Prayer on Fire #3 of 3 Traditional
January 28, 2017 · Prayer on Fire
Scripture referenced 7 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Luke 11 Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray, giving the Lord's Prayer as a template
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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Keep this verse
Jude 21
quoted from bulletin: keep yourself in the love of God
21 Keep yourselves in God’s love, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
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John 15:9
as the father has loved me, so have I loved you, now remain in my love
9 Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love.
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Romans 8:15
you received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba Father
15 For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
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John 14:18
I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you
18 I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.
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James 4:7
submit yourself to God and resist the enemy and he must flee from you
7 Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
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Proverbs 21:31
victory belongs to the Lord, declared when coming out of life's toughest battles
31 The horse is prepared for the day of battle; but victory is with Yahweh.
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This message was the closing session of the First B Jackson "Prayer on Fire" weekend. Don Young taught on what he called receiving the Father's love, arguing that all genuine prayer flows out of a love relationship with God, and that a lying "orphan spirit" works constantly to cut people off from that love.
What was said
Don opened by pointing to the Lord's Prayer as the foundation. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he gave them a template, not a recitation, and that template begins with "Our Father." Everything in prayer, Don said, flows from a love relationship with the heavenly Father. If that relationship is unclear or broken, prayer itself becomes difficult.
To show what the Father's love actually looks like, Don told the story of his daughter coming into his office, saying "Daddy, I love you" until she worked up to asking for a new dress, and his sons later walking in as a choir doing the same thing. His point was that this is the posture God invites from all of us. He connected it to the moment of Jesus's baptism, when the Father declared, "You are my Son, whom I love, and with whom I am well pleased." Don said all three parts matter: belonging, affection, and affirmation.
Don then introduced what he called the orphan spirit, which he described as a voice that tells people they are unloved, unaccepted, unredeemable, and that their prayers go unanswered. He said this spirit does not only attack unbelievers. It works in believers precisely because it knows that walking in the Father's love produces freedom, healing, and power. He drew a direct contrast between what flows from the Father's love, freedom, acceptance, abundance, honor, and assurance of salvation, and what the orphan spirit substitutes in each case: fear, rejection, scarcity, dishonor, and insecurity.
He described teaching this in Africa to about 800 pastors and leaders, sensing a heaviness in the room, and then hearing from many of them that they had never heard the words "I love you" from their earthly fathers. He described the same dynamic in Asia Pacific, where a woman said receiving the Father's love felt like standing under a waterfall. He said this deficit is not regional. It is universal, and it is why the College of Prayer closes every training with this session.
Don turned then to his own marriage as an example of the orphan spirit operating close to home. He described years of praying for his wife rather than with her, too busy serving others to tend to his own household. He said that when he finally sat through a session on praying with your spouse and had to ask his wife five direct questions, she told him that not praying together meant he had not entered her prayer life and did not love her enough to do so. That moment broke him, and since then he and his wife have kept a daily 5:30 a.m. prayer time together, even calling across time zones when he is overseas.
He closed by giving five practices for walking in the Father's love: receive his love every morning and declare it; receive it at the start of every personal and corporate prayer time; declare and receive it during hardships and spiritual attack, quoting scripture the way Jesus did in the wilderness; give thanks for it in life's hardest battles, holding onto the word "steadfast" in the phrase "steadfast love"; and declare it again after victories, because victory belongs to the Lord. He ended with a guided prayer in which the congregation stood, opened their hands, and together declared their inheritance as children of God, received the assurance of salvation, and affirmed that they are loved, blessed, forgiven, and adopted.
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.
- Don described the orphan spirit as something that robs, kills, and destroys our understanding of the Father's love. Where do you see that spirit at work, either in your own life or in the lives of people around you?
- Don said that many people around the world have never heard the words 'I love you' from their earthly father, and that this makes it hard to receive the heavenly Father's love. How has your experience with your own father, for better or worse, shaped the way you relate to God?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 8,972 words
0:00
Speaker 2Full. I'm gonna try to can we stand up and try to sing them on in here this morning? It's good to see some of you that are here now infrequently from living elsewhere. We're gonna sing wonderful words of life. Hymn number four zero six.
2:14
Thank you, Flori. Day by Day. This one has a little bit of of everything in it. I love the song day by day. I don't think that I'd ever heard it before I came here.
2:25
But would you sing with me? Man, y'all can have a seat. I have a few announcements. I think we're going to skip the video this morning. Announcements this morning.
4:53
Connect hour, y'all know happens between services, and that's the normal thing at 10:00 to gather down there with coffee and sweets and goodness. There was some sort of a quiche down there this morning. It was delicious. But there's always going to be something down there for the connect hour between the services so we can gather together. Monday nights at First B happens strangely enough, Monday nights at First B.
5:17
It happens down the hall. Carl will be preaching tonight from Luke, I mean tomorrow night from Luke probably seven. I'm not positive. I hadn't talked to him about it, but Luke seven. We have a talent show that's coming up.
5:30
Oh my goodness. If you all were not a part of the talent show last year, you want to be a part of it this year. It's a lot of fun. I've got an idea of a couple people that need to be there's a laser beam right here. There's some over there too that need to be in the talent show.
