Life Beyond Sundays - Episode 7: Prayer: Communication with the Lord

Michelle discusses the importance of prayer and provides guidance on how to pray. She emphasizes the need for a personal relationship with God and explains that the prayer of salvation is necessary for those who do not have a relationship with the Lord. She also advises seasoned believers to be intentional and reverent in their prayers. Michelle references the model prayer from Matthew 6, highlighting the importance of praying in solitude and avoiding vain repetitions. She concludes by emphasizing the significance of seeking God's will and asking for forgiveness. Hello, hello, hello. This is Michelle with Life Beyond Sundays. I pray all is well with you. Today's topic is prayer, communication with the Lord. So I wanted to start out with, it actually is like 6 a.m. in the morning where I am. I usually am up, you know, around 5 or earlier. Sometimes the Lord wakes me up at 3 and I know it is to pray. I think, you know, people are always saying, oh, you need to pray, you know, you need to pray. And like I said in my past podcast or videos that, you know, it is something for us to just, as Christians or believers, to just tell you. But when you are new to Christ and new to Christianity or as a believer, you may not know. So sometimes it is essential that we provide some foundational understanding and steps. Because, you know, for me, I know I have been saved since I was probably like 12. But even before then, I knew the Lord in the age of, I want to say 5 or 6. But what I am saying is I had to grow in the things of the Lord and I was in church all the time and Bible study and different things. But for, sorry, the way that, you know, life moves now in 2024 with everything that is online and how different generations are gathering information and Google and all that. You know, I just have been led by the Lord to ensure, do my part to ensure that there is an understanding with some of the foundational things of this walk with the Lord. So let me say that prayer, prayer is communication, but it is also fellowshipping with the Lord. It is vital and it is our personal relationship with God. But we we definitely need to be communicating with the Lord. At first, it will seem uncomfortable. It will seem strange. But as you continually and faithfully communicate with him, he will begin to show himself unto you. You will begin to, oh, my goodness, want to stay in your secret place in prayer with the father. So what I want to start with is for those and let's back it up for those who maybe may come across this recording and don't have a relationship with the Lord. So let us get understanding about this. The Lord cannot hear a sinner's prayer. You must be saved and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The prayer that he will hear from a sinner is what we call the prayer of salvation. So if you have never given your life to Christ, this is the first time of you hearing or understanding and wanting to know more and be in fellowship with the Lord. Then this is what you must pray a prayer of salvation. If you are a person that maybe has walked with the Lord and back and, you know, you've been a backslidden state, you've been in sin, you haven't been in prayer. Or even if you are a fellow believer Christian who walks faithfully with the Lord, even though I have been saved as long as I have, I am in my early 50s. I still occasionally say the sinner's prayer as an assurance that I know that I know father that I am his that I am safe with out of doubt. And I don't mean that devil doctor enough. Save once saved, always save. No, I am saying I need to be reassured. I do say the prayer of salvation. So I'm going to say it, read it to you here. But I mean, there are different forms of the prayer of salvation. Even if you wanted to Google a prayer of salvation, you could do that. I will put this into the remarks or the info area for this video or podcast. But what the main key things that I want you to know is when you go to pray a prayer of salvation, you must wholeheartedly believe in your heart and confess with your mouth. That Jesus Christ is Lord, you need to assure that you are praying to the correct Lord of Lord, king of kings, sovereign, that you are going to serve the right God. The God who sent out of John 316 has only begotten son in the flesh down to this earth to die on the cross for our sins. John 316 says for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever shall believe it in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus is not a prophet. He was not a man. He is God incarnate. He is the Messiah, Christ. Yes, you will have a sheik, whatever name God knows he will hear you Jesus, call out the name. But you must believe wholeheartedly you must cry out to the Lord father. The prayer one of the prayers that you could pray for a prayer of salvation is father. It is written in your word that if I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and if I believe in my heart that you have raised him from the dead, I shall be saved. Therefore father, I confess that Jesus is my Lord. I