Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), Jerry and Janet Page
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000285
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00:30 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn and welcome again to Issues and
00:34 Answers. Today we're going to be talking about intercessory 00:38 prayer. You know this of course brings a scripture to mind, 00:42 Ezekiel 22:30. Listen to what the Lord says. He says: 00:46 I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and 00:51 stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not 00:55 destroy it, but I found none. The Lord is looking for 00:59 intercessory prayers. Now does intercessory prayer really make 01:02 a difference in people's lives? Well, I've got my handy dandy 01:06 book marker here, my little Kleenex, because I want to read 01:08 you a second scripture and it comes from Psalm 106, and in 01:14 this psalm it's talking about how the Israelites had forgotten 01:18 their God and they exchanged the glory of God for an ox and they 01:24 forgot God their Savior. Listen to verse 23. Psalm 106:23: 01:29 Therefore he said he would destroy them and he would have 01:35 done so had not Moses his chosen one stepped into the breech 01:39 before him to turn away his threatening wrath. 01:43 God was looking for an intercessor and he found 01:48 one in Moses who was a type of Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us 01:52 in Hebrews 7:25 that Jesus is at the right hand of the throne of 01:56 the Father right now interceding on our behalf and he is able 02:00 to save to the uttermost. So that is what we are going to be 02:03 talking about today. I am so excited to welcome back again 02:07 Janet and Jerry Page, two dear friends and two wonderful 02:12 servants of the Lord. Now Jerry you are the conference president 02:16 for the Central California Conference. Janet you're the 02:19 Women's Ministries director and the Prayer Ministries 02:23 coordinator. I have to tell you as I have traveled throughout 02:27 California and particularly in your conference, when I talk to 02:30 people about you, they all say how much the conference changed 02:34 when you came aboard and they all attribute it to your 02:39 devotion to the Lord and your devotion to prayer. So we're 02:43 really excited that you're back and that we are going to be 02:46 talking about intercessory prayer. So Jerry, does 02:50 intercessory prayer make a difference in people's lives? 02:52 Yes it does and I guess if people say something about us 02:56 we're always nervous when people say that, but it's because we 03:00 have come to find out how much we can't do trying to lead in 03:03 God's church at this time in history. There's just too much 03:05 coming at us from Satan and all the things happening, so we've 03:09 just learned to cry out, Help! We can't handle it and we get a 03:12 lot of people praying for us. I love a little story told by 03:16 Tony Campolo who is quite a dynamic speaker. He tells that 03:18 he went to preach at a Bible college for their commencement 03:21 and eight guys got him in the back room. They circled around 03:23 him and they put their hands on his head and they began to pray 03:25 over him. He said that's good, I need all the prayer I can get. 03:27 But he said these guys they prayed long prayers and they 03:30 went on and on and on. He said, this one guy, he wasn't even 03:33 praying for me. He said as they prayed long prayers, he said 03:36 they started to get tired and they leaned on my head. He said 03:39 I kind of wished they'd quit. But this one guy, he wasn't even 03:42 praying for me. He was praying for some guy named Charlie 03:43 Stoslus. He said, O Lord, you know Charlie Stoslus. He lives 03:46 about a mile down the road on the right hand side in that 03:48 silver trailer. He said, Lord, step in and do something. You 03:51 know Charlie left his wife and his three kids this morning. 