5:43
I don't want to point you out but yes, definitely. 2017, February 11 and that'll be fun. There's a men's retreat coming up February 24 through the twenty sixth. It's a $100 to go and have room aboard paid for. But if you want a snowmobile on Saturday, that's the rentals a little extra.
6:03
That is always fun. Kyle Knutson is the guy in charge of that. If you need to get in touch with him, you can get in touch with me and I'll get you scheduled. There are some sign up sheets in the back and it should be a good group. It's always fun, men getting together and playing in the snow.
6:18
The Truth Project. Is there there we go. It starts on February 8, so that's not this Wednesday but the following Wednesday. I have been through this before, brought out by focus on the family. There's so much in our society that questions whether there even is such a thing as truth.
6:36
And if there is truth, is it absolute or is it relative? And this goes through kind of systematically has 12 different pillars. It's called the Truth Project and it's good. It's 12 different videos about different segments. They're standalone, but if you would want to come for all of them, it'll be in the fellowship hall.
6:56
Gary Geek will be the facilitator for it and it'll start at 06:30 in the evening. That's fun. There he is next week during the connect hour. There's a congregational meeting in this room right here. So, if you normally come to this service, come an hour early.
7:10
Alright, come and be a part of the congregational meeting. There's plenty to praise God for. What he is doing is pretty amazing. Just looking over the things that we need to look over. Appointing new elders, new board of trustees, people, you all ratifying, hopefully that, and then we get a chance to look at the budget too and see what God's doing and where.
7:28
So praise him. It's fun. Next week. And I think that that's all of the announcements. Don Young is here.
7:34
You all know Don well. He served as the interim pastor between me being an intern and me being a pastor, but he also served as an interim pastor here, how many years ago? A while. Before Rich T came in. So, y'all know Don probably better than I even do and I love him and I know that y'all love him too.
7:55
He's going to preach today and it will be the close of the prayer on fire weekend. Friday night session was fantastic. Saturday was really really good too. The band that got together and played was just worshiping from this morning early early. So, we'll enjoy that after we stand and sing.
8:14
Would you all stand and greet one another? Try to find somebody you hadn't seen in a while. Greet them, welcome them in. So, I think I say this every time we sing that song. That brings up a very deep southern accent in me.
11:21
We did we had revival scheduled every August. And that's the way you lead a revival office with that song and you sing it like this. Hallelujah, thine the glory. That's the way it comes across to me anyway. So, I love it.
11:35
Love it. Love it. Trust and obey. Would you sing with me one more hymn? I have hymn number five seventy one.
15:07
Talk and have a seat. I'm gonna invite the front line team to come forward. I like that song, trust and obey. One of the lines that I remember from the summer that I was here as an intern when you preached was this one, you cannot say, no, Lord. You can say, yes, Lord, or you can say, no, but you cannot say, no, Lord.
15:30
There's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey and you can trust him. He's trustworthy. Would you pray with me? Lord, thank you for this glorious morning. I thank you for the great weekend that you've given.
15:41
I thank you for the difference in Christians, the difference that you have made in your giftings, in the way that you wire us, the way that you knit us together, not just in our mother's womb, but in our rebirth, the spiritual gifts that you've given are varied, variegated, the scripture says. That we should be using them as if we're speaking the very oracles of God that we should serve with the strength that you provide and I thank you for my brother in Christ, Don, in the way that you use him around the world. God, I pray a blessing on him and on Marlon and on the College of Prayer and lord, I pray also over this offering that you would use it to advance your kingdom's work here in Jackson. Lord, and in the community around Teton Valley on the other side of that hill. In this state, in that state, and then in all the world.
16:30
To the ends of the earth, Lord, that's the goal. That's the call. And Lord, we want to be obedient and we want to trust. So, would you accept these tithes and offerings given this morning? Would you bless and multiply it to do your kingdom's work?
16:44
In Jesus name, amen.
16:46
Speaker 1Amen. What a privilege to be here again. Amen?
16:50
Speaker 3Amen. I wanna say something.
16:52
Speaker 1Please. Yes.
16:53
Speaker 3We're going to play pastor Young's favorite hymn. He likes to speak French with me, so I'll say something in French to him.
17:07
Speaker 1And I shall say amen because I didn't understand nothing. That's just great. Well, it's good to see you. Smiling faces. Wow.
20:55
It's been a while. You look so young. Wow. Or maybe it's me getting old. I don't know what it is but Ray, will you come up here for a second?
21:04
I only do one maximum two a year churches. 99.9% of our work is overseas. And and so when he invited us to come to do this weekend church prayer on fire, we are really grateful. So thank you very much for letting us to come. And I want to give you this.
21:20
This is the the series that we do on the manifest presence of the Christ. Praise God. And so that'll help you.
21:25
Speaker 2Thank you very much.
21:26
Speaker 1Bless you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
21:27
Speaker 2Thank you.
21:28
Speaker 1Here's your, thing. You may need this. Actually I can I like this? What did I do again and again? I can feel the love.
21:47
Wow. I want to thank, Berkeley and Mary Johnson for caring for me so beautifully over these last couple of days. It was bed and breakfast and then it was bed and breakfast and lunch and then it was bed and breakfast and supper. I think they thought it was gonna be bed and breakfast but it extended and, it was great. So I really really appreciate being in their home.