make him Lord of my life right now. I believe in my heart that you raised Jesus from the dead. I renounce my past life with Satan and I close the door to any of his devices. I thank you for forgiving me of all sin. Jesus is my Lord and I am a new creation. Old things have passed away. Now all things become new in Jesus name I pray. Amen. So, you know, pray that prayer and I promise you the Lord will come into your heart into your life. You should you may feel an immediate difference. And then you may not but just know and trust and have faith that once you pray that prayer, you now are his that he knows you. He heard you. He heard your cry. He heard your prayer. So I also want to talk about for those of us who are say we pray all the time. Here's what can happen. Sometimes our prayer life can become stagnant. It can become to where we kind of are lackadaisy in the way we pray with the busyness of life. Maybe you're always rushing through a prayer, you know, just hurrying up. Oh, as you're trying to throw a bagel into your mouth and get it jump in the car on your way to work and I just hurriedly tell the Lord. Okay, Lord, thank you for this morning. That is not giving God reverence. We have to be intentional purposeful seeking him and honoring him and loving on him because when you want the Lord to bless you when you have asked the Lord to see you through when you ask him for his protection. He doesn't have haphazardly or rush through making sure that you're okay. So we need to make sure we are taking the time being intentional and giving the Lord the same reverence. He is do that. He is worthy. He is worthy to be praised. He is worthy of all the honor and all the glory at all times for he is our creator without him. We have nothing. He is our very breath. Okay, so for those of us that are maybe seasoned believers and Christians. It returned to Matthew 6 chapter 6 the way it was taught to me and I know this to be true because it is in the word God has given it to me time and time again, but I was raised with this as the way to pray the model prayer. So Matthew chapter 6, I'm going to read verse 5 to you is where I'm going to start but the actual prayer or the way the father wants us to open up all prayer with him is starts in verse 9, but let me start at verse 5. And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men assuredly. I say to you, they have their reward. But when you pray pray 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 and when you pray do not use vain repetitions as the heathens do for they think that they will be heard for their many ways. Therefore, do not be like them for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. Okay, so that is five. That's that's versus five to rate. So before I go into his actual prayer, I want to backtrack to seven. So where it talks about in the word. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathens do. So all that continually saying something repeatedly over and over and over again, or yes, Lord, father, Lord, God, father, that is vain repetitions. You are just repeating words to make it be many words to elongate the prayer to make it seem like you when people do that. This is discernment as you as you grow into things of Christ, you'll have discernment when you know, not what you ought to pray. Then just be silent. God will give you what to pray. It shouldn't be repetitions of words. As a matter of fact, that kind of goes close to chanting, which I'm not going to give an example of I'm sure you've heard people with meditation and yoga and all that. And which is of the devil. We do not sit and meditate and do mantras and all that that is repetitions. And that is vain repetitions. We don't do such things. So let me go ahead to verse nine. So it continues the word of God says in this manner, therefore, pray. So this is a block of instructions. The father is saying in this manner, therefore, pray. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Now, let me stop for a minute. I am reading from the New King James Version. But as and I'm actually I'm looking at it. I say I'm reading it. I'm not it's within my heart because I've prayed this prayer all my life. And my form of the prayer comes actually from the King James Version. It reads different here in New King James Version. It will probably read different and other versions and IV NLT. I don't really use any of those. The only other Bible I will reference is the amplified sometimes. But the main stay for my Bible studies, which is a whole nother podcast I have to do would be King James and New King James Version because some other versions of the Bible. I'm just going to digress for a moment. When you begin to look at and you compare it with the original King James, the word start digressing and changing, which changes the whole connotation or meaning of that paragraph or that word. So I'm very closely sticking with King James and New King James Version. But the prayer is our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine are the kingdom, the power and the glory Father. Now, I pray that and you could say, oh, man, and that is a prayer