I'm going to speak this morning
on the topic of the secret place, on developing a prayer life that will
change our life and our ministry. I was born around Chernobyl which was the
largest nuclear explosion that happened in the world. I was born very close to it and
I was born also around the same time that Chernobyl happened which is one of the things
that affected my sight and affected my birth. During the birth, the doctor damaged an optical
nerve by pulling me out of my mother's womb and I developed chronic headaches growing up and then
I was in the hospital, in and out for two years. At the age of about nine, I started to get
bullied heavily in school. I didn't know that was bullying, I thought that's what happens when
you have a deformed face, where stuff was thrown at me, I was called with names. My name was not
the name that my mom gave me. My name had to do with the deformity of my face. When my family
immigrated to the United States at the age of 13, I didn't speak any English. I didn't have
any friends and the insecurities that I had, this inadequacy that I had reached an all-time
high. I remember struggling to fit in. I remember struggling to find meaning and purpose in life and
actually skipping a class in my school because I was so scared to stand in front of a group of 26
students and do a minute, 60 seconds presentation. My prayer at the age of 13 till 16 was
this God could you cause an accident so that You can kill me because if I kill myself, I'm not going to end up in a good place
but if You kill me, it's Your fault. Praise God! God sometimes doesn't
listen to our stupid prayers because if God would have answered every
prayer I prayed, I wouldn't be here today. But I can tell you what started to happen in my
life at the age of 13, 14 and 15 and 16, instead of taking my own life, instead of medicating this
pain and the suffering that I was experiencing with drugs, girls, and alcohol and all kinds of
cutting and other stuff, I remember locking myself up every single day, Monday through Friday right
after school, in my room, blasting music really loud so that my parents don't hear me crying and
complaining to God and vomiting, it was prayer but it was really like a spiritual vomit. Whining,
questioning. Why did you make me like this? My life has no purpose. My life has no meaning. I'm
scared of people. I don't have any friends. Nobody likes me. We came to a new country but I feel like
my whole life is disrupted. Why is this happening to me? And I did that for 20, 30 minutes every
day and then I would always finish worshiping God. The God I just accused of everything,
the God I just cast my doubts on, the God and then I would finish because you
know like sometimes complaining is like vomit. Everybody around you get sick but you feel better
afterwards and that's really what my prayer was. It was just complaining to God. Pouring my heart's
pain to Him and then after I would do that, I would experience His peace. I would experience His
love and I would experience His joy and I started to do that every single day, Monday through Friday
as a 13 year old. After a few years of doing that, God started to supernaturally number one, heal my
headaches. They were gone. Number two, the chronic insecurity that I felt was gone. In school where
I was struggling, I started to get good grades and actually started to preach in my classrooms
and at the age of 16, I became a youth pastor. Out of all things that I could have been doing,
became the very thing I was scared to death to do. I genuinely believe that the secret to a Christian life and to the
Christian ministry is found in the secret place. As the pastor before me mentioned about David,
you cannot be a giant killer until first you're a lion killer. We kill giants in public but God
wants to first develop us to kill lions in private and in order to do that, one of those lions
every person needs to kill is laziness. One of those lions every person needs
to kill is the battle with the blankets, because those blankets in
your bed have demons on them. Right when you set up the alarm clock and you know
that you need to wake up and those comfortable blankets become like the web of lies. They say,
If you stay under me for just five more minutes, I will give you eternal life and many
of us don't have a problem with demons, we have a problem with blankets. And so when you
begin to slay lions in your private life before anybody sees the explosion in your ministry,
the explosion of success in your career and in your life and you begin to develop your private
life with God, it will launch you into a public life with God. Can somebody say Amen. Write this
down. Private victories precede public victories. 1 Samuel chapter 17 verse 34 and 35. David says
to Saul, "Your servant used to keep his father's sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took
a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth;
and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it. You can't be
a giant killer publicly until you are a lion killer privately. Many people build their public
life on private defeats, on private nothingness, on private sand, on private lack and void
of devotion, prayer, fasting and commitment to God and my desire today. I don't have anything
that I'm going to share with you you didn't hear. Anything I'm not going to share with you something
like oh wow, never knew that but my desire is to say the same thing you heard million times, one
more time maybe with a little different accent that you heard so that you will be inspired
to live a life in the secret place. Amen. All of us are building a life on Jesus but
some of us are building our life without Jesus. In Corinthians we see 1 Corinthians chapter
3 verse 12 it says, But if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious
stones, wood, hay, and straw. I want you to notice two types of materials, flammable and
fireproofed. Every Christian, every minister, every one of us is building our life on the
foundation named Jesus. Can somebody say, Amen. Every one of us wherever we are building are
not only on Jesus, we are building it for Jesus. Can I get an Amen? But the question today
is not if I'm building on Jesus for Jesus but am I building it with material that's
fireproofed or flammable. Look at these two categories. First one is gold, silver, precious
stones. The second one is wood, hay and straw. Gold, silver, precious stones are found
underground. Somebody say, 'underground' that means you don't find it on the concrete,
you don't find it in the mall, you don't find it in the gutter. You have to dig for it. It's
found underground. Wood, hay and straw is always found on the ground. It's visible. It's public.
