Hearing and Praying [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. It's already in his heart to be blessing the world, to drawing people unto himself, to healing the sick, to delivering the captive. It's already in the heart of God. It's in his heart that all people should know him and be saved. And so we just need to participate with him and let our heart be connected with him.

And if he tells me to pray for this man in the middle of the night, get up and pray for him. 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. And after three days they found him in the temple court sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.

And look at verse 48. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to them, son, why have you treated him? They were just marveling. Mary was there once again marveling.

What is this? Who is, you know, who is this son? To taking it all in. And it just continues that after all that they had experienced with this, you come down to verse 51 and it says, He went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.

But look at this again. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and with men. What I'm saying is that the person who has a sensitivity to what the Spirit is saying is someone who is going to not rush past in daily life the moments of listening for God. And so prayer is not us coming and just barraging heaven with our many words. In fact, our prayer life would become altogether more powerful if it were less about God hearing our words and more about us hearing God's words.

Wouldn't that transform it? Because if you've ever had that experience and you feel like, well, I'm just, I don't feel like these prayers are connecting. Maybe it's because we have not been profoundly inspired by what it is that God has on His heart that He wants us to be praying about. Now, this is imperative. Every Christian can hear from God. Every Christian can hear from God. This was told in so many prophetic instances. I love this from Isaiah 50. The sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue to know the word that sustains the weary.

This would be a good one to write on a postcard and claim every morning, wouldn't it? He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught. The sovereign Lord has opened my ears and I have not been rebellious.

I have not drawn back. It was always in God's heart to fully restore that part of us that had been shut off from God and to make us spiritually alive so that we could discern the things of God. Here's what Paul said to the Corinthians. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God, for who among men knows the thoughts of a man except a man's spirit within him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the Spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God that we may understand what God has freely given us.

The man, and there's a typo, without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they're foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they're spiritually discerned. In other words, when you become a Christian, your Spirit is born anew and you're alive unto God. And I want you to understand you can therefore have communion and communication with the Holy Spirit. The first thing that happens when you're a Christian is the Holy Spirit starts speaking to your heart and saying you're a child of God.

And then as you grow up in the Lord, what happens is that he's continually explaining to you who you are as a child of God, giving you direction, instruction, and informing you and directing you and empowering how it is to pray when you don't know how to pray. Every Christian can hear from God. This is the truth that Jesus said when he said the man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he is brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

But they'll never follow a stranger, in fact they'll run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice. Every Christian, every sheep in God's fold can hear and recognize the voice of the shepherd. In fact Jesus promised this of the Holy Spirit. He said when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He'll not speak on his own, he will speak only what he hears and he will tell you what is yet to come. He'll bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine, that's why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known unto you. Every Christian can hear from God and so let's cultivate our ability to hear what God is saying to our heart so that our prayer life is linked up to what God is saying. Let me just tell you, you know what you'll get from this?

Let me just give you some of the benefits that you'll receive from this. You know the first thing that you'll get if you'll hook up to listening to God? The first thing that you'll get, and it may be the most important thing, is you'll get faith. Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Faith doesn't come by you trying real hard to believe. A lot of people think that faith comes out of just like, I've got to get this mental certainty and I've got to just sit here and I've just got to get enough faith and I've just got to, you know, I mean it's like, I've tried that, it doesn't work. You can stand over that sick person, that loved one or whatever you want to pray for and you're just like, I don't really believe but I'm going to try real hard to believe and it's not faith and it doesn't work. Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. So here's what happens, here's where faith gets quickened inside of you.

It's where you get convinced that there's something in the heart of God that He wants to do because of who He is. And when you're convinced of that, it changes everything doesn't it? I was talking about my little Abby last week who, you know, wants a guinea pig and after I asked him for a guinea pig over and over and not getting a guinea pig and yet she saw I was willing to talk to her about a guinea pig over and over and so finally she said, Dad, do you want me to get a guinea pig? And I said, that's a great question to ask because if she knows that it's in my heart for a guinea pig, then it's going to instruct the way that she keeps asking.

If she becomes convinced that it's not in my heart for her to ever get a guinea pig, then she'll just quit asking. See, this is the way it works, isn't it? I'm just, the only way I can understand some of the dilemmas that are in our mind about prayer, you know, we got all our theology, you know, and I go to seminary and you get about the sovereignty of God and you get confused about this and how, why is it, why do we need to pray if God's already sovereign and why, you know, how does that all work and ain't he going to do what he wants to do anyway if, you know, and so forth and so on and blah, blah, blah. And your mind never figures it out. But first place you're not going to figure out about prayer by thinking about it in terms of process or steps or linear things like that because really the only way you can understand the dynamics of prayer is to understand relationship.