within itself. But what I do is I pray that prayer always before I pray anything else. So I go ahead and I pray that prayer and then I don't say amen. Then I begin to go into the honoring of the Lord, the supplication, the glorification, prayer. I know there's different books out there written on the right way to pray. What am I saying? Give me one moment. Let's see here. OK, so I know that. OK, so I know that there are different formulas people say out there. One of the main ones is they say the acts model to pray the ACTS, which is adoration. So first, a is out of the acts. Adoration means to worship, glorify and exalt God. So we show as we pray, that would be you having praise and worship music or even adoring father and giving him glory. So as after you've prayed the our father's prayer, then you may go into adoring and worshiping the Lord by saying, Father, right now, I give you all the glory and honor. Father, thank you, Father, for who you are. Thank you, Father, for this day that you have made in your word, you say that there is nothing new under the sun, Father. And I so see, I don't I will go into prayer. But this is that first step of adoration, giving God the glory and the honor because he is God. This is so we shouldn't start out prayer asking for what we want or, you know, giving God, I like to say directions or whatever. We should begin with giving him his due honor and glory and magnifying the name of the Lord because he woke us up this morning. I and then that's another part Thanksgiving. But the next part of the acts model is see confession. So confession means like to confess and to the word confess means to agree with. We confess our sins. We agree with God that we are wrong and that we have sinned against him by what we said, did or thought. And then God forgives us and restores our fellowship with him. The scripture that is referenced for that is First John one in nine. So when we confess, as I'm praying, like I said, and I know it seems like a lot right now. But as you press into the Lord and in your prayer time with the Lord, these things will become second nature. God will elevate your prayer. Like the more you seek him, the more you practice in your prayer and and and have a relationship with the Lord. He will show up. He will show up. So what confession looks like. I may begin to say, Father, forgive me for any. You know, when I wake up, I begin to pray immediately. I go ahead and say, our father who art in heaven, I go ahead with that. And then I give him adoration. I thank him for who he is, for having created all the things that he has created. For giving me breath in my body, for having given me a sound and sober mind this morning and waking me up. I think I'm for use of my limbs. And that is just giving God the glory. And that is Thanksgiving also. But for confession, I say, Father, I confess right now for any unclean thoughts, any. I take it under into captivity, any unclean thoughts that I had that do not line up with you, Father. I confess. I ask for forgiveness, Father. And then you can go into specifics if you know something specifically. Father, forgive me for having thought ill of my neighbor. I can't believe that I did. I just have a conversation with the Lord in reverence. You know, we should not be as a Christian cursing at the Lord as we're speaking. If you have a foul mouth and use four letter words, ask the Lord to bind your tongue and clean your tongue. Because out of the tongue, we speak life and death. You should not be. There is no such thing as a cursing Christian. You have to choose this day who you will serve. Either you serve God or you serve Satan. But the two cannot reside in one place. So there is no way you can't be a cursing Christian. You ask the Lord to clean your mouth and he will. And you make the effort. You have to begin the process. God will meet you at the point of your very need because that is not of God. There is no leeway. There is no one foot in the world and one foot in with God. That is not my God is a jealous God. You will serve him. Choose this day who you will serve. OK, so I digressed. Apologies. So once again, you do the confessions. Now, the next step in the axe model is Thanksgiving. And this is from Philippians four and six, chapter four, verse six. With Thanksgiving, let your requests be made unto God. You know, so how you know, you may say, how is Thanksgiving different from the adoration, which is the first part of acts? The difference is that worship focuses on who God is and Thanksgiving focuses on what God has done. You know, we can thank God for many things, including his love, his salvation. He has provided his protection and provision and that he watches over. Just like I said, the things thanking him for sound and sober mind, for use of my faculties, which is my arms and my legs and my inner body and being able to just function daily for my breath, the very breath in my body that God breathe into me. Thank you, Father. I. Oh, my goodness. