Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us for today's Power Walk Ministries broadcast with Pastor Paul Cannings. Today, Pastor Cannings continues with the series, Steps to Answered Prayer. What would God think about your prayer life? Are your prayers short and quick or repetitive? Or does your mind drift all too quickly to other matters?

Pastor Cannings takes us to 1 John 3 today to show that scripture does give us guidelines on how we are to approach God in prayer. And he shows us how to adhere to these guidelines in today's message, Pray with Confidence. Pastor Cannings?

Dr. Paul Cannings: Everybody wants their prayer answered, but not everybody's confident that God is going to do so. Many times people will be repetitive when they pray. They would fast when they pray as almost as if they're trying to force God's hands to do exactly what they want done.

When we come before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, there is a system. Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father. So if I don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ, in John chapter 9:31, He says He doesn't hear the prayers of a sinner. If a person is not saved, they experience God's mercy, but God is not going to hear their prayers. He says that.

We have to respect the fact that at the point of salvation, the Holy Spirit is poured into us. Titus chapter 3:4-8 says He's poured into us, and through the Holy Spirit connecting with our spirit, we're able to communicate with a spirit being named God.

The Holy Spirit sees the nature of their heart and comes in at the point of salvation. When that happens, the Bible says the Holy Spirit pours into us and quickens our spirit, called regeneration. He brings us back to life. So now our spirit is connected with the Holy Spirit, who continues to nurture that spirit in the Spirit of God. Ephesians chapter 5:15-18.

When that happens, the Bible says now as a spirit being, we could communicate with a spirit being through Jesus Christ to God. Understand when we are this spirit being to the point where we grow up into the fullness of God, if we commit to serve and to grow and to learn. Ephesians chapter 4:13-14 says you've got to serve in the local church to grow. If not, you're just going to become knowledgeable, and that leads to arrogance. 1 Corinthians chapter 8.

Growing comes from the use of the spiritual gift. Service is key to growing spiritually. The Bible says that person could grow into the fullness of God. That's why Paul said, "I've been crucified with Christ. I no longer live; it is Christ that lives in me. The life I now live..." Understand this is what would lead to us having this confidence before God. When we come to Him, we are coming to Him as a brand new creature because He is the one that regenerated us.

Please understand when we come before God, we can have confidence before Him. But then there are issues that pop up many times in our lives. In 1 John chapter 1:8-9, He says if you say you have no sin, you're a liar and the truth is not in you. The truth meaning the Holy Spirit does not reside in that person for them to boldfaced say they don't sin.

That person most likely is a very religious person, a person that is very committed and doing all the right things and got all the different relics that the church demands that they follow and they do it to the T. Well, the Bible says that person continually lying is showing that the Holy Spirit doesn't live in them. He highlights that even more in chapter 3:4-11 in the book of 1 John.

So you see when we come to God, there are going to be issues. How do we come to God and talk to God when each and every day there may be issues in our lives that permeate in our lives? Some people struggle because they once were drug addicts. They struggle because they once were alcoholics. They struggle because they were addicted to various things that they still have in their flesh, and sometimes it drives them in certain ways.

When they come to God, they may not have the level of confidence when they talk to God because they're looking at what took place that week, that day, that moment. Their mind drifted when they saw someone and looked at something or went and looked at the wrong movie because they had struggled with that whole issue of pornography.

People sometimes come to Christ and they don't have a lot of inhibitions, but when some people come to Christ, self-righteousness becomes the issue. John is understanding that. He's not dealing with people who are living believing that they're righteous. He's talking about that in the book of John. Confess your sins; He's faithful and just to forgive. He's talking about looking at sinners. When a person is sinning, they may not have even been saved. He's talking about all these things in 1 John.

When He comes because He knows people that have this lack of confidence, He tells them how to gain that confidence when they pray. Let's go to 1 John chapter 3 and begin to look at this in verse 20. This is what He would say, "For if your heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things." I love that.

If our hearts condemn us when we come, it does condemn us. It does say, "You know what you did? You just told a lie. You saw this person in need," in the near context of this passage, verse 16 through verse 17, and you never helped them. You just walked by and said, "I'm praying for you, brother so-and-so. Pray for you, sister so-and-so," but you never looked out to help that person.

The Bible says we shut the doors of our hearts, and the Bible says that's condemning in the near context. Sin is condemning. Not being willing to use our spiritual gift, just not serving God the way He called us to because we're using a job as an excuse and all the different difficulties we're going through as an excuse.

I tell people all the time as a pastor, you may have a job that's demanding and then you're a single parent and you've got all that going on, but you could join the prayer ministry and pray at night before you go to bed and join a group. You could go to a comfort and care ministry where you're sending out cards to encourage people.

You could sit there at night or on your job on lunch break and write encouraging cards because maybe you have the gift of encouragement. Maybe you could join the counseling ministry and say, "I can't come down to the church to counsel somebody, but I could do Zoom and I could learn the skills of counseling and go do it and get it done for the glory of God."

