Listen to a Christian counselor recently online. You know, it's okay to go to a Christian counselor You do realize that they have the spiritual gift of wisdom now find a good one Not everybody who says they're a Christian counselor is a Christian counselor. Okay, I believe in good Christian counselors This Christian counselor said when people come to me Dealing with a major crisis or a problem He's a lot of times more often than not what I will tell them is a hey look take seven days and For the next seven days just do several things number one get eight hours of sleep a night Number two eat three good meals a day.
Good meals. They're not don't load up on Cheetos and Froot Loops Eat good three good meals a day Exercise for 30 minutes a day for the next seven days Even that just means go walking for 30 minutes and then come back and talk to me He said so many times they'll come back to me and either their problem is solved Or they now find this internal strength to handle the problem And that's something eight right get eight hours of sleep and exercise I'd add a fourth thing to that and here's what I'd add to it Take 10 to 15 minutes every single day and pray just set aside 10 to 15 minutes every single day for the next seven days and pray and see what happens That's what I'm gonna be talking to y'all about today Some of y'all have a time where you set aside every day and you pray you're there you can zone out for the next 30 minutes but a lot of us have fallen out of that habit or You never had that habit in the first place and I'm going to talk to you today about the value of taking 10 to 15 minutes every day just to pray and here's what you can see happen those 10 to 15 minutes are going to turn into 20 eventually 30 40 there's something powerful about carving out time every day to pray particularly Anybody here have problems? Particularly as you're facing some problems now, this isn't just me. This is scriptural In fact, Peter says this in first Peter 4 7 he says hey the end of everything is at hand He may be talking about the challenges of last day's living Jesus is coming back or Peter wrote this in the context of persecution. That's about to decimate the church. He says the It's gonna get tough is what he's saying Then he says this therefore be of sound thinking and sober spirit wife for the purpose of prayer Do you see that tough times connected with praying?
David says this in Psalm 55 17 evening morning and noon. I cry out I pray in distress and he hears my voice Daniel is a good example of this We've been going through the book of Daniel and now Daniel is about to hit a major crisis So y'all raise your hands a second ago when you said I got some problems Your major crisis is you know, you thought your car repairs gonna cost $800 and it's actually gonna cost a thousand This has really turned me for a head spin My kid has rebelled that's legitimate Uh, my boss says my job is going to be terminated. That's your crisis Do you know what Daniel's crisis is? This guy's about to be ripped apart by lions. That's his problem and Daniel says in Daniel chapter 6 verse 1 look at this It seemed good to Darius that he said 120 say traps Over the kingdom that they would be in charge of the whole kingdom and over them Three commissioners of whom Daniel was one that these say traps might be accountable to them and that the king might not suffer loss then this Daniel began distinguishing himself among the commissioners and say traps because an Extraordinary spirit was in him and the king planned to set him over the entire kingdom.
Stop right there. It's amazing Daniel is not a Medo-Persian the Medo-Persian Empire is the one superpower in the world Daniel is a Jew Who is kidnapped and brought there decades before and now this pagan King says I want to set Daniel this Jew over the entire kingdom Then the commissioners and say traps began seeking to find a ground of accusation against Daniel in regard to matters of the kingdom but they were not able to find any ground of accusation or evidence of corruption in as much as he was faithful and no Negligence or corruption was to be found in him then these men said we will not find any ground of Accusation against this Daniel unless we find it against him with regard to the law of his God Then these commissioners and say traps came by agreement to the king and said thus to him King Darius lived forever and all the commissioners of the kingdom the prefects and the say traps and the high officials and the governors have counseled together that the King should establish a statute and enforce an injunction that anyone who seeks to make a petition that is to pray to any God or Man besides you o King for 30 days shall be cast into the lion's den now o King establish the injunction and sign the written document so that it may not be changed according to the law of the Medes and the Persians which may not be revoked therefore King Darius signed the written document. That is the injunction now when Daniel Now and Daniel knew that the written document was signed.
What'd he do? He entered his house now in his roof chamber He had windows open toward Jerusalem and he continued Kneeling on his knees three times a day praying and giving thanks before his God as he had been doing previously Let me give the background of this. So remember This had been we started out the book of Daniel the Babylonian Empire There's a crazy man that led the Babylonian Empire.