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite parts of praying because it's a time of prayer. Because in all the big things and little things of what God has done, because there is somebody that didn't wake up this morning. I have to thank him for waking me up. There's somebody that woke up, but may not have anything to eat. Father, thank you for providing bread and food for my family. Somebody may have woke up, may have may not have woke up, may not. Somebody may have woke up and not have food, but may not have a job to go to. Thank you, Father, for my job. When you start just going down the list and you begin to thank the Lord for all that he has provided for the smallest thing to the largest. And I always like to say and father, if you never did another thing for me, I thank you right now for all that you've already done. This is giving him the praise in advance. If you never bless me with another thing, what he has already done is more than I could ever hope for. So the last part of the model and prayer is supplication. So this refers to praying for our needs and others needs. It is supplication is like a request or a petition. We pray, you know, for mercy upon somebody or a family member. That Psalms four and one. We pray for the leading of the Lord. That Psalms five and eight. We pray for wisdom. That's James one and five and much more. Paul always encouraged us to make supplications for all the saints for that. That's the other Christians and believers in the word. That's Ephesians six, six and 18. So we need to diligently pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ. I also when praying and supplication, I'm I'm trying to cover a gamut of things. See, this is why I say you cannot rush prayer, even if you're driving and on your way to work. I used to commute an hour one way to work. So that was two hours a day. That was twenty five hours a week. And best believe in that commute time, I was praying, whether it be out loud in my head. Most time it was out loud, but I was getting it. I turned off the radio. It was a nice country drive, you know, and I and I'm in Texas. So it's nice thing that country drive and I just would have prayer time with the Lord praying for others. And so when you is, you know, with the needs, I'm always praying for, you know, because there's always all I think about all the hospitals in just the United States. I'm not even talking about across the world, but I'm saying every little city, town, state. I think last time I checked that the United States had over three hundred and forty million people. When you think about all the cities, the towns, how many little hospitals, clinics. So one of my main prayers is always, you know, father, I'm praying right now. Somebody somebody is in a hospital. Somebody is in a nursing home. Father, somebody may have suffered illness or may be struggling and fighting cancer. I just begin to pray for healing upon people. You know, there's St. Jude's Children's Hospital. I pray for the children that are ill. There's so much to pray. And I'm not saying that every time you pray, because we should be praying without. You know, so I pray in the morning before I even step out of the bed. I pray periodically throughout the day. I may stop and pray. I pray, you know, before I lay down at night. And sometimes, like I said, the Lord wakes me up, maybe sometimes at one in the morning, two, three, whatever the case may be, four or five. And I begin to pray. So there's always things to pray for and and not rushing the prayer because there's so much covering people asking for healing upon those that are sick. What about it? I pray for the homeless, you know, that they be covered. Father, that you meet their needs, the very point of their needs. You don't know what somebody is dealing with. And and as a believer, we are supposed to cover those that may not be able to cover their self. Maybe, you know, I also one of the main prayers, especially now in times, I pray all the time that if they have an ear to hear father, let them hear. Let them hear truth. Father, let me hear the word. There is the sounding of the alarm. We are at the end of end times. We are at the very cusp, the end of the church age, the end of grace. Let me cry out. Jesus is coming. He is coming. And Lord, if you don't know him, please, this is my prayer daily momentarily throughout the day that those that have ears to hear, let them hear the truth. Let it penetrate their heart. Father, their heart. Now, I will tell you this, you know, with that axe model, where it talks about confession, I more so like to put this in the beginning of my prayer because I don't call it confession. I do repentance. I ask the Lord for forgiveness. Upfront, I, one of the main things I say when I first wake up is father, I ask you right now, I bring it before your throne and lay it at your feet. I denounce rebuke. I usually say buying, rebuke, renounce any agreements I may have come in, come into during my sleep with the kingdom of darkness right now. Father, I rebuke it. I bind it. I cut it off. I renounce it in the name of Jesus. See, because the enemy is slick. You may have a dream and you don't even half remember the dream, but maybe you do remember the dream. You know that the the kingdom