03:53 Save him, Lord, do something. Tony said every time he get done 03:56 he'd circle around and hit it again. He'd say, O Lord, you 03:58 know Charlie Stoslus. He lives a mile down the road on the right 04:01 hand side in that silver trailer. Tony said, I felt like 04:04 saying to him, What do you think God is asking what's that 04:06 address again? But Tony said he kept on and finally he quit. 04:10 I was able to preach my sermon and I got in the car to go and I 04:14 was driving to get on the turnpike, the freeway, and he 04:16 there was this guy at the on ramp with his thumb stuck out. 04:18 He said, I know you're not supposed to pick up hitchhikers, 04:21 that's dangerous. But, he said, I'm a preacher and any time 04:23 I can get a captive audience in my car to tell them about Jesus 04:26 I do it. So he said, I picked the guy up. We're headed down 04:28 the road. I looked over at him and I said, Hi, my name's Tony, 04:30 what's yours? He said my name's Charlie Stoslus. Tony said my 04:35 eyes got big. I looked at him and I got off at the next exit 04:37 and I started driving across the bridge to turn around and his 04:40 eyes got big. He plastered himself up against the door 04:43 and he said, Hey mister, where are you taking me? Tony said 04:45 I'm taking you home. He said, Why. He said, because you left 04:48 your wife and your three kids this morning didn't you? And 04:51 Charlie says, Yeah, how did you know that? And Tony said because 04:53 God told me. You know what, I believe God did tell him. 04:56 And he said then when I got off at the next exit, drove a mile 05:00 down the road and pulled in front of his silver trailer that 05:02 really blew him away. His eyes got big and he said, Mister how 05:05 did know I lived here? Tony said because God told me. His wife 05:09 came to the door and she said, You're back, you're back! So 05:11 Charlie went up, whispered in his wife's ear, pointed at Tony 05:13 and her eyes got big. Then Tony said, Now listen, I want you two 05:16 to get in that trailer. You sit down. I'm going to talk 05:18 and you listen. He said, Man did they listen just like I was 05:21 God himself or something. That afternoon he was able to lead 05:25 those two young people to Jesus Christ and that guy is a 05:27 preacher in California today. Hallelujah, Hallelujah. But to 05:31 me, Jeremiah 33:3 is a promise from God, some have said it's 05:36 God's phone number. Jeremiah 33:3 says, Call to me and I 05:40 will answer you. But it doesn't stop there. We sometimes think 05:43 of intercessory pray as pulling a lever and God gives us what we 05:46 need or ask him just for what we want. But what we've 05:49 discovered in our journey with him is, Call to me and I will 05:52 answer you and show you great and might things which you don't 05:55 know. The beautiful about God and what he is doing dragging 05:59 us kicking and screaming into this relationship with him 06:02 sometimes trying to get away from him or whatever, he keeps 06:05 teaching us more and more about his character, who he is. He 06:08 never answers my prayers exactly the same way twice. He's always 06:11 got a little twist. He says, I'm the creator; I'll do it a 06:13 different way this time. I'll show you how really special I am 06:16 and he teaches me, grows me, shows me things about myself. 06:20 So that's really our testimony about intercessory prayer, but 06:23 it is an issue. I talked to someone just very recently who 06:26 said, You know, why do we have to pray, why do we have to 06:29 intercede and why do we have to have groups praying together? 06:32 Doesn't God do everything he can for people. All I can say is 06:35 that God's word says yes we do. You look at Jesus. All through 06:39 the scriptures, but in Luke 11 he's got a whole chapter. He 06:43 teaches the disciples to intercede in the Lord's prayer. 06:46 Then he gives the example of the persistent friend and says 06:48 we need to persist in prayer. Jesus himself spent nights in 06:52 prayer before he made important decisions and did things. He was 06:55 always with the Father. Here he was God become man. And on it 06:59 goes; he says and I say unto you ask and it will be given you, 07:02 seek and you find, knock and it will be opened unto you for 07:06 everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him 07:09 who knocks it will be opened. Then later in that same chapter 07:13 he tells us to seek and ask and pray for the Holy Spirit and he 07:15 will be given to us, which is our greatest need. And it goes 07:19 on. Paul, of course, all through the New Testament is saying we 07:21 need to pray. James says you have not because you ask not. 07:24 Then one of my favorite authors, Ellen White, has a number of 07:27 powerful quotes about how intercessory prayer works. 