iShare 2013: Everywhere

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Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

iShare 2013 Seminar:  Experiencing God

Janet Page

Helps for Your Devotional Life

And I would just invite you to privately just ask God to speak to your heart during this time, to give him permission to speak what he wants to to you.

Lord, I thank you that this is a prayer you will answer, that you will speak to each 1 who's asked for that.

It may not even be anything I say, but Lord, we just want to give you permission for your Holy Spirit to work and bless each 1 with what they need.

And Lord, please just give me the right words of what to share.

And I thank you, Father, in Jesus' precious name, amen.

Well, I thought if I got 4 people, I'd be lucky.

What we're going to talk about in this time is just kind of my own practical prayer life.

And If you really have a question, if what I'm saying is confusing, I encourage you to raise your hand.

1 of the first things I always have people saying to me everywhere I go is, how do I find the time?

And I know even people who are going to school are busy.

And I had, I was previously married, my first husband died.

But before he died, he was also a pastor.

He rushed, we were, went to school together.

He rushed through school so he could get out in the ministry.

And he thought, you know, when I get out in the ministry, I'm going to have time to read my Bible, really get to know God.

And this person believed in working long hours.

And they didn't need more than 4 hours sleep a night, is what they said anyway.

And so they ran my husband from 7 in the morning till 11 o'clock at night.

He came home, dropped into bed a little after 11 at night.

Now this guy, his name was Mike, was an extremely happy, positive person.

For me, the glass, for him, the glass was half full.

I believe things will work out, but when they do it will be too late.

Anyway, so he was really a positive person.

Never, never had I ever seen him sad or down.

And All of a sudden, after several months of working with this pastor, the pastor was a good man.

And just if he ever had a spare moment, he was curling up in a ball taking a nap.

And of course, he was praying too, I'm sure, about it.

And all of a sudden, 1 night, he wakes me up in the middle of the night.

And I said, he said to me, Janet, what do you want?

And I said, what do you mean, what do I want?

The next night, he wakes me up in the middle of the night.

The next night, I sensed him waking up, getting out of bed.

And I saw him grab his Bible off the dresser and go out of the room.

Night after night, this started happening.

And also before that, I left out the part he started doing when he was discouraged.

He started just carrying his little Bible with him everywhere.

Anytime he had a minute, he would open it and would read and would pray.

Anytime, just a few minutes, he's waiting on the other pastor, he would just start reading.

That's what he started doing to begin with.

And even like at the dinner table, when we're eating supper, he would read his Bible there, which really isn't a good thing to do with your family.

But I put up with it because I knew he needed it.

And my little toddler and I just would talk.

But he was doing this for, I don't know, a week or so, when God started waking him up in the night.

And he started having the most rich experience with God.

And at a prayer meeting, we were headed to prayer meeting 1 night, And I don't know, a couple of months had gone by.

He said, you know, I forgot my Steps to Christ.

I'm going through Steps to Christ with him.

He says, could you go back home and get it?

And I'm a little perturbed because he forgot his book.

And I got to go back home and get it, and drive all the way back again.

And I walk in the church, just kind of not too happy.

And I come in there, and I came up, and I handed him his book.

And I sat down, and I looked at him, and I was just amazed.

I mean, there was like a glow around his head.

Prayer Power - Intercessory Prayer

What we're going to talk about in this second session is an accessory prayer, how to pray powerfully.

And we're going to pray for a moment, okay?

Again, if you would, just give God permission to talk to you during this time, even if maybe it's nothing I say.

Just give permission to the Holy Spirit to speak to you, and then I'll close.

Father, please, Lord, just bless this time now.

Oh, I pray, Father, you will speak to each 1 what they need, even if it's nothing I say.

But during this short amount of time, please help me to only share what you want shared, what's important.

And I thank you, Father, in Jesus' name, Amen.

I just love talking about this, because I love seeing our God work.

It just, I don't think there's anything more exciting for me.

Now, I spent years trying to do the things I wanted to do.

My favorite thing was to be in the out-of-doors, go canoeing, go backpacking.

Well, I can't do 2 things at the same time.

And I was always dreaming about my next backpacking trip or hiking mountains or whatever.

And yet I get out doing it and I was always miserable.

I'm doing, finally getting to do what I want to do.

But do you know that all changed when I had the experience I shared this morning.

And I started seeking God first, And I started doing what God wanted me to do with my life.

And what happened was God started giving me the desires of my heart.

He started opening up opportunities for me to hike mountains that are over 14, 000 feet, 1 after another, and never had this opportunity in my life.

But he kept opening the doors for me to do all these things and more things that I'd wanted to do.

And it's like If you pursue and you seek God first, and what He wants you to do in your life, He will take care of the rest.

He will work out and bring you those desires.

But we're going to talk about intercessory prayer.

And I remember early on thinking, do we really need to pray?

I don't know if any of you have those thoughts.

But there's a chapter that has been such a blessing to me.

And I read it over and over and over again.

And it was so good that years ago, I photocopied it and carried it everywhere with me.

And marked it, and marked it, and marked it.

But I have to go lighter weight traveling.

And another 1, too, that's good is in the book, Education, called Prayer and Faith.

And then in early writing, that's a powerful chapter.

And then in early writings, it's just 2 pages.

1 of them's faith and prayer, and the other's prayer and faith.

But then Steps to Christ, the chapter on prayer.

Working at the General Conference now, I've gotten to know him better.

And he is living proof of what happens when someone who eats right and who reads God's Word puts it first.

And Mark was asked to do the devotional talk ahead of 1 of the committees.

And come to find out, I think he does this a lot with God's word.