of darkness does things they who I don't want to go too deep. I don't want to make this too long, but I'm just going to say that's going to have to be. I'm going to digress for a minute and just say this, that you must understand some of the basics of believing and walking with the Lord. Number one, only God can hear your thoughts and know your thoughts. Satan can't. So what occurs is when you pray to the Lord, God may speak back to you in your spirit. There may be an unctioning in your spirit. He may audibly speak to you. I have had God speak to me audibly in my ear, whisper in my ears, a small, the faint whisper. You have to really hearken your spirit to hear the Lord. But what I'm saying is, is that the enemy does not know that the thought that he tried to plant into your mind is effective or work until you outwardly show that it affected you. So meaning either you speak something out or the or you act on it because he can't read your thoughts. He can only try to plant thoughts in your mind. And so that's why we bring every thought under captivity and pray that our thoughts align with the thoughts of the Lord. The Lord's word says, your ways are beyond my ways. Your thoughts are beyond my thoughts. You know, but that'd be my, that's one of my prayers when I wake up that father, anything that I may have knowingly or unknowingly come into agreement with, with the kingdom of darkness during my sleep. I renounce it right now, rebuke it in the name of Jesus. I bind it here on earth and I lose it in heaven. See, there should be a part two to this praying and I may have to do that because there's so many levels to this, but I wanted to try to just give you some of the basics because I know I did a recording about fasting and see fasting and prayer go hand in hand. They are, they, they compliment each other. And so I am going to end up probably doing that so that you understand when you're fasting and praying because it unlocks and opens so much with communication with the Lord. But I don't want to make this too long. Let me ask the Lord. Is there anything father else that I need to do at this time? Cause I just wanted to make sure that you had, especially the prayer of salvation, which I will put into the, the, what do you call it? The goodness. Well, there'll be written where along with this recording, excuse me. But, well, if I think of anything else, I don't think right now there's anything else. And I will put some of the scriptures also along with this. But definitely I would just harken unto you. I will be praying for you all. Also in covering you, I already, I already pray for those that may listen to my podcast or see a video that I do that you be, you know, that God meet you at the point of your very need, because if he brought you to it, to listen to it, that means that there is no coincidence. You were meant to hear this. You were meant to find this podcast or find this video on YouTube or however I'm putting this information out. Just like I said, I'm led by the Lord and the Holy spirit to do what I do. And, and just to give you a quick sidebar, I will tell you this. When I began this, because my walk, like I said, with the Lord has been for years and years. And when the Lord optioned me to do this, I was like, oh, Lord, I don't want to get on social media like that. I don't want to, but it's not about what I want. It's not about me. That's selfishness. The Lord is saying, I created you for such a time as this, you know, there are people and souls attached to you that need to hear this word the way you give it. That's why it's so many different. There's watchmen out here who are wanting you watchmen on the wall. There are prophets and prophetess who are out here telling us what will occur because God is speaking it to them. There are people like me who are teaching or giving you a now word from the Lord. He's sending all his people, all his messengers to, you know, relay information and the way that they are blessed and ordained to relay it to you for those. And it will reach who it's supposed to reach. And I know this to be the case. So I hope this was helpful. I will also put the email if you want to email me or you have questions. I hope that, you know, your day is blessed that you take time and be intentional in your prayer life moving forth and seeking the Lord because he is listening. He is listening and he is moving because once again, I have to reiterate the whole thing with life beyond Sundays is we are in the end times and time is of no more. And so we must begin to put forth all of this, all of this information, whether it be me you're listening to or other others, you must begin to seek him because Jacob's Jacob sorrow is coming. We're getting ready to go through some things. And if you don't know the Lord for yourself, you will be lost out here in this world. It is this is so deep is so much I could go into. But the Lord is taking me by the hand and optioning me in the course and how I should teach things. So as to not overwhelm people. So I pray that your day go well and that you be blessed. And thank you for taking time to listen to the word.