the letters podcast

when i'm overwhelmed

You're not overwhelmed. You're just not praying. I know what it feels like to be overwhelmed, so I wanna walk you through how I deal with it. I hope this blesses you so many periods of my life. Life feels like it's hitting peak pressure: family, ministry, work, marriage, all of it. If this were seven years ago, I know exactly how I deal with it. Substances and pleasures and things that would just only feed my flesh and not my spirit. Now I take the advice of David in Psalm 61:1-2 Hear my cry. Oh God, attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth, I will cry to you. When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. We've been talking about prayer a lot this season, so let's keep that going. David wants God to hear his cry, to attend to his prayer, no matter where he is in the world, no matter what situation, whether he's in the throne room or the battlefield. Wherever he is. When he gets overwhelmed, he asks that God leads him to the rock that is higher than I. That is the rock of salvation, the rock on which the church is built upon, that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. That is what you stand on when you get overwhelmed. You begin to realize that you are only overwhelmed because you think you are the one doing it. If God is doing it through you, there's no way that God can be overwhelmed. So the first thing that I do when I'm feeling overwhelmed is take a step back. The second thing that I do when I'm overwhelmed is to pray. Prayer is the solution. To anxiety. When I'm overwhelmed, my soul is looking for an outlet. It wants to express something, but the busyness of life chokes it out. My soul is seeking rest. It's seeking peace, is seeking east, but struggles to find them all. So I step back and step inside my prayer closet. David, in the same place, turned to prayer. Not just any prayer, a prayer that God hears. Now, I want to caution you, there's a process to prayer. John 9:31 reads, Now we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, he hears him. So as you step back and step into prayer, don't forget to step into repentance. Allow God to hear you by worshiping him and doing his will. Scripture tells us two things. There are prayers that God hears and there prayers that he doesn't. So when David asked God to hear him his cry, his will, his thoughts in that moment, his worship is seeking the will of God. I like to believe that anxiety is introducing the lives of men. When there's an absence of God's will, you won't be anxious about what you're already expecting. God hears prayer when it's in his will. God's will is in his word, and his word is in his will. The fourth thing that I do is I step back and step into prayer, and then repent is to pray prayers that align with his word. When you pray in alignment with his word, he will always hear it. Think of this: if I sign a contract promising to give you a thousand dollars and then you ask me for that thousand dollars, I've already promised it to you. So I'm already prepared to give it. And in fact, because I made a promise, I'm obligated to give it. That's what happens when you ask for what God promises. God's intention towards you is for good. When you ground your petitions in his word, he will answer. So here's what I'm saying. When I'm overwhelmed, I step back. I step into prayer, I repent, and I align to his will that is being led to the rock that is higher than I, the rock of salvation, the rock on which he built his church, the Rock on which his will is done. 1 Timothy 2:3-4 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. It's a powerful reality that we can pray God's will into existence. The next question is, how do I know God's will for me in this season? I'll let you know in the next letter. God bless you, PO. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit community.rcln.org [https://community.rcln.org?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

the point of prayer pt. 1

I am going to convince you to pray. This is the first of a four-part series. The first two parts is the point of prayer, parts one and two. The second two parts is the power of prayer, parts one and two. The power of prayer will be in person and live-streamed on 7/29. By the end, you'll want to join the Prayer Gym Challenge, a 30-day challenge to pray every day for 30 minutes a day at the same time. Challenge begins August 1st.Let's dive in. If you knew how much help you needed, you will pray more. You don't pray because you're prideful. You believe you can help yourself or someone around you can help you. When you realize only God can help you, you will pray. Let's define prayer. It's simply a two-way communication with God. To understand prayer, you need to go to Genesis. The first three chapters of Genesis introduces something profound about prayer. We find the first word spoken in who spoke them. The first by God. Genesis 1:3: "Then God said, let there be light. And there was light." The second person that spoke was Adam. Genesis 2:23: "And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man." The third person to speak was the serpent. Genesis 3:1: "Now, the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden." And the fourth person to speak was Eve. Genesis 3:2: "And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruits of the trees of the garden." Did you see that? The first person that spoke was God, and he spoke life into all of creation, including Adam. Very productive. The second person to speak was Adam and Adam spoke to God and adoration, thanking him for what he had done. The third person to speak spoke to Eve. The serpent. This was where the problems began. Anytime you disrupt the natural flow of dialogue between God and man, temptation creeps in the serpent's. First words were to discredit the words of God. And a fourth person to speak was Eve. And Eve could have defeated this temptation by simply speaking to God by her first recorded words. And the Genesis accounts were to the serpent. We can't blame the serpent for doing serpent how things, but we can always blame man for not praying. A prayerless life is a breeding ground for temptation. The extended dialogue between Eve and the serpent led to the fall of men and a major shift in the Genesis account. God spoke to Adam before the fall Genesis 2:18: "And the Lord God said, it is not good. That man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him." God knew what Adam wanted before Adam asked for it. Then Adam essentially prayed for it. Genesis 2:20: "But for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him." God answered that deep desire by giving Adam E the very next words. God speaks to Adam after answering his prayer. Genesis 3:9: "Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you?" Anyone who does not pray will not be found where God placed them. Said another way, people who don't pray are lost. The points of prayer is to position yourself where God is looking for you. God is looking for relationship fellowship and communion, but God is spirit. So we need a spiritual interface to interact with God. That interface is prayer. You must be very careful not to allow the voice of another to interrupt the constant dialogue we are to have with God The moment any voice apart from the voice of God enters your thoughts. Temptation is closely behind. This is why Jesus teaches Luke 18:1: "Then he spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not to lose heart." Lose hearts here in the Greek means to be weak. Or to faint. Have you ever seen someone faint before? What happens? They fall. Men fall when they stop relying on God to hold them up. Adam and Eve fail the very moment they stopped praying. Are you getting this? Sin enters the life of a person when they stop talking to God. When Adam was talking to God, he had a purpose. His needs were being met and he existed in paradise. That's what prayer does. It brings us back to a position where we can understand God's plan for our lives and get this. God wanted to populate the earth. He already knew that Adam would need and eve. So he positioned Adam in such a way that Adam would ask for the very thin God wanted for him. This is so profound. When you are in perfect harmony with God, all our prayers will be answered because we are perfectly aligned with his will. That's prayer. Before we wrap up, I want you to know this. Praying for five minutes every day at the same time is more powerful than praying one day a week for one hour. It's a muscle. Do you want to grow that muscle in the prayer jam? Then join us for this 30 day challenge. It begins August 1st. If you're interested, just subscribe to this newsletter and we'll get you all the information you need. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit community.rcln.org [https://community.rcln.org?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

the power of Love

every time you love, you must lose. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit community.rcln.org [https://community.rcln.org?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

kill what is left of me

“the quieter we are, the louder we become”. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit community.rcln.org [https://community.rcln.org?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]