Scripture referenced 8 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Isaiah 30:18 God earnestly waits to be gracious to Israel despite their rebellion, used to show God pursues us
18 Therefore Yahweh will wait, that he may be gracious to you; and therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy on you, for Yahweh is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him.
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Keep this verse
Matthew 6:12
forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, the forgiveness portion of the Lord's Prayer pattern
12 Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.
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Matthew 6:14-15
if you forgive men their sins your Father will forgive you, but if not He will not forgive yours
14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
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Luke 11
alternate location of the Lord's Prayer, referenced as source for the ten lessons on prayer
1 When he finished praying in a certain place, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.”
2 He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
3 Give us day by day our daily bread.
4 Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’”
5 He said to them, “Which of you, if you go to a friend at midnight, and tell him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,
6 for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him,’
7 and he from within will answer and say, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give it to you’?
8 I tell you, although he will not rise and give it to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as many as he needs.
9 “I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you.
10 For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.
11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he won’t give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?
12 Or if he asks for an egg, he won’t give him a scorpion, will he?
13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
14 He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke; and the multitudes marveled.
15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of the demons.”
16 Others, testing him, sought from him a sign from heaven.
17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. A house divided against itself falls.
18 If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul.
19 But if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore will they be your judges.
20 But if I by God’s finger cast out demons, then God’s Kingdom has come to you.
21 “When the strong man, fully armed, guards his own dwelling, his goods are safe.
22 But when someone stronger attacks him and overcomes him, he takes from him his whole armor in which he trusted, and divides his plunder.
23 “He that is not with me is against me. He who doesn’t gather with me scatters.
24 The unclean spirit, when he has gone out of the man, passes through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none, he says, ‘I will turn back to my house from which I came out.’
25 When he returns, he finds it swept and put in order.
26 Then he goes, and takes seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. The last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”
27 It came to pass, as he said these things, a certain woman out of the multitude lifted up her voice, and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts which nursed you!”
28 But he said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it.”
29 When the multitudes were gathering together to him, he began to say, “This is an evil generation. It seeks after a sign. No sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah, the prophet.
30 For even as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will also the Son of Man be to this generation.
31 The Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and will condemn them: for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, one greater than Solomon is here.
32 The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, one greater than Jonah is here.
33 “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, that those who come in may see the light.
34 The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore when your eye is good, your whole body is also full of light; but when it is evil, your body also is full of darkness.
35 Therefore see whether the light that is in you isn’t darkness.
36 If therefore your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly full of light, as when the lamp with its bright shining gives you light.”
37 Now as he spoke, a certain Pharisee asked him to dine with him. He went in, and sat at the table.
38 When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not first washed himself before dinner.
39 The Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness.
40 You foolish ones, didn’t he who made the outside make the inside also?
41 But give for gifts to the needy those things which are within, and behold, all things will be clean to you.
42 But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, but you bypass justice and God’s love. You ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.
43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues, and the greetings in the marketplaces.
44 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like hidden graves, and the men who walk over them don’t know it.”
45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying this you insult us also.”
46 He said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load men with burdens that are difficult to carry, and you yourselves won’t even lift one finger to help carry those burdens.
47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
48 So you testify and consent to the works of your fathers. For they killed them, and you build…
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Matthew 6
location of the Lord's Prayer pattern taught through the seven-step prayer session
1 “Be careful that you don’t do your charitable giving before men, to be seen by them, or else you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2 Therefore when you do merciful deeds, don’t sound a trumpet before yourself, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may get glory from men. Most certainly I tell you, they have received their reward.
3 But when you do merciful deeds, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand does,
4 so that your merciful deeds may be in secret, then your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
5 “When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward.
6 But you, when you pray, enter into your inner room, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
7 In praying, don’t use vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking.
8 Therefore don’t be like them, for your Father knows what things you need, before you ask him.
9 Pray like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.
10 Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.
13 Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.’
14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
16 “Moreover when you fast, don’t be like the hypocrites, with sad faces. For they disfigure their faces, that they may be seen by men to be fasting. Most certainly I tell you, they have received their reward.
17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head, and wash your face;
18 so that you are not seen by men to be fasting, but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
19 “Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal;
20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves don’t break through and steal;
21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light.
23 But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.
25 Therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
26 See the birds of the sky, that they don’t sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you of much more value than they?
27 “Which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan?
28 Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin,
29 yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these.
30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he much more clothe you, you of little faith?
31 “Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’
32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33 But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient.
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1 John 1:9
if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse from all unrighteousness
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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2 Chronicles 7:14
if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, quoted by Jonathan Cahn at the inaugural prayer breakfast
14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
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Ephesians 4:32
be kind and compassionate, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you, spoken as a closing blessing over those who released unforgiveness
32 And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God also in Christ forgave you.
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
On January 28, 2017, Don led First Baptist Jackson through a morning of prayer and teaching built around the Lord's Prayer, the power of forgiveness, and the Father's blessing. Pastor Ray opened the service by reading from Isaiah 30 and setting the tone: God is not waiting to pull the rug out from under us, but is actively rising up, expecting to be gracious to us. The teaching moved through three connected sessions, with worship woven throughout.
What was said
Don opened by reading from Jonathan Cahn's 2017 inaugural prayer breakfast address, which he said had grabbed him that morning. Cahn's argument was that the change in the nation's leadership had nothing to do with votes or politics and everything to do with God, and that God had given the country a window of mercy. The charge Cahn gave was that the church must not waste that window by placing trust in government or in any man, but must commit to repentance, prayer, and revival. Don made clear he was not making a political point, only passing on a word about what God can do when His people pray.
From there Don moved into the Lord's Prayer, explaining that Jesus gave it not as something to memorize or put on a wall but as a pattern, a template for how to pray. He walked through each movement: relationship with the Father, hallowing His name, praying the kingdom down, asking for daily provision and forgiveness, releasing those who have wronged us, and closing with an acknowledgment that the kingdom and power and glory belong to God. He had the congregation break into small groups and actually pray through each section aloud, with Amy playing between movements.
Don described what he has seen happen around the world when churches pray this way. He told of pastors in northern China, near the Russian border, who had never prayed for their government before and who were transformed when they began to pray God's kingdom down on their nation and on nations around the world. He noted that those same pastors had prayed for people in Jackson Hole without knowing them, and that when God moves in a service or in someone's life, much of it traces back to prayer happening somewhere that nobody sees.
The second major teaching was on forgiveness, which Don called the most painful lesson the College of Prayer teaches because the Holy Spirit does the most surgery there. He drew a distinction between forgiving intellectually, simply saying the words, and actually releasing a person, which he illustrated with a knife. As long as the knife stays in the wound, no healing can take place, no matter what words are spoken. He told the story of a woman in Chile who had been depressed and housebound for years following an assault, and who that same night appeared at the service completely restored after she pulled the knife out and released the man who had hurt her.
Don then described the difference between a church that prays and a praying church. A church that prays treats prayer as one activity among many. A praying church has prayer as its DNA, and everything else grows from that. He described how his own church in Atlanta structures its elders meetings, its worship services, its Awana program, and even its engagement with a local high school rivalry, all of it flowing out of that DNA. He said the shift cannot happen by pastoral decree, it happens as the Holy Spirit changes people from the inside and the focus of teaching and worship keeps returning to Christ.
The service closed with a time of blessing. Don explained that when Jesus was baptized and the Father spoke over Him, three things were given: acceptance, affection, and affirmation. He said those are the three things every person needs, and that none of them can be earned. Elders and leaders were prayed over first, then they prayed over others, and the circle kept expanding until everyone in the room had received the Father's blessing spoken over them.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Pastor shared that he used to carry a hidden belief that God was waiting to pull the rug out from under him when things were going well. Have you ever found yourself thinking about God that way without really meaning to, and what changed that for you or what might need to change it?
- Don described the Lord's Prayer not as something to memorize or put on a wall, but as a pattern meant to become the DNA of how we pray. What would it look like practically for prayer to be the DNA of your daily life rather than just one activity among many?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 23,230 words
0:00
Welcome you. If you're visiting us first time you're here today, praise God. You found us. I I'm amazed by this story. Don spends a lot of time overseas and I thought that he brought several of y'all with him last night and it turns out that they just were in town and found out about First B and came in on a Friday night when we normally don't have services.
0:19
Came in and had great time with the Lord last night. So, we're gonna start off with worship. I'll pray to begin with and then, we'll flow right into the beginning session with Don here. God, thank you for this for the beauty of the morning. I thank you that you have been so so good to us.
0:41
I thank you lord that you are our God. We want to lift your name up, lord. You say, and I think of Jesus saying this the first time that if I be lifted up, I'll draw all men to me. If I be lifted up, I will draw all men and lord, I know who's speaking of the way that he would die on that cross but lord, this morning, we want to lift you up in praise. We want to exalt you in our hearts.
1:11
We want to exalt you in our minds. We want to know you better. We want to have a closer relationship, an abba, father type relationship with you, and we want for you to express your love to others with that same kind of gentleness, grace, and intimacy. So, lord, would you transform us and change us as we as we seek you and seek to exalt you. In Jesus name, amen.
1:46
Good morning. It's good to see you. Hi, Kate. Amen. This morning early, I was just spend some time with the Lord and praying and and Don was talking about hunger.
2:03
Hunger last night and I think one of the things that he probably will talk on today but I just just overwhelms me is God's pursuit of us.
2:14
Amen.
2:15
It is amazing. I mean, even in the garden, Adam and Eve are hiding, naked, hiding, trying to cover themselves and God pursues them in their sin and he's still pursuing us over and over again And and I don't know if you're like me, but there was a point in my life as a young adult. I grew up in a Christian home and everything, but somewhere, seed took root in my thought pattern without me even realizing it. I don't think I ever verbalized it, but I somewhere it would show up every once in a while that I just thought God was this God that was waiting to pull a rug out from underneath me when things are going good. I didn't realize it till he started revealing it to me.
2:55
And one of the things he started showing me in scripture is he's totally the opposite of that. He's wait he's just pursuing us, wanting to build us up. And I was gonna read out of Isaiah thirty eighteen. And this is when Israel, I mean, they're just a mess. They're a mess.
3:15
They have their worshiping idols in the temple in Jerusalem, everything and and God has just told them, if you will return to me, you know, I'll take you in and but you wouldn't have it, you know? No, we want to speed our own course and go our own way. But then in 18, it says, therefore, therefore, because we're running away from him, therefore, the Lord earnestly waits expecting, looking, and longing to be gracious to you. And therefore, he lifts himself up that he may have mercy on you and show loving kindness to you for the Lord is a god of justice. Blessed, happy, fortunate, and to be envied are all those who earnestly wait for him, who expect and look and long for him, for his victory, his favor, his love, his peace, his joy, and his matchless, unbroken companionship.
4:09
That is the amplified version. But I just I want to have that. I want us to start our morning off with that picture. That he is rising up expecting to be gracious to us today. He's expecting to meet us in this place.
4:25
He's not holding back going, well, I'm gonna see what you do and, you know, if you pull it together, I'll show up. He's already expecting, graciously lifting himself up. And it says, blessed are we if we then rise up and expect and look for him and long for him. So that's where we wanna be this morning. So let's I'm
4:45
gonna raise this up just a little
4:47
let's stand and sing this. He is exalted. He's
4:59
exalted. He is exalted the king is exalted on high and I will praise him he is exalted forever exalted and I is the king is exalted king is exalted forever exalted and I will praise his name forever is the king is exalted on high he is the Lord and he is the Lord forever is true shall reign Jesus. Exalted for the my king you're exalted on yes you are exalted my king you're exalted on thank you lord over the mountains and the sea your with love for me and will open up my heart and let the healer set me free I'm happy to be in the truth and I the healer set me free how'd I be to be in the truth and I will daily lift my hands for I will always sing up when your sing of your forever and I
10:23
of your love forever forever and I
10:29
will will sing of your love
10:37
your love forever and I will sing
11:08
sing of your love forever and I will sing of your love forever I will sing of your sing like never before oh my soul I'll worship your holy name bless the Lord and bless the Lord and worship his the sun comes up it's a new it's time to sing your song again you're rich you're rich in love and you're slow to thank you lord your name is great and your heart is kind on that day and on that day when my street is the end draws near and my time has gone still my soul will sing your Thank
16:46
you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Praise you. Thank you, lord.
16:57
There's nothing higher than this.
17:02
To be called a child of God.
17:11
And there's nothing higher than this. The call of one beloved by you there's nothing there's nothing higher this you. The call of one beloved by you do you
17:56
know of around beyond this
18:01
where earthly wishes they vanish like a mist
18:09
where things on sea become
18:12
reality and things unknown our source of strength for this there's nothing higher than this
18:29
to become
18:47
you little did we know what it take to grow we had and all you'd ask yet grace abounds when there's nothing else your love runs deep when the heart is free or there's there's nothing higher than this and to become a child of God there's nothing higher than the call of one but love by you there's nothing there's nothing higher than this to be called a child of God nothing higher than the call of one but love one holy one almighty one to you alone our lives we give we give it oh holy one almighty one you alone deserve the scare and holy holy one almighty one to you alone our lives we give we give it a holy one almighty one alone deserve this gift
21:12
Thank you, Lord. Sing, There's Nothing Higher.
