How to Pray Prayers That Make a Difference - Best of Bill Johnson Sermons | Bethel Church

0:00 I think it was John Wesley that said, God does nothing in the affairs of man except in answer to prayer. So how important is prayer? I don't think the Lord's Prayer, that title, is a good title. I mean, it works because we know where it is, but it wasn't his prayer. Because in the prayer is the confession of sin, and he had no sin. It was a model prayer. I like, personally, I like to refer to it as an apostolic prayer. Because the apostolic mandate is to get the blueprint of heaven and implement it here on earth until this world reflects the nature of that one. That's the apostolic mandate. and that is the essence of this prayer that God has given us to pray. I'm sorry, I need to ramble a minute longer.

0:44 Maybe two or three. I was watching The Chosen. I don't remember now, three weeks ago, which I love The Chosen. And I was watching this segment where Jesus, I think he sat on like the edge of his bed or his cot or something and he went through a Hebrew prayer. And then I saw the disciples do it and I thought, I like that. Something clicked in my heart. It may not in yours, but it clicked in my heart, and I thought, the discipline of a repeated prayer that you refuse to reduce to repetition, but you keep it alive, there is power in that prayer. And so I have taken it on in the last recent weeks just to take this Lord's Prayer and pray it when I get up in the morning and to pray when I go to bed at night. Now, I don't think Jesus gave us that prayer to be prayed. I believe it's a pattern prayer. It's an outline prayer. But when I pray it, every phrase is pregnant with meaning. So it's more than just a rote prayer. And instead, it is packed with heart that says, our Father. And it starts with there in this engagement with the Almighty God, who has invited me to co-labor with him and make a difference on earth.

2:01 You are alive to make a difference on the planet. And our prayers are to count. They are to have effect. Now, one more comment in this regard. I think one more. One or possibly two or three more comments in this regard, and then we'll start. We'll start with sermon one. When he invites us into this place to pray. it's not as though I've been assigned to persuade him. I've been assigned to engage with him.

2:53 We'll talk about that a little bit more later. for such a time as this, he doesn't give us the exercise of prayer to keep us busy. He gives us the assignment to pray because of his intention to fulfill the prayers that we pray. There's two basic kinds of prayers that I want to take a quick look at. And so we'll do that and then we'll see if we can make sense of this. go to Matthew chapter six and let's start with verse seven.

3:27 This is the five minute sermon. It starts right now. Oh boy, I better hurry. All right. When you pray, do not use vain repetition as the heathen do, for they think they will be heard for their many words. Therefore, do not be like them for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask. I love that. He says, when you pray, don't repeat your prayer over and over and over and over and over again. The heathen pray that way because they think that by praying a prayer over and over again, they can earn the answer. They engage with God who gives them points for repeated prayers. Don't do that. That's what the heathen do. And then the reasoning behind that. He says, for your father knows what you have need of. to come before my father first of all it doesn't remove from me the responsibility to pray for my daily needs here it says give us this day our daily bread so the very next verse is he gives the assignment to pray for our daily needs so it's not he knows what you need so don't pray he doesn't say that he says he knows what you need so come before him as a father who does not need to be persuaded to take care of his children. Be a part of the ever evolving economy of heaven where in your partnership, you make agreement to see the release of his supply and his abundance.

4:54 But it comes from the heart of a father who's looking for the needs of his children. He's not the manager of an orphanage, the caretaker of an orphanage, making sure that you have three meals and a cot to sleep on, a coat to wear in the winter. He's not someone who just basically takes care of your needs, but your wants is something else. That's not the way he is. He is a father who cares for your needs. So bring it before him. And because you know he's a loving father, because you know what he's like, you know you don't need to pray that prayer a hundred times because he heard you the first time. Give us this day our daily bread. If you belabor the prayer, it doesn't mean he won't provide. it just comes out of a misunderstanding of who he is as your father. it was better than your response i know that much for sure all right now go to matthew 7 and we'll we'll take the other part of this verse 7 says ask it will be given to you seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you everyone who asks receives he who seeks finds to him who knocks will be opened. The original language here says, ask and continue asking.

6:12 Chapter six, don't continue asking. Chapter seven, continue asking. I love that. I love these conflicts in scripture because they're all invitations. They're all invitations. Many people take the conflicting thoughts and they get rid of one and just give all their weight behind the one they agree with or understand. These two work together. What is it? Number one, he says in Mark 6, Matthew 6, I'll get it. One of the guys said it. And we read it.