What was his name? You buy remember Nebuchadnezzar? He's gone Babylonian Empire's gone They've been taken over by the Medo-Persian Empire and now they're being led by a man named Darius Daniel it's very interesting when this when this happens Daniel is over 80 years old Here's what tells me two things number one I don't care if you're 60 70 80 years old God's not done with you yet A lot of y'all think that why I've done my time God's done with me I can kind of go sit on Myrtle Beach drink one of those drinks with a little umbrella in it Just wait for Jesus to come back. No, he's not done with you yet 80 years old Daniel still serving God second thing that tells me is you can serve God in the midst of a very wicked environment So I hear y'all tell me all the time. I'm going to quit my job.
Why? Because it's such a wicked place now, maybe God's telling you quit that job I'm not telling you it's not but maybe God has you as a Daniel plugged into that job to stand for Righteousness in a wicked environment. Okay, and that's what Daniel is doing here Now it's interesting understand the flowchart here what has happened is Darius The Emperor has broken up this this entire Empire and put it over or put a hundred and twenty men over his entire Empire those 120 men Report to three men and Daniel is one of those three men Now verse three Darius wants to reorganize his empire and say these three men actually now They report to one man and that's Daniel and Daniel reports to me. He's about to promote Daniel. So imagine your co-workers That they get an email from the boss tomorrow saying hey, I decided to make you everybody's boss And everybody gets mad.
Who does he think he is? He kissed up to the boss He shouldn't be in that position and we band together to get you fired That's what's happening right here difference is they're not trying to get Daniel fired, but they're trying to get Daniel killed and Their plan is to go to Darius and say no Darius look up. I want you to sign into law That for the next 30 days nobody can pray to anybody else in this kingdom except for you now That might sound weird to you, but that was actually very common back then They called it the divine right of kings that these kings were elevated to godlike status So for the next 30 days, there's your God and nobody can pray to any God except for you. Here's what happens He signs that law into place and now he's in a bind because he likes Daniel Darius likes Daniel, but here's his bind Babylon Babylon had been an absolute monarchy, which means whatever the monarch said the Emperor said goes The Medo-Persian Empire is a constitutional monarchy, which means the monarch actually Submits to the written law. So once the law has been written and signed his hands are tied He's got to do it. The law tells him to do that.
You understand what's going on here. So what is Daniel do? when Daniel finds out Anybody who approach to any God Except for the king for the next 30 days will be thrown into the Lent den of lions and they will tear you Apart limb from limb.
What does he do? Chapter 10 says he goes back upstairs to his house, you know those days that had flat roofs and they'd put little You know rooms on top there. He has a flat roof. He has a room up there He goes to the very top of his apartment where everybody can see him throws the door open and starts praying Now here's my question Why didn't Daniel do what a lot of us would do? You know, I'm gonna practice quiet prayer for the next 30 days I'm still gonna pray to God, but I'm gonna shut my door shut my windows sit there and not pray out loud I'm just gonna pray quietly in my spirit. Why did Daniel not do that?
That makes more sense, doesn't it? The two reasons Daniel didn't do that number one if Daniel would have done that he would have been Compromising because they've been watching him for a long time and they know his prayer habit His prayer habit is you don't sit quietly in a chair like this you throw open the door and you you pray to God He would have been compromising Why don't you listen to me? The spirit of compromising is killing the church We want everybody like us be everybody's buddy. Everybody's friend not make anybody mad We need the spirit of Daniel that says I don't care who I make man and who I alienate and how many Facebook friends? I lose God is God.
He is sovereign. He's on the throne and I submit to him and him only That's at Daniel spirit And you know something to a young guy, I think is yeah, it was at the men's conference recently Young guy sharp guy great job. He said chat pray for my son. How can I pray for he said? I just lost my job in a finance role Good job.