07:30 I believe, Shelley, that it's got something to do with the 07:34 war that's going on behind the scenes between Satan and his 07:36 forces and Jesus and the forces of God. Somehow God has limited 07:41 himself, I believe, to our prayers. Now he's always working 07:45 in everybody's life. He's doing things, but he says some things 07:48 I can't give you unless you ask. 07:50 Because he won't force himself on you. 07:52 It's about his character, it's about rules he's set up limiting 07:55 himself because he will not come across a person's will 07:58 or whatever. I don't know how it all works. All I know is like a 08:02 computer, like television, it just works. We're going to share 08:04 not just from the scriptures today but Janet's going to share 08:07 some stories. Our experience, too, has just been amazing. 08:09 The more we pray, the more we intercede and the more people 08:12 intercede with us, the more we see his hand working in power. 08:15 A couple of these statements that I like. She says in Second 08:19 Selected Messages p. 377: Ministering angels are waiting 08:22 about the throne to instantly obey the mandate of Jesus Christ 08:25 to answer every prayer offered in earnest, living faith. 08:29 So you think whenever we pray, get into a group, we're asking 08:33 him to dispatch the angels, to do something in the great 08:35 controversy. Again, Isaiah 42 says he opens the blind eyes 08:40 sets the captives free, makes the crooked things straight. 08:42 Somehow he helps people see him better. Somehow he gives them 08:45 the freedom to come out from under the bondages maybe Satan 08:48 has put on them and be able to really make a decision through 08:51 their own choice for him. Another one: Great Controversy, 08:56 a book that I love, page 525, she says, it is part of God's 08:59 to grant us in answer to the prayer of faith that which he 09:03 would not bestow if we don't thus ask. In another place, she 09:07 says when he sees earnest prayer Satan's hosts tremble because he 09:11 knows he'll suffer loss. Maybe just one or so more and then 09:14 I'll turn it over to Janet to share maybe a story or two. 09:19 In Matthew 18:19 and 20 Jesus said, Wherever two or three of 09:24 you... He said, Again I say to you that if two of you agree 09:28 on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done 09:31 for them by my father in heaven, for where two or three are 09:35 gathered together in my name I am there in the midst of them. 09:39 Now commenting on that, again, Ellen White says this: This 09:42 promise is made on condition that the united prayers of the 09:46 church are offered and in answer to these prayers there may be 09:50 expected a power... What do you think?... a power greater than 09:55 that which comes in answer even to private prayer. Why? The 09:59 power given will be proportionate to the unity of 10:02 the members and their love of God and for one another. 10:05 Really the Lord's prayer in some ways was John 17 as he was 10:09 going to the cross. He prayed for unity among his believers 10:12 so the world would know that he really came. I believe that when 10:16 he sees people willing to take the time and the effort to get 10:19 together and to pray, he pours our his Spirit power in special 10:23 ways. So not only does every earnest prayer of a person get 10:26 answered but when we come together and when we take the 10:29 time as people, as a church to really pray, I think God is able 10:33 to do the kinds of things we can barely believe. We could 10:37 tell stories for hours here of just the things we've seen 10:40 recently happening. Yes, we've got our prayers that haven't 10:43 been answered yet. He says no sometimes like he did to Jesus 10:47 in Gethsemane. There are wait answers, but we've just come 10:50 to focus on the fact that the more we ask the more we see his 10:53 power, the more we learn about him. I just praise him for that. 10:56 You know, see if you agree with this statement. I often make 10:59 this statement; I know you've heard me even at the retreats 11:02 say this, I believe that intercessory prayer is the 11:08 highest calling to ministry that there is and the reason 11:11 I say that is that I have a scripture to support it and 11:14 that's Hebrews 7:25 that says that Jesus is at the right hand 11:18 of the throne of the Father interceding on our behalf. 