Pastor Jeff on the Radio

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub with Pastor Jeff Ministries. On today's program, Pastor Jeff continues his message, Modeling Prayer, from the series, Lifeline: The Power of Prayer, and shows you how prayer develops a deep passion for God and aligns your heart with Him.

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Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: Or what about churches that have become counseling centers or therapy sessions? Now, before I say what I'm about ready to say, I'm all for counseling if it's done correctly and biblically and encouragingly, but it should not be a lifetime anchor for you. There can be seasons for it. Some churches have turned everything into a therapy session, like, "I know you're all hurting today. I know you've all had a hard week. Let me tell you how you can make it through another week." That's not what the church of Jesus Christ is all about.

Some have turned it into leadership seminars where we have really educated, skillful people that can give you tools for how you can accelerate in your life. Friends, the church is not a self-help mechanism to help you become a better person. It's not. The Bible says about you and me, there is no one good, no, not one. So if you want to double that in self-help, you're doubly bad at the end of your self-help time. It doesn't work. If you're only coming here to help yourself, you've come for the wrong reason. The church of Jesus Christ is about Jesus Christ. He's the God of the universe. He's the Lord of our salvation. We're putting Him on display.

That's why prayer must be a priority in the church. These aren't my words; these are Jesus's words. You can tell where His Spirit dwells by how serious the people are about praying and seeking His face. Now, why is that so important? I've had people come to me over the last 13 years and they'll say things to me like this, "Hey, Pastor Jeff, I hope you stay humble." I know what they mean. I hope you stay humble too. But I know what they mean. I've seen people in ministry that have had ministry that starts going and then, because of one person, they blow up the whole thing and hurt a bunch of people and ruin a bunch of things that God was doing.

So I understand what you're saying when you say that. But do you know I do not have the ability to stay humble? Do you know my heart is deceitful above all things, and who can understand it? What kind of responsibility is like, "Okay, I'm going to work on being humble today"? If I came back to you and told you I think I'm doing pretty good, I'd be proud. So what can I do? Here's a better question: Hey, Jeff, how's your prayer life? Hey, Pastor Jeff, are you seeking the face of the Lord? Because you should know, like I know, when I spend time in the presence of the Lord, you cannot be anything but humble.

The people I know that have blown up ministries and done some of those things, they lost their prayer life and their first love long before they lost their church, long before they made bad decisions. May it never be here. May it never be for me. May it never be for you. Entertainment centers, social networks, counseling centers, therapy sessions, leadership seminars; none of these things will turn a sinner to Christ. All they do is they have a form of godliness and they deny His power. They may not even talk about Jesus other than at the end of a sermon to say, "Hey, if you'd like to trust Christ, just believe this prayer." But they want nothing to do with God. Not here, not now, not ever at Brave. May Jesus Christ always be paramount to us.

Prayer demonstrates our priority to God. I imagine sometimes if you had the privilege of talking to loved ones after they die, you'd take that option. By the way, it doesn't work. Those of you that think you can, you can't. The Bible makes it clear: when you die, you either go to heaven or hell and there's a chasm and you can't cross it and come back. So if you're being talked to, it's not by your relative that deceased. I promise you that. But if you could—your great uncle, your uncle, your friend, your aunt, your mom, your dad, your son, your daughter, your niece, your nephew, somebody that you know personally that you lost—if you had access today to talk to them and they could talk back, would you take the option?

Jesus Christ, who died on the cross and rose from the dead, said there's one mediator between God and man, that's the man Jesus Christ. It's me. You can talk to God all day long, the one that rules and reigns in the universe. How serious do we take that assignment? How seriously do we take that gift? It's the greatest gift the church has ever been given. And if anything, we use prayer as an afterthought or a last resort rather than our first response. May it never be. Prayer is a priority. It was in Jesus's life, and if it was for Him, how much more should it be for us?

I remember my wife and I, we were in New York City in 2005. We were relatively newly married and we were ministers at the Billy Graham Crusade, his last crusade. We were altar ministers. We got to lead people to Christ and it was great. Well, one of the things that we did with the evangelist that we were with is we got to go to a church for a prayer meeting. The name of the church was Brooklyn Tabernacle. We'd never been there before. I remember thinking we're going to a prayer meeting and there were about 20 of us. I was picturing in my head we're going to walk into a room, there's going to be about 50 or 60 people all with yellow tablets and their Bible.