6:52 Your father knows what you have need of. Don't do that repeated prayer thing. But by the time we get to chapter seven, he says, knock, continue knocking. Seek, continue to seek. Ask, continue to seek. Why? Verse 11. If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Chapter six is needs. Chapter 7 is dreams. chapter six is your basic needs chapter seven is the good gifts that a father awards his children with what's the difference the one-time prayer of chapter six daily prayer for provision is because of who he is as a father the repeated prayer changes me it's not a prayer that persuades God it's a prayer that transforms me as one who continually stays before him with the same issue in my heart day after day after day it transforms me so that I become a person who could properly steward the answer that I'm contending for the dreams that fill this room right here were birthed in your heart by God But many of us lack the confidence to stay before him in prayer because we feel sometimes like, well, he didn't answer the first time we prayed, so it must not be his will.

8:22 Or I fasted three days and nothing happened. So we sacrifice the very thing he birthed in us, he put in us. And he gives us the assignment to knock and continue knocking because something changes in me. Where I engage with him and the more you engage with God over a given subject, the more he transforms you into the person needed, necessary to be a proper steward of that answer. All right, first one's over. Let's go to the Lord's Prayer. verse 9 Matthew even though many of you can quote it I do encourage you please look at it in your Bible something about seeing it and saying it verse 9 of chapter 6 of Matthew in this manner therefore pray our Father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come you will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen go back to verse 9 our father Thank you.

9:46 the western church has fashioned the gospel in such a way that the emphasis the primary emphasis is on individual fulfillment the fulfillment of my call the fulfillment of my dreams the fulfillment of what i want to see from my family my family line there is a place for that because God has no grandchildren. Everyone must come in personal relationship with him and place their faith in Christ for their salvation. So there is the individual. But listen to me, some prayers are so large, they cannot be answered for the individual. They can only be answered in the whole for a body, for a church family, even a spiritual nation. Our father, not my father, our Father who art in heaven the scripture says that I am seated with him in heavenly places this kind of a prayer is not me in the middle of a problem shouting out to God who I hope hears me so that he can come and rescue me instead it is me one who has been raised up in the resurrected Christ to be with him and to engage with him to see his purposes, his plans, his desires fulfilled on the planet. What is his will on earth as it is in heaven? That is the mandate we've been given.

11:17 Everything is measured by that mandate. So we start with our Father. So, we asked the question, how important is prayer? Now, what you're not going to hear today is that we need to pray more. What I want to tell you is we need to pray better. We sometimes get accustomed to the lack of a breakthrough and think that's normal, and it's not. We cannot readjust Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the book of Acts to our lifestyle. We have to energize our lifestyle until we learn how to pray that the Holy Spirit actually directs us in prayer. Because prayer was always meant to be a co-laboring relationship where we partner with God, we hear His heart, and we pray and decree things that matter to Him. Oftentimes, we beg God to do what He's told us to do.

12:15 and the assignment that we have is to pray into a position where we make decrees, where we speak to the mountain to be removed. Jesus, in his great teaching in Mark 11 on faith and on the answers to prayer, said, you speak to the mountain, and the mountain will be removed, and oftentimes we beg God to do something that he's actually told us to do, and I'll admit it. This one is baffling to me, and I'm just trying to learn it. But he said, for example, Randy Clark made a statement several years ago that really convicted me. He said, for us to beg God to heal somebody is for us to assume we have more compassion than he does. Some things have already been set in stone. They've already been accomplished. I mean, you know, Jesus doesn't need to return, die on the cross again to take care of yet another sin.

13:10 He took care of it 2,000 years ago. The same happened with healing. It's just we have to learn how to pray effectively. I remember years ago, in fact, I was standing right here. It was maybe 20 years ago. A gal came up. We were at prayer teams all over. we were praying for the sick and this gal came up she had 10 years of migraine headaches and uh was just really really tormented by this thing and so i i just i i prayed best i knew how nothing happened i finally asked her the question anything traumatic happened to you 10 11 years ago and she said no nothing that i can think of i said all right so we prayed and and there was peace but there just wasn't the breakthrough you know that we're we're looking for and accustomed to. And I was walking around praying for other people. She came to me maybe 20 or 30 minutes later. She said, I remembered what happened to me 10 years ago. I said, what? She says, I was raped. You would think that would be the first thing that would come to mind. But sometimes, you know, you move on with life and you just learn to dismiss the effect of certain things. Well, it was still having an effect. And so all I did is I said, well, let's take care of that. And so we prayed together. We took care of the forgiveness issue, took care of the infirmity that was released because of that, that was done to her. Remember, Jesus releases prisoners, those who have done something wrong, and captives, those who had something wrong done to them.

