Before we move on to Strategy #2 – Our Focus, I want to talk about a few points that may help you while you continue to pray for the restoration of your Passion for Prayer. Each of these come from “The Battle Plan for Prayer”, including the prayer at the end.

And here is a little music to set the vision in your mind…What If His People Prayed – Casting Crowns

LEGACY

Psalms 65:2 says, You who hear prayer, to you all men come.
I felt so frustrated with myself when I read this. “There is no greater privilege for anyone than being able to personally talk with and speak into the ears of Almighty God.” We make all kinds of effort to watch famous people, meet them, watch interview with them, see what they think about things. How much more important and influential is our Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. Who would you rather be intimate with than Him?

It should not surprise us that the most spiritually successful men and women in the Bible were always people of prayer. Abraham, Issaac, Moses, David, Nehemiah, Daniel and many more. Of course even Jesus Christ used prayer in his walk on earth. If Jesus himself needed prayer to succeed on earth as a human what in the world makes me think I could get through without it?

Know that whether you realize it or not, you come from a legacy of prayer dated back to the Bible times. Even if you are unaware of your immediate family and their prayer habits, resolve to start now in giving your descendants a legacy of prayer. Don’t leave your children and grand-children wondering if you cared enough pray for them. Leave the the proof and the encouragement to keep that legacy going into many more future generations.

POWER

2 Cor 10:4 The weapons of our warfare are not of flesh but devinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

Let’s consider warfare and what it looked like in history. Trench warfare started being used sparingly in the American Civil war in the 1860’s. The increased range and velocity of firearms had reached a level that armies could no longer afford to merely march at one another in columns, taking huge casualties on both sides. By World War I the rapid-firing machine guns left no other options. Digging in and climbing down into trenches became the standard method of survival.

The strength of the trenches was protection, but at the expense of mobility. There was almost no defeating the enemy under these circumstances. Just endless fighting. Until…. the tank. The prospect of being able to move actively and thunderously toward the enemy, while being protected during the ride, spelled the end of merely digging in and hoping for the best. Prayer is our armored tank! And when put into action by God’s people, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt 16:18). Prayer is our major assault weapon in battle.

Paul was a great example and champion of prayer and how it works for us. He authored several scriptures indicating to us how important prayer is! Eph 6:13, 18-19 is just one. Consider Paul was writing this request from prison as an “abassador in chains” (v. 20). Think how many layers of stone-cold reality stood between him and anything resembling the continuation of his ministry. To be locked up hand and foot, yet be bold enough to consider yourself free and ready to engage in whatever God has in store…that’s NOT how normal people think. Unless we’re people of prayer.

Prayer can do anything. With God all things are possible. Prayers are not some token words muttered in haste. Don’t treat prayer like some harmless church ritual. Don’t approach prayer as a pitiful beggar asking for a handout but not expecting to receive it.  There is raw power in prayer. Access to God Almighty! There is certainty of His sovereignty. There is boldness that no amount of enemy resistance can steal from us. James 5:16 says “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”

Even when the truth means confronting us with our sin, it also means reminding us of Christ’s righteousness, which covers it all with His grace and mercy, in addition to the truth about satan’s demise. No need for secrets in prayer. Enjoy perfect honesty, freedom, forgiveness and perfect confidence.

So…..Why do we so rarely do it? With all it can do for us why do we so often choose not to do it?

I am a hard worker. I pride myself in being responsible. I believe hardworking responsible people make something of themselves in life. While I believe God honors me for these qualities I also believe that he gets very frustrated with me for thinking I’m so capable. Sometimes I picture him up there laughing at me, like I might my own children for not letting me help them with something that it is virtually impossible for them to accomplish on their own. I want to help them, I could make it so much easier and better for them, but my they are so stubborn they refuse to allow me to help! (Can you just imagine Lexie or Clint being stubborn? Surely not right?) Anyway I feel the Lord often times urging me to depend on him more. Stop trying to control my circumstances and my success by my own might and my own power. Let God do the work he has promised to do! Prayer is what infuses all our efforts and the genuine concerns of our hearts with God’s boundless ability. Prayer frames our pressing, short-term issues with God’s eternal perspective, showing us just how temporary and endurable and winnable even our most intense battles truly are.