We're going to ask the question, "Does anybody have any prayer requests?" Then we're going to write them down, and at the end, somebody with two to five minutes left is going to say, "Oh, we should probably pray about those. Would somebody like to pray?" Then somebody will pray and we'll leave. I wasn't looking forward to it. I remember the prayer service started at 7:00. I didn't know it was a service; I thought it was just a prayer meeting. We got there at 6:30. There were 3,000 people there that were worshiping, singing out, crying out to the Lord so loudly I couldn't talk to my wife who was next to me because I couldn't hear her.

I thought to myself, "What in the world did we just walk into?" For two hours, they read scripture, they prayed, they asked the Lord for healing and deliverance and freedom, they prayed for missionaries, they prayed for the world, they prayed for everything. When we got done praying in that two hours, they had cards like this, they waved them all over. We were praying for people we didn't know. It was so exciting. We got done, we were young married, we were ready to go out to a dinner with a bunch of friends. We looked at each other and I'm like, "I'm whupped." We went home to bed. We fell asleep. We were so worn out from prayer.

We said, "What was that that we just experienced?" It began to move me. Then I read a book called Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. If you've never read a book on prayer, that should be your first book, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Pastor Jim Cymbala. He talks about how prayer has changed his church. It's been part of my DNA from the beginning, like if I ever pastor a church, that's what I want to do. That's why we started First Tuesdays, and that's why we give attention to prayer, and that's why we want to grow in prayer because we want to be a place where people can commune with God.

Yes, you can come to me as your pastor, I'll pray for you, and other pastors and elders will pray for you. But did you know that you have full access to the throne of God all by yourself and you can get to know Jesus? It's for you. That's what I want you to have. I want you to have that privilege that Jesus Christ gave to you. See, here's the problem: if we make church something that Jesus didn't make it, then we never see the results that we read about in the New Testament.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Jeff Ministries and today's message, Modeling Prayer, from the series, Lifeline: The Power of Prayer, shows you how prayer develops a deep passion for God and aligns your heart with His. Generous listeners like you make this ministry possible. When you give this month to share teachings like the one you're hearing today with more people around the world, we'll send you 21 Days of Power: Becoming a Person of Prayer, Faith, and Fire to help you begin 2026 with the posture of radical dependence through fasting, scripture, and heartfelt prayer. It's a perfect pairing for Pastor Jeff's Lifeline series this month. Request your copy today when you give to Pastor Jeff Ministries. Just go to pastorjeff.com. Now, let's get back to Pastor Jeff for the conclusion of today's message.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: Why is it in our culture this has to be a debate that you can't pray in Jesus's name or you're offending people? Here's why: because our culture hates Jesus. They hate Him. Lost people hate Jesus. That's why we preach the gospel. God loves all people. He created all people. He loves you. But if you haven't repented and believed, there is His wrath getting ready to be poured out on you because He hates those who sin. He's angry with the wicked every single day because He's holy. That's why as a preacher, I preach the holiness of God. I preach righteousness and judgment because hell is real, and heaven is real, and people go there every single day. Once you're home, there ain't no coming back.

Why do I get so fired up? Because I spent time with Jesus this week. When you pray, you'll get passionate about the things that God gets passionate about too. You'll have an intolerance for things God can't stand. We can make a list. I talk about them all the time: drunkenness, immorality, abortion, gender confusion, not believing the Word of God as completely inerrant in every single way. That's just the culture, let alone what goes on in the church, which is an abominable self-help group to make you feel better about yourselves while you're going to hell. That's ridiculous. So if you get fired up—I'm not mad. I love you. I'm actually a pretty nice person. But I get passionate because God's so passionate about you and He loves you and He loves your soul and He wants to spend time with you. If you seek Him, you will realize that the made-up God you have in your mind is not the God of the Bible. And He wants you. That's what prayer does.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening today. That was Pastor Jeff with his message, Modeling Prayer, from the series, Lifeline: The Power of Prayer, showing you how prayer develops a deep passion for God and helps align your heart with His.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: You can't fake passion. I've watched people on worship teams try to do it over the years. I've watched pastors try to do it over the years. You can't fake it. It's not about raising your voice. It's not about lowering your voice. It's not about that. But see, we've taken away the passion of Jesus and we've taken away the priority of Jesus and we're like, "Yeah, we don't really need that anymore. You know what we have? We can dim the lights. That'll do it. We have musical instruments and LED screens. That'll get them. We've got all these things. We can turn the temperature up or down. We can get people to feel the way we want them to." That doesn't do anything. Only the God of the Bible can do what He says that He can do.

