Praying God's Word [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. When a person authentically accepts Christ and the simple gift of salvation that he's offered, what Jesus is saying is that a spiritual miracle takes place. And so that which was dead becomes alive again, and your living spirit has communion with God's Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit communicates with your spirit.

And one of the first things that he does is he tells you you're a child of God. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear today's message in the series called Praying with Power, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching in the series, Praying with Power.

Here is Alan Wright. I started this thought with some interesting words from Phil Yancey's new book on prayer, in which he quotes some of the surveys that consistently show that Americans all report, I mean, almost all of them report that they believe in prayer, about 80 percent or something like that. And about 75 to 80 percent say they pray. If you ask them during a given week, have you prayed?

So that's a pretty astounding number. It means that there are reportedly more people that have prayed in a given week than have driven a car or gone to work. So prayer is really important. And yet, if you ask those same people, how do you feel about your prayer life, and you ask them, do you find your prayer life to be fulfilling? They usually say, no, not really. Ask them, well, how long do you pray?

Well, a few minutes. So how can it be that something that we find so, so important, yet we don't feel fulfilled in it? That's a good question, isn't it? And I began to suggest a couple weeks ago that part of the problem is maybe that our prayer life is too shallow, that we're not connecting up in our prayer life in the deepest way. Here's a scripture that Paul, as he is talking about the spiritual armor, he concludes by saying, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Okay, now just notice that the sword of the spirit, okay, there's the spirit, which is the word of God, spirit and word, spirit is in the word and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.

And he goes on to ask for prayer for all the saints and for himself. And I focus us in on that command from the scripture to pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. And I think Paul is specifically talking about the kind of prayer that gets hooked up with the Holy Spirit, with God himself.

And that's different than a lot of the way that we end up praying. And to understand this, I have pointed towards several places in the scripture, but here's one simple example of this where Paul says that it's his desire, may your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Implying here that we as born again Christians, we are spirit, soul and body that some have thought, well, maybe we're soul, you know, we just have the flesh and then we have that kind of spiritual part of that soulless part of us. But here and in a number of instances in the scripture, we see that there's actually a distinction between spirit and soul. And so that as human beings, we are tripartite.

We have these three parts. Now you can take this to an extreme and try to analyze, overanalyze, you know, what spirit, what soul, what's body. But on the whole, the idea is that we, when we are born again as a Christian, that what happens is a spiritual thing. In other words, when Nicodemus comes to Jesus and Jesus is talking to him and says, unless you're born from above, you can't inherit the kingdom of heaven. You can't, you won't see the kingdom.

You won't be a part of it unless that happens. And so Nicodemus says, how is this possible? A man can't, what, is he supposed to enter his mother's womb again and be born again?

No. And Jesus says, I'm talking about spiritual things. What he is saying is that spirit begets spirit. And what happened when sin entered the world is that we became so shut off from God that we were spiritually dead in our sins. That's why Paul says, I was dead, now I'm alive again. The spirit was shut off from God in such a way that we truly say we're dead. Because when Paul says I was dead, it doesn't mean that my body was dead because the body was alive. It doesn't mean that my mind was dead because you were thinking thoughts.

But what, so what's he talking about? He's talking about the spiritual life within me had died. And when a person accepts Christ, whether there's something really big emotional that happens or whether something happens physically in the body, whether any of that happens or not, when a person authentically accepts Christ and the simple gift of salvation that he's offered, what Jesus is saying is that a spiritual miracle takes place. And so that which was dead becomes alive again and your living spirit has communion with God's Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit communicates with your spirit. And one of the first things that he does is he tells you you're a child of God. And when we receive this spirit, Paul says, it is by the spirit communicating to our spirit that then we cry, Abba, Father. And so you did not receive a spirit that leads you into fear and slavery, but it is a spirit of sonship, Paul says. So this is what happens is that we become spiritually alive and the way in which we get revelation from God is by the fact that now we are spiritual beings and God is spirit. So God is spirit and whoever is going to communicate with God is going to do so in a spiritual way. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians, he says, your carnal mind does not discern the things of God. This is only for the spiritual person.