14:36 He releases both. And she said, okay, so we prayed through it just in a couple of minutes, and she's completely healed of 10 years of ongoing mind grief. It wasn't the need to pray more. It was the need to find out how the Holy Spirit wants us to pray in a given situation. so what I'm hoping is that the Lord will give every one of us the gift of dissatisfaction kind of like the birds do in the nest you know they pull all the feathers out and make them little sticks prick and poke until the bird finally wants to learn to fly and I'm hoping that this next year you and I will learn to fly in an effective prayer in ways that we've not known before you know I'm so thankful for what we've seen happen through the last almost 30 years incredible but I know there's more I ache for the more. And I just pray that you get poked and pricked. Sounds like a country-western song, but we'll just leave it right there. Let's read through these two parts of the Christmas story.

15:34 Luke chapter 2. We'll start with verse 25. We've got several verses to read. Behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and he blessed God and said, Now, Lord, you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.

16:30 So what happened here? The Lord spoke to Simeon. Here's a man of an intense prayer life, intense focus on the purposes of God, so much so that the Lord satisfied the cry of his heart and said, you will not taste death until you actually see the Messiah, the King of Kings, come to earth. This is his moment. And he says, now I can depart in peace because you fulfilled it. The next scene is with Anna, a prophetess, verse 36. And there was one Anna, a prophetess, daughter of whatever, of the tribe of Asher. And she was of great age and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity. And this woman was a widow of about 84 years who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming in that instant, she gave thanks to the Lord and spoke of him to all who looked for the redemption of Israel.

17:32 All right, what happened here? We have a prophet, a prophetess, who recognized Jesus as the Messiah. Let me change the language a little bit. We have a prophet and a prophetess who recognized the king of all kings when he was an infant. It could be said that they recognized who it was because of the prophetic gifting, but I don't think so. I think their prophetic gifting was backed by their passionate prayers. And when you lean into something in prayer, it's much easier to recognize the answer in its infancy. it's much easier to recognize that which comes, not fully formed, not fully shaped, not the way we'd expect a king to come, the Messiah to rule and to reign. He didn't show up the way many expected, but because of the devotion to prayer and that sense, how many of you have had times where you've been praying and you can tell the Holy Spirit is riding on or saying amen to what you're praying. You know that feeling. I wish I could say it's there all the time. It's not there all the time for me, but when it happens, make a note because you've just engaged in what is called co-laboring. You've partnered with the Lord and you were actually praying not to God, but from God. You're joined with him in administrating his will in the earth. Now, remember, every single part of our life falls under the assignment of his dream. And his dream is, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. His dream, his desire, everything that he's done, every miracle that Jesus did, every word that he preached, everything that was done was to demonstrate the reality of that world and how it could have effect on this life, on this world. Your assignment is to co-labor with God and to hear his heart.

19:40 What happens often in prayer is that we pray. let me back up. Start with whatever you think is a good idea to pray for. I know this will sound not very spiritual. Don't ask for direction. Start with what you have because it's easier to steer the car when it's rolling. Start with what burdens your heart. You may be praying for a while and suddenly you feel this shift in the presence where he starts refining the prayer. And it's almost like the Lord says, you know, if I answered your prayer, it would be plan B, but let me show you plan A. And as we continue prayer and we sense that presence affirming and giving the amen, so to speak, to what we're praying, we tap into that moment of co-laboring with God where we see things happen that we've not seen happen before. And I talk about this every once in a while. I'm going after it again because I feel like the next 12 months is supposed to be the most extreme and extravagant breakthroughs we've ever seen in prayer.

20:46 There are things that have yet to happen that are going to happen, not because we are so intelligent, not because of anything, except that we've learned to hear his heart. We've learned to sense his heartbeat, what he's burdened for, what he dreams of. You only know that by interacting with him. we we often beg god to do things that he's commanded us to do and it's just it's just not healthy and what happens all through church history is when that takes place we find we find people just blaming the absence of an answer on the sovereignty of god when he's already purchased that miracle he's already taken care of that people being reconciled that person being reconciled whatever it might be he's already done what's necessary to make it possible your job and mine is to discover how to co-labor with him in such a way that his hand is released in the most impossible of all situations.