11:22 If this is ministry of our risen and exalted Savior, what 11:27 higher calling to ministry could there be? You know what Janet, 11:30 I believe that some day when the Lord is passing out rewards 11:33 there's going to be televangelists who are going to 11:35 be at the front row thinking, Okay, you know, I'm ready 11:39 to get my reward and the Lord is going to say, Sister Ruby, 11:43 come through and here's going to come this precious little saint 11:46 who was 100 years old and thought well Lord what can I do 11:50 for you. All I can do now is pray. And she had this prayer 11:54 of interceding for God's saints and the workers and everybody 11:58 and the Lord is going to say that she did more by praying 12:02 than many people did in their televangelism. You've got a 12:06 lot of experience; you've shared some wonderful stories with me. 12:10 I would just like to agree with what you just said. A lot of 12:14 people who are retired think there is nothing left for them 12:17 to do. They don't feel like they're useful. If we could get 12:21 them all praying and praying together. There's such a power 12:24 to be unleashed that we need their prayer. People who are 12:28 handicapped, people who are bedridden, house-bound, who 12:32 have to stay in their homes. If we could get them to pray and 12:37 pray God's scripture into people's lives. Oh it... 12:42 Let me give them a verse to hold onto and that's Psalm 92 12:47 in verses 13 and 14 says, Planted in the house of the 12:51 Lord they shall flourish in the courts of our God. Growing in 12:54 grace they shall still bring forth fruit in old age, they 12:58 shall be full of sap, spiritual vitality, and rich in the 13:02 verdure of the trust and the love and contentment. They are 13:06 living memorials to show that the Lord is upright and faithful 13:09 to his promises. I think that if you are sitting 13:13 at home right now and you may be house-bound and think I can't 13:17 work for the Lord anymore, all you've got to do is remember 13:20 that the greatest call to ministry is intercessory prayer. 13:23 You can do much. Pray for all of our church leaders, pray for 13:27 our world leaders, pray for everyone; pray for the children, 13:31 pray for the babies. We need prayer. 13:34 In our conference, we have a group of prayer partners all 13:36 through the conference and some of them work, some don't, but 13:39 we have some retired people that come in every Wednesday for 13:41 three hours with Janet and just go over a 10-page list of 13:44 the latest crises I can't handle and problems. I tell you we've 13:47 just seen such miracles and it's because of the simple 13:50 people of God who will take the time. They are not better 13:52 people, they just take the time and the effort to actually call 13:55 on God and believe his word and claim his promises. 13:57 Amen, amen. Well Janet share a couple of your experiences with 14:02 answers to intercessory prayer. 14:05 How I've gotten into intercessory prayer 14:06 is because of people praying for me as I shared a while ago in 14:11 one of these series. So many have prayed for me and my life 14:16 was changed. As God started helping me to realize that, God 14:20 started putting on my heart to pray. I like to encourage people 14:25 to pray, but they need to ask God for what does he want them 14:29 to pray about. Because there are a million things out there and I 14:33 can't pray for them all. But I can pray for what God puts on my 14:37 heart. The biggest thing we pray like on Wednesdays, we start off 14:41 with Lord what is on your heart? God help us to be able to see 14:44 what's on your heart that we might pray with you about what 14:48 is your desire. I can come up with all kinds of things, but 14:51 the thing that's going to be powerful is if I'm praying what 14:55 he wants. One time I had... this was early on when God was 14:59 trying to show me the difference prayer makes. I had this woman 15:03 call and I didn't know her real well. She said hello or 15:06 whatever and she finally said, I've been married 32 years and I 15:10 want out of the marriage. She said, It's been terrible. And 15:13 I'm going whoa you know I'm not a marriage counselor. What am I 15:16 supposed to do with this? Of course, I'm kind of praying this 15:19 privately in my mind and I felt like God was saying ask her to 15:22 get together to pray with you once a week. I thought you know 15:25 I'm busy, how can I find the time to do that, I don't know 15:29 that she's going to want to do that. She went through telling 15:31 me, you know, he's miserable, I'm miserable, I want out. 15:34 She said, in fact I left. I packed my car with the things 15:36 I thought I can't live without and I'm on the highway driving 15:39 down the highway saying, God I know you don't like divorce and 15:42 you want me to stay married, but I'm miserable, he's miserable. 