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Prayer is a gateway connecting earth to heaven, releasing angelic activity on our behalf. Through private, Scripture-based prayer, we build a history with God that gives us confidence to face life's giants. Scriptures: Genesis 28:12-13, James 5:17, Psalm 103:20, Psalm 91:11-12, Jeremiah 33:3, 1 Samuel 16:14, Hebrews 4:12, Hebrews 1:3, Luke 18:1, Matthew 6, 1 Samuel 17:37, Hebrews 13:5, Jeremiah 29:11, Isaiah 41:10
We are a local Church in Orange County California who are passionate to witness lives being renewed in Christ, strengthened through discipleship, and to thrive in the fullness of living for Christ.
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Hi, thanks for tuning in to this Week's message at C3OC. We hope that it blesses you, equips you, and fills you with faith. Let's dive in. So many of us come in here this morning. We have an idea. If I say the word prayer to you, you have a picture in your mind of what prayer is or what prayer might be. So today we're going to talk a little bit about some of them, pull back the curtain a little bit, and some of what happens in the spirit when we pray and some of the mechanics of when we pray. So the first passage of scripture I want to look at is Genesis 28, verses 12 and 13. Now, a gateway. Why am I using the word gateway? Well, a gateway is a point of entry that takes systems from one place to another. You hear many times that marijuana, for example, is a gateway drug because it can be a gateway or an entry point to greater substance abuse. Now, prayer is also a gateway. So, for example, education is another gateway. Education opens the door to possibilities, opportunities to personal growth, to job opportunities. So it takes you from one place to another. Prayer is that same concept. So the Bible teaches on prayer as being a gateway that is going to take you from your place on earth into God's place in heaven. So, so in Genesis, chapter 28, verse 12 and 30, if we can just put that up on the screen, this is the story of Jacob. Jacob was the grandson of Abraham. And what is interesting about this particular passage is Jacob, at this particular pointing in his life, was running for his life. He was running from Esau, his brother, who he had defrauded the birthright, and his brother was intent on killing him. And so Jacob was running for his life, and he lies down in the wilderness, puts his head on a stone, and he has this dream. This dream is clearly the Bible says that it comes from God. But one more important point about Jacob, Jacob being the grandson of Abraham, God was faithful to Abraham to reach out to Jacob. And I want you to remember that, that when you pray for your children, God will be faithful to your children to reach out to them. Because you know what? God does not have grandchildren. He only has children. So if I walk with the Lord, that's one thing. I can pray for my children. But I have to trust God to reach out to them directly because they can't live off my faith. God won't have that. He will only have children. Not second degree, third degree. Well, my mother did this and my father did that. And so we see that principle taking place here with Jacob. So Jacob has this dream, and he says, the Bible says he had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord. And he said, I am the Lord, the God of your fathers, Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. So God reaches out to Jacob and he basically reaffirms the covenant that he had had with his father, his father Isaac, and his grandfather Abraham. But there's a couple of things I want to pay attention to. This is a very important passage, because when you're praying, if you can visualize the contents of what are spoken in this dream, it's very helpful for the area of prayer. First of all, prayer connects you from the earth, as I said before, to a place in heaven. So God is in heaven, we are here on earth. The stairway here represents Jesus Christ. So the stairway, man is separated from God by our sin. We have no right, we have no ability to communicate with God except through a mediator. And that mediator is Jesus Christ. So that stairway, theologically you can look it up. It is representative of Jesus Christ. And the fact that Jesus died on the cross, rose again and opened, the Bible says, a new and a living way. So you and I have a new and a living way open to us through the cross to be able to communicate with God. Now, for the unbeliever, the Muslim or the Hindu, they can call on God. And based on what they're calling on God, God may reach out to them. We know stories of people who, in Iran, Pastor Joe has even testified of this, have begun a call on God. And in the sincerity of their heart, God responds to that. And Jesus shows up for them and ministers to them. So that can happen. But what we're talking about here is the prayer life of the believer. So we see here that God is there, Jacob's here, and there's a whole lot of activity taking place in the spirit realm. There are angels on the stairway, and these angels are moving up and down. What is that saying? What it's saying is, is that anything initiated by the believer here on earth will get a response from heaven. So whatever God determines as well, for the believer will come to earth. So God will initiate, plans, purposes. He will speak