Praying With Honor

0:00:00     Are your prayers not working? Be sure and get today’s podcast, more faith, more life, where I’m going to teach you how to honor God in your prayers so you can get what you need. Hello everyone, and welcome to another more faith, more life podcast. And we’re going to continue to talk about the mandate of honor. That should be honest. But how we’ve lost honor in our culture. You can just look at our culture around us, just go to the Internet and read stuff, just turn on the news, whether whatever you believe about anything, it’s very dishonorable, the way people talk about people and shut down anybody that doesn’t agree with us as opposed to listening and learning and sharing and letting people be people, all those kinds of things. Very dishonorable culture we live in. And of course that dishonor has spilled over into the churches, into religion, which is my business, that’s where I am.

0:00:46     And so I want to help restore God’s honor. I want to help you get a mandate of honor and understand it’s very simple. It’s just a mind, change your mind, which I guess would be close to repentance, wouldn’t it? Change your mind, change your direction when it comes to the things. And of course, I can’t hit all of them today because there’s so many. That’s why every week we’re doing these series. This is episode five of the mandate of honor and we’re going to. Honoring God, honoring God in our prayers.

0:01:13     All right, so just stay with me. You’re going to hear some things I think might be helpful and enlightening because prayer is sort of a mystery to everybody. People try to do it. Let’s be, you know, just upfront about it. We know the general people that go to church don’t pray that much, maybe even a little bit at church. But some of the prayers are written down, they read them. But most people don’t pray unless they have to, right? I mean, I’m just being, that’s not me because I’ve learned these things. I want to teach them to you.

0:01:45     And the benefits of what it does, just not for the kingdom of God. When we learn to honor God and particularly prayer, honoring God in our prayers, but then what it does for us too, and it should. It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s just a priority is we put him first. All right. So anyway, most people don’t pray that much. And when they do pray, what do they pray about? Something’s gone wrong, they have a need, they’re upset, they’re afraid.

0:02:12     They get scared. They pray when they get scared. They get afraid when they get afraid. They pray. When the money gets tight or starts, looks like it’s going to run out. They pray. Maybe when something breaks. I don’t know how many people do that. Probably haven’t heard my story. I’ll pray. I prayed over a dead cat, my own cat. He was out cold, like out like, oh gosh, 35, 40 minutes, just blah. But by the time I got into the cat ICU.

0:02:43     Yep, that’s right. Now, they don’t let you into the cat ICU till you give them your credit card. Then they let you go back there because it is very expensive. But my old cat, 18 years old I think he is, had his own nurse for 24 hours, had his own oxygen tent for 24 hours. So I took him in and like, I don’t even. I mean, there was nothing, nothing, nothing. But I prayed. And a lot of people know the story.

0:03:12     I gave my cat mouth the mouth resuscitation. I blew in his nose and I pumped his lungs and I could hear it go whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. And I did it all the way to one vet. Then that was 15, 2030 minutes. Then they sent us clear over to on the Kansas side. Cause we live on Missouri Kansas border, you know, and went to the ICU unit over there. So it was another 2025 minutes. He’s just there, but.

0:03:38     And I’m trying to keep him alive, you know, and I’m praying and praying over him like that. And by the time we got him in there, the ICU says, hey, I think we got a pulse. And that’s after 30, 40 minutes of nothing. I got my ear right down to his nose. I can’t hear anything. So anyway, I pray for a lot of things, right? And I probably get Zion will probably get prayer requests now to pray for Fido.

0:04:05     Pray for Rex, my dog. I had met this preacher one time. He hated his name. Every time he introduced himself, his name was Rex. And he says, I’m so mad at my parents. Rex is a dog’s name. That’s what he would say. So we’re going to talk about prayer and honoring God in our prayer. So let’s start, first of all, the very basics when we understand. When I was in the Methodist church as a kid, you know, I dropped out about 8th grade, but when I was in the Methodist church, every Sunday morning, we repeated the Lord’s prayer, right?

0:04:36     And Jesus taught us to pray like this. Okay? Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed would be thy name. Right. And, you know, as a kid particularly, but I think the adults too. I don’t know what that taught. I don’t know what I just said because I never say the word hallowed. I don’t. I never used it in a sentence, right? And so I’m saying hallowed, and, I don’t know, hollow. Hollowed. I don’t know. And so now I got older and got into the ministry and figured this thing out for myself.