Everybody sees it. Gold, silver and precious stones not only they're found underground but
they also are found in small quantities. Wood, hay and straw are found in big quantities. That's
why every man who buys a ring for his wife doesn't buy a two by four, a two small little tiny rock
and when you look at that price your heart sinks because stones, precious stones, gold and
silver, they're always small. They're not super big and so which material are you
building your cell group, your ministry, your career. Is it something that is found
underground? Everybody sees it. It's always public. It's always what everybody sees but
there is nothing behind the scenes. There is nothing in the secret. There is nothing,
it doesn't cost you anything. It's super big in the eyes of man but it's super small in
the eyes of God. I want you to see the gold, silver and precious stones are also extremely
expensive. Wood, hay and straw are cheap. Wood, hay and straw are destroyed by fire. Gold and
silver and precious stones are purified by fire. Wood, hay and straw are common. Gold, silver
and precious stones are rare. Every one of us is building our life today, building our ministry
today and the question is not how big it is, how fast it is and the question is not is how much
I am liked, applauded by men. The question is this is what I'm building comes from underground, it
costs me something. It's rare because everybody else would rather do things to please man, I'm
doing things to please God. It is not common, it is rare. It takes me time to build this and
if the fire comes, offenses come, trouble comes, divorce of my parents comes, I will get purified
not burned out, not destroyed, not quit and not give up. Why? Because I didn't build my life only
on Jesus, I built my life with Jesus. I didn't build my life only for Jesus, I built my life by
the power of Jesus Christ. That's why come hell, come high water, come offenses, come trouble,
it will not shake me. It will strengthen me. It will purify me. Why? Because my life is
built in the secret place. Come on somebody. Many people quit. Many people get
offended. Many people like I'm burned out. I can't take this anymore.
This is too difficult and for me, this usually is the first sign. They've
been building with wood, hay and straw because if you build your life with gold, silver
and precious stones, fire makes you more precious. It doesn't make you offended. It doesn't make
you quit. It doesn't make you give up and if you are at that place today where you gave up
ministry, where you gave up the call of God upon your life and you're like man, this is just
too hard. Oh nobody just understands. This is just so difficult. People are just so challenging. The
church sucks. The leaders just are controlling. My real question to you is this, What material have
you been building your ministry with? Because if it was gold and silver, precious stones, you
would have came out on the other side pure not offended. Pure not burned out. Pure and more
precious not with I had a bad church experience. You would say, I had a good God experience because
what people meant for evil God turned for my good. Come on somebody. Amen. There were two people in the Old Testament
in Joshua book, and one of them was Rahab. I'll give you just a small contrast, Rahab was a
prostitute, Achan was a soldier. Rahab faced doom, Achan had a promising future. Rahab hid spies,
Achan hid forbidden things. Rahab was saved, Achan was killed. Rahab saved her family, Achan
killed his family. Rahab ended up being in the lineage of Jesus in Matthew chapter one, married
one of the guys she was hiding Salmon and Achan became one of the embarrassing stories that we
see in the Bible. What was the difference between these two people? One was hiding the forbidden
things. The other one was hiding the good things. Your life tomorrow is determined
by what you're hiding today. Everyone in here is hiding something. We either
live in a secret place or in a secret sin but we all have secrets. My desire today is that every
one of us have a secret and that the secret that we have is that we are hiding prayer. We are
hiding fasting. We are hiding God's word. We are secretly like Rahab. Your situation doesn't
matter, what matters is what you're hiding. Your situation doesn't matter, what matters is your
secrets and if your secret is porn, if your secret is sliding into people's DM's and flirting online.
