Why pray if God knows everything already? John Eldredge

nothing's changed my life more than this one secret Greg I could go on and on about this one cuz this is the gold right here but for many years the Christian decades I'd come to God hears my requests please and then I just leave and I wouldn't even give him a chance to talk back now who of us could get away with that in our marriage I was gonna say if you did that with your wife Stacey you're trouble John yeah or with a good friend you just can't imagine sitting down talking at them and never giving them a chance to talk back so here's what we want to do we want to open up the conversation four times in John chapter 10 Jesus says my sheep hear my voice it is your right as a son or a daughter of God to hear the voice of God okay and we practice that by letting him talk back to us so yes here's my request here's my prayer lord please come into my work today please come into my health you betcha but then pause and just listen for a moment and just say father do you have anything that you want to say to me okay let him tell you he loves you let him tell you it's gonna be okay let him into the conversation and this like every other form of Prayer is something we grow in it's something we mature in people say oh I don't hear the voice of God give it some time okay and don't start with the urgent questions you know should I quit my job you know okay okay over time if you'll just give him a little room folks God loves to speak to us and listening prayer will become actually one of the favorite parts of your prayer life you say here's the problem most of us don't quite share God's fervent passion for maturity is that why maybe we don't see answers to prayers like we'd like to but it's true Greg we shoot up these little baby prayers infant prayers which early in your life are fine I think God gives you some some freebies some grace but John says in his epistle I write to you children I write to you young men I write to you fathers okay you see a growth there God is deep we committed to growing each of us up in our life in Christ in our faith and how is he going to do that other than putting us in difficult situations right Hebrews says that Jesus himself was perfected through his suffering it's in the hard times that God is shaping our character he's building our faith and he's teaching us more mature ways to pray so early on in our life it might be helped okay and that's all we got sometimes even as you get older - that can be our birthday okay yeah okay but as we go on we actually learn to pray we we get better at it with it's more comfortable to spend 10 or 15 minutes in prayer rather than 30 seconds and if you grow in that you bet you're gonna see better results to your prayers and I was going to ask you that is that when we do have that maturity and like in the Bible says it's time to get on to some solid food here and is that the same way it works in prayer the more mature you are then maybe you're more discerning on how to pray exactly Hebrews says we have trained our senses right we've trained our discernment and we know more of how God is working in a particular situation so now when somebody's you know says pray for my parents they're you know they might get a divorce I don't just jump straight in to reconcile them because I know God's after their hearts Lord work in their hearts what is the character change you are trying to do in that marriage I'm praying with God's purposes and then the outcome will be a reconciliation you see we mature in our understanding of how God works in the world somebody has an idea and I mean there's this teaching that goes out there that you know God wants us happy he wants a successful he wants us prosperous and when those things don't happen oh I guess God doesn't answer prayer so let's look at Elijah real quick mm-hmm top of Mount Carmel okay Israel's been in a three-year drought now God said I'm gonna end the drought but the beautiful thing is he says I Elijah I want you to pray it you to pray it in so people might remember the story Elijah goes up on Mount Carmel he's got his servant with him he gets down in sneeze lord please send the rain and then he says go have a look anything changing in the weather the servant comes back says nothing dry as a bone he doesn't give up he goes to prayer again we we pray for rain go have a look eight times right hey most of us would have given up by then he'd be down at Starbucks talking about how God doesn't answer prayer that's true right yeah he sticks with it right and that's just one piece of learning to grow up in prayer is it's learning a tenacity don't give up stick with it God is doing things in you and through your prayers that you just don't see it you know and I wonder how many times that we have given up where we may have just been on the verge of an answered prayer and I and maybe we'll find that out in heaven but I think the perseverance part of it I think it Daniel - yeah exactly you know 21 days right three weeks who of us would have stuck at it for three weeks Daniel chapter 10 where he gets a vision he doesn't understand it so he asked God for the interpretation three weeks later the angel shows up and this is a very important biblical story the angel says God actually sent me the day you first pray as soon as God heard you he answered your prayers three weeks I have been battling the kingdom of darkness to get to you Daniel and now here's the answer to your prayer friends we live in a world at war yeah okay it's not just us and God and why isn't he doing things I mean this is a world of a great battle between good and evil and your prayers can make an enormous difference in that we've all prayed for people we loved and cared about they weren't healed what did we do with that and how do we maintain that passion to keep praying when we don't see answers to prayers that were really desperate to see answer yeah first you have to start with the broken heart there of inviting Jesus into your disappointment inviting him into your loss of heart because we want to give up we we want to abandon something so beautiful and powerful as prayer and what I want to say is God is always good you've got to hang on to that God is always good we may not always see his goodness in this earth but God is always good and don't give up next time because yes not every prayer is answered the way we want but a lot of them are a lot of our prayers are and so don't let one big disappointment keep you from pressing on in the future praying for other loved ones they're praying for his guidance sir you know your life of prayer with God is so important don't give up how about praying for people that you want to see know Jesus and you've been praying for 3540 years I know they they have their will the prayer of intercession intervention yes how do we again maintain that that passion that you talked about that confidence that authority when we're not maybe seeing the results that we desire to see okay you are battling for a human soul you are in the fight you are partnering with God so this isn't going to just go quick folks right not a marriage isn't quick parenting isn't quick prayer isn't quick okay sticking with it and praying some of those scriptures for example Paul says in 2nd Corinthians so the god of this age has blinded the mind of the unbeliever well we pray in to that Lord take away the blinders Jesus breakthrough the cloud and the veil of unbelief we use the scriptures to pray for the unbeliever Paul has this beautiful prayer in Ephesians 1 that God would reveal himself to you we pray that Lord open the eyes of their hearts as Paul prays so we can use the scripture with great power in prayer it's what I get to one thing and we're just about out of time here but a lot of people and they would not say this but it's in their action God is sovereign he'll do it every once anyway my prayers don't really matter exactly and you do not see that in Scripture book of Acts chapter 12 Peter is in prison James has been killed they're about to kill Peter but it says this but the church was praying strenuously for him same word used of the prayers of Jesus in Gethsemane that's how hard they're praying okay intervene in prayer peter is set free okay folks you have a role in the kingdom of God here on earth God uses prayer it's not just zap and it's over right we are his partners it's just like the gospel God could broadcast the gospel to the whole world tomorrow let everybody know about Jesus but that's not how he does he uses you and me [Music] you

Channel: 100huntley

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Keywords: John eldredge, wild at heart, john eldredge prayer, john eldredge moving mountains, ransomed heart, christianity, john eldredge author, bible study, intimacy with god, spiritual warfare, prayer, pray, pray for me, morning prayer, prayer for protection, how to pray, prayers, the lord's prayer, christian motivation, prayer for healing, miracle prayer, powerful prayer, power of prayer, jesus, christian, don't give up, 100huntley, crossroads, huntley street

Id: xEHw5uZEw1M

Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020