21:44 This is the privilege of our life. I am not interested in praying so that I can check the box and say I've done what I'm supposed to do as a Christian. How important is prayer? I think it was John Wesley that said, God does nothing in the affairs of man except in answer to prayer. So how important is prayer? it's unbelievably important that he didn't even send the Messiah without intercession.

22:19 You would think if there was anything that God would just choose to do on his own without anybody asking for anything, it would be the sending of his Messiah to earth. But he didn't. He first provoked and stirred up the prophet, the prophetess. People had actually been praying for the Messiah to come for several hundred years. There was this cry of the people. And when it came to this breaking point, Anna and Simeon, they had been so intensely devoted to praying for this, that Simeon's life was dependent on this. He literally would not be able to depart and to go into paradise until he had beheld the Messiah, the Son of God. And in this moment, he had been leaning into this direction in prayer so significantly that when the answer came in its infancy, he could recognize as the king. I'm concerned with my prayer life.

23:19 So I concern me. All right, so let's just be honest with you. I'm concerned that I find myself praying for things in a way that Jesus didn't pray for. And it's not that I want to make anybody paranoid. I just, I want to make sure that everybody hears an invitation to come and find, because the Holy Spirit tells us in Romans 8, we don't know how to pray as we ought. So that's a good place to start. God, I don't know what I'm doing, but you invited me. So this was your idea and I'm ready to learn. Show me how to partner with the spirit of God so that your purposes are accomplished in the earth. And ahead of time, I give you all the credit. I give you all the glory. Prayer is so important that the Messiah didn't even come. But do you know the return of Christ even comes in response to prayer? Because the Bible says, and the spirit and the bride say, come.

24:19 Our partnership with the Lord is so vital that there are things happening all over the world that he would love to put his hand into. But until there is, I know this will sound strange to you, but permission given. Let me back up, put it this way. If I own a home in town that I'm renting, and you're renting from me, and you are renting my home, I have the master key, I have the title deed. In fact, since this is my talk, that house is paid for.

24:53 You know, and it's a big house too. I just want you to know. Since I'm doing the illustration, this is my house. It's a big house, and I own it outright. And you're renting from me. I can't go into that house anytime I want, even though I own it and I have the master key. I can only enter legally at your invitation. The scripture says, the earth was made for man, the heavens for God. He put humanity in charge, and then he made a covenant with us. You pray, and I respond. You give me the invitation, and I will enter. sometimes it's not praying more sometimes it's praying differently sometimes we've been asking God to do something he told us to do and we finally realize actually I need to speak to the mountain myself instead of asking God to remove the mountain Luke 18 verse 1 I want to read 8 verses and then we'll back up and talk then he spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart I want to read that first verse again then he spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart saying there was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man Now there was a widow in that city.

26:26 She came to him saying, get justice for me from my adversary. And he would not for a while. But afterward he said within himself, though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continually coming she weary me. I met that lady. then the Lord said hear what the unjust judge said and shall not God avenge his own elect to cry out day and night to him though he bears long with them and I tell you that he will avenge them speedily nevertheless when the son of man comes will he really find faith on the earth I know that this is a pretty well-known story and it ought to be because it's one of the times the Lord talked to people about prayer if you look at all the things the disciples could have asked Jesus to teach them the only thing I remember was they asked him to teach them how to pray. It has to be the result of them watching him engage with the Father and coming and capable, able to display heaven on earth is a term I'll use. They break through in this disease, that disease. We find him retreating, if you will, sending the crowds away, going up on a mountain to pray.

28:12 And when he came down, there was something upon him. It wasn't that it wasn't there before, but they must have been able to visibly see something going on in through Jesus' life that would cause them to ask Jesus, please teach us this one thing, this one thing. Faith brings answers to prayer, but enduring faith brings answers with character. Thank you. faith brings answers to prayer but enduring faith brings answers with character the lord is interested in answering prayers but he's also interested in what we're becoming if he ever delays an answer it's only so that it might gain interest it's that it might gain interest and that we might become the people capable of stewarding well the answer and not have the answer destroy us.

29:20 In this parable that Jesus gives, he starts with this statement. Men always ought to pray and not lose heart. And the next thing he does is he gives this parable. But what does he do in the parable? I understand the point of the parable is endurance in prayer, persistence in prayer. I get that, and that's the primary lesson. Or I should say, well, that's the point of the parable. But the primary lesson, I think, is a bit different.