If your secret is secretly smoking and drinking, if your secret is fornication, it does not
matter what position you have in the church, in the society, your secret not only will make you
sick, it will become a public scandal tomorrow. Today's secret is tomorrow's scandals but today's
secret place is tomorrow's supernatural. Today's prayer is tomorrow's power. Today's submission is
tomorrow's success. Today's fasting is tomorrow's glory. Today's purity is tomorrow's pleasure
but today's secret flirtation is tomorrow's sexual addiction. Every person under the
sound of my voice is hiding something and it's good to hide something but it's important
to hide the presence of Jesus. It's important to live a secret life with God that nobody knows
about but they will see the fruits of it down the road. When a husband and a wife has an
intimacy, you see the wife carrying a belly very soon. Now you don't see the intimacy because any
intimacy that is public is pornography. That's why some of you are in your secret place and you don't
have to post it to prove it. Your fruit will prove it and some of us feel the pressure when we're
reading the Bible to screenshot it and post it on Instagram, so everybody thinks you're spiritual
but everybody knows that's superficial because the real fruit of your intimacy is not your Instagram
story, it is your fruit. It is the fruit you bear in your ministry. It is the fruit you bear in
your life. It is the fruit that you bear in your life. It's a supernatural, it's carrying a
belly, it's carrying a growth in your life. It's not an Instagram story. It's not a Facebook
post. It is a fruit and you can't fake fruit. Come on somebody. Touch your neighbor and say,
What are you hiding? Don't let them answer. Respond to your neighbors. Say, it's a secret. Three secret things God wants us to hide. Matthew 6:4 it says that your charitable deed
may be in secret and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly. The first
secret every person should have is their giving, is their sacrificial giving. The second secret
that we should have and it's in the same chapter Matthew chapter 6 verse 6 it says, But you, when
you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the
secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. The second secret
everybody should have is a life of prayer and I want us to see the third
secret. Matthew chapter 6 verse 18, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting,
but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you
openly. The third secret is fasting. Now I want you to notice Jesus tells us three secret things
we should do. Discipleship, evangelism, leadership are not secrets. These are public things that we
do. Worship when we do in public is the public things but the secret things Jesus wants us to
do like Rahab did is prayer, is fasting and is giving. Why these three secrets? Because we also
have three main enemies. Pride, lust and greed. Prayer cancels pride. Fasting cancels
lust and giving cancels greed. So Jesus is saying you have three main enemies
attacking your spiritual growth and I want you to secretly develop this system and a habit.
Secretly begin to give. Secretly begin to pray. Secretly begin to fast and while you're doing it
to please the Father instead of being known by men, you're actually defeating three main enemies
Satan sends to stop your spiritual growth. Come on somebody. The real reason people don't pray is not
because they're busy. It's because they're proud. Prayer is the greatest assault on pride and
prayerlessness is the greatest form of pride. If you're not praying, it's not because you're
busy, it's because you are proud because you think you can do it without God. If you don't
pray, you stray. If you want to walk with God, you got to live a life of secret prayer. This
doesn't mean that you can't pray with your family but if the only time you're praying is
publicly at church, that's not secret enough. Your walk with God has to be in secret
and one of the first things that must be the first secret is prayer. The second secret
that we just mentioned and that is the fasting. Now I understand that we live in a generation
today where most of us will die from overeating not from fasting. We eat too much. Some of us have
a king that we worship. It's called king stomach. The Bible says some people made their stomach into
a god. Food is the first temptation humanity faced in the garden. Food is the first
temptation Jesus faced in the wilderness. Now nothing wrong with food. Food is good and
I love food and the Bible says in heaven, there will be plenty of food but you must understand is
that in order to overcome the lust of the flesh, you have to constantly and regularly subject
your flesh to fasting. Fasting is not popular especially in the Christian circles today that
have a greasy grace, a gospel message that focuses so much that God did everything, you don't need to
sacrifice. You don't need to deny your flesh. You don't need to lay yourself on the altar. Jesus
did everything, all you got to do is just eat, eat, eat, eat. Be happy, eat. It's all about
you, Jesus is about you. You just need to be happy and anything that makes you not happy,
it's not from Jesus. That doctrine is demonic because Christianity has never been about
you. It's been about Jesus. Jesus says, If any man is to follow Me, he must deny himself,
pick up his cross and follow Me. Christianity is not about self-discovery, that is new age and that
is witchcraft. Christianity is about self-denial. You cannot walk with God very far and very long if
you don't live a life of fasting. The early church fasted two days every week. We say man, I want the
power that the early church had. The early church, the secret of their power is two days every week,
they will fast. Why? Because there's something exists when you push the plate and fasting is
not, Oh I'm fasting Instagram. That's not fasting. Oh I'm just simply, I skipped breakfast
today. I didn't get a chance to eat rice and and eggs so I'm fasting. No, no, no that's
not when you didn't have time to eat. Fasting is a voluntary abstinence from food for
the spiritual reasons and Jesus says, I want you to have a secret and your secret should
be fasting. If you want to last, you gotta fast. People say man, how do you keep the fire
for God? Very simple. There's one secret, the fuel for your fire is fasting. Live a life
of fasting. I'm not talking about fasting as a response to a crisis but fasting as a habit,
where every month or every week or when your pastor or when your leader sets a day and
says, this day we're fasting. You begin to engage. Don't say well, God didn't speak to
me. The devil is a liar. God is leading you through your leader to a self-denial and to
a life of secret fasting. Can somebody say, Amen. Some of us don't fast because we have
an adulterous relationship with the fridge. We judge the world for going to the bar
when they get stressed but we run to rice. We run to brownies. We run to muffins. We
run to that and we fall in love with food. Food is your fuel, it is not your love.