PRIORITY

Prayer is like oxygen to our spiritual lives. Wow how far would you make it in your physical life without oxygen. I would venture to say about as far as you would make it in your spiritual life without prayer…..YOU WOULD DIE!

Prayer was and still is sometimes hard for me. It sometimes feels counter productive to stop and pray when I have so much to do. It feels strange to say no to my selfishness and self-sufficiency and humble myself before God. It seems easier to just go out and attempt to fix things myself rather than to stop and pray.  (Let’s get real for a second,  if everyone would just listen and do what I say, wouldn’t all family, work, and world problems be solved?  Me in all my infinate wisdom could fix it all I am sure!  How stupid am I really, to think I could fix any of it on my own.  With my short sided unenlightened view?)    I used to put prayer off and only use it on an emergency basis. God knows ever detail of everything in all places at all times, while I don’t know what will happen tomorrow and am already forgetting what I did yesterday. Why would I not seek and pray to the One who knows every detail of everything rather than depend on my own pitiful knowledge of things?

Jesus said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” Jesus well knew, everything else that occupies the church’s (my) time and energy will be lacking in power and blessing and the fragrance of God’s presence if prayer is not kept first.

I love this part…. Too often, however, we put the cart before the horse by making prayer an add-on. An afterthought. A bonus feature to what we’re already doing, placing our own work ahead of God’s. God never intended for us to live out the Christian life or accomplish His work on the earth in our own wisdom or strength. His plan has always been for us to rely on the Holy Spirit and live a life of obedience in prayer.

Scripture specifically ties each of these things to prayer. A sneak peak of what will happen in us and in our churches if we truly become devoted to prayer.

• evangelism of the lost
• cultivation of discipleship
• true christian fellowship
• wise decisions
• obstacles overcome
• needs met
• true worship ignited
• revival sparked

All of us want to be in a place where true friendship and love abounds, where God is honored, and where His power is being made known in and through our lives. Let’s pray this happens in US and in in the body of Christ again. It will ……if we will devote ourselves to prayer!

Father, forgive us for relying on our wisdom, strength, energy, and ideas rather than abiding in You and seeking You first. Help us lay aside anything that hinders us from pursuing Your best. Help us prioritize prayer and devote ourselves to it in our personal lives, our families and our churches. Make our churches truly houses of prayer for all nations. Revive us again, O Lord. Help us walk by Your strength, and bring You great glory in our generation. In Jesus’ name, amen.

I am so excited for Wednesday night.  I hope to see some of you there!  We may not get all of this covered, but it is my plan to spend a little time on Prayer Strategy 1.

Getting Your PASSION Back When It Is Gone!

For those of you who are going to work with us through the blog: Go back and read Session 1.  Do the exercises.  Get your notebook out and write the anwers down to the questions I asked.  Complete the Schedule prayer time, place and target sections.

SUGGESTION:   DATE your entries in your journal.  Yes, do it for your children and grandchildren so they know the dates, but more importantly do it for yourself.  I have had so many answers to prayers and responses to the guidance and clarification I have asked for from the Lord.  I have found myself surprised the answer came so quickly. I have wanted to go back and see when I first started petitioning Him for it.  I found that I forgot to date some of my early entries.

If you have not started your journal and prayer time just yet: Do not get down on yourself, but do not put it off any longer.  Get started TODAY!  I made the mistake of feeling ill-equiped and uneducated (all of which I am BTW).  I spent about 2-3 weeks reading “The War Room” first, then “Fervent”, then “The Battle Plan for Prayer”.  I felt like I couldn’t start until I learned how to pray Scripture based prayers.  Not true. Start Now!  Jesus wants you to spend time in fellowship with him.  He will listen to you.  He will move on your behalf. He will communicate back to you.  Be expectant!

I could spend a couple pages describing what passion is to you but in the most simplistic sense it is your”want to” or “your cutting edge.”  Passion is what keeps you moving in the direction your best intentions want you to go …in Patricia’s words.  She goes on to say …
when you can’t seem to respond to spiritual stimuli with the same optimism and obedience as you once did… What makes you think it is somehow God’s fault, or your fault, or someone else’s fault, but never the enemy’s fault?  Why do you think it could only be attributable to your bad character?  To a drop in hormone levels.  Whatever you attribute your lost passion to.  Maybe another less noticeable but equally probably reason is you’ve been a victim of satanic sabotage.  