It's born out of a relationship and it's a father-child relationship. So I just was thinking a little bit about interacting with my children. I'll just share another little silly illustration but it's helping me, it's actually bringing me breakthroughs in my own prayer life because of, I've gained some understanding now as to things. And one of the things that I've always wondered about is, okay, well I know God wants us to pray, but if it's already in God's heart, why do we keep on asking? And you want to say, well, you don't have to ask, you just ask that one time. But there's that parable that Jesus tells in which He talks about the persistent neighbor who's saying I really need some provisions to show hospitality to an unexpected guest and the Bible says and Jesus said because of his bold persistence, He'll give him what he wants and so the invitation is to keep on praying.

Well, I'm confused by that because I'm like, well, if it's already in His heart to do, why don't we just sit around and wait on Him to do it? And, you know, you see what I'm saying, all these kind of things, they can bog you down. Well, I got to thinking about this silly thing that goes on in our house and it's almost one of those things that's too silly to actually admit, but anything for the sake of a good sermon illustration to get the point across. It's one of those things which, you know, I'm like, if I tell that, then they realize He is not a sophisticated man of God, it's just a normal person, but that's who I am. And in reality, this goes on at our house every night. If I'm there at home, we've made it our custom that there's something that we do fun, you know, going to bed and we like to read, the kids like for me to read something to them. So we've read through all the whole series of Chronicles of Narnia. We, one of them we've done twice. Sometimes, you know, I want to say it was the Bible we're reading every night, but sometimes it's not.

Sometimes it's been Hank the cow dog and I don't know if there's any Hank the cow dog people in here. Okay, had one kid at the first service who had Hank the cow dog and we were swapping stories afterwards, but anyway, normally it's really spiritual, you know, but we're reading and so you're reading along and I always made it in my custom to have a little fun, you know. In reality, they want to get about, you know, 15 or 20 pages read and I want them to think that I'm alive and alert and full of energy and want to read a lot, but in reality, most nights, you know, I'm just kind of thinking, you know, can we get by with two pages tonight? How about two pages? So we'll wind up with maybe four pages and they're wanting more and what I do is I always would like to play a little game where I'd end at a really suspenseful moment, you know, it'd be like and Lucy drew back her bow and suddenly she heard a rustle in the darkness and outleaped what she never thought would be there and I said, that's a good place to stop.

We'll pick up there tomorrow night. Well, that drives them crazy right there, you know, but I want them to be, you know, looking forward to the next night and sometime, I don't remember if this was, Abby was even born when this started. I can't, it's been going on so long.

I don't even remember when it started, but at some point maybe it was the two of them. They started begging and they said, please, please dad, please read, don't stop there, please, just one more page, please? And so at some point I made the mistake of a trickle of mercy showing up in my heart. And I let, I read, I said to them, all right, if I read one more page, you promise you'll jump right into bed, fall right asleep, no more questions asked?

They said, yes, yes, yes. I said, okay, and I read one more page and they seemed satisfied enough and they jumped in the bed. Well, the next night I came to the same thing and I'm reading along and, you know, and then out of nowhere appeared, that's a good place to stop, and they're, please, please, please, and tonight there's a little more force in that, you know?

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 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, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. Because they're like, you know, you can, you might, this might happen. And so now it was please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please. And I just kind of looked at him, just kind of gave him this look like that's not enough pleases. And so they got the message, it was like please, please, please, please, please, please, please. And so finally when it was please, please, please, please, please, please, enough times I said, okay, fall right asleep if I read one more page, you know, and they said, okay. Well, this thing has evolved into where the please, pleases were a regular part of what we're doing. And finally, I was having some fun with it and so I would not only require the many pleases, but I also began to say only if you'll sing please, please, please to the tune of jingle bells. And so they're please, please, please, please, please, please, to please, you know. And so you can just imagine now the scene is that when I come to that suspenseful moment and close it, they just look at me and say what tune.

It gets kind of tricky when it's the Star-Spangled Banner or something like that, you know. Now I share that just ridiculous scenario in our home, our nightly situation there, to say can you not conceive how it is possible that there is something that is in the heart of your father, but somehow your expression of persistence is a demonstration that you do believe that it is in the heart of your father. And the only reason that a person keeps saying please, please, please is because they actually do believe that it is going to come to pass.

It just hasn't yet been released. And what happens when you really hear from God is that therefore there is a faith that's quickened on the inside of you. Because now you're not praying out of simply your own mind, you're praying out of the heart of God himself. And if you start praying out of the heart of God, you are going to have a focus.

You're going to have a passion and a persistence that would not be there except for the fact that faith had been born inside of you. And when you get a revelation of your spiritual inheritance and you start getting a deeper understanding in your heart of what it means to really be a child of God in a co-heir with Christ, you start persisting in some things. Because you're like God it's in your heart, you see. That's why you don't stop praying for a wayward child because it's in God's heart to bring them back. You don't stop praying about a sickness, it's in God's heart to heal. You don't stop praying about the depression because it's in his heart to deliver us and set the captives free. It's in his heart, I'm reaching my heart into the heart of God. And I'm participating in his work on the earth. See the other thing that will happen when you get connected up to the heart of God, and any real intercessors in this room, I mean people have the gift and the calling of intercession. I mean everybody is called to intercede, but there's some people, their calling, their job in the body of Christ is intercessory prayer.