21:22
There's nothing higher than this.
21:27
Higher to become a child of God
21:37
there's nothing higher than this
22:17
Lift up your name this morning and we praise you with everything that's within us. We love you with all of our heart, soul, mind, and body and we declare today your sovereignty here and we give you praise in Jesus name. Amen. Give God a praise offering. Let's start off this way.
22:33
Let's go. We clap here. You can do it. Alright. You may be seated.
22:39
Oh, wow.
22:44
You love it when your phone says low battery. Before we go into the teaching of the Lord's Prayer, I met three friends this morning from China and they're on this they're coming from California. One just flew in from was it Shanghai? Shanghai? Yeah.
23:05
Came in from Shanghai? Welcome. And then and then these two are from California. And they're and they're on this road trip and they're coming through and, you know, come on. Come on.
23:15
Be honest. If you're on a road trip, are you gonna stop at a church? Come on. I can tell you if I'm on a road trip, I'm just not gonna they stopped last night because they wanna hear from God. And they have to leave and go to Reno in another forty five minutes or so.
23:28
And so before I go into any teaching, we wanna bless them. We want to pray with them as they go. They're heading on the road, you know, and that's icy out there and so we just want to do that and the Lord just said don't let these dear friends of yours leave this place without the blessing of the Father. So if you don't mind coming up here, we don't want to embarrass you, yes I do, come on up anyway. Only pastor since you're here, we're going to bless these three people and this is how we do that.
24:03
Later on, we'll bless all of you, but I want all of you to stand up and I want you to put your hands towards them and then pastor I want you to pray a blessing on them as they travel. By the way, it was no mistake that God brought them here. The reason why you're here is not the reason you are here. And you need to understand that because God is going to take you deeper and go further. So the reason why they came last night was not the reason they came.
24:32
This morning, it's not the reason they came. God wants to take them deeper. So let's just pray blessing over them. Pastor, you pray.
24:39
God, thank you for the for these that came last night. Unawares as it were. We were unaware of them and their reason and they may have been very well unaware of of our reason for being here, lord, but we all come together up under your reason and God's economy, it makes sense. Yes. So, lord, we thank you that there is but one baptism, one body, your church, triumphant, capital c, worldwide to the ends of the earth.
25:08
Amen. Lord, there is but one. And so we pray that you would protect them as they leave this little hole, this little valley, that you would protect them and lead them and and guide them, Lord. That you'd use them in a mighty way, and that they would sense your presence, your manifest presence. Lord, we know that everywhere that we go, you're there before us.
25:31
Yeah. But, Lord, we pray that you would use us as mirrors to reflect your light in a very, very dark, very dark world. I thank you for the structures that exist in China by your will in those little house churches and families. I thank you that your gospel spreads, Lord, like a good infection. It is from one who has it to those who don't.
25:57
Lord, and at last for eternity. So, God, would you please use these three in your kingdom's work and would you transform them even today as we sit and as they go. In Jesus name, amen.
26:10
Amen. Receive the father's love and be blessed. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you.
26:16
You, pastor Barry. Oh, bless your heart. Good to see you this morning. Someone sent me the address, the inaugural prayer breakfast dress from Jonathan How many of you know read The Harbinger from Jonathan Cahn? You have not?
26:34
Only a couple of you? Oh my word, bless your heart, you've been frozen. Alright. That's a book you want to get. You want, you got it.
26:43
I could tell there was just that glow there in the corner, but The Harbinger is a great book by Jonathan Cahn. He's a messianic rabbi who loves Jesus and he's been asked over the last two inaugurations to come and do the prayer breakfast morning of the inauguration. Now, this is not a political speech I'm giving you. Doesn't matter on what side of the spectrum you are. I'm not here to say who did you vote for.
27:06
It's got nothing to do with it. By the way, Donald Trump did not become president because we voted for him. Did not. In fact, there was no way on this earth he was going to become president because they voted for him. He was behind in every poll.
27:24
We, the Christians, were disgusted by his lifestyle and got angry at things he said. So it had nothing to do with us, it had everything to do with God. Everything to do with God. And if you say, well why did God put this ungodly person there? You look in the Old Testament, you'll find several occasions he did that.
27:43
Put King Jehu was just like Donald Trump back in those days. In fact, I call him the Donald Trump of the Old Testament. Just like it. And God used him to turn a nation around. The reason why I said that, oh, come on battery.
27:58
If I would stop talking and just read it, it would work, wouldn't it? Oh, come on. Alright. You're not going to have your away with me iPhone, even though you only have 9% left. Yeah, it's not big enough and it will fall on May 4, but I only have to read a little bit.
28:29
So, I went, but you can download this, his address, and the part that really grabbed me this morning, Jonathan Cahn. And it's the inaugural dress for the prayer breakfast and you can just Google it and it comes up. 2017. Now the one there's also one in there acknowledgment of what the the Lord is saying. And here's what he said.
28:55
He said, many of you experts and pollsters are asking, how did this happen? The answer was 3,000 years old. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their evil way, then I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sin, I will heal their land. For the power of prayer is stronger than kingdoms. Are you hearing me?
29:19
The power of prayer is stronger than kingdoms and God is faithful and His promises are true. And so then he goes on and he gives the charge to President Trump, I won't go through that, you can read that. But here's the part I like. The window of the call of God. And now to you and me, God's people.
29:36
We have witnessed the fall of a nation away from God as in the fall of ancient Israel to judgment. But even in this ancient template, God gave to his nation windows of mercy. And so God has now given a reprieve, a window of grace to return. But what shall we do with this window? If we should now place our faith in man or in our own powers.
29:59
Oh, you have a wonder one? Oh, you are. You are a geez. I'm going to give you a free book after you pay $10. Alright.
30:13
For the answer is not government, not the military, not the economy. Don't you love that? The answer is God and the only way. He's saying this to all these guys up there, to President Trump and to Obama and all the countries. For without repentance, there can be no revival and that repentance must begin with you and me, the people of God, if my people who are called by my name.
30:37
We now come to we have not come to Washington DC to seek the agency of government. We have not come to seek the agency we have come to seek the agency of the Holy Spirit. We have not come here to place our trust in the abilities of a man, you Donald Trump. We've come to evoke the power of the Almighty God for revival. We have been given this window and we must not waste it.
31:00
We must work while it's day. This is inaugurate inauguration day and beyond the inauguration that the world will see with their eyes, we are here to inaugurate the purpose of God. You can imagine how that fell on those ears that day. So let the word go forth from this place and this day to every child of God in this land, to every church and every gathering in His name, that we commit ourselves from this time forth to fervently pray for revival, to work for revival, to repent for revival, to humble ourselves for revival, to seek His face for revival, to turn from our evil ways for revival, to proclaim the gospel to revival, and the power of God to bring revival. There are only two options, revival or judgment.
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The answer must be revival. However it comes, whether by blessing or by the shaking of the nation, let revival come. We come now before the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses, the God of Elijah, the God of the prophets, the God of Messiah, the God of the Red Sea, the God of the resurrection, we to the throne of the sovereign almighty God of Israel. Let this inauguration day be a new day, the day of the moving of God's spirit across this land. And we cry out to God, have mercy, have mercy on this land.
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Lift up your eyes again upon the city of the hill. Have mercy. Let your power again be seen in this nation. Let it fall upon your people. Let it fall upon your churches.
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Let it fall upon the heartland. Let it fall upon the coastland. Let it fall upon the capital. And may I say, let it fall upon Jackson Hole. Let it fall.
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Let it fall upon the White House, upon the Congress, let it fall. Let there be revival in the land. Let the lost be saved, let the saved be revived no matter what it takes. Let there be revival in the land. Is it possible?
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We declare that nothing shall be impossible with God. Can he do it? Yes, he can. For our God is the God of Israel and Israel the nation of the impossible. He goes on to say all the things that God did and continues to do and this is how he ends it.
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Let the name of God be lifted up and let this city on a hill called America shine again with a light of the fire of the presence of the glory of the living God In the name above all names, the name of Yeshua, HaYomashikas, Jesus, the Messiah, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the name of all names, the light of the world, the glory of Israel, and the only one, our only hope to these United States. May God help us. Those are powerful, powerful words spoken by a messianic rabbi who was invited to pray. He gave much more than just a prayer. In fact that prayer lasted for forty minutes.
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Forty minutes. And so this morning as we go to prayer and we learn again and follow the Lord's prayer, I want you to take this little card out. Some of you may have remembered that the last time I was here a number of years ago, right before pastor Ray was called, we were at the Bar J and we did this prayer at the Bar J. How many of you remember that? Great.
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Good. We're going to do it again this morning because everything flows from worship and worship leads to prayer. And Jesus did everything by prayer and there's only one prayer in the Bible, there are a number of prayers, but there's only one prayer in the Bible that he uses when his disciples come to him and say, Lord, teach us to pray. I was teaching this in the northern province on the Russian border in China, although we have, in fact, could go out five miles from where I was teaching was the border of Russia. And I came in and on the wall was this big plaque, larger than that, with the Lord's Prayer on it in Chinese.
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And the pastor said, yes, we know the Lord's Prayer. And I said, do you understand what that's about? Well, yes, we come and we quote it every Sunday. And I said the Lord's Prayer was never meant just to be quoted. Obviously, you can quote it.
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Obviously, you can put it on the wall. But it was never meant just for that. The reason why the Lord's Prayer was written, the reason why Jesus gave it, was not so that we would have something that we would memorize or a bookmark that we would put in our Bible, but so we would understand that there's a process of how the Lord teaches us to pray. There's a way He wants us to pray. There's a certain pattern, a template that he wants us to use when we pray.
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It's not about memorizing, the Lord's prayer. It's about living out the Lord's prayer. It's about allowing it to become your DNA and what you are saying is his word. When you pray the Lord's prayer, you are praying his word. You are praying the very words of Jesus as he gave them.
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No better prayer than that. And so when his disciples came to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray. He gave them this. And so I I want us to go through those steps this morning and then we're gonna take time and pray them. And and we'll we'll go through the whole time this morning and then after the Lord's prayer pattern, then we'll take a break and you have some coffee and then we'll come back for the next teaching on the power.
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There are three teachings that we want to get through this morning. The Lord's prayer pattern and then after the break, the power of forgiveness and then we'll close with the power of blessing. Tomorrow morning, we end this weekend with the power of love and what it means to receive the Father's love. So that's how we'll go for these next couple of days. Alright.
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So if you look at session four, the reason to use the Lord's pattern, it's the only prayer pattern that Jesus gave, it's concise, it's strategic, it contains every facet of prayer, all that we need, and as we pray this prayer, we're not only praying the Bible, but the very words of Jesus. So let's go through it, it's in Matthew chapter six and Luke chapter 11, but you see the notes right here and we'll go through it. The first part of the prayer comes out of a relationship, our Father in Heaven. Now, you need to understand that all prayer flows from a relationship with the Heavenly Father. This is not the Buddhist prayer, this is not the Islamic prayer, this is not the Hindu prayer, this is not the pagan prayer, this is the Lord's prayer.
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So, it's for the Lord's people. It's for his children. It's it's given specifically so that we can understand that we have a heavenly father who loves us. And so, everything comes out of that. Our father who art in heaven.
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Our father in heaven. Now it's amazing when we began teaching this, how many people had a difficulty with that phrase, our father in heaven. I remember teaching this in Africa and as we went through it, there were about 800 pastors there in in in this building with no air conditioning and very very very hot. And as I began to do that and teach on it, and saying everything flows from a relationship with a father, I could sense that there was a cloud, a shadow that came over while we were teaching. And it was as if there was a tear in the eyes of so many.
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I'm thinking, what is this tear? That they weren't weeping. What is this tear? It was a tear of sadness. A tear of not understanding or ever receiving the love from their earthly father.
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Now put this in perspective. If you have never received the love from your earthly father, it's very difficult for us to understand the love from our heavenly father. Our earthly father is here on earth and we see him. For many of us, we know him, we talk to him, so there's a relationship. But if we've never received that from the earthly father, it's very difficult to understand our heavenly father who we don't see who's in heaven.
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How do we how do we make the two come together and understand what the love of the father is? And so as we were going through this, they were saying, I could sense that and so we stopped right there. Didn't go any further in the teaching for that moment. Those of you who know me, you understand that I very seldom follow anything. Whatever the Lord said, we stop right in the middle and people come to me.
