I’d like to thank each and every one of you again for joining me at the Prayer Boot Camp on FaceBook. Even though every one of us is accountable directly to God for our walk with Him, it is also wonderful to be a part of a family of like-minded people who can encourage each other to press on further into God and into the fullness of the image of Jesus Christ to which we have been called.

So, I’m glad you’re all here with me to learn how to be faithful and effective in the place of prayer. We need it more than ever. More than ever we need to help each other develop an all-consuming passion for the Presence of God so that we can truly know Him and develop the substance we need to touch the world for Christ.

You are God’s hope in the earth. Each of you has a calling, a gifting, a measure of faith (Rom. 12:3). Contained within your measure of faith is everything you need to fulfill your call here on the earth and go home to an awesome reward. God has already given you everything you need to fulfill your ministry…imagine that.

There truly exists a place you can get to where your walk with God is not a mystery. The next step for your life is not something you wonder about briefly in between changing the diapers and fighting traffic and then the thought disappears until next Sunday. It is a very real walk with God that He has made available. But how do we get there?

We get there by knowing Him. There is no shortcut to fulfilling your destiny in Christ. Jesus said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” That pretty much sums it up. And we know Him through prayer and the Word. If you’re serious about getting to know the Lord, you have to make time for prayer. If you’re too busy to pray, then don’t count on doing anything that has His stamp of approval on it.

We cannot afford to be too busy to pray. Whose work are we trying to do? If it’s His work, then it means we must have His mind. Even when you have His mind, you must also have His method.

So, we must pray and pray much. Before we get to the prayer itself, I’d like to talk about creating a prayer schedule. Let me tell you, having a vibrant prayer life is all about strategy. Your flesh will fight you all the way to the prayer room. The devil’s going to fight you, so you have to stay ten steps ahead of yourself to make sure you win the battle for the prayer closet. I don’t know if you guys can believe this, but I have had to pray about my prayer life to get it going sometimes.

Our faith wasn’t really designed for believing for material things. Our faith was designed for us to win spiritual battles and getting into prayer is a hard fight. But we have the victory and having a prayer schedule is the first step.

You want to pray? You want to spend time with God? Good. When are you going to do it? You don’t know? You’ve got to know if you’re really going to do it. You need to set that time down on paper and stick it up on your mirror where you dress up every morning to remind you to pray.

Today is the day that you create a prayer schedule for your prayer time and get a prayer life.

1. Set aside a quiet time

2. Have a pen and paper

3. Pray for wisdom

4. Take a look at your current schedule and pick a time when you are dog-tired to pray. No two person’s schedules will look the same. The schedule for a stay at home mother will be different from someone who works 9 to 5 and from someone who works a four-day shift.

5. Pick as many large slots of time during your week as you can. Basically, it’s better to have four two-hour prayer sessions during the week instead of seven thirty-minute sessions. If what you can do is 30 minutes a day, that’s fine. However, you may not have as much time to spend praying and then also waiting upon the Lord, reading the Word etc.

6. As you pray in the Spirit, the longer you pray, the quieter your spirit gets. You may have to pray in the spirit for several hours before your spirit gets quiet enough for you to hear the Lord. This is especially the case if you are not by reason of use an expert at hearing the Lord.

7. Now, once you have those times earmarked, write out your schedule on a piece of paper and stick it up where you can see it. If you use a computer or cell phone, put reminders on your calendar that will pop up and remind you that you have prayer coming up that evening or morning or whenever.

Now, it is very important to keep in mind that the minute you set out on a journey to pray like this, the devil is going to be on high alert to stop you. Why? Because if he can stop you at this early stage, he doesn’t have to deal with you when you become a spiritual giant.

One thing you’ll face is discouragement. The first couple of prayer times, you may find that you fall asleep (that would be me) or your boss asks you to stay late at the office, or something, whatever it is comes up. No matter what comes up, you need to commit in your heart that you will never, ever quit. A righteous man falls down seven times, but he also gets up seven times. If he stays down on the seventh time, he’s failed. You have to outlast the devil. One thing he cannot overcome is a Christian who will never quit.