15:44 What should I do, God? Right then she saw a sign, 15:47 a big white sign; in big black letters it said TURN BACK NOW 15:51 NEXT EXIT. So she turned around and went back home and then she 15:56 said, God, what do I do and he told her to call me. So I said 16:00 well the only thing I know is to ask you to get together once a 16:02 week and pray about your marriage. I said, I'm not a 16:05 marriage counselor. She said, Oh I'd love that. So we started 16:08 getting together once a week to pray about her marriage and 16:10 at first she was saying, God help my husband. He is miserable 16:14 and just all the bad things about her husband. Lord change 16:17 and convert him. Gradually though I gently kept trying to 16:21 lead her, let's spend more of our time praising God 16:24 worshipping him. I said the more we focus on God instead of the 16:29 problem. We're so quick, at least I am, to just boy this is 16:32 my problem, help me, help me, help me. But instead first 16:35 focusing on and worship God and focusing on his power. We 16:40 started doing that. But I also got her to commit to spending 16:43 an hour a day with God by herself alone, just reading the 16:48 word, getting to know him. I said, you've got to get to know 16:50 God. She'd kind of given that all up because of her bad 16:53 marriage. So she started spending time alone with God. 16:56 Then when we would get together she had so much to praise God 16:59 about and give thanksgiving because of what was happening 17:01 in her private time. God was making himself real in her life. 17:05 Also the other thing we did was we started praying, Lord, how do 17:10 we pray for this marriage. How do we pray for him and for her. 17:14 God led us to pray that it would be put in his mind to love her 17:19 the way he did when he first met her, when they got married and 17:22 that she would love him the way she did when she first married 17:24 him; also that she would see her husband through God's eyes. 17:29 We also started praying for him to have a pure mind because that 17:33 was part of his problem. So we ended up spending more of the 17:38 time worshipping and praising. But do you know what happened? 17:40 When you start meeting together to pray for somebody or to pray 17:44 for a situation or even a church coming together to pray for the 17:47 Holy Spirit, you know what happens? You're releasing the 17:51 power of God somehow, in most cases problems start happening. 17:55 Trouble starts being dumped out. I have had so many mothers come 17:59 to me. They come and say, pray for my son. I want him to be 18:02 converted. We're having so much trouble. We pray for him and the 18:04 next week they come back crying, We shouldn't have prayed for him 18:07 He got fired from his job, now he and his wife are fighting and 18:09 she's threatening divorce. You know things are worse. I try to 18:13 encourage people... you have to be careful how you do this 18:15 because it can be offensive... but praise God. 18:18 In II Corinthians 5:7 it says walk by faith, not by sight. 18:24 In Isaiah 55 it says his ways are not our ways, his thoughts 18:27 are not our thoughts. We don't know how God has to work in 18:31 order to save that person or to heal that situation or in 18:35 order for the Holy Spirit to be poured out in the church. We 18:37 don't know what's got to happen, but I can promise you that if 18:40 your praying and claiming God's promises and his word, God is 18:45 working, even though it may not look like it. He desperately 18:47 needs a people that will step out in faith and praise him and 18:50 thank him. In saying that, I don't always do it. I'm a big 18:56 one to whine ah I'm not sure this is going to turn out right. 18:58 I believe thought that if I could do that even more, it 19:02 would release more of God's power. But in this marriage 19:05 we saw things get worse and it got discouraging after a while. 19:08 We'd keep meeting every week, meeting, praying together and I 19:11 pretty soon got sick of praying for this marriage. These people 19:15 we started praying for their kids, because they were young 19:21 adults who had never accepted the Lord. During the couple of 19:24 years that we prayed we saw the children all get baptized 19:27 plus the families came to the Lord. Eventually thought this 19:31 woman who was so angry and just so depressed and just miserable 19:36 because of spending time with God, the marriage had not 19:39 changed, but because of spending time with God she became a woman 19:42 of joy. She became so thrilled with that relationship with God. 19:45 She was just exuberant and her husband started to take notice. 