Prayer: Your Father Wants to Hear from You | Crossroads Church

Well, as you may know, a lot of interesting things happened this last week. Venezuela, Social Security, another shooting. And you need to hear me that I'm not going to talk about any of those things today. Now, I know some of us are struggling, and I am praying for you. And when I say that, I actually mean that. I'm going to talk about that in a moment. But I think that we come here not to just have another commentary on what's going on in the world, though I reserve the right to do that at any time if I want to, but we come here today because we want God. We want God and not just another talking voice of what's happening out there in the world. And let's be honest, in your social feed right now, if it shows up information, like a headline, the latest on Venezuela, and then another headline, the latest on prayer, which one are you going to click? Venezuela. Venezuela. You're going to, ah, prayer? No, you wouldn't. You can't click Venezuela. I would. That's more of an intriguing topic. If there's some new thing that comes across talking about the thing that weighs, that deals with the weightiness of the shooting incident in Minnesota versus the weightiness of prayer, we're going to go to the shooting incident. I am anyway, probably, because it's more of a sugar high. It's an immediate thing. I feel like I'm informed. I get a little bit of a buzz. What moves me to pray, though, are the things that I know I need, and that is I need God and I need things that I can't manufacture and muster on my own. The secret to your potency will be your prayer life. That's it. That's it. How you talk to God, how you sense from Him, and how He moves through your prayers. That's it. It's not the cool church you go to. It might not be the glitzy church you go to, which, by the way, is kind of crossroads. That's not going to make a powerful spiritual life for you. It's going to be your prayer life. And this is why Jesus talks about this repeatedly. This was the secret behind the life of Jesus was His prayer life. I'm convinced of that. We looked at that verse last week that Jesus grew in stature and wisdom and wisdom and stature. And how did He grow in wisdom? How did He grow in His spiritual potency? Potency, He grew in part through His prayer life. And the disciples would look at Him, and so they realized this is it. Like, this guy has a power that nobody else has, and he's doing something no one else does. He actually prays, like, all the time. The reason we date time after Jesus, and He inarguably is the most potent people ever walked the planet of earth, is because of His prayer life. That's what His source of power was.

His disciples knew this. They said, Jesus, teach us how to pray. And then we have the Lord's Prayer, which actually wasn't a prayer that Jesus prayed. It's okay for you and I to recite the Lord's Prayer, but it's actually an outline for teaching on prayer. He did it all the time. John 17, He's coming down to His final hours on the world, and He's in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He doesn't want to deal with what He's dealing with. And He prays, and His disciples overhear Him, and they write the prayer down. It's an entire chapter. He goes where He goes and does He does because He's equipped by prayer, by having a potency that's beyond His normal human capacity. And Mark 1, verse 35, it's one of these amazing, amazing stories. Let's just look at it. And here we see the character of who He was, and maybe why He got used the way He did. Mark 1, verse 30, wherever Jesus went, there was always big crowds because the presence of God was around. Because there were miracles that were happening. And because even if you didn't believe in the presence of God and miracles, it was a big event, so everybody would come. Like, what is going on here? So, same thing. He's in a situation where people are flocking around Him. He gets a good night's sleep, and then it says this. And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He departed and went out to a desolate place, and there He prayed. And there it is. He goes and He prays. Before it's dark, He prays. While it's dark, because He gives God the best part of His day. He starts off every day with prayer. That's what He's doing right here. And now, for you, no guilt to you, we have night owls in here. I don't understand you. Some of you night owls. Best part of your day is after Jimmy Kimmel. I don't understand how that'd be, but God bless you. Wonderful. Maybe for you, the best part of your day is midnight. Whatever the best part of your day is, I don't know, but I think for Jesus, it was the morning, because that's when He would with God and have very extended times of prayer. So he's praying in the morning and then people are wondering where he is and here's what keeps going. And Simon and those who are with him search for him. And they found him and they said to him everybody is looking for you. They searched for him. They like, this happens every freaking day. We know where he is. He's out praying someplace. Don't know where he is but where would have him? Maybe a place by a tree. Maybe a place with a view. This is just what he does. They go out and they search for him. They finally find him.