Well paying job. He's I just lost it because I would refuse to sign the whole gender LGBT DEI stuff. They said everybody has to sign it. I said I'm not signing that And he said I've lost my job And I said look you're gonna think I'm crazy I said you're now given the greatest gift you could give your kids and grandkids and if Jesus Terry's your great-grandkids one day Because one day when they talk about the craziness of the 2020s y'all gonna be able to look back and say yeah But my granddaddy he lost his job because he refused to bow his knee. He didn't compromise So why does Daniel not just go shut the door do quiet prayer because number one he'd been compromising and number two Daniel Hey, he needed that time of prayer Listen to me. I'm to the point now I'm like a crack addict or a meth addict when it comes to my prayer time if I don't start my day in prayer I'm a really hard person to live with I need that time of prayer. Daniel is like I'm not stopping this cuz Listen me prayer is what got me to the number one position in this entire kingdom. I needed wisdom 20 years ago I prayed God gave me wisdom.
I had a challenging situation 30 years ago God answered my prayer and put me in this position. I need prayer Now here's what I'm gonna do today I'm gonna say to you every one of us Needs to carve out 15 10 minutes, whatever every single day and pray What's gonna happen to you is you're gonna make that commitment and there will be some days you miss your prayer time. I Don't want you to feel guilty Watch this when I miss a meal. I don't feel guilty. I feel hungry. I Don't beat myself up cuz I miss supper last night. Not my stomach growls. I feel hungry, but I don't feel guilty Listen to me. I'm not gonna put you back under the law But I want you to get to the point where like Daniel you need your time of prayer And if you don't get it, you don't feel guilty you feel hungry.
Okay, and so Watch this how in the world? Do we be men and women like Daniel? How can we be Daniels?
And Danielle's okay ladies, how can we do that? What Daniel was a man that sets a model for for consistent prayer and he does that by several things number one Look if you want to be like Daniel number one, you got to have a commitment You've got to say, you know as of this day I'm gonna commit myself to being a person who spends time every day even if it's just 10 minutes as of the day I'm gonna make that commitment look at verse 10 now when Daniel knew that the written document was signed He entered his house and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day praying and giving thanks before his God look at this as He had been doing previously You know that means He didn't start praying once all hell broke loose in his life. Maybe I start praying know Years and years remember he's 80 years old 70 years before he had said I'm in a pagan country in a tough situation. I'm gonna make a commitment every day I want to spend time in the presence of God. He made that commitment years previous So if you're gonna be one of those kind of people you need to say as of today I'm gonna I'm gonna start this and you may make it tomorrow and Tuesday and miss it Wednesday If you miss it Wednesday, that's fine. Get back on the horse on Thursday, but say I'm gonna make this commitment Yeah, have you ever heard this thing of? It takes 21 days to make a habit. Have you ever heard that before?
Do you know that's actually not there's no scientific validation for that that started because there's a guy named Maxwell Maltz Who was a plastic surgeon and he said I have found as a plastic surgeon it takes 21 days for people who've had plastic Surgery to adapt to the plastic surgery and so we got this 21 day habits for some people It takes 10 days for some people take 60 days, but it's interesting Psychologists say the number one thing that's in has to be in place if You're gonna make a habit is number one You have to understand the value of that habit if it's not high value You're gonna have a hard time making it a habit I'm begging you right here understand this habit of taking 10 to 15 minutes every day. It will absolutely change your life So number one if we're gonna be prayers like Daniel, we got to have commitment and then number two jot this down. I Think we need to have a place that we set aside and we're like This is gonna be my place of prayer In fact, look what Daniel does here again in verse 10 now when Daniel knew the written document was signed He entered his house now in his roof chamber in other words on the top of his roof of his house He had a special place and in that place. He had his windows opened toward Jerusalem Daniel said This is my have you heard of this term Holy of Holies You heard that term before you don't mean by that in the Old Testament the Jews thought that in the temple There was a special room where the presence of God dwelt. It was a sacred holy room Daniel said this place in my house.
It is my Holy of Holies If you're gonna be a prayer warrior like Daniel that takes 10 to 15 minutes every day Let's just start with that will build on that just give me 10 or 15 not me give God 10 or 15 minutes We start with that You're gonna have a place And for everybody it's different. I remember years ago when I was in college. I I visited a guy that was on staff at the college older fella. He had written books on prayer I went over to his house and I said man, you're a prayer warrior.
You're an intercessor. You've written books on prayer Where do you pray? He said you want to see my Holy of Holies? Like yeah, I thought be this special room Whatever he pointed to an old lazy boy chair right there.