to you. He initiates from heaven. And angels are released into the spirit realm, and the Holy Spirit is released to work on the inside of you. Bible says he works in us to will and to do according to his good pleasure. So there's initiation that's coming from God, but there is also initiation that's coming from man. And now when we look at the initiation that's coming from man, this is the one that I really want to. Want to focus on. James 5:17 says, Is anyone among you in trouble? Let him do what? Pray. Is anyone among you in trouble? Let him pray. Does anybody not have a job today? Let him pray. Is anybody struggling with their children today? Let him. Does anybody not have a car today? Let him. Does anybody feel sick today? Does anybody have a health problem today? Let him. So God is asking us, he's giving us a platform of prayer to be able to deal and deal with trouble, deal with the difficulties of life. How many of you know we don't live on an earth just with human beings. We live on an earth where there is trouble. There is a devil out there looking to rob, steal and kill from anybody he can. There is stupidity. People only know in part, they don't see everything correctly. A person can be high and hit you with their car, their car can run into you. This is a troublesome world if we don't acknowledge that we living in a, in a delusional life. And, and I think it was someone prayed this morning. They said, in this world we will have trouble. But Jesus said, I have overcome the world. I have overcome it. So our starting place for prayer, God gives us a platform to pray and to seek him in, in every single area of trouble. So many times what happens to us here is I'm in trouble. Does it say go to the pastor? No. Does it say, go phone a friend and tell a friend how terrible my day was? No. It says if I'm in trouble, I should pray so many times. What happens to us as believers, and I'm guilty of this myself, is I have a bad day through. Nothing necessarily that I did. But circumstantially, that day was really, really difficult. I work in a medical office and for some reason on that particular day, everybody called in felt the need to yell at me for something that I had not done correctly. Now that's a bad day. So when I get home, the natural inclination is to sit and tell my family what everybody did. You know, at 9 o' clock this woman called in and they said, this, this, this. How dare they say that. That's not Even true. At 3 o' clock, this person called in and they said, da da, da, da, da, da da da. What am I doing? I'm rehearsing my problem, but I am not praying. So if I would go in that situation and begin to pray and say, lord, I thank you for your grace this morning. I thank you, I can forgive. I thank you that I can be patient, I can be kind. I thank you, Lord, for your spirit. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Today, that's praying. And in that situation, then what is happening? Angels are going up and down and God is ministering to me. And so that's a correct application of I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We have to understand people that our tears don't influence anybody or anything. And sometimes the Bible does say God stores our tears up in the bottle. And it does say that he gives grace, he hears the brokenhearted, and he heals their wounds. And that is absolutely true. But for us to grow in God, he's waiting for us to arise as kings and priests in his kingdom. Take responsibility for the things that he's called us to be responsible for, whether it's a job, whether it's your family and to seek him and to pray and to begin to bind the spirits that are annoying you and. And begin to establish his kingdom in that place. So if you look at the angels, what are the angels doing? Psalm 103:20 says that the angels do the will of God. They do the bidding of God, they respond to his word. It says in Psalm 103, it. It talks about the angels who respond and do the bidding of what God says. So when we lament and when we talk about our emotions, we may feel a little better. We haven't really solved the problem. In fact, if anything, we've built a stronghold there, a stronghold of unbelief, a stronghold of. In our mindset. And what God is looking for is that we pray about it. Begin to ask God, why am I responding this way? Because God's working all things together for good. So why am I responding this way? What is going on here? And the Holy Spirit will begin to speak to you. But when we pray, we release the angels to go to work on our behalf. The angels are unseen, but they will go to work when I begin to pray the Word. And we're going to model some of that today. When I begin to pray the Word, I am capable of releasing angels to go to work on my behalf. Let's talk about Daniel, for example, in Psalm 91. What are these angels doing? These angels have a protective function over your life. You can believe God for that. Psalm 91 says 11 and 12 it says he, God gives his angels charge over us. What does that mean? He's going to be giving us protective ability. He's going to send angels to protect us. Now, Daniel, this was. This was born out in Daniel's life. Daniel found himself in a situation where he was in a den of lions, and nobody typically comes out of a den of lions. Lions are territorial. So even if they're not hungry and they don't think your flesh is