And they say everyone's looking for you. What are you doing man? Come on. You got to make hay. We got to start bearing some fruit. Seize the day. People are here. Let's go. And he said to them, Jesus said to them, oh everyone wants to see me. Well let us go on to the next town that I may preach there also for that is why I came out. And he went throughout all Galilee preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. Just normal stuff like that, like casting out demons. Something all of us do every day. No big deal. Jesus says, oh you mean everybody wants me, huh? Over there? Oh okay. I'm gonna go over here. Because I've been praying about over here. I'm gonna come over this way. Jesus wasn't trying to win a popularity contest. Jesus wasn't trying to please everybody. He was trying to please his God. He was trying to tap into spiritual power. I don't understand why he would need to pray. God never made any mistakes. God never had any sins. Never had to tell God sorry. The guy is God himself. He has power. I don't know. How's he getting more power? I don't know. He's gone. There's a lot of things I don't understand. But what I do understand is if I call myself a follower of Jesus, I must follow him. Which means following him into a deeper life of prayer. And this is hard for me. It's difficult for me. I don't, I don't do it naturally. Most days I feel like a loser as it relates to my prayers, prayer life. Unless I'm coming away from a prayer meeting, I feel like a loser. Like the minute I come away from a prayer meeting, well I'm pretty good at prayer. Pretty good. The rest of the time I'm going, I'm such a loser. I don't do it enough. I don't know whatever, whatever. I have some growth to do in this area and I've grown a lot in this area. But I want you to get closer to where Jesus is. Because that is the place where potency is. And it's hard and it's difficult. Some of us look at it like it's like hygiene. Well,

it's like brush your teeth. It's got to do it, I guess. Brush your, speaking of teeth, here's some teeth for you. Ever see his teeth? These teeth. Right. You know whose teeth these are? These are our lead pastor's teeth, Kyle Ranson. That's his teeth. Yeah, yeah. Kyle shared these pictures. I'm just reminding us. No, but he's talked about his teeth and how disgusting they are. We have a Grace Kerr orthodontist in our midst that said, let me help you. Kyle got a raise and became lead pastor. So I guess he took his entire raise and gave it to her for her to start grinding down his teeth. Here's his teeth right now. Look at that. That's amazing. That is, that is honestly amazing. Now his transformation in his mouth is the same as happens with your transformation in prayer. Have you ever had braces? They hurt. They hurt. It's not comfortable. You feel the pressure. It's not natural. And then eventually things start to change. It becomes natural and becomes normal for you. That's the way prayer is. And many of us just don't know how to get, get to the uncomfort, uncomfortability phase. You might have had a physical goal for this year. Gain muscle. Lose fat. Guess what? What's happened so far? Nothing. Nothing's happened. If you worked out and done, your muscles haven't changed at all after 10 days. It takes a while. Your metabolism hasn't changed at all after 10 days either. You've got to trick your metabolism. Your metabolism, if you're trying to lose weight, is saying everything. No, we need this weight. It's not going to lose weight for a while until you realize there's a new norm. This is just physically the way things work and spiritually this is the way your growth and prayer life will work. Jesus says in Matthew 7, verse 7 to 8, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. And the one who seeks finds.

And the one who knocks, it will be opened. These are all synonyms for prayer. Asking. Seeking. Knocking. God, can I? God, can you? God, will you? Asking. Seeking. God, what are you doing here? Help me understand this. How do I understand what's happening here and there? Knocking. God, God, please, please, will you let me in? God, God, will you please open this door and let some stuff out? Knocking. These are all continually keep on going again and again and again. Now all of us know something about prayer because all of us use prayer language or prayer sort of phrases. Let me just call out the different types of prayer people we are because they say something about our incomplete understanding of prayer. These are prayer people types. First is the thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers, right? Thoughts and prayers go out whenever there's something horrible happening. Our thoughts and prayers have gone out. And you know, Kyle's thoughts would never change his teeth. Wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't change his teeth. Prayer can change things. I've never heard of prayer changing teeth. I guess it could happen, but I know a lot of things have changed through prayer. I like, I like thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers is good because everyone in our country should be able to be engaged with horrible things that happen. And for atheists and agnostics who don't believe in prayer, thoughts are a way for them to be engaged. I think it's awesome to say thoughts and prayers. Here's what I think is not so awesome. When many would say thoughts and prayers, those who believe in prayers, I don't really believe you pray that much. I don't believe you're actually praying all that much more than people who just have thoughts. Well there's, there's these like spiritual buzz phrases we use that I'm not going to tell you I'm going to

