Finding purpose in prayer. with Dr. Michael Yousaf. Beloved friends, let me tell you, we miss God's best when we miss God's purpose in prayer. The purpose of all purposes in prayer is for God to be glorified.
That is the very purpose and the essence of prayer. That is the purpose of all purposes, that the Father be glorified. Welcome to Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Pastor?
Author and international Bible teacher. How often have you or your family members screamed toward heaven? wondering if God hears your prayers.
Well, he not only hears, he answers. and I hope you'll make it a point to stay connected to leading the way in the coming days, as doctor Youssef teaches a profound series called The Prayer That God Answers. By looking a little closer at passionate words found in the Bible, I think you'll lean into the comfort and power of prayer for the days in which we live and for the circumstances in your home and life. Join listeners worldwide as Dr. Michael Youssef begins today's message.
There is no time. When the enemy is more active in your life. Then in your prayer time. Satan is always on the move. He's always plotting.
Scheming. Planning. Looking for opportunities in which he can weaken you in order to attack you. for opportunities in which he can deceive you so he can defeat you. But When it comes to the time of prayer, say Satan moves like lightning.
Whenever he sees you on your knees, whenever he sees you in the moment of prayer. Many people erroneously think that prayer time is a time when Satan leaves you alone. The opposite is true. Whenever you are getting ready to pray, You're going to discover that the phone will ring, the doorbell will ring, something that you have forgotten a long time ago, all of a sudden you remember you have to do?
Somebody's going to interrupt you? Yeah. You may even fall asleep. at 10 o'clock in the morning. And there is nothing that would please Satan more.
Then to come between you And the Lord in this sacred hour of intimacy and prayer. Why? Because Satan knows that prayer is the secret of your power. Satan knows that prayer is the secret of your strength and your victory over him. And if he can cut your power at the source, he's going to do it.
and he would have succeeded in weakening you spiritually.
Now, the problem with most evangelical Christians today Is that they pray like sailors use their pumps. only when the ship is leaking. And yet, the Gospel tells us that Jesus habitually rose early in the morning before dawn time, before daylight break, and he went up to commune with the Father. And if the Son of the living God sold that to be of that importance, how much more we are? He realized prayer and commune with his Father is like the air that he breathes.
In fact, he told the disciples in John 4, he said, I have food of which you know not. He was talking about that time, that spiritual feeding that he receives in communion with the Father. To pray is to experience the height. The height. of what the kids would say hanging out with God.
To pray is to continuously open the floodgates of heaven of blessings. To pray is to have power in your life and to have power in high places in heaven. To pray is to be spiritually breathing, and if you're spiritually breathing, you're spiritually alive. But the problem is this.
So many of us are taught bad habits about prayer, wrong ideas about prayer. And we fall back into these bad habits and wrong ideas. The purpose of prayer is not to inform God. The purpose of prayer is not to persuade God. The purpose of prayer is not to manipulate God.
The purpose of prayer is not to cajole God. That is not the purpose of prayer in a Christian faith. But prayer is surrender before God. Prayer is obedience to the living God. Prayer is sincerity before the Living God who sees our hearts.
Someone will say, you know, if God knows everything, why then should we pray? Good question. God wants to hear us pray. And God wants to commune with us. more than we want to commune with Him.
Why? Because He loves us far more than we ever be able to love Him. Because he loves us so dearly. He wants to hear us. In prayer.
So, to pray rightly is to pray with pure motive. To pray rightly is to pray for God to manifest His glory, to manifest His power. To pray rightly is to give God an opportunity to be manifested in your life and in my life. That's what prayer is all about. In fact, Jesus told the Pharisees that thoughtless, rabbititious prayer will get nowhere.
Now, there are some people who go out and light a candle, believing that as long as that candle is lit. As long as this candle is burning, that their petitions are coming in the presence of God. How mechanical, how thoughtless. When you understand that prayer is primarily a joyous, intimate fellowship with God Himself, you can understand how offensive candlelighting and repetitious reciting of memorized prayer is to God. Can you imagine two people in love with each other?