particularly favorable, they will go after you because you are in their space. They are highly territorial. And for a lion, it's all about possession of territory and domination. So the chances of coming out of a lion's den are almost zero. Not because the lions are hungry, but just because of who a lion is. A baboon may sit in the corner and watch you, but not a lion. And so the Bible says of Daniel that in that lion's den, the mouths of the lions were closed. They were shut. This is a supernatural thing because it goes beyond what lions are in the natural. Well, what was happening, he was giving. God was giving his angels charge over Daniel so we can pray for protection on our homes, on our families, on our cars, on everything we own. And what is released, the angels of God are released to protect us. So in South Africa, we come from South Africa. For those that are new, you may not understand my accident, but yes, it is. It's African. And in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, before Nelson Mandela came to power, there were. There was a lot of unrest. And in these environments, they did what people called necklacing. So there would be riots, and then they would pick somebody that they found offensive, and they would put a tire, a car tire, around the neck of the person and then set it alight. And so basically, the person burned slowly to death. And so if you found yourself in one of these riots, it was a very, very dangerous situation. And if you were a white person and you found yourself in those riots, it was a death sentence, essentially. So in the church we were in, there was a woman that testified she had found herself. She had gone to do some delivery. And these riots, nobody. You didn't really know when and where it was going to happen. It was not published. It was like what we see in the news of these teen takeovers. They are actually using social media to generate that in South Africa. I don't know how they did it because there was no social media there. But. But nevertheless, they would initiate these riots, and you didn't ever know where to expect them. So There were no police generally in the area at the time. So a woman, for her business had gone to deliver something in a mostly African area. And one of these riots emerged. And she knew that being in the center of this crowd, this belligerent crowd, she was in grave, grave danger. And so she prayed and she began to call on the name of the Lord. And a very large African gentleman stepped up to her and said, follow me. That's all he said, just follow me. Come with me. And he led her out of this crowd and into a place of safety and disappeared. What is that? That's the activity of angels in our lives. And so that's something that we all have a right to. Jeremiah 33:3 says, Call on me and I will answer. So when I call, I'm not calling into dead space, not calling into a maybe possibility. I'm calling on the Lord and the Lord is going to answer me. Amen. Okay, so if we have a relationship with God, the foundational aspects of any relationship are that we know the person we are in relationship with. And marriage is a good example of this. So it's very difficult to be in a relationship, in a marriage relationship if you don't really know the person. And a lot of the discord and the friction that takes place is because there is a lack of mutual understanding between two people. I like this, you like that. And so the Bible says in Amos 3, 3, 2 cannot walk together unless they agree. So in our relationship with God, what is very important for us is that we know who God is. If we don't know who God is, our prayer can just be emotionalism. We have to understand that we live on the earth that he created, that there are boundaries, that there are laws that apply. And so knowing God is foundational to being able to pray successfully. So the first way we come to know God, and the most important way is through the Scriptures, through the Bible. So God has made his thoughts and his intentions. It's his mind, it's his vision for humanity. All of that is available in the Scriptures. And we must engage to know God. We engage God's Word for ourselves. He yes, we do need to be taught, we do need to come to church. But the most important way to know God is to engage the Scriptures for ourselves. In John 1:1, it says in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That Word there, they say, is the Logos. So if you look that up, it's the Logos, which basically is this entire book of the Bible. Now, the Bible. Many people will say, oh well, there's stuff in the Bible that I don't understand. It doesn't make sense and how could God do that? And I'm just not going to read the Bible. Well, everything does actually make sense when understood in context and when understood as part of a whole. So let me give you an example. So in 1 Samuel 16, verse 14, the Bible says the Lord sent an evil tormenting spirit upon Saul. Now if I just read that, I can get really anxious actually because, well, Saul was the King of Israel and God chose Saul as the king of Israel and he sent a tormenting spirit upon Saul. Maybe, maybe the Lord has sent a tormenting spirit upon me. That's not quite the way it works. If you read the verse before, it says that the Holy Spirit departed from Saul. So what we learn there is that Saul was chosen of God, was anointed