A Praying Life!

Hi, this is Roy Jones with ManTalk Radio Podcast. Our mission is to break down the walls of race and denomination. Your chosen Truth Radio Broadcast will be starting in just a few seconds. Thank you.

This is the Truth Network. So have you prayed yet today? How is your prayer life? Do you pray enough? Most people overwhelmingly, when asked the question, do you pray enough?

Bob, what do they say? No, and I feel badly about it. Most people feel not only badly, but they feel guilty or even ashamed.

And by ashamed, we mean the idea that there's something wrong with me that isn't wrong with everybody else at the same time. And so one of the first things we do is establish, oh no, prayer is hard. It's awkward. It's difficult. And nobody feels like they're great at it. And so if you start there, now we can begin to get somewhere.

So it's not a shame-based or guilty-based. So are you living on a prayer? Well, guess what?

You're in a good place right now. The guy sitting with me for 19 years has been leading seminars. I know you've been praying longer than that, Bob, but he's been leading seminars for 19 years based on this book, A Praying Life. And these seminars, you get right into prayer, don't you? I mean, you're going into the, gang, this is the engine of the Christian life. Like this is the supernatural warfare heart right here, prayer. Jesus, his disciples came up to him and didn't say, teach us to preach, teach us to perform miracles, teach us to argue and stand down, these religious people. No, they said, Lord, teach us to pray.

Why is this so important, Bob, just stepping back? Mainly because you and I were never designed to live life alone. We were, prayer was to be the center of how we interact with everything, how we respond to the Word, how we face life. And so what happens, though, is because we try to pray, it goes badly, we feel badly about it. Most Christians just stop praying. They just kind of give in to a sense of defeat about it. And the result is when you stop praying, now you're living like an orphan. You're not an orphan, but you live like an orphan. And that's why it's, life loses its sense of adventure.

It loses its joy, its energy. I mean, you know, we were, the key is to the whole thing, according to Jesus, is it's learning how to be a child of your father. Okay, so it's a relationship. And in that sense, it's not a discipline, even though there's an element of discipline to it. But if I were to come on here and say, prayer is a discipline, you would immediately put it in the category of flossing or exercising.

You know, I mean, and then it would just lose something. But it really is designed to be this constant oneness, this sense of dependence, that a child has toward their father. Okay, that's great. What role does faith play? Now, I've got to step back. We're in prayer. We've got Bob here. He's an amazing man of God.

He's with a ministry called SeeJesus.net. Now, what's brought us together is an uncanny, but providentially, prayed over series of circumstances that has brought you to Salt Lake City, Utah. I am doing my show. I've never done a show from right in the heart of Salt Lake City, Utah.

I've never been to Salt Lake City, Utah. And Russ East is our partner in crime out here. This guy is an amazing Christian radio man of God. He's with a ministry called UPFC, Utah Partnerships for Christ. You're out here reaching folks with the good news of the gospel, Russ.

I want you to tell me more about Bob and why this prayer thing is so important, why he's the keynote speaker at your big banquet tonight. But tell everyone where we are. This is fascinating and why it's significant that we talk about spiritual warfare in the middle of the place we're sitting right now. Well, where we're located right now is a place that the Mormon Church calls Temple Square. Now, we know it's not the true temple. And in fact, we know that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and everything.

And the temple veil was torn in half when Jesus died on the cross for us. But that's where we are here so that we can try to share the grace and truth of Christ with people here. We may be here just for a short time, but we've taken mission teams here to this place. And we spend a lot of time just sharing the gospel with people here. And so, I just felt like we needed to have Bob come out to talk about prayer. And as we go forward in this mission field, we needed to be reminded of what God's word says about prayer and how do we get our minds transformed on this topic. If we don't, then we're going to be really hurting people here.

Yeah. So, Bob, you heard Russ's heart, and this is really the heart of this whole ministry. What's your passion for bringing prayer? What are you going to tell everyone tonight?

