Prayer is not preparation for the battle. It is the battle. Now those are the words of embounds. And you know the Bible talks about life on this earth is like a battleground. And one of the greatest tools that we can use in this spiritual battle is prayer. When I think of this, I think of a story about a missionary who was coming home from a missions trip. And this guy stopped him and said, "You don't know who I am, but one night last week, me and six of my friends followed you in the jungle to rob you and kill you. The reason we didn't kill you and rob you because we saw that you were surrounded by 26 armed guards." The missionary is like, "I have no idea what you're talking about. I assure you I was all by myself." Well, that missionary was touring in Michigan and he told that story to this church in Michigan and someone in the audience jumped to their feet and said, "Hey, hey, I was led on that day and that time to get together a group of people and we prayed for you." He then had everyone in the church stand who had prayed for him that day. And one by one all 26 of them stood. Prayer is not preparation for the battle. It is the battle. Today I want to just share with you a format on how to bring your prayer life to the next level. I want to thank uh Dick Eastman because of his book the hour that changes the world that gave me a whole new paradigm on prayer. And I'm putting a a a a diagram on the screen. And here's what it shows. That imagine a pie with 12 pieces. And each one of these pieces is a prayer emphasis. And Eastman uh he recommends that you spend about five minutes in each of these pieces. And you know, here's what this taught me was that I used to have like a very limited view of prayer. I thought that prayer was just petition, asking God for your daily bread. Now, that is an aspect of prayer. But what we're going to learn today is there's so much more to it. In fact, I want you to imagine that you were going to lift weights and every day of the week all you did was bench press. Now, is bench press good for you? Yes. But there's a whole bunch of other exercises you might want to do, right? And that's kind of the way it is with a lot of people, I think, is that when they think of prayer, they just think of petition, asking God for your daily bread. Uh, but what I'm going to share with you today and what Eastman taught me is there are many different kinds of prayer. So, I'm going to just shine this calendar, I'm sorry, this camera on how I set up my prayer journal. All right. So I want to just share with you the setup that I use in my prayer time. So uh the first thing that I do is I start my prayer time by praising God. And you know you will spend about five minutes in this part. And I think it's important to remember in the Lord's prayer Jesus said our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name. And notice how Jesus taught us to begin our prayers by focusing on God and his character. Psalms 100 vers4 says, "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name." So you begin your prayer time by praising God for who he is, his holiness, his love, his power, his faithfulness. Uh some of the things that I like to focus on are the Hebrew names of God. Uh two of them that I especially like to focus on is Jehovah Gyra. God is our provider and Jehovah Shalom. He is our peace. I also like to um focus on the core four of God's character. Number one, he is omnisient. In other words, he is all knowing. He is omnipotent. He is all powerful. He is omniresent. He's everywhere at once. And he's immutable. He doesn't change. Now, think about it. When you pray, you're talking to the one that's all knowing, all powerful, everywhere at once, and they don't change. Talk about that's amazing. That's incredible. Now, the next focus, so you spend about four to five minutes praising God. The next one is waiting on God. And this might be one of my favorite. And uh in Psalms 37:7, it says, "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him." This is where you spend time in quiet worship, waiting in God's presence with an open heart. Now, I want you to imagine that in your house, you in the basement had a sink that wasn't working very well. So, you called a plumber and the plumber came over. You brought him downstairs and showed him the leaky sink and he started to work on it. And you're upstairs just waiting on that plumber. Now, I want you to notice that as you're waiting, he's working. Do you see that? And that's what we can trust in is that as we wait upon God, he's at work behind the scenes. Some of my favorite promises is Isaiah 64:4 says, "A God besides you who works for those who wait upon him." Or Isaiah 40:31 says, um, "Those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not faint. Hey, if you're getting value from this video, would you consider liking and subscribing? Now, the next thing is confession. And confession is when we confess our sins to the Lord. First John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. This is where we confess our sins honestly and receive God's forgiveness and cleansing. Now, under this part, I like to uh confess my sins and then I like to put on a priestly hat and just pray for mercy on my family, my church family, the nation. Now, couple of things under my prayers is I always pray, "Holy Spirit, point out in my life what is unholy." uh you know the holy spirit will point out what is unholy. The other thing is I always like to pray lord forgive me for my hidden faults. There's that word in the book of psalms we have blind spots that we're not aware of. Now the next thing is scripture praying. And this is where you pray uh the written word of god. Now why this is so imposs impossible? Uh-huh. So powerful. Nothing is impossible with God. By the way, in fact, uh I have a dictionary in my office. And if you were to look up the word impossible in that dictionary, it's not there. And the reason it's not there is because I cut it out. If it's not in God's dictionary, it's not in mine. But I digress a little bit. Um but when you pray scripture, see, the word of God is the will of God. So if you pray the Bible, you know that you know that you're praying the will of God. Ephesians 6:17 says, "Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God." Ephesians 6:17 says that. And this is when you just turn God's promises into a springboard for your prayers. Let's say you're battling with anxiety. You might pray, "Don't be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God which passes all understanding will heart guard your heart, mind in Christ Jesus." So that's the scripture. Here's how you would pray it. Lord, help me to not be anxious about anything, but in everything with prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, help me to present my request to you, knowing the peace of God uh will guide my heart. So, you turn scripture into prayer. Next is watchfulness. Watchfulness. Uh watchfulness is praying for spiritual alertness. You know the Bible says in Matthew 26:41, "Watch and pray that you will not fall into temptation." Notice it says, "Watch." Watching is being spiritually alert and praying against temptations and spiritual attacks. So under watchfulness, um Lord, I often pray, "Lord, open my