22:06
Lovely lovely people that just love Jesus and poured out that love of Jesus on me. And so I was just very grateful. Marlon normally would be with me, but, we have a conference. I leave here this afternoon, go home for two days, and go to Mexico. And then we have all these international people coming into Atlanta for this huge conference that we do every year.
22:23
And many of, of our leaders stay in our home. We had 18 from Latin America last year, and, we'll have now with this year, have several Chinese, a couple of African couples and some Latin Americans. So she's getting everything ready plus she has to teach. So she sends her greeting and love to you. And I want you to know that she's praying for us this morning.
22:43
We we started Friday night here doing prayer on fire. And we start out teaching on the hunger for God. There you can get nowhere without having hunger for God. If you don't have hunger for him, then you're not going to receive all that he has for you. It starts there.
22:58
Hunger for him. And then we talked about the manifest presence of the Lord. How how powerful it is. Many people are satisfied just with the omnipresence of God that he's everywhere. But there's a manifest presence of God that comes in when we obey and follow his word and it's powerful.
23:12
And yesterday, we spent time in the power of forgiveness, and then the power of blessing. And they come they go together. Once you receive forgiveness and walk in freedom, God just pours out his blessing on you. God is a God of blessing. The Bible is a book of blessing from cover to cover.
23:28
And so we had a beautiful time yesterday just enjoying the blessing of our Father. And so this morning, I'm closing with, the power of love, receiving the father's love because we've discovered that especially when you understand the Lord's prayer. The Lord's prayer of Adam starts out this way. Our father, who art in heaven. All prayer flows out of relationship with your heavenly Father.
23:49
A love relationship with your heavenly Father. If you don't have that love relationship with Him, it's very difficult to pray. And that's how God starts out His prayer when Jesus when the disciples came to Jesus in Luke chapter 11. They said, Jesus, teach us to pray. And and so he began then to, in Luke chapter 11, outline a number of different illustrations, word pictures, but then he gives what we call the Lord's prayer.
24:12
And the Lord's Prayer was never meant to be recited. It was never meant just to be given as a little bookmark for your Bibles or something to learn in Bible school. It's a process. It's a template on how to pray. When they asked the question, Jesus responded, and he gave them how to pray.
24:28
It's the only prayer in the Bible when you are praying, you are praying biblically. You are praying the very words of Jesus. There are other prayers in the Bible, but it's the only one when asked, teach us to pray, he does that. He teaches us to pray the process and he gives us template. And the first part of that prayer is our father who art in heaven.
24:47
And it all flows from our love relationship with our heavenly father. It all goes there. And so as we began to teach this, the Lord began to show us in many many places, there's a very difficult aspect that we discover in people's lives, understanding what the love of the Father is really all about. We were teaching this in Africa and as I was teaching it, in the middle of teaching, I could sense there was a tear there. They weren't weeping.
25:15
It was like it was darkness or cloud. And there was sadness in the room. And there were about 800 pastors and leaders there. And so I just stepped off the podium and I walked like I'm doing now. And I said, I sense in this room a tear.
25:31
Speaker 2I
25:31
Speaker 1sense sadness. What is it? We're talking about the father's love. Why is there this tear? And so afterwards, a number of them came and said, we never knew the father's love.
25:47
Our father's never loved us. We never heard the words, I love you from our father. Many of us never knew who our earthly father was. So when you talk about the heavenly father who we don't see and our earthly father who we don't know or or if we've seen him, he's rejected us and abandoned us. We can't catch that.
26:06
What does that mean? How can we love this heavenly father? And they began to weep and weep and weep and weep because they hadn't experienced the love of the father. If you don't understand the father's love this morning, I would tell you why. It's because there's an orphan spirit that comes to rob, kill, and destroy the love of the father in our life.
26:28
And I'm gonna talk about that in a moment. Before I do that, let me tell you a story. Many of you know my family. When I was here, I was here twice. And one for two years and one for one year.
26:38
And, so you know a little bit about my family. My wife and I, we have four children, one girl and, three sons. And when the children were young, they often would come into my office, often come into my room and we would just talk. One day that the three boys came in and they were very young and they said, dad you don't love us like you love our sister. You don't don't love us like you love her.
27:04
I said what do you mean I love you the same. I love all of you the same. No, no, you don't love us the same way. Because when she comes in, whatever she asks for, you give her. When we come in, you say, well, okay, maybe or I don't know if I can.
27:17
You don't love us the same way. I said, I love you all the same way. You fathers that have daughters, I'm seeing what you're saying. Same way. And so I said no no I love you all the same.
27:27
Well unbeknownst to me my daughter would come in almost every other day. So she I happen I have an office at home and an office at that time at the church and so I was in my office. And my daughter came in as she always does and she would say, daddy, I love you. Daddy, I love you. Daddy, I love you.
27:53
Honey, honey, come here. What is it, sweetheart? Come here. Daddy, I love you. Honey, what is it?
28:00
Come. Come. So she would get closer and say, daddy, I know you're busy. Daddy, I love you. I said, honey, come here.
28:10
Daddy, I know you don't have a lot of money. You're a pastor at First Bijay. No. No. You're a pastor.
28:15
You don't have any money? So I know you don't have a lot of money. Daddy, I love you. Honey, what do you need? Well, I need a new dress.