He will read it over and over and just keep praying, Lord, help me to get out of this what you're trying to tell me.

You know, instead of just skimming the surface to really dig deep.

And it's not that he's reading other commentaries or whatever, but just reading the scriptures over and over for God to really show him.

But anyway, OK, I was talking about asking to give.

There's so much in that to show you how to pray and why we need to.

But if you want power in your prayers, this is what I believe.

And I've found it so true in people's lives.

You've got to spend time with God and know your God.

You know, it isn't about getting answers.

It's about having a relationship with the living God of the universe.

You know, and He's wanting that relationship with us.

And But out of that comes, you start seeing answers, things happen.

But number 1 is having that living relationship with God.

The other thing that I find really important is you read in 1, 2, 3 John about love, How we must love each other.

If we're not loving others, God's not going to be answering our prayers.

There's going to be, you know, it goes together.

But you know what else she mentions In the book and the chapter asking to give, she says that if we're not faithful in our tithing offerings, you're not going to see God answering.

And she quotes Malachi where he says, if you're faithful, I will pour out the windows of heaven on you.

How to Have a Life-changing Prayer Ministry in Your Local Church

If you just bow your heads with me, and if you would, just pray and ask God, I mean not ask God, but give God permission to speak to you, for the Holy Spirit to, even if it's nothing I say, but let's Just let Him use this time with you, and then I'll close.

Father, Lord, I just thank you for the wonderful God you are.

And I thank you, Father, that you will speak to each 1 of us.

And we just pray for that right now, for your Holy Spirit to give each 1 the ideas, the things they need to go home and maybe encourage more or to start a prayer ministries.

And please give me the right words of what you want me to share.

In this handout, There's many more books that could be here.

There is some on that page, too, but the 1 I'm referring to is 54.

At the bottom, it says, Resources for prayer ministry.

Again, right above that, though, the chapters in Ellen White's writings, from asking to give in Christ object lessons to faith and prayer and education.

And that whole march section in heavenly places is really good on united prayer and the importance of it.

And then the book, a prayer that Pacific Press has put together and the 1 power prayer that Teach has and Steps to Christ.

But on below are books that have a lot of practical things, of things you can do in your church to start a prayer ministries, to keep it going.

And The 1 number 2, the praying church source book, that 1, and also number 4, the praying church idea book.

These are thick books that are like encyclopedias, reference books.

They are full of ideas of things to do in your church to encourage and get everybody praying from little children to the adults in your church.

But I've just found all those books to be a real blessing.

But getting a prayer ministry started in a church, I found different in every church.

I don't find that there's a set way to do it.

The best way I find to do it is to pray and to ask God how you should do it.

For God to lead you to who you could have as a committee.

You need to have a little committee at least.

And it's not people who'll just come and give ideas and talk, but a group that will pray together for God to establish a prayer ministries in your church.

And too many times, there'll be prayer teams, prayer committees that'll come together, and they don't pray.

If you want God to lead, you want him to bless, It's in the prayer.

But for me, 1 of the things I found helpful is to make an appointment with a pastor, to go to him with a notepad and a pen, and ask the pastor what is on his heart.

Don't take up his time talking, telling him your ideas.

And you know, if it's not a church, maybe it's an institution to go to the leader of that.

For me, you know, I'd go to Jerry, he's the conference president.

I'd say, Jerry, what's on your heart for this conference?

Get people to join you that will really pray for it.

And pray until you see God answer with these things.

And that will get your pastor or your leader on board with how important prayer is and the difference that it makes.

But your prayer committee, it should be people who have committed to spending quality time with God every day praying.

I just can't stress that enough, spending that time with God.

No matter what you do in life, if you want success in your ministries, in your careers, The most important thing you can do is to be on your knees, praying, and being in God's Word, spending that time with him.

I've seen God so bless my life and bring so much success, and it's come out of that prayer time, spending that time with him.

But to get people that will commit to do that, there's a guy Jerry called into the, you know, Jerry's the Ministerial Secretary for the division, I mean the GC, and he called in this guy who was to do evangelism, go around and train pastors to do evangelism.

And his office is right next door to mine, and I went into his office 1 day we were talking and I said to him I said Robert Robert tell me the success of your ministry and he said well and this guy you know he's seen thousands baptized come to the Lord he says I was a young pastor I was in a 40 members had 40 member church and he said we were going nowhere.

And I went to the conference president and said, could I get money so I could do evangelistic meetings?

And the conference president said to him, you have a Bible, don't you?

You know, how am I going to make this happen and grow our church?

And he goes home, and he's praying about it.

The Lord led him to start tithing his time.

He started giving 2 and a half hours to God every day.

And you know, It may not necessarily be that you can do the whole chunk at 1 time, but maybe you can do an hour and a half now and do an hour and a half later in the day, or somehow.

And out of that, God started sharing with him what to do with his church to grow it.

Grew that church from 40 people to over 400 people.

And they had to build a bigger church, of course, because they couldn't hold them all.

But the Lord just started leading him to things to do.

In 1 little church in Michigan, this is several years ago now, they were dying.

This was written up in the Union paper several years ago.

And there was a young guy that was at the seminary that was actually from our conference in Central.

They're getting his degree, and he was assigned to that church to take it on.

They said, we've got to meet and talk about what we're going to do, because we're dying off.

She says, well, I read this book by Evelyn Christensen, what happens when women pray?

So they started praying for God to tell them, show them what to do to grow their church.

God led them to start going around their neighborhood prayer walking.

And the way they did it was 2 went to the door, 2 stayed on the sidewalk praying while the 2 went to the door.

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Series

iShare 2013 Seminar: Experiencing God

Prayer Power - Intercessory Prayer

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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