And they would only talk to each other if they need something. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine a relationship? that can grow and develop. Only when a person gets on the phone and make a request and then hang up.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine a husband and wife? And only talk to each other five minutes a day, but that's exactly how much most evangelical Christians spend in prayer in a given day. Five minutes. I am not standing here Criticizing anybody.
And what I'm telling you is coming out of my own struggles, out of my own knowledge, out of my own experience, and I'm not telling you anything that I'm not working on myself. When the heart is right, when the channel of communication between you and the Lord is clear. You will not only know how to pray, but what to pray. It's not just the how, but what. And I looked at these examples of how God answered the prayers of these men and women in the scripture.
And I saw how, when Abraham's servant Eleazar prayed, Rebekah came up. And I saw how when Jacob wrestled in prayer, Esau flipped his mind from 20 years of planning revenge to warmth and forgiveness. I saw how when Moses prayed, powerful Amalek was struck. I saw how when Joshua prayed, the sun stood still in its orbit. I saw how when Hannah, who was so barren, prayed, God gave her Samuel and Samuel was born.
When Isaiah and Hezekiah prayed in 12 hours, 185,000 Assyrians were decimated. When Elijah prayed for rain to stop, it stopped for three years and was a drought. And then he prayed again and the rain came. Because they knew not just how to pray, but what to pray. When you and I but in close fellowship with God.
When you and I are intimate with God, when you and I have peace with God, when you and I are walking daily with God. Not only we will know how to pray, but what to pray. You know, there's so many Confusion about that whole issue of prayer. And I'm hoping by the end of this message, at least I'm going to clarify some of these confusions. I heard about a man who would go to pray meetings Oh God, use me, he'll pray.
Oh God, use me. in some advisory capacity. You know, people like that. They want God to use them in some advisory capacity. The problem with our attitude toward prayer is this.
Oh we We love to pray. If it is convenient. Oh sure, we love to pray. If it's not going to intervene with our busy lifestyle, We love to pray. Of course we want to pray.
Oh. If it's not going to conflict with some of the important things that we're doing, and you could be doing them for God too. Let me tell you something. I want to put your mind at rest. God is not impressed with your activism, even for Him, as much as He's interested in the time you spend with Him.
God is not impressed by your successes and achievements as much as He's impressed with your dependence upon Him in prayer. God is the one who gives you the very breath to go out and achieve and succeed, and without that breath, you'll be dead. And that is why God is more interested in your dependence on Him, in the declaration of that dependence, in the showing the sign of that dependence than anything else. He's not impressed by your activism. In fact, your activism is dead without the power of prayer.
But I heard about even people who Doubt. God's answer to prayer. Even after he answered their prayers. They still doubt it. I heard about a small town in Kentucky.
where there were two churches, two congregations, and one whisky distillery.
Now, the congregation were not very happy about this whiskey distillery, so they tried and worked hard and lobbied and they protested and went down the streets and tried to shut it down and couldn't shut it down. They thought it was giving their town a bad image. and a bad name. But to make it worse, the owner of that distillery was atheist.
So what they did after, like most Christians do, after all of their activism and all of their efforts didn't work, so they decided to pray. It's the last resort instead of being the first option.
So they agreed, both congregations agreed, that on Saturday night they're going to come together in prayer and they're going to pray specifically for God to shut that distillery. And Saturday after Saturday, they will pray, Oh God, shut this door. Oh God, it's bad witness for you.
Well, one Saturday night while they were praying, A lightning came and struck that distillery and burned it to the ground. This is a true story.
Well The next morning you can imagine the preachers in both churches pounding, preaching on the powder of prayer. Power of answered prayer. was a little problem. The insurance adjuster told the owner of the distillery That he cannot be compensated because this was an act of God, and his insurance policy does not call for compensation for an act of God. Whereupon the distillery owner sued the members of the two churches, claiming that they have conspired with God to burn his distillery.
