“Experience Prayer Life” 1st 20 minutes – from a prayer talk on YouTube:
“How do I do it [Pray] – it is not a rule”
“As long as I live, I keep learning about prayer”
“I wake up at 5 am – I ask God to wake me up”
“Early in the morning, - He never wakes me up the same time. Sometimes 2 am, sometimes 4. And I’m like com on, I feel asleep only 10 minutes ago but after I give Him a chance to talk to me, I’m happy I did it. If He wakes you up too early, He will make up for it. After he wakes you up, do not go back to sleep. Go to your prayer place – dedicated for your prayer, you will fall asleep in your bed.”
“I don’t spend much time talking and when I do, I don’t talk about self. I mention my need – ‘i.e., I have that problem and I trust You.’ When I don’t pray for me, He takes care of what I have in mind. And I test the Lord and it makes me smile and say, ‘isn’t He great.’”
#1. I spend time reflecting in His greatness, ‘You are a great God, you split the Red Sea… You did this… work for Your glory.’ Why do we do this? Did God lose His memory?
A. I want to praise Him, He is worthy
B. You want to remember what He has done for you, it gives you strength to realize He never changes and He can do it again. Because if you don’t have faith, God can’t work – Faith is what grabs God’s promises and makes them available to you. If you don’t have faith, without faith, it is impossible to please God! (Because we make Him a liar). Abraham believed and God considered him “as righteous as Christ Himself.” Yet Abraham was a stinker, a liar.
IT IS NOT SAFE TO ASK SOMETHING BEFORE YOU HAVE FAITH
Dwell on His miracles to reinforce your faith so you start rejoicing – then you ask.
Write down what God has done for you and put them in a room. And always when you struggle, go and read them and remember what God has done in the past, it’s going to give you faith for the day. “We have nothing to fear unless we shall forget’ as you review God’s greatness, it gives you faith.
When Peter was in prison, the others were praying for Peter. How did they pray? “O Lord, you have done this and that, You are a great God and go through a bunch of miracles.’ Forget your problems, focus on God- go through who He is, that helps you! Not that God says, “man I like when they flatter Me.” God doesn’t need our flattering! He is great with or without our flattering – we need it!
I pray: (Pavel)
I focus on God’s greatness and start reviewing what God has done for me, His promises. And I analyze them (because I write them down). I start praising Him, and I praise Him as long as I need in order to sense His presence, in order to have faith and peace. And when I sense that now I have His peace and faith and I am not , “ehhh, struggling.” ‘and a bunch of problems’ ‘and my mind goes in a thousand directions’ when I sense that now I can focus on Him, then I move to the next… and what is…
#2. I start interceding for others. Not interceding for their job, “oh help my son to get into Loma Linda” “help my daughter get the nicest house” “uh uh” That’s focusing on temporary things. Do you know why God doesn’t answer the [prayer when] she was sick, we prayed and she still died? Because most of the time in the Bible, when Jesus did a miracle, it was that somebody needed to be saved. God does a miracle when it’s related to somebody’s salvation. For instance, Lazarus. Do that so they may believe inn you. What was the purpose? Not that Lazarus lived another 2-3 more years and has a miserable life because the Pharisees wanted to kill him now. No. We have in mind this little tiny, 80 year blip, When you compare 80 years with millions and trillions and eternity, no ending life, you don’t even see that little 80 years it is so small. And we focus on that and God focuses on the eternal life. So God says “You want this – this is not going to help you. You need this – this is going to help you.” So Jesus does a miracle if it would help them or somebody to be saved. That’s what I want, I want them for eternity.
So when I pray, I don’t focus too much on “help him with a job.” I would rather say “help him know You! “
Intercessory prayer – so I go through them as if they were my kids. I don’t pray for many. I don’t believe in praying for 200 people. Now I may be wrong but I cannot focus if it’s too many. “Be with Jimmy… be with Billy … that’s bologna. If you care – when your kid has an accident, do you say, ‘Oh be with my son.’ No, you LABOR in prayer. So if I really want an answer, I take 10 names and for 2 weeks, I LABOR in prayer over them like it was life and death. Like it was the last day of their life. Like it was my own family. I pray for them, I say, “Lord, do something, whatever it takes – even if you have to kill them, do something. If it takes an accident – if it takes cancer, do cancer – whatever! Save them for eternity! “And after I labor – it takes time to labor over 10 names – 1-2 hours, because I stay over one name, and after about 2-3 weeks over 10 names, I go after another 10 names and leave these alone. You follow me?
#3 Then I mention a few problems, BUT I don’t push! I just mention, “Lord you know this… I give you permission to work the way you want. Open my eyes to accept what You want and rejoice in it. And this is the next need – not because You don’t know it but because I want you to decide. And this is the next one, I give it to you. Thank you, I trust you.”
AND FOCUS NOT ON THE PROBLEM BUT ON TRUST
I don’t dwell on problems, I don’t fix my eyes on problems. I fix my eyes on PROMISES, and then I drop it because I say “may Your will be done” and I mean it. And as I drop it I go on to…
#4 Praises! Well guess what - basically, I start singing… we don’t sing much, do we? We lost the good habit to sing.. well guess, what, in heaven we are going to sing a lot. And if you don’t start singing now, don’t imagine that we will experience heaven. Angels do sing. So I start singing. It gives me a lot of joy.
#5 I start studying. And when I study, the Bible I don’t read a lot, I read a little and then I pray over it. And then read it again and then pray over it. And then read it again and think about it. And then read it again and ask questions. Regardless, there is no stupid questions. Every question is a good question. Ask questions about it. Read it again – about 15-20 times, then 1-2 verses! And after that I pray over it – I make sure I memorize it. And then I ask the Lord two things
a. To stay with me because I have tendencies to forget.
b. B I make myself available for service.” Lord give me opportunities to serve. Open my eyes to see so I’m not so focused on me that I don’t see what is around. Help me to see people, see needs, hear them. Make me a blessing. Make me salt. Make me light.
c. After that, I leave
d. I pray short prayer around 10 am, 12 pm, 3pm, and 6pm.
e. Then in the evening I go through the day and I write the answers to prayer, the challenges, regardless if I think I have an answer or not, I write it down but very short. Not a whole episode, just 2-3 words. Then I pray and spend some time with my wife and we talk about the day – we share everything and then she goes to sleep and I got to studying.
Okay now you know what I do – End