It was worn out You know, it's kind of worn it needed to be reupholstered. He said that's my Holy of Holies right there That's where I meet God every single day You may have to get creative Some of y'all who maybe have your whole family's in a small house. It might be look for 10 minutes I locked the door of the bathroom and those 10 minutes I come into the presence of God and I just pray there Susanna Wesley you ever heard of her John Wesley's mama. She had I think Mark told me between services. She had 19 kids You mentioned 19 little kids running around all over the place how in the world can this lady have a quiet time with? 19 kids running around all over the place Well Susanna Wesley would would wear an apron your ladies back then wore an apron and like she'd be standing in the kitchen and if it was her prayer time She'd lift that apron up and put it over her head and stand right there in the middle of the kitchen and all the kids Knew when mama's apron is over her head.
You don't mess with mama. She's in her prayer time. She's in her prayer closet um, I Was talking to a young guy between services college kid. He's like man my dorm I just can't have my prayer time in my dorm.
It's just too crazy. He says what I do is I go sit in my car For 10 or 15 minutes and pray to the Lord. We got a guy in a church I don't think he minds me sharing this I won't tell you the country, but we got a man in our church Who said he comes from a country where Christians are not persecuted.
They're killed He said I got saved. I'm a new Christian. I Know I need to have my time with Jesus every day, but I'm sharing this apartment with other Muslim men I could get in a lot of trouble He said so what I would do is I would wake up I would he's I don't care if it's freezing outside I'd get up every day and walk a couple blocks to the park and that was my holy of holies I'd sit on the park bench even in freezing weather even in the rain.
I'd sit there and have my time with Jesus Christ He said this is very interesting. He said I found it easier to have my time with Jesus in that country with all kinds of persecution I found it easier to carve out 10 or 15 minutes to be with Jesus in the park Than I do here in America with all the stuff I have coming at me. It's interesting So I would say to you If you're serious about this Number one you gotta make a commitment never to you you need to decide this place in my house or in my car Or wherever that's gonna be where I meet with Jesus. You got to have a place and then number three You got to have a time that you set aside look at verse 10 when Daniel knew the written document sign He entered his house and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day See the Jewish rabbis taught that Jews are to pray three times a day and they cite the example of David in Psalm 55 17 where he says I pray three times a day and Daniel here in Jerusalem He says I pray three times a day and Daniel here in Daniel 6 10 and the three times were the third hour or 9 a.m Number two the sixth hour, which is noon and the number three the ninth hour, which is roughly 3 p.m Now the early church it's interesting seems to follow that pattern because in Acts chapter 3 verse 1 It says that Peter and John go to the temple for the three o'clock prayer time It says in Acts 10 9 Peter prayed at noon the second time of prayer I'm not saying to you. You need to carve out those specific times.
That's not what I'm saying My point is you need to have some time that you've carved out every single day It's got to be what works best for you. I should make New mama young mamas feel really guilty because I'm like, I don't care if your kid was up all night Crying and you had a nurse a kid all night You need to be up the first thing in the morning praying and seeking God's face and these moms are brain dead because this kid Is driving them crazy for you. It might be when that kid goes down for a nap That's your time with the Lord some of you the morning doesn't work best Well, then make your prayer time at night The Bible doesn't tell you exactly what time of day you're supposed to pray, but I do believe this you have a place and You have a time and that time has got to be sacred Y'all know who are here's a guy. His name was yangi Cho He supposedly pastored the largest church in the world. It was in South Korea They claimed to have had a million members now if they're like all of us pastors We'd like to embellish our numbers So I don't think let's they really had 10,000 but we like to round it up to the nearest million or whatever I don't know what we do, but they claimed to have had a million people and He was the prominent pastor in South Korea and like his prayer timeless It was like 9 to noon and he told his secretary nobody messes with me from 9 to noon That's my time of prayer and one day the president of South Korea Calls up the office and says I'm hitting a major international crisis. I need him to pray for me The secretary said I'm sorry Nobody interrupts the pastor during his prayer time. He said maybe you don't understand what I'm saying. I'm the president of your country I need somebody to pray with me right now. She said I can give you another one of the pastors but he can't be interrupted right now and After yangi Cho pastor Cho Got out of his prayer time. The secretary said here's a message from the president of the country He calls the president back and the president's little bit irritated He's like I'm in the middle of an international crisis I need somebody to pray with me and you're in your prayer closet. You won't allow me to interrupt you Explain that to me And he said mr. President. I didn't mean mean any disrespect. You're a very important, man But I was actually talking to somebody more important than you nobody interrupts me during my prayer time and so We have a commitment We have a place I want you to be thinking about now What is that Holy of Holies going to be at your house that time?
