Touré Roberts - Prayer, The Forgotten Advantage - Part 3

Alright, so about a month ago, I started a series called «Prayer: The Forgotten Advantage.» If you remember that, just show me some love; let me know I’m in the right room. Then, the series got interrupted one week when God decided He wanted to do something completely different, and we changed direction. By the time it was all said and done, the altar was full of people responding to how God moved prophetically. I also had my friend, Pastor Neal Smith from Planet Shakers in Australia, here, and the Lord used him mightily.

So, I want to get back to the serious topic of «Prayer: The Forgotten Advantage,» and I want to finish that. I think we’ll probably spend a couple more weeks on it because I believe that prayer is powerful. Now, I’m just curious—if you were here and experienced that message, and it took your prayer life to another level—just let me hear you talk back to me if that’s you. Yes? You were a doer of the Word, not just a hearer? Awesome! I mean, it elevated my prayer life to an entirely new level, and I’m witnessing incredible fruit, miraculous healings, breakthroughs, and miracles—so many amazing things! I’m glad this is happening for some of you.

We’re going to go further in that message today because I didn’t just arbitrarily title the series «Prayer: The Forgotten Advantage.» I mean it! Prayer truly is a forgotten advantage of the believer. Often, although our promises are spiritual, we try to live our lives according to natural resources. It’s interesting—while all of our promises are spiritual, the Word of God says in Ephesians 1 that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. He’s blessed us with every spiritual blessing, as the Bible states in Ephesians 1:3. But we are endowed spiritually while attempting to perform naturally.

When we face natural challenges, we resort to natural weaponry and wonder why we feel frustrated. As Paul taught us in one of his letters to the Corinthians, «the weapons of our warfare are not carnal; they are not earthly; they are not natural, but they are mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds.» In other words, we are spiritual beings, which means we have an advantage, and prayer is one of those spiritual advantages. Remember, we defined prayer as invoking the resources of the infinite into the finite. To invoke resources from an inexhaustible realm into a finite realm—it’s powerful!

I think we often underestimate the significance of prayer. The danger of underestimating prayer is this: if you don’t pray, you will never discover what God has already said yes to. There are things assigned to your life that God has already approved, yet if we never pray, how can they ever manifest? James said, «You have not because you ask not.» In another place, in Psalm 2:8, God said, «Ask of Me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.» Sometimes, our prayer life falls way below what God desires it to be because we’re asking too little. God is often not impressed with our prayers because it can be almost insulting to Him. «I’m the Lord, and you’re asking me for something your uncle can do for you?»

We talked about how prayer and faith go hand in hand, and we referred to James. It mentions that when we pray, we need to ask in faith without wavering. It says that the person who wavers is a double-minded man. Let not that man expect to receive anything from the Lord. We discussed how sometimes, you pray for something and, at the moment of prayer, you feel inspired with just a little bit of faith. But then, when it doesn’t happen within a certain timeframe—maybe 7 minutes and 14 seconds—you abandon your hope altogether. Has anyone ever been there?

It didn’t happen when you thought it should, and so you gave up on it. The scripture literally states that a double-minded man, someone who vacillates back and forth, should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Sometimes, the scripture is blunt—it’s like, «Don’t expect to get anything from Me.» It makes sense for God not to answer prayers when He doesn’t know which part of you is praying—the one that doubts or the one that believes. Who should He respond to: the one envisioning failure or the one envisioning faith?

We discussed this earlier, remember? Then we talked about James 5:16, and how it can be translated in the original Greek in this way: «The energy of…»