. When you're talking to somebody, you don't know what to say, you're praying, right? I am reading again right now a classic little book by Brother Lawrence called Practicing the Presence of God. I'm reading it because I'm writing a book on the present-centered life. And, you know, I read that early on, and I've read it, you know, a couple of times, perhaps maybe more. But I'm reading it now in a whole new light.

And listen to what Brother Lawrence said. Brother Lawrence said, I decided that I wanted to do everything for the love of God. I didn't want to do anything for me, anything for a selfish motivation. I just wanted to do everything. I wanted to love the Lord my God with all of my heart. So I wanted to constantly be adoring him and praying to him. So I just keep my mind focused on him all day long. Now, you may think that's impossible, but it's not. It's not. It's a matter of desire and direction.

And Brother Lawrence said that in his work, he worked in the kitchen in a monastery. He said, all day long while I was working, I was just praying. I was just thinking about God. I was just meditating on a scripture.

And he said, I found myself. It was hard at first, but after a while, I found myself constantly in the presence of God so much. It was so natural that being out of the presence of God seemed unnatural. I wrote in the margin of that book, oh Lord, let that be me. I want that to be me. That being in your presence in unceasing prayer is so natural that to be out of that is unnatural.

He said when the bell would ring and they would call them in the monastery to prayer times, he said, I really didn't, I didn't really want to go to those prayer times because I was already praying. And I just continued my prayer during the prayer times. And when we got up at the end of the prayer times, I just kept praying just as I was praying all the time. It was just natural. It was the way of my life. The way of my life.

This is everything prayer. And this is the key, one of the keys to the present-centered life. So morning and evening prayer kind of begins my day there. Everything prayer keeps my day there. And then sometimes what I would call intensive prayer, intensive prayer. And there are those just moments. You know, my dad is in heaven now, but he was my greatest counselor. And, you know, I didn't talk to him every day. But, boy, I'm telling you, he was a pastor like me, and he was just so wise.

And I called him a billion times. And I just need your help, dad. I need to talk to you about this. I need, what do I do right here? And it was an intensive moment. And sometimes we'd have a long conversation over several days.

Now I've got five boys that are pastors, sons or sons-in-laws, and we have those same kind of conversations now, these intensive conversations. There's sometimes when Jesus himself went away and spent the whole night in prayer. The whole night in prayer, the Bible says. And what was that about? Well, often you'll read it was before times of great ministry. It was after times of great ministry when he needed to be refreshed in the Lord's

presence. It was before he chose the 12 and he needed to make sure he got this right. So sometimes we need intensive times of prayer. And we're going to see it our next podcast and fasting. To get us where we need to go and accomplish the work God has for us to do.

So we could talk about this a lot. Let me just give you one final little story. And Kyle. You'll be interested in the story. A few weeks ago, I was in New York for a meeting. I don't go to New York for meetings, but it was a prayer meeting, a prayer group that I'm a part of. And we were meeting at Brooklyn Tabernacle. And so we had spent time with Jim Cimbalo. We were going to his prayer meeting that next night.

And we had a meeting of our ministry group. And it was in a building away from Brooklyn Tabernacle. And they gave us the wrong address. Yes. So I got up, you know, I'm I'm I walk out my hotel at eight o'clock in the morning and I don't know if you've ever been in Brooklyn, in the bowels of Brooklyn at eight o'clock in the morning, but it is not a pretty sight. And I mean, there's just this mass of humanity, thousands of smells, every language under heaven going on.

You have to be careful because, you know, somebody will go to the bathroom on your feet. I mean, literally, if you don't watch where you're stepping and and the smell of marijuana and other drugs is just everywhere. It's just everywhere. So I'm walking and I don't really want to be here. I would rather be at home in my recliner or my safe little study in my church. And I'm walking through this and I don't like it.

And then I can't find the place and I get irritated. I just can't walk a block and another block and and I'm going to miss my meeting. And finally, I found a guy who knew where the meeting was. And he said, oh, you know, here's where it is. I said, thanks. So I began to walk again. It's going to take me a while to get there. And in about 10 steps, the Holy Spirit just said to me, Bill, do you know we could have been talking this whole time?

And I said, oh, Lord, I have just wasted 30 minutes that I could have spent in your presence. And so I said to him, Lord, good morning. And we began a conversation. Now, what I'm going to tell you, you're going to think is a preacher story. But something happened to me as the Lord was talking to me and I was talking to him in five minutes. I fell in love with New York City.

I mean, it was the weirdest thing. Suddenly, I just started thinking about Brooklyn Tabernacle and how they were reaching these people. And all of a sudden, I saw the people around me in a whole different way. And my heart just bled for them. And I just loved them. Now, what was that? Was that some worked up love?