What is the need here? It seems like we can't get enough of what you're talking about. You know, it's really interesting. My wife and I, our children are grown and gone, so we're in an empty nest. And I do ministry during the day, and she's a nurse during the day. So, when we come home at the end of the day and we are kind of piddling around the kitchen, finding something to eat and reconnecting from the day, invariably she asks me the same question every night. And it's simply this, honey, did you hear from any of the kids today? And if I say no, our kids are grown, they're busy, they have their families, okay. If I say no, there is a silent pause, if you will.

It's just quiet in the kitchen. But if I say yes, I heard from Emily or I heard from Ben. She wants to know every detail of what was said and how it was said. Now, she did not create that interest. The interest you have in your children or your grandchildren was not something you invented. That was given you at creation, right? So, it's the reason you don't go to the school play in your town because you like kids. Why does somebody go to the school play? You go to see your own.

Yeah, I mean, hey, they're all cute, yay, but that one is mine. Okay, your father put that in you. Your heavenly father put that in you. That tells us something about his heart. So, even though we struggle with prayer, even though we're bad at it, we feel awkward, we feel guilty about it, our father actually loves it. He's deeply interested in us coming and doing life with him at the center.

So, that's my heart and passion. I just go out and tell people, look, I know you feel badly about this, but your father loves it when you come. You're really calling people into relationship with the father through the son Jesus. He shed his blood on a cross.

You won't find one cross posted in any of these Mormon temples anywhere. They downplay the cross, but that's where Jesus finished his atoning work, and that's where Jesus opened the veil for us to access the father. He's our great high priest, right? He's our mediator, and you're simply sharing a lot of good news, not putting people under guilt, but bringing them into this beautiful opportunity. What's your closing challenge to everyone listening out there? You know, you really can do all of life through prayer. It's how you were created to do life. And so, I just would invite everyone to start praying, just simple, childlike prayers.

And get as specific as you can. Ask. Ask. And then, what we do in our seminars is we teach that when you begin to pray about something or for someone, you actually enter a prayer story between you, your father, and the person you're praying for, or the matter that you're praying about. And what you do is you pray, and then you watch for how the story develops.

And that's where the fun is. This has a huge connection to missions. As you guys, you know, just back from Macedonia, you travel all over the world, you share Jesus, and you're praying for Christ to bring people to him. Exactly.

Exactly. And a lot of people don't even realize prayer is evangelism. Oftentimes, these prayer stories end up in evangelism and people coming to Christ.

So, it's really too bad. In our day and time, we put way too much emphasis on the preacher, the teacher, you know, the guy up front. I mean, they're so key.

They're so important. But they weren't designed to be the center of our lives. Our father designed us for him to be the center of our lives.

Yeah. All these, everyone from the pastor teacher to everyone involved in the church ministry and evangelists, they're all pointing us to God. They're all connecting us to him. When you connect with him, in his presence, his fullness of God. So, it's very important to connect with him in his presence, his fullness of joy, right?

That's exactly right. Website, again, for everyone to find out more from Bob about you, your ministry, Brother Miller's book, A Praying Life. What's that website?

Yes, it's cjesus.net. And that's C-S-E-E, like you're looking at Jesus. And the sub-ministry under that umbrella is simply called A Praying Life.

And it's based on a best-selling book by Paul Miller. So, you'll come out and speak to folks about prayer, and you'll come out to churches, do seminars, encourage folks, intercession, praise, thanksgiving, all the aspects of connecting with their father. Not in a rote, not in some rote, regulatory, you know, bland exercise, but in real passion as God created us.

Right. We do an interactive seminar, usually on a Friday night, Saturday morning, because it's more fun to discover it together rather than hear a guy lecture. I wouldn't want to come hear me lecture on prayer. I'm enjoying hearing you on this show. Thanks for visiting with us here on this interview. God bless you, sir.

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