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Well, that wasn't in your nose, of course not. It didn't have to be, it's what he said. So we stopped right there and I went out into the floor with all these pastors. And these women I said, there's sadness here. Where there ought to be gladness because it's our heavenly father that we're calling to.
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Can you tell me what it's from? And so, several of them stood up and said, well pastor, we have never been able to understand that part because we've never heard our father say here on earth, he loved us. In fact, many of them didn't even know who their father was. So, they said, how do you do this? So, we went through with them receiving the father's love.
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And tomorrow, we'll go through that in church. Now, I know it's not your normal Sunday morning service, but I'm not your normal Sunday morning person, and you knew that before you invited me, so tough on you. So that's what's going to happen tomorrow. We're going go through that because there are so many people who've never really understood the love of their heavenly father. So we prayed the love of the father on them and they began to receive it, and they began to, the tear of sadness left for the spirit of joy.
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And so when you understand that prayer starts here, our father who art in heaven. Our father, we have a relationship with our heavenly father. He's in heaven. All true prayer begins there. And then the second part, worship, hallowed be your name.
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All true prayer responds to the revelation of the glory of God's name. Hallowed be your name. Holy be your name. Hallowed be your name. And so during this section of the prayer, we're lifting up his name.
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We're calling out his name. It's amazing to me how many church pastors and churches never really study the names of God. He has a ton of them and and we know each other's names. We call each other's names out but many of us don't know the names of our heavenly father, names of God. He's the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
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And so during our prayer time this morning, you're gonna call those names out. In one that same place in Northern China on the Russian border, we went through this pack and for twenty minutes they were calling out the name of the Lord. For twenty minutes. Now for some of us it's difficult to do it for three minutes. Twenty minutes.
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The prayer time there was an hour and a half and no one looked at their clock. I only knew at the end, said, my word we've praying for an hour and a half. So, they kept calling out the names of the Father, calling out his name, calling out his name. Now, this is what happened, beautiful part. While they're calling out his name, his name is healer, and they started calling out his name, there were people healed while they were calling in the name of the Lord.
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See, when you call on the father, the father responds. We have not because we ask not and we ask we ask wrongly. If you don't know who your father is, how can you call upon him and ask him to come and help? So he began crying out his name, crying out his name. Now, they don't do it like we often do here in quiet little sworners and we don't want anybody here.
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I'm talking about this whole place is rattling. They are calling out his name and they are crying out his name and no one so now you're talking about 300 people together and they're all praying in loud unison, all the names of the Lord. I mean, it shook thereafter. It was an amazing, amazing, amazing experience. And God responded to the call of his name.
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We've discovered over the past three years, in the early days, we would call people up and they would come and we would pray for them and the Lord would heal them. Over the last three years, it's rare that we would go down and lay our hands on anyone Because it all happens when they're praying. It doesn't mean that we wouldn't. It doesn't mean that we don't believe it. We do.
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But as they're praying out the name of the father, God comes and responded. And so then they give testimony. The Lord healed me right here. And then the next hour is talking, giving testimony of what God is doing. God shows up when you called on him.
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You mentioned that the Lord showed you he pursues us. He is a pursuing God. He never ever ever gives up. We give up. He never gives up.
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Call upon him when he can found. Call upon him. Call in fact that phrase call upon him is used more times than any other phrase as it deals with prayer in the Bible. Call. Call.
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Call. Call. Call. Invite. Invite.
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Invite. Invite. Invite. As we give out his name, hallowed be his name, he responds to that. So that's the second part of the Lord's prayer.
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The third part is Lordship. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So we declare the glory of His name. First part, we're acknowledging that He is our heavenly Father and we are receiving His love. We are praying back our love for him and we are saying that.
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The second part, we move in from there to honor his name, call out his name and and allow him then to speak to us as we call out his name. It's holy. It's holy. Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty. Holy is his name.
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So as we do that, it's powerful. Then we move into the third part, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. So now we're asking the kingdom of God to come, his Holy Spirit to move in power. And so we do that by by praying first for our church and for our community and for our family. We pray it down for our government and we pray it down for our nation and we pray it down for the world.
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In this particular place in in the Northern part of China, next to Russia, we began to do this and the pastor while we were praying came up and said, there's something happening here. We have never prayed like this before. We have never prayed for our government. We have never prayed for those we've just prayed for protection. Not for their salvation.
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We just prayed that that we would make it through the day. Not that God would come and visit our country. We never this is transforming us. So they began to pray, and and God began to show them how powerful he is when you pray his kingdom down. You pray it down upon the family, God begins to lead people to Jesus.
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They begin to pray that. And so then, we moved down to the nations, and they began to pray for the nations of the world. Now, they prayed for The United States Of America. These 200 little pastors in the northern part of China, next to the Russian border, prayed for you. And you don't even know them.
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And they don't even know you, but they know the God who knows you. And they pray to the God who knows you. And God responds and does things that you don't even know they prayed for. You see, when we receive the blessing from God, when God moves in our services, when God moves in people's lives, it's not just because we had a good service. It's not just because, oh, the message was really good.
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In fact, it really has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with the Holy Spirit is going to do through it. We sometimes think we're pretty good, that we're good orders or we're good preachers and we're good expositors. It's the Holy Spirit that brings the results. It's his church.
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So, as they begin to pray the kingdom of God upon the nations, they begin to hear stories back of what God is doing around the world. As you begin this morning to pray again for the nations, you will continually hear of what God is doing around the world and how did it happen? Because you prayed. And and our election is a perfect result of that. When Franklin Graham went to every state capital of The United States to pray, he wasn't praying for Democrat or Republican.
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He was praying for God to show up and God to decide. Now we thought he was praying for Republicans, or the Democrats thought they were praying for the Democrat. It had nothing to do with Republican or Democrat. It had everything to do with God. And the reason we are here today is because of what happened when they prayed on the steps of the capital of every state in The United States Of America.
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Why? God shows up when we pray and the results of that are extraordinary and we will enjoy that now for the days to come. So we're praying God's kingdom down. Sonship, give us today our daily bread, forgive us our debts. I find it very humorous how God did the Lord's prayer.
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I do. Because when I pray, Lord, I have this need and I need it now. We are crisis praying people. We need bread now, Lord. Now there's nothing wrong with asking God for bread now, but this is not the way God does it.
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He starts out with our relationship, he moves into honoring his name, he talks to us to pray for everybody else, And then, okay, by the way, you can go ahead and ask for bread. Why? Because he already promised the bread. He's already promised that. He's promised to take care of our daily needs above and beyond that which we ask or think.
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That's his promise to us. So because he he said just declare it. He's promised to do that. So he puts it in the middle of the Lord's prayer pattern. We wanna put it up in the front.
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We wanna start off with, Lord, thank you for being here this morning and Lord, you know how much I need. And Lord, I need this job, I need this money, I need this car, I need it now. Thank you. Amen. And we call that a prayer.
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No, I call that crying out of out of a need. Nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying we're missing something. I'm saying if we don't follow the pattern that he's given, we miss the reason why he gave the pattern.
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It's not a little ditty that we get for daily education Bible school so that we can say that we have learned the Lord's prayer. That's not what it's about. It's to show us that we start with our love for him and his love for us. We receive that. It goes in then to honoring who he is, his name, and the power of his name.
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At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is lord. At the name of Jesus. So, we honor that. We honor that and then we go and pray his kingdom down upon everyone else. Our families, yes.
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And now lord, I need bread. Now, look how he does this. Give us a day our daily bread, forgive us our debts. Both in the same phrase here. So he takes care of two needs here and I put them down, food and forgiveness.
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I say, our needs as God gives us our groceries and forgiveness, he takes out our garbage. That's what he does. So when we understand that he is the provider of all things, we thank him. And so what we teach people is not just to ask for that. Lord, I need this car, I need this job, I need this food.
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Nothing wrong with that. We teach them to pray thanksgivingly in anticipation of receiving it. Lord, thank you for the food you're going to provide. Thank you for the clothes you're going to provide. Thank you for the job that is coming.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you. Trust him for what he has promised to give. And if he doesn't give it the way you want, he still has a better way for you to get what you need. He hasn't forgotten that just because he hasn't answered the way you want. My son, Mark, my youngest son, he and his family are in The Philippines as missionaries.
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He was a very successful pastor. God called him to go to The Philippines. And he blames me for it. I get blamed for everything anyway, but he does because I took him over there with me to do a college of Perkin and he saw what God was doing in the hearts and lives of these Filipinos and he went to a place where there are 5,000,000 homeless people. Kids sleeping in tombs, in boxes and there was a church in the middle of that group.
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And we entered in that church, he was asked to speak. The worship leader was this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Filipino girl who was singing and leading only as a Holy Spirit let her in and it was so powerful, so moving. That's what happens when the Holy Spirit comes upon your worship. And so, it was just so powerful. So when he got up to speak, he couldn't speak.
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And he said a few words and he prayed and people came in. Afterwards he went up to the gal and he said, wow, where did you come from? You must have been this great worship school and educated and she's a beautiful, beautiful girl. And she said, no, no, I live here. This is where I come from.
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I lived in that box over there. My teeth were terrible. I had all kinds of sickness. I found Jesus one day. He healed me, gave me new teeth, gave me new heart, gave me a new life.
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He said, what comes out of me is only what he puts in me. So whatever you get is what he gives. Now think about that. Whatever you get comes from what he gives. So that just, he said, okay, I can't.
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He goes back home and resigned his pastorate. He said, we're going to The Philippines. So they're there. Now, I'm telling the story this way because when he gets there, he gets hit with this sickness. He can't swallow anything solid.
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So all he can drink is mushy. And it just hit him one week after he arrived. No more food. He lost 52 pounds in five weeks. Now he was big so he needed to lose some pain, but not that.
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So he still can't eat. He can only drink shakes and drink energy stuff. He's healthy but he can't eat anything solid. And so we've been praying and praying and praying and praying and declaring all that we know how to do and still he's going through this. We're asking, lord, why?
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Why? Why? We see you heal all over the world. Why can't you take care of this? Your servant who uprooted his family to go to Asia to do this.
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Why is he suffering this way? You're not answering our prayer. The Lord says, yes, I am. Yes, I am. Because you don't know why I'm taking him through.
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And he said it this way, remember, I'm taking him through. What does that mean? I'm not leaving him there. There's a reason I'm taking him through. So let me finish the course.
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When we ask the Lord for food and provision, he gives it. Then the next step is forgiveness, forgive us our debts in the same phrase. So we'll go through that prayer. Then fellowship, as we forgive our debtors. Later on, I'm gonna talk about the power of forgiveness.
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It's it's a little easier for us to ask the Lord to forgive us our sin than to forgive someone who sinned against us. Really is. We can say, okay, Lord, I'm sorry I lied. I'm sorry I'm cheated. I'm sorry I did that.
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The Holy Spirit convicts us and we can do that as the Holy Spirit gives us power. But for me to go to Matt and forgive him because he did something to me, he didn't. Don't anybody write note notes just using Matt. That's hard because I have to release Matt now. That's very difficult to do.
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But the Bible says our prayers don't go any higher than the ceiling and our families are not blessed unless we can release. There are two parts of forgiveness and most of us only know the first part. The theological part where I ask the Lord to forgive me and the experiential part where I release. And if you do not do that, both of them, forgiving and releasing, you have not forgiven. But that's for the next lesson.
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So then we move on to fellowship, to leadership. Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from the evil one. And then ownership, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. So I want us to go through that prayer. And this is how we're going to do it.
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We're going to stand and we're going to get into groups of four or five. Now, when you're in those groups, and Amy will be playing and when we're praying, she won't be praying, but when I go like that, she'll begin to play. And when you hear the music, that's the time to stop and then we'll go into the next bar. We're gonna go through all of these seven steps. Because I want you to get the the pattern.
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I want you to get the feel of what why Jesus gave this prayer. He gave her for a purpose so that we would understand how to pray. How to pray. So you're going to get in groups and you can spread out over the place. And I want you to pray in unison together in a group.
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And so that doesn't mean you're whispering prayer. Now last night, it was quiet, contemplative prayer and we're all there, you could have dropped a pin. I'm not sure quite if the Lord but today the Lord's going to hear you. So you're going to be in these corners, and you say, well, I'm not comfortable with that. That's okay.
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There'll be two or three people in your group that's comfortable that can shout for you. But I want you just to learn to pray out loud and thank the Lord as we go through this. Now, we don't always do this. My wife and I go through the Lord's prayer. We have what we call upper room and every morning at five to 05:30, we're together with coffee and we go through our upper room.
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And we spend time in the Lord's prayer. We put the armor of the Lord on and we pray for the nations. We pray for everyone. It's amazing how we go through this in an hour, an hour and a half, and we don't even know we're going through it. So we're going to go through that as a model this morning to do that before we take our break.
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So let's get in groups of four or five and find your corners. If you wanna sit, you can move your chairs in a circle. If you wanna stand, find those places, and, and then I'll lead us as we get in that. So get in our groups first, and then we'll go through it. You can take your little red card with you, that way you'll be able to follow.