by God. He had got into trouble with the Lord for being disobedient. God had taken him, take his, said that he's going to lose his kingdom. And the Bible says the Holy Spirit departed from Saul. Wherever the Holy Spirit departs, that is an access point for any demonic spirit. So when the Bible says the Lord sent, what that means is there was permission given for a demonic spirit to enter that. And in fact, even in the New Testament, Jesus was talking about demonic spirits. And he said, when a house is clean, when devils have been cast out, if the Holy Spirit basically doesn't come into that environment, the devil will come back into that environment, bringing seven of his friends with him. So wherever the Holy Spirit is not, that can be ground for demonic activity. So it's not as though God walks around saying, Amanda, I'm putting a spirit of torment on you, or Mikey, I'm putting the spirit on you. That's not the way it works. But see, when we study the Scriptures and we submit ourselves to God's Word, these things become clear. The greatest difficulty we can have is lack of knowledge. And so in Hebrews 4:12 it says, for the word of God is alive and sharper than a two edged sword, able to cut between bone and marrow. And this is true from the Old Testament all the way through to the New Testament. We talked about Jacob this morning and we see there where Jesus is represented in the Old Testament, where our eyes are open to see how prayer, even the prayers. I'm using James 5:17 from the new Testament to explain to you how that prayer works in a vision in the Old Testament. They all connect, everything connects. So I would encourage you Today make knowing God a priority. I was in Israel in about 1980 somewhere. It was in my second year of college. And at that time it was a thing for students to go over to Israel and work on a kibbutz. We were at the University of Cape Town. And every summer holiday, which really went from about the end of October to the beginning of March, students would go across to Israel and work on a kibbutz. And I can remember going up and doing one of these work study vacations and going to the Wailing Wall. And at the Wailing Wall, I was so struck by the commitment of these people standing at that Wailing Wall with the Yamalkau, with the Word and praying and their total life. These are very religious Jews and their total life is based on, on the fact that they want to know God and study the Scriptures. And for me, as a, as a new believer, I just called on the Lord right there, said, lord, this is such an example to me. Now we know that they don't. They only have part of the Bible and that there's more to life than standing at a wall and praying. But the principle is this, make it a life goal. Of all the people you can come to know in your life, knowing God is the most influential. When you have relationships with people, those people, we form relationships for many reasons, and those people can be influential in our lives. They can open the doorway for us for a job, they can be an encouragement to us. But nobody can do for you what God can do for you. The most important relationship is going to be the Lord. Now, the other way that the Bible talks about knowing God is through his Son, Jesus Christ. In Hebrews 1, verse 3, it says the Son, that's Jesus is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being. Jesus said, these are the very scriptures that testify about me. And he was talking then about the Old Testament. The Scriptures testify about me. Jesus is the exact representation of the Father. He said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. If you ever have any doubt about any situation and you want to know, is this God or is it not? Well, look at Jesus. How would he respond to that situation? How did he respond to people who were being difficult? How did he respond to unbelievers? How did he handle suffering personally? How did he handle people with compassion? He went to a wedding, didn't like the idea that the host might be embarrassed. Even that little thing didn't like that. And his mother was able to initiate the first miracle. So didn't like the idea that people were being preached to for hours and not fed. So he multiplied it, also pulled out a miracle. So in small things and in great things, we see the heart of the Father coming through the life of Jesus Christ. It's important to study the Book of Numbers, it's important to study the book of Exodus, but it's very important to read the Gospels, because reading the Gospels is where you see the Father through the life of Jesus Christ. Shia LaBeouf, for whatever you like him, don't like him, this is not the point. But Shia LaBeouf got saved because he read the book of Matthew and he read the book of Matthew. And he was so overcome by what he saw in the life of Jesus that he gave his life to Jesus. And he's a work in progress for sure. But the point I'm making is, is that people, people see the Father and see the glory and the goodness. If you want to know a scripture, the Bible says, taste and see that the Lord is good. Do you want to know, is God good and is he faithful? Well, look at Jesus. What do we see in Jesus? We see the goodness of God shown in the life of Jesus. So to do with prayer, just laying a foundation for prayer. Jesus taught the mechanics and the power of prayer extensively in his