Food is supposed to strengthen you. Yes, it has a little pleasure. God bless the food
but at the same time the Bible says, Thou shall love the Lord thy God and thou shall love another
person. It does not say thou shall love your food, which means that food is not for our comfort. We
have a comforter. His name is the Holy Ghost. It is not food that means we have to choose to live
a life of fasting so that the food doesn't become an idol in our life and so that the secret place
is filled with prayer and is filled with fasting. Can somebody say, Amen. The other place that
we need to have in our secret place is giving, is sacrificial giving. Yes there's
offerings. Offerings is what we give to God, that what's extra. There's tithing. Tithing is
very important when we give 10 percent of what we make to honor God. It's not a law where you
won't go to heaven but it's a principle of saying, God I trust you with the rest of my finances
and I honor you and I seek you in my finances but there is one more thing that secretly
we need to do and that is a sacrifice and sacrifice is when you
give something that hurts. A pig and a chicken were walking by and
decided to create a breakfast for a farmer. The chicken looks at the pig
and says, I want us to make a breakfast for him. Could you give him
some bacon, I'll give him some eggs. The pig says, Excuse me, if you give eggs, that's
an offering. If I give bacon, that's a sacrifice. So sacrifice is not just giving something that is
extra. Sometimes it's giving something that hurts and please understand, if you want to live
a life of walking in the secret place, it's not only prayer and it's fasting, there will
be a time in your life where God will challenge you to grow in the area of financial sacrifice and
to give something that hurts. Me and my wife have practiced this so many times and continue to do
that. I would say it's what changed our finances and changed our spiritual life is to live a life
where God puts a finger on something and you say, Lord I'm gonna give it to you. I'm not going
to blow a trumpet. Post it, Hey guys FYI, I just gave a car. Hey guys, I just gave my
savings away. You're doing it in obedience to God. You're doing it in a secret but what's going
to happen the Bible says God sees the sacrifices financially in the secret and He begins to reward
you publicly. No, we don't give to get but if we give, God will bring a harvest. God says, I see
this in the secret place, I see your sacrifices. I see your seeds and God will begin to reward it.
It will come in the form of breakthrough. It will come in the form of financial breakthrough It will
come in the form of favor and other things that people will look at you and say hashtag lucky.
You're like no, you have no idea, I got secrets. Samson wasn't physically muscular because if it
could be, Delilah would never say what is the secret of your strength. Come on. You don't come
to a big buff guy and say, what is the secret of your strength. It's muscles. It's going to the
gym. Samson probably was a normal guy like me and Delilah is like there is no way. What
is the secret of your strength? Why are you so powerful? Samson had a secret and
he lost his power when he lost his secret and there are many of us, we're like man, I
want to be powerful in God. Well, you have to have secrets and the secret is the secret place.
What do you do in the secret place is you pray, is you fast and you sacrificially give when God tells
you to do so and when you give up your secrets in the secret place, you lose your power. You lose
your vision. You lose your hair. You lose the anointing and your life starts going in circles
like Samson's did. Why? Because your power is connected to your secret place. Your secret place
is connected to the secrets that you live with your life and that is prayer and that is fasting
and that is sacrifice. Can somebody say, Amen. Somebody say, 'Secret place.'
Somebody say, 'Secrets.' Somebody say, 'Prayer.' Somebody say,
'Fasting' and somebody say, 'Sacrifice.' God didn't call us to live busy. He called
us to live fruitful and to live fruitful, we must be in intimacy. We must have a secret place.
