Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us for today’s installment of Power Walk. Forging Ahead is our current series, brought to us by Reverend Paul Cannings. When a person has a run-in with the law and their future and fate are at stake, there is no one they depend on more than defense lawyers.

Now, as believers, Jesus our savior takes on that role as intercessor before the Father. But what does that really mean? Here is Reverend Cannings with the message, “Jesus, Our Intercessor.”

Dr. Paul Cannings: One of the greatest things after salvation is the fact that we have Jesus Christ making intercession for us. We have the Holy Spirit that would pray the very groans of our heart and he will translate to God what we're dealing with through Christ. That is the most powerful thing to me after salvation because this is the one thing we have that is so huge in our seeking God.

How we come to God says where our heart is in our relationship with God. One of the beautiful things of life at this point in my life is grandkids. Grandkids have a way. I can remember my grandson calling me. He says, “Pop, I found the game I want. It is 60 dollars. What card do I put it on?” I looked at my wife and she goes, “Huh?”

What he is saying implicitly is, “I know how much you love me. Since we have had a discussion on this and you in that discussion never said no, then you are ready to do this for me. I have done the research, I have organized everything, I know exactly what to do. Just give me the numbers, I will press, hit it, and it will come to my house. Okay, Pop, let us do this.”

That is the level of confidence that he has in the love of his grandfather. He called expecting me to pick up. He called expecting me to listen to all the work he has done and appreciate all the work he has done because he has tried to find a really good sale.

He has done it in the manner in which he thinks that my desire would be attached to his desire. He has matched that to where he has given the respect to his grandfather on the way the grandfather would spend money so that he can get what he needs to have. He has done all the work, so when he called he said, “Hey, Pop,” not “Oh, I am surprised you picked up. I am so glad I did not have to leave a message.” None of that. He just went smack to what he is talking about because he expected it. Why? The relationship.

Oh folks, one of the most powerful things we have is the opportunity to go before God who rules everything, who sustains everything, and be able to talk to him. He is God in the sense that he is so committed to us, so resolute in his focus in developing us to be what he wants us to be because he who began a good work will take it to completion. He is so into that that he knows the numbers of hairs on our head.

We are not praying to somebody that is hard to find because he is way up in heaven. The Bible says God is everywhere all at the same time. Fully God right next to us. Fully God through the ministry of the Holy Spirit inside of us. He is fully everywhere all at the same time. It is not like I am screaming up to heaven. He is there listening to me, but he wants for me to expect the process that delivered me from sin, and that is Christ.

When we come to Isaiah chapter 55, we finally get to the end of verse six on the third day of this week in dealing with how do we forge our way ahead. We do not know what is going to happen. It may not be right away. How do we keep forging our way ahead?

Isaiah is dealing with people who are in a crisis. He is not writing a beautiful verse for us to look at and go about doing what we need to do so that we walk with God. No, he is dealing with people who are in a crisis, who are going through pain and difficulty and hardship. You are talking about difficult times when armies come in and you die by a sword. Do you know how brutal that is? To watch your children slaughtered by a sword? Sometimes they would do that in front of you and then kill you after they have done that, or drag you away if you are young to become their slave and to work in their field. This is the kind of crazy stuff that is taking place. Plagues and pestilence would come. Where are the hospitals when that happens?

This is what we are dealing with when Isaiah is writing. We cannot look at our circumstances and say, “Oh well, it wasn't like that back then.” No, it is worse than what we have. He is saying this to us as to how we forge a way ahead. We dealt with this for the last two days: the importance of seeking God. But he brings up another key thing here and he says, “Call ye upon him while he is near.”

The word "call" here has these four things attached to it. We expect God to hear because he is still near. We expect him to hear. That is what faith is all about. “God, I am talking to you and I know you heard me.” Many times I have said that. I salute the Lord God. I say, “Almighty God, thank you so much for being the God that you are. Holy, righteous, and perfect in every way.”

Then I make my petition. He says it has got to be specific. I make that petition specific before him. When I do just that, I am doing it expecting him to hear me because the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed me from all sin. Jesus Christ is his mission to be my lawyer. So if God is saying, “Well no, Paul Cannings needs to go through this,” Jesus Christ is going, “Wait a minute now. Let us look at this.” He is my lawyer; he advocates for me.

That is what Job was struggling about. Who is going to advocate for me? He says that like three or four times in the book of Job. “I have no intercessor.” We have one. The confidence when we are calling on God needs to be there because that is the first step of faith. I know God heard me. I am going to keep praying and praying and praying like the widow with the unjust judge.

I am going to be persistent. He told me when this is happening and the situation's not being answered, I keep coming. And I will keep coming. I will do it with boldness, he would say in Luke chapter five. Just come with boldness, expect me to respond to you. When I am calling on him, it is loud, it is specific, and it is a level of confidence that he is there and he is listening to us. Our prayer just by its very nature when we are calling out to him is an exercise of faith.

I want you to see something here loud in this passage of scripture because the word "call" goes along with loud. It is what Paul would call supplication. It is a crying out to God. That is what he is saying here because the situation is desperate. I am not worrying about God hearing me, and I know that I must do this because there is a chance that God may not be near.

You would say, “Okay, that is some serious theological problems you got there, Paul Cannings,” because the Bible is literally telling us he is every place all at the same time and he lives inside of my heart and Ephesians tells me I live in heavenly places. Yeah, but where am I?