ministry. So in Jesus started with. We didn't start, but Luke 18, verse one, he taught a parable of the woman and the unjust judge. And he tells the story there, you can go and read it for yourselves about this woman that prevailed with the on the unjust judge through her persistence. And Jesus was basically saying, when you pray, persistence is going to be a factor in getting your prayers answered. So just praying once or, you know, well, I prayed and I asked God for a car and I didn't get a car. Well, if you need a car and you are a born again child of God, you have the right to initiate that prayer with the Father. And then you may need to be a little bit persistent and continue to believe God. He will give you a strategy. He may find a way to help you purchase the car yourself. He may find another channel to deliver that prayer to you. But he is working on it. And so we can't just say, you know, well, I prayed and it didn't work. It will work. It will work 100% of the time, every time. So Jesus demonstrated also for the people. So he demonstrated prayer, he taught about prayer and he modeled prayer, demonstrated prayer. Remember there was the story of the fig tree where he spoke to the Fig tree. He was upset with the fig tree because the fig tree wasn't producing the way it was supposed to for that time of year, did not produce any fruit. And so he spoke to the fig tree and he cursed it. Well, essentially he was saying is that unproductive things should not exist in the kingdom of God. He everything in the kingdom must produce. God spoke the world into being and everything was to produce after its own kind. So he spoke to this fig tree and. And it died. So they went this way. When they came past again, the tree was dead. And Jesus taught of that. And he taught about faithful prayers. And he said, if you speak to your mountains, they will move. If you speak to the mountain, that's metaphorical for obstacles, it's metaphorical for opposition. If you speak to the mountain, it will move for you. It moves for Jesus. There was a response from Jesus. There will be a response for you as well. So Jesus did not just waste his time with the disciples. Everything was instructional and particularly he explained on prayer. And then in Matthew chapter six, this is a very important passage, Jesus modeled prayer, and he also taught on prayer. So in Matthew chapter six, this is a very important passage for all of us, because Jesus was responding to Pharisees at this point. The Pharisees had a way, exactly like I had seen in Israel, of going and standing at the wall and praying and making a huge public display of their prayer. They do what is called davening, which is where they have the yamulka. And they basically move backwards and forwards like this as they pray. And these Pharisees were making a huge big display. And Jesus corrected that. He said, when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Remember our picture that we talked about in the beginning, and he will reward you. So when you pray, how loud we pray, how eloquent we pray, these things are not. They are not evidence of successful prayer. God is looking for your words, your heart, your personal words in your heart. As believers, particularly Charismatic and Pentecostal believers, we can make a lot of noise in our prayer meetings. Not to say that it's bad, but we can make a lot of noise that has no substance behind it. So Jesus was saying, when you pray, you going into your room. So that's a private place, it's not a public place. He's looking for a relationship with you, not with the church alone with you. So you're going to go into your room and it says you're going to close the door. Why is that? Well, so that there's no witnesses, there's you and God. Close the door. You're going to shut down social media. Leave your phone outside the door. No Internet, no news broadcasts, no text messaging, because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter and it doesn't count for anything. Distraction is your greatest enemy. My distraction is going to shut down the voice of God. So Jesus was talking here about what's needed for me to develop a successful prayer life. I'm going to need to shut out the world. It's not enough to pray in the car on the way to work, although that is beneficial. It's not enough to pray while I'm doing the laundry, although that is beneficial. I need to still my life and give God the time. Now you may say to me, well, I don't have any time. I hear you, I hear you. But somehow we've got to ask the Lord to help us even with that and to find the time. Because we cannot have public power where there isn't private prayer. So Jesus understood this and he modeled for the disciples. He would go alone to a quiet place and he would pray. They would come out, come after him and watch. And they learned from that. The Acts Church. The disciples were so thoroughly schooled in prayer because they had watched Jesus. They had watched how Jesus withdrew from the public and went to meet with his heavenly Father. The disciples were so thoroughly schooled, the Bible says, that the early church devoted themselves to the apostles doctrine, the breaking of bread, to fellowship and to prayer. They knew that, that if there were going to be any miracles in their lives like there was for Jesus, they were going to need to pray like Jesus