pray for you unless I'm actually going to pray for you. No brownie points for saying, oh I'll pray for you unless I pray for you. Now if I tell you I'll pray for you, I'm going to pray for you. I may pray for you for the, for a minute after you leave me because I may forget, but I promise I will pray for you. Because when we say prayer, very few of us actually pray. For many of us it's a spiritual exercise. Good people pray. It's what we do to kind of get ourself and spiritually fit and spiritually in shape. Even atheists are understanding this. Nir Eval says this, as a free thinker I've come to embrace prayer not as submission to religious dogma, but as a practical tool for psychological well-being. Simply put, I pray because it makes my life better. It's an atheist saying this. Pray for it makes my life better. Meditation. We meditate. You might meditate, which is wonderful. Meditation is wonderful. Just shut down all the distractions. Stop listening to things. Fixating about things. Hone your focus. Be quiet. Cause your blood pressure to go down. Your heart to go. That is wonderful. It's a good spiritual exercise. Prayer is a good spiritual exercise, but that's not what prayer is. Prayer is about seeking. It's about asking. It's about knocking. It's trying to get something done in the spiritual realm, in the physical realm. Not just, it's good for me. It may be, but that's not the ultimate heart of it. Or the prayer people is the, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Someone will come and ask me, say, hey can I pray for you? Maybe I can pray for you? And I might initially think, do a brief look at my life. Take about a half a second. I think to myself, no, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I've actually asked people if I could pray for them before, and I hear regularly, no, I'm good. I'm good. Meaning, I'm not starving. I'm not like one of the oppressed people in third world developing countries. There's no stage 16 cancer diagnosis

with me or anything like that. I'm good. And I realize now when someone asks me, and I almost want to say I'm good instinctually, I go, wait a minute, I am not good. I have needs. I have problems. I've got Achilles heel thing, Achilles tendon that I swear I feel is gonna snap at any moment. Take some prayer for that. I've got tennis elbow for two years. It's been bothering me. I can't, oh, it's hard for me to grip things. I've got, I've got, I could, I can always identify something. But when we think that we're good or the prayer is only for catastrophic stuff, not good. I could use better communication with my family. I could, whatever. The other, another one is the hidden knowledge. The hidden knowledge. This one's gonna step on some toes, so hang in there with me. Some of us are like, yeah, yeah, prayer, prayer, God. I'm a big prayer person. Great, wonderful. Hidden knowledge is this belief that I can't just pray and talk to God. There's, there's like hidden principles, hidden systems. I have to go to a seminar, read books on spiritual warfare, go to different programs that oftentimes are out of alignment with the Bible. Hidden knowledge is a form of Gnosticism. Gnosticism was a heresy in the very first century. In Gnosticism, early, some early followers of Christ believed there was a super-secret knowledge of following Jesus. Unless you didn't have the super-secret knowledge of things that are passed on, you couldn't be there. It was Gnosticism. And there is this, I've been bumping into people who give me prayer philosophies and prayer stuff. I'm going, where, where do you get this? This, it's like secret knowledge that makes you sound enlightened, but also makes you sound very unbiblical. Where, where, where is this, where is this coming from? Like, example. I heard somebody recently, they were getting prayed for and they didn't get healed. Which, by the way, that's why it's called a miracle when you get healed. It's not called an entitlement, it's called a miracle. But like, oh, you're not getting healed.