0:05:04     I realized hallowed means to be praised, to be reverenced, to be honored, to be magnified. All those great words, you know, enlarging and telling how his greatness, his wonderfulness, how great thou art and all those kinds of things. So Jesus said. And it’s just, it’s kind of like a little formula. It’s like, it’s not, you don’t get everything covered, but it’s like everything’s covered in that short little prayer that we can now expand upon.

0:05:30     Right? We want to pray a lot more than just that short prayer. But anyway, so our father in heaven, that’s our direction. And then what? What are we doing at that point? We’re reverencing, hallowing, praising, magnifying, honoring, respecting God’s name and God as a person. And that’s what prayer, that’s where it starts. And I think one line is not enough. It’s just an example. I can’t imagine Jesus praying all night long and saying that prayer over and over, or else he just said that line one time and then he got to talking about other stuff.

0:06:03     All right, so prayer starts with honoring God. That’s how Jesus taught us to pray to. And so if you get that, then you realize the big mistake everybody makes. And that is what, even if we honor God a couple of. Say a few nice things about God, but most people don’t. Most people dig right in to the need, and we’re instantly on our need, our hurts, our wants, our fears, all about me prayer. And it’s not much of a two-way conversation.

0:06:30     And you can just, you know, and even, even praying how bad we are all the time, too. Just how bad. And if you put that together, like, okay, I’m going to pray, okay, lord, I’m not a very good person, or the Catholics sometimes do forgive me for I’ve sinned and all that stuff, you know? And then, and then you tell him all the things that are broken are need and hurt, fear, upset, all the things, right?

0:06:55     And it’s like, come on. You know, it’s like a complaint it’s not really prayer. It’s complaining and worrying and fearful and, you know, who wants to hear that all the time? Who wants to. I don’t want my wife Kathy to come in and start talking to me and letting me know how unhappy she is, how dissatisfied she is, how afraid she is, how she wished things were different, how she wishes it was easier. Whatever, whatever, whatever.

0:07:19     But that’s what we do to God. And we don’t treat him like God the person God. We treat him, I don’t know, maybe like he’s just a spirit or something, but he’s not. He’s the person of God. And so Jesus is saying the first thing we do is when we get into prayer, we don’t dig into our needs. I’m going to talk about needs in just a minute. But we don’t dig into our needs. We spend time letting God know we know who he is.

0:07:44     And that’s where we need it too. Because Satan is a. Is a thief and a robber, but he’s also full of insults and he lies about God and he lies about us and he lies about who God is. And he makes God into be something he’s not. And he’s done it for, you know, how long. And now we need to correct that. And I need to correct it. I need to let God know. I need to let Satan know. I need to know the principalities know. I need to let the angels in heaven know that I know who God is. I know what God is. I know why God is. And I’m going to say all those great things, how great he is, how great he’s been to me, how trustworthy he is, right, how faithful he is, and just honor and honor and honor.

0:08:27     And I tell people, when you get a hold of this and let’s say. Let’s say you can only pray for 15 minutes. Cause for some people, that’s a long time. And they don’t know what, but they can’t pray 1520 minutes. Cause they don’t know what to say. But spend. If you’re going to pray 15 minutes, spend ten of it. At least spend ten of it just talking to him about who he is, what he’s done, the creator of the universe, how you remembered me when I thought you forgot me, how you got me through, how wonderful you are, how trustworthy you are. And I just. I just want to send those things up into the air. Because people use you as a cuss word. They use you in bad ways. The devil accuses you to people, makes you look bad. And I’m here to make you look good.

0:09:07     Do that and do that. And then after you do that, you kind of got yourself into a position where everybody recognizes not just that, you know, who God is, but now you’re being recognized. You’re being recognized that you know, who God is, you know, goddess. Right. And that opens the way now to where you can tag on what your needs are, what the problem is, and don’t make it all about that. Talk about other things first and then jump in and you can only.

0:09:35     You don’t have to repeat yourself over and over and over and get a, you know, just state it like it is. Be honest. But you’ve done the right thing first, and you honor God. All right, so we see that in the prayer, you know, hallowed be thy name, the kingdom come and give us this day our bread. Okay, but that’s down on the list. All right. Okay. So we get that and honor God a little bit. Now, the other thing we don’t want to do is pray like a pagan.

0:10:03     Pagan prayers. Now, most people, they don’t think they’re doing pagan prayers. They’re in the church. They, you know, somebody’s supposed to do the Sunday morning prayer or the preacher’s going to read a prayer or whatever, and because people don’t really know what to do and they don’t know what to say. And so Jesus instructed. He said, don’t pray like a pagan. Okay, well, how do pagans pray? He said, for one thing, they just go on and on about all kinds of on and on.