28:26
Here you go. Now, I didn't know that the boys were following her that morning. And they were behind the door. A couple of days later, they come in and they say it as a choir. Daddy, we love you.
28:43
You see, we all want to experience the love of our father. We all want that. We want to know that he loves us. You remember the story. The fact when Jesus was baptized.
28:55
The dove descended and the voice of the Lord said this, you are my what? Son, whom I love and whom I am well? Pleased. Pleased. There were three declarations.
29:08
You're my son. You're in the family. You're part of us. I love you. There's affection.
29:17
And I'm well pleased with you. There's affirmation. All of us need that. We need the acceptance. We need to know that we are loved and we need to be affirmed.
29:27
So that was an example of the heavenly father loving Jesus and and from that very moment it's also an illustration to us that we need to understand that your heavenly father loves you with an everlasting love. The Bible says, he lavishly pours out his love. Now, what does the word lavish mean to you? When you get a when you see or hear that word lavish, what word picture comes into your mind? Cheesy?
29:53
Snitchy? Give a little? No. The word lavishly actually means pouring, pouring, pouring, pouring, pouring, pouring, pouring, pouring, pouring till it overflows. Never stops in the middle.
30:08
Never stops at the top. Lavishly means it keeps on, keeps on, keeps on pouring on. And that's the love of your heavenly father. He keeps on pouring on love on you. So I want us to go there this morning as we close the prayer on fire weekend.
30:28
Some of you were not able to come to that. They do have it recorded so you can pick up the message that you didn't get. But as I said, we only do one. Sometimes I do two year but I've only done this one this year because we're never in America to do them. And all of our training is overseas.
30:45
But we always close our sessions with this, with this teaching, receiving the father's love. Because we don't want anyone to miss what God has. So you already have in your in your bulletin, some verses. So if you open it up, we'll go to there. In Psalm, you've got them written out there so you can see them.
31:06
Jude 21 says, keep yourself in the love of God. John fifteen nine said, as the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. Say that with me. You have that that verse there.
31:20
Say it with me, will you? John fifteen nine. As the father Say it out loud. As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
31:31
It's a very beautiful passage. Very beautiful verse. As the father has loved me. He's saying, as my heavenly father has loved me, his son Jesus, I am loving you. It's linked together.
31:44
He loves you. I want you to point to your neighbor and say, he loves you. Do that. Some of are having trouble finding your neighbor but yes, when I he loves you. He loves you.
31:57
He does. You're special to him. He loves you. So look at Romans eight fifteen. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba Father.
32:18
Abba Father. That means daddy. We can go and if you can imagine us being able to go sit on the father's lap and say daddy, daddy, daddy. It's pretty powerful when you get that image know that he loves you so much. We can call him daddy.
32:41
Look at the last verse there. John fourteen eighteen. I will not leave you as what? As what? As I will come to you.
32:52
He's not gonna leave you abandoned as an orphan who's rejected and abused, uncared for, lonely, discouraged, depressed. No matter what pit you might find yourself in, he wants to pour it out on you. He wants to love it on you. I was sharing this in Asia Pacific and a gal come running up afterwards all in tears. I never heard my father say any of those words that you talked about today.
33:24
I I don't know what it means. But as I was sitting there listening and we were going through the verse and we prayed together as we will pray at the end. I began to receive his love for me and it was like it was like this this cool water and she gave this image. She said it was like I was standing under a falls and and it the waterfall was so heavy and it was flowing over from my head to my toe and I just felt this washing clean love. Imagine never feeling love.
33:54
Imagine never hearing love. Imagine not even knowing what love is like. For some of you, you know what that is. For others of you, you you've been blessed and you've heard that before. You've heard the love of your personal, of your earthly father.
34:09
You you understand the love of your heavenly father but for so many people around the world, they don't know the love of the father. And I want you to know that this morning. I want you to be able to leave here experience and love of the father. I want you to know that you are special and cared for and that you don't have to remain in your pit and your discouragement and your despair. You don't have to walk around saying, I'm not loved.
34:30
You are. And if you think that you aren't, it's because of the orphan spirit voice. Now, in the in your bulletin and I think it's also on the screen. I want you to look I give a difference between the father's love and blessing and the orphan spirit. The orphan spirit.
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Because I I want you to see the clear distinction. The father's blessing comes when he pours out his love on you. There's freedom. There's freedom when you are walking in love. When you understand his love and you're living out his love, there's freedom there.
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When you don't, the orphan spirit, when he lying to you and and saying in your voice, you aren't loved, there's fear. Perfect love casts out fear. You walk in freedom when you understand love. The father's love gives gives acceptance. You are special.
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You are his child. You are his son and daughter. In fact, when when I was in Africa and I would go around to the pastors, I'd say, you are his son. He loves you and he's well pleased with you. And as I heard that for the first time, how could the father love me?
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Some of you are hearing that right now. You're saying, how could he love me? You don't know what I've done. You don't know where I've been. You don't know the thoughts I've had.
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You don't know the things that I've done. You don't understand that father. Pastor, you don't understand that. I don't have to understand any of it. He does.
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And he's the one that says, I love you. And he's the one that lavishly pours it out on you. And he's the one that says, connect to my love. As Christ loves me, I love you. And father says that.
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I love my son. And we are in Christ and that love is for us. We are adopted. We are brought into the family. We are his.