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Yes. And if you want to have your worship team up near you, you could. All right. The first part then is relationship. Our Father in Heaven.
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So these prayers now are just we're thanking God that he is our heavenly father and we're acknowledging that and we're saying that we love him and that we receive his love this morning and we're just honoring him by loving on him and we're acknowledging that we are his children he is our heavenly father. So let's just have prayers of thanksgiving in your groups and declare that he is your heavenly father and that you love him with all your heart, soul, mind, body. Let's go to prayer. Our father, who art in heaven. Lord, we declare that you are our father and we love you this morning with all our heart, soul, mind, and body.
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You are our heavenly father and we receive your love for us today. We wanna go into worship and we wanna hallow your name. In your groups, I want you to call out his name. I I don't want you to be tentative. I don't want you to be shy about this.
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Just as a group, just begin shouting out one after the other after the other. Call out the name of the Lord. Call out his name. What his name is? Give his name out.
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Cry it out into the ceiling. Cry out his name. Give his name out. Shout it. I wanna hear it all over this place.
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Let's go, hallow his name, let's do it. Hallowed be your name. Holy is your name. Lord, we adore you. You are our lord.
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You are the great shepherd. You're the bright and morning star. El Shaddai, Emmanuel God with
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us. Yes.
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You are our healer. We call on your name, lord. We hallow your name, lord. We call it out. We call it out.
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You're the light of the world. You're the head of the church. Yes, you are the Prince of Peace. Lord, we do call out your name and we call upon your name and we hallow your name and we say holy is your name and we say thank you for your name and we love your name. Lord, in your name, there's power.
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Lord, your name is presence. Lord, in your name, there's peace. Lord, in your name, we can see all that you do. Your attributes are in your name. Who you are is in your name.
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The DNA is in your name. Lord, your name is powerful. Yes. And we call upon your name this morning and we lift up your name this morning and we love your name this morning. Yes.
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We love your name this morning. We bless your name. Bless the name of Jesus. We bless your name this morning. Hallelujah.
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Hallelujah. Now we're gonna pray his kingdom down. And in your groups, you're gonna pray we're gonna start by praying for our country. And I and I want you to pray as a group in unison, not just one person in the group, but all of you praying out loud together for your country, for where we live. Ask the kingdom of God to fall upon our nation.
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We have been given this second chance, this window of opportunity because of God's grace and mercy upon us. Has nothing to do with the man who's there. Has everything to do with God putting him there so that he would give us a window of opportunity to allow him to move in our country. So pray the kingdom of God down upon our nation. Pray it down upon our president, down upon the cabinet, down upon our country, down upon our officials.
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Pray the kingdom of God down upon our churches. Pray the kingdom of God down on our families. I want to hear you pray out loud for the kingdom of God to fall here. Get a little excited. Get a little passionate this morning.
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Yes. Let me hear something. Don't let the freezing outside be the freezing of your heart. Let's go. Let's pray the kingdom down.
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Come on. Pray it down. Lord, your kingdom come. We declare the glory of your name upon our nation. We call lord for your advancement, the advancement of your kingdom reign upon our nation, upon our families, upon our government.
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We call upon it lord. Come, come, come. We pray, Lord, that you will minister healing. We pray, Lord, that people all over this earth will see your power. We give you thanks, Father.
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We love you. Love you. We pray Your kingdom down upon all the nations of the earth. Declare your kingdom down upon the nations. We thank you for your coming down upon Asia and for Africa, and South America, and Latin America, and the Caribbeans, and for Europe, and for Australia, for New Zealand.
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We thank you, Lord, for your power coming down upon these nations, for America, for Canada, and North America. We pray praise you, Lord, and we thank you. Your kingdom is coming, your kingdom is falling, and revival is sparing out all over the nation. And we pray your blessing down upon them. We pray your healing power over them.
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We pray your convicting spirit over them. We ask, Lord, that they will receive Jesus. We pray for all these nations. You said declare the glory of your name over the nations. You say ask for the nations.
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They are our inheritance. Lord, we ask for our inheritance this morning. We ask for the nations. Give them to us, Lord, as we pray. Give them to us, Lord.
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As they come to you, We ask for the nations. We ask for them. We thank you lord for your coming and for the kingdom falling upon them. How empower and move upon them in Jesus name. We thank you and we follow your word and we believe.
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Yes,
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lord. In Jesus name. Yes. With the salvation of the nations.
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Yes, lord.
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Call them back to you. Lord. We pray and we give the salvation of the nations. In Jesus powerful name. Amen.
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Let's give God a praise offering. He's coming to the Earth, to the nations. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise you father.
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Amen.
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Praise you father.
1:17:46
Alright. We're getting a little better. Oh, lord help us. You gotta you gotta you gotta give me some slack here because I come from the world. Everybody around the world is excited about their faith.
1:17:59
Only in America we struggle. All right. The next part is give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts. I want you in this part now individually just to put out your hands to the Lord and thank Him.
1:18:16
So each of you just pray and so I want to hear a holy hush here, I mean a holy murmur here where all of you are just praying but you're praying quietly but you're all praying and you're thanking the Lord for his provision for you and you're giving him thanks. We're thanking him for our daily bread and so you're thanking him for his provision daily for you. And then move into that, as the Holy Spirit reveals things to you, you're receiving His forgiveness for your sins, for our sins. And so let's just do that in the group, but your hands are held out and you're receiving, and it's symbolic of receiving his gifts and you're thanking him for his provision and you're thanking him for the provision of forgiveness that he has given to us through the shed blood of Jesus. And so let's do that, let's pray right now.
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Father, thank you. I thank you for your provision for my daily food, for my daily needs, for the clothes and the food in the home, for my health. I thank you for your daily provision for me, and I praise you in your powerful name. I thank you, Lord, for that. You give me daily the bread I need and the clothes I need and the shelter I need and the health I need.
1:19:37
And so Lord, I thank you. I thank you. I thank you, Lord, for forgiveness. I thank you, Lord, that you love me so much that you, Jesus, died on the cross for me, and the blood cleanses me from all unrighteousness. You say if I confess my sin, you are faithful and just to forgive me.
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So Lord, I receive that forgiveness today, and thank you for cleansing blood. Thank you, Lord. I confess of my sin of pride and arrogance and anger, and I thank you, Lord, that you forgive me. So I ask, Lord, your Holy Spirit fill me today. And I receive that forgiveness in Jesus' name.
1:20:17
Now as we have received his as we have thanked him for our provision, his provision for us, for our food and our shelter and our sustenance, and as we have thanked him for the provision of forgiveness that he has given to us, Let's ask him then to reveal to us those people, those situations that have hurt us or maybe that we have hurt. It goes both ways. The Holy Spirit reveals and what he reveals he heals. And so as we go into this session, you're asking the Lord to give you the strength and courage to release people who have lied against you, people who have abused you, people who have hurt you, and you're asking the Lord for the power to forgive them because in some cases it's so difficult. And so you're asking the Lord for that and so just take this moment before the Lord and ask Him for that.
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That not only do we receive His forgiveness but we forgive those who have wronged us The and Lord may show you people that you have wronged. So let's just ask Him for that right now. Let's go to Him in prayer. Thank you, Lord. Lord, thank you that you are the revealer by your spirit of those things that hurt us.
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And so we release them now in Jesus' name. We release them. They have no longer a hold in our life. We release the pain, we release the memory, we release that all in your powerful name. Now, the last part I love, I want you to just face me now, everybody just turn around, so I'll stand and we're I love how he he calls this, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
1:22:33
All prayer starts with our Lord. It flows out of relationship with him, and all prayer ends there. It's like a bookend. You focus on the Lord in the beginning, and you focus on the Lord in the end, and then in between the sandwich, he's just taking care of all of the stuff in us. So we start out with praise with him, and we end with praise with him.
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And so let's just raise our hands together as we declare this praise together. For yours is the kingdom. Say it. For yours is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever and ever and ever. Amen.
1:23:07
Amen. Now, I know you can do better. It's thawing out a little bit, the snow and ice in our heads. Here we go. Don't worry about the neighbor over there.
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He doesn't thaw anything. Ready? For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever and ever. Amen. Amen.
1:23:27
Whoo. Okay, Lord. That's alright? Okay. Lord, thank you.
1:23:35
Thank you for teaching us how to pray. And our prayer every day is, Lord, teach us how to pray. Lord, teach me to pray. I I don't wanna learn anything else. I wanna learn how to pray because our lord, if I learn how to pray, everything else is gonna happen.
1:23:49
Yes. Lord, teach us to pray. Yes. Yes. Amen.
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Help our church to become a house of prayer for all nations. Teach us and then allow us to use it, make it a DNA of our lives. In Jesus name. Amen.
1:24:04
Amen. Alright.
1:24:06
Gonna give you a break. You can get some coffee and some bagels. And I think our Chinese friends are gonna take off for Reno. Bless you. And, may the God of peace follow you.
1:24:17
Give them all a hug before they take off. You got your big already.
1:24:57
Yeah. I started eating it.
1:24:58
Everybody else got it. You grabbed it. Yeah. That's pretty far. And a piece of paper.
1:37:26
So you wanna pick up a pen and a piece of paper.
1:37:30
Can write on our book? It's something we need to give away? Okay. Thank
1:37:38
you. I found one, so I wanted to get it before somebody else got it. Worship team is gonna have to bring him in. Yeah. Hold on just a minute.
1:38:16
Just just so when I go through this, Mike Marty was an elder, and I was praying in front. So do you do this for one person, one elder, like, the or do you do this for the whole all the elders?
1:38:28
Every elder needs a prayer shield.
1:38:31
Every elder needs
1:38:32
a It's their own yeah. And a prayer shield is five to 10 people that are committed to pray for you on a Yes. Alright. Yeah. So it's every What When we do He
1:38:53
needs a prayer shield.
1:38:54
Yes. People cannot come on our staff without having a prayer shield. All the pastors that we train have to have a prayer shield.
1:39:15
You can't eat.
1:40:43
And how great thou art. And I might sing this by myself. Yeah. Yeah. And then flow in.
1:41:17
Alright, everybody. We're gonna we're gonna start playing again. Just gather as you will. We're gonna, yeah, as you, as you will, come on in.
1:41:46
Bring your bagels. You can sing with your mouth full. It's okay. We don't mind. We won't watch.
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We'll close our eyes.
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Except for Steve. Let's sing Good Good Father. We know this one. And it's true. It's truth.
1:42:16
It's so important to be speaking and singing truth
1:42:20
over ourselves and over the earth. It's important. Our words are so important.
1:42:26
Yep.
1:42:26
If we're not speaking truth, we really shouldn't be saying anything. Amen. Honestly. If we're not speaking truth, we shouldn't be saying anything.
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Amen. Truth and love. Yes, ma'am. Yeah, we, the ladies I meet with on Tuesdays, that's been
1:42:42
huge for us. Truth and love. Yep. Hand in hand, both of those. But we need to be singing the truth over us of who God is.
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So let's sing this together. It's who you are. It's who you are. It's who I am. It's who I am.
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You are perfect. And you are perfect in all of your ways. You are perfect in all of your ways. Are perfect
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all of your ways to you you
1:45:32
are perfect in all of your ways you are perfect are perfect in all of your ways. You are all of your ways. You are perfect perfect in all of your ways. You are perfect in all of your ways to me. You're a good, good father.
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It's who you are. It's who you are.
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It's who you are. And I'm loved by
1:48:39
You know, I just, I think everything that we go through, we always have to come back to the bottom line. He's good. You know, when we are asking questions, why, why, why? We just gotta be quiet and go, no, God, you're good. If I don't know why, I do know you're good.
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I do know that. Thank you, God. Thank you that you've proven yourself over and over and over and over and over again to us, lord. Thank you.
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The more I seek you, the more I find you and the more I find you more I love you let's sing that again the more I seek you the more I find you and the more I find you the more I wanna sit at your feet drink from the cup in your hands lay back against you and breathe feel your heartbeat this love is so deep it's more than I can stand I melt in your peace it's overwhelming And the more I find you, the more I love you. I wanna sit at your feet, drink from the cup in your hands, lay back against you and breathe, feel your heart breathe. Oh Lord my God when I in awesome wonder when Christ shall
1:58:56
savior God to thee. How great the Lord, how great For he is good.
2:00:29
Well, I wasn't going to tape this part. All right, so but you're going to stand up. So and when you're finished saying give thanks to the Lord, you sit down and then you stand up and say as love endures forever. We got it? You ready?
2:00:43
You can stand up with your big, alright? Give thanks to the Lord.
2:00:46
Give thanks to the Lord. His love forever. Lord.
2:00:54
Give thanks to
2:00:56
His love endures forever. Everybody, give thanks to the Lord for his love endures forever. Alright. Now, come on. Bless you.
