John K. Jenkins Sr - Bible Study, Proper Prayer

All right, thank you all for being here tonight. This is our final lesson in this series we’ve been in for the whole year on doing life together from Acts 2:42, where they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and the final piece that we’re going to deal with tonight is prayer. We’re going to talk about prayer tonight because we, above all, want to be people of prayer. A lot of times, people ask me difficult questions or share with me impossible situations, and what I try to tell people is that your circumstances might look impossible and may feel impossible, but nothing is beyond the realm of our God to be able to resolve. Somehow, He can work it out. I’ve seen God do impossible things. As a kid, I have, and you can’t make me doubt it. I was talking to a politician yesterday who talked about the white swing of where the country is headed, what people believe, and how far away it is from what I believe. He was asking me the question of, you know, how do we combat this? How do we deal with it? In the natural, that looks impossible. So, what I said to him is, well, when you don’t know what to do, you pray, and somehow God will give you solutions and answers. That 's the thing we have to keep in front of us all the time: that we are people of prayer, people who believe and trust God. We cast all of our cares on Him, we cry out to Him, and we approach His throne. We have to be people of prayer. When people come to you or you come across someone in horrifying situations, don’t try to solve it. Don 't try to tell them, you know, I tell you all the time, people just don’t know what to say, so they say stupid stuff like, «Why did this happen, and why did God let that happen? Well, He needed a flower in His garden in heaven, so He took your loved one.» Every time I hear people say stupid things, I want to say to them, «Shut up.» Amen. So, what we want to be, above everything else, is my push to us, my passion, is that we’d be people of prayer. That we start our day with prayer. You know, they were praying, that we talk to each other and pray, and beseech the throne of God. That 's what we’re going to talk about today: prayer. What is prayer? Prayer is communicating with God. By the way, communicating with God is two ways. Someone say, «two ways.» It’s not just you talking to God; it’s also God talking to you. I think all of us have to learn that, rather than just uttering all our needs to God and then getting up and going our way, we should spend time waiting and give God an opportunity to communicate back to us. Now, you may not hear a voice. I have never heard an audible voice, and God knows I don’t need to hear an audible voice because if I heard an audible voice, I wouldn’t be talking to God anymore. God communicates in your spirit, through strong urgings in your spirit. He may put a thought in your mind or an impression on your heart. Give Him an opportunity to speak to you. Spend some quiet time listening to what God might be trying to say. So it is communication; it is communicating with God. I am saying to you that it is also a lifestyle. This is how we want to live our lives. It’s a lifestyle of prayer. When people have anything to say about us, let’s let them say that we are people of prayer, that we believe God. Some people may not like that you are a person of prayer, but that’s fine; if you don’t like that, that’s on you. Amen. But I’m going to be a person of prayer and cry out to God. The scripture gives us a ton of verses that tell us about living a life of prayer. Luke 18:1 says, «And men ought to always pray.» Y’all can just jot these verses down and read them because I know y’all read. I tell y’all I know you go home and read these verses. Amen. We ought to always be in a posture of prayer. We ought to continue steadfastly in prayer, as Romans 12:12 states. That is our steadfastness: that we are in a mode or model of prayer. It’s a lifestyle; it’s what God wants us to be doing all the time. The Bible is full of examples of people who prayed. Elijah prayed and sought God. Daniel prayed three times a day. It wasn’t a ritual prayer, but he had a relationship with God; he communicated with God. Ephesians chapter 6 talks about praying always with all prayer and supplication. So God wants us to be able to be in a posture, a place of prayer and supplication, communicating with God, sharing our hearts with God, interceding on other people’s behalf. I have multiple meetings throughout the course of the week. I have certain groups that I meet with, and we start with prayer and end with prayer. I have a group that I meet with, and every Wednesday morning we meet and go around the table, making our requests known. So I have a little note in my social media, in my technology, where I’m making notes about prayer and whatever their prayer list is. I make that list. I’m praying for them, and I just said that moment.