I'm to carve out 10 to 15 minutes start out with that and then number four fourth thing We got to have is no this is interesting. We have to have integrity Not perfection. I'm not saying that if you're gonna pray you got to be perfect. That's not it But I want you to listen to me Biblically there is a connection with a desire To walk with clean hands and a pure heart that desire. There's a connection between that and seeing answer to prayer And you don't like that do you because you want to do the whole grace thing and we can live like hell Do whatever we want and then ask God and he's obligated to answer our prayer because we're under grace. That's not biblical You're saved by grace But there are some conditions when it comes to praying that You ever wonder this I read the book of Acts and I see people racing the dead back then Why aren't we seeing people racing the dead now? I see people blind people see back then healed Why are we not seeing that now you ever ask yourself that question?
I Ask myself that question. I wonder if the fact that we are playing it so loose morally in the body of Christ God is like I love you. You're saved. You're going to heaven I get all that but I'm not gonna release my power to a bunch of self-centered people who don't do it my way And I got some Bible verses now look this isn't just Chad ranting and raving I got some Bible verses about this up in integrate when the Bible backs up what you believe It's a look at this couple Bible verses James 5 16 the effective prayer of a what kind of man righteous man Can't accomplish much First John 3 22. This is New Testament, you know, we're under grace now New Testament Okay, first John 3 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him. That's prayer Why because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight Implication Again, I'm talking about perfection. You don't understand that implication I can keep living like I want to live and it doesn't matter and I'm under grace and I can look at whatever I Want and date whoever I want and sleep with whoever I want to and still get answers from God John says no But it doesn't work that way Here's how David puts it in Psalm 66 18 if I see wickedness in my heart You know some translations put if I cherish sin in my heart Look at this the Lord will not hear me God's like you're wasting your time and you're wasting my time Leave it alone until you get some of these areas in your life that I've been pointing out to you cleaned up That's biblical and look Daniel. It says in verses four and five He was a man of integrity.
Do you see this? The guys are like let's nail him to the wall. Let's find something scandalous. Let's go back to his Facebook accounts Is this on okay, I don't hear me or not. Let's go back to his Ashley Madison accounts Let's see what we can find on Daniel. They can't find anything on this guy He was a man of integrity There's a connection there Listen, I'll gross you out here.
You're ready. Let me gross you out for just a second So I am I can't remember if this was in college or high school I wrote college young but I think it actually might have been high school I knew this lady that worked at a restaurant and she said She said we're having a problem with our drink machine You know that you like you'll push here the ice comes out and then you push this and the fountain drink comes out She's like we just the customers got so aggravated cuz it was so slow dripping out of there What in the world's going on with this thing? And we got a new system the system wouldn't work And it's just kind of dripping out real slowly And she said the manager went and undid the little nozzle and found a roach that had crawled up and died in that nozzle. I I Guarantee you you're gonna be thinking about that from now on every time you go get yourself a drink at the restaurant So here's the thing but my point was there wasn't anything wrong with the source The source was releasing the liquid What anything wrong with the source? No, there was something clogging up that source from getting into the cup And if you're not seeing an answer to prayer, sometimes it's the sovereignty of God He doesn't always answer our prayers the way we want him to understand that But I wonder sometimes if God is saying there's nothing wrong with the source. I am still Jehovah Jireh I can still provide the problem is my blessings can't get to you because there's the sin clogging up that pipeline You got to do something about that sin You understand that and that's Daniel Daniel is not a perfect man. He messed up like the rest of us do but he was a man that was committed to integrity and And so some of y'all are like, okay, I want to do this I got it 10 to 15 minutes every day. I'm gonna start this tomorrow.
I'm saying give it a couple weeks here. Okay It's that you keep talking. I don't even know what to say when I pray Do I talk to Mary do I talk to Jesus do I tell the father? What I do I burn some incense do I do some rosary beads?
