Faith Has Its Seasons IX, What's Ahead For America

This is part three in a series, Year of Deepening Devotion. This message, Pattern of Prayer, was presented by Dr. J. Passavant, Senior Pastor of North Lake Christian Community, on January 22nd, 1989. Last Sunday I was just getting ready to watch the 6.30 network evening news, and I had the television set on, and I watched the end of the Bob Hope Desert Classic. I don't know, I'm not a golfer, really, and I hardly ever watch it, but interestingly, I turned it on, and it was the last hole, and they went into a playoff round, and there was three golfers in a playoff round, and a golfer by the name of Steve Jones got up on the next tee, hit a one-iron, and the other two men hit drivers and knocked it into the rough, and his went right on the fairway, and then he used a four-iron, or seven-iron it was, and got it within four feet of the hole, and he went on to win in the first round of the sudden-death playoff, and that's no big deal to anybody, but with the remaining seconds on the network broadcast all over the country, it was about 6.28 or so, the commentator or the sportscaster walks up to him, and he says, Steve, you just won $180,000. How does it feel? He said, well, it feels all right, but I want to give praise to Jesus Christ, because he's the reason I'm here, and he's my victory. You all see that? Now, I know not, you know, we don't have to say those things every time something wonderful happens to us, but it sure is great once in a while, isn't it, to hear someone give God praise for what he did, and I found out later that Steve Jones had won the week before that the Tournament of Champions or something, unbelievable. Now, my question is, how does a man become a golfer who can literally win championship titles like that? I mean, what's the difference between him and you or me? Well, the bottom line is what he does day in and day out with that golf club. He's practicing those shots all the time. He's disciplined. He'll go out and shoot with a certain club all afternoon, just getting the right feel. In fact, interestingly, yesterday, you're going to think I watch golf every Saturday and Sunday. I don't. Yesterday, I forget what I was waiting to have come on, but it was the basketball championship. They had a little cutaway during this other golf tournament, and here are all these professionals lined up on the practice tee. All of them, they'd finished their 18 holes, and they're out there now just practicing away. And the commentator said this, it really stuck in my mind. He said, when you all have equal talent, it's the one who works the hardest that gets the prize. I'm not sure that that's true, that they all have equal talent, but I know this. To be an outstanding person in any field requires commitment. And the difference between casual golfers and championship golfers is commitment. And when it comes to prayer, I know today that I'm talking with lots and lots of people who have prayed at one time or another, who would even today say that, well, you know, you pray once in a while. But I wonder today how many people are really committed. It's, to me, not unlike what we see in our culture at every street corner, the convenience store mentality, the 7-11 prayer line. And I don't mean 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. I mean, you know, we are, it's just a, it's a mark of 1989 now to see convenience food stores everywhere you can imagine. I mean, they're every place. And when you go into a convenience food store, you'll find food. But you won't find real healthy food for the most part. It's mostly, you know, processed, fast food, microwavable stuff and all that kind of thing. When you go into those food stores, you'll find very little variety to speak of. You won't find any fresh meats to speak of. You won't find any fresh fruits or vegetables. Health food people never go in those stores. The only thing you'll find is you're in, you're out, and that's what it's all about. It's quick, it's fast, and what? Expensive, isn't it, for the same kind of thing. Now, compare that with your basic Giant Eagle or Foodland or Shop and Save, where you go in, and when you walk in that door, you know you're making a commitment, don't you? I mean, this is huge. You've got to get a map to find your way around. Variety everywhere. I mean, aisles full of fresh vegetables and fresh fruits, fresh meats, everything. I mean, whole health food sections. The whole, you know, the sales approach is unnaturally good for you and all these kinds of things. Well, I started thinking about my prayer life, folks, and I began to be convicted that a lot of my prayer life was fast food style. A lot of the way I approached God was convenience versus commitment, and I began to get a bit uncomfortable with the fact that more than I wanted to admit, I was in a hurry when I went to see God. I needed just what I needed, and I wanted to get out again. And I began to realize that if that was the way my life was going to go, I was not going to build a life of excellence, a life that was going to really matter for the kingdom of God. Where are you today? Are you a Giant Eagle prayer, or are you a 7-Eleven prayer? Let me ask you another question. What motivates you to pray? I mean, what would really motivate you? You could say, well, I got into a