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Anything else is a lie from the orphan spirit. Anything you listen to that tells you that you are not loved, you're not special, you're not accepted is a lie from the orphan spirit. And that orphan spirit wants to come, rob, kill, and destroy your love. Why? Because when we don't have love, we don't understand love, we don't walk in love, then we find ourselves in the path that leads us to go everywhere else to find it.
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You heard the old song, if Ray was here he'd pick up his guitar and he'd sing it. That's what I like about Ray. It doesn't matter whatever it is. Said you got a guitar and if he gets it. I mean I don't know how you transitioned from that and then yet to that.
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So I don't know how you did that. I mean I still laughing about it. But he'd pick his guitar up and say oh you love in all the wrong places. Some of you know that. If you'd we're all looking and searching for that.
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We want to receive love. We want to see the father's love. That's why it's so important fathers to love your daughters. So they understand what love is. It's so important to love your your sons.
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It's so important to be able to express that love. So that your children walk in understanding of love and they when they accept Jesus, they begin to understand the father's love for them and they walk in that love. When we understand that we walk in freedom. When we don't we're bound up. We're bound up.
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So the father's love gives us freedom. The orphan spirit fear. There's acceptance. The orphan spirit is rejection. In the father's love there's abundance.
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He abundantly pours out his love. His desire is to to meet our every need above and beyond that which we could ask or think. I'm not talking about prosperity gospel. I'm talking about the truth. He wants to pour it on you above and beyond that which you could ask or think.
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That's his desire for us as children. To love us into freedom. To love us away from sin. To love us to walk as his child in the spirit. To love us.
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The orphan spirit doesn't want that. The father's love brings healing. The orphan spirit hurts wounds and pains. Over the seventeen years that we've been with College of Prayer, we started out with just one campus and now we have 2,150 of them in 44 countries of the world. In every country, in every teaching, in every session, when we are praying with people, the hurts, the wounds, and the pains, all of them without exception come from the area of not being loved.
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And because of that, they found wanted to love it other places. They brought it in. It was empty. And the wounds were deep. The pains were real.
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And the sacrifices were beyond imagination. When you have the father's love, healing is there. When you don't experience that hurt, pain, wounds are deep. Very deep. The next one, honor.
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Well, The father's love is respect. He it's amazing how he he you feel the respect of the father on us when we are walking in his love. You feel like that you are special in his sight. And the reason you feel that is because you are. The reason I feel it is because I am.
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The reason that you feel it is because you are. And if you don't, it's because you're listening to the lying spirit. When you listen to the wrong words and you follow those wrong words, then you are going to live out those wrong words and those wrong words leads to bad activities. Activities rob you of your joy, of your peace, and your love. That's what the enemy does.
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The father's blessing is honor. The orphan spirit is dishonor. The father's blessing is blessing. And the orphan spirit is curse. The father's blessing is assurance of salvation.
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The orphan spirit is insecurity and fear and death. If you're listening to the voice that says, you are nothing. That's an orphan spirit. If you're listening to the spirit says, you have no value at all. God could not accept you the way you are.
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That's the orphan spirit. If you are listening to the voice that say, why are you even asking God in that prayer? He'll never answer it for you. That's the orphan spirit. If you are are hearing in your mind and your spirit and your voice that saying to you that that no, you're not saved.
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You never really meant that when you came to the altar. It wasn't true. God's not there for you. You you you're listening to the orphan spirit. Because the orphan spirit wants to come and rob and kill and destroy.
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That's what he does. And he does it in believers because he knows that as we follow God and we understand his love for us, there is power in love. There is freedom in love. There's joy in love. The reaction you have for other people's flow out of you in love.
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If you don't understand that, what comes out of your mind and in your mouth? When you don't have love and you don't experience the love of the father, what comes out of your mouth? Those things that hurt. Those things that reject, those things that abuse. That's what comes out.
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And so it's so important for us to understand the love of the father. I was teaching this in India and a pastor came up to me. He started out this way. He's got a PHD and he teaches in a seminary. He said, pastor, there's nothing you can teach me about prayer.
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And I said, wow, you are right. There is nothing I can teach you about prayer. But there's everything the Holy Spirit can. Stick it out for two days and see what he should says. He comes back the next day and his tears is, oh, I didn't know.
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I didn't know that. The Holy Spirit is showing me. I said, what else is he showing you? I did a session on on love between the husband and wife and praying with your husband and wife. The Bible says, if we don't pray with our husband, with our spouses, and if we don't honor respect them, our prayers don't even go past the seat late.
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And and many of them never prayed with their spouse. In fact, they often said, we pray for our spouses and he gave me this whole this whole litany of excuse. He said, I get up in the morning and I pray blessing on my wife. I said, God bless her. Make her a good cook today so she can feed me well.
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May she clean my house well. May she take care of my children well. God bless her. And he'd go off and do his work. Come back at noon, thank you God.
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I have a good meal. God, you blessed her. Off he goes. Then at night, came back in and he became in the kids were already being beddy. He he said, I'm so busy serving the Lord.
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I don't have time to pray with my kids and then I I would pray at night. God, thank you for blessing my family. Go to sleep. I said, you know what you've just done? I, first of all, everything you said, all your prayers never went past the ceiling.