Second, the enemy will attack with condemnation. Listen, God loves you. You are His beloved. If you never pray another day in your life, God loves you and He will do anything He can to bless you here and get you to heaven. Now we know that this is not a license to blow God off and just spend all our time seeking money at the office or a social life. It is a license to tell the devil to “Shut Up!” when he tries to bring sorrow and depression on you because you didn’t pray as much as you were supposed to. As we said earlier, never, ever give up, because we have the victory.

One last word to the people who have excuses and “good reasons” why they can’t find time to pray: If you are a believer, there is no good reason not to pray. Granted, it’s not easy to get a prayer life, but just because it’s not easy doesn’t mean that we can justify the lack of prayer. We cannot do anything without the Holy Spirit, the power of God.

If ministry is keeping you out of prayer, kiss the power of God in your ministry goodbye. If your children are keeping you out of prayer, how do you expect to hear God’s mind about how to raise them or how can He get you into intercession for their future? If your job is keeping you out of prayer, ask yourself if you are serving God or money.

Once you let all of your excuses go, then God is free to bring you His grace and strength to see you through all the way to a vibrant, powerful prayer life.
So, recapping, your assignment today is to write down your prayer schedule. Post your thoughts, question and new prayer schedule if you would like in the discussion area of the group.

Grace and Peace to you,

Sade.

Grace and Peace,

Sade

I have spent the last few weeks starting up the Bible Study/Prayer Meeting in our home. It’s well on its way now, thank God. I also worked on options for publishing the teachings from those meetings on this blog as well. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s good enough to go.

So, here is the teaching from the Bible Study on May 29th, 2008: Praying in Tongues is a Revelation Gift

http://www.prayerbootcamp.com/Teachings/Tongues-The-Revelation-Gift.mp3

And here is the handout to go with the teaching:

Handout – Tongues are a Revelation Gift

Grace and Peace,

Sade

1st Corinthians 12:27, 28: Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

The key of praying in tongues has been maligned much in the body of Christ. Things have come to the point where many, many churches now have by-laws declaring that tongues passed away with the apostles or they simply ignore the fact that the Bible mentions tongues at all. Why the shame-facedness about this gift of God? Why do we think that praying in tongues makes us look crazy or weird?

It is because tongues have been used in many weird ways by people who did not understand the different types of tongues and the rules that govern each one. The descriptions and operations of the diversities of tongues are not hidden. These things are clearly laid out in the Bible for anyone who wants to search them out.

In teaching on the four types of tongues, I really cannot do any better than this excerpt from Dave Roberson’s book, the Walk of the Spirit, the Walk of Power:

“Although many diversifications of tongues occur as the Spirit wills, four basic manifestations are outlined in the Word:

1. Tongues for personal edification (1 Cor. 14:4): This is the supernatural language the Holy Spirit prays through us that we can use to pray hour after hour as we desire. It accompanies the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
2. Tongues for interpretation (1 Cor. 14:5): This manifestation of tongues is normally presented in a public assembly, accompanied by interpretation by the same or another person.
3. Tongues of deep intercessional groanings (Rom.8:26): This diversification of tongues empowers the believers to stand in the gap for their own lives, their families, their church, their city, their nation, etc. God may also call on them to intercede for someone or for some situation that is totally unknown to them.
4. Tongues as a sign to the unbeliever (1 Cor. 14:22): This is the phenomenon that took place on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4-11). It occurs when the Holy Spirit transcends the intellect and all language barriers by empowering a believer to preach, teach, or testify about Christ in some language of men of which the believer himself
   has no knowledge.

The rules that govern the operation of tongues for personal edification are as different as night and day from the rules that govern tongues for interpretation. For that matter, the rules governing the deep intercessional groanings of the Spirit are completely different from either one of the other two manifestations of tongues. And the diversity of tongues that presents
itself as a sign to the unbeliever has very different rules from the other three!