29:52 Jesus says men ought to pray and not lose heart. So here's his will. Here's the challenge. And how does he fix the challenge? He reveals a part of God's nature. he says, what you know about an unjust judge, if he would answer this woman, how much more will I, as a loving father who actually cares for you and the process, how much more will I not answer for you? So what does he do? He causes the people summoned to pray continuously to live more aware of the actual nature of God. Let me put it this way. The ability to endure in prayer is fueled by our understanding of His nature.

30:51 In fact, let me take it a step farther. The fatigue in prayer reveals the consciousness of problems above God's nature. this word, I was quite surprised. I wanted to find out this thing about losing heart. What does that mean to lose heart? I mean, I think we naturally can define it. It would be to be discouraged. Maybe I prayed for so long, nothing's happened in this area, and we become discouraged. Maybe we've been offended. Maybe something's happened, but it's this loss of passion, And I think we can all give good, natural definitions of what it means to lose heart. I was surprised by the biblical word, however. The biblical word for losing heart is actually two words.

31:49 The first word is very simple. It's the word in or with or by. But the second word is very specific. It is the word evil or bad. What has he done here? He's described what it looks like. to have somebody immersed in an awareness of problems more than an awareness of God's nature. That is how you lose heart. That's it. That's the whole point.

32:26 An overriding awareness of this crisis, this problem, this bad health report, this issue in the nation, this conflict in the family, whatever. Being aware of problems is not evil in and of itself. But what happens is when they are bigger in our consciousness, in our awareness, then our awareness of God's nature, we will live in a reaction to the problem. Men always ought to pray. People always ought to pray. People ought to pray continuously without becoming in the evil. All right. This is going to take me to a little work. Are you alive? All right.

33:18 Let me read this passage for you out of Colossians 3. you're thinking? I have one person thinking. This is scary. Verse 1 of chapter 3 of Colossians. Let me just read this to you. If you then were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Okay, now listen to the logic involved here. Biblical reasoning. Set your mind on things above, not on things on earth, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. All right. Now, listen carefully. Everything you're instructed to do in the Bible is intensely practical. if you over spiritualize a principle, you will put it so far out of reach that in your mind, only the spiritual giants can accomplish it. When instruction is given to us, the ability to do the instruction is imparted in the instruction. He enables what he commands.

34:29 So when he says, set your mind on heavenly things, not earthly things, and then he gives a reason why. The reason is you're dead. And your life is hidden in Christ. All right, are you thinking? Why do you want to set your mind on earthly things? Because wherever you anchor your mind is where you're going to anchor your affections. And wherever you anchor your affections, that's the reality you're going to live in. How many of you have had a problem go on in your life and it was so disturbing to you, you just couldn't sleep at night. You just laid her awake all night long. All right.

35:11 How many of you never have done that? Yes, just Jo is the only one. It's awesome. She sleeps no matter what. But the rest of you. How many of you have? All right. So we know that you know how to meditate. Now we just have to change the subject matter. You study the presence of the Lord throughout Scripture, you find that the sons of Asaph wrote this passage, Psalm 73, where they were frustrated. They were frustrated because it looked like everything the wicked did prospered, and everything they did was stunk. And so they decided to write a song about it.

35:56 Not all the songs do I want to repeat. and they sang this, and they said, you know, they get pregnant, they give delivery, they don't even have birth pangs, you know, they're just singing this song, and finally he says, I perceived that they had no consequences for their evil choices until I came into the sanctuary, and then I perceived their end. What's the point? Sanctuary presence. In the presence, perspective is clarified. It's changed. In the presence is where you see clearly. So many run like Jonah in conflict instead of coming deeper into the heart of God to gain a clear perspective of what we're facing, what challenge is actually before us. In Psalm 60, it talks about the presence of the Lord is where the voice of the Lord becomes clear.

36:56 In Psalm 16, it says, in your presence is the fullness of joy. And so the presence is that place where things happen inside of us, where we change from the inside out, giving full expression of who he is. the presence of the Lord, the face, is supposed to be that place where things get birthed. And I don't want to make this overly spiritual, to be honest, as spiritual as it is. I want to keep this as practical as I know how. And this is what happened to me. A number of years ago, I found out I would be praying. I would take some time to pray, and I'd remember, oh, I need to make this phone call, and oh, I need to visit this person, and oh, I forgot to pay this, and oh, and all this stuff would come when I'm praying, and I'm thinking, man, the devil is just interrupting my prayer time. I'm wanting to worship God. I'm wanting to intercede for the nations. I wanted to see revival and miracles, and I get all this other stuff coming to me, and it's, and it was just annoying, and I just, you know, I would swing at the devil a few times, found out I was shadow boxing, but I would get so angry and rebuke and do this and that and pray and fast and do all the stuff, but nothing changed. And then I realized there's this verse out of Mark 11 that says, whatsoever things you desire when you pray, believe that you have them and you will receive them. Whatsoever things you desire when you pray, what are your desires when you're praying?