disaster. I'd be motivated to pray. We all are at those times. You know, the disciples watched Jesus. They saw him go to the place of prayer in the morning, walk out of the place of prayer, do miracles, touch the sick, deliver people who were demon-possessed, teach the great crowd. Then he'd go into the place of prayer again at night. What did they finally light up to in their minds? Teach us to pray. We want to have the same life that you have. Well, I get motivated now and then by people's lives. I know in my own experience, maybe you've had people that you've looked at and said, man, I'd like to be like them. Lord, and they're praying people. Would you make me a praying person like they are? I remember back in my early days in seminary, I happened to meet Jack Hayford, the pastor of a church in the West, and he became a model. I said, Lord, I want to be like him. And teach me to pray, because he shared about his prayer life. He's written many books on prayer. But the greatest motivator I have to pray is answered prayer. Is there anything more exciting than an answered prayer? I mean, when you know, there's no other explanation for it. This Wednesday, I was down at a conference, and I knew one person out of 225 people personally, one person at this conference, and they were tied up. And I woke up on Wednesday morning, and I wrote down, I've been telling you that I write down my prayers many times, and I wrote it down right here in my notebook. You can't read it, but trust me, it's here. It said, Lord Jesus, I pray today that you'd help me to meet someone new who will affect my life. One person. Well, I went down there, and there was all these folks mingling around. I know I had a couple casual conversations. In fact, I started talking to one guy about my life and so on and so on. I walked down the hallway, and I looked right into the eyes of a man that I'd seen in a magazine before. He was pasty. And I stopped and introduced myself to him, and it turns out he's the senior pastor of a church where Pastor Jim and Pastor Scott had gone three days before to visit, and they didn't even know this was all happening. Well, I knew right away what God was doing. God was answering my prayer. We spent lunch together. We spent dinner together, and I drove him to the airport the next day. And in about three hours, we built a bond and a relationship. God answered my prayer. Now, I tell you, that's a wonderful thing. Now, what do you think I wanted to do Thursday morning? And I have other ones on here, same kinds of things that the Lord did. Well, you see, when your prayers are answered, you know that it matters. There may be a few folks here this morning. The prayer for you is just positive mental attitude. I mean, let's get serious. There may be a few folks today that have never had an answered prayer. But I want just to testify to something. How many people would say, I know God specifically answered a prayer in my life this week? Put your hands up. This week? God is doing it. The problem is sometimes he doesn't seem to, and we get discouraged. Next week, by the way, I'm going to be talking about the mystery of unanswered prayer. But I want to just share for a few minutes today how you can go on in a very practical way and get moving and seeing your prayer life deepen and become more of a commitment than a convenience store stop off. I believe God wants it to be that way for each one of us. There may be some people here today who can't wait. But I bet most of us are here, and we've tried to pray, and we've bombed. How many people like that? Don't put your hand up. I've tried to pray, and I've bombed. I mean, I've been out there, and I got up early. I was like Mary right here. I mean, I fell on the floor as though dead, and that was it. Fortunately, there are some people here today whose prayer lives are exemplary. You get around them, and they're just there hearing the Lord. Let me say this very unequivocally. The purpose of prayer is to commune with God. The purpose of prayer is to know God, to know him. Jesus tells us that he communed with his Father. It says this in John 5, verse 19, And truly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever he does, that the Son does likewise. Do you want to live a godly life? Do you want to live a life of power and purity? See what the Father is doing. That's why we pray. We don't pray to say, well, I'm more spiritual. We don't pray so that we can say, well, I have all these little scalps on my belt. We pray so that we can know God and be led by his Spirit. But in the same way, we also know that we are fleshly, and we need something to help us to pray effectively. Now, last week in your blue outline, I talked about having a certain place to pray. How many people today would say, I found a certain place to pray? Put your hand up in the air. How many are still looking for one? I want to encourage you to do it. A certain place. I said a certain preparation. You've discovered you've got to get yourself ready. Today I want to talk about a certain pattern. Turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. Matthew 6. And here's what happened. When the disciples saw Jesus being so effective in his life and ministry, they said, teach us to pray. Luke 11 says the same exact word. Here's what Jesus said. Let's read it together. I'll read. You follow along. Matthew 6, verse 7. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they'll be heard because of their many words. But do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. How many of you believe if Jesus said this is how you should pray, you'd probably try it? Now, there's a lot of patterns. There's lots of patterns out there. We have one that I learned growing up called the axe pattern. The axe pattern. You begin by adoring God. Worship. Worship brings lots of benefits. We'll look at it in a moment. The next thing you do is confess your sin. You spend time saying, Lord, this is who I really am. This is where I'm struggling. These are my weaknesses. Then you go on and give thanks to God for his forgiveness and for his blessing and provision. And then you end with a time of supplication or petitioning. You say, Lord, these are my needs. I want to commend you. This is a good basic pattern. If you've never done any praying at all, it's a good way to pray. However, the way I'm going to share with you for the next 15 minutes, I want to tell you something. It encompasses all of those things, and it's far more. And the reason I can stand up here and tell you without any reservation that your life will be improved, your prayer life will grow, is because for 21 years, I didn't have a prayer pattern. But when I discovered this prayer pattern and began to implement it in my life on a daily basis, my prayer life deepened by mega leaps. You're saying, well, you must have been pretty shallow. Maybe I was. But I'm willing to say today that I feel much stronger in my daily prayer life than I've ever known before, and I'm seeing God answer prayer. And I'm following this outline that I'm going to share with you. Hey, the first step to getting out of a bad situation is admitting you need help, folks. Don't be afraid to say, I need a pattern. The disciples knew it. Jesus didn't say, well, I'm not going to tell you. He said, pray like this. Pray this way. So we're going to look at it for the next few minutes. The beginning point, let me say, is this. You have access to God based on one thing. What is it? The blood of Jesus Christ. You don't come to God because you've been a good Christian. You don't come to God because you really are sincere. You don't have a hearing before the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords just because you'd really like to get to know Him. You come to God based on one thing, the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. You know, in our culture, we don't talk much about covenant. But the Bible says that God established a covenant, an unbreakable promise, through the blood of His Son. And all around the world, people understand blood covenant. Our culture is one of the ones that at least talk about it. But we still understand the importance of blood. We understand it more than ever with AIDS and purity of the blood and all those kinds of things. But you come, the Bible says, Hebrews 10, 19, through a new and living way because of the blood of Jesus Christ. If you've never opened your life to the forgiveness that's in Christ because of His blood, the Bible says without the sacrificing of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin. Please ask God to give you a fresh insight into the blood of Jesus. Nothing will revolutionize your anticipation more than seeing that God loves you so much that He let His Son shed blood. Dads, come talk to dads a minute. What would go through your heart if your son literally shed blood for another person? There are people here today who lost sons in the war. You know the freedoms we value cost them their life's blood. Our God, our Father, loved us so much that He went through those same emotions. Let His Son die for us. And that is the means of access. And so we should begin our prayer times by saying, Lord, thank You for the blood of Jesus Christ by which I come in. I start right here. If you don't understand that, dig in a little bit into God's Word. It's very clear that it's by the blood of Christ that we come. Hebrews 4, 16, we enter the throne of His grace by the blood of the Lamb. And then we'll see that God will meet every need. You know, the blood says to me, God loved me so much. If He shed His blood, what else is He going to withhold? Not a thing. If you need something from God, the blood says you're worth everything. And I say, thank You, Lord. Thank You that You love me so much that You shed the blood. And here's what I do. I go through the Lord's Prayer. Now, we're going to give you an outline of all this on your way out. You'll have it with you. It'll be a help to you. So let me write all this down. You might want to just highlight a couple things. The first thing I say is, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Let's say it again. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. My Father. Do you know when I say the words, My Father, you know what that says to me? Number one, I'll never be alone again. I have a Father in heaven. No matter where I go, my Father in heaven is with me. I never need be afraid again. I have a Father in heaven who's watching over me. Some of us need to understand today, when you say Father, it's not the image of your own fleshly Father. As good or bad as He may have been, it's much higher than that. God calls you His son or daughter. And I'll tell you, just thinking about that for me starts to get me excited about giving Him praise. Hallowed be Thy name. What does the word hallowed mean? It means set apart, sanctified, praise be unto Your name. Praise be unto Your name. And dear ones, we begin our time of prayer by hallowing the names of God, by praising His name. The name of someone often describes them a little bit, doesn't it? How many of you nicknamed your kid because of a certain way they acted? You know, like Buster. Buster. You know, always getting into stuff. What are some other names I could mention that I probably shouldn't right now because you're here? Skip. All right? Because you're never in one place for one time. Well, names often kind of, you know, people, they represent what they're like. I want you to know in the Bible, the names of God tell us about His character. The names of God tell us what He's like. And when we begin to hallow or praise, now listen, or declare those names, God begins to show us what He's like. And on the sheet you're going to get, there are, we start with the Old Testament, Jehovah names. The I am that I am names of God. The covenant names. The names that God says, this is what I am to you, Sid Canu. God is my righteousness. He's the one that gives me freedom from my sins. Jehovah Makedesh, my holiness. Have you ever awakened in a day and said, God, I'm so unholy. Why would you want to be with a person like that? I feel that way. And I say, God, thank you that Jesus Christ is my, you don't receive me in my sin. You receive Christ in me. And I go on and I hallow the names and I speak them out. And you are Jehovah Shalom, my peace, in the midst of my storms. You're Jehovah Shammah. You're my glory in the midst of all the things that would pull me down. You're Jehovah Rophe, my healer. You know, over the last two years or three years that I've been praying this prayer, I've seen God heal my body of different things. Different things that I was told would be long-term conditions. What do you struggle with gum disease? I struggled with gum disease for a long time. The dentist said, well, it's not going to get better. We need to operate. A lot of quiet here all of a sudden. I began to pray, Jehovah Rophe, be my healer. And I began to do some of the things I needed to do, just hygienically and so on. I go in the dentist's office and I say, boy, this is really unusual. I love that. Don't go to a doctor or a dentist. It's really unusual. I get excited because God did some things and I don't have a problem now. I just want to give God glory. He's Jehovah. Why? Because day by day, I say, Lord, thank you for healing. I just thank you for being my healer. Now, maybe you have something far more profound than that. But that was significant. And I go on to give God praise. He's Jehovah Jireh. And I praise him for his names. He's my provider. I could go on. Jehovah Nissi, my banner, my victory. Boy, this is exciting me. Today, I know that I'm going to walk in a victory pattern because you've made me more than a conqueror through him who loves me. You know, you don't need to wallow down here, folks. We can declare that God is our victory and walk in it to his glory. We don't need to throw our lot in with the people who are bemoaning life and depressed about this. But God is our victory. He's Jehovah Nissi, my banner. And that's not realistic. Dear ones, it is more realistic than all the stuff you read in Newsweek and Time. God is who he is. His character hasn't changed. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And he's that to you as well. And he's Jehovah Rohi, my shepherd. He leads me by the still waters. You know, I praise him that way. I have literally spent my whole prayer hour on those names. And by the way, how many know that God said, Well, some people will use up those names. So I have a list in the back of my Bible with 200 names of God. So if I get a little tired of those eight or I already know those, I get into these other ones. You know, the faithful witness, the first and the last, the savior of the world, the son of the highest one, the wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, princess. I can go on those four. How many of you can't out? You just can't exhaust God's character. So I give him praise. Hallowed be thy name. Well, I suddenly find my whole orientation is changing from Jay's weakness to God's strength. And that's a good thing, especially at 6 o'clock in the morning. And I go on and say, Lord, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Let's say it. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. What is the kingdom of God? It's the rule of God in the human heart. And one day that rule will be all over the earth. It will be seen and visible. Right now it's in the heart. How many of you here would say, I struggle some with my priorities? Anybody? Priorities. Family, personal life, business, ministry. Hello? We all live there, folks. If you're a responsible human being in 1989, you have a struggle with priorities. God says, I want to set your priorities in order. Thy kingdom come. Thy rule come on earth as it is in heaven. People often say to me, you know, how do you function in this ministry with all the people and all the responsibility? The only answer I have, and I'm not saying it all, but I do it well all the time. But I'll say this. The Lord has kept my life in order because I have said, thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. And I say, first of all, in my life. Lord, start right here. Because if I'm not right, Carol's not going to, you know, there's going to be problems on her side and my kids are going to have problems and my staff's going to have problems. So I say, Lord, start right here. And then I pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. And then Carol and my kids, Amy, David, and Jonathan, and right down the line all my family members, mom and dad, brother, sister, all the rest, I pray for them. And I want you to know sometimes God will stop me right in the middle of that and say, no, you really need to pray about this because something's going to happen to them today. Well, that's an exciting moment. I realize that I'm becoming an intercessor. I'm standing on their behalf. And then I pray for thy kingdom come, thy will be done in the church and all the people around us here. And then I pray for the nation, for the things of God. How many of you would love to see the kingdom of God on this earth? It's coming, folks. The Bible says that one day the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of his cross. And it comes as we pray for the Lord Jesus to be established. So I go through that. I establish priorities. Then I go on and say the next thing, which is what? Let's say, give us this day. You know the nice thing about this, you can't say you don't understand it. You know these words. How many of you grew up in churches where you said these words all the time? Well, these are just a pattern that Jesus gave. And I go on and I say, Lord, give me this day my daily bread. And I tell you this, God's word is brimming over with promise that he knows your need in the back row. And he knows your need in the front row. And he knows that he'll supply it as you come to him and say, Lord, give me this day my daily bread. Now let me say something to you. God is not dumb. And he's not going to be pouring out blessing and provision to those who abuse his blessing. I need to say to you, if your life is out of order with God, if you're living in sin, if you're not giving faithfully and regularly in accordance with the Bible's prescription on tithing and offerings, don't expect God to just keep heaping into your life. But if you get in order with God, his word tells us that God shall supply all of your needs according to his glorious resources in Christ Jesus. He said, if you give, it shall be given to you, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Has that been happening to your life? God is so good for those who will allow him to be good. By living in obedience and calling upon his name, I declare specifically, I say, Lord, these are my needs. These are my needs. These are the needs of the people around me. Then I go on and I say, Lord, forgive us our debts with faith. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. I want to get along with God's people. That's the next one. I want to get along with the people around me. You know what breaks more relationships than anything else? Unforgiveness. Someone offends you, someone disappoints you, someone hurts you, and you bear it in your heart and you carry it around and you hurt inside and that hurt becomes bitterness and bitterness chokes off faith and you can't receive. Look at your Bibles with me. Look at Matthew 6, verse 14 and 15. You want to know, this is a preview of next week, why prayer isn't always answered. Look at it. If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Whoa! Whoa! You want your prayers to be answered, you've got to be in relationship to God. Sin breaks relationship to God for faith. And so I say, Lord, forgive my sin. Forgive my sin and I forgive the ones around me. I was touched in my spirit that same Wednesday morning as I opened the Bible to Psalm 19. You know, we are aware of lots of things in our lives, but most of us recognize most of the sin that we commit is willful sin and I read these words of David. Listen to this. Keep your servant also from willful sins. May they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Well, I memorized that, put it in my head and I said, Lord, keep me from those sins. Forgive me when I do and keep me. And I'm going on now. You see, my communion with God is getting rich during this whole time. I'm experiencing his presence. Next, number five, I say, Lord, I need your power. I need the power of God. We are living in a time when God's power is confronting the powers of darkness all around the world. At this meeting that I attended, there were 200 major ministry leaders from around the country. The overruling commentary of these men and women, people that you would all recognize, like Marilyn Hickey was there and Jamie Buckingham and Malcolm Smith, people like that. The overruling testimony, Richard Dorse from PTL who went down the tubes of Jim Baker, their words were these. They said, we know more than anything else that as we near the end, that the powers of darkness are assailing themselves against the kingdom of God, seeking to bring down believers and bring them into discouragement and cause the church to take a tumble. And I fear sometimes we sort of take it for granted that things will just keep going well in our own