Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Are you hurting today? Does it seem as if no one understands what you're going through? However hopeless your situation may be, don't give up. Why? Because the King of kings is always there to hear our prayers.

Thanks for joining us for today's Power Walk Ministries broadcast, continuing with our series, Powerful Prayers. Now, prayer is a privilege and pastor, teacher, and author Dr. Paul Cannings wants us to understand the importance of addressing the issues that God reveals in our lives so we can enter His presence with confidence and joy. Today's message is titled Praying with Confidence, and now here's Pastor Cannings.

Dr. Paul Cannings: One of the greatest joys of being saved because we've accepted Christ into our lives as the payment for our sins before God is that we can talk to God. Not just being able to talk to Him, we've come into His presence. We live in heavenly realms. We live in the presence of God every day because the Holy Spirit is now in us. Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, and the Spirit of God is His helper. Christ is the helper of God. So we function—Hebrews chapter 1, verse 14—with angels around us, protecting us by providing us a hedge, as we would see in the case of Job.

What a blessing that is, in that now we're just not in the presence of God, we have the joy and the privilege of being heard by God. That's awesome. When we pray to God, we have Jesus as our intercessor who hears our prayers, as we've discussed these last couple days. So now I want us to think about this continual process of how we can experience the benefits of the prayer life that we seek to establish.

So prayer becomes a natural part of our lives. We need it every day. It's an awesome privilege every day, but how does it lead us to viable answers that bless us in the direction we believe God is leading us as we pray and as we read His word? When we look at 1 John chapter 3, verse 19 through verse 20, we addressed two different things so far these last couple days. If you have not heard the last couple days, you could always get on our website, powerwalkministries.org, and you can order this series.

But now he brings us to verse 20 when he says this: "For God is greater than our hearts." He can remove the things that are convictions or things that need to change from our heart. The heart judges us. In other words, that's the place He goes to for us to feel the conviction that the Holy Spirit places on us when we do something that violates His word. That's the place He goes. That's the seat of emotions. That is the seat of the will. It is the heart of the mind.

So the Bible uses the word of God, uses that as the place to convict us. Our spirit, when we get saved, is quickened from being dead. Titus chapter 3 speaks about this because of the work of the Holy Spirit. So now our spirit, along with the Holy Spirit, convicts us using the heart as a place to move us. So he says when it doesn't judge us this way—that's what the word condemn means—it's not passing a judgment upon us because when God views it, if we confess sin, he says in chapter one of the same book, in 1 John, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So if it doesn't condemn us in this particular context from verse 16 through verse 20, he's going to say because we did see a person in need and we reached out and helped them. We did not close our hearts. The word close means to shut the door of our hearts and to slam it in the person's face. That's what it means. I heard the person's concerns, I knew clearly what it was, and I literally walked away with no intent in responding to them, just like the man on the road to Jericho. One helped and one went on the other side and left the man suffering. That's shutting the door of my heart.

If in this context, if it's not a sin issue, which was talked about earlier, it now becomes a love issue, which he talked about earlier. When I get to know God, therefore I would love. If that's not what is taking place, then my heart doesn't condemn me. But if it does condemn me, God knows the heart and can forgive us. So He's always working for us to come to Him. The issue is whether or not we have the will, the humility to adjust to whatever He is requiring of us and to get there because He's saying, "I'm willing to do whatever."

If a person is struggling on a particular issue in their life, I'm willing to forgive them. If a person has shut their hearts to someone's need, I'm willing to work through that and get them to where they need to go. If a person is just really struggling with fortresses in their hearts relevant to other people—they just had bad church experiences and so they don't want to open up their heart to anybody—He says, "I can work with that too because I want to talk to you."

Remember, in the Garden of Eden, God would come in the cool of the evening to talk with Adam, and He wanted that relationship. It's Adam's sin that prevented it. It is what Adam and Eve did that led him to not to have the same kind of relationship he had before. But by the blood of Jesus, which He promised in Genesis 3:15, after he lost the kind of connection he originally had, He re-establishes it by reminding us right there in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, that He will renew that so that we can have this kind of communication with Him.