Maybe you have a cursed object in there, in your home. I need to come over your house and just see if there's any cursed objects, you know. Asking something about cursed objects in the home. Where, where, where do you see it in the Bible? In fact, maybe the most cursed object in the Bible. was meat sacrificed to idols in the first century, foreign pagan deities. And the Apostle Paul wrote about this on more than one occasion. These foreign pagan deities would have sacrifices. And then they go, what are we gonna do with this meat? I know, we'll chop it up and sell in the marketplace. It'll be sold at a discount. And so early followers of Christ were like, can I buy this meat that's, that's cheaper? When it's been sacrificed to a pagan foreign deity? It sounds to me like a cursed object. And Paul said very clearly, yes, eat it. Great, fine, no problem. False god, fine. So if I can eat meat that's sacrificed to a foreigner, now I've got to figure out if there's some object in my house that's cursed that's keeping me from... Weird, weird, weird, unbiblical. That's called hidden knowledge. Or the don't offend God is another prayer type. The don't offend God is afraid to ask, afraid to seek, afraid to knock too loudly. It's like, everything's got to be soft. I don't want to offend God. And the way that works is this. Lord, if it's your will, I pray that, boom.

God, if it's your will, I pray, boom. Why are you praying, if it's your... Just ask God. It's like we're afraid. Some of you know your Bibles would say, well, didn't Jesus say that though when he was in the garden of Gethsemane? He said, man, let this cup pass from me. I don't want to go through this crucifixion thing, but not my will, but your will. Doesn't he say that there? No, it's not the same thing. He's very clearly asking to not die on a cross. And he's saying, if you want this because you've told me, I'm going to do that. That's not the same as, if it's your will. He never goes to somebody who has blindness and prays and says, God, if it's your will, heal this person of blindness. Never does that. Always assumes God doesn't want somebody to be blind. Never goes, God, if it's your will, heal this person of herpes. Even, even, I don't know, they have herpes back then? I don't, I don't know. This crowd brings it out in me. I didn't say it in any other service. I don't know why it was. Maybe someone in here has that condition. Can I heal, pray for anybody?

No. The don't offend God. I can't ask real clearly. I can't really be direct. It's God, if it's your will, if it's your will. Then there's also the general, very close cousin of don't offend God, the generalist. We just pray for things by saying, God, I pray for Jan. I pray for our country. Pray for Jim. What, what, what does that mean? That's so, that's like saying, talk to Jan, talk about God. What, what, what is that? What are you asking? God, I am praying that Jan gets a date. She's a good woman. She's lonely. I pray that you would get her. God, I pray for our country, that we would come together and you would start a family. And you would start solving the crippling national crisis that's coming our way. And we're just talking about one, which is the national debt. It can't, God, I pray you help politicians stop spending money. God, I pray for Jim. Jim, I pray that acne is horrible. I know he feels bad about it. God, would you please clear his face, rid him of acne. And then maybe Jan will notice Jim and you can connect them together.

The general moves in generalities. I had a guy come over the house recently, had a plumbing problem I couldn't figure out. I finally gave up figuring it out. So hired a plumber, came over and I just felt when he was over the house that I should pray for this, this guy. And I was, man, I don't want to seem weird. Okay, I will. So he's leaving. I said, hey man, I don't know if he knows who I am or what I do for a living or not. But I said, hey man, you mind, mind if I pray for you? Is there anything I can pray for you for? And he stopped and he thought. And I thought he was going to say, no, I'm good, I'm good. Because that's the normal thing, I'm good, right? He didn't say that. He thought and he went, be creative. And he turned around, got in his truck and left. So I was like, be creative. I like that, be creative. Why did he say creative? Was he, is he an atheist? And he felt it was a waste of time to tell me, but he's trying to be honoring to me. So he said, be creative. I don't know. Was it like he was, was a little shameful, but he thought, well, if this guy actually hears from God, then he'll find out as he talks to God.

I don't know what, but I thought, oh, interesting. I like that. I like that. He, he knew that just the I'm good probably wasn't going to be good enough. And then the final type I'll mention real quickly is the functional atheist. The functional atheist is the person who actually could be a believer, could be a Christian, who checks the box when they go in the hospital of Christian, who believes in prayer, who says thoughts and prayers, who might even chuckle and joke at cracking on people who have only thoughts only. The functional atheist. This is the person who's perhaps been baptized, goes to church, but really doesn't believe that God's gonna intercede. Really, God's not going to do anything just because I ask Him. Really, God is not active in my world and in this life. It's a functional way. We have the right beliefs, but we're not planning and expecting things to actually change. I am praying, we are praying, we are working, we are doing everything towards seeing an awakening, a revival inside of our land. And by the way, that prayer is being answered with a yes. Church attendance, where I talked to, is up. It's up, it's got crossroads. Church attendance is up.