38:25 What are you dreaming of when you're in the presence? And then I started to find out, oh, those times of prayer, he was actually interacting with me. I had committed myself to accomplish his purposes, and so he was reminding me of a phone call I promised to make that I totally forgot. And I remember, oh, thank you, Lord, you want to protect my own reputation. You reminded me of a bill that I forgot I should pay. Oh, yeah, Charlie and Julie Harper back here, I remember years ago, I taught on this probably 35 years or so ago. And during worship one Sunday, Charlie came up to me afterwards. And while he was in worship, he had an idea come to him on a specific kind of vacation to take with his family. See, we don't think he's good enough to want to talk to us about that stuff.

39:24 but he is. It's in those moments, things come, things happen, things, he interacts with us. It's this, it's this engagement with presence. It's, it's a place of birthing. And at that moment, in fact, he came to me after the meeting and planned a vacation, a certain vacation with this family. And see, it's supposed to be that every part of our life is unto the Lord. There is no secular part and sacred part. Everything is under the Lord. And so this interaction that we have in the presence, in the worship service, you stand here shouting the greatness of the Lord, the praises of God. All of a sudden he drops a relative's name in your mind. What do you do now? I just always have a pen and paper with me. I just write the name of it down. I've committed, done what I'm supposed to do. Now I'm just going to worship the Lord. And at a given time later, I will follow up on the assignment that God's given me.

40:19 What are the things you desire when you pray? In that place of interaction with God, you are the most prone to be, you're the most likely to manifest yourself the way he designed you. it's where you are the most honest and it's where you are the most real and it's where you are the most, you're accepted, you're beloved, you've delighted in him more than anything else. It's not the stuff, it's not even the miracles as much as we like them. It's the fact that I have a father that fully, fully, completely embraces me. and in this interaction, I get ideas and he likes them. He likes them.

41:11 It's why he gave us the promise. Ask what you desire and it will be done for you. He's the one who gave us the covenantal promise because he knew there would be a day coming where we would be free enough to think. We'd become free enough to dream. I love church history. I love reading about it. And I'm impressed with so many different periods of time throughout history. But I'm not confident that the world has ever seen, has ever seen a church that was free to dream in partnership with the Lord. To where his heart, through his people, would become fully manifest for their sake, for their benefit. I don't know that it's ever been seen. I think through individuals, I can show you times in history where this person or that person, but what would it look like for just a group of people this size in one city to be so enamored with the presence that we can honestly say, and apart from you, there's nothing on earth I desire.

42:20 I'm not selling out my confession of Christ so that I can build my earthly kingdom. But I also know that as I serve you, bounty comes, and I want the bounty to be for the sake of the nations and the peoples around me. What would it be like if every time you came into the presence of the Lord, it may be a simple idea, an idea, I've had a hard time just getting through to this child of mine, and you just get this idea. Oh, if I did this game, maybe that would, so you write it down, you just make a note. Because what? God's interacting with you. There's this exchange that takes place because the presence is supposed to be the birthplace of the breakthrough. Michael had no children from that point on despising worship, but something happens to those who give themselves extravagantly for the glory of God. They surpass all natural boundaries of reproduction and start multiplying. And I feel like what the Lord wants to do in the church in this season, in this hour, is multi-leveled.

43:27 But it basically comes down to this. He designed you with a beautiful, beautiful position and place in this world to represent Him well. And there's dreams that He wants you and me to be free to dream, free to have. and that he would become manifested in and through us in ways that reveal the redemptive nature of a perfect father to cities and to nations all around us. It's practical. It's real. But it all happens because of people who are willing to give him praise while I'm barren. I'm going to magnify the Lord I'm going to take what already exists that's the covenantal presence of God that is upon me and I'm going to magnify the Lord I'm going to hold the magnifying glass right over my situation that I need changed and I'm going to declare His greatness I'm going to give physical expression I'm going to do so until I move into sacrifice something that costs me.