So this is what we're talking about here. Now, one of the ways that you could just begin to understand this in just simple terms is some interchangeable words. The flesh is often used for the body. The mind is a kind of a concept including the intellect, the will, the emotions.

And often in the scripture, you'll see the word of the heart and many, many times that's really referring to the spirit of a person. We use the example of imagine that there's a young man and he is riding down the road in his brand new convertible. The top's down.

It's a beautiful spring day. He has his girlfriend in the car. They're holding hands.

He's got a new job. Everything is just wonderful. And so he is feeling the pleasure of the warm air on his face and the pleasure of holding his beautiful girl's hand. And so he has physical pleasure and he's happy because his soul, his mind is happy with all the circumstances in his life. The only problem is that both those things, the hand holding and the warm breeze, the blowing in his face and all of that is very transient, isn't it? Because he could turn around the next bend and it could start raining.

And now he's got to stop and put the top up and then the thing might not go up properly. And now he's getting in a bad mood over that. And then he gets in a fight with his girlfriend and she breaks up with him and so he is no longer happy. So happiness and pleasure can be blessings but they are not reliable things. But there's something that the Bible calls joy. In fact, Paul says to rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. And there is a thing of the Spirit that's a fruit of the Spirit that is joy.

And that's something that is not based on our circumstances and it's not based on our mind being able to understand everything. It is something that is communicated as directly spiritually. That's why I've seen people who are dying who have joy. That's why I've seen people who are on their way into the operating room and they have joy. Their body may not be feeling good. They may not have what you call happiness because they may be in the middle of some grief about something and yet down deep there is a joy that is in the Holy Spirit.

That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Prayer. As a Christian you know it's important and you want to make it a priority. But if you're like most your prayer life can slip so easily into routine lacking fervor and passion. Maybe you're wondering what is the key to praying with real power.

In Ephesians chapter 6 the Apostle Paul has a clear answer. Pray in the Spirit. But what does it mean to pray in the Spirit?

Some would say that Paul is referring only to the spiritual gift of a supernatural prayer language. But in Alan Wright's unique series Praying with Power Pastor Alan reveals five different ways of praying in the Spirit. Discover how praying God's Word is praying in the Spirit. Learn how to listen to the Spirit as you pray. Come to see Jesus as your prayer partner. It's practical.

It's powerful. Get Pastor Alan Wright's Praying with Power and discover the power of praying in the Spirit. Change your prayer life and you'll change the world. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. And the Kingdom of God consists of righteousness, peace, and joy and the Holy Spirit. Well that's just one way to look. Here's another way to maybe consider it is that there's a thing called comfort for the body. My body likes to be comfortable. If it's cold my body wants to find a nice fire and curl up around.

I mean that's, you know, I like a hot tub. I like a good meal. And there's something also that the soul can experience that's satisfaction, you know. You know that thing that you feel when you work hard towards something to get some circumstances fixed in the right way and you get things going and then you accomplish it and you're satisfied. That's a good feeling isn't it? That's a good feeling. There's nothing wrong with comfort, nothing wrong with satisfaction.

But again they're temporary. But there is a thing that's called peace. And peace Jesus said I give you not as the world gives you. But it's a peace that passes understanding. It can bypass the mind even when you feel like my world is falling apart around me and I don't have all the things that I know that I need to have and yet I've got what I really do need and I feel at peace. And somehow you just have a sense everything's all right deep within you. See it's spiritual peace. It's a spiritual thing.

That's good. Now one more way of just trying to make sure we understand it, you get something when you're born, you get a brain. And I guess they're trying to figure all this out but I guess there's a certain amount of genetics at work in the cerebral capacity that we have but there's a physical thing there. But then as you grow and you learn you gain knowledge. And it's a wonderful thing to get more and more knowledge to learn to do things. But isn't there something else that's called wisdom? Isn't there something that's really of the spirit? Have you ever known there's a person who didn't have much education and much knowledge but boy they had the wisdom of God. And so there's something that gets imparted to us spiritually.