What do I do? So let me give you a pattern that we at Cross Assembly has adopted to teach people how to pray I actually the first thing I would say is when you come to that 10 to 15 minutes spend a few moments in the Bible George Mueller you ever heard of him great prayer author from the 1800s He said I used to take me an hour to get into the attitude of prayer He said but then I started reading scripture first thing and he said scripture was like a bridge to get me from my world into God's worlds take a few moments and read the Bible and then here's the acronym pray this a C T s acts a CTS a is adoration Which means worship you come in a prayer closet with your list of demands to God and hold it at the same start this thing You start by saying You're God You're holy. You're awesome. You're so much bigger than I am And if you don't answer any of my prayers, you are still God I exhaust you In fact, Jesus started the Lord's Prayer like this our Father who's in heaven. Your name is holy. You are awesome You're mighty you start with adoration The early church when they got together for corporate prayer acts 424.
They didn't start their prayer bus and God we want this We demand this we claim this in the name of Jesus. We name it claim it That's not what they did acts forces the church got together and here's how they started their prayer Oh God creator of the heavens and the earth and all that was within them and they start praising God when I say Go into your prayer closet Start out after you've been in the word by praising God adoration and then see is confession Now look you're not saved by confessing your sins. Some of y'all think I'm saved by saying the sinner's prayer. I'm Kept saved because I got a confess every sin when I said that's not it You're saved simply the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and by trusting in him But now that you're in right relationship with God watch this Confession maintains that intimacy with God that makes sense So you've just now praised God and now you say God Spirit of God has just reminded me of what I did yesterday. That was wrong and God it hurt your heart And I'm sorry father God.
I know I'm born-again. I know I'm going to heaven I get that But that was out of line God that's confession like this, I mean husbands Let's say that you get mad at something and your wife says honey. What's wrong? And you're like mind your own business.
You're always nosy in here. Ask me what's wrong I can't you see I'm aggravated leave me alone get grief. It's nagging me all the time And in five minutes later you come up in your deep berry white voice Come on, baby. Give me some sugar Sir you ain't getting no sugar until you say I was wrong.
I was out of line We can't be connected until I say I that was wrong of me Why is it only women clapping? All right But you see what I'm saying? Confession is you're you're born-again. You're safe.
I gotta get it. But it's got there's something between us. I confess that I confess that adoration confession and then Thanksgiving Man, it's interesting. Look back at verse 10 again verse 10 It's a Daniel Okay, he's just found out you pray to God. You're a dead man And it says in verse 10 he goes into his prayer room and he starts belly aching to God Oh God Why are you doing this to me? I've been faithful to you all these years I've been serving you for 70 80 years and now God you let this happen to me. What kind of God?
How could a good God let things happen to people like me? I'm just a good man trying to serve you So what he says verse 10 it says he thanked God He gets in the presence of God and say God I don't care all this mess is happening. That's immaterial You've been so good to me God You're a good God. I don't deserve the blessings You poured out on me and God if I don't make it if I'm torn apart by the lines, that's fine I've served you you've been good to me.
I love you I can't wait to go home and see you because you've given me eternal home. He just spends time thanking God Adoration you praise God Confession you you confess your sins and then Thanksgiving you just start thanking God for his goodness Thanksgiving I think is a huge sign of humility. I Humble myself before you God. I just thank you for what you've done to me and an S is supplication that means to ask That that means to say no God As I look at today, I got some challenges. Can you give me wisdom in this meeting today? Look, I'm telling you I'm a hard man to live with when I don't have my prayer time with God Because sometimes I'll get in the presence of God and say God not ten o'clock this morning I got a tough meeting here at the church. It's gonna get nasty I'm about to walk into a buzzsaw God I need your help right now and I'll just start praying in tongues and saying God help me help me help me It's amazing when I get in situations that would be impossible in the flesh When I've asked God for wisdom and peace, he gives it to me. That's supplication. Let's ask God. I've got cancer I need healing God my child has rebelled Bring her back to you. Does that make sense?
adoration confession Thanksgiving and in supplication that's how we pray now watch We are in the midst of A political season that's crazy. There's backstabbing. There's this there's that there's dirty tricks There is finding stuff on people at just the right time and it's just a mess out there.
Would you agree with that? Not only is there a mess out there Some of y'all have a mess in here You're anxious Worried you're stressed out. So there's anxiousness out there.
