How to Pray

Hi, my name is John Humenik. Welcome back to the channel. I'm so excited that you're here. Today we're going to talk about how to pray and the things that you should be doing in your prayer closet and publicly as you declare the beautiful things that God's doing in your life back to the Father. If you know someone who needs to understand a little bit more about prayer, please share this video with them because this is going to really open your eyes to the things that God wants you to do in this season and how a vibrant prayer life is so important to To the kingdom of God and the things that he's done. Now, for those people who are not familiar with prayer, prayer is more than just the Our Father prayer or the Lord's Prayer as it's known, where he's— you're giving things back to him. Prayer is an intimate dialogue between a son or a daughter of a king, and that being the Father. So you have to understand is, is that prayer is a very sacred thing. Prayer is an aspect. It is a beautiful gift given to us to be able to commune With the Most High God. So when you understand who you're talking to, you'll start to understand the importance of the things that you have. Imagine if you had the ability to call the President of the United States, whether you have decided to vote for that person that's in office today or not. If you had their number on speed dial, how important would that conversation be if you needed to talk to them about something? Let's say there's something going wrong in the economy and they may not be aware of it. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to just pick up the phone, have the President of the United States answer that call? Talk with them and then move on. You would take those moments very seriously because of the stature and who that person is in office today. And that can apply to your mayor, your governor, your CEO of your business. It doesn't matter because those people demand respect in the moments that you have with them because of the importance that you have. This is the essence in which a son or daughter has to take as they're coming boldly before the throne of grace, because you're talking to the God of the universe. And you're And you have the ability to go through the veil, which was torn top to bottom because Jesus died for you, in order to enter into a sacred place in communion with your Father, powered by the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ, and talk to the Father. This is a very sacred thing. It's very important. Don't take it lightly. It is important. When you understand the process that you should come into God's presence, there's meaning behind the way the temple was set up, because that's the way we should be approaching God. Because when you do it the way God instructs you to, Prayer becomes more than just a conversation. It becomes an experience that allows you to enter his presence and leave changed in ways that are just very difficult to explain beforehand because you have to look back and reflect upon those changes after the fact. It is entering through the gate. When you look at how the scriptures describe prayer, it is the same thing as coming before God in the temple. There was a physical process in which a person in the Old Testament went before God. They went through a gate. They saw the, the brazen altar where they sacrificed their sacrifice. You never come into God's presence unless you're going to give something up. They sacrificed something. There was the basin where they got cleansed. Then they went into the Holy of Holies where there was— well, at least the priests did— and they had the showbread and the menorah, the lights. And then they had the altar of incense. And then the high priest could go into God's presence once a year. If you were Moses, you could go in at any time. when that's where the Ark of the Covenant is. There's 7 steps, and we know the 7 is the number of completion, it's the number of perfection. So when you start to see that, that's the same way you should be approaching your prayer. And when you operate from that place, prayer becomes this intimate and amazing experience that you can do things in those moments that you would otherwise not be able to do. So it's important to understand that you have access to the King of the Kings because of Jesus's sacrifice, because we know Jesus is the way, we know Jesus is the gate. He's the one that allows you to come into that place. When you enter God's presence, when you start your prayer, the reality is, is that there should be something that you should be giving up, whether it's the beauty of the day, the successes of the day, or the failures of the day. Maybe this is where you're talking about the sins and you wanna give them back up and repent and be in a posture of humility. But that's the essence of how prayer should start. It should always start knowing that you're coming into God's presence through Jesus Christ and you're going to give something up. It's so key because this sets the stage for every single thing that happens afterwards. In other words, because what happens is, is God never wants you to come out of his presence the same way you went in. And the only way to do that is to give something up, because the moment you decide to cling and hold on to things, you can't take your prayer life seriously because you want to control your life. And so what happens is it becomes a buddy-buddy conversation with God, and that's not who it is. Remember, we established that if you had the phone number of the President of the United States and you could call him or her at any point in time, guess what's going to happen? You're going to take those conversations seriously. seriously. So how much more will you take the conversations with God seriously? Once you understand that there is a sacrifice that's involved in that moment, even if that is just a sacrifice of time, which can be very critical and very important to God— because even if there isn't something you're supposed to be giving to God, but you're saying, hey, look, I'm going to spend 20 minutes with you this morning before I do anything else, this is important to him— he's going to appreciate that. We know that once you pass that point of sacrifice, you get cleansed. And so we know we come cleansed because we are already redeemed by the blood of Jesus. This is a part of identity that a lot of Christians get stuck in, especially if you're coming from a former religion that preaches otherwise. You are already consecrated before God because of the sacrifice before Jesus. That's the reality of how it works. Even if you don't ask God for the forgiveness of your sins, you're still consecrated, because the reality is, is you may not know all your sins. You may go through And dump a laundry list of sins, but there may be 20 or 30 others that you don't know about that God's maybe not ready to necessarily fully break off your life. And I know that's a complex concept, but the reality is, is God may still give you grace to operate through those sins, to reveal them, to break them off at a later time so that you can operate in overflow later as well as today. So again, I don't want to necessarily dive into those specifics because it can confuse people, but the reality is, is that as you're coming before the throne of grace and you're asking for forgiveness, Forgiveness, you're already cleansed. You're already holy before him because when he looks to you, because