Praying About Personal Needs and Desires, Part 2 (cont'd)

And I've heard a whole lot of folks say, what the Bible says, ask what I desire and God will do it for me. Well, kinda, but you gotta read the context.

What's the context? If you abide in me and my words abide in you. You see the difference? Because if you're not abiding in him, if his word is not abiding in you, you don't get to ask what you desire and expect God to do it. Part of the growth process for a believer in Christ is learning how to conform to God's will, to exchange your own desires for his desires. Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd.

We're always glad to have you join us. So let me ask you, have you gotten to a point in your walk with Christ that you've laid down your own will in favor of his? Today, Pastor Paul encourages you to seek God's desire and shows you how to discover what God's desire is. Stay with us here or visit pastorpaul.net anytime to listen to Destined for Victory on Demand.

You can also download the podcast at Google Podcasts or wherever you get yours. Right now, let's join Pastor Paul for today's Destined for Victory message, praying about personal needs and desires. John 15, verse seven. Jesus said, ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. But it has a context. And I've heard a whole lot of folks that what the Bible said, ask what I desire and God will do it for me. Well, kinda, but you gotta read the context.

What's the context? If you abide in me and my words abide in you. You see the difference? Because if you're not abiding in him, if his word is not abiding in you, you don't get to ask what you desire and expect God to do it cause you didn't meet the condition.

Everybody see that? You can't just grab the ask what you desire. I'm asking for what I desire. No, first, are you abiding in him? Abide means dwell.

I'm not just asking for stuff. I live my life in him. I live my life with kingdom values. I live my life to glorify him. I live my life to advance his kingdom. I want only what God wants. And in that context, I'm abiding in him and his word.

If you're not worded, you don't know how to ask. That's why you gotta come to church. That's why you gotta have personal prayer life and devotional life. That's why you need to immerse yourself in the word of God. Cause if you don't know the word, you are biblically illiterate. And therefore you don't know how to ask properly. All right, everybody get me on that. That's one example.

Let me give you example two. Philippians chapter four says, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Ooh, God said I can have peace that passes understanding.

I'm claiming that. Well, before you go to claim in it, read the verses that preceded. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. If you're not a rejoicer, you don't get to walk in peace. If you walk in complaints, you can't walk in peace.

If you walk in murmuring, you can't walk in peace. Only those who walk in rejoicing get to walk in. I will rejoice always.

Not sometimes. Paul said rejoice in the Lord always. He said, I'll say it again. Rejoice. Verse five, let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. So you gotta walk not only in rejoicing, but you've got a person who is through the fruit of the spirit being cultivated in your life. You are a person who walks in gentleness, one of the fruit of the spirit. You gotta learn to be meek, not weak, but meek. You gotta handle things with gentleness.

You gotta learn that it's not worth getting all worked up over. Walk in gentleness, especially as you handle other people. Some of you don't get to walk in peace because you're always abrasive with other people. Some of you need to teach yourself how to talk, how to behave in a way that isn't unnecessarily abrupt and abrasive. You can be persuasive without being abrasive. You can learn to get your point over without saying, look, let me tell you something.

Back up. If you want a hearing, don't come at me like you are an enemy. Some of you all are so wound up, you're just always coming for folk. Okay, not you, but somebody on your roll. Look down, see if you can figure out who it is.

Always coming for somebody, every chance they get. Don't do that. Be gentle. Make sure you recognize the Lord's at hand. All is well.

Everything's going to work out. And then look at what else precedes the promise. Verse six, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Oh, that's a big one. If you want to walk in peace, you got to rejoice. You got to be gentle. And now you got to learn to quit worrying about stuff. Be anxious for nothing. The Bible is saying you have no business as a child of God living a life characterized by worry. Worry is a futile emotion and has no place in the life of a child of God. You know why?

Because worry doesn't do a thing. Yeah, you see how I caught myself? Yes, sir. Oh, by the way, I was going to say darn. The other D word was not going to come. I wasn't about to shock you all like that.

