What Is Prayer by Josh Campbell December 3, 2018 ยท Centerpointe Apostolic Church (Murfreesboro, TN) Kind: teaching Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/josh-campbell--what-is-prayer Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page. Free to copy and share with attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------ Good morning. Happy Monday morning. My name is Josh Campbell, and welcome to day two of 21 Days of Breakthrough Prayer with the Pentecostals of Murfreesboro and LifeBridge Church. I'm glad that you could join us as we go through this devotional. Each day somebody new from our church will be helping to walk you through that day's devotional. I encourage you to go back and catch up on the previous day's devotional if you haven't already. Pastor Allen led us through yesterday's devotional. So for today we're gonna be focusing on what is prayer. It's a very good question, and one that I think is important for us as Christians to answer. First, I think prayer is fellowship. It's having a relationship with God. Our God is a relational God, and he wants to have a conversation with us. Prayer is the opportunity for us to go before his throne and really have a conversation with him. I think sometimes we get to focus on, you know, just how to do prayer or how to walk through prayer, but it's as simple as just starting a conversation with him, telling him about your frustrations. If you're angry, if you're upset, just let God know those things. It's important to communicate those and speak them out, and just have a relationship with God. Our God is most, more than anything else, a relational God. Second thing is prayer is a foundation of our Christian walk. It is what our Christian walk is built off of. If you want to know God's will for your life, the first thing you can do is pray. God's will is for you to pray. It's important for us to find out that will, God's will in our life, and through prayer, just starting there with that perfect wheel, we can learn God's will for today. What is the thing that God wants me to do today? Who does he want me to talk to today? What's the thing that he wants me to do today? And then ultimately, what is it that he wants me to tackle in my life? That foundation starts with prayer. I encourage you, if you're in struggling with just understanding what God's will is in your life, start with prayer. It's a great place to start. Thirdly, I think prayer is about submission. The devotional talks about prayer is just not natural. It's not something that just comes natural for us; it's something that we have to submit ourselves to do. If you're, have your books on page 36, it says prayer is God saturating our minds, or our thoughts, with his influence. Prayer will control our emotions and permit his truth to bring down the negative forces of darkness that are speaking lies into our minds and trying to corrupt our thoughts. What do you have in your life today that's trying to influence your thoughts, that's corrupting your mind? I can think of so many things out there, with a be Facebook or whether that be your relationships at work. There are lots of things in this world that vie for attention in our minds, and that try to corrupt our thoughts and what's going on. And prayer is when we can submit our thoughts to him, whether we can gather those things and let go of those frustrations, and really tap into what it is that God wants us to do. It's about saturating our minds. That's such a powerful statement, that is to say, that saturating our minds and our thoughts. Lastly, I think prayer is power. Its power in our relationship with God. It's what we do to have power, and not just saying that we're a Christian by name, but that we can execute on that, that we can impact those people around us, that we can pray for people, pray for their needs, pray for the things that are going on in our lives, pray for what we need, pray and take those supplications to God, to ask him for those things. What would it be like if just that first step in our life, when we had something that came up, that we had that anxiety that was coming up in our alive, so we had something that we needed, that we first took that to God in prayer? How powerful of a thing would that be, to say it? God, we just need this. We need this thing. I encourage you, if you haven't done already, last year I started prayer journal. Take a look at this. It's not, it's just a simple book, but it's where I can write down those things that God is talking to me about in prayer, and those requests that I have, so that I can remember, um, or requests that other people have. And as I'm walking through prayer, I just reference this a lot. It's an amazing tool to look back and say, what is God leading me in prayer today, and what are those things that I need to remember to pray for? So let me pray for you guys today. Lord Jesus, I ask that you take some time and instill in our hearts today the power of prayer in our lives. We know that it's not natural for us, but God, it is powerful, and it's a thing that can really transform our relationship with you, and taking us from being a Christian by name to being a Christian power that can walk in your ways and can impact this world. Gotta asset to you impress out on all of our hearts today, and as we walk through these 21 days of Prayer, just see that as a habit in our lives, that we understand the power of prayer and the power of a relationship with you. We thank you, Lord. In Jesus name we pray, amen. So thank you for joining me today for day two, What Is Prayer. Said take some time today and read the devotional for yourself if you haven't already. Join us live again tomorrow at 7 a.m. with day three, as we discuss Jesus pray. Hope you guys have a great Monday not