So here's just a kind of a summary way to say this. What happens I believe is that God in His love and in His miraculous intervention in the life of human beings that He loves so much, there's some kind of miracle that takes place and you can get under the theological nuances of this but something happens where light shines into the darkness of that which is dead. There's something that happens that God calls into the tomb.

Lazarus come out. There's something that happens that quickens miraculously the life within you. And what happens is you're now spiritually alive and your spirit, your heart apprehends what the mind cannot comprehend. And you got to apprehend the revelation of God.

It's not something you can just figure out with your mind. It's something that just you get a revelation that comes into your spirit. And until this happens there's so many things in our life that don't get healed, that don't get changed. It's just like the difference with me saying well you know God loves you and you say yeah I know my head God loves me. But if you get God to commune with your spirit and you hear God say that He loves you, your life is changed by that isn't it?

And you can apprehend the revelations that you couldn't comprehend with your mind. And what happens when you apprehend some good news? This happens to me in worship. It happens to me today. It happens to me all the time. When your spirit being begins to receive from God, well what happens is I start feeling elated. That's part of what happens you know.

And people express that differently and somebody might shout, somebody might smile, somebody might cry. But it begins to show up in your mind and in your emotions. And then it can show up physically and you get goose pimples. Now you know how as you go around you know something touches you know and you look at it and it's like look at that look at that goose pimples look at that. Well the goose pimples themselves don't do anything.

They are just showing that something has happened to the spirit that's happened to the mind. And how crazy, how silly would it be to go around and make it your spiritual pursuit to get goose pimples. Like this is my whole goal is to see how many times I get goose pimples. Because you know you can get goose pimples, I mean somebody could probably come up with a drug or something that makes you get goose pimples. But nothing has happened.

This is just a demonstration. What this is to say is that I believe God is calling us to grow up in Him on an ongoing basis so we become more spiritual people. In other words, I want my spirit, the part of me that is born anew, the part of me that Paul says the old is gone, the new has come. I'm a new creature in Christ. Now my body's not new, it's getting older. And my mind is being made new and therefore there's much that I know now and that I understand because my mind is being transformed and being renewed in the ongoing relationship with God. But so I'm not, I don't think the same way I thought 10 years ago.

And 10 years ago I thought differently than I did 10 years before that and I hope 10 years from now I'm going to think my life, I'm going to think differently. I want my mind to become more and more conformed to the likeness of Christ. I want my mind to become more and more conformed to the word of God. But what I believe is that my born again self, my spirit being, my spirit, that part of me that Jesus said the flesh is weak but the spirit is willing. There's something inside of me that's always willing, meaning desiring, wanting, always wanting to pray, always wanting to worship, always wanting God's way, always wanting God's purposes, always wanting to commune with God, always wanting to be a receptacle of his joy and peace, always wanting to flow in the anointing of God. Oh, there's something, that's the part of me that I want to grow into living out of more and more every day.

So in other words, what I want is I want my spirit being that apprehends truth from God to tell my mind what the truth is so that I live out of that truth. And I'd like my mind to inform my body as what to do. And see, most people just do this just about backwards. See, we get trained up in our crazy culture thinking that the body's what it's all about. And we sit there and we're inundated with all these messages about what we're supposed to look like. I mean, we pay the people that can take their body and shoot the ball and give them millions of dollars and we say this is what we value.

Now, I love sports and it's a lot of fun, but, and the scale of things is so unimportant. You see, we're mixed up. And so we grow up thinking that that's the way it's going to work. But you know what?

If you look to your flesh to live your life, you're going to, you know what? You're going to live not only at a low level of, of what God went, you're going to get low level blessings. That's what they are. Temporary pleasures are low level blessings.

They're low level because it's not the stuff of eternity. They don't last and you wind up frustrated. You wind up frustrated and you find out that they don't truly satisfy, you know? Now there's nothing wrong with such pleasures. I mean, it's wonderful to have a great meal, isn't it? I mean, to be hungry and then just have a great meal. I mean, a feast on something.