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Never went past the ceiling. You don't respect your spouse. You use your spouse. You don't love your wife. She just happens to be the one in your house.
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He was all mad at me. I don't mind. You know, when you're 70 years old, you don't care when people get mad at you or not. You know? So it didn't bother me.
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Said, listen, look at what you're doing. The Bible says that you are to love, honor, and respect and and there's a there's a family here and you are missing out on the greatest blessing you have to pray with your wife, not for her. Not for. I didn't understand that for a long time. For a long time, I was just like him.
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I was so busy serving the Lord that I didn't take time loving the Lord. I was so busy praying for other people. You call me in middle of night, I'm there. Taking care of everybody else's needs. But if my wife had a had a need or my nothing.
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And we were at a we don't teach anything that we don't go through first. And so the second book that we we have first book is Lord Teach Us to Pray. Teach us as individuals. The second book is at least teach our families to pray. And the third book is teach our church to pray.
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So in this book teach our children to pray, our families to pray in it is a whole section on praying with your wife, the upper room. Now I didn't write that material. I couldn't write it at that time. The other my other guy the three of us in it he wrote this material and we all who teach it have to listen to it before we teach it. And so I knew it was coming up because I got the preview and we were in another place.
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I think it was in Nebraska wherever it was and I got this letter saying, okay, this is the weekend that all the staff get together and we're going to go through this material before we print it and teach it. I looked at it and I saw this section of praying with your wife and I said, oh man, I hope my wife doesn't get this. Well, he's my buddy Fred, he knows how I am and so he sends the invitation to my wife. So I get ready to go. I say, honey, I have to go to Atlanta for this weekend and we have to go this before we teach it.
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I'll be back next weekend. But I'm going with you. No honey. No. I got the invitation too.
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So there I had to go. She's with me. So we're there and I look at it. I don't want to go through this lesson because I know what's going to happen. I'm still so dumb thinking, you know what?
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I'm doing the right thing. Don't need to tell me I'm doing the wrong thing. I'm doing right thing. So I'm there. The day that because there's 10 lessons, the day that this lesson comes up, I said you know what I'm going to be busy at this time.
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So I tell Fred I got a I got a call. I got to take care of it. He knows me like a book. He said, no, you're sitting up front with your wife. So, here I am now.
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I'm in the front row. I can't run. I can't hide and we're going through this teaching and I I am being hit by the Holy Spirit. Oh, man. I'm a bum.
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Oh. My wife never said the thing. Well, in the middle of it, there's an exercise. And you turn to your wife and you and you and you have to ask the five questions. If I do this here, you'll have to go through this.
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So so here, I I have to ask my wife these five questions. And the first question is, have I ever done anything to hurt you? And then she gets asked the same to me. So it's and and I'm thinking she's gonna rattle me with all the stuff that I'm and she says, yes. I said, what?
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You don't pray with me. You pray for me. Why would that be a problem? I pray for you. No, no.
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You don't love me enough to enter into my prayer life and we're not praying together. Well, when I heard those words that broke me in half. I real, what in the world have I been doing all these years? Busy taking care of everybody else. And so with that moment on, we have never stopped our little upper room in our house.
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And at 05:30 every morning, if I'm in America, 05:30 every morning, and even if I'm in China or in Africa, I'll call on the phone. 05:30 in the morning, we are praying together. The reason why I say that because the orphan spirit would say to me, you don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. You don't do that.
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And the Lord began to convict me. Oh yes, I do. Oh yes, I do. Yes, I do. Because I wasn't experiencing answers to prayer like I could have had I begin praying with my wife.
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And when you receive the Father's love, you begin to understand what it means to love your spouse and love your children. Because the love of the Father is so powerful in you. As leaders, as pastors, as teachers, we can teach a lot of things and not live them. Just because we're used to teaching them. We we can be very good at teaching them.
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But unless we apply it to our life, it only becomes things that we teach. And unless you apply it to your life and it changes you, you're only teaching them and you're not receiving. And so the Lord just broke me those years ago and said, and it changed my whole prayer life and it changed my wife's whole prayer life. Now, my wife was an intercessor. She prays for everybody in the world of people I don't even know.
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She's prays for him. She doesn't stop. She's tenacious. She's already at 04:30 this morning I get a text. Of course, it's 06:30 there.
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Bless her heart. It's 04:30 here. I'm praying for you. I said, could you wait till five? I'm still sleeping.
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No, 04:30. I get this. Why? Because she's tenacious. And what she's praying for is that you don't miss it.
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And we could tend to let it go over us. But the father's love is so important to you and so important to me. Don't miss it. Receive it. Don't miss it.
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So the orphan spirit wants to come rob kill and destroy you. He wants to stay it away from you. Alright. Let's I'm going give you five things to live out God's love. First of all, if you listen to a lie that you're not loved, that's the orphan spirit.
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If you feel as though God has been unkind to you and that you deserve better, that's the orphan spirit. If you're angry or resentful towards God, that's the orphan spirit. If you feel as though you you're working hard at getting everything and you don't seem to your prayers aren't seeming to be answered, that's the orphan spirit. If you're uncertain about your salvation that you would die and not know Jesus, That's the orphan spirit if you ask Christ to come into your heart. But the enemy, the moment you ask Christ to come into your heart, the enemy wants to say no it's a lie.