Let me give you a third thing that Jesus modeled for us and what prayer teaches us: Jesus modeled that prayer cultivates the presence of God. Prayer cultivates the presence of God. I already told you that Mark 1:35 said very early in the morning while it was still dark, Jesus went up to solitary places and there He prayed. He stayed up all night the night that He had all these disciples and He had to select from them 12, and He prayed. He's God. Why did He have to pray? If Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, dedicated Himself and depended Himself upon the Father for every move He made, why should we not do the same?

Prayer is not praying once, like, "I prayed before I got married this would be my wife. I prayed before I got married this would be my husband, and I know it's him and I know it's her and now we're going to live in bliss." That'll last for about a week. You have to continue to pray. Just because you're taking steps with Brave Academy or Brave Church or what we're going to do with me, it doesn't mean that we move this way and now we're done. It means we're moving this way and we still seek Him and we're still going after Him because we want to cultivate His presence. Yes, let me be clear: God's presence is everywhere. He's ubiquitous. There's nowhere you can go where God is not. Psalm 139 tells us no matter where you go, there He is.

But there's a move and a manifestation of His presence that only comes through prayer. One touch of Jesus is more important than a lifetime of seminary. You get touched by Jesus, He heals your heart in a certain area, He heals your life in a certain area, He redeems you in a certain way; that's more important than all the books that you could study for the rest of your life. What you're looking for is a touch from God, and prayer cultivates the presence of God. Even Jesus at the end of His life was praying, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

It was interesting because even the religious people in Jesus Christ's day were asking, "How come your disciples aren't doing it the right way?" In Mark chapter 2, the religious leaders, the Pharisees, came to Jesus and they said this: "John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting and they came to him and said, 'Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?'" Here's what they were asking: "How come we're so much more spiritual than you? How come we do all the right religious activities, like we fast? You're not fasting. Your disciples aren't fasting. You must not be as spiritual as us." They're saying that to the God of the universe. Do you know how arrogant that is?

Jesus's response is beautiful. Jesus said to them, "While the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they?" Who's the bridegroom? Jesus. He's like, "While I'm here and the purpose of fasting is for my presence and I'm already here, why would they fast for my presence when I'm in their presence?" The purpose of fasting and prayer is to be with Jesus. The purpose of fasting is not fasting; it's presence. The purpose of prayer is presence. That's what it's about. So Jesus is saying, "Okay, let me tell you something. Why would they fast for my presence when my presence is with them?"

Then He says, "But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away," which Jesus has now, "and then they will fast in that day." The day's going to come when they're going to want my presence, then they'll fast. Here's what prayer and fasting is for: Do you want the presence of God in your life? Or do you just want to go through religious routine? Or do you just want to live off the coattails of other people? Do you just want to say, "I like going to Brave because I sense God there. I like going to Brave because I feel God there, and that's enough for me"? Or do you really want Him in your life to the full, because there's more that you can have? He wants to give His full measure of everything to you. He's not holding anything back from you.

Through prayer, you can receive it. "Lord, I need this. I need to know how to live godly. I need your life in this area. Lord, teach me how to forgive. Lord, teach me how to love. Lord, teach me how to do this. Lord, I don't have wisdom for that. Bring people into my life that can help." All of it is available to you. You don't lack one thing for God's calling on your life. Prayer is the mechanism by which God brings it. Jesus says this in John 7:38: if you're rightly related to Him, literally streams or rivers of living water will flow through you. It's experiencing the touch of God. When you spend time in Jesus, you start welcoming His purity. You want His presence, you want His purity, you want to be holy because Jesus is holy. You want the bridegroom here.

The reason people have experiences in church that don't really help them is many times the Bible's not even opened, many times Jesus Christ is not even being worshiped, and sometimes people are not even seeking His face. I felt so convicted by this when our church was a lot younger. We had about 800 to 1,000 people and I said, "If we're really serious about prayer, we're going to start praying in our services out loud." I remember when we would turn and have people pray, about 60% of the people would get in groups and pray and about 40% of the people stood there like, "This is weird."