19:48 Her face went from anger to happiness and joy and he started 19:52 trying to talk to her again and pretty soon they became like 19:56 this. You couldn't get them apart. They became like young 19:58 lovers, always had to be holding hands, she had to go with him 20:01 wherever he went with his work and sit right next to him in the 20:04 car. It was so exciting to see. 20:05 What you're saying to me is... let me put it this way... in my 20:11 life every time I have a problem I know it's a spiritual problem 20:14 as the root of it. Whatever is being manifested in my life and 20:19 she had a spiritual problem. She was empty. She had her eyes off 20:22 the Lord. She didn't have any joy in her. The joy of the Lord 20:26 was not her strength. So she was empty inside and looking 20:30 for her husband to meet all of her needs, which he could not, 20:34 and she was angry and bitter. Once you got her into that hour 20:38 a day she was in the Word, feeding on God's word and coming 20:42 to know God. Then all of a sudden she started getting 20:46 filled, she started changing because her spiritual life was 20:49 changing which made her a whole lot more attractive to her 20:53 husband. It just works that way. But the intercessory prayer for 20:58 the husband and the family. God really moved. 21:02 As I said, we saw a lot of problems start happening, so 21:06 many, but we just kept praising and thanking God that we trusted 21:10 he was working. We were claiming his promises. But one of the 21:14 beautiful things was her heart desire was they could be 21:17 spiritually one. He said, Lets start praying together, let's 21:22 start studying together. That's on top of their own private 21:24 devotional time that they started doing it together. 21:28 One of the things he started praying, he did not know we'd 21:31 been praying this for him, but it was Lord give me a pure mind. 21:34 It was so precious. Years later she was dying of a disease and 21:43 he would pray for God to heal her and I believe God has, but 21:47 it will be at the resurrection morning. But before she passed 21:51 away, she called me to her bedside and she said, I just 21:53 wanted to thank you. I can't tell you how grateful I am that 21:59 you'd take time out of your busy schedule to pray with me once a 22:03 week for my marriage. She said I would not have been ready to 22:06 face death, because I had no assurance of salvation. I was 22:09 miserable. I hated my husband and what he did. She said now 22:13 our marriage is healed, I know God loves me. She said I'm ready 22:17 to die. During that process, they saw 22:18 several of the children converted too. They had children 22:21 that had gone away from the Lord and they prayed and prayed for 22:23 them as well. So, just over and over and over we see these kind 22:27 of experiences happen. The husband, too, later took me 22:30 aside and said, I can't thank you enough for what you did. 22:33 It's not me, you know, it's a God thing, but I was being 22:36 obedient to what God's asking me to do. He said, I wouldn't 22:40 have been ready for my wife to die, but our marriage is healed 22:43 now and we can handle it. 22:45 You know, Janet, I'm thinking you're sitting here telling her 22:47 I'm not a marriage counselor, but you know the best marriage 22:51 counselor that there was. You could usher her right before 22:54 the throne of the Lord to approach that throne of grace 22:58 to find mercy and help in at times of need. 22:59 Well, so many times somebody has a problem and they share that 23:04 problem with us and so many times we'll say you know I told 23:07 them everything I could think of to help them and I don't know 23:10 what else to do to help them. The thing we need to do is to 23:13 pray with them, not just for them, but to pray with them and 23:17 not just once. At times I'll have people say oh we've got 23:21 this problem with their school or whatever it is in their 23:25 church and I say well are you meeting together and praying 23:27 about it? Oh, we've tried that. I said, well how many times did 23:30 you meet? Oh, well we met at least three times. It's got to 23:35 be way more than that. It does not always; sometimes God 23:39 answers instantly, but it has to be that earnestness and some 23:43 times we give up too quickly and it shows that we really don't 23:46 have the faith to believe some times. 