Satan is a full-time accuser.  He does it “day and night,” the Bible says in Rev 12:10.  Instead of convicting you for the purpose of restoration, as God’s Spirit does, he condemns you for the purpose of destroying and humiliating.  (all pretty much word for word from Fervent)  Refer to Romans 8:1.  Condemnation always leads to guilt-laden discouragement, while conviction–though often painful in pointing out our wrongdoing–still somehow encourages and lifts us, giving us hope to rebuild on.

Satan attacks our passon and he often times wins and we never even know it’s him.  We tell ourselves we don’t feel like it anymore.  Maybe that’s it,  but more likely if you will look deeper, the devil has worn you down until you no longer have the will to fight back.  FIGHT BACK for the sake of what is important to you. Fight for the things and people you love.

Fight for..Your marriage…still tense and broken, your child…still rebelling against all sound logic, your money….still not enough, your health…still chronic or scary, your addictions…still defeating you way to often.  If you’re sick and tired of fighting these specific battles and feeling so defeated you have chosen as the song from my last post said, “to close your eyes and act like everyone’s alright, when you know their not.” I am asking you to start your prayer life back by petitioning Him to give you your passion back!

One of the things I love about Patricia Shirer is her way of bringing scripture into the here and now.  I know we are all pressed for time, but go read 2 Kings 6:1-7.  It’s short, you can do it!  Using your Bible and getting familiar with the books and the pages again is one of the things I am praying we all begin to develope a love for during our time together!

(For those of you who won’t go read it, the gist is this:  Elisha was standing near one of his helpers, who was chopping down a tree at the banks of the Jordan River, working to gather the materials to build a larger meeting place.  But the iron head of that man’s ax wiggled loose from its wooden handle and sailed into the water, and went straight to the bottom.  The ax wasn’t even his!  He had borrowed it and now broken and lost it.  Patricia says “He lost his cutting edge!”)

#1 Despite the lost ax head, the presence of God is still near.  Satan wants you to think your lack of passion is because God was either never there at all or he got disgusted with you and left.  Just because you’re feeling at a loss for words and “want-to”— just because your “cutting edge” in prayer seems misplaced for now— does not mean that God isn’t close by you.

#2  The servant was doing something good when he lost his cutting edge.  He was working hard, for a good cause even.  Had he not been doing this good work he probably would have never lost his “cutting edge” to start with!  So even when you are actively engaged in the Lord’s work you are not protected from losing your passion.

#3 (this one is my favorite! I’m giving it to you word for word from “fervent”   The ax was borrowed.  The presence of passion, faith and belief in our hearts is a gift.  If you’ve ever cried out passionately to God in faith, fully believing that He is able to do more than you ask or think or imagine, it’s only because He first stirred up that passion within you.  So instead of always feeling guilty– personally responsible–whenever your passion in prayer is weak or missing realize instead that it is God’s work both to give it and then to fan it into flame inside you.  Which means you cannot manufacture it on your own.  Your enemy, however–coy as he is– wants to burden you with blame for not having something that didn’t originate with you in the first place.   WOW HOW AMAZING IS THAT WORD??  IT IS UP TO GOD TO STIR  YOUR PASSION AND KEEP IT BURNING!!  I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU BUT I SPEND ALOT OF TIME FEELING GUILTY FOR MY FAILURES IN THIS AREA! Since reading this I have spent alot of time in praise to His name that God has the responsibility for keeping me passionate!  All I have to do is ask him!

#4  Only a work of God could retreive the ax head.   It could have fallen anywhere, but it fell in the water and went straight to the bottom.  No hope of retreival under the power of man.  Devinely recovered! Only a miracle could get it back!  NOTHING is too far gone that your God cannot resurrect it.  Even your passion. So go to Him to get it back. Don’t try to regain it yourself.

I know!  This was alot! Next comes our call to write out our prayer for renewed passion!  I’ll post again in the next few days with specific scriptures to incorporate into those prayers.  but first I find this next part very comforting too.  When we talk about passion in prayer, Patricia said she didn’t want to leave the impression that the only prayer God hears is the kind that’s spoken at high volumes, with sweat and tears and shaking fists and extraordinary energy.  Prayer can be silent and still seethe with passion. And on some days, at some times, prayer-for any of us–can start out as simply an obedient appointment, an act of discipline, showing up in that prayer closet because it’s the appointed time that we said we’d be there!!