Colossians 1:10 it says, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful
in every good work. See, God doesn't want us to just be successful in every good work. We're not
machines doing some work. We are humans working which means that for us to be successful, the
Bible uses the word 'fruitful' which means that every work we do must flow out of the intimacy.
It must flow out of abiding. Therefore it's called fruitful in every good work. God doesn't seek
your success. That's why the price for Christian success is not busyness. God expects fruitfulness
and fruitfulness flows from intimacy, that you may be fruitful in every good work. Somebody
shout, 'Fruitful.' Fruitful in every good work. I like contrasts especially in the Bible.
Esther and Vashti. Vashti was so busy organizing the feast for the women that when the
king called for her; She says, I'm sorry honey, I got a cell group that I'm running. I'm sorry,
I'm doing a woman's net right now. I'm sorry, I'm kind of busy. She wasn't doing anything bad.
She was actually doing a banquet for the women. Esther was different. Vashti lost her crown.
Esther was never invited to the king's presence and she went still and the Bible says that
Esther led women as well and men into fasting but Esther didn't lose her crown. Esther saved her
nation. So my question to you today, which kind of bride are you, that always skips the secret
place because you're busy for God or you will always prioritize your secret place because if
you have a secret place, you will save your city. You will impact your generation. You will
affect your campus and some of you maybe feel like but I'm gonna waste my time. I have
so much work to do. You must prioritize that because when you add the secret place as your
foundation, God adds super to your natural and your speed no longer becomes what you are
able to do but what you start to do and God begins to continue to do and there will be a
favor that will be released on your ministry. Amen. And now I want to get to the
last part of this message and that is why we need to pray. Why we need to press
in in the secret place and I'm going to go back to the beginning. Genesis. Write this
down. We need God because we came from God. Genesis 1:11 I want you to see when God was making
the earth. He said, Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and
the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and
it was so. So when God was making the grass, the trees; He comes to the earth the Bible says and
He said, Let earth produce grass. So technically maybe not proper theologically but technically who
created the grass, the trees is the earth because God spoke to it and said produce grass, trees and
all of the stuff. So the trees, the grass and all of the plants, they came from the earth. They need
the earth to live and without the earth, they die. Let's go to verse 20. God said, Let waters
abound with the abundance of living creatures. So technically God looks at the water, the
ocean and says, You make fish. You produce all the living creatures. So because the fish come
from the water, they need the water to live and without the water, they die. Is everybody still
with me? So the trees come from the ground. The Bible doesn't say that God created them. He spoke
to the ground to make them and because they came from the ground; without the ground, they die.
God comes to the sea and says that water produce fish and the water produces the fish and the
fish live because they came from the water and they die without it and then I want you to read
first six verses down it says, God says, Let Us. God comes to Himself and says, Let
Us make man. So man comes from God, the way fish comes from sea and
the way trees come from the ground. Man dies without God. The way fish dies
without water and trees die without the ground. God is still God without man. Ocean is still ocean
without fish and the soil is still soil without the trees. That means God doesn't need us, we need
God. Why do we need God? Because we came from God. Why is that a craving that no religion, no drug,
no boyfriend, no girlfriend can satisfy? It's because you didn't come from drugs. You didn't
come from a girlfriend. You came from God and it doesn't matter how many theological degrees
you have, you have to understand if you maybe have embraced atheistic view that oh I don't
need God. My friend, you came from God and you need God as much as the fish needs the water and
the trees need soil. That's why you need to live a life of secret place. That's why you need to
pray. You need to fast. You need to give. Why? Because you are not a fish that needs water.
You are not a tree that needs a ground. You are created in the likeness of God and you came
from God. You are an intelligent human being. God says, 'Let Us make man in Our image and
likeness.' You have no choice. Your survival, your success in life is contingent on you staying
connected to the source from which you came from. Don't let a professor with more degrees than a
thermometer convince you, you don't need God. You need God. Why? Because the basic
understanding of human creation tells us. It's almost like God was painting us a picture
and He says, One day there will be teachers, professors, YouTubers, influencers, stars and
these people who will say we don't need God, God is not a crutch and God's like every time
you look at your garden, your trees need soil, your fish needs water, you need God because
you came from God. Can somebody say, Amen. A few practical things that I want to give. One of them is that we don't go to secret place
to find God, we go there to be with Him. The Bible says in Exodus 24:12, Then the Lord
said to Moses come up to Me on the mountain and be there meaning, I want you to come and
be there. So many people do not like the secret place for this reason because they feel like God
plays hide and seek and we go in there and we have to jump start our batteries for 30 minutes
and trying to get through to the secret place, get through to the Holy of Holies and it is
true, the Bible tells us to seek His face but think of seeking God's face as a husband
pursuing his wife not as you catching a mouse because so many of us think of seeking God's
face as like God is running from you all the time and you're just chasing Him around and then God
gives you brownie points for doing the chasing. When I am chasing my wife, I'm pursuing my wife,
it's not because she's running from me, running in the neighborhood and I'm chasing after her.