Of these four different manifestations of tongues, two are designed to be used in the individual prayer life of a believer: tongues for personal edification and tongues that extend into the deep intercessional groanings of the Holy Spirit. The other two, tongues for interpretation and tongues as a sign to the unbeliever, are normally for use in public assembly. As a believer begins to understand and yield to these four different manifestations of the diversities of tongues, it will completely transform his life.”

When we are in a church service and a person is really feeling the presence of God and he or she begins to run around the building speaking in tongues at will, it doesn’t bless anyone because they are speaking in a tongue for their own personal edification, but no one else is being edified. Situations like that are exactly what the Corinthian church was going through. Things like that are what made Paul pen the book of Corinthians to sort everything out.

In the end he said, “Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in order.” (1 Cor 14:39, 40). Paul’s goal was not to run tongues out of the church, but to sort them out so that we could grow in Christ through the power of the Spirit and yet walk decently and in order.

More on tongues in the next post. You won’t believe how much there is to learn!

Grace and Peace to you,

Sade

I have since discovered that the gift of praying in tongues is a foundational gift in the life of a believer. It is the first stepping to stone to growing up in the fullness of the life that Christ has given us. The minute we become born-again, God rewrites your destiny. He gives you a calling and a place in His Body. You become called to be an Apostle, Teacher, Evangelist, Prophet or Pastor. Or maybe He calls you to the ministry of Helps or Governments. He gives you a new future based on His will for you. He puts you into one or more of His operations and ministries.

1st Corinthians 12:28

And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that, miracles (Evangelists), then gifts of healings (Pastors), helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

However, no matter what your call is, you cannot walk right into it the day after you become born-again. This is one of the troubles with the Church today. People who have not been qualified by God are teaching, pastoring, “apostling,” and prophesying all of over the place and on television. We know them by their fruits and it is not a pretty sight.

So, how can a believer go from being a newborn Christian into the fullness of the image of the full-grown Son of God? The very first key is praying in tongues for personal edification.

There are different types of tongues. In the verse above, they are described as “diversities of tongues.” The Bible describes four different manifestations of the gift of tongues as follows:

1. Tongues for personal edification (1st Corinthians 14:4);
2. Tongues for interpretation (1st Corinthians 14:5);
3. Tongues of deep intercessional groanings (Romans 8:26);
4. Tongues as a sign to the unbeliever (1 Corinthians 14:22).

There are different rules that govern the different operations of tongues in the Body of Christ. Some are meant for use in the public assembly while others are meant for use in private prayer. Some types of tongues are available at the will of the believer and others are only available as the Spirit wills and administers the gift to you.

In tomorrow’s post, I will go into more detail into the different types of tongues and the use of each one and also into the rest of 1 Corinthians 12:28 – 30 to clear up the statement “Do all speak with tongues?”

Grace and Peace,

Sade

My favorite workout is a weight-training system called Body Pump. It consists of a high number of repetitions of each weight exercise to challenge all the major muscle groups. Some tracks require more than 40 repetitions of squats, presses, lifts and curls.
Well, the first few times I lift the weight on a track, I feel great. Everything is easy. By the 16th rep, my muscles start to feel fatigued. I get this slow burn creeping through my muscles.
The natural response to pain or difficulty on the path of life is: “If it hurts, stop!” It’s natural, but it is the wrong response. When working out, it is at this point of fatigue that the muscles are getting the benefit of increasing their capacity to lift. It is at the point of the burn that the muscles are getting stronger and I become more fit.

So what does all of this have to do with prayer?
Every form of private prayer has a burn or fatigue point. It’s easy to pray in a group when you are surrounded by other prayer warriors and you get points and admiration for being there. Prayer gets harder when it’s just you and God, when you shut the door and pray in secret believing that your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

The burn point in fasting is when you wonder why you need to do this and you’re ready to raid the refrigerator. The burn point in worship is when you feel like your words of worship are as dry as cracker juice and you’re not getting “in the spirit”. The burn point in praying in tongues is when your throat is dry, you’re not getting any revelations and your mind is screaming to go do anything, anything but pray.