We're seeing people in Europe and England and countries where there just hasn't been any spiritual fervor at all. There is crazy, beautiful things that are happening, and it's because there have been people who've been in those in our environments who for a long time have been praying for this to happen and for a long time giving generously for it to happen. My Christian faith isn't, I'm just a good guy who's not trying to do horrible things. It is, God has invited me on an adventure, and it is a wild adventure where I actually believe that your life presence and my life presence, if engaged in the right directions, it actually changes things. That sometimes prayer is not only the only thing we can do, but it is the best thing we can do because things ultimately shift. Now, I'm gonna spend the rest of our time, boom, boom, boom, finally, like three points. Got three points for you, but I just needed to set the stage here that much of what we practice or believe about prayer is not prayer at all. And it's no wonder that we don't pray very often. It's no wonder that our prayer life is dull and lifeless because we've just got some beliefs and some practices that just don't encourage being there. And let me just say this. If you're a generalist, if you're a functional atheist, if you don't wanna thank God,

no matter where you are, I'm just saying, no matter where you are in any of those things, God loves to hear your voice. He does, seriously. He loves to hear your voice for any reason, even if you say, God, if it be your will, for any reason, even if you say, God, I pray for Jan, whatever it is, He loves to hear your voice. So do not enter this, the rest of our time together, with any sense of guilt or, oh, I'm just not good at this, or, oh, or resignation. Go, hey, man, you're where you are right now, and there's a new place you can get to. This is pretty exciting to me. 2 Kings, chapter 20. King David has passed, he's died, he's now has got his lineage, different sons, they're taking over the kingdom. Some are good, some are really bad. And one of the really good ones on his downline is King Hezekiah. Now this is a talk, if you've been going to church your entire life, it's very possible you've never heard this story, because this story scares the heebie-jeebies out of a lot of pastors, because we're afraid of saying something that would be heretical. And yet I'm gonna say it anyway. Here we go.

Verse one. In those days, Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death, and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, thus says the Lord, set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover. Have a good day. You know, there's a lot of things that we have in our culture, sayings that we forget or come from the Bible. This is one of them. You know, setting your affairs in order, getting your house in order. This comes from the Bible. It comes from the prophet Isaiah, who while he's praying with God, God gives him a message, hey man, tell the king he's really sick, just may as well tell him to stop worrying, because it's done, he's gonna die anyways. Just go and tell him that. He goes, tell him, hey man, get ready for however you hand off the kingdom and whatever has to happen with the treasury, just get your affairs in order. Now, here's where it goes. Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord saying, now, O Lord, please remember me,

how I've walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and I have done what's good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly. He wept bitterly because he's really hurting emotionally, and he's bitterly because he doesn't like this, and he doesn't agree with it. So his prayer is telling God, God, really, really? That's it, I'm done? Did you look at how I've lived my life? I've tried to be a faithful king, I've been a pretty faithful king. God, is this really the end? Is this all there is? He's praying to God, he doesn't just resign himself, like, oh, well, I don't wanna offend God if God said that. I can't affirm this, I'm not gonna push. He prays. Now Isaiah says to him, hey dude, sorry, get your house in order, and he walks out of the room. He's walking through a different kind of courtyards of the palace, and before he gets off the complex, here's what it says, and before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him. Turn back and say to Hezekiah, the leader of my people, thus says the Lord, the God of David, your father, I've heard your prayer, I've seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day, you should go up from the house