Now you talk to these people, but everybody is open to all people. You get connected to the heart of God, you'll get glimpses of the heart of God that will take over your heart. And in this what you'll experience is the compassion of Jesus.

Compassion means to feel with. Years ago, it was the first year of ministry in my first church, and there was a man named Lester, who was the sweetest, dearest man. His wife was the sweetest lady, and Lester had been sick for a long time, and he had the last stages of cancer and it was in his bones. And sometimes in those last days of his life, he was hurting so bad that he couldn't talk to you. If he could have spoken to you, he'd have blessed you. But he couldn't really talk, all he could do was moan. And when he would moan, there was this characteristic way in which he would moan, it would just, it was filled with anguish, and he would say, oh me.

Oh me. On one occasion, his grown son had come to visit, and I happened to be in the room at the moment, and his son leaned down as if to pray for his father, and I stepped back to just let this holy scene unfold. And Lester cried out with one of his characteristic moans, oh me. And the grown son did something that bewildered me. He leaned down and echoed back, oh me. And at first I was taken aback because I thought, surely a grown son does not mock his dying father's pain.

It couldn't be that. A few moments later we stepped out into the hallway, and it became clear. Kenny told me that Lester has a grandson named Wesley who was two years old, a little cute blond haired boy. And when Lester was at home, and he had to get up from his chair and maybe just make it back to the bedroom, each step was grueling, and he would use his walker, and the aged, ailing Lester would take a step and he'd say, oh me.

And he'd take another slow step, oh me. Wesley, the two year old, had compassion. And he would come and bring his little hand and put it around the base of that aluminum walker, and each step of the way would help, lifting as he went.

And when Lester, his granddaddy would say, oh me, little Wesley would say, oh me. And so that grown son was leaning over his dad that day to remind him that from even a two year old, we have some sense of feeling with you. When you begin to feel with somebody for their pain, you are getting connected up to the heart of God, because when Jesus looked upon the crowds, he had compassion. He felt with them. And he saw that they were like sheep who were harassed and helpless and needed a shepherd. So sometimes even when Jesus was planning on just going and getting some time by himself, he would stay longer and minister to the crowd out of compassion. Sometimes he would weep outside the tomb of a man that he knew he was going to raise from the dead, because his heart was so taken with the compassion that he felt for people.

Now I'd say if you want to hook your life up to a powerful intercessory ministry, you yield your heart and your spirit to God's spirit and allow him to allow his heart to be your heart. He won't give you his whole heart. You couldn't possibly bear it. You couldn't possibly.

Your body couldn't contain it. But he'll give those that yield, he'll give them little glimpses and he'll give you a little sense. And what'll happen is that sometimes you'll just, it'll move you. It'll be the revelation of God. It'll be the way he gives you a word. It'll be the way that he directs you.

You just listen for it. Why has God just do that one need to one person at this time? I don't know he's God, but he uses your prayer life.

Listen, this is easy to understand. If he needs to use a human voice to go over and witness to somebody so that somebody will hear the gospel and come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, if he needs a human hand to give a meal to somebody at the Luke 14 banquet last night in order to accomplish his purposes of showing his love to the people of the world, if he needs somebody that loves somebody else to put an arm around them and let them cry on their shoulders so that somebody can have the mercy of God, why can't we understand that God has so set it up that we are co-laborers with Christ and part of our labor, part of our calling is just to be a people of prayer for he moves through our prayers. It's already in his heart to be blessing the world, to drawing people unto himself, to healing the sick, to delivering the captive.

It's already in the heart of God. It's in his heart that all people should know him and be saved and so we just need to participate with him and let our heart be connected with him and if he tells me to pray for this man in the middle of the night, get up and pray for him. Prayer it and just sitting around and just saying a few little rote things. It's getting connected up with the creator of a hundred billion galaxies that knows every hair on every head and he'll take to the Mary's, the yielded spirit, he'll take a spirit and speak and out of that you'll fuel a spiritual prayer life and it's exciting and God moves through it. 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. So often, in fact all of my Christian life, Alan, I've heard that prayer is a conversation. In conversation, as you know, there's a time where we speak and a time when we sit back and listen. That's very true with prayer, too. There's a part of us that really have ears tuned spiritually to what God is saying. Exactly, and as you hear from God, it shapes what you have to say to God. So you're exactly right. Any conversation is a two-way communication and it means that our prayer life is not just a list of things that we come and bring before God, but instead the Holy Spirit speaking to us and therefore through us. And that's when prayer really becomes powerful. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.