Prayer Doesn’t Do Anything! – Lies of the Enemy #24– Purity 1036

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo that I have taken the liberty to entitle Tranquil Sunset of Joy comes to us from Dave Bond Photography, and Dave shared this awesome photo with no identifying details as his 9th installment of a My Life Is Good Challenge, which people on social media are passing on to their friends encouraging one another to post photos that bring them joy with no explanation, and in an attempt to spread joy because we all need joy in our lives. I share a photo with each of my purity semi-daily encouragements because I completely agree with this sentiment, but I also do it to give glory to God and to encourage my friends to understand that God created the scenes we see and that he is present in them. God is not in a box or locked in into the confines of a church building or even the pages of the Bible. God is everywhere, and the things that bring us joy all have their beginning in him. So the appropriate thing to do when we experience joy is to thank God for our lives, for our health, and for the things we experience. Well, it's— it is Saturday, and even though my shifted schedule has me working today, I can rise above any resentments or disappointments of this fact, because my focus is on God and all the wonderful blessings he has given me that many take for granted. One of the blessings I'm currently receiving stems from my acceptance in Deeper Walker, uh, Deeper Walks International School of Prayer Ministry. I am blessed by the material we are studying, but I am perhaps learning more from the people that I have encountered in the school. My fellow cohort students, my instructors, guest speakers, and a certain prayer minister, Christy Edge. As part of our training and education as prayer ministers, the students are required to undergo 6 sessions as clients of, of a prayer minister or counselor to give us the perspective of what being a client is really like. When I heard of this assignment, I planned on utilizing a counseling pastor at my local church to meet the requirements of the assignment. But when I was presented with the opportunity of being ministered to by one of the students of Deeper Walk School of Prayer Ministry's previous cohort, I decided to step out of the box and go through these 6 sessions with someone who received the training that I want to be educated in. I figured that it would be, uh, be good to step out of my comfort zone and that it would be a really good experience to see what it was like to do prayer ministry according to the methods taught by Deeper Deep Walk. I would not only meet the requirement for the course, but I would also see a Deeper Walk prayer minister model the process I wanted to learn. Smart, right? I considered myself to be free in Christ, so I didn't really expect much to happen through the sessions, but was open to whatever the Lord wanted to bring up and deal with. As a graduating student of the school, Christy Edge had the assignment to counsel someone in prayer ministry to be fully certified, so she generously offered her service, uh,, as a prayer minister to our cohort. Uh, I didn't know anything about Christy other than she was from Franklin, Tennessee. She was in the cohort before ours and that she had, quote unquote, been working in inner healing and trauma healing for 10 to 15 years and would love to walk alongside any of you as the Lord leads, as she wrote. Um, while there was one other student offering the same service, I felt moved to choose Christy to help me and prayed that one of my fellow students wouldn't beat me to the punch. I was fortunate no one did, and Christy and I met for 6 sessions of Deeper Walk prayer ministry. And that brings us to our current series, The Lies of the Enemy, which is an examination of some of the common lies, sometimes sneakily whispered into our minds as first-person statements, that the enemy tells us to cause us to doubt our faith, um, to lose our peace and cause division, or influence us, uh, to not follow the Lord with the way we live our lives. Today's big lie is prayer doesn't do anything. This lie is spoken by many an unbeliever and some who would claim to believe who haven't received what they asked for. In my pre-Christ existence, I remember a non-believing friend call out to God to strike her dead. Um, the Lord was gracious and allowed her to live, but she took his mercy as evidence for his— the non-existence of God or the fact that he doesn't answer prayers. Others who have earnestly prayed for health or other blessings who haven't received what they wanted also echo the sentiment that prayer doesn't do anything, and some of those have taken their disappointments and rejected the Lord or any ideas about following him. The enemy encourages people not to pray, um, because, uh, it is through prayer that we can connect with God and and know that he is with us, that we can find him when we seek him. There are many principles for answered prayers that people try to teach to encourage our prayer life, but we have to remember, above all the little things we can do to help our chances of receiving what we pray for, that God is sovereign. As I edit, uh, he— his will is what will be done, and we can't twist his arms and give us what we want when it is against his will and purposes. Sometimes disappointment, pain, suffering, and heartache are the natural consequences of our actions or are what is ordained, uh, to test us and to mature our faith. There are many testimonies of unanswered prayers leading to good. There are other testimonies of God working miracles after someone prayed for them. So we should pray and believe that prayer does something. Whether we receive what we pray for or not, our prayer life brings us closer to our Heavenly Father. It is a means of communication with God. We can not only send our petitions to him, we can also ask him for strength and guidance and listen to what he tells us in our spirits. Um, so while we may not receive miracles, we can receive peace, comfort, strength, and guidance when we continually meet with the Lord in prayer. And that's where I, I will testify to the Lord doing something in my prayer sessions with Christy Edge. While I have been free from addictions to alcohol, drugs, and sexual immorality, and the oppression of negative mind states of anger, anxiety, fear, bitterness, and depression for years, I would still struggle with periodic comfort eating, overspending, and a nagging sense of rejection from time to time. As a Community Freedom Ministry Associate for Freedom in Christ Ministries, I've gone through the Steps to Freedom in Christ and won major victories and have enjoyed my freedom in Christ. So I wasn't sure what would happen in these prayer sessions, prayer ministry sessions with Christy Edge, but the Lord knew, uh, knew what needed to be addressed. Through the 6 sessions of prayer with Christy, which utilized the Theophostic-esque Real Prayer Method, the Lord resolved what I believe to be the origins of my issues of rejection by bringing to mind some of my