0:10:31     And I don’t think. I don’t want to take away from the way people pray. You pray this way if you want to, but it is a little wandering to hear somebody pray like a Shakespearean play, right? And we got these. And thou hast knowest my needest goddess, so thou, O Lord. And you’re like, what? Is that how you talk to everybody else? Just talk to him, talk to us, pray, help pray for us. Pray for us. And pray to God and worship God and talk regular, because otherwise it just becomes, he says, don’t you know? And he says, the pagans pray rambling on. They just ramble on.

0:11:11     And it just kind of sounds a little rambling when you don’t really talk that way anyway. And you’re trying to figure out how to sound Elizabethan English as though God speaks Shakespeare, right? So forget all that stuff. And if you want to keep doing it, okay, a lot of you have the habit of doing it, but think about what you’re saying. You know, just get to the point of it. And so we worship God, we honor God, we restore God’s honor. We set into place. I know who God is now. God knows that I know who he is.

0:11:38     And now I can tag on my knee, okay? But then the pagans, it says, don’t ramble on like the pagans, all right? For the pagans, chase and pray and chase after things, okay? Things. Their prayers are full of things, all right? And he said, don’t do that, right? So he said, seek first, then the kingdom of God. Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things. And all this is me adding it. And all these things that pagans pray for will be given to you, will be added to you, will become yours if you get the priority. You’re going to set your sights on goddess. You set him on who he is, what he does, how great he is.

0:12:19     And now he knows. And now you know. And anybody that heard you prayer, pray just in case knows. And now you tag on your need, right? Now, here’s the interesting part about it. He says the pagans run after things. They ramble on about their prayers now. And he says, he said this. Well, you don’t have to do that. Why? He says, because your father. Listen, your father knows your need before you ask. Well, come on.

0:12:46     That didn’t make any sense. That doesn’t make any sense at all. If it’s all about your need, if prayer is about needs, which I’m not saying it is, if prayer is about needs, then all you got to do is get to your need. But if God says he already knows your need, but he wants you to pray anyway, there must be something else going on than just telling him about your needs. Cause he already knows your needs. Cause I’m thinking, well, if you already know my need, just do it then.

0:13:12     I mean, why we’re even talking about it, right? You already know. So there must be something in this thing called prayer that honors God and connects to God in such a way that is not directly related to our need. He already knows what we have need of. So our prayers should not be only about what he already knows. Let’s tell him stuff he doesn’t know that maybe we want him to know. I mean, he knows it in himself, but he doesn’t know whether we know it.

0:13:43     What do we know? So we’re going to tell him what we know. How great he is. Does he know that you know how great he is? Does he know how much you love him? Does he know how much you tend to serve him. Does he know how important he is? Does he know how determined you are? Does he know how you want to be brave and courageous and serve him and honor him and. And, you know, serve the kingdom of God and do kingdom of God things and help the church and help all those things.

0:14:09     He needs to know those things because he already knows your need before you ask. But you still have to ask. You know why? Because he wants you to focus on him as his person and know that is who he is. He is the God you can ask. He is the God you can ask. And he is the God you can supply. Now. So pagan prayers, rambling on, just trying to figure out stuff to say, speaking Elizabethan English, right?

0:14:37     And then just talking about how bad things are, talking about how unhappy you are, telling how disappointed you are, how everybody’s let you down. You are just on and on and on. And like I’m thinking, like, this shows no relationship at all. And so you don’t want to come and talk to God and just let him know how unhappy you are or how desperate you are. You can be desperate. Maybe you are unhappy, but that’s not prayer.

0:15:00     That’s all about you. Prayer first, about him and him recognizing who we are, okay? This will change everything forever and ever and ever, I’ll tell you right now. So prayer should reflect our relationship with God. That’s why we have to ask. Even though he already knows what we’re going to ask. He already knows we need it, and he’s not opposed to the need. But if we seek the kingdom of God first, all this will be added to you. While other pagans are running after things, you’re running after God. Big difference. It’ll work.

0:15:28     Do it your whole life. It’ll work your whole life. So we do that. And this power we have, then focusing on God is just so transforming, and it’s so different. It’s so different. I don’t know how many Christians in the world, supposedly, but you can really separate yourself out of the crowd, which, which I like by understanding all these things and not just going to church, going through the motions, singing the songs, and yet getting back to what’s really, really important to you, that those things are important, but they’re not that important.