Don’t be fazed when you hit the burn point in prayer. This is the point at which you have reached the end of your current capacity to pray. If you stay in prayer through those hard moments, you are increasing your capacity to fellowship with God and receive from Him. You need to work those spiritual muscles until spending 3, 4, 5, 12, and 24 hours in God’s presence comes naturally to you.

There are many men who have walked in the anointing and miracles of God. We admire them for their ability to carry the presence of God and deliver Him to the people. The only difference between them and you is the capacity of their spiritual muscles. Those muscles weren’t built in a day. If your burn point of prayer is 30 minutes today, push to 40 minutes tomorrow. If you’re at an hour, push to two hours. Keep pushing, keep working, and keep growing.

Build your endurance in the spirit. If you keep praying and make it past the hard places, God will be able to give you the divine wisdom and understanding that will produce the power of God that you are looking for. God wants to give you all that you desire, more than even you want it, but He can’t do so until He builds in you the capacity to carry His anointing.

Grace and Peace to you,

Sade

Why do you rise up in the morning and work all day? What are you hungry for? What are you looking for? Why are you in the ministry? Why do you do what you do?

Why is it that you are not completely fulfilled in this very moment? Chances are that even if your entire want and need list were to be filled right now, you still would not be satisfied. This is because what you really want is God. The things we want are actually a distraction to what we really want – God. You think you want a bigger house, but what you really want is God. You think you want to get another promotion, but what you really want is God. You think you need more money, but what you really want is God. You think you want a larger ministry, but what your soul hungers for is God Himself.

Why do we want so much? I am always amazed at how many things I desire when I walk into a store. I go in for a bottle of milk, but I end up with a cartful of other things I just can’t live without. Why are we so needy? Because God made us that way. He put a need for intimate communion and unbroken fellowship with Him inside of us and that need will be filled with nothing else.

You want and strive because you have not found a resting place for your need. Don’t spend the next 20 years of your life working for something that will never fill your soul’s hunger. Fill your soul with God. To learn more, listen to the free MP3 series “The Resting Place of Need” by Larue Adkinson.

Within the heart of mankind there is a need that has been divinely fashioned by the Master Architect of Heaven. This series explores the depths of this need and identifies the only platform in which it can come to rest.

Grace and Peace to you,

Sade

For what is My desire, says the Lord. Is it not that I might have fellowship with you? Are you not bone of My bone and marrow of My marrow, one with Me? And to fellowship with you is My desire and My delight.

For your fellowship with Me, saith the Lord, should be your desire and your delight. For rejoicing and rejoicing that your names have been written in Heaven, while looking not at things which are temporal but looking at the things which are eternal.

For know this, that soon all things are to change, all things are to change. And that which is temporary shall remain, but that which is eternal shall be part of your reward.

Hear what the Spirit of the Lord would say, that I saved you to be with Myself and I saved you for fellowship with Myself. I will take the fellowship from you when you are fellowshipping with Me over needs if that’s all the kind of fellowship you want to give to Me. I will take that, just over your needs.

But know the delight of the Lord, know His delight, is that when you enter into My presence to worship Me and glorify Me that I might fellowship with you. For he that worships Me, worships Me in spirit and in truth. For I seek such to worship Me, saith the Lord, and he that enters into My presence for the sole purpose to worship Me, is the soul that I delight in. And for this person, I will put wealth in their house, I will put riches.

Hear what the Spirit would say, he that has ears to hear, hear, hear what the Spirit would say, for if you would enter into those times of worship and fellowship with Me, then in all the areas of your life I would make you free. I would give you abundance and health, and wealth, and your soul would prosper.

Everyday would be a delight,everyday would be full of happiness, which is the fruit of joy. Everyday would be fulfilled in Me and so goes it with the man who fellowships with Me, saith the Lord. So hear what Spirit would say, I delight in fellowshipping with you over your need but even more because you desire to fellowship with Me.