I have taught myself there are words you can use that aren't the words that would cause an issue. You got to just understand it doesn't do a thing to help. When's the last time you're worrying about something did something positive. Worry is not needed in the life of a child of God. Don't worry about anything.

That sounds impractical. No, keep reading, pray about everything. I replace worry with prayer. That's why I pray all the time. So I don't worry all the time. Not only do you read two chapters or whatever you read a day, and you get the word in you and then you pray, you talk to God, you pray your day, all of that. Then even when you're in the shower, you start praying about stuff you would worry about.

When you're driving, you pray about stuff you would worry about. When you're walking into your office and you see somebody who would be worrisome. Oh, Jesus, Lord, help me right now. I'm walking toward him. Get in my face, Lord. Get in my countenance.

Help me to represent you. Give me the grace because if they bring up some foolishness, Lord, help me. That's how you keep from worrying. You're talking to God throughout the day about everything. You pull up to the house, your spouse look wrong.

You haven't just seen somebody and automatically they look wrong. You pull up, Oh Lord, what is it? All right, Jesus, come on. Be with me. I'm walking in this house instead of worrying. I'm giving it to God.

I'm praying about everything. Help me not to act out. Help me not to come for folk unnecessarily. Help me not to catch a case, whatever it is.

We gotta be honest with ourselves. There are a whole lot of people who caught a case. They didn't know they were going to catch cause they didn't know how to pray. And next thing you know, hands behind, getting in the back of the, and the saints ride by.

Sister Jane. Hey Mike, you coming to prayer tonight? We can do it if we're not careful. Everybody who has made bad mistakes knows what it is in retrospect. They thought, if only I had done this instead of that, we all have the chance to do this, but you got to pray. So the Holy Spirit can give you the, this to do so you don't get to just claim the peace without doing the work that the previous verses tell you.

Let me give you one more illustration of this point about the importance of the context. Let me go to the Old Testament. Psalm 91. This is a Psalm of Moses. David didn't write all the Psalms. There are other Psalmists.

And this is a Psalm actually of Moses. Here are some wonderful promises. I've heard folk quote beginning, well, like verse three, surely he will deliver you from the snare of the valor and from the perilous pestilence. And he'll cover you with his feathers. And under his wings, you'll take refuge.

He'll be your shield and buckler. You won't be afraid of the terror by night or the arrows that fly by day, nor pestilence that walks in darkness, nor destruction that lays waste at noon day. And they especially love this one. A thousand may fall at your side and 10,000 at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. And I've heard a lot of folks try to claim that. I'm claiming that the thousand going to fall at my side and 10,000 at my right hand, but it's not going to but it's not going to come near me.

I got a question. Did you happen to read verse one? Cause verse one says he who dwells in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the almighty. If you're not in the secret place, a thousand not falling at your side, 10,000 at your right hand, you going down.

Why I'm going down? Cause I'm not in the secret place where all of that can be fulfilled in my life because of him in the secret place with the Lord, he's got me covered. So you got to learn, don't grab a promise and leave off the condition. The condition is what drives the promise. So you can't ignore the context and grab the promise. And grab what the scriptures are teaching us. So don't try to claim all the promises when you haven't met the conditions.

We have to be mindful of the context. Coming up next, the rest of today's message, praying about personal needs and desires with pastor Paul Shepherd, senior pastor Destiny Christian fellowship in Fremont, California. If you've never stopped by our website, pastor paul.net, I invite you to do it today. You'll find all of pastor Paul's recent messages on demand. Plus a host of great resources that are online store, including books and DVDs, and MP3 messages from pastor Paul. Pastor paul.net is a great place to learn more about the ministry and all the great things friends like you are doing through your prayers and financial support. You can also find links to all of pastor Paul's social media there, including YouTube, where you can subscribe to see some of his best video clips. Did you know that you can forgive people even if they don't ask for it?

