#25 - Prayer

0:04 Welcome to Mind of Faith Matters. I'm Dr. Cory Potter the host and today let's talk about prayer. But before we get into the episode I want to share something personal. I used to love calling my dad after work or on the weekends. I would tell him about my day, share my frustrations, and hear about what was going on. what he was doing. And those conversations always left me feeling comforted and encouraged. In time though, my dad developed dementia and her talks changed. He was often confused and eventually couldn't connect with me like he used to. And it was stressing him to have some of those conversations. Earlier this year he passed away. And of course I really miss him. And I miss those conversations deeply.

1:02 I yearn daily for his listening ear, his encouragement. He never skipped an opportunity to tell me he was proud. I loved his advice and I loved his love. He always asked if me or my family needed anything. And as I thought about prayer this week, this reminds me of something really important about prayer. When we pray, we are talking to our Heavenly Father. He's present and he's listening And he's full of love for us Just like my dad Was to me and to everyone frankly who was in his life My siblings and I talked about that at his funeral when we were reminiscing You see in prayer just like when I talked to my dad we don't need the perfect words We just need to

2:35 lay out our hearts and our feelings. To my dad, it was over the phone, but in prayer, it's to heaven. The Bible even uses the word Abba alongside father to describe that relationship. Abba is an Aramaic word that carries the sense of deep intimacy and affection. Like calling God, our beloved Father. It's not meant to be casual. I mean, some interpret it to be like, I can call him Dad. I know him. But it shows that closeness.

3:15 And in passages like in Mark 14, 36, Romans 8, 15, and Galatians 4, 6, we see this word paired with the Greek word for Father to emphasize that God invites us. Into a child -to -parent kind of relationship Filled with trust and love and security I think Many of us haven't experienced what I got to so I apologize that I'm emotional today about the positivity that I had from my relationship with my dad, I candidly yearn to develop more of that type of relationship with my Heavenly Father. And so when you think about talking with God, do you think of Him as this loving Father who wants to hear from you? Or do you picture Him as some distant, hard -to -reach person? And I know the God of the Bible.

4:30 So let's start with the basics of prayer today. What is prayer? Simply it's prayer is talking with God. It's opening our hearts to Him and sharing our joys, our needs, our fears, keeping the relationship healthy. It's about sharing our gratitude and just like with my dad, asking Him to guide me. The Bible shows us so many different prayers in many forms in the Bible. For example, Jesus prayed often. In Philippians 4, 6, the Bible says, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition. With thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Prayer is God's invitation to come near. Like that phone call to my dad. It's... about an opportunity to be honest because He knows us anyway and He sees what's going on in our lives. It's about us positioning ourselves before Him and being honest with Him and learning to trust Him. The Bible gives many reasons why we should pray.

5:47 We pray to worship God and to thank Him and to ask Him for His help and to confess our sins when we've done wrong things that are against him To ask for that forgiveness and really to listen for his guidance in 1st Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 16 through 18 Paul says rejoice always pray continually give thanks in all circumstances For this is God's will for you and Christ Jesus So prayer shapes our hearts to align with God's will and here it says that we should pray continually and I don't want you to misinterpret that to think I need to pray 24 hours a day seven days a week but it really is about in every type of situation to pray to him and these prayers can be a conversation. They don't have to be long and sophisticated. They can be short dialogues.

7:03 But Jesus gave us a model, if you will, of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6 verses 9 through 13. And it begins with honoring God. You know, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, then asks for his kingdom to come and his will to be done. And it asks for daily bread, which really means trusting him to provide for us daily. And the prayer includes forgiveness of sins and the call to forgive others, don't forget. And the prayer closes with asking for protection from temptation and deliverance from evil. So it is a model, it's not a formula per se that you have to always keep. It begins with God. We want to seek His will and thank Him and then bring our needs to Him and, you know, confess what we've done, forgive others, and ask for His guidance and protection. But it requires no special performance or rehearsed words. One of the common questions I got as a pastor was, how do I pray? I don't know how to pray. And I would say back, sincerely is how you should pray. What God values is our sincerity. He listens to our hearts and when

8:38 they're open and humble, He wants to know what's going on. This pastor, Chris Hodges, he's the senior pastor and founding pastor of Church of the Highlands. He shares a simple framework that's very similar, but to help you remember, he gives it the five P's of prayer. He says, praise, and that's beginning by honoring God for who he is. Praise him. Thank him. And then it's about priorities. We pray that his will will be done and his kingdom to come. This means put his plans above our plans He's not a genie in a bottle that's here to make all our wildest dreams come true and make us rich and successful Maybe that's his plan, but that's not Determined by you and that's not determined by how hard you pray for it. We want to put his plans for glorifying Him and spreading the word about Him above our own to be successful and comfortable. I'm just here to be honest with you. It's in scripture. The next is provision.

10:00 We need to ask God to meet our daily needs. Sometimes they're big. Today I had some big needs. I was a mess. A lot of stressful meetings, a lot of stressful interactions, and maybe it was small to some. But to me it felt big today. We need to do the P, which is pardon. We need to confess our sins and receive that forgiveness from God and forgive others. We can't forget that part. And the P of protection is the next one. We need to pray for God's guidance and strength against that temptation that's out there and the evil that's in the world. So these five areas of prayer.

10:44 can help us when we don't know where to start and Chris Hodges also writes I love this you see how well if you're not watching you can't see it but I'm going to tell you has the word worry crossed out on the cover then cry crossed out and then it has the word argue crossed out and then fight crossed out and then it has the words pray first circled He wants us to make prayer our first response and not our last resort. So in his introduction, which I'm about to read some of it, he encourages us to pray as a natural part of our life. When you wake up in the morning, pray first and thank God for the day ahead. I know a lot of us thank Him that we're still alive and have breath in our lungs, and that's good.