remember, when he sees you, he sees his Son. He's turning his face to you, and the reality is, is you're seated in Christ. You have to understand that's who you are. That's where you're at. So you have to understand that you are a prince or a princess within the kingdom of God. We're a king in the Lord. When Jesus comes back, it says he's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Well, who are all these other kings? And who are all those other lords? That's you. When you recognize that, you can come into the Holies of Holies— I'm sorry, the, the Holy Place— where now you're in this inner sanctuary. You've moved from the realm of the flesh and you're now in the realm of the soul, and you're about to move into the realm of the spirit. This is where you have to understand it, that this is— there's 3 key components in a part of your prayer life. You have to recognize that it's 3 people involved at this point in order to move you into the Holy of Holies, and that's Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and you. When you study The inner sanctuary of the temple, and you're not in the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant is, but you're in this inner one where you're in the realm of the soul. What you start to recognize is those 3 elements that I mentioned— the showbread, which is Jesus Christ, the menorah, which is the Holy Spirit, and incense, which is you, it's your prayers— the 3 of you come together to be able to come into the Holy of Holies. Now, when you understand that this is how prayer should work, and you're operating from this place where you're coming into God's presence through the gate, giving up something, you're cleansed, and you're together coming boldly before the throne of grace, your prayer life becomes activated. It becomes amazing. And now you can hear the voice of God. If you like to journal what he says to you, or if you're just having conversation with him, you will be able to receive something. And this is where the peace of God that passes understanding comes into place because you gave something up. If you go read Philippians 4:6-7, you'll start to realize it mirrors this flow. When you get the fullness of joy, you get it in God's presence because you gave something up. This is where you get the joy of the Lord is your strength through the worship and prayer because you gave something up and you understand that you are stewarding this beautiful thing called prayer because God loves you and he wants to hear from you at any point in time. That's the essence of what God is. It's like feeling the, the garment of love being wrapped around you. It's hope, it's expectation, it's him talking to you, giving you insight, wisdom, and knowledge and revelation. And then you walk out of his presence in wonder and awe, and you're like, wow, this is absolutely incredible because I now know something that can help me operate in my day and in my future and helping with my kids. I can give advice to them, I can help my friends and family, my church, and I can operate and overflow Because I stewarded my prayer life correctly. It'll actually allow God to activate the prayers that you're supposed to be praying. He'll have you intercede for people. He'll have you start praying big, audacious prayers that you should be praying over yourself so that you can come into a greater season of abundance and wealth and opportunity. Maybe a business, maybe new colleges and new education, maybe new relationships, maybe a future spouse. These things happen in your prayer closet. These things happen because you've stewarded all the things to get to that place because you, you respect the fact that you have the phone number of God, like you would, you would have for the President of the United States. And you treat it with the utmost care and respect. And now you know that, hey, I'm coming before the most intelligent, important, and powerful being in the entire universe. Every single thing I need to operate in this life comes from him. It didn't come from you. It didn't come from your gifts. It didn't come from your intelligence, didn't come from your family money. All of those things came from him First, and he's allowing you to steward them as you move forward. And remember, you're a steward, not an owner. There's a really big difference because he may have you put certain things down in order for you to pick certain things up. So just be mindful that your prayer life is very serious. It's an opportunity for you to come into God's presence and to feel his love. The reality is, we know he is giving out way more than we are. We are returning such a small fraction of what he— for him. than what we get. We get that. He gets that. It's perfectly fine. Don't allow any guilt to happen. Just move forward knowing that your Father loves you, that he wants to hear from you, he wants to spend time with you, he wants you to understand his heart so that when you do get to see him face to face, that it's not going to be the first time. It's not going to be this experience where you're like, oh, who's this God? Rather, you're going to know. You're going to call him Abba Father. You're going to understand his position on certain things. And how he felt because he poured it out to you and you received it, and you together came together and joined together through prayer to be able to steward these beautiful things forward. Because the reality is you have dominion on earth, he has dominion on heaven, and he doesn't stomp on your dominion. He will give you the things you're asking for, so make sure that they're aligned with what he wants for you in your life so that you have the graces to steward them and the blessings to go with it. Because the reality is When you're moving forward in kingdom business, he's blessing you in ways that you will not be able to understand until after you have them, because then you can go back and look through your obedience how you got there. So allow him to move forward. If he's asking you to go out there and build buildings and churches in the middle of nowhere, he's going to bring the money to do it, even if it costs $10 million. He knows who's going to support you and he's going to bring it to you. You're the person that brings it to fruition. That's the essence of prayer. That's how God works. That's how he moves forward. So sit in his presence. Allow the weight of the world to dissipate so that the pressures and the problems that you're carrying can be laid on that altar and give them up, because you're not capable of carrying them anyway. And even if you don't realize you're carrying stuff, give it to him anyway, because if— even if you just yield everything back to him, he'll start to expose those sins that I talked about earlier that you may not be ready today to handle, but tomorrow he may be ready to expose them so that he can lift them off of you so that you can transition properly. Because remember, the kingdom is about transition of peace, and so it's not herky-jerky. It's something that you'll receive when you need to receive it, in the order that you have to, so that you can move forward in greatness and holiness. And if you love content like this, please partner with us on Patreon. We're there. You can go to patreon.com/johnhumenik. There you can put a single donation or become a partner in this ministry, and all these beautiful proceeds Go back into the kingdom of God for us to move forward in boldness and clarity. God bless.