You don't have to be at the church 24/7 to serve God. There are so many different avenues a person can function biblically and serve God, but it has to be in the local church. The Bible is very clear about that. People tell me, "Well, I'm doing this at this organization, that for that organization. I go down to the hospital and I serve there."

The Bible is saying you have to serve within the local church. God wants the gift (1 Peter chapter 4:10 on) to build up the body of Christ. Same thing in Ephesians chapter 4. So the spiritual gifts that He talks about in building up the body is for the building up of the body so people can have confidence as they struggle through different issues in life. It doesn't mean you can't go and serve in other capacities, which the Bible looks at as good deeds.

When we talk about serving, the word in the scriptures means an energized process focused on a particular goal that the vision of the church has, and it is based on a spiritual gift. That's what it means. Like a football team, a basketball team trying to win the game. It's an energized process focused on winning the game, and the person brings a level of skill to the game to help the team to get there.

When the team gets there and they win the championship, everybody shares in it, whether the person's role was on the bench to help them have great practices or on the bench to be in there in case somebody got hurt. The person was there to be able to function and was therefore could share the Super Bowl or the championship ring.

The Bible says that's what Christ is after. The only place that Christ said He's going to make a difference (Ephesians chapter 1:22-23) is in the church. So it has to be there. So when a person functions, He says, "And if your heart condemn you," He says, "Don't worry about it. God is greater than your heart." That's what I love about this.

He is saying, yes, you confess your sin (back to chapter 1). He's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If you walk in the light as He's in the light and have fellowship one with another, the blood of Jesus Christ keeps purifying you because we keep walking in the light. Meaning it keeps illuminating the things in our lives He needs to fix, the things in our lives He needs to grow.

God can take care of all of that. He can cleanse it. He can not just cleanse it for that issue, for all our sins. So God is greater than the issues we face, so we don't have to come to Him with a lot of trepidation that God, you know, I just did this. No, just confess it, keep walking in the light, and I'll keep purifying you, purifying you, purifying you.

Why? The Spirit of God that lives inside of us is a purifier. He brings us to holiness. He helps us to work out our salvation in fear and trembling because it is He (verse 13) who's within us of Philippians chapter 2, both to will and to do for His good purposes.

It is like going to the gym because you have muscles, not to gain muscles. Well, the Holy Spirit, when we keep obeying God's work and walking in the light as He's in the light, we expand the muscles that are already there, the Holy Spirit, so He purifies us, cleanses us.

That's why He would say the same thing in chapter 4:4, that He who's within you is greater than he who's in the world. So the Bible is saying don't look at what we did wrong; look at what God has done right for us. Come to Him like Paul would say, "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain."

He stayed the journey. Therefore, I'm anxious for nothing. And whatever's good, whatever's right, whatever's lovely, I focus my mind on those things. So the God of peace keeps me focused as I live my life. And that's why I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

So that's the reason why, folks, when we look at that, He says He's greater and He knows all things. It's not like we're going to surprise, "Oh my goodness, you sinned? Oh no, I didn't know this was going to happen!" No. He's saying, "I already knew that you were going to do this."

That's why when I died on Calvary's cross, I died for all your sins—past, present sins, your future sins. I have died. So when you confess it, you already have an account set up for you. I already knew about it. So just come. You can have confidence before Me when you pray.

People sometimes bring up your past in your face, but walk in the blood that erased your sin and keep walking in the light. Keep confessing it. He says, "I keep purifying you, keep purifying you." And after a while we keep walking in this light, He says He will wash our past, present, and future sins away and our character will become what it needs to be so they have less to talk about and more to praise God for. Our focus needs to be on who God is, not what I've been. Because when I focus on who God is, the Bible says I become what He wants me to be, a brand new creature. Old things passed away; everything keeps being new because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Folks, go to our website, powerwalkministries.org. We're excited about this new book. For a gift of $25 or more, experience what God can do when you pray. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Pastor Cannings. As a believer, you're a new creation in Christ and can truly pray with confidence because the Holy Spirit of God lives in you. To obtain any of our other ministry resources, log on to powerwalkministries.org.

Dr. Paul Cannings: I am so excited about April the 23rd through the 25th because it is a conference with lots of notes, great teachers, well-educated, well-prepared, do what they're teaching in their churches. You cannot miss this conference.

Come April the 23rd through the 25th at Living Word Fellowship Church. Come and be blessed. The conference is the way forward. How can we be productive despite the challenges ministries can experience? You go to powerwalkministries.org and you will get all the information you need. Looking forward to seeing you.

Guest (Male): That's powerwalkministries.org. And while you're online, would you prayerfully consider becoming a Power Walk partner today? It's because of prayerful support and financial support from people just like you that keeps this broadcast on the air.

So could we ask for your generous one-time or ongoing monthly donation? For any gift of $25 or more, we'll send you Pastor Cannings' brand new book, When We Pray, as our gift to you. If you'd prefer to contact us by mail, write Power Walk Ministries, PO Box 920517, Houston, Texas 77092. And thank you for your support.

And as we leave you, remember to pray earnestly for personal requests and also for the millions who do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as yet.