But do you know what the church members did? They hired a heavyweight lawyer. Yeah. who vehemently denied that his clients had anything to do with the burning of the distillery. I want to read to you what the trial judge said.
The trial judge said about this case, he said, This is the most perplexing case I've ever presided over. He said the plaintiff who was an atheist. Professing to believe in the power of prayer. I'm just gonna. And the defendants They're church members.
are denying the power of prayer. How confused have we become. Beloved friends, let me tell you: we miss God's best when we miss God's purpose in prayer. People going around and saying, oh, isn't that terrible what's happening to our nation? How?
Often have you prayed for the nation? Unless we understand not just how to pray, but what to pray, our prayers are ineffectual. The purpose of all purposes in prayer is for God to be glorified. Mark that down. That is the very purpose and the essence of prayer.
Why we get blessed out of our socks when we pray, but we are not the purpose of prayer. God is. And not us. Why? Because prayer is God's opportunity to reveal His goodness, to reveal His power.
Prayer is God's opportunity to be glorified and magnified. Listen to what Jesus said to the disciples in John 14:13. He said, And whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified. That's the purpose clause. That is the purpose of all purposes, that the Father be glorified.
Prayer. should be for God's glory. Not just for our needs, but when God meets our needs, He gets glory. I want to explain some things to you. For quite some time, Christians have been divided.
In their understanding of prayer. And I think this is really the source of confusion where I'm going to put my finger on, is really the heart of the problem. I want to explain to you both views. And then I'm going to explain to you what I think. which might not be much.
There are some who see prayer simply as lining up with God in what he already foreordained. And there's nothing they can do other than conform to that will of God. On the other hand, there are some who say, no, no, no, no, no. Prayer is asking God to do what He would not and could not do without praying. Both are wrong.
And both are right. You say, what's this double talk? I thought you were going to clarify things.
Well, I will. The scripture teaches both views. The scripture teaches both Not one or the other, but both. And we are under obligation before God to hold both views in tension. The Bible teaches that God absolutely with Harad Hat is sovereign.
But the Bible also teaches unequivocally that God within His sovereignty responds to His people when they pray right. Trying to push one side or the other, you miss out on the blessing. To try to put God in a theological box and say, this is the way you work and no other way, is wrong. It will be a waste of time and energy and you'll lose your joy. On the one hand, there are some people who are terrified of asking anything of God, lest it's not consistent with His will.
On the other, there are some who treat God like a bellhop. Who only moves at their command. On the one hand, there are people whose prayer is cold and calculated. Because they believe that it will make no difference. On the other hand, there are other people who think that God is paralyzed without their prayer.
Both are wrong. Both are extreme. Both are extra-biblical. When the Bible gives us two opposing views, what seems to us at least as humans opposing view, we are under obligation before God to hold both of them in tension. and not to try to force one on the other.
Theologians get into all these exercises, but ignore them. We are blessed when we are fully trusting in God's purpose. We are blessed when we refuse to systematize the Bible and organize God according to our limited understanding. I'm going to be saying more about the fatherhood of God, but I only want to just give you a simple example to understand what I'm talking about. You know, when my children were small, they always asked for all kinds of things.
Did I give them everything they asked for? Of course not. Of course not. I gave them and I continue to give them only what I believe is the best for them. And if I, as a fallen man, know how to give good gifts to my children, how much more is our Heavenly Daddy?
God, in His magnificence, not only did He taught us how to pray, what to pray, but even so He knew. that often we don't have the wisdom to pray as we ought. Yeah. Or for what we ought. And therefore, God commissioned the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, to overrule in our sorry prayers.
Listen to what Paul said. He said, we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. And that is why In Matthew 6, nine to fifteen. Jesus gives us a succinct meticulous Comprehensive outline. of what true prayer should be like.
The first section deals With God's glory. And even in the second section, when he talks about our needs, it is when God meets our needs, he gets glory too. To focus our attention toward this upcoming message, I want to share with you just a few thoughts. Number one. Jesus does not tell us.