It's true. Here's pastor Paul with the rest of today's message, praying about personal needs and desires. Jesus is helping us learn how to praise. He's helping us learn how to petition on behalf of others. And these principles that I've given you will help guide you in the giving of your personal request. Make sure you're mindful of those four things we've mentioned.

They will teach you how to pray and pray correctly, how to give you a personal request and do so in a correct manner. Now, the next one, not everybody wants to accept and forgive us our debts. Keep reading. As we forgive our debtors. So you got praise, you got petitions on behalf of others.

You have personal requests. Now you have pardon for your offenders. In your prayer life, you've got to add pardon for your offenders. So you keep your accounts short with people. You keep making sure you don't have unresolved issues with people.

Why? Because if you're going to represent Jesus, and if you're going to experience a powerful prayer life, you can't let it get bogged down with personal stuff that's unresolved. So Jesus says, as you're receiving the forgiveness we get from the Lord, you've got to give horizontal forgiveness. Some folk, not you, but somebody on your role wants vertical forgiveness every time they seek it.

But horizontally, some folk aren't quite ready to offer that. Now, let me help clarify that as I do every time I preach on forgiveness because it frees some folks. Because some folks say, no, no, that's different. They never asked for my forgiveness. See, I can receive forgiveness from on high because I asked the Lord to forgive me. But those shaky people did not ask me to forgive them. How can I fulfill this commandment to forgive when they haven't even applied for forgiveness? Glad you asked.

Here's the answer. Although they can't receive forgiveness from you because they haven't come to receive the gift, you can still have a forgiving heart toward them. So that should they ever change their heart in their mind, you are ready to give them because you have already forgiven them in your heart and you kind of have it on the shelf ready for them to pick up. All they got to do is come pick it up.

Got it for you right here. You have to have a forgiving heart. Pastor, where'd you get that from?

That don't sound right to me. Well, look at what Jesus did on the cross. Father, forgive them.

For they don't know what they're doing. They haven't asked him for his forgiveness, but he's getting it right between him and the father. Forgive them, Lord, because they don't know what they're doing. Look at Stephen, the first Christian martyr mentioned in Scripture.

In Acts chapter seven, look at Stephen dying. And as he's being stoned, he says to God, lay not this sin to their charge. They're killing him. They're not asking for forgiveness.

They want him dead. But Stephen says, I'm not going to heaven hating these people. It's a conversation between you and God. When people haven't come to you to ask for forgiveness, that's conversation between you and God.

Now, here's the practical thing I often say, because it's really important. How do I receive forgiveness from God? I come to him and ask for it. If I don't ask for it, he's ready to forgive me, but I haven't asked for it. So how do people get forgiveness from me?

They come and ask for it. Well, what if they don't acknowledge it? There are some people who will never acknowledge it because they'd have to admit they were wrong in order to ask you to forgive them. Have you met them yet?

There are some people who would never come to you. Have you ever met the folk who were in denial when you tell them what they did? They say, no, I didn't. Nothing's more insulting than somebody trespassing against you and when you try to show them their trespasses.

No, I didn't. Just in flat out denial. And not only are some people in denial, other people know they did it, glad they did it. And the only thing they're bothered about is that they didn't get your worse. So how are you going to deal with those people? You can only deal with those people by taking it to God. Well, what do I get, pastor, out of taking it to God?

How do I handle it when they won't come clean about it? The word forgive, the Greek word translated forgive here is a Greek word that means to send away. So what I'm doing is I'm taking the offense. I'm taking their sin against me. I'm taking how wrong they treated me, how wrong they spoke, what they tried to do to undermine me, whatever they did.

I'm taking it and saying, I'm not built to handle this. So Lord, I'm forgiving. I'm sending this offense to you.

I'm forwarding this to the Lord. Cause he said, vengeance is his. And that frees you. Because if you don't do that, you end up being a jailer. You end up keeping people in the jail cell of your heart. Cause you got to feed them every day.

You got to do something. You got to, you got to maintain the jail. And you say, but I wouldn't give them anything to eat. Well, when they're in your heart, they won't die. So you got them in the, in jail.