Is there anything too hard for the Lord, is there anything? No, no My children. There’s nothing too hard for Me. And for he who would spend time in My presence and get to know Me, know you not that I’ll give you the little things? I’ll give you the little things. The little things that make the difference. I’ll walk with you and talk with you. So goeth he that fellowships with Me.

Be not estranged and afar off that your experiences are only the experiences that you have in church. Hear what the Spirit of the Lord would say, for I give you My teachers, and My instructors, and My exhorters that they may teach you how to walk in My presence every moment.

In church that presence doesn’t constitute My walk with you. What constitutes My walk with you is every moment of the day. And oh, I am pleased, saith the Lord, I am so, so very pleased when continually the communion of your heart is set towards Me and your heart is full of worship, spontaneous, bursting forth, bearing fruit, every moment both in the good times and the bad times. For the Lord seeketh such to worship Him and He delights in them.

Those who are strong in character and strong in will and take the extra times when other people are doing what they do, when you come into My presence and sacrifice these times, soon they will not be sacrifices, they will be great times of fellowship and worship. For I’ll give you time, the time that you used to spend fellowshipping with circumstances, I’ll give you that time because I’ll give you authority. You’ll say to one go and he will go, and to another come and he will come. And they’ll do the things that you once did. For I seek people to worship Me and I’ll favor you greatly, I’ll put riches and wealth in your house.

For a man that worships Me, I’ll fill him with wisdom. He will direct and counsel people. His time is valuable to Me. For I’ll fill his heart with wisdom in My Word and he will declare My truths and people will be set free. I’ll make him My counselor, those things you once did, I’ll have people do for you.

Grace and Peace to you,

Sade

When it comes to intimacy, you can get a measurement for how well you really know and love God. After all, He is a person. Here is a practical experiment for judging yourself on your ability to worship God. Clear your schedule for 30 minutes. Turn off the CD player, get alone and worship Him with words, not singing.

How many minutes is it before your mind begins to clamor that you need to get out of this? That is the true measure of your intimacy with God. Getting along with God without external prompts like a worship team or a CD is the place where you take responsibility for your personal relationship with Him.

Too often, we only come into the Presence of God when we are instructed by the worship leader at church and even then, if the worship team doesn’t hit all the right notes, our heart doesn’t soar with love and many complain “Well, they weren’t anointed today.” The worship team are helpers of your joy. They don’t manufacture it for you. And if you don’t have the fullness of joy in God’s presence without the worship team, you may not have it at all. What you have on Sundays may not be real.

The good news is that it is so easy to develop that passion and closeness to God where you can get alone with Him and have words of love flowing back and forth between the both of you. Jesus said we should rejoice because our names are written in the Book of Life. The fact that we are saved is plenty enough reason to enter the presence of God and fall down and worship Him.

When you start out on this journey to build your ability to worship God, the process may be difficult at first. It all depends on where you are walking right now. But don’t despair. You are a son of God. Your spirit was designed specifically for worship, so you can do it!

Steps to Developing Intimacy with God:

1. Set aside undisturbed time to worship. Start with 15 minutes or 30 minutes or whatever works for you.

2. Don’t use worship music as a prompt during this time. Worship music is great, but what you really want to do is build your ability to worship without crutches of any sort.

3. Select words of worship and speak them to the Lord: “Father, I love you and adore You. Thank you for saving me. I’m so grateful. You are wonderful, God. You are the Creator. You are amazing. I worship and glorify You. You are the King of my heart. How good and great You are. I love You. I love You.”

4. Continue to say what comes from your heart even if all your feelings don’t match up with the words. Your natural mind and flesh may fight the process. Don’t give in. Stick to your time limit.

5. If you run out of words of love, start over with the same words. No lover ever said “I love you” too much.

As you continue to do this on a daily basis, you will find your heart overflowing with passion for God. And even better, you will begin to experience His presence filling your heart and mind all through the day. It is an amazing experience, one that God wants for all His children.

I pray you take the time to enter His presence. Grace and Peace to you,

Sade