Worship setlist:
- Counting on God by Desperation Band
- How Great is Our God by Chris Tomlin
- Holy Awesome by hopeLight
- The More I Seek You by Gateway Worship
- ...free worship...
- I Want To Fall In Love With You by Jars of Clay
Sermon summary:
Ben spoke to us about why it is that some people seem more "spiritual" or like better Christians than others. He used examples like Elijah's life.
Honest prayer leads to a deeper relationship
Prayer doesn't need to be as complicated as we make it. God would rather have 10 seconds of honest prayer than 3 hours of "religious" prayer.
He would rather walk with you and develop relationship with you. Take a few minutes each day and talk to God. Don't be waiting for "the moment".
We wait for the perfect moment to pray and we miss all the possible moments.
Smith Wigglesworth (a revivalist who would regularly see people get healed when he prayed for them) spent no more than 20 minutes praying each day. But he also never went more than 20 minutes without praying.
When should you pray? whenever you think of it
How long should you pray? as long as you can be honest for
Where can you pray? anywhere - in the shower, riding on the bus, during lunch
Challenge: commit to praying a few minutes a day, a few times a week, and see how your relationship with God develops.
The B-I-B-L-E
"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. (Ephesians 6:18)" NIV.
"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. (Romans 8:26)" NIV.
Personal Notes: As Ben was saying, prayer is not meant to be some long winded list of everything you can think of to gain some sort of heavenly brownie points. (Heavenly brownies?...sounds delicious...) Realistically prayer should be honest and simple. If you keep in mind that God is always ready to talk to you, there is really no reason to hesitate. There are a few ways that I have found interesting to try and start praying if you find it difficult to get started.
- Cell phone- I don't remember who told me about this idea but I found it rather interesting. Basically, you just put your cell phone up and start talking. It gives a kind of platform to make prayer more "real". Knowing that God is on the other end, you can just keep talking to God. It's also an interesting way to pray while in a public place, like walking down the street or something (Just make sure the ringer is on silent so that it doesn't ring while your "talking" that type of thing will get you strange looks.).
- Pen & Paper- This is another good way to pray because you know exactly what you're saying. Sometimes when praying, you can forget what exactly you're doing and start thinking about something completely different. ex. "God, please be with me tomorrow in school as I take that test in math. I really need the good grade to raise my average. Did I do that study guide? I wonder if I can copy it from *insert girl's name here*. Yeah that'll give me an excuse to talk to *insert girl's name here*..." and on and on it goes. Pen and Paper keeps you on track with exactly what you want to say to God.
- Bible-There really is nothing better than to read the Bible when you want to hear from God. There isn't a problem you're facing that a Psalm can't help you through. There's 150 of them. Trust me. There's one for you.