When I'm pursuing my wife that means she is with me physically and I am pursuing her emotionally.
When we go to the secret place, the Bible says to go to the secret place and your Father who
is in secret which tells me He's already there. I'm not going to find Him. Excuse me, I'm not
going there to look for Him. When I'm arriving, He says I've been there since five,
since four o'clock. I've been waiting for you. I'm not going to prayer to find
God, I'm going to prayer to be with Him. God is never lost. It's we who are lost.
So change your paradigm. Don't kind of see yourself as you coming in and you grinding,
starting everything and just pressing in. See prayer as God wants it to be. He's already
there and you're going there to be with Him. Can somebody say, Amen. The other part that it
personally has been life-changing for me in the area of secret place and that is this, God loves
your presence more than you will ever love His. Prayer sometimes is a discipline.
Sometimes it's a decision. Prayer, pressing into Jesus sometimes
it's hard. No offense. The flesh, excuses we have that as I mentioned that in
the beginning, I don't want to downplay that but if all your prayer, if all my prayer is a
rigid marathon discipline, I think it offends God. Imagine if I would portray my relationship
with my wife as running a marathon. It's hard. It's really offensive for her. Now
even if it is hard, you don't say that it's hard you know it's good and our marriage in
the beginning was not good. It was hard but when it got better, when it changed in the
last 10 years, what it's been it's a joy. Now are there difficult moments, sometimes yes but at the
same time, it's a love relationship. It is not a law relationship and this is life-changing. Let me
give you a few verses. Psalm 149 verse 4 it says, For the Lord takes pleasure. Somebody say,
pleasure. I can't hear you. Say pleasure in His people. He will beautify the humble
with salvation. Zephaniah 3:17 it says, The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One,
will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice
over you with singing.” Somebody say, Rejoice, that means that God says, When you come into
My presence, I rejoice over you with gladness. God gets giggling. God gets happy. God's like
man, this is incredible. This is awesome. Come over here. I like you. Have you seen parents
do that to their kids, like a chubby fat kid like a little kid, you're like and they just
grab and like oh you little, smoochy thing and stuff because that's the father's love
for a child. The Bible says in Zephaniah, When you come into My presence, I rejoice over you
with gladness. I rejoice over you with singing. I will quiet you with My love. That's why I'm
for falling asleep in prayer. The same way is that if a child falls asleep in the father's
arms, the dad doesn't wake up, say, wake up. How dare you fall asleep in my arms? So if
sometimes you're pressing into God, you're loving on Jesus and on accident, you fall asleep.
Don't feel guilty. You should just simply wake up, say, Jesus that was such a sweet presence because
prayer is not some legalistic discipline. Prayer is a love that God has for you. It's almost
like God created prayer not for your pleasure but for His pleasure. He enjoys your company.
He loves your presence. He wants you to come and visit with Him every single day because He takes
pleasure in His people. Can somebody say, Amen. I remember when my prayer time and my prayer time
starts very early in the morning and I would go and this particular time and the season,
it was for a few weeks. It was very dry. I wasn't feeling it. I wasn't getting any rhema.
I just felt like I just couldn't break through, will spend an hour and just it felt like
God just kind of left me. Forsook my address and one time, I would come from it and I got
cranky. I get home because I was praying at the church and I would come home and I would
be so cranky to my wife and I just felt sleep deprived and all of these things and and one time
I remember, I sat down in prayer and I said Lord, I think it would be better if I just don't
show up for a few weeks. I think I'll have maybe more sleep, better attitude plus
this thing isn't helping my mental health. This thing is not helping me and I
sat there and I felt a still small voice from the Holy Spirit challenge me and
say that you come here to feel My presence. I want you to come here so I can feel yours. I
said God, you want my presence. He says John 3:16 it says for God so loved the world. It doesn't say
for you so loved Me. He said, you're a sinner. I loved you so much that I let My Son die for you. I
enjoy your presence. He says, Don't come to prayer only so you can get My presence. Come to prayer
so that I can have the blessing of your presence. Now I'm not building some idolatrous doctrine
here but I remember that penetration that Jesus loves me so much that His presence. He delights
in me. He enjoys my company. I said Jesus, sounds good. Next day when I came into my secret place,
I sat down and I said, Lord here I am, enjoy me and I just sat there and maybe five minutes
into, the sweet presence of Jesus came upon me so strongly and I started to live with this
realization, Prayer is not just about me getting God. Prayer is about God having the pleasure
of enjoying His creation and His children the way that my parents enjoy me when I was a
little baby, my parents enjoyed me. When you bring yourself to prayer, you're giving God a
chance to enjoy His redeemed son and daughter. Don't deprive Jesus from the pleasure
of your company. Don't deprive Jesus from the enjoyment of your presence. Don't
deprive Jesus from the enjoyment. He likes you. He loves you. He wants to enjoy
you. He finds pleasure in His people. He rejoices with singing over His people.