2:01:14
Several things. On the back table, there's still some books left. You can get them. They're $10. Amy's book is there.
2:01:25
Now, if you only brought $10 with you, get Amy's book and leave mine for later. There are some people on earth that are kindred spirits. And my wife and I, we've been in 40 countries, and we have kindred spirits in every one of those countries. Matt and Amy are kindred spirits to my life and I. And we have their books.
2:01:47
I get her page every morning as part of the three things I very seldom go to my cell phone in the morning, but there are three things that I look for. Her prayer, I call them breaths of fresh air and it's a prayer every day and so I get that. I also get the College of Prayer app, which you can get and it's free. You just go on your phone, your smartphone, it's smarter than me and you push in the app, collegeofprayer.org, it'll come up, actually just College of Prayer and that app comes up and you'll be able to get it. Apple, yeah, the little app sitting on your phone, push it both Google and both kinds of phones.
2:02:33
You can get that and there's a little devotional that we write every morning. Fred Hartley, there are three of us that lead the College of Prayer. We have a staff of hundreds across the world, but in Atlanta there are three of us. And Fred Hartley, John Mitchell and myself. And so there are devotionals that come every morning and prayers and declarations.
2:02:53
We're just coming through a twenty one day fast and every year we have what we call breakthrough fast and we're asking the Lord for breakthroughs. And so, the reason why I'm telling you this, someone asked, this is different than what we would do in a module, in a module we have three days and we teach the book, there are 10 lessons and we go through it and we have one third time prayer, one third time worship, one third time interaction. But this is a taste and see. I never take questions at a module but I do take questions at a taste and see and someone asked me a question before so I'm going to answer that question for everybody. What does a healthy praying church look like?
2:03:32
When we say that my church is a house of prayer for all nations, what does that look like? How does that look in a local church? It comes out different ways in different cultures but they're the same thing in every culture. When the Church becomes a house of prayer for all nations, the DNA of the Church is prayer and everything else is around it. When a Church just puts prayer as part of what it does, then that's not the DNA of the church, that's just an activity of the church.
2:04:05
But when prayer permeates what the church does, that means now is a house of prayer for all nations. To give you an example, our church in Atlanta, we have, Atlanta is a very diverse city and we have 62 different nationalities in our church. When you go to a board meeting, it's like the United Nations. Our worship team is United Nations and we have six of them and every Sunday is a different group of people and they're different nations. We're all in this thing.
2:04:38
So, it flows out different in our church than maybe other churches. But the transformation, when we became a house of prayer for all nations, it's amazing how many of the nations came to us because when you begin to pray for nations, God makes you a part of that answer to prayer. And so it was just amazing to see that. I'm an elder and our elders meeting is a house of prayer for all nations. It's an hour and a half on Saturday morning, the first Saturday morning of the month and when I'm there I attend that meeting and in the elders meeting the first thirty minutes of the elders meeting is praise and worship.
2:05:23
There's nothing that's said about anything, there's no agenda handed out, it's all praise and worship. And it's phenomenal to see that because we're praising the Lord, we're singing, we're worshiping, we're praying together as a group. Then it goes from praise and worship, we begin to pray then the kingdom down. So the next fifteen minutes is prayer for the kingdom down upon our nations and upon our church and upon our family. So the first forty five minutes of an hour and a half elders meeting is nothing but praise and worship and prayer.
2:05:50
The next forty five minutes is business, but the business is already cared for through the prayer. And so we spend very little time in discussing many things because it's already been prayed through during the first forty five minutes. So then we get into groups of three or four and we begin to pray for one another. We have accountability and we ask ourselves the tough questions. What did you watch this week?
2:06:14
What did you say this week? How is your relationship with your wife? What's happening in your job? We begin to ask the tough questions to one another. Many times it doesn't happen to many means because we have an agenda so big, this thick that we can't get anything done.
2:06:27
We discovered that this doesn't get done until this gets done. So after we go through the accountability time, now we are down to the last fifteen, twenty minutes and so the headhat Lord gets up and that's the time when we do some strategizing and we look at where is God taking us. And so then we begin to give testimonies of what God is already doing in the Church. So we're spending our time thanking Him for what's already happening, not lamenting on what's not happened yet. All of that happens because it's a house of it's my house is a house of prayer for all nations.
2:07:02
That's why it's happening that way. The DNA of the church has to change before the activities change. You can't change how an elder is meeting, you can't just go up and say, alright, next week is what we're going to do. Until the DNA changes, you can't make that shift. But once the DNA changes, the shift is easy to make because your focus is on Christ, your focus is on prayer.
2:07:24
In the early days we used to think, okay, we'll open in prayer, we'll ask God to bless our church, bless this meeting. What we were saying is, Lord, here's my agenda and I need you to bless it today so that we can have a successful church that reaches the millions. Well then you spend all your time trying to figure it out, trying to find money to do it, trying to get people to come alongside of you to do it, trying to get all that time. And all we did was pray and thank the Lord and ask him to bless our agenda. The Lord took our church through a wave of tremendous repentance and the Holy Spirit fell in powerful ways to show us that's not what church is.
2:08:03
That's what clubs do. What church does, the church prays. What the church does, the church hears from the Lord and then shares what the Lord says and the church grows together as a body of believers that pray together. And then God gets things done. We discovered when we try to get things done, it didn't go very well.
2:08:22
We didn't have enough money to do it, not enough time to do it, not enough people and resources to get it done and so we were just stuck in this little mud thing. But as soon as we began, the Lord began to shift us, so every elders meeting is a prayer meeting. Every congregational meeting is a prayer meeting. We have our congregation meeting once a year and we vote in the next slate of elders. The only business really that's done, the whole time actually is a testimony time.
2:08:51
This is what God is doing as we're praying we're seeing God work and it always starts out the same way because our people have learned this. As we pray this is what God is doing. It's not what this is what I did or this is what as we pray this is what God is doing because everything comes from that. So you need to give credit where credit is due and it's only due him. When we sing how great thou art it's true, how great he is.
2:09:19
So it all flows from that. Now, it didn't always happen that way in our church. And the church has been there for twenty five years, well it's been there seventy five years. In the first fifty years it was an organization instead of an organism. It was a church that had prayer as part of what it did, it was not a praying church.
2:09:42
The difference between a church that prays and a praying church. If you sign up for the three year module, I'll teach you that. But I can't do that now, I don't have time. But that's one of the things. The difference between a church of praise and a praying church.
2:09:57
What we are doing in the College of Prayer, what we're seeing God do, is he's moving churches that pray to becoming praying churches. And that means the DNA changes. We have Awana. I learned Awana here and so when I went to Awana, is Awana? This is Awana.
2:10:20
These little kids, they get the world and they come and they pray, and they begin to pray, they call it time with Abba. These little kids now are praying for the nations, They are learning to do that at that age and then they come back they do that because we have nations that come to church, we have Ethiopians that are praying, we have Chinese people praying, we have Vietnamese kids praying, we have kids from Nigeria, we have kids from Ivory Coast, we have kids from all areas, Indian kids, we have kids from Slovakia, we have kids from Russia. They are praying with this big map in the center of the fellowship hall, these little kids are asking the Lord for the nation. They're doing at the age of eight and nine so that when you get to our age, 30 and 40, 50, 60, and 70, 80, we, who was 80? Oh no.
2:11:10
We, then we, we all, we just continue to pray what we learned rather than, oh, I gotta have this to learn. No, they already learned it. See a praying church teaches them here, not what, what, So now when they leave here, now they're going to the junior high, it's a praying junior high. And senior high, last week we had the, and our young people sit up front and so you have all these rows of kids and they came and they gave a testimony, everybody somebody is giving a testimony, somebody is getting baptized. And this kid said, was so amazing, this kid is nine years old, I'm getting off on a bike trail but you need to hear this.
2:11:44
So this kid, nine years old, he tells a story, he said, I'm playing football in this little pop Warner league, and as we're playing, one of the kids on the other team gets hit hard, he falls down and he's unconscious. Everybody is scared that he's going to die, he's not moving. So the coach comes in and he huddles up and he says, Does anybody here know how to pray? Don't miss this. This little 90 year old kid says, I do.
2:12:11
So he goes over and he lays his hand on this kid who's laying on the ground and he begins to pray for him. He's in his own little words, his own little way, he asks the Lord to heal. So the kid gets up, goes to the hospital, they look like, not a single thing wrong. Now, what did that do for that nine year old? What did it do?
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Yes. What did it do for the kid who heard the nine year old pray? What did it do for the coach who went to that kid and asked, does anybody know how to pray? What did it do for the team to hear, does anybody know how to pray? Do you see what I'm saying?
2:12:55
Now how did they learn that? Because our church is a house of prayer for all nations and little kids in Owana are learning to pray. Junior high kids are praying. Senior high kids are praying. For years, we couldn't get into the high school.
2:13:10
For years, the senior high school kids began to pray. Football players are part of the team, part of our church. They began to pray and ask Lord, we've got to all of sudden the coach comes and said, can you do something for our team? There's a division here between we're going to play our rivals and there's there's always there's fights break out and there's and someone always gets hurt and there's hate here. So what happens?
2:13:32
We invite both teams to church, not to church, to Tuesday night and we feed them. Now you've got Hatfields and McCoys, you've got and they hate each other, the coaches and the football players and the cheerleaders and their parents. 300 people there in the fellowship party eating a deep meal that we paid for So now they're there. And now, one of our associate pastors goes up, he was a real young guy, he begins to share his testimony how he, and the Holy Spirit moves in such a powerful way. This was on a Tuesday, Friday night, were at the game.
2:14:08
It was a tremendous game and obviously one team won and the other team lost, but there was not one single word of anger spoken, there was no fights, there were no cuss words, there were no f bombs, was a peace that came over them like they never experienced before. Why? Church is a house of prayer for all nations. Little children, junior high, senior high, adults, every Sunday school class is a house of prayer for all nations. Every worship service, our worship team, all six different groups of them, church starts with, there are 11 services on Sunday in all these different languages and church starts, the main service is at 10:30, worship starts at 10:00.
2:14:52
Nobody is here yet, just the worship team. They're already worshiping as if the place is full. They're not practicing, they did it on Saturday. They are worshipping. There are lot of people who start coming in at 10:05, 10:10, there's already a worship service.
2:15:08
They don't come and wait for announcements. We don't announce worship, they come into worship. We don't tell people to be quiet for worship, they come into worship. So now they're coming in and then we have these little prayer circles. In the whole front of the church, call it updraft.
2:15:24
We're praying already for the Holy Spirit to move. Worship team is singing, people are singing with them praying and then these groups are praying, asking the Lord to come. At 10:30, it just flows right into as if it was started at ten, and then everyone is standing and then we're worshiping, and then it goes right. Every single Sunday, people are saved, healed, the power of God is so real. Why?
2:15:47
A house of church for all men. The difference between a church that prays and a praying church. Does that help you? Does that answer your question? You don't change it by a decree of the elders.
2:15:56
You don't change it by the pastor getting up and saying, we're going to be a church, you don't change it that way. You change it from the inside. When the teaching focuses on it, your pastor can be key to this, he's not the one to change it. But the services and the messages and the focus can be on that in such a way that people see that we're making, and the change is so subtle as the power of God comes in and so many things happen that as trite as this sounds, it's truth. It just happens.
2:16:32
You don't plan it, the Holy Spirit moves it and it goes right in and you become a church that prays Chekhov prayer to a praying church. A praying church is everything is done through prayer. Every part of the service, every aspect of the service. And you know, in our church, when we're going do a building project, we stand up one time and say we're going do a building project. The rest of the time is praying and the Lord brings it in, brings it in, it in, brings it in.
2:17:04
So I just give you that as an example. It happens in different ways in different cultures, but it's still the same principle. You move from being a church that prays to a praying church by allowing the Holy Spirit to change your DNA of prayer and understanding what it's about. Everything happens through prayer. There is nothing that happens apart from prayer.
2:17:24
When we understand that, the difference between understanding it with our head and moving it to our heart, in fact do this with me, put your hand on your head. Lord, I want to move what I learn from my head to my heart. Again, Lord I want to move what I learn from my head to my heart. See once you do that, as long as we have this, we go away with headaches. We do.
2:17:57
We figure out what did the pastor say? We either have the pastor for dinner, I don't like what he said, he took my toes. We spend our time criticizing, or we try to figure out what it was he said, or we say, that's okay, I'll get dependent. If it's here and does not move here, there's no change in the church. There's no change in our life.
2:18:18
There's no change in how we live and how we react. It has to go from here to here. It cannot remain here. Nothing wrong with having it here, it starts there, but it must go to our heart. When it's in your heart, everything changes from that point on.
2:18:31
So that's what you want to become, that's what you want to move to. So why we do the taste and see weekends is we take churches through we only do two to three of these a year. We spend very little time doing what we're doing with you this week. Most of our time is spent with campuses that are already started. When you have 2,100 of them around the world, you don't have a lot of time to start doing taste and see.
