10 Essential Steps of Praying

Good morning, I have received quite a bit of Facebook messages,etc. expressing that many of you  are looking for information to help you understand prayer and how it works.  It’s the right time for you to build a sturdy foundation with your Heavenly Father, and it is done through prayer and reading scriptures, and applying it.  I want to help you.  I want you to know that prayer is an essential ingredient in my life. To me, prayer is a linguistic vernacular that only my Father understands.

How long should I pray?  I interpret prayer as a conversation.  All my phone conversations are not long. Some are short and some of them can get pretty lengthy…it depends on the subject matter.  So take your time.  But it is a conversation with your Heavenly Father…

Build a prayer schedule?  Hey I have found that setting a schedule of times in which you will pray is a good tool.  Like Mon-Wed.-Friday set a part 10-20minutes to read scripture and share your heart with your Father.  T-Thurs.-Sat. you may have more time or less time… But set up a routine that works for you.  Also, be open to how the Father may want to talk to you…So be open!  (My schedule varies from week to week.  Sometimes I spend more or less time.  However, someday I spend 30 minutes or hrs at a time praying, listening, mediating, and reading my word. SOMETIMES A LAY PROSTRATE ON THE FLOOR, OTHER TIMES I AM SITTING UP, AND MOST OF THE TIME I WALK AND PRAY OR READ MY BIBLE.)

But Travis, Really?  Prayer is  really Boring.   Yep, I thought you would say that.  I have learned to pray that God  instill in me a joy in knowing that I have full access to my Father.  I take joy in knowing that I have access to Him through the Holy Spirit.  I don’t take it for granted and neither should you.

• Step 1. Acknowledge God as your heavenly Father.
• Step 2. Praise God for who He is and what He has done.
• Step 3. Choose one of God’s names, attributes, or characteristics and Thank Him for being that you. ex. Deliverer, Counselor, Peace, Rewarder, Wisdom, Shield, Refiner, Ocercome, God who forgives,loves, gives peace…We need God to BE our Healer, Comforter, Redeemer, Forgiver, Strength, Resting Place, Provider, Light, or Refuge,

• Step 4. Present your day to the Lord…(Prov. 3:6-7)
• Step 5. Present your body to the Lord. (Romans 12:1)
• Step 6. Confess your sins before God and ask Him to help you live His way…(Ps.139:23-24, 1 John 1:8-9)
• Step 7. Ask God to help you speak only words that bring life. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (Ps.19:14)
• Step 8. Ask God for whatever you need… ask god to meet all of your needs today
• Step 9. Pray for God’s will in your life.
• Step 10. Pray for other people and situations.

                    (Exerts taken from “The Power of a Praying Church” by Stormie Omartian with Jack Hayford)

Leave comments if this helps  Also, if you want additional info let me know.

Grace and Peace,

TjS

 

The Short Complex Part I

I know its been a few weeks,  I have been SUPER BUSY!  I know you’ve been busy too.  Every time I intended on finishing this blog entry something else would take me away.  However, here we are! I want to share this special entry with you.  I hope it blesses you.  If it does I want to know about it.

As many may know I am a young adult director/pastor.  I recently finished a series entitled, “Dreamchasers”. I really do believe that our generation has what I call the “short complex”.  I know you’re saying, “short complex, what the heck is that?” LOL.  Okay, let  me explain…

Psychologist Abraham Maslow once wrote “The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.”  Read this quote again…  Think about it.  It’s quite BEASTLY! The profoundness of this statement points us to a deep, critical, and serious reflection of how we live our lives and what we are doing with our lives. Is there a greater capacity?  Is there more that we could be doing?  Is there brilliance inside of us?  Is their creativity inside of us?  What’s in you?  Notice I didn’t ask you what people say about you, I asked you about you!  Most people have a tendency to blame others for their lack of drive and ambition.  Or we even blame the DEVIL!  OH, the big scary devil.  Please!!!!  Stop it!!!!  The devil has no power over you unless you start believing his lies and foolery.  Believing the LIE only empowers the LIAR.

We are all born with potential but yet with no instruction manual.  So many of us have lived in environments where our true potential, purpose, and capacity was not realized until years later after we wasted quite a bit of time. Or our parents were so busy working just simply to provide that the environment was not conducive for discovering our true essence but just a environment of SURVIVAL.

So, if you ever have wasted time you’ve had a case of ,”The Short Complex”.  If you have ever been distracted by people and been led down the wrong path,”The Short Complex.”  If you’ve ever spent precious time complaining about stuff that you have the power to change then you have, The Short Complex.”  If you’re waiting on someone in your family to die and leave you a lot of money so you can say you are rich but in the meantime you’re doing absolutely nothing you have, “The Short Complex.”  If you are currently enrolled in college or graduate school and are not giving your all and KNOW that you can do better, you have, “The Short Complex”.  If you have become weary in  WELL doing, and absolutely hate where you are in life…then you have “The Short Complex”.   If you are currently insecure with other people’s success then you have “The Short Complex”.  If you are only concerned about you and have not considered that everything you do will effect other people then you have “The Short Complex.”  If you think that you are going to be 22 or 23, 19, or 30 the rest of your life and you’re just chilling…you have “The Short Complex”.  If you have to tear down others to make yourself look good…you have The Short Complex. If you’re a Christian but don’t apply any of Jesus’ principles to your life then you have “The Short Complex”.  If you know that you have more in you but your next level will take a leap rather than lip service but you won’t leap, you have It!  I’m just saying!  If you operate in fear verses Faith you have “The Short Complex”.  If you have dreams but won’t move on them…you have it too. SN:  To be honest we all have had “The Short Complex”…