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He wants to tell you what you did didn't happen. He wants to rob your assurance. That's the orphan spirit. So I want to give you five things. Now the first service, I love the second service.
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The second service there's no little thing here to suck you out and make you move into it. I mean I got little four or five more minutes the second service. The first service, I gotta stop at 10:00, you know, and I just get started, you know, and and so, but I don't to do that with you guys. I mean, you don't just either fall asleep as a matter but that's okay. I mean, the only thing I have to, I have to catch a plan at 02:00.
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The rest were okay. So, it's no problem. So I I feel a lot better here in the second service. The first service, I really, they really made me sure. They said, you be careful.
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If you're not done by 10:00, we have this secret thing that you get sucked down and out you go. Now, you remember when I was here, we didn't do any of that. We didn't have any space. We just kept on going and going and going and going and going. You know, but not today with technology.
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You got to stop on time. So, I got another five minutes. I'm going take it. Let me give you five things. Receive his love every morning.
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Start the morning by receiving his love. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies are new every morning. Say it with me. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
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It's new every morning. And so we start out at our home. We start out every morning when we have our upper room and we start and say, Lord, we declare and receive your love today in our home. We declare love over each other, over our children, over our grandchildren, over extended family, over you in Jackson Hall, Wyoming. We pray for you.
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The love of God on you. Amen. Thank you. That's why amen got over there. We do.
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The love of the father on you. So, we start that way. We proclaim it. It's very good to start out and affirm what you've received from the Lord. Lord, thank you.
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We love you and receive your love this morning. The second thing, receive his love at the beginning of every personal and prayer time. So when you start out the day, you receive you receive his love and you declare it. When you have your own personal prayer time, when you have your corporate prayer time, you pray the love of the father on you. I'm an elder in our church.
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We have in Atlanta, we have 62 different nationalities in our church. There are six different praise teams and and they're a mixture of Africans, Asians, Latin Americans. I mean, you just think you're going to a different world when you come to our church. But in our church, every single meeting from Awana, junior high, children, everything in nursery, everything starts with who's ever in charge praying the love of the father on everyone there. They receive the love of the little babies in a nursery.
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The people are taking care of them. They're they're they pray the love of the father on them. On these little babies, they'll grow and to receive the love of the heavenly father as they grow older. They're there. Little Wanna kids, they learn to pray and receive the love of the father.
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Junior high and senior high, they start out everything with every one of our elder meetings. An hour and a half elder meetings. We are agenda last for fifteen minutes and for an hour and fifteen minutes, it's just praise and worship. We discovered at the end of that, we don't need to do all this because God's already taken care of it. It's all about receiving and walking in the love of the father.
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What am I trying to say to you this morning? Receive the love of the father. Don't let the orphan spirit rob you of that. Don't walk around loveless. Receive that love.
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So, declare it in front of every every time you have a corporate prayer meeting. Third, declare and receive his love during hardships and spiritual attacks. This is always difficult. Here it is. Neither death or life.
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Angels or demons, present or future, power, height or depth can separate us. And I always say when I read this, separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. That means there is absolutely now catch it. Don't let it get over your head. Absolutely nothing.
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Nothing. Nothing. Nothing that could keep you from the love of the father. Nothing. So, when the enemy says to you, you're not loved.
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When the orphan spirit says to you, you have no value. When the enemy says to you, your past is horrible. When the enemy says to you, you're not redeemable. When the enemy says to you, there's no one at all that that could ever respect you. When the enemy says that, you say to the enemy, leave, you're lying.
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You're an orphan spirit. I won't receive you. The Bible says, submit yourself to God and resist the enemy and he must flee from you. So, when I hear the orphan spirit say to me, I quote James four seven. What did Jesus do when he was in the wilderness and he was tempted?
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What did he do? He quoted scripture. What do you do when you find yourself in battle? Oh, why am I in the battle? I'm not.
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No. Quote scripture. Receive his love. Start there. Start there.
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Fourth, declare and receive his love when you face life's toughest battles. Give thanks to the Lord for his love endures. In fact, this version I love even better. Give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love. Steadfast love.
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Words matter. Words matter. It's not just love. It's steadfast love. So, give thanks to lord for a steadfast love, endures how long?
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Speaker 2Forever.
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Speaker 1How long? Forever. Forever. That's a long time. I don't know how old you guys are but forever is pretty good.
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Pretty good. That's a long time. We'll never go past that. And a steadfast love. Steadfast, endures, lasts forever.
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So receive it. Fifth, declare his love following life's victories. Proverbs twenty one thirty one, Victory belongs to the Lord. You know, you come out of that pit, when you come out of those those moments of despair and and you're beginning to receive the love of the father and you and you're joy, that's when you praise him loudly. That's when you say, oh, thank you lord for your love.
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I never, I didn't lose it. I always had it. Your love, thank you. We, when we finish our our time, now we do two days, ten hours a day. So here we did Friday night an hour and a half and Saturday three hours.
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This morning you're getting thirty five minutes, forty minutes. So when you go through twenty two hours of teaching and you go through what the Holy Spirit is teaching you because we always work from this premise. What the Holy Spirit reveals, the Holy Spirit will always heal. He never wastes a revelation. He always when he reveals that to you, he wants you to do something about it.