Where to pray? Except he said to pray. Consistently That we must give our full attention to our prayer time by going into a place where we're going to have concentration, where we're not going to be disturbed. I love the image of somebody got the television going, the radio going, the play recorder going, is on the phone and he's praying. And Matthew 6:6, when he said, Go into your inner room, what Jesus is saying, just go to a place where you can focus on me.
Well, you're not going to be distracted. That's what it means. And the second thing, he does not suggest a time for prayer, although Jesus Himself got up early in the morning. Why is it the best time? And I'm not loading it on you like as a guilt trip.
I'm this not legalism here. It happened to be the best because it's the first fruit of the day that you're offering to God. I'll confess to you: if I don't take that first fruit of the day spent with God, my day is miserable. I accomplished nothing. He said, for us to pray everywhere, every available circumstances, every opportunity.
Prayer is a lifestyle. We pray before meal, after meal, special circumstances, before meetings, after meetings, getting into the car, getting out of the car, although my passengers pray when they get into my car, and when they get out of my car, I give a thanksgiving. But the third thing is this. Jesus does not specify a special clothing to wear when you pray. or a special posture of prayer.
But does God hear us if we don't kneel? Of course. He hears us standing up, of course. The posture has nothing to do with it. We need to understand how to pray and what to pray.
And that is why Jesus gave them this pattern of prayer. He gave them this model to follow in their prayer, which we call the Lord's Prayer. It's really the disciples' prayer. It's not the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is in John 17.
Read it when you go home.
Now there's some people of course who attach superstition to the Lord's Prayer. They think it's sort of there is a magical benefit if they recite the Lord's Prayer. This could not be further from the truth. I want to give you several reasons for that. Jesus said When you pray, pray in this way.
meaning along these lines. or in the following manner. or in such a pattern. Secondly, Matthew 6, 5 to 8, Jesus warning his followers not to pray like the Pharisees, this meaningless, repetitious prayer. And therefore, it is impossible that he is replacing one meaningless, repetitious prayer with another.
He's giving them a pattern, he's giving them a model. Thirdly, there nowhere in the New Testament that we find an instance where the Lord's Prayer was recited by the disciples or the apostles.
Nowhere. or used in a kind of a repetitious ritualistic form. as some people like to do.
Nowhere in the New Testament. It's fine to recite the Lord's Prayer. Don't misunderstand me. just as you recite any part of the Bible. It is fine to memorize it, just like memorizing Scripture.
But if you just rattle it along and you think that you have prayed, you have missed God's purpose in prayer. You really would. What Jesus wants us to learn is to follow the pattern of praise, adoration, and petition. The Lord's Prayer is a guide for our prayer life, not a substitute for it. And the purpose of the Lord's Prayer is God.
From beginning to end, it's God. And when you and I understand that. You're going to experience power in prayer like we've never experienced before. Dr. Michael Youssef.
Beginning a series to point you toward a deeper and more committed life of prayer. Join him for the entire series The prayer that God answers. And as we close today, do make notes of the ways to get in touch with Dr. Youssef and leading the way. You can phone us anytime.
866-2666-6666-6666- 626 four three five six You can also reach us through the Postal Service. We're at Leading the Way, Post Office Box 20100, Atlanta, Georgia. three zero three two five. And we're always online at ltw.org. The world is at a turning point.
Disease, economic crisis, wars, and rumors of wars are overtaking our world today. With this kind of chaotic turmoil, people, both Christian and non-Christian, are all asking themselves the same question. Is this the end of the world? Dr. Youssef's book, Is the End Near?, will embolden you to stay cemented in the hope and faith of Christ, regardless of what is happening in the world around you.
Yusuf examines the end times descriptions Jesus first gave us in Matthew 24 and 25. Learn how to get your copy of Is the End Near when you visit ltw.org. LTW.org. Learn more about this life-changing book and the study guide for. Is the end near?
When you call us, 866-366-666-866- 626 four three five six. That's 866-8666. six two six four three five six. and online, ltw.org. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr.
Michael Youssef.