Believe me I have had those days too!  Days when I feel like I’m just going through the motion.  It’s worth it.  Every day I really want more, more, more!  I often do not even need my alarm in the mornings.  It is like God wakes me up.  My first thought (well usually anyway) when I wake up is, “Good Morning Lord, thank you for desiring to spend time with me.”  Let me make something really really clear, in case you do not know me,  I AM REALLY NOT A MORNING PERSON!  That I wake up with this desire to spend time with my Lord is pretty amazing.  I have missed some mornings here and there, but not many.  Even when I miss my mornings,  I am hungry and ready to make up the time in the evenings.

CONFESSION: I’m a TV addict.  It helps me disengage.  Turn my mind off.  Ignore the things that are not as I want them to be or wish they might be.

God is teaching me to desire the opposite.  I want to engage.  Turn my mind onto Him.  Pray fervently for the things that I want and wish for.

Sorry again this is so long.  There is alot of information and I can’t wait for you guys to get in and start your journals and your written prayers.  I started to say don’t let me down!  Get started now.  Instead I say don’t let yourself down.  Don’t let your family, your kids, your loved ones, your God down.  Get started now!  I promise the more time you spend in prayer and fellowship with your Heavenly Father, the more time you will want to spend.  He will begin a transformation in you.  Remember, I am praying for you every day!

Lord, I ask that You forgive me for the times when I haven’t valued or believed in the power of prayer that You’ve offered to me.  I’ve tried making things happen in other ways.  But that hasn’t often proved so effective.  Father, I want to learn to pray in faith.  I want to grow closer to You.  I want to experience this kind of confidence and freedom to believe you, rely completely on you and go into battle with You.  Guide me, I pray, as I try to trust You more.  Train me. Equip me.  Make me a mighty warrior in prayer.  Be glorified through me as I trust in You.  In Jesus’ name, Amen

Remember while this blog shares some of my personal battles and experiences, the bulk of this blog is based from the two books I have been studying and practicing.  The Wednesday night group beginning on 11/11 will be based on “Fervent” and “The Battle Plan for Prayer” and much of this blog is also extracted from these books.  Sometimes word for word and sometimes paraphased, but still from the books.    I want to give the credit to those books and the authors.  I am simply sharing how they have helped me practice and grow in my daily prayer life.  I hope it helps you do the same!

Build your War Room – Session 1
November 11, 2015

I am an amateur! I am not here to teach you how to build your war room. I am here for us to build our war rooms together. I want us to learn how to pray, fellowship, be still and know …. TOGETHER. I am so excited to see what our Awesome Father does in us, for us and with us during our transformation.

We are going to work together, we are going to actively write our prayers. Specific Strategic, Scripture based prayers based on God’s scripture.

In the book Fervent… Patricia says, if you want a book “about” prayer this one is not for you! We are not going to talk about prayer in this group either. We are going to Pray! Join the battle. Patricia says, “this is war! The fight of our lives.” She is right! Satan is on the attack. He is after our marriages, our children, our mind and emotions, our futures, our very own salvation and the salvation of those you love.

Look at your life, family, job, church, witness. Precision in prayer is key. Consider where and how you feel Satan is attacking you and yours. Write them down…

1. Does anyone want to share any of the areas they have realized, and maybe hadn’t before just now, that the Devil is waging a war directly against you in a specific area?

If you are like me: Here is my challenge. Let’s try something new TOGETHER. Let’s Pray Fervently, faithfully and with focus specifically directed at these areas where we are being attacked.

List out the following:
What frustrates you?
What worries you?
What defeats you?
What exasperates you?
What angers you?
What taunts you?
What deflates you?
What makes impossible demands on you?

I have provided each of you with a notebook. (If you are only following the Blog, you must go get your own notebook! (Go on, get it now!) My 9 year old is a little bit infatuated with this process of writing out prayers. I have already seen amazing changes in him. He prays! He does it well! He asks me to pray with him, but he prays himself too. It is a pretty amazing blessing to hear your 9 year old pray out loud for you. The first time he saw his name written down in my prayer journal, he was impressed. He said, “Mom why is my name written down there?” I told him it was there because I was praying for him. I was praying for his present, his future, his wife he would have one day, his children he would have one day. He simply said…”Wow that is cool!” He prays for his family (even his brother and sisters!). I pray that he is so much further in his walk with Christ because he’s getting to see this legacy of prayer from a young age.