prayed. So let's talk about David, for example. This principle was demonstrated very much in David's life and in David's life. Victory over Goliath did not begin in the valley with the Israelites on one side and the Philistines on the other side did not begin there. It began in the secret place with God. So David spent many, many hours in the wilderness with sheep, having to look after sheep, playing, worshipping the Lord, praying. David had developed confidence in God through private encounters. So the measure of the confidence I have in God in my private encounters is what will be revealed in my business, what will be revealed in church, in ministry. But it starts in private. And David testified to that. He said to Goliath, when he faced Goliath, he said, the Lord, 1 Samuel 17:37 the Lord who rescued me from the power of the lion. The Lord who rescued me, he's talking About a history. He's talking about encounters and a history that he had with God previously. That same Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion, so I have a history with him where I saw and I prayed and I saw God undertake for me. And he killed the lion. He helped me kill the lion. And the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of the Philistine. In that song Giants we say, we sing. All I need is a memory. This is true. All I need is to remember what God did for me back there. And I know that he will take out this Goliath also. So in our lives as we pray, we develop a history with God. You are never too old or too young to start a history with the Lord. Not too old, too young. Start today. Begin to develop a history with God so that you, like David, when you face your Goliath, when you face the trouble that you cannot stand against on your own, you can remember that God helped heal your headache. If he healed your headache, he can heal your leg. If he's healed your leg, he can heal your heart. So you didn't have a job back then and God provided for you. Now you get laid off. That same God that provided for you back then is going to provide for you now. So today we want to start a history with God. If you've never started a history with God, we want to begin a history now. The first place I have to just go through this, the first place to start a history with God is that we are born again by the spirit of God. So the first place to start is to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. If we haven't accepted Jesus Christ, we don't have that stairway, we don't have that stairway. And so Jesus is that stairway. So today, if you've never accept Jesus, we're going to stand and we're just going to pray together this morning. And we're going to start that process for anyone that has never prayed a prayer accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And then we're just going to model a little bit of prayer with you. So let's stand together today. We thank you today, Father, that before we can develop a meaningful prayer life, there must first be a relationship with God. The first step that we take in a successful prayer life is to make you the Lord of our lives. Lord, maybe we've attended church, maybe we've even read the Bible, but we've never surrendered our lives to you. And so we thank you, Jesus, that you are the living way that you died on the cross. That you are that stairway. You are the one that connects us, that made a way for us to enter into a relationship with your father. We thank you today, Lord, that that relationship is freely available for everybody. We thank you today, Lord, that as we come to pray, Lord, it is your desire for everybody to have a relationship with you. That if we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord, we are saved. Just pray this prayer with me today. Lord Jesus, I come to you today. I am not perfect and in need of your grace. I believe that you died for my sins and you rose again from the dead. Today I repent of going my own way and I ask you to forgive me and cleanse me. I surrender my life to you and I confess you as my Lord. And so, Savior, Thank you for saving me. In Jesus name, Amen. Now, if you prayed that prayer for the very first time, there's a connection card on your seat and you can fill that out and someone from the church will communicate with you and help you to move forward. It's the first step in any relationship with the Father. What I would like to do right now is I just want to model a little bit of prayer for you as a teaching point. So I'm going to ask you gonna ask for three promises. Anybody? I want you to just come from the audience. A promise of God just doesn't even have to be scripture and verse. Just shout it out to me. Your favorite promise from God. All right. Mikey said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. I believe that's somewhere at the end of the Gospels. If you can put that up on the screen, that's a great promise. Anybody? Anybody else got a promise? Sorry, I missed that. Jeremiah 29. Yes. Jeremiah 29:11. I know the plans that I have for you. Plans for welfare and not for evil. One more. What's that? Oh, for healing. We. We just need to the know. Promise. Yes. Who's got a promise? Fear not, for I am with you. Fantastic. Fantastic one. That one's in Isaiah. I believe, fear not, for I am with you. If you can put that on the screen for us. Second one. I know the plans I have for