2:18:54
So we very rarely do this. And so we're thankful that the pastor invited us, but it's rare that we would do this. I myself, I only do one a year. You're it, I don't have any money here. There's just no time.
2:19:06
But the purpose of it, the purpose, how we've grown is not because we announce it, we don't go to our website and learn how to do it, none of that. It's all by word-of-mouth. Pastor attends one of the places that we're at and says, oh, I want this at my church, they'll go back and come and invite us in and then we'll start. So this taste and see, the purpose is to give you a flavor of the teachings that we do. We have 36 of them and we have three year commitment from churches that come into the College of Prayer.
2:19:35
The first year, Lord teaches us to pray and we go through the Lord's Prayer. If you notice, in a few moments we're going go to power of forgiveness, that's in the Lord's Prayer. The power of blessing is in the Lord's Prayer. So the first 10 lessons that we teach all come from the Lord's Prayer, Luke chapter 11. The second part is Lord, as families, teach our families to pray.
2:19:54
Starts with us individuals as a family. And then we spend the whole time, the 10 lessons, 14 lessons actually, on relationships with husband and wife, relationships with single moms, relationships with children and family, teaching us as a family to pray. The third year is Lord teach our church to pray. And then we go through how to become a praying church, the difference between a church of prayer than a praying church. And I give you actually one of the lessons, it's kind of an addendum, conquering the sin of prayerlessness, that's in our third lesson, our third module.
2:20:25
So it's three years. So if the Lord would raise up the desire to do that here, then the church would have to commit to three years, once a year for two days and we go through 10 lessons. So that's what the College of Prayer does and that's how we work across the world. I said we're in 44 countries and we have 2,150 campuses. That means we have 2,150 places just like this doing this.
2:20:49
The smallest may be 25, the largest is 7,000. And in Ethiopia, our team just got back, we have three teaching teams and our team from Ethiopia just returned on Tuesday, the day I left to come here, they were coming back. And there are 90,000 churches that we work with in Ethiopia. There are 90,000,000 people in Ethiopia and 90,000 churches of this particular network and there are 9,000,000 believers in this network. The average size church is 1,000.
2:21:27
At that group meeting, and all of them are in an area of persecution, heavy persecution. Pastors are put in prison, families are, the children are taken from homes and sold into slavery, it's not an easy life in Ethiopia. And that's what pushes people to prayer, and it's exciting to see what God's doing. So they just came back and their goal in that particular group is 1,000 campuses in this next year. Well, we can't go start 1,000 campuses, who does that?
2:21:56
They do, because we train the key leaders to do it and they raise it up, we'll go back and train later on, but they, when the spirit of the Lord raises up, the spirit of the Lord moves and mighty things happen. So that gives you a little bit of idea of what the College of Prayer is about and why we're having this weekend. And tomorrow will be the last session, even though the majority of the church should not attend these first, they all get tomorrow the lesson on the father's love. And you want to be praying for that. I've long since stopped being politically correct and gone to truth.
2:22:33
Well, when you're not politically correct sometimes it offends people, why would you say that here? Because the word says that here. And so we, the service tomorrow is actually receiving the father's love and what that means. So pray for those who come that people will be able to understand that. Alright, we have two more to do today before we close.
2:22:54
Actually, maybe one and a half. You need to have a pen and a piece of paper. Who does not have a pen or one of these? Anyone else? How about you helping me?
2:23:16
Just raise your hand and he'll get you a here's some more paper, Would you bring me the garbage cans there? If you'll turn to your in your little booklet to lesson 10. Thank you. Thank you. Lesson 10, the power of forgiveness.
2:24:14
Anyone who does not have a book?
2:24:16
The Constant Power of Leftings.
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Oh, okay. Well this is The Power of Forgiveness. No, there are two lessons 10? Look at that. Well, this is the one with Power of Forgiveness.
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That lesson 10. We took them from different books, that's why. Yeah. Thank you, Stephen, for seeing that. I have to forgive him already.
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Alright, the power of forgiveness. This is probably one of the most difficult lessons that we teach because to many it's the most painful. Ferry, can you do me a favor, can you go into the kitchen and give me the biggest knife you can find? I've been practicing this thing and I hope it works. I will need a volunteer and usually I take in those that wear hats.
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Oh, and then a blindfold. Doesn't work always. That's why you have to forgive if you're still able to. That means that
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person gets to go to heaven first.
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This lesson is the most painful because the Holy Spirit does the most surgery. I don't know any surgery that's not painful. Anytime they cut you open, it's painful. Not only is the process painful, but often after you come out of it, there's the residue pain, it's still there. And the incision, yes, but the pain is still there and you've got to go sometimes weeks until everything is healed and the pain is gone.
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Surgery isn't fun, but surgery is needed in order to remove the cancer, in order to remove that which is causing the infection and the pain and that will eventually kill us. Unforgiveness is just like that. Unforgiveness will eventually kill us. Thank you. Oh, perfect.
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Later on, I'll use you for example, okay? It's amazing to see, I've only gone under the knife two times in my life and both of them were painful and coming out was a long process and you see the scars of the surgery. And sometimes microscopic surgery is so minute that you don't see it right away, but you can still see the effects of it until the whole healing process is over and then in many cases it's like it never happened. Forgiveness, unforgiveness is like that. If we don't get it taken out, the Bible says there's a root of bitterness that comes into our life that really is an open door for the enemy to come and when the enemy comes, he builds his fortresses in our life and he keeps, the enemy keeps us from receiving the blessing of the Lord, keeps us impotent in our faith, he comes to rob, kill and destroy, those things he comes.
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He only does that to believers. He comes to rob and steal and kill from the believer, their joy, their salvation, their understanding of salvation, their love for the Lord. Rob it, steal it, kill it. The enemy has two plans. Number one, to keep you from becoming a Christian.
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If he keeps you from becoming a Christian, he doesn't go to plan B. Plan B is, if you become one, is to make you the most miserable, unfruitful, defeated Christian he can. And so, this lesson on forgiveness is powerful in that we allow the Holy Spirit to reveal those areas that the enemy has used to come into our life, that we have given to him because of unforgiveness and release. That gives the enemy that open door to keep us from being fruitful and dynamic believers. So I want us to go to that, the power of forgiveness.
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If you see, it comes from Matthew chapter six verse 12, forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors. The enemy says the greatest power on earth is retaliation. The Lord says the greatest power on earth is forgiveness. We learn as little children to get back. It's not when we're my age that we learn that, when we're children, somebody hits you, you hit them back.
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If somebody says something against you, you say it back. We learn that at an early age, it's part of who we become, we learn to retaliate. And so the world says that's the greatest power, get even, retaliate, get back. That's totally different from what the Lord says. He says the greatest power on earth that you have is forgiveness, releasing people from the bondage or from you being enslaved by that hurt and pain that they've given you.
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So as we forgive our debtors, you can see that here, is the only portion of the Lord's prayer pattern that Jesus reemphasizes. He says, for if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you don't forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins. Matthew six fourteen, 50. I remember the first time I saw that and I began develop we began to work on this lesson on the power of forgiveness, I said, wait a minute, the Bible says in one John one:nine, if I confess my sins, he is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness.
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But if I read Matthew chapter six fourteen, says, if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you don't forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins. It seems like it's an apparent contradiction, but it's not because the provision of your forgiveness is there. We confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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When Christ died for your sin and my sin, he died for every past sin, every sin I ever committed, every sin I'm committing, and every sin I will ever commit. He's not going to die again for my sin. That provision is already there. The blood of Christ is already applied to that. That forgiveness is there for me.
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But I have to appropriate it. I have to apply it. Just because he did it doesn't mean I received it. Just because he said it doesn't mean I have it. I need to apply that.
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I need to appropriate that. I need to receive it. So what Jesus is teaching in Matthew, He is saying, you who have received forgiveness, you who have understood this and you have received forgiveness, if you are not now forgiving those who offended you, it's as if you never received forgiveness. What does the Bible say? You have freely been given, freely give.
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There is a purpose to that. He has given us that forgiveness and then we are to forgive others. So why is he emphasizing this? Because he knows already if we receive his forgiveness and then we don't forgive others, it is as we don't really understand what it is he provided for us. We are not living in that freedom of forgiveness.
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We have not appropriated it really to our lives because it hasn't changed anything. And the second part of that is the person who we haven't forgiven or released, that person, we say that we are believers and we haven't done that, they say, you believe in a God who forgives, you've received His forgiveness but you can't forgive me. Well sure God, what is this? So there's a tie, there's a link, there's a liaison with our being forgiven and our forgiving, our receiving forgiveness and our releasing those who have offended and hurt us. Now for a long time, for a long, long time, for many years, through seminary, my first church, even in the mission field, I only saw one side of forgiveness and that was a theological side.
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I needed to forgive because the Bible says forgive. I needed to do that. So it was, I'm a good Christian, I'm to forgive. I'm to be a missionary, a missionary has got to forgive. I'm to be a pastor, a pastor has got to forgive.
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It became an intellectual exercise. Check it off. Somebody says, okay, I forgive you. But I discovered in my life as the Lord began to show me, never released them, some of those people. And so they became for me then, I held them hostage because I didn't release.
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I forgave intellectually but never released emotionally. So let's look at what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not minimizing the offense. It's not excusing the offense. It's not denying that it ever happened.
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It's not subjecting yourself to continued abuse. I tell people who are in an abusive situation to get out of it. They come to me and say, Pastor Kent, should I stay this thing? Husband is beating me, he's hitting our kids, go on and on and on. As a believer, should I stay here?
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I said no, move away. We don't talk about divorce at that point, said move away so we can pray and the Lord can begin to move away. Go somewhere, you don't have to stay there and get beaten every day. What does that do? So it's not subjecting yourself to community abuse.
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It's not merely an emotional response. Well then what's forgiveness? I'll give you five of them there. Can you read them with me? Let's read them out loud.
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What forgiveness is? Giving up? My right to take it. Next one?
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Saying that 100% of
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your very greedy. The next one? The decision of the will. The next one?
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The act that makes us like Christ. Christ.
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And the next one? Quantitatively putting down
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my questions in air intentions in a thou no peace. Giving
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up my right to get even. So if I am abused, if am, if things are said about me that are untrue, if I am betrayed, I have a right to do something about it. So now, when we understand what forgiveness is, in essence I'm giving up this right to allow the Lord to heal the pain that's been caused by what was said or done against me. It's saying I'm not going to hurt you like you hurt me. I'm not going to retaliate.
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Forgiveness is a decision of the will because I have to decide to do it. It is a conscious decision. It's not just, oh, it happens. No, you have to decide. It's a very painful and difficult decision to make.
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I'm not sugarcoating it for you, it's tough. And that's why the Lord said the greatest power on earth is the power of forgiveness because it is tough. It's what makes us like Christ. Just as Christ forgave. Pastor raised happy back there.
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That's one of his favorite verses. Just as Christ. Now I'm to forget. It makes us like Him. The last one I received this picture when I was in Latin America, I was in Peru actually, and no I'm sorry, Chile, and in Tumaco, Chile the Lord gave me this last point, voluntarily putting down my weapons of anger, vengeance, and retaliation.
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It's a voluntary act. I was speaking, we were teaching at this church, were a little over 1,000 people at the conference. By the way, this is not a conference, this is an encounter. We got rid of that word. So they were at this encounter and we were teaching on forgiveness and we were there for a week and every night people would come forward and receive Christ, be healed, be delivered, and during those days I had not seen that in my ministry.
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I am not a faith healer, I have faith in healing. I am not a deliverer, I have faith in the one who delivers. And so as we're there, we're seeing God do all these things. The worship, by the way Amy, would go on for hours. Now, they'd start worship and that would go for thirty minutes, forty minutes, then I'd get up and teach and then when people were coming to pray, the worship would continue.
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Services would start at 07:00. At midnight, we're still praying with people and the worship team is still singing. And they are louder at midnight than they were at 07:00. How can that be? The Holy Spirit just comes, they are just going, are in the flow and they are being ministered to by the Holy Spirit and they are worshipping.
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And so this happened for the course of the week. The middle of the week, the pastor said, I want you to go with me to visit this lady who hasn't been to church in five years and she's been sick for twenty five years. And she's depressed and she won't come out. People bring food into her, okay, I'll go. So he went.
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Now she lived in the 7th Floor, they didn't have elevators there and so we walked up these seven flights of stairs and knocked on the door. We knocked on the door and the pastor said in Spanish who it was because she cried out who is it, and once she knew it was the pastor, she came and you could hear these locks, seven of them, Open up. She opened the door like this, all I could see were her eyes. She wanted to say, okay, is the pastor. So she left the door crack open and she ran back into the bed and she put the covers up to her chin.