0:16:04     Other things are more important. And so what I did, and this is before I went to the ministry, I was still teaching high school when I became a Christian, and I went for it. And I thanked the Lord the other day driving in the car. I’m just thanking him and thanking him. How. How did I get so focused so quick. I think I thought everybody was like that. But then I see other people. They. They would get saved or they go to church, they get filled with the spirit, whatever. And then nothing really changed.

0:16:31     It was like they just, they were nice people before, they’re nice people now. The difference is, you know, they go to church and they do churchy things, you know, that’s about the difference. Maybe we’re thankful if they die, they go to heaven. But there wasn’t really much transformation in this life. They were nice people for. They’re nice people now, blah, blah, blah. But me, major transformation where I was super, super focused day and night, even though I’m teaching high school and in a school, great school system, by the way.

0:17:00     I loved that school. I don’t know what it is now, but it was great then. But I’m completely transformed myself. And all day. And then at night, we would have prayer meetings, and daytime I would pray with students at school. And it’s okay. You figure out a way to do it. They wanted me to pray so I could pray. And so the transforming of this is all, it’s just in the direction of where our hearts are and where our mind. It’s a mandate to honor God and honoring God in our prayers.

0:17:28     And this is so, this is a great formula if you need one. I’ll read that from Matthew. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. So they’re just, they’re just trying to be heard, aren’t they? Yes. Speaking these and thous thus that we hear so much. Don’t be like them. Jesus said, for your father knows what you need before you ask him.

0:17:55     Right? So therefore, it’s all in the asking. It’s in the how of the asking. It’s not in the what of the asking. Right. I had guys say, well, you know, the Bible says that God will supply all your needs, but it doesn’t say he’ll supply your wants. Eh. Well, you know, I want a lot of the same things God wants. So, you know, it’s not really that much conflict in me. There’s things I want, but I wouldn’t, I don’t want something that he would be against anyway.

0:18:26     You know? Of course he supplies my wants. He and I are pretty much on the same page. So. So just think about that. It kind of. Maybe. Maybe it depends on what page. Page your page you’re on when it comes to prayer. But you can revolutionize your life. By taking this mandate of honor, learning to pray with honor. Otherwise you feel like your prayers go up and they fall flat. And remember we have the story in the Bible where Daniel prayed.

0:18:52     Remember Daniel and the lions did in Daniel. And he waited. He said, like, what’s going on here? I don’t get an answer. I don’t get an answer. I don’t get an answer. Three weeks passes and he gets an angelic appearance and says, what about my prayer? And he says, we heard your prayer and we were answering your prayer, but we couldn’t get to you because we had to fight archangels. We had to fight principalities and powers. We had to fight demonic powers. The angels did in order to get down to you.

0:19:21     Well, think about your prayers, how important we need to get our prayers up to him, that we have to go through all that warfare, all the sky activity of demonic power and principalities and powers and darkness and all prayers that honor God, prayers that know who God is, prayers that set God who he is. They, they break through, they get through and. But if we’re, all we’re doing is just throwing up all our, all about us and all about who we are and how miserable we are. Well, that’s nothing because that’s the devil himself.

0:19:52     Devil complains all the time. The devil is a complainer, right? And doesn’t get anything through. You know, the devil believes in God, but he doesn’t serve him. That’s the difference. He doesn’t say nice things about him, but he does believe in him, right? Even the demons believe in him and they tremble because they know, they know who he is. They know who he is. And I like it. In the Bible there was a demoniac that came and runs up to Jesus, said, I know who you are, we know who you are. And I think that is so funny, as he falls down on his face before Jesus, so funny. Here’s a demoniac, demonized person yelling, I know who you are. And I think the millions of people that have never taken time to really get to know God and know Jesus and don’t really know what he’s up to, everybody thinks they know Jesus personality.

0:20:40     They all think they know how he treats other people and how he would treat people and what his messages would be today. But you know, if Jesus came and began to preach, I’ll tell you what he’s going to do. He’s going to preach to his church. He preached to Israel, preach to the Jews, he always does. And then he would preach to the church. He’s not going to go out and preach in some city where they’re having a rainbow parade or something, right? He didn’t do it then.