of the Lord, and I will add 15 years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake. Says man, so Hezekiah prays, Hezekiah prays, and here's the thing, this is why people don't wanna preach this, or if they do talk about the story, they don't say this. You know what happens here? God changes his mind. Hezekiah's prayer causes God to do something that he wasn't planning on doing. You wanna talk about like, you know, blow your mind, you know, wait, wait, wait, my prayers could actually change what God does. What, what, what? This is mind-blowing. If the Bible wanted to teach us this, it couldn't be any more clear than hearing this story and many, many others, and this is why this is so offensive to many of us. We believe in the sovereignty of God. I believe in the sovereignty of God. It means that God is never surprised, He's always in control. He's working a plan, but many of us take that to a degree where we think that there is a specific blueprint and God has decided everything, everything. He's decided what socks I should wear today, He's decided who I'm supposed to marry,

that's where we get this whole heresy called the soulmate. Like I'm not married, I haven't found my soulmate, I haven't found the one, sorry dude, there's no one. There's a bunch of ones that could be great and there's a bunch of ones that could be horrible. But we think that the sovereignty of God means like there is a thing, a thing, and that's just the way it is. Why would we ever pray? Why would we pray if it's all set in stone? And that's why many of us don't pray. We don't feel it makes any difference whatsoever. God changes His mind. Now let me be real, real clear. Some of you are getting really excited about this. Let me hold your horses. God doesn't change His values. God doesn't change His understanding of right and wrong. God doesn't change His commandments. God doesn't change ultimate things He's planning on doing in the world, like Judgment Day and so on. Doesn't change those things, but how He gets there, apparently, He's very, very flexible. When Jesus says, ask, seek, knock, it reminds me of a quote that I quote all the time because one of the most insightful prayer things I've ever heard that sums up the Bible on prayer in ways that I couldn't sum it up. It comes from Billy Graham.

Billy Graham said, heaven is full of answers to prayers to which nobody ever bothered to ask. Know that there are things that God is going to do only if He's asked. There's things that you could have only if you ask. There's things that people who are important to you will have only if someone asks. There are things in the world that will change only, only if someone asks. There's a massive revival happening in our country with young people. As our churches are growing, it's mainly young people and young men. This is what's happening over in England as well. It's crazy. It's always older people that are trending more to God. This is a weird one where it's younger people. Yeah, you know why it is? Younger men, you know why? Because I've been praying for it. That's why I'm praying for it. You're like, oh, please. Yeah, yeah, I have. I've been praying that for years, years. By the way, not just me, a lot of people, a lot of people have been praying that. That is crazy. That is astounding that the most passionate followers of Jesus in the new growth that's happening in churches

is young unchurched males. This is what's happening. We're seeing it. And it's because prayer changes things. Hezekiah changes things because of this prayer. Things are different. Different. And I wish I would have heard this sermon when I was younger. That God will change His mind on things. Again, not values, He'll change the mind on things. Like, my kids, I saw a lot of kids that were just annoying when I did student ministry. And a lot of those kids, they had a problem with authority and they had a problem because parents never helped their kids understand that they were the authority. And if your kids don't see that you're the authority, they're just not gonna fit in. They're just gonna be squeaky wheels all the time. They're gonna be whining, sniveling. It's really weird. So I thought, okay, I don't want, those kids I don't want. The ones over here I do want, and they seem like their parents are authorities and all that stuff. So I worked on that really hard with my kids at the right ages. I'm like, I have a great relationship with my kids.

Awesome relationship with my kids. All my kids are walking with Christ. They're phenomenal. And something I would have changed. I would, once I said something, I wouldn't change. I wouldn't change. Because I thought, I'm gonna open up the door for them whining and sniveling and begging every single time. And I'm gonna stand my ground. And my kids would tell you the thing I said, more than anything else in the family, probably wasn't Jesus, Lord. It was actually, Daddy always wins. Meaning, meaning, don't try to talk me out of this. I just said it. I said it, that settles it. I would tuck them in bed and I'd pray for them, read them a book. And I'd leave, I'd leave the room and I'd whisper in their ear, Daddy always wins. And I would leave. Just like, trying, ask them that. They'll tell you that, they'll tell you that. And now I look back, I wish I was more like Jesus. And I wish they had more stories of how I changed my mind. I wish, I wish there were times when I heard them, I just said, yeah, I was planning on doing that. But man, I love this kid and that seems reasonable enough. Okay.