11:39 He says before you go to sleep at night, pray first and praise him for getting you through the day's demands. When you're leaving your home for school, pray first. Merging onto that busy highway, pray first. About to lead the Zoom meeting at work, pray first. Reconnecting with a friend over coffee, pray first. Helping your kids with homework, pray first. Waiting in the doctor's office? Pray first. Paying for groceries at the store? Pray first. And in today's market, that makes a whole lot of sense. Pray for the sale.

12:22 No matter what you're doing throughout your day, praying first keeps you tethered to the one who loves you most. Prayer opens us up to God's presence and wisdom before we act, speak, or decide anything. That's what praying continually is about before we act speak or decide anything. Let's bring God into it. That's what he wants So what keeps us from praying many people hesitate to pray for a lot of reasons some of us feel unworthy We just feel like we don't have it together yet, and we can't come to God or we're worried about Saying that something wrong or what we're going to say and so we don't like to pray out loud in front of others because of judgment. And some believe that they need to pray to follow a formula all the time, every time, and sound impressive to do it. Scripture reminds us, and I want to remind us today, that God looks at the heart.

13:27 And this is awesome. Romans 8 verse 26 says that when we struggle to find the right words to pray The Holy Spirit steps in to help us. He understands our weakness and speaks to God on our behalf as believers. I love that so much. But I do have a warning for some of you today. Some teachings out there suggest that if we declare something strongly enough, we can make it happen. Now, I think we should pray. and pray about the same thing over and over and be consistent. But the key here, the catch is the Bible shows us that God is the one who answers prayers according to his will. In 1 John 5 14 the Bible says this is the confidence we have in approaching God that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. Interestingly That doesn't guarantee that he answers that prayer right then. As I said in last week's episode, episode 24, when I was talking to my friend Karen about OCD and her faith, we talked about sometimes God says, no. Sometimes he says, whoa, like, wait, this isn't the time. And sometimes he says, go, it's a green light when we pray. and he answers that

14:58 prayer and so many times in our life when we submit a prayer to God we have to learn to trust him and lean on his wisdom so that we have his will being done his kingdom come his will be done not Corey's or yours fill in your name I want to talk next week about different models for prayers in the episode and I want to talk about strategic prayer spiritual warfare because it is a huge weapon against the enemy but for this week in my introduction to prayer I want to talk about prayer is really it's a gift it's how we bring our whole selves before our Heavenly Father who loves us it's how we find peace in our lives and guidance and strength it also helps our growth in our relationship with him. I've talked about it in some of my first episodes about my letters that I would write to Sue when she was in college in Florida and I was in Texas and how much those communications when we couldn't see each other built our relationship and helped her to know that I was committed and wanted to let her know what was going on in my studies

16:28 and in my days and in my frustrations and we couldn't afford the cell bill at that time because we were paying by the minute and we had to talk late at night because we're older and that's how it rolled and so those letters and communications were just key in building that relationship and I feel the same way that continual constant Dialogue and conversation with God is a huge way to build our relationship And I want you to remember something this week That you can talk to God at any time from any place He's everywhere. He hears it all Don't try to put him in your shoes Because he's above us and his ways are above us and so God is all -knowing and He can hear your prayers.

17:27 So I want to leave you with these questions this week to reflect on. When you think about prayer, do you feel pressure to say the right words or do you feel free to talk honestly with God? Like I was talking about my own father. Really just impacted me. tremendously and helps me to understand how my Heavenly Father sees me. My next question, what fears or barriers keep you from praying more freely? And how might remembering what I told you about the spirits help? How could that change that view? The next question is how does it change your view of prayer to know that God listens carefully to you? But no matter what you're asking, He always answers in line with His perfect will. And the last question, what step could you take today to make prayer a more natural part of your daily life? I want to thank you for joining me today. I'm really excited to bring you another episode on prayer next week.

18:49 In the meantime, if you would like to go to mindandfaithmatters .com and look for the companion resource guide for episode 25, I'll be putting my notes there and resources there. I want to encourage you this week, if you've never read this book by Chris Hodges, I would ask that you would trust me on this one. You will enjoy it. A book called Pray First from Chris Hodges. Chris Hodges. I would love for you to share the episode. I would love for you to like the episode wherever you got it and subscribe. I want to make God famous, not myself. And I want to keep on spreading the word. And this week I think this message is that important. And my last thing for this week. I have so much work to do in this area of prayer.

19:43 I've been invigorated by this episode and I have this book. There's also a study guide, like if you're doing a small group study, and I'm going to ask Sue if she and I can do that together. But I also want to say, hey, if I get enough positive response, if you comment on the website, if you email me at mindandfaithmatters at gmail .com and say, I would join in a study with you on Zoom or some site like that where we could dig into prayer together. outside of the podcast where we could connect and do some things. I'm open to that. I feel like that's where God's leading me, but I can't force anyone to do it.

20:30 And this would be awesome if maybe international folks that speak English because I don't know too many foreign languages, if you would like to join in. So I'm just putting it out there that if legitimate people have real concern and real desire to learn more about prayer, Let's do it. Let's connect and figure out a time to study more about God's Word and prayer. But until next week when we talk about spiritual warfare and strategic prayers and different models of prayers, just remember, it's a conversation between you and your Heavenly Father. And I hope it could be a blessing to you. Just like my earthly dad's conversations are something I always treasure.

21:17 And I long for God and I to continue to have conversations like that. Thanks for joining me today. God bless and have a great week.