I loved this so I want to say it word for word from the book….”You don’t need to learn ten-dollar words and be able to spout them with theological ease. You just need to bring your honest, transparent, available – and let’s just say it – your fed-up, over-it, stepped-on-your-last-nerve self, and be ready to become fervently relentless.”

How persistent are you in your daily life about the things that are truly important to you? Why when we are told so specifically, what prayer can do, do we sluff it off, and so rarely commit and practice it?

I personally can say that I’ve seen so many answers to my prayer, even as poorly as I have practiced it in the past. It baffles me why I have not chosen to exercise it more, just based on the answers I’ve received in the past. That’s not even counting the stories my friends and family have shared with me about their answered prayers.

Make a daily Appointment for prayer.
(Preferably in the morning, or whatever time you see as the beginning of your day)

Time:_______________________

Pick a place for your morning prayer:______________________________
a few suggestions here: comfortable, but not so comfortable you fall asleep instead of praying. Have a little room where you can write, post your prayers for easy access, and shut out the outside distractions.

Ask yourself these questions to start preparing for your own strategic prayers.
1. What are your top three biggest needs right now
2. What are the top three things you are most stressed about?
3. What are three issues in your life that would take a miracle of God to resolve?
4. What is something good and honorable that, if God provided it, would greatly benefit you, your family, and others?
5. What is something you believe God may be leading you to do, but you need His clarity and direction on it?
6. What is a need from someone you love that you’d like to start praying about?
I can’t really count the amount of time I know my Grandma spent on her knees for me and the other members of my family. I would give anything to have them written down, to read over often. To see the words and scripture my grandmother prayed over me from the time I was little. It is hard to imagine the value and love I would feel from reading them. Not to mention, the answered prayers I might see, even long after she has passed. I want to leave this for my children and their children, I want my grandchildren to know I was praying for them even before they were conceived, much less born. I want my family to know they have a legacy of prayer that has been ministering into their lives for years. I want them to be able to read my prayers and be in utter awe of the ways God has moved in their lives as answers to the many prayers I have prayed for each and every one of them.
You write your prayers so you won’t forget.
Won’t forget who the real enemy is….
Won’t forget the One in whom your hope lies…
Won’t forget what your real need and dependencies are
And later, Won’t forget the record of how God responds

You better know that Satan strategizes against you. You would be wise to design your prayer strategy to fight back. “For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies–but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”

In Ephesians 6 it says “Pray at all times and on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers, for all Christians everywhere.”

Again to good to paraphrase…Patricia says, “We pray until our grandchildren are old enough to understand and learn and copy our example. We pray until they can one day place their hands across ours, gently rubbing our aging skin, and we smile because now they’ll never forget the things we had the good sense to record in writing for their generation. They will look back on our legacies and know we stood strong, fought the good fight, and finished a race in which we would not even think about letting the enemy have his way in our lives or the lives of those we love.”

Time permitting we are going to discuss strategy 1 – Satan attacks our passion. He seeks to dim your whole desire for prayer, dull your interest in spiritual things, and downplay the potency of your most strategic weapons (Eph 6:10-20).

More to come….But I have to post what I have prepared so far because I’m too excited not to share as I go.

Please come at 6:30 Wednesday Night at Grandview Church if any of this is sparking your interest or your desire to enhance your prayer life. Come and connect with other believers who like you want to deepen their relationship with God, or just START a relationship with Him. All are welcome: Men, Women, Couples, Singles, I can’t wait to meet you!

Heavenly Father, I come to You in Jesus’ name, asking You to draw me into a closer, more personal relationship with you. Cleanse me of my sins and prepare my heart to pray in a way that pleases You. Help me know You and love You more this week. Use all the circumstances of my life to make me more like Jesus, and teach me how to pray more strategically and effectively in Your name, according to Your will and Your Word. Use my faith, my obedience, and my payers this week for the benefit of others, for my good, and for Your glory. Amen,