23:48 Yes, look at I Kings, Elijah. Elijah knew God was going to 23:53 send the rain after no rain for three years. Elijah was on the 23:58 mountain. God pours down fire on the altar and all these miracles 24:02 are happening, but Elijah knows God is going to send the rain 24:05 but yet Elijah kneels, he gets in a position like a woman 24:09 having a baby in labor, not the way women have them now, but 24:14 used to. He is just pleading for God and he prays; seven times 24:18 he is asking God. So much I hear people say oh we don't need to 24:21 pray about it; we prayed about it once or what will be will be. 24:25 God's word is not that way. Elijah pleaded before God seven 24:30 times. Daniel in Daniel 9 and 10 read this prophecy in God's 24:34 scripture showing that God is about to fulfill at the end of 24:37 70 years, this prophecy. Well Daniel could have looked at that 24:40 and said Oh that's wonderful, wow, our captivity is about to 24:42 end. God's going to take care of this. He could have stopped 24:46 there, but he didn't. He went into fasting and prayer, praying 24:49 for God to fulfill that. Now let me ask you a question. 24:52 I often will use this. What if Elijah, he prayed once, servant 24:58 came back and said there's no rain; twice, no rain; third time 25:03 fourth time. What if he had stopped at six times? He could 25:07 have just finally said, there's still no rain. We've got to 25:11 continue when God has impressed something upon us, when there's 25:15 a promise in the Bible that we can stand on, when there's 25:18 something that we know God is showing us to do, we need to 25:22 keep pressing in and pressing in until we get that answer. 25:26 But with joy, with praise and thanksgiving. I've done this 25:29 and I see other people do this. We can get so anxious and 25:33 distraught about it and just so upset that we can make ourselves 25:37 sick. That is not the kind of intercession that God's word 25:41 teaches. Well see, to me that's a lack of 25:43 faith almost, I mean, if you get to where you're so distraught 25:46 you're making yourself sick over it, isn't it? 25:48 But people can do that, especially about their children. 25:53 It's really got to be a focus on the word and claiming and 25:56 and praying his promises, praying his word. I love Psalms 25:59 because you find through it over and over again where he 26:03 expresses a problem but then he makes these faith statements. 26:06 I have written FS by all of these faith statements; God you 26:09 will do this, God you are going to come through. 26:12 So that's kind of praying the promises, praying back to God, 26:16 returning his word to him knowing it won't return void and 26:19 then thanking him, saying Lord I know you're going to come 26:23 through with thanksgiving. We have one minute left. What's 26:26 a final thought on intercessory prayer? 26:29 To me it's knowing God's heart. There's no point in intercessory 26:34 prayer if you don't spend time knowing God's heart and it's 26:38 such a joy to know his heart. It's the most thrilling thing in 26:41 life. We get so caught up chasing after things we think 26:44 will make us happy when the thing that will make us happy 26:47 is being still in his presence and letting him hold us and 26:50 finding out what's on his heart and how he wants us to pray 26:53 about it. You know, I love you Janet, and 26:55 I love the zeal and the passion that you have. 26:57 I love her, too, you know. Well you all are such a precious 27:01 couple. I want to thank you so much. We're enjoying so much 27:04 each of one of these programs that you've done and I thank you 27:07 that you're going to be coming back again soon. 27:09 You know, when we think about it a God of love does not force his 27:14 will on you, but it's like he's put self-imposed handcuffs of 27:19 love and when we pray for someone in intercessory prayer 27:24 it is the key that unlocks those cuffs and we give God permission 27:28 to work in someone's life. That's what this story was all 27:31 about that Janet shared is this wife and Janet prayed for her 27:35 husband giving God permission to do a work in his life. I just 27:39 want you to stand in the gap. Be one of those who says Lord 27:43 here am I; I'll be one who prays for others. 27:46 Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of the 27:50 Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit 27:51 be with you today and always. Thank you. |
Revised 2014-12-17