lives or at North Way or whatever. Dear ones, we are in a spiritual battle. And the only reason why our church continues to be blessed by God is because there are some people, many of you who say, and I want my life to count and I want to stand in the gap and pray for God's blessing on me. Now, the Lord tells us, number five here, God's power comes when we put on the whole armor of God. I want you to put your Bibles down for a moment and stand up. There are people here today who have never done this. I want to do it together. Paul says, put on the whole armor of God. What's the first part of the armor we're going to put on? The helmet of salvation. Now, if you're a visitor today, what we're doing is by faith picturing our lives being covered by the provision of God. Over my head now I put the helmet which protects my mind. Then I put on the breastplate of righteousness. What is that? That's God's provision to keep my heart safe from temptation and deceit and destruction. Then I put on the belt of truth that covers my loin so that what I reproduce in my body is truth. Boy, that's powerful. Then I put on my feet the gospel of peace. The Bible says, everywhere your feet tread, God will give it to you by his authority. We have the authority, Jesus said, to trample on serpents and snakes. That means evil things. Then I lift up in my left hand the shield of faith. So I lift it up there. I know, this is hard for some people, and this is really corny. Hey, wait a minute. It's corny until you're facing the devil. Then it suddenly becomes very powerful. You say, well, I never faced the devil. Oh, yes, you do. You just don't recognize. Then I lift up the sword of the Spirit. I say, you know, God, I'm in a battle today. The word of the Lord is in my right hand. And I say, God, as I go out from this prayer time, I want you to just guide my steps, and I want to take back from the devil everything that he would rob from my life and from the people around me. God, I bind the powers of darkness, the powers of the air. I take authority over them, and I put under feet now those principalities and powers that would steal, kill, and destroy, and I receive abundant life today in the name of Jesus Christ. Then what I do, many times here in this platform, I stand and face the north this way, and I face the west over in Coriopolis in the airport. I face the east in Hampton and Richland and Shaler, and then I face the south over the city. And I pray against the powers of the air, the principalities that hold people's eyes to be shut and blind, people who go to church mindlessly week after week believing that God will somehow honor their ritual. And Jesus said, in vain do they worship. And I break the powers of the air. And dear ones, many of you are here today, you don't even know it, but it's because somehow something happened in your life because people were praying for you to see how much God loved you. And we call in a harvest from all these directions and all around the world, and we pray in agreement with our missionaries all around the world, believing God to set them free. He may be seated. And then I conclude, and I say, Lord, I want to partner with you now in your kingdom. And I say, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. And I begin to realize that I am living that day now as a partner with God. Now, is there anything better than that? And many times I'm a lousy partner. Many times I'd fire me if I were God. Wouldn't you? But I'm partnering with God in his kingdom. And I ask him to get all the glory and the praise from my life. Now, let me end with this. You say, well, that's just one way to do it. I suppose it is. But some extra credence is given to this one way because Jesus said, this is the only time he said, pray this way. Do you have a better way? Do it. If you have a better way, and you're moving with God, do it. Please don't take any trip on it. But if you're like me and you've been faltering along, I want to encourage you to do this. I want the ushers to come right now and pass out all these outlines to the folks, quickly if you would. We have hundreds and hundreds of these outlines. I want to give you one of these. I want to acknowledge Larry Lee and the folks at Church on the Rock for this great outline that will help you. This just told you what I told you in written form. And as they're passing these out, we need lots of help on these guys, folks. Let me conclude with a story about marriage. And the single people, I want you just to picture something about your relationship. In marriage, we would like to think, wouldn't we folks, that all we need to do is get married and it all works out happily ever after. You know, we just sort of saunter down the path of life and end up in bliss land. How many of you know that has not happened for most of us? Now, the reason is, as intimate as we want to be, as communing as we want to be and one with our spouses, dear church, do you know that we have to work at that relationship. We have to give it place in our life. We have to say no to some things and yes to some things. And as intimate as you may want to be with God, unless you're willing to say no to some things and yes to some things, you'll remain a convenience store, casual prayer. And you won't know the joy of the full measure of what God wants to do. You won't know the