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And so there we came and there she's in bed. And so after the introductions are over, after we're getting, the professor said, will you pray for her? And so I say, Sister, what do you want Jesus to do for you? And those of you who know me, you know these two questions already. These are the only two questions I ever ask people when they come to the altar.
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What do you want Jesus to do for you? I can do nothing for you, but Jesus can. What do you want Jesus to do for you? So she says in Spanish, I want him to heal me. I've been depressed and I've been taking medicine, nothing helps.
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She goes and tells her a little story, the political correct part of the story, the story that it's okay to say, the story that no one will judge, I'm just sick. So very easily and in the early days, would have just prayed for her and gone. But the Lord changed all that in me and gave me the second question to ask. Is there anything in your life that would keep Jesus from answering your prayer? That's a tough question.
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Now she has to think about it a little bit. She knows I don't know her, and she knows that the pastor doesn't really know, and so she's not sure. She doesn't say anything. I'm sure she's thinking, I'm sure my pastor brother, in fact he told me later, why don't you just pray for him, we'll go. Because that isn't the issue.
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Is there anything in your life that would keep Jesus from answering the prayer you're asking him? You said you want him to heal your depression. Is there anything in there? All of a sudden she screams out, he raped me. She said it.
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Once she was able to say it, that now is releasing the enemy's hold on her. It's beginning to take like an eagle. An eagle will never get rid of a salmon until you remove claws, until they're out. As long as those claws are in there, they're never released. You could kill them in interrelation.
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You got to pull them out. And so it's a beginning process. Then she says, He raped me. Then she's in anger and she's saying these things. I will never forgive him.
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Now many of us say that. It's an unholy vow. When we say I will never, we are again reinforcing what the enemy wants to do in our life and that's to rob, kill, and destroy our joy. That's what he wants to do. And that's what he was doing to this lady, this sweet lady.
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She looked like she was in her 70s or 70s, she looked so haggard and worn out. So the Lord gave me this picture and I said, can I borrow a knife in your kitchen? Yeah. So I get this knife. And I said, what you're doing is you're just bleeding everywhere.
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This knife represents the abuse that was done against you, the rape that he did. It's in your heart and you're going everywhere with this knife inside of you and blood is everywhere. And after a while, the blood collagulates and it just stays there and now you just keep this knife inside and there's no possibility for any healing until the life is removed. As long as the knife is there, the wound can never be healed. Until the knife is removed, there is no healing.
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So you can even say, okay, I recognize that I've been abused and I forgive, but until you release and pull saying that I forgive him is not enough. You've got to pull the knife out. Just announcing something does not get rid of something. So there is a part that you have to play and you have to remove the knife. So she has this knife on her chest like this.
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She's holding. I'm saying unless you remove this knife and let it go, there'll be no healing for your depression. We can pray for you and we can go out and leave and you will have the same wound and you will stay in the same bed and you will stay depressed until you die unless you remove it. I can't do it. Can't do it.
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You don't know what he did to me. I said, no, I don't and I don't have to know. But he does and know this, he understands. So ask him to give you the power to remove it. And so she did and she began to pray and she just began to weep and weep and weep and she pulled the knife out like this and she threw it down above the bed.
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So we prayed for her we left. The night, were having a service, again it went to eleven, 12:00 at night, people were praying and it was at the end now, toward the end, and there were just a handful of people there, worship team still singing and people were leaving. This beautiful young woman comes. She was stunning and she comes up and she says, Pastor, Pastor, thank you for praying for me. I said, No, no, no, no, no.
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I never prayed for you. I don't know who you are. I don't know where you come from. I was getting a little upset. It's 12:00 at night, there's beautiful woman who comes and you for praying for me.
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I said, wait a minute, I wouldn't pray. The pastor comes up, he was with me, and he begins to laugh. He said, no, no, no, no. That's the woman we prayed for earlier today. I said, no, it's not.
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He said, yes, it is. I said, no, it's not. She said, yes, it is. I said, how could that be? The Lord restored her youth.
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She was a young woman in her forties. The Lord gave her back her beauty. The Lord gave her back her life. How? When he healed the pain in her heart and when she released that she no longer held hostage the man who raped her.
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I learned from that. Up until that time, I didn't understand that. I learned from that that there's two sides to forgiveness. There's the actual saying, I forgive this person for raping me, and then there's the releasing of the person who did it. Because if I don't release the person who did it, then I say with my mouth, I forgive, but with my heart I hold the person hostage.
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And as long as I hold the person hostage, then healing can't take place and forgiveness is not real. And as long as it's not real, bitterness still forms its ugly fortress in my life. It robs me of all force, all energy, all power. There are many people and I was one of them for so long when I went through my own pain that you just build a little fortress around that. You want to protect this Because you say, I have a right to do this.
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I have a right. And she had every right. I have a right to be angry at him? Yes. Every right to hate what he did?
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Yes. I have every right to question why there's no justice. I have all that right. But if I want to be healed from the pain of the abuse, see I can go to my grave with a right. I can go to my grave with the right, I have a right to be angry at this.
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And when I go to my grave, I'm going to my grave with the bitterness that has not been dealt with because I still live on the right. I have a right. The Lord says, you're giving up that and you're pulling it out and you are releasing the person by not only saying I forgive that person but I release that person from having any hold in me. I will no longer hold that person hostage for what they did or said. Then healing takes place.
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Until then, it does not. I was teaching this in China and at the end of the session this gal comes running up and she said, I know now, I know now. I said, what do you know? I know now why my mother has been depressed. Why we've spent all of our savings in trying to get her I know, what would happen?
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And she told me this story. She said, and in her province, and it happens in a lot of places in China, that they have a one child policy. So that when you have a child, if that child is a girl, you can have a second one because they want you to have a boy. If your second child is a girl, you have to put it to death. And so she obviously was a first child and then their parents had a second child.
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The second child was a girl and that father took the child down to the river and drowned. They never said anything about it to the first child. Here is where the Holy Spirit is so powerful. This first child never knew about the second one. It was never spoken by the family.
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It was never talked about. She was just a little baby, one year old herself, and she didn't know anything about anything about it. They kept all of that away from her. Mama was sick, that's all she knew. She never knew about the birth of a second child.
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So the Holy Spirit revealed this. Now remember I said yesterday what the Holy Spirit reveals, the Holy Spirit healed. Remember that? Say it with me. What the Holy Spirit reveals, the Holy Spirit healed.
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He never wastes a revelation. Never ever, ever, ever. Ever. He doesn't play games with our mind or our emotions. When he points in on a certain thing, it's because he wants us to do something with that certain thing.
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And so while I am teaching this, the Holy Spirit is revealing to her what happened to her mother and to her sister she never saw and never heard about. The Holy Spirit makes it plain to her, she comes running up and tells me. And so I say to her, I say, okay, will your mother come tomorrow? No. My mother will not leave the house, she doesn't drive, won't come.
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How far away is it? A couple of hours, won't come. Let's pray and ask the Lord to bring her here tomorrow. He won't do it. I said, well the Holy Spirit revealed to you something for a reason.
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It's so your mother could get healed from this. So let's believe that she'll come. So we prayed, next morning her mom is there in the back. I'm still continuing my teaching on forgiveness. At the end of service, people are praying.
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Her mom is there, never lifts her head up and she never moves. At the end, I go back and she is an elderly woman, older than me and so I can call her mama out of respect. They call me papa out of respect. And so I said, mama, why are you here? Well, thought, thank you for coming.
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She just kind of looks at me and said, Why have you come? I don't know. I said, Mama, is there anything you'd like God to do for you? I don't know. I said, Mama, will you let me tell you why you're here?
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You could not know. I said, can I tell you? Yes, go ahead. So I told her the story I just told to you and as I was telling it, she screamed out, how could you know? I said, your daughter told me.
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She could never know. I said, the Holy Spirit told her. I said, mama, don't you think if the Holy Spirit told your daughter why you were depressed and the unforgiveness you had in your heart because she could not forgive herself one or her husband the other. So that's what threw her into a depression. So don't you think if the Holy Spirit talked to your daughter that she knew nothing and then she told me and I knew nothing.
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Don't you think, and then you were invited and you would never come out and you came, don't you think the Holy Spirit wants to heal you? And she began to weep. I said yes. And she was gloriously and wonderfully and beautifully healed of unforgiveness. The pain, and I went through the same thing with her that I go through with everyone.
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I use the knife illustration everywhere in the world, because to me it's so powerful. And we went through the whole thing, took the knife out, and she prayed. I'm back in that same area, not the same church, but another same Beijing in the city, 22,000,000 people, so you get to go different places. So I'm in the other corner and this gal comes, she cares about it. She said, oh you won't believe pastor what happened?
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I said, yes I will. Because what the Holy Spirit reveals, the Holy Spirit heals. I don't know what the Holy Spirit is going to reveal to you, but I know this, all of us have either been wounded by someone or we have wounded someone. And if you haven't yet been wounded by someone, take heart, you will be. Because we live in a world that's painful, vindictive, hurtful, so it will happen.
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So why do we do it? God forgives us, He tells us to forgive, He will assist us as we go through it when it's painful. How do we do it? I'll give you five things, they're in the bottom. You admit your pain to the Lord.
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You make a decision to obey Christ and you forgive the offense. Now this is an important point you should enter in. Forgiveness is not based upon whether the person deserves forgiveness, it's based on what Christ has done to forgive you. We don't forgive a person because that person deserves to be forgiven. We don't forgive a person and say, okay, I'll forgive you if you come and ask forgiveness.
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Forgiveness is not about the other person, it's about you. You're the one walking around with a knife in your chest. The other person may not even care, may not even know, may not even may maybe continually doing it to other people. The abuser may be continuing to abuse. The liar may continue to lie.
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The offender may continue to offend. So you forgiving that person does not stop that person. Only God can. We don't forgive for that purpose. We forgive for the purpose of being healed.
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So we do not walk around with a knife in our chest. So we don't become the victim of what happened to us and we have this thing where the bitterness becomes a bondage for us and the evil one now has a place to come and live. He comes in there and starts to cause all kinds of problems. He robs, kills, destroys our joy and much of it in the church is bitterness. Much of it.
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So we need to remove this, I'm sorry, and release it by dropping it. So I don't know what that is for you, but the Holy Spirit does. And that's the reason why we always give a piece of paper and a pencil because what we want to do is we want to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us. And I have a garbage can here, in India we burn them, in Africa we burn and bury them, in China, but in America, we can't use fire. We don't want all the sprinkler systems to come.
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I did that once. Decided that we would no longer burn in American churches. So we throw them away. So we're going to, first of all, we're going pray and we're going to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal. And as the Holy Spirit reveals, then what he reveals, you put down.
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I want to caution you, if the Holy Spirit does not reveal something to you, don't try to figure one out. Don't try to do that because that means it's not there. You've already taken care of it. You don't have to put something down to put something down. What the Holy Spirit reveals to you, that's what you want healing from.
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You don't want to make something up, you don't want to keep I'm missing it, Lord, please, you don't have to beg the Lord to show you. The Lord Jesus looks down and he sees darkness in our heart. He's ready to give you a torchlight. You don't have to beg for one. You don't have to say, Lord, please, please, I promise I'd you don't have to bargain with him, you don't have to beg with he's already wanting, he's just saying, please, let me do this for you.
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You're walking around with a knife, you're bleeding everywhere, and everybody sees it but you. Because when we're bitter, everybody feels it but us, because we think we're right and we keep getting bitter. So what you want the Lord to do is to reveal by His Holy Spirit what it is, if He does, you write it down. If the Holy Spirit puts a person's name on you that you have offended, that you know that you have offended, that you know you have said a bad thing about, that you know that you have done wrong to that person, that you know that, then it's going to be up to you then to forgive that person. It's up to you then to call that person and say, I'm sorry.
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Because the Lord revealed that to you. So your part of your healing now is, okay, the Lord showed me. I need to go in. I said that. I did that.
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I lied about that. And you need to go ask forgiveness for that. So you need to put that thing down. Whatever the Lord tells you, you put down on a sheet of paper. And after a moment of time, we'll crumble it up, we don't fold it in little pretty napkins, this is not a little pretty thing.
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We crumble it up in the imagery of demonstration of it's gone, I hate what it did and it's no longer going to be a bondage point in my life and we feel it. Okay. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you loved us so much that even while we were yet sinners, you sent Christ to die for us. Jesus, we thank you that even while we mocked and laughed and lied and fought and didn't want your love.
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You demonstrated your love in such powerful way and your Holy Spirit brought us into your family. So Lord, we thank you for the forgiveness that you gave to each of us. We did not deserve it, it was your grace. And so Lord, we thank you for that. But Lord, we want your Holy Spirit to reveal to us in the innermost parts of our life, maybe areas that we have shut off, that we protected, that we've hid, we don't want anybody to know, we don't want it will go away by itself.