I started getting notes from people that I loved and people that I cared about: "We can no longer come to church because we're uncomfortable that you would ask us to pray out loud in church." Jesus said, "My house will be a house of prayer." If you can't pray out loud in church, where else are you going to pray? If you don't know how to pray, nothing else that we're pouring into your life will be of any help to you. I want to teach you how to pray. If you say you don't know how to pray, just start talking to God as He's your Father. Start reading the Word; start praying the Word back to God as your Father. "Lord, you say you're going to give me everything I need for life and godliness. Lord, I don't even know how to pray, but Lord, I'm asking you to give me everything I need for life and godliness."

"Lord, you told me that I'm your witness. Lord, I'm just going to pray that you'll help me be your witness. Lord, you told me that I'm loved. I don't feel loved, but Lord, I'm going to say that I am loved and I want to experience and feel your love." You just start praying the Word back to Him. There's no perfect prayer out there. I remember we used to go to restaurants when I was a young kid and we'd watch people bow their heads and pray and I remember thinking, that's weird. There's no way we'd be at a restaurant where you wouldn't see us pray unless it was just a one-off accident or something like that. We always pray. And not so that other people see us, but because we love God.

Sometimes we'll ask the wait staff, "Hey, anything we can be praying for you?" Sometimes people, "No, we're fine. I'm fine on the prayer thing." Other times, people will start weeping and tell you what's going on in their life. Pray. Pray. It's the presence of God. It's the presence of God. If God showed up in all of His fullness and His presence, it'd be amazing. Now, I've never seen God with my own two eyes. I don't expect that. I will until I see Him face to face. I just don't. I've not had that encounter and most people that have, they don't speak about it because the people that saw Him in the Bible had a hard time speaking about it and they were falling dead in His presence when they did.

But what I'm saying is I've experienced His manifest presence. I've seen God do miraculous things in our church. I've seen Him save people. I've heard stories of Him saving people through our radio ministry. I've seen Him heal people. I've seen Him heal marriages. I've seen Him heal hearts. I've seen people delivered from demonic influence in their life and set free who knew Christ but there was something just hanging on from a moment of unforgiveness in their past where God has freed them from that and now they love Jesus even more than they did. I've seen His presence. And I want more of it, not less. And when I pray, I get to personally experience His presence. That's what I want.

You want more people in the church? I don't want more people in the church. I want more people seeking the presence of God in this church. I want more people set on mission because they love Jesus more through His church. I want to see generation changers in His church. I can't make that happen, you can't make that happen. Well, what we got? Well, we better pray. Prayer should be first and primary for everything we want to see and then let God unfold it as we go. Prayer cultivates the presence of God. It also does this: it unleashes the power of God. It unleashes the power of God.

My house shall be called a house of prayer. Now, there's a pattern in the New Testament if you read through the book of Acts. In Acts chapter 2, you see the Holy Spirit show up in power. Now, the truth is every time a sinner repents and believes the gospel, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside of you. But here's what you see in the book of Acts. Here's all they had in the book of Acts. They did not have buildings, they did not have budgets. They did not have seminaries. They did not have trained pastors. All they had was men who had spent time with Jesus, women who had spent time with Jesus. That's all they had.

So certainly they didn't have any impact, did they? Peter had never gone to a homiletics class. How's he going to stand up and preach? But here's what you see. You see this pattern. You see a group of people seeking the face of God and praying for God to do whatever He wants to do. And then you see them filled with the Holy Spirit where they can't contain it. And then they speak the Word of God with boldness. And then guess what happens? Miracles. Miraculous things take place. And I know what people in our culture say. They say things like this, "Well, that was then. It doesn't really happen like that anymore."

You're right. It really doesn't happen that often. But here's why it doesn't happen: because God's people don't pray. And when you don't pray, you're determining, "I don't care about what God wants." Now, if you want to do something nice and we saw somebody healed and we saw somebody delivered, that would be great. But I don't want to put in the time and seek you because, Jesus, I don't care about you, I only care what you can do for me.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening today. That was Pastor Jeff with his message, Modeling Prayer, from the series, Lifeline: The Power of Prayer, showing you how prayer develops a deep passion for God and helps align your heart with His. Thanks for joining us for today's program. Quick reminder before you go. When you give a gift to support Pastor Jeff Ministries today, we'll thank you by sending a copy of 21 Days of Power: Becoming a Person of Prayer, Faith, and Fire.

This is more than a devotional. It's a 21-day journey into God's presence designed to ignite a personal revival. So request your copy today at pastorjeff.com when you give to help others experience God's presence, peace, and power. That's pastorjeff.com. We'll see you next time.