And even if you won't send any food, bread, water, anything, they still alive in there. You know, they still alive. Cause every time you see them, every time you think of it, every time you hear their name, or some of y'all just that registered, didn't it? How many tried to act like, ah, I forgot about them a long time ago.

No, you didn't. Soon as you hear that name, soon as you see that face, soon as you hear something that happened in that family, soon as you drive by the place where the offense took place, there's all kind of triggers. And suddenly you change people, which you say, Ooh, what just happened to you?

Your face changed. So you don't get to ignore them. And when you got to release them for your sake, that's how I get to live in freedom. That's how I get to sometime have to run into people who, if God would have let me handle it, it would be a very different thing.

But since he won't give me the right to handle it, I've sent it to him. Vengeance is mine. I will repay says the Lord. The Bible says, don't be envious of the wicked.

They will soon be cut off. You don't know when you don't know when soon is soon might not be where you get to see it at all. In fact, there's some people who don't get theirs in your lifetime. That's why you have to have given it to him.

That's how you get to live with short accounts. Because Jesus said, if you don't forgive people, their trespasses, neither will your heavenly father forgive you yours. Now, you got me real good. But you didn't get me so well that I got to forfeit my forgiveness in order to hold you in unforgiveness. You are not that important. Yeah, you got me real good. Yeah, you did me wrong.

Yeah, you made things challenging. But I am releasing you not because you deserve it. But because I deserve to accept the gift of forgiveness God gave to me. Everybody understand that? So you're not important enough for me to lose my victory over? No, I'm not gonna give you that much power.

I got to get it right in my heart first. Or else I will have a jail because I got to keep you in the bondage of my heart. And some of y'all just might as well be honest. Some of y'all don't have a jail cell with people in it. Some of y'all got a whole cell block.

Just come on, just be real. Some of y'all got cell block C. Whole bunch of folk. Some of y'all got solitary in there. So you got work to do. Why? Because you're going to miss the joy of the Lord fooling around with all those people. Give them the God.

I know they got you, but they didn't get you so well that you got to compromise your own walk. No, I'm giving you to God. Once you're free, there are blessings that you will experience. There's grace you'll get there's peace you'll get because you are letting the Word of God address those issues. So pardon for your offenders. You don't have to tell them they're forgiven because they haven't even asked for it. But you do have to tell God, Lord, I forgive them for your sake. I give them to you.

If they ever come, I want to get right. Give me the grace to offer the gift to them. Thanks so much for joining us for today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd. You know, God has a unique purpose for all who have put their faith in Christ, but he also has a plan for those who haven't. Consider 2 Peter 3, verse 9.

God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. This is our primary calling as Christians, to go out into the world and share our faith with others. And there's no better time than now to help Pastor Paul do just that. As we continue to walk together through a challenging season in our history, now is a great time to partner with Destined for Victory in an effort to lead as many people to Christ as we can. As our way of saying thanks for your partnership, we'll send you a few thank you gifts, including one of Pastor Paul's most popular CDs, The Best of Let My People Smile. Call 855-339-5500 to find out more about how to become a Destined for Victory partner for as little as $20 a month. Or mail your gift, letting us know you wish to become our partner.

Our address is Destined for Victory, post office box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. You can also become our partner from our website, PastorPaul.net. And if you can't become a Destined for Victory partner, but would like to make a donation today, we'd love to send you Pastor Paul Shepherd's booklet, It Pays to Serve Jesus. It's a great resource that goes hand in hand with the message you heard today, and one that will remind you that following Christ is always more than worth the sacrifice.

That's Pastor Paul's booklet, It Pays to Serve Jesus, our gift to you today by request for your generous donation to Destined for Victory. He asked us to engage with him, and prayer is the means by which we engage with God. I want you to understand that's what prayer is about. It's not about religion, it's about relationship.

You have never in your life developed a relationship with somebody and hardly talked to them. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, Remaining Watchful in Spiritual Warfare. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are Destined for Victory.