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And so if there's a pain or a wound or a hurt, he wants you to deal with it. If there's something there that that he brings up, there's a unforgiveness that needs to be forgiven. He brings it up so you can deal with it and it's always with the purpose of receiving his love. It's never with the idea, okay, we're going to deal with this issue you got. I'll pick on Bob.
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Bob, we're going to deal with this issue you got and that's it. Deal with it. It's over. No. We're going to deal with this issue and then we're going to love you.
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There's a difference. We have a tendency as Christians to deal with issues in a harsh, cruel way. I always say that Christians are the the ones who who wound us the most. We like to bury those who are alive. We bury our wounded because we speak so harshly.
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And the reason we speak harshly is because we don't understand the love of the father who's behind us and say, you don't need to be harsh. I took care of it already. It's not yours to worry about. You don't need to go there. But we tend to think that we are the protectors of the church and the word and and all these things and we deal with people harshly.
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In fact, if we dealt with people, if God dealt with us, the way we would deal with some people, well, that would teach us something. He knows what I'm talking about. Really? If if our heavenly father dealt with us that way, we wouldn't let we wouldn't be able to exist but we have a tendency to deal that way with others. And so, if we receive the father's love, we won't.
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And so these pastors, after they finish the training and they come up and they're all excited, oh, we never understood this. Well, how do we know it works? Well, we get all kinds of, we go back every year to these different places. Oh, and we'll get Emails and texts and say, oh, you're not going to understand what's happened to our church. This one church in in India, they had a handful of people that came to prayer meeting.
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Just a handful. They had 120 people that met Sunday morning and they had eight or nine that would come to prayer meeting and six of those nine were very very old and and so, they were just kind of go there and I think, when he came to the sessions and he went through and he began to receive the father's love and began to go through the the Lord's prayer pattern. He began to understand what forgiveness was about and to get rid of all the stuff that was in his life. As the Holy Spirit began to work in his life because you, we have a tendency for that to ask the father to work through us before he works in us. It doesn't work my friend.
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He must work in us before he works through us. So when that happens and that was happening to these pastors, they go back home and it changes how they react, how they teach, how they live, and and their homes are different and and all of a sudden, this prayer gathering that they had, it started to it had nine and then it got eleven and fifteen and twenty. He's and he sent me back a day. He said, within the first month, the first month, we began to see the Lord where people were getting healed. People were getting coming in, getting saved.
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This is a strong Buddhist area. He said, our prayer gathering went from nine to a 150. We had more people coming to prayer gathering than came Sunday morning. Why? Because they were gathering from all the other groups.
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They were coming to Jesus is there. We want to go where the Jesus is. We want to go where the father's love is. We hadn't experienced that before. We want to go there.
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We want to receive it. We want to live there. We want to know what it's about. That's what will happen when you receive the father's love. That's how you will enjoy him.
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When you walk and walk and walk in the father's love. Don't you want that? Don't you want to be able to walk in his love? Not listen to the lies of the enemy. Not fall prey to the enemy of your soul who wants to come rob, kill, destroy your love.
1:00:12
He wants you to receive that. So this morning, we're going to end by receiving that. I'm going to ask you to stand and we're going to pray. And for some of you this may be uncomfortable, that's okay. I don't mind that.
1:00:27
I don't mind it at all if you're uncomfortable. What I want you to do is I want you to receive from the father. I want you to be able to enjoy his love this morning. I don't want you to walk out of here and listen to the lies of the enemy for your soul. So if you'll just open your hands like this and we're going to make this electoration before the Lord.
1:00:45
It's before the Lord we're doing that. So if you'll just repeat after me. Father God. Father God. I submit myself.
1:00:54
Speaker 2I submit myself.
1:00:55
Speaker 1My spirit. My spirit. My soul. My soul. My body.
1:00:59
My body. Holy to you.
1:01:01
Speaker 2Holy to you.
1:01:02
Speaker 1I declare I declare the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
1:01:06
Speaker 2The supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
1:01:08
Speaker 1Over my life And over over all things. Things.
1:01:12
Speaker 2And all things.
1:01:13
Speaker 1Now we're gonna receive his love this morning. Loving father.
1:01:18
Speaker 2Loving father.
1:01:19
Speaker 1Right now.
1:01:20
Speaker 2Right now.
1:01:21
Speaker 1I receive your Holy Spirit of adoption. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
1:01:28
Speaker 2In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
1:01:30
Speaker 1I claim my inheritance as a child of God. I receive not only the fullness of your salvation I receive the assurance of my salvation. In the name. The name. Of the Lord Jesus Christ.
1:01:54
I'm a child of God. I am loved. I am loved. I am blessed.
1:01:59
Speaker 2I am blessed.
1:02:00
Speaker 1I am forgiven. I am forgiven. Forgiven. I've adopted with all the rights and privileges of his son. Hallelujah.
1:02:11
Hallelujah. Amen. Amen. Alright. Whoo.
1:02:14
Let me tell you, there's nothing better than that. Walking out knowing that you're in love with the father. God bless you.
1:02:23
Speaker 2And you.
1:02:23
Speaker 1And you.
1:02:24
Speaker 2We're going sing what a friend we
1:02:25
Speaker 1have in Jesus.
1:05:08
Speaker 3Amen.
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