eyes. Lord, open my eyes to see what you see. Lord, help me to see the traps the devil has set for me. The other thing I pray is, Lord, help me to see the waves of opportunity. See, I believe that uh following God is a lot like being a surfer. Now, think about how a surfer doesn't create waves. They simply uh discover the waves that are coming their way and they ride them with excellence. And God sends waves of opportunity our way, our way. We just need to discover them. As Henry Blackabe says, it's looking to see where God is at work and joining him. You know, here's another thing that I often pray is I just pray for God's vision. In other words, the Bible says in Jeremiah, I know the plans I have for you. Plans for a future, plans for hope. Notice God has a plan for you. And by the way, that's true whether you're seven or 77. And some of us maybe we're up in the retirement years or we're approaching that and we think vision is for just younger people. No, it's not. As long as you're above ground, God has a plan and a purpose for your life. And that's where you ask God to help you to see it. Now, the next part of prayer is intercession. So again, I'm just taking about five minutes and going through each of these prayer focuses. Intercession is when you pray for others. 1 Timothy 2:1 says, "I urge you then first of all that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people." Now, this is where you pray for the needs of others, your family, your friends, leaders, the nation. Uh, one of the things that I like to do is I write down the names of my family and then I draw a circle around it. And this symbolizes uh the Israelites walking around the walls of Jericho, circling it in prayer. And I want to thank Mark Batterson in his excellent book uh the circlemaker that taught me this. Uh but this is where you just pray for the other people in your life. Now the next prayer is petition. And as I said earlier, this is what many people think of when they think of prayer, praying for yourself. Now this is one component, but I want you to see that there's so much more. In Matthew 6:11, it says, "Give us today our daily bread." This is where you pray for your personal needs, your desires, and your concerns before God. Now, I had someone say that for every ask, make sure you list two things you're thankful for. And that leads us into our next prayer part. And this might be my favorite one. And this is where you spend about five minutes just thanking the Lord for all of your blessings. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Now, it did not say give thanks for all circumstances. No, it said give thanks in all circumstances. You not everything is good, but God can bring good out of everything. But this is where you just take time to list your blessings. You know, there's an old song that says, "Count your blessings." And this is where you do that. Now the next thing is singing. So for the next 5 minutes you would focus on singing. Ephesians 5:19 says sing and make music from your heart to the Lord. This is where you sing to the Lord as a form of joyful worship and spiritual encouragement. Now one of the things that is so cool today is like you can go on YouTube and put in your favorite song. Maybe my favorite song by the way is uh what a friend we have in Jesus. Um, my neighbor lady inus, who you'll probably hear about in my channel, she had a deep impact upon my life, actually taught me how to play that song on the piano. That's the only song I know. But you can go to YouTube and punch in what a friend we have in Jesus and say with lyrics and sing along with it. Now, the next one is meditation. And meditation is focused thinking on the word of God. Joshua 1:8 says, "Keep this book of law always on your lips. Meditate on it day and night." Now guys, if you know how to worry, you know how to meditate, right? What is worry? It's meditating on what could go wrong. Meditating on uh what if this happen? What if that happens? See, worry is sinful rumination. Meditation is biblical rumination. And this is where you meditate or focus thinking like a cow chew their cud. This is where you focus your thinking on the word of God and you just reflect upon his word. Now the next part is listening. And this one I think is so important because many people when they think about prayer, all they think about is talking, but they don't think about listening. John 10:27 says, "My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me." This is where you pause and listen for the Holy Spirit's guidance and inner prompting. You know, one of the things that I love to pray is, "Lord, speak. Your servant is listening. And this is where you take time to really listen to God. One of the things you can do is say, "Lord, I'm facing this situation at work. What do you want me to do about it?" And then you just listen. Now, finally, you do praise. And here's what's cool is this is kind of like coming full circles. We started with praise and now we're ending with praise. Psalms 150:6, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. And this is basically just ending the way you started by praising God. Um, now one of the things that I like to do here is I like to say, Lord, thank you that things are going to happen because I prayed that bec if they if Sorry about that. I messed up a little bit. Let me say it again. things are going to happen because I prayed that wouldn't have happened if I didn't pray. So, this is where I like to just thank God for what he's going to do as a result of my prayers. Um, I also like to release outcomes to the Lord. Um, you know, there's so many things in life we can't control. In fact, make a list of what you can't control and what you can. And this is where I release those things into God's hands. you know, I can't control how other people think or what other people do. Um, and I surrender that to the Lord. On January 20th, 1669, a woman was born that would have a profound effect on Christianity. Her name was Susanna Wesley. And Susanna Wesley is best remembered for being the mother of John and Charles Wesley. But what many people don't realize is that she also had 17 other kids. That's right, 19 kids in all. Yet, she kept up a prayer habit of praying at least an hour a day. How did she manage to pray an hour a day with all of those kids? Well, what she would do is she would sit in this chair and she would put an apron up over her head. And when the kids saw that, they knew that mom was praying and don't bother her unless it's a true emergency. I pray that like Susanna Wesley that you will not hope for time for prayer, but that you will make time for prayer because prayer is not preparation for the battle. It is the battle. Lord, I pray for this person on the other side of the screen. God, thank you that you are inviting them to talk to you and listen to you every day. God, I pray that you would uh put in their hearts according to Philippians 2:13 a greater desire to connect with you through prayer. Thank you that in you we live and move and have our being. God, I just pray that you would bring their prayer life to a new level. I ask this in your name. Amen. Well, thank you so much for uh watching this video with me today. May you love God and love your neighbor as yourself.