No. No, what happened was I got into the presence of the Lord and in his presence, our heart starts beating in unison with his heart and his heart loves people from every tongue, tribe, nation, and people. And so, Kyle, I think this little phrase, when you pray, here's how you do it. But when you pray is important. Yeah, no doubt. I know for me, you know, there's something very spiritual about the nature of prayer, right?

That we as flesh and blood humans are walking into the presence of a God we cannot see, but we can know and have conversations and commune with. And like there's something beautifully, you know, spiritual about that. But it also has to be practical. You know, like we need to know, like you should be able to read and measure my days from God's perspective, but also in even specific ways of what times are given to God to pray.

You know, like with you, like to know that there's morning times, that there's evening times, and then there's any time in between that can be redeemed. You know, I find as I'm growing in my relationship with God that there's never a bad time to pray. Oh, Lord.

Yeah, there's never a bad time to pray. On the way to a lunch meeting, in the midst of that meeting, as you leave that meeting, as I'm sitting at a ballgame watching my son play, you know, and I'm asking for God to do in him bigger than that which is athletic, that everything's an opportunity if we'll get God's perspective. Well, and in that moment, the ball field becomes this sacred tabernacle. Yeah, holy ground.

You know, going down the road in the car, I enjoy listening to the radio, you know, the news or some music or whatever it is. But, oh, my goodness, how much time can be redeemed by turning the radio off and just praying, just praying. Unless, of course, you're listening to the One Cry podcast. Yeah. That's going to help you pray. That's going to help you pray.

Well, you know, and I'm thinking like just to redeem the ride, you know, like redeem the ride that you're on, you know, between here and your workplace. Why don't you make that a prayer closet? You know, and I remember, Bill, you've heard me say this before. I came to know the Lord, 19 years old. I was learning how to walk with God. God awakened a passion. First book I ever read, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. When I say first book, first book in my life that I read.

This was even before C-Spot Run, right? Yeah, no, I never read a book from front to finish through my whole high school career. So I might say something about the Alabama educational system, but I did. But when the Lord awakened my heart, He also awakened my mind. And so I started reading, and I read that book first, which changed everything. Well, I had an hour and 10 minutes. I was doing school four days a week.

It was an hour commute there and back. And the Lord just told me, don't turn the radio on one time. Right. And that year, I learned how to pray. I never that entire year turned that radio on in that four-day commute. And I would talk to the Lord, had prayer cards. I'm going driving, looking through prayer cards. And it changed my life. Yeah. It changed my life, and I learned how to be with God in a setting that wasn't just in the quiet time setting that I had. And just think about this.

If you had run that radio nonstop for four years, what would you have gained? No. What would you have gained? Yeah. A bunch of you to worry about stuff, a bunch of worthless trivia, you know. And yet you get to sit in the presence of God every day in this hour commute. So we redeem the time. We redeem the time. And I just, I can't say this enough.

This is the whole thrust of this book that we're writing, and we hope will come out soon, The Presence-Centered Life. you can live in unceasing communion with God in his presence all day long. That's right. And read about Brother Lawrence practicing the presence of God. And I just, I don't want to, I hesitate to even say this because it sounds weird, but I'm seeking with all of my heart. I have been for a while to live that way.

God can take you there. He can take you there. It'll be the greatest adventure of your life. That's awesome.

Well, yes. Well, let's do this. Let's just pray. And I want to do this. I want to pray for our listeners real quick. And I know we often ask you to pray with us, and you should. And obviously, if God's prompting your heart to pray right now, awesome. But I feel in my heart and my spirit, I just want to pray for you, and then we'll conclude this. Lord, thank you for this truth. Thank you that Bill has been on a journey with you for a long time about learning how to practice your presence.

And the reality is, Lord, there's just always more. There's always more with you. There's always more in your heart. You have paid the ultimate price so that we might know you, that we might converse with you, have conversations, just good talks. And so I'm going to ask for our listener even now. Lord, for me, I want this, but I know Bill wants this. But I pray for those that you have drawn to this moment.

I just pray that you would birth faith in them now, faith to believe that you want to be with them, that you want to talk with them, that you want them to learn how to talk with you. And I'm asking, Lord, I'm asking in Jesus' name for a breakthrough in every person's prayer life. I pray for, Lord, I pray for some distinguishing moves that mornings, car rides, lunchtimes, afternoon walks.

Times knelt by bed before they go to bed, that, Lord, that you would start redeeming moments and making them manifest moments in their lives, moments where they meet with their God. And so I just bless them in Jesus' name today with the experience of your presence like never before. And I pray that through that the world will be impacted. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, Bill, thank you, man, for sharing that. And as Bill says often, there's great resources on OneCry.com.

You know, if this has impacted you, and I know it has, if you just spend some time, maybe go back and slow it down and listen, make some more notes on some of these things. If it's impacted you, share it with somebody else. You're going to be sharing next week on when you fast. Yeah. And the Lord has taught you a lot about that, so I'm really into that. Music.