A woman and a husband were driving down the road and the wife looks at her husband and she says to him, “We used to drive when we first got married with me right there next to you. There was no middle console; we still don't have a middle console. Why is it that we don't drive close to each other anymore?” And he looked at her and he says, “I'm always doing the driving and the steering wheel is in the same place, so somebody moved and it ain't me.”

It is not that God is drifting from us; it is that we drift from him. We do not like where he is taking us. We do not like the fact we are still single. We do not like the fact we are in this marriage and this husband is not yet saved and I've shared the gospel, I've had people call and invite him to church; he doesn't do none of this. Kids are not always living right because the husband is not fully into God, so they are not fully into God and I've tried my best. I am so worn out. They promise the kids stuff and don't show up. I've got to carry that emotionally and help the child in spite of the fact that the child is sometimes angry. I have all these things and you are telling me what? Keep calling on God when this thing continues to persist?

The Bible says abiding in him is a decision. It is not an automatic process. “Abide in me,” is a decision we must make. Don't forget, Peter saw Christ being taken by the soldiers. He saw these guys and Christ ain't fighting back, he is not disappearing like he did in the temple, and Peter pulled out his knife. Christ says no. Peter goes and sees, “Wait a minute, he is what he said is going to happen. He is going to die.” And blankety-blank-blank, “I don't know the man.” He drifted.

Was Christ still doing what he said he is going to do? Yes. Christ modeled this for us. “God, take this cup from me. No, I'm not going to do it. You're going to take a beating, you're going to take your back being slaughtered, you're going to be spit on. That's going to happen. Not my will but thy will be done.” He chose to abide.

When he is on the cross and he is taking on all of man's sins, he says, “Father, don't drift from me. I take all of this, but the thing I don't want is to ever have any separation between you and me.” What caused that separation? Sin did it.

We need to confess our sins. He is faithful, he is just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What were the people doing in the book of Isaiah? They were walking away from God. They were sick of all their problems, sick of all these difficulties they are going through. People on their borders trying to attack them, steal their young girls and make them concubines, and steal their young kids and make them slaves. They cannot go back and fight them off, they cannot send some organization out to get them back. They are gone.

Which means now he is working the fields by himself. Sometimes they work the fields, they get their crop, set aside it for the winter, and these people come in, do a raid on them, take all their crop, and they starve through the winter. “Where are you, God?” They did not go to the temple the same way, did not serve God the same way, did not operate the same way. Why? Because they have been doing all these things and “Where are you, God?” Sometimes we are the ones that drifted.

And that is why he is saying keep calling because that also brings up this point: when I am praying without ceasing, it maintains my attention on God. When in all things I will give him thanks, it maintains my attitude. It maintains my spiritual development before God. So that even if my circumstances do not change, my circumstances have achieved the purpose of trials. I am more mature because I have learned to trust God.

The purposes of trials are achieved. I have now learned to be anxious for nothing because I keep praying anyway. Since I am calling on him, I am seeking him, and he is there to be found, I have nothing to be anxious about. God is just letting me be with those lions in the den in order for everybody around me to see God is able to do exceedingly abundantly all he could ever ask or think. He may not change the circumstances around me, but he has certainly made me better. Allow me to experience the joy of the fruit of the spirit, the peace of the fruit of the spirit, the long-suffering strength to love even enemies in the fruit of the spirit. So I come out walking in the spirit and nothing in life anymore could ever disrupt anything that has to do with forging my way ahead for the glory of God and my blessing.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Dr. Cannings. The Son of God himself is our advocate. There is no greater advocate that we can possibly have than the very one who is characterized by righteousness and justice. For a copy of this message series or any other resources by Pastor Cannings, please visit us online at PowerWalkMinistries.org. If you would like to place an order by phone, our number is 281-260-7402. Again, that is 281-260-7402.

Dr. Paul Cannings: I am so excited about the Pastor's conference coming up April the 23rd through the 25th. You cannot miss it. There is going to be such a great group of teachers teaching, well-trained, well-prepared, practice what they are teaching in their local churches.

Here are some examples, folks: Pastor and Deacons functioning under the lordship of Christ; the biblical approach to resolving conflict in the church; traits of successful leaders; effective teaching methods for children; how do you have a great contemporary worship service that is biblically based; succession planning; social media, how could you make it very positive for your children; how you overcome stagnation in the local church; developing a counseling ministry; dealing with mental health issues in the local church; marketing; moving from traditional ministry to bibliocentric ministry; how do you grow the church through evangelism for God’s glory and God’s honor.

You cannot miss this conference April the 23rd through the 25th, 2026 at 7350 T.C. Jester Boulevard right here at Living Word Fellowship Church. I pray you will go to PowerWalkMinistries.org. PowerWalkMinistries.org and find out more. Get into that early bird special where you could bring 10 or more people and get a discount so that you can be a part of an effective, productive conference that will bless your life. Come on, be a part of this. You will not be disappointed. April the 23rd through the 25th. Look forward to seeing you.

Guest (Male): Once again, our web address is PowerWalkMinistries.org. Our mailing address is P.O. Box 920517, Houston, Texas 77092. We would love to hear from you. And remember, if we have confidence that Christ is interceding on our behalf, we can believe that he will never leave us nor forsake us.