That's just great, you know? But then you're sitting there and you're like, man, I'm stuffed and I never want to eat again. You're stuffed but you're not satisfied. I mean, all these things are like that.

It's just, it's just low level. And what happens though, is it, is it, if we, if we obey our flesh, then we never, it sabotaged us from getting over to the high level blessings. You know, I mean, I don't know why I keep using this example because I'm making too much of it, but I'm just using the example of as a preacher, I mean, just be honest about it. Is there mornings where I'm really tired at Sunday morning and my body doesn't want to get out of bed and go to church, but I'm glad I don't obey my flesh because see, I'd be out of a job then, you know, if I did that very often. I say, listen, you know, we, we need a preacher that shows up. I mean, that's first thing you got to do is, is show up. And so, you know, we all at some extent go, you know, I can't be ruled by my body or I won't have a job.

My kids would be out playing in the street. I mean, you just, you know, you can't, you can't do that, but yet we can gain more and more mastery over that only to the extent that I allow myself to be a spiritual person who hears from God and have my mind being informed by the spirit of God. And so I'm trying to make it my resolve and not only I don't want my life to be lived according to the flesh and carnal things. I don't want that to be the thing that rules me, you know, but also that I don't want to be ruled by my soul. I don't, I don't want just cause I don't feel happy in a given situation. I don't want that to determine whether or not I'm going to worship and pray.

Do you see what I'm saying? What, what I'm saying to you is at some point in your life, you got to decide what you want to rule your life. What are you going to obey? And what I've realized is, you know, my mind I'm being transformed, but I'm not what I'm going to be. What I want is I want the mind of Christ to be speaking to me so that I understand who he knows that I am and live out of that.

In other words, I don't want the mindset of a fourth grade boy and a divorced alcoholic home who developed shame based thinking. I'm not going to rule my life out of that. I want to rule my life out of what the spirit of God is saying to my spirit about who I am I want to live my life out of what God says about who I am. See, why am I thinking we're too twisted up.

You can't be the slave to your old stinking thinking. Alan Wright and today's teaching on praying God's word. Prayer as a Christian, you know, it's important and you want to make it a priority, but if you're like most, your prayer life can slip so easily into routine, lacking fervor and passion. Maybe you're wondering what is the key to praying with real power.

In Ephesians chapter six, the apostle Paul has a clear answer. Pray in the spirit. But what does it mean to pray in the spirit? Some would say that Paul is referring only to the spiritual gift of a supernatural prayer language, but in Alan Wright's unique series, praying with power, pastor Alan reveals five different ways of praying in the spirit. Discover how praying God's word is praying in the spirit. Learn how to listen to the spirit as you pray. Come to see Jesus as your prayer partner. It's practical.

It's powerful. Get pastor Alan Wright's praying with power and discover the power of praying in the spirit. Change your prayer life and you'll change the world. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you pastor Alan's messages through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries.

Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastor alan.org. Alan in today's teaching, praying God's word, we're finding that there's, there's agreement here, right? You're not going to, when you're praying in the spirit, it's going to agree with what the word has to say.

Well, I always, at every one of our new members classes at church, I have them to do a little juvenile thing. And, uh, maybe if somebody's listening right now and you're not driving a car, uh, you could do this, hold your hand just an inch in front of your mouth and say the words, let there be light. Well, I always ask the question, what do you feel on your hand when you speak? Well, you feel your own breath.

Why? Because, uh, our words are filled with our breath and interestingly, the word for breath in both Hebrew and, uh, in Greek is the same word for spirit. And so it is that God's word says of God's word, that it is God breathed. The scripture to say it's inspired means it is breathed into by God.

In other words, the Bible is spirit infused, spirit inspired. So if you pray the word of God right back to God, you are praying in the spirit. You're praying with the spirit has already uttered. And so it's a most, one of the most powerful things you could ever discover in your prayer life is to pray. The scripture is very different than just praying out of our own little thoughts or our own soulish ideas. The word of God is timeless. And when we pray God's word back to him, there is spiritual power. That's one of the ways we pray in the spirit. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright ministries.