you. Jeremiah 29. Brit, if you can put the first one up there for us. I will never leave you nor forsake you. I believe that is Matthew 28. Okay, so the words go. I'm just going to pray through them. The words go, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So these are the words of Jesus. When you find yourself in a position where you feel overwhelmed, you feel alone, where you feel you cannot do it on your own. I want to teach you the principle principles of praying scripture, of finding a promise using a concordance. There's the Logos website, there is blue letter Bible. There are, please, you can go on chat. GPT and Gemini, they programmed through the Bible they will spit out any scripture that you would need. So you find that scripture. There's Jesus saying, and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. That's a close one. It's not quite what Mikey said, but it's fine. So I'm in a situation where I just don't feel that I can make this myself. So I'm going to find that scripture, I'm going to plug it in and I'm going to get it in front of my eyes, open my Bible, going to go to that particular scripture. Hebrews 30:13, verse 5 says, Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. Now I'm going to pray that scripture and you agree with me. Father, we thank you today that you said you will never leave me, nor will you forsake me, that you are with me always. That even although I feel alone today you are with me. That you are my helper, that you have not left me alone. You said that even if my mother and father forsake me, you will lift me up. I thank you today, Lord, that never means never in any situation. Never means never and always means always. You want will never leave me. You will always be with me. From now to the end of time, you are always with me. Okay, can you see the atmosphere change as you pray that word? The atmosphere of your heart will change. Your perspective on that situation will change. Your faith will begin to change. Arise. Okay, next one for I know the plans I have for you. Gary, come and pray this one for us, Father. We thank you Lord, that you know. You know everything. We thank youk, Lord, that yout are all knowing and you'd know the plans. We thank youk. You have the plans for us. We thank youk. No one else has the plans. No one has the blueprints. No one has the mask script. But you know the plans that yout have for me. Not for Joe, not for Jane, not for Jim. But yout know the plans that yout have for me. And we thank youk, Lord, that those plans that yout have are to prosper. Your plans are not to hurt me. Your plans are not to give me calamity. Your plans are not to make things worse, but yout know the plans for me that will make me prosper. I thank youk, Lord, that there are plans for my hope. There are plans that I can. There are plans that I can look to you. I can look to you, Lord, because you have given me hope in the plans that only you know are for me. And you have a future. And you hold your future in your hands for me. I thank you, Father. Thank you. No one can take your plans away. My plans that you give to me. Thank you, Lord. Can you feel the angels going up and down now? You're the prophet of your own life. You. You prophesying the plans of God into your own life. You don't need a prophet to come to town and lay hands on you and say, thus says the Lord. Thus says the Lord. It's right here in this Bible, what the Lord is saying. I know the plans that I have for you. Prophesy to your own life. Don't be dependent. There's a Chinese proverb that says, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, and if you feed him for a lifetime. It's the same principle, engaging your faith with God, building that history. I want to do that last one, the fear. Not one. That's a really good one. Because many people struggle with fear. So this one says, Isaiah 41, is it verse 10? So do not fear, for I am with you. Some translations say, fear not, for I am with you. And do not be dismayed, for I am your God. Many times. And this is a work. Fear is a spirit. It's not just a emotion. It's a spirit that would try to convince you of the calamities to come in your life, that would try to convince you and lie to your mind that you are done for, that you have no future, that nothing anybody does can help you. The Bible says so. Do not fear, for I am with you. Father, we thank you today. We refuse to fear. We. Your Word says that we should not fear. We refuse to bow to a spirit of fear. We speak in the name of Jesus. We take authority over every fearful spirit in this place. I take authority over calamity. I will not rehearse the calamities that the devil puts in my head. I will rehearse the word of God. I will rehearse the truth of God. And so today, Father, I stand against that spirit of fear. I thank you that you strengthen me in the inner man. I thank you that you are with me. I thank you that you are with me in my job, in my car, with my children, in every sphere of life, you are with me. That you right now, by your Holy Spirit, are strong, strengthening me. You are strengthening me to be an overcomer. We thank you for it today in Jesus name. Hey, thanks for tuning in. There's a bunch of different ways that we connect throughout the week, including Sunday mornings, and we would love to see you there. You can check out all the details@c3oc.com.