0:21:06     He didn’t preach one sermon that we know of to the Romans. He had the centurion. He helped the centurion. But he’s not out there saying, you Romans, you’re ruining Israel with your roman baths and your ways and your wicked ways. He didn’t do that. He went to his own people. His own people. I’m just trying to get my own people to turn to me with all their heart and serve me and pray then. So that’s what we do. Our prayers need to be about him first.

0:21:30     And it’s a gateway to great prayer. Is honoring God, right? Honoring God and removing the shame. I mentioned that I can’t remember Zion if I mentioned it last week on the podcast, there was another broadcast about getting bread at midnight, but we can end on that one because a man comes to town, he traveled, and he doesn’t have any place to stay. He doesn’t have anything to eat. And so he goes to a friend, his friend, he has a friend in town and says, friend, you know, I haven’t eaten like that. And it’s a culture of is Jewish culture. Then if a friend came or even a stranger came to town, you need to take care of him. These are Jews helping Jews. That’s the way it worked.

0:22:09     And so he comes and says, you know, I don’t. And the man says, oh, man, I don’t have any bread. I’m out, and it’s midnight. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? And so he goes to his friend and neighbor or whatever, and he’s pounding on his door and pounding on his door. He says, wake up, wake up. I need some bread. My friend’s in town. I don’t have any. And I want to do the right thing here. And the man says, no, nope, can’t have any.

0:22:32     Can’t have any. Now that’s important, because we need to picture that when we pray. We’re sort of knocking on heaven, right? Heaven’s door, as they say, and asking, maybe not for bread, but for something. And God told him not, well, the man who represents the man with all the bread represents Jesus, bread of heaven or God. And he says, nope, can’t give you any. I’m already in bed. Comfortable kids in bed, midnight, can’t do it.

0:22:59     But the guy says, keeps pounding like that and go, oh. Then the translation came out, because our culture does not like the word shame. And so they changed it and said, well, because of his importunity or because of his persistence. So the sermons, thousands and thousands of sermons have been spoken about how this man just kept pounding, kept pounding, kept pounding, kept pounding. And finally the man gets up and gives him bread to get him to stop pounding.

0:23:24     And so what we learned from prayer then, is prayer is continue to pound and yell and just keep at it and yell and pounding and yell. And that’s not the story at all. That’s not what happened. What happened is, and you can study this for yourself if you can get deeper into it, it’s really wonderful. And there’s a culture thing here. So if that man comes to town, he’s hungry and he does not get fed, he will leave or he’ll tell people or tell these that and that. So this was a shameful town.

0:23:52     I came, I was hungry. I’m Jewish, they’re Jewish, you know, and we’re supposed to help each other. And they didn’t help me. They didn’t feed me, they didn’t take me in. You’ll notice Jesus uses those words sometimes, you know, he didn’t anoint my head with oil. He didn’t kiss my feet. He didn’t do this to me. So very dishonorable, the way they treated him. And so this man’s going, and so the. And so then we realize after a while, he does get bread.

0:24:16     He’s at the door pounding. The guy gets up and gives his bread, and he says this, he says, but not because they were friends. He did not give him bread because they were friends. And now, as the translation goes, he did not give him bread because he kept bounding and wanted him to shut up like a barking dog in the middle of the night. No, it says, in order, if you read the translation, because of his shamelessness.

0:24:42     Well, they took that shamelessness to mean he shamefully kept pounding. No, no, no. The translation is in order to prevent shame on the community, on the neighbors, because they were, they’re close communities, in order to prevent shame on this community that I went there and they didn’t give me bread. He’ll get up and says he’ll give him as much as he needs because he doesn’t want to bring shame on the community, shame on his family, shame on the kingdom of God in our case.

0:25:09     And so now that we understand that, now we know how prayer should be, we want to do prayer that removes shame about God’s name and his reputation and how he was treated in heaven by Lucifer before he was kicked out of heaven. He rebelled and all those kinds of things. So remove the shame and you’ll get as much bread as you need. Do you get that? Oh, so it’s wonderful stuff. So I hope that helped you today in the mandate of honor. Learning how to pray prayers of honor will open the heavens, heaven heaven’s gates to you and increase his honor and it’ll be a blessing. More of a blessing to you too, right?

0:25:46     Be sure and check us online our products, some of the things we have there like the booklet,  If You Only Knew: A Guide to The Clueless Generation, and it’s still free. And there’s a cd and some other books too. Get them. Get caught up. And there will be a new book coming out soon and also some more new resources. So, I hope you tell your friends about this and follow us every week as we learn more and more about the mandate of honor. Till next time, bye.