Can somebody say, Amen. I want you to rise and I want to mention the last thing. Genesis
3:9 the Bible says, And the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? And
the last thing that I want to mention is this. Run to the secret place when you fall
in a secret sin. I want you to see this. To start your journey in a secret place is not
hard. You can get an inspiration. It will become a motivation but then comes the discouragement. What
is the discouragement? You and I are human beings. We're flawed. We sometimes get busy. We sometimes
fail. Sometimes we watch something we should have not. We say something we should have not. We get
engaged in conversations we should have not and guess what happens with that, guilt comes in. The
sin feels burdensome. Our conscience is defiled. We don't feel like we're worthy. We don't feel
like we should be going and then we believe this lie, I'm just gonna you know what I'm gonna skip
on the whole prayer today. Why? Yeah not good and I'm just gonna try better and then once I get
better, I'll be showing up again. Have you ever tried to clean a dirty window with a dirty
rag? It's a mess and that usually happens. Adam commits sin, eats of the forbidden fruit
and the Bible says, The next day or the next time God comes in the cool of the day. What
I find fascinating is that God knew Adam flunk. I think He watched it in 4k
slow-mo. I think all the angels are like, Don't do it. No, no ah, don't take it.
You can just put it back. Ah he did it. And God had these meetings with Adam. We don't
know if it was during the afternoon or morning but something about the cool of the day, when
it was like relaxing. The wind, the breeze of God would come and Adam knew the Lord showed
up and so this next time that Adam commits sin, Adam doesn't show up. Rightly so he feels
disgusted. He feels guilty. He feels like I can't be showing up talking to God like that so
he hides behind the bushes. He hides somewhere. He tries to cover his problems. He said, I'm
going to work harder and then when I get better, I'm going to go back to God and start
talking to Him. What I find fascinating is God shows up to the same place He did before
Adam showed up before and God's question was not, How could you do this Adam? Why did you
do this? He says, Adam, where are you? I wait for you but God, I messed up. I know.
Tell me about it. Why didn't you show up? How can I come to the secret place if I fall
into secret sin? Well, there is only one thing that can wash you and that is the blood and
that could happen in the secret place. I want to tell you something that if you've fallen,
if you've committed some kind of a sin that you cannot forgive yourself, you cannot live
with that guilt, God is asking you today, Adam, where are you? Maybe your life got so overwhelming
and it got so difficult. You forsook the secret place and you're like, God doesn't want someone
like me. I'm so inconsistent. I'm so unreliable. I break my own standards. I break my own
promises. I don't even like myself but listen, God's love is greater for you than your love for
yourself. God is asking you, Adam, where are you? Come back to the secret place. God didn't
leave that place just because you fell into sin. God doesn't want to. God still
wants to meet with you. Just because you fell into that thing that you said, I'll
never do it again. He's saying, Come. Come to the secret place. Adam, where are you?
Isaiah 1:18 and says, Come and let us reason. If your sins are like scarlet. God doesn't say
I'll beat the living life out of you. He says, I'll wash you as white as clean. If
you're screwed up, if you messed up, if you can't live with yourself and you say, I
just I don't like myself. God says, Come. I'm not only waiting for you when you have everything
right, I'm waiting for you when you're a mess because the only place where you can be changed,
where you can be washed, where you can be renewed and restored is in the secret place. You will
either live in a secret sin or you will bring your secret sin to the secret place and your
secret sin will be transformed into a testimony, a deliverance will take place,
breakthrough will take place. Jesus loves you. The Holy Spirit misses
you. Every head bowed and every eye closed. If you're in this auditorium right now and on
the outside, your Christian life, your ministry still looks presentable but on the inside, it's
empty. Maybe you're like the foolish man building your whole life on the sand. You got so busy and
when you do pray, it's a drive-through and it's very dry. There's no priority that was given to
the Holy Spirit and you feel that fire dying out and you feel like I don't think I can take
this anymore. The weight of the responsibility, the ministry, the pressure is way too much. I'm
cranky. I'm irritable. I'm mad at everybody. I'm offended at God. You're building with the wrong material. You're
hiding the wrong things and maybe you started to get engaged with sinful activities again.