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We Lord, we know that it never goes away by itself. The sore becomes deeper, the pain becomes harder, our life becomes more difficult. So Holy Spirit, would you reveal to us any areas of our life, any people, any event, anything that has abused us, lied about us, hurt us, inflicted pain upon us and give us Lord the power to write it down. Lord, if we have spoken badly against someone, if we have lied against someone, if we have abused someone, if we have cheated against someone, if we have done something wrong against someone, Lord, reveal that person's name to us so that we can go and make it right. Lord, we want to walk in freedom today, not just to forgive, but to release because we who have been freely forgiven need to freely forgive.
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So Lord, do that we pray in Jesus' name, amen. As you're quiet now before the Lord, the Holy Spirit reveals that, as He does that, just write it down. Okay, as the Holy Spirit shows you, take a moment now and write it down. Okay, this is how we are going to proceed. We're going to have Amy come and play a song and as we stand and we're going to crumble the paper up and we're going to throw it in there and we're going go back to our seats.
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This is a I remember the first day we did this in Africa, it was so foreign to them. I mean, you just don't write things down and do that, it was so foreign. But the Lord just gave me this picture and said we need to do this. So we did it and hundreds of people came and they crumbled and there were tears and as they threw it down, it was as if this great rock that they had been carrying on their shoulders was gone. And so, when they came and they just threw it down and there was so much emotion in getting rid of that exercise was a demonstration to them, I'm now free.
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And when they went back to their little pews, old chairs, was like they were flying back because the knife was gone. The release was there. There was freedom. There was freedom. So, however this happens for you, we believe we give every opportunity for every person to experience freedom.
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And so we've been doing this now for the last, we got this whole idea seven years ago, so it's been nonstop for seven years, anywhere we do the training because we want people to walk in freedom, not walk around bleeding with a knife. So let's stand, Amy, if you'll lead us in something and then and as she plays, you just come and throw whatever you have in there. If you don't, just stay there and when we're done, we'll pray.
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My keyboard turns off automatically. Sorry. Do you want me to sing something?
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Yeah. That'd be good. Go ahead. Pray. Sing something.
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That's even better.
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I just wanna sing your good, good father. Yes. It's all it's on my heart.
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Yes.
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You're a good, good father.
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Just come on up and do it.
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It's who you are. It's who
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It's who
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you you are. Are. And I'm loved by you. It's who I am. It's who I am.
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It's who
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I am. You're a good, good father.
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It's who you are. You're It's who you are.
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It's who you are. It's I am.
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It's who I am. You're a a good, good father.
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Oh, yes, you are. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. And I'm loved by you. Oh, yes, I am.
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Yes, I am. Yes, I am. You're a good, good father. Yes, you are. Oh, yes, you are.
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Yes, you are. Yes, I am. Yes, I am. And you are perfect in all of your ways. You are perfect in all of your ways.
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You are perfect in all of your ways to me. And you are perfect in all of your ways. You are perfect in all of your ways. You are perfect in all of your ways to be.
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You're a good, good father. It's who you are. It's who you are. It's who you
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are and I'm
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loved by you. It's who I am. It's who I am. It's who I am. You're a good, good one.
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It's who you are. It's who you are. It's who you are. It's who I am. Who am.
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It's who I am.
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Undeniable I can hardly speak and peace so unexplainable you.
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I
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want you just to open up your heart, your your hands like this, and let's just receive from the father his his grace and healing for our wounds. Lord, we receive right now by faith. Your healing grace and your deliverance, deliverance of Jesus for the wounds of our heart. And we apply to our life Ephesians four thirty two.
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Amen.
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Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you. Amen. So Lord, we receive your forgiveness and your healing. Come in, Lord, and heal the wounds where the knife was. And Lord, as we have released by faith those who have offended us, abused us, and hurt us deeply.
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We thank you, Lord, that you are healing that wound in our heart. And as you heal the wound in our heart, the enemy has no place
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Amen.
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To come and rob, kill, and destroy our joy. Because our joy is in you. Our salvation is in you. Our healing is in you. Amen.
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Our deliverance is in you. And so Jesus, we thank you now, in your wonderful name. Amen. Amen. And amen.
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You may be seated. I have just one more thing. The pizza's here and it's going get cold, but we have one more thing that you need before the pizza, and that's blessing. The Bible is a book of blessing. You can say a lot about the Bible but one thing it is, it's about blessing.
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From the beginning to the end, it's about blessing. The Old Testament priest blessed. The disciples were blessed. Jesus blessed. He blessed the little children.
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He blessed, he blessed, he blessed. The Bible is a book of blessing. God is the father of blessing. Jesus is the example of blessing. The Holy Spirit is the giver of blessing.
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Blessing, blessing, blessing. And so I give you a lesson in it, you don't have to go to it because I'm going to pray it over you, but the notes are there for you to have. The beautiful picture I get of Blessing is when Jesus was baptized, the dove descends and a voice speaks. What does the voice say? This is my son whom I love and whom I am well pleased.
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This is my son. I love him and I am well pleased. There's three things that we all need. We need acceptance, affection and affirmation. Everyone here needs that.
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Some of us need it more than others. I am one that needs it more than others. We need to know that we are loved. We need to know that we that we're accepted. We need to know that we're affirmed.
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All those three things happen when Jesus was baptized and the heavenly father spoke. He spoke those three things over his son. You're my son. That's acceptance. Whom I love?
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That's affection. Whom I'm well pleased. Affirmation. All three. All three.
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So, we want to send you off today with the Father's blessing. As if a dove was flying over you and stopping and saying, You are my daughter whom I love and I am well pleased with you. See, that's what the Father says over you and me. He wants us to know that we are his and he wants us to know that we are loved by him and that we are affirmed, that he's pleased with us. Now, does it mean that we can't grow in that pleasure?
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No, because as we grow deeper, it becomes even deeper more. But you cannot do enough to earn his pleasure. So there's not a list. If I do these 10 things, maybe I'll hear the voice of God say, I'm well pleased. We will never hear that ever if there was a list for us to achieve because none of us are capable of achieving it.
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So, he gives us his love and he gives us our affirmation and he gives us the fact that we are his, that acknowledgment that we are his child because the price was already paid and when you came into the family you get it all. He loves you. He is happy with what you're doing. He's going to be happy every day as you grow and you continue to do more, but it's not based on what you did today, it's based on the fact that he affirms you. And so, that's how we want to pray and end the day.
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We want to pray for every section and when I did this the first time in India, there were two fifty pastors and we did it in sections they came up, like remotely, okay, they had just gone through the forgiveness part, So now they were just drained emotionally. When you go through pain and you do that, this is not an easy thing. Those of you who have experienced tremendous pain, you understand what I'm saying. There is a gut wrenching inside. So they were drained emotionally and physically and even some spirits are
3:14:32
like, Now
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they're going to get blessed. So they're coming up like this, okay, okay, and they receive the Father's blessing. Now get this, when you receive the Father's blessing, it's as if he is erasing the board of memories, all the stuff, And he's saying to you, there's nothing you can do to earn it, but my grace is sufficient and my love is abundant and I give it to you. That's the love of the Father. Out of his heart of love and grace and mercy, he blesses us as he blessed his son, as he blesses us.
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So we want to do this in sections in the first and how we do it is we bless first group and the next group blesses. I believe and we teach blessed people bless people. The opposite is also true, hurt people hurt people. And that's why we never teach on blessing until we teach on forgiveness. Because as long as I'm living in pain, I'm going to hurt pain.
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I'm going to afflict pain. As long as I have bitterness, I'm going to breathe out and spew out bitterness. But when that's gone and I am blessed, then I can bless. So blessed people bless people. So I am going to ask Pastor Ray to come first and if there are any elders, are there any elders here?
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Yes. You're an elder, bit of elder? No, you can't, I'm sorry. You may let me say something to you. You may rather, but God has something deeper for you and I am not going to let you miss it, buddy.
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Alright? Alright, come on. I just will not, I refuse to let anybody miss the blessing. Humility only goes so far. God has something to do.
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So wait a minute for Matt because he may have heard him. So We want to pray blessing over them and then they will bless the next group. So the next group stays, and now we have two groups. And then as you see the picture, the group gets larger. You're forgiven.
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No problem. Come on. We're blessing you. So elder, if you'll come and Bless people, bless people. So I'm going to pray blessing over them, the father's love over them, of acceptance, of affection, being and if you can't remember those three are there, acceptance, affection, and affirmation.
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Acceptance is you're a child of his. Affection, he loves you. And affirmation, he's pleased with you. And when I first received this, I received this before I gave it. So what I'm teaching you, I receive the teaching before I teach.
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The way we do things in the College of Prayer, we all receive the teaching before we teach the teaching. And so, when I was, I actually reacted a little bit like, I'm not worthy of that blessing. Because I thought in those days, had to earn it, I had to do so many points in order to get that. The Lord said, you will never get there. So why are you trying?
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Just receive what I have for you so that you can live better in the blessing. I would rather live in the blessing better than live without the blessing. So I don't go anywhere without it. We want to pray the blessing over our elders and our pastor here now. So what I want you to do is stand and put your arms out toward them because you are praying with me blessing over them.
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All of us enter in to blessing as we bless. Father, in the wonderful name of Jesus, I thank you for blessing my brother here. You are loved, you are his son, and he's well pleased with you. Receive the blessing of the father. He loves you, you are his son, and he's pleased with you.
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Pastor, receive the blessing of the heavenly father. He loves you, you are his son and he is pleased with you. Receive the blessing of your heavenly father. He loves you, you are his son and he is pleased with you. Receive the blessing of your heavenly father.
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Father, thank you for blessing your children and we receive it now and give it by faith in Jesus name. Amen. Now, if you'll stand in here in the next group, if you are a life group leader or a teacher in science school or want to lead, any kind of a leader that is involved in leading in this church, I want you to come. Worship leader, Okay. Alright, so now, what we do here is we extend our hands toward them.
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Those of you in the back, you lay your hands on them and you are going to give them the blessing from the Father. So you pray the blessing of the Father over them just as I pray the blessing of the Father over you. Let's join them as they pray. You guys do it.
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Yes. And he's pleased with you. Yes. Receive the blessing.
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Yes. Receive the father. Yes.
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You are his daughter. He loves you. Receive the blessing in your heavenly father. You are the daughter of God. He loves you.
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Receive the blessing. He's well pleased with you. Receive the blessing of your Heavenly Father. You are His Son. He loves you and He's pleased with you.
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Receive the blessing from your heavenly father. He loves you. You are his daughter. He's well pleased with you. Father, we thank you for the blessing you bestowed upon these your children.
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And we receive it by faith. They are loved, accepted and we praise you in Jesus name as they are affirmed. Amen. Now, the line gets longer and all of the rest of you come, come in Houston. There should be somebody behind everybody.
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Does everybody have somebody behind them? You're behind her? You have not reached the door last year, have you? Pardon? You haven't got it yet, have you?
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No. Okay, then you got to get it. Alright. Alright. You now who have been blessed, pray blessing upon those and what you're saying is you're praying that they are the son or the daughter of God.
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They are well, they are loved and they are well received. He is happy with them right now. Pray that over them. The Father bless you, He loves you, you're His Son, He affirms you and He's pleased with you. Receive the Father's blessing and walk in that assurance that you are His Son.
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Father, we, as your children, receive your blessing. Not based on our worthiness but based on your love and grace. Not based on what we can do to earn it or how we can get brownie points with you so we can get blessed but because you are a god of blessing. You, father, blessed your son. Jesus, you are blessing us.
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And so we receive that blessing now. Amen. By faith and we walk away with our heads held high, not by what we do but by who we are, who we belong to, and we belong to you. We are your sons and daughters and you love us and you are pleased with us and lord we want to do more things to please you. We want to flow in your spirit and allow you to continue to bless us and use us for your glory.
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And so we bless and receive the blessing in Jesus' powerful name. And all God's children said, Amen. A good Amen.
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Oh, yeah.
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He was sneaking at. How could he get away? Come, my son. Come. Berkeley, come here.
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Is she coming? Make the full circle here. You're in the middle of there bud.
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Okay. He
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actually planned this so he could get the most blessing I know. Alright, come around. Did the Berkeley American We got a Pardon? Do they not? We pray for them?
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I don't remember them getting pregnant.
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We haven't prayed for Berkeley.
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Okay. As you pray for him, will you please pray for the sound system too? Thank you. Okay,
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Berkeley. How about we're going to inject there while we're at it.
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That's all right. We'll give it to her when she comes. You come. Oh, is Berkeley okay? He doesn't want to be alone.
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Doesn't want to be alone. Alright. Everybody just pray.
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I love you.
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Pray the blessing on everybody out loud. Pray a blessing on them. Go ahead. Pray on them. Hallelujah.
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Amen. Alright. Well, we'll get no, no, she didn't. We'll get her. Why don't you go ahead and pray for the pizza?
3:25:49
Pray for the pizza.
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