childhood memories where I experienced shame, guilt, trauma, and started believing unspoken lies about myself. Through those prayer sessions, the Lord healed those memories and revealed the truth, and I have a deep and abiding sense of God's love like I never had before, and freedom from these foolish things the enemy caused a young boy to believe about himself that clung to me throughout my life in unspoken and subtle ways. I would have— I would have encouraged you to pray before these sessions, uh, but after the increased freedom I have experienced from them. I would also encourage you to utilize the services of a healing prayer ministry, preferably one that is Deeper Walk certified, to let God lead you to a deeper sense and, uh, sense of peace and freedom. So don't believe the lie that prayer doesn't do anything. Prayer does do something. It brings us closer to God, and if we trust him with our past, present, and future, he may do some mighty works through prayer, whether it be miraculous things out in the world or in the deep recesses of our hearts and minds. I'm thrilled to announce that Christy has graduated from Deeper Walk International School of Prayer Ministry and has taken the next step. To serve by establishing a website to proactively offer her freedom and emotional healing prayer services. To schedule a session, uh, go to Christy Edge's Life on the Edge Freedom Prayer website, which is on the blog today. It's cedge216.wixsite.com. So yeah, you might want to look at the blog today to get that link, but I will be adding this link, uh, to the bottom of all my posts going forward because Christy helped me, and I know that she will— she's well trained to help others to experience their healing and freedom in Christ through prayer. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible, Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is 1 John 5:14, and the word of God says, and we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. Today's verse just perfectly matches our topic of prayer and provides us with a proof text for the prayer principle that we have to pray for things that would be within God's will or pleasing to God. Here John tells us we can be confident that God hears us when we ask him for thing— for anything that pleases him. What would please God? Well, uh, More faith to trust in him, more love, the ability to forgive, the ability to overcome sin, the ability to know him, his word, or his will are all things that I think would please him. Are you praying for these things? I prayed for these things and have received. Just saying. So when you pray, think about what would please God and ask him for those things and see what happens. We can't always get what we want, but if we want— if we want what pleases God, we can be confident he will hear us. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from, um, June Hunt's Satan, Demons, and Satanism: A Sinister Reality. And today we continue in, uh, basically listing the, um, the signs of possible satanic captivity. It's basically listing the symptoms. And there's a question that's asked: since all power originates with God, how does Satan get his power over so many people? Good question. If you want the answer, it's on this, uh, on at the bottom of today's blog post. But we're also sharing, uh, the question: what are the physical symptoms of satanic involvement? Um, so, um, and, uh, the, the concluding question is, what is necessary to cast out a demonic spirit? So those are some really interesting questions, and, uh, we provide them all at the end of today's blog post. So if you want to see those, go to mtforchrist.org, look at today's post, and you'll see them at the end of, end of, uh, end of the, end of the blog post today, along with that link for Christi Edge's prayer ministry and other, other encouragements. For instance, to join our discipleship series of classes that we taught back in 2021 that are on our podcast and YouTube channel, basically for Freedom in Christ, The Bondage Breaker, and Victory Over the Darkness. You can, you can participate in those classes well after they've been taught by contacting me at mtforchrist247@gmail.com, and I can send you all the class materials that I handed out because I still have those Word docs, basically. So if you want to take a deep dive into them, you can email me, or you can just listen or watch their audio. So, you know, don't expect much on your TV, but you can hear my voice and what I taught from those those classes that are based on the work of Dr. Neil Anderson and the word of God. And of course, we, we encourage prayer, as, as we, uh, tried to suggest today. And we also encourage Bible study, um, and we do that on the, on, on the blog and podcast by presenting our Bible Study with the Sincatis, a topical study we do with Arthur and Susanna Sincati once a week, um, tomorrow Sunday. So we'll be prayerfully doing another one Um, so if you'd like, you can check those out and join in our Bible study as well. Well, it is Saturday, and I can't kick my feet up because I gotta run out the door to go to work. And, uh, I mean, I'll take your prayers for that. Uh, you know, yesterday wasn't the greatest day at work, and, uh, you know, we got through it. But man, sometimes you make a mistake and you go, whoops. Um, and then the enemy comes in and wants to condemn you that you can't do anything right. Or, you know, you're no good at this, or, you know, all these things that come. Um, but luckily the Lord has, uh, given me a deep sense of freedom and a sense of his love. And I know that no matter what I do here on earth, the Lord loves and accepts me, and that I'm secure in that, and that he'll be with me every step of the way. So we encourage you to pursue the Lord so you too can, you know, have that sense of freedom in his love. For you. Because when you walk through life with that, man, it's, uh, it's a whole new experience. It's called walking in the Spirit, and his joy, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, love— I think I said kindness— peace and patience and self-control all come into your life. So that's why we do what we do and we encourage a life of Christian discipleship. Where the Holy Spirit guides you, uh, the word of God informs you, and, uh, the Lord is with you. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, we thank you for another day in the kingdom. Lord, we just pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that you'd bless them, that you'd come alongside them in their prayer request and their walk of faith. Lord, um, we all need your help and we're asking for it, and we think that pleases you. So I know we can be confident that you hear us in that. So we just pray for you to go before us, Lord, to guide us as we go, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and lead our steps into the things you would have us do. Because, oh Lord, all we want to do is represent you and your kingdom, um, here on Earth, and we desperately need your help, uh, to do that. Um, so Lord, we just, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.