Start practicing some of those things that God delivered you from. Start being drawn into
those secret sins that you already even did a testimony in your church and said, God delivered
me from that and there's some of you here today, you're a pastor of the church and
I'm describing your life right now. God is not here to judge you or make you
feel guilty. He just says, Son, daughter, where are you? Come. Come back to My presence.
If you're that person, you lost that secret place and you want to come back to that. I'm going
to ask you to do something right now that's a little bit radical right there where you
are standing, get on your knees before Jesus. Right there where you are standing. This is going
to be only those people who feel like man, I need to come back. I lost that place because of my sin,
because of my guilt, because of my busyness. Just right there get on your knee, before the Holy
Spirit and say Lord, forgive me. Lord, restore to me the joy of my salvation. Lord, restore that
hunger. Lord, quicken that right now in me. Jesus, I want to have secrets and my secret, I want it to
be You. I don't want my secret to be pornography, homosexuality, lesbianism. I want my secret to be
prayer. I want my secret to be fasting. I want my secret to be giving. I want my secret to be the
Holy Spirit. I want my secret to be deep, real. Dear Holy Spirit, I ask you
right now that you restore, renew, quicken back to life that minister
and that leader who maybe has gotten so busy, who has gotten so successful but also super
stressed, so overwhelmed, overburdened like Martha with much serving but one thing is needed
has been neglected. Bring us back to the place of the secret. Bring us back to the place where
like fish in the water and trees in the soil, we find our source in You. Jesus, our ministry
is different than the world corporations and businesses because we're not called to be
successful, we're called to be fruitful and our fruit comes from intimacy with
You. Help us to prioritize every day, time in Your word. Help us to guard that with
passion, time in prayer. Help us to guard our fasting. Help us to not make excuses about lack of
generosity. Help us to be extravagantly generous. Jesus, I pray for those right now that
have fallen in guilt or fallen in sins that they have committed over and over
and they're so mad with themselves. God, may your blood wash them right now and
may the blood of Jesus cleanse them right now. May the innocence come back. May the purity come
back not from their works but from the blood. May the motivation come back. May
the passion come back right now. Resurrect them Lord, renew them, resuscitate
them Lord, bring them back to the spiritual life right now, that they will not just
be people that have a form of godliness, denying its power but that they will live from
the source and the strength of the Holy Spirit. Lord as we're on our knees, we recommit
ourselves to prayer. We recommit ourselves to fasting. We recommit ourselves to sacrifice.
We recommit ourselves God to bring You pleasure by the virtue of our presence. Bring ourselves
into the secret place Lord not only so we can express our love but so yYu can receive us
because we are Your children and no God, we are not special but You call us an apple of
your eye. You love us so dearly that You gave Your Son. So when we come into Your presence, we know
according to Your word that You delight in us. You'll find pleasure in us Lord. Forgive
us for depriving You of that joy. Forgive us for depriving You of that joy. We choose to
live in the secret place, in Jesus Name. Amen. Amen. You may rise. 'Host the Holy Ghost' A
new book that I wrote that just got released. I want to invite you into a journey of knowing
the Holy Spirit more. When you read this book, you will be able to have an encounter I believe
with the Holy Spirit, the one that I had. Somebody introduced me to the Holy Spirit and I believe God
can use me to bring you into a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit, cultivate the fruit of the
Spirit, activate God's anointing as well as learn more about the Holy Spirit. Discern the difference
between kundalini spirit and the Holy Spirit manifestations. Learn about tongues and so much
more so get your copy today. Whether you are in ministry, in business, stay home mom or a student,
you will learn how to develop closer walk with the Holy Spirit by reading this book. As all of my
books, they're available on Amazon, in paperback, hardcover, audio version. There's a Russian
version, Spanish version and you can download it on my website as a free PDF. Thank you so much
and I can't wait to hear testimonies of people's lives being impacted as they read, 'Host the Holy
Ghost' and if you read this book and enjoy it, make sure that you leave a review on Goodreads
and Amazon so that other people can discover it.