The anxiousness isn't here. There's How have y'all got some crazy people in your family? You know by getting crazy people in their family right now and you got crazy family members that are making life worse. It's crazy Let me tell you something I want to give you just just a little piece of wisdom right now You can't will your candidate into the White House not gonna happen You can't will that crazy person Crazy family member into sanity. It doesn't work that way You can't will all the mess Happening out there.
You can't do that. In fact, there's a great book by Gordon McDonald called ordering your private world and in this book Gordon McDonald said I had a friend that was on a Navy submarine and he said He said on this submarine like this. He's on the submarine one day.
They were way underwater and it was the perfect storm There were were military exercise going on on the surface of the ocean with battleships and all that. They have military exercise There was a storm that had blown up and they were testing depth charges So he said this submarine is just rocked all over the place. It's it's it's turning all around Everybody's getting see see I mean, it's just a myth that the submarine is just really being turned around And he said my friend is a an officer and he's in the control room with all this stuff going on All of a sudden the door flies open and the captain of the submarine comes barging in. He said what in the world is going on? He said is everything okay He said my friend said sir Everything is okay. And he said the captain looked and this man is sitting right at his desk like he's supposed to be That man is right where he's supposed to be looking at the monitor The radio guy is over there. He's radioing up and down It was all kinds of madness going on on the outside, but that control room was orderly and calm Here's my point You can't control all the depth charges Going on all around us You can't control all the craziness and the storm going on on the outside.
You can't do that Craziness in the storm going on on the outside. You can't do that But the core of who you are there's this control room and That that can be calm in the midst of all the chaos going on on the outside if the control room is Inhabited by the Lord Jesus Christ if you're in his presence if you're just at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ all hail can be breaking loose around you and in that control room Everything is peaceful and orderly and quiet and I'm saying to you the best piece of advice I can give you in this crazy messed up room is keep that control room Orderly quiet and you do that through prayer y'all with me on that stand with me right now Now I'm asking y'all believe that I'm seriously, you know, Jesus is God God seven times in the book of John. Jesus says yeah way or Jehovah same word just different pronunciation Yahweh, Jehovah Jesus is saying I'm Yahweh I'm Jehovah And you know sometimes in the Bible God will reveal Different aspects of his character, you know this and sometimes God will say something like this I am Yahweh or Jehovah Jaira the God who provides Jesus is sitting right here in the middle of your control room and his name is Jehovah Jaira I don't care what you're going through. I don't care what happens God is going to supply how many of your needs all your needs according to your riches in Christ Jesus and so right now in a room of calmness and order That's located in a world of chaos and turbulence Can we just make sure the control room is calm and quiet by lifting up our hands to Jehovah Jaira? Praising the name of Lord Jesus Christ Lifting him up right now as you pray to him. I want you to not don't sing this song. I Want you to pray this song to Jehovah Jaira right now. Let's sing to the Lord I'll never be more loved than I am right now I wasn't holding you up So there's nothing I can do to let you down It doesn't take a trophy to make you proud I've never been more loved than I am right now I'm going through a storm but I won't go down I hear your voice carried in the rhythm of the wind to call me out You would cross the ocean but I wouldn't drown You've never been closer than you are right now You are Jaira, you are enough Jaira, you are enough And I will be content in every circumstance Cause you are Jaira, you are enough You are Jaira, you are enough You are Jaira, you are enough I will be, I will be content in every circumstance Cause you are Jaira, you are enough You know that that's why God told Aaron the priest whenever my people come together I want you to remind them that I'm for them See some of y'all think God is out to get you If you're born again he's got you, you belong to him And a God as far as church who can be against us So Aaron bring my people together and remind them one more time That I'm for them and remind them of that by saying over my people Yav rekka ka Adonai bishv rekka ya er Adonai pinyav ela kavikuneka Esa Adonai panayv eylecha by sim l'cha shalom Which means my people the Lord bless you, the Lord keep you The Lord make his face to shine upon you You know what that means? When God thinks about you he smiles, he doesn't frown His face shine upon you and be gracious to you And the Lord turn his countenance to you and give you shalom Peace, wholeness, mind, body, soul, spirit In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit we pray Amen and Amen, God bless you beloved Let's go change the world for Jesus Christ, God bless