Do you realize that you were created for far more than what you have accomplished?  So “The Short Complex” is defined as men and women selling themselves of their true potential and capacity  “The profoundness of this statement continues to provide me with the mental space to reflect and to be prayerful about my life, marriage, family, ministry, business, and my future!  Where you are today is a direct reflection of where you were yesterday and where you will be tomorrow will directly reflect where you were today.

A very wise man told me that what ever you are going to do, Do It Now!!!!  I pray that will recognize that you have greatness lurking in you, a greater capacity, brilliant concepts, and ideas that are waiting to get out!

 

 

The Wait Mode

Hello, I want to welcome you to my blog. This is truly a new venture and I am truly honored to share my thoughts…

A few weeks ago, I spoke on the topic “The Wait Mode” Luke 24:44-53; Acts 1:1-4

Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “DO NOT LEAVE Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. Acts 1:4 NLT

I have the wonderful opportunity to speak into the lives of young adults every week. Quite frankly young adults are in a unique, vicarious, and ackward position in life. If fact, many young adults have more dreams than they have self- discipline, more creativity than capital and more ambition than experience. Being in a place where you have to wait for approval, connections, and even opportunities to open up can be quite difficult and can create inner turmoil, FRUST (frustration), and ultimately immature actions with costly consequences. In this position, young adults can become submerged with sadness, bitterness, anger, and depression.

This could also have been disposition of the disciples that have lost their leader. They are frustrated, sad, and truly uncertain about the future. Before the crucufixion the disciples scattered like fugitives. After the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples somehow have magnetically, synergistically found themselves back in the upper room with Jesus. How do you handle transition? Change?

“….he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:2NLT) As the disciples waited in the upper room, Jesus spent nearly 40 days sharing with the disciples about things that were to come in the future. Jesus still feels the need to spend time with the disiples before they embark on spreading the Gospel abroad. The disciples are about to take this little ministry of 12 WORLDWIDE!!!! THEY ARE ABOUT TO MAKE HISTORY!!!!! Before we step into different levels of our walk with God, careers, goals, and entrepreneurial ventures the Holy Spirit wants us to spend sometime with Him.

Jesus said, “Do Not Leave.” Has the Holy Spirit ever told you not to leave? Told you to stay still? Contrain yourself? Sit your hips down?! Park it mister?! Don’t you move?! However, many young adults prematurely sojourn because of pride, ego, frustration, or even peer pressure. Sometimes the most difficult thing is not hearing but following through with what you’ve heard. This can potentially be dangerous! Do Not Leave!

Think about it…What if the disciples never waited to recieve the Holy Spirit? What would the church have been like? They would have all knowledge but no power to execute the knowledge and influence millions to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. They would have had a great blueprint of ministry but not be empowered to move through the caos of various cultures to witness, heal the sick, and raise the dead.

WAIT means to serve; remain in a ready position or with expectation. Waiting can be really uncomfortable, tedious, and irritable. Always remember that before God changes your POSITION, He changes your DISPOSITION..

Waiting takes discipline. Period. Our mental images of discipline can be limited to discipline as punishment. Yet it is my hope that we will reimagine discipline as preparation.God is not in heaven creating ways to make your lives horrible, but rather desires to teach us valuable life lessons that will transform us into His image.

Preparation is interwoven with the process. There is no way to obtain the promise and ignore the process. So if a promise speaks of a dream yet to be obtained, then in order to obtain the promise one must become disciplined to wait for it…Dreams with Discipline become realities…Dreams without Discipline become nightmares.

In Jim Collins book, “Good to Great”, Collins suggested, “Disciplined people have disciplined thoughts, which produce disciplined action.” WOW! How would you prepare if you knew you were about to make history?

Disciples are not born but disciples are made. And it takes time and much effort. Discpline logged inside of the process is what molds us into disciples. So in this season called “The Wait Mode” these are some tips to becoming a true disciple of Jesus Christ:

1. Adopt God ‘s objective in scripture as your objective in life (Matt 6:33
2. Pay the price to have the will of God fulfilled in your life (2Timothy 2:3-10)
3. Love the Word of God (Jeremiah 15:16)
4. Gain and possess a servant’s heart (Matt. 20:26-28)
5. Place no confidence in the flesh (Phil.3:3)
6. Love others as you love yourself (Mark 12:30-31)
7. Refuse to be trapped in bitterness (Heb. 12:15)
8. Learn your greatest weakness (1 Cor. 9:24-27)

Have a great day! The Wait Mode!

travis