I wish there was a few of those incidences. But there weren't. And why would I, why would I wish that? Not because I would have wanted to be nicer to my kids, but because I want to be like God, that's why. And that's what God does. How much more clear could God possibly be that He changed His mind based on prayers than He is right here? It's astounding. Second, state your reason. State your reason. Hezekiah is stating the reason why he wants this to be. This is also, this is also the way it is with Moses and God in the Old Testament, where God said, I'm gonna wipe out the nation of Israel, I'm sick of them. And Moses goes, hold on, don't, don't, don't. You don't want to do that. No, you don't want to do that. The reason? You don't want to be like all those other foreign deities that do these kinds of things. You don't want to be known as the capricious God. You're the God of the patriarchs of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That's how you want to be remembered. That's who you are, God. God goes, hmm, good point. Exodus 32, 13, the Lord relented from the disaster that He had spoken of during His people.

He relented, He changed His mind because He gives him a reason. Whenever you can pray and state the reason, I want Jan to be, whatever it is. I'm praying for some people right now who want another kid badly. And my reason is that I pray for them. God, You know this couple follows You and they want You. And You know that if there's a child in this family, they're gonna be raised the right way. And we need more people who are brought up in great homes to impact our world. God, would You please have that sperm connect to that uterine tissue? God, would You please? And then I picture it and I'm specific on how the whole thing happens, but there's a reason behind it. And if you can state a reason, that's basically being in the name of Jesus, according to the identity of Jesus, the closer it's pinned to something He would like, the higher likelihood, higher likelihood that it actually might happen. State your reason. Three, pin it to God's identity. This is who you are, God. It's not just what I want. I believe this is who you are.

I've been seeing more and more healings. It's been crazy. They're miraculous. They don't happen all the time, but I've seen more of them in the last, gosh, five years, especially the last two years. I never thought I would see my entire life. It's real, it still happens. God still equips people to see people healed through prayers. I have a friend of mine from England who's gonna be coming to Crossroads, all of our sites from Lexington all the way up to Columbus to actually help and give a workshop on how to experience healing prayer and pray for somebody else. He's been a close friend of mine for 15 years. I had him on my podcast. This is my friend, Paul McConaughey. For me, the healing ministry is one of those things. I knew there was a period in my life where the Lord's saying, I want you to persevere in praying for people for healing, even though I never saw anybody get healed. For months and months and months, I prayed for people, never seeing anyone get healed, but I felt convicted that the Lord was saying, I want you to persevere and not give up because that's what the Bible says

and that's what I'm telling you to do. And my experience is if you do that. and you persevere in that, there comes a point of breakthrough where what you want begins to shift. I've pretty much had a consistent baseline experience of praying, of seeing what God does when I pray for healing, of maybe, on average, 50-60% of the people that I pray for not necessarily seeing absolute 100% breakthrough, but definitely seeing some significant healing in about 50-60% of the people that I'm praying for. There's been a very bizarre thing that's gone on in the last maybe four or five months, which is that in those settings where I'm going out to churches and praying for people, it's gone up to more like 75%. Wow. And it's been, I don't know what God's doing, I don't know why that is, I don't feel like I've changed anything I'm doing. It's not like I'm going to different churches. A lot of these churches have never seen people get healed before. They're asking me to go for the first time. We had this basically seminar that I'm inviting you to at all of our sites, and we'll put it up there again. We did this with our staff several months ago, and we saw some significant breakthrough with a number of individuals. You don't have to have perfect belief in prayer. You just have to have a mustard seed of faith. That's how Jesus put it. Just a mustard seed. Just to get started. And God wants to hear from you. This isn't a new commandment that's a burdensome thing. Your Heavenly Father just wants to hear from you. He wants to talk to you. And He just might do some things He wouldn't do otherwise if He did. That's pretty exciting. God, thank You for being a God who's patient with imperfect people like me who struggle with prayer yet believe in it. God, I pray that this has been a course correction, that we just leave a little bit more motivated and encouraged to talk to You. God, would You say yes to the people in here? Would You just give some more yeses this week? Amen.