The issue is: are we willing to address it? You know, folks, the judge has certain guidelines to follow when you walk in the court of law. He tells you what to do and what not to do, and he could either hold you in contempt, put you in jail, or have the bailiff remove you out of court. But these guidelines are going to be followed when we approach the bench. God is saying, "You do that for a human judge, what about Me?" I have certain guidelines when you approach Me because I am who I am.

I'm not going to change who I am because you are unwilling to adjust that. I am holy and righteous, and that's my nature. I am perfect in every way. I am righteous. So when you come to me and you want to be in my presence, you have to respect whom my presence represents, and therefore we need to make that adjustment as we come. And that's what He's saying. In the Old Testament, it was the Holies of Holies. You couldn't just walk in there any kind of way.

He says that's one of the things He says that leads Him to not just hear our prayer but have a receptive heart to do something about it. And this is the next thing He says relevant to prayer because nobody prays just to pray. We pray because we want our prayers to be answered. You know, sometimes people would say, "Well, what is this prayer when you pray for healing and the person dies?" Well, what's going to go on there? I prayed. I abided in God's word. I was willing to confess sin.

These things are in play right now. I know the Lord, I walk in the truth, I abide in Him. He says He's going to grant the desires of my heart, John chapter 15, if I did that. And here's my desire: I want my child to be healed and my child is dying, so where does that go? And I always explain scenarios like that when we look at the situation with Lazarus and Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ allowed Lazarus to die. It was just a two-day journey; He took four days to get there.

The word sick used in that passage by the messenger sent by Mary and Martha was a sickness that is beyond his strength and ability to recover from. So Jesus Christ clearly knew what they were saying when they used the word sick. He knew that this guy's not going to recover from this. So when Jesus Christ delayed going, He determined that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. So what God is saying, sometimes the sickness that we have in this life, He's accepting that it's going to lead towards death and He is going to restore us in the heaven forever.

And that's where He chooses to heal us. It's in heaven. So it's not that He doesn't love us, it's not He doesn't care, it's just that He has a different purpose and we have to respect that purpose since His will is perfect. That's the issue. But He comes here and He gives us one other thing attached to not just hearing our prayers but responding in a way that is productive. He says here: "Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God."

If our heart does not condemn us—we just discussed that—we have confidence. Now what He's talking about, He's not just saying we have confidence before God in that everything is going to be answered in and of itself. He's not just saying that because He's going to go on to say that in verse 22: "Whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight." So we are back to verse 19: "We will know by this that we are of the truth and will assure our hearts before Him."

So verse 22 is reaffirming verse 19. It's kind of a recapitulation of what He's already said since we are committed to it. But He's saying in confidence means I can now come with boldness. This is the kind of situation He talks about in Luke 11 where the guy has a visitor that comes in the middle of the night, and he doesn't have any bread to give his visitor. If there's anything in the Jewish community way back then, at least you can have bread.

The guy doesn't have any bread. So to save embarrassment and to help his friend who's traveled a long ways, he goes to a friend, knocks on his door, and asks the friend for bread. The friend shuts the door, and he keeps coming to the friend, he keeps coming to the friend, he keeps coming to the friend. The friend eventually says, "Okay, you know what? He's going to just keep my family up. Let me give him bread and get him out of here."

Same scenario like the widow and the unjust judge. He's saying the reason why this man could keep knocking is because he knows that's his friend, and his friend can't keep ignoring him. That's the confidence that he has because it's a friend. And that's what John is talking about in John chapter 15. What kind of a man is this that would lay down his life for a friend? The potential of him being our friend leads to us being able to come to Him with boldness and confidence because I'm coming to you as a friend.

I'm coming to you because I've committed to walk with You, Lord. I've committed to abide in You, Lord. I've committed that if my heart condemns me, I'll confess it. I'm committed that I'm coming into Your presence, and therefore I'm going to respect Your presence. I'm going to respect who You are and what You stand for and all the different things that are important to You. Lord, I'm willing to serve You, willing to use my spiritual gifts, willing to surrender my life to You.

So when I come, I come as a friend because like You say in John chapter 15, if I abide in You and You abide in me, we will bear much fruit. And You say these are the kind of people God loves. So God, I can come with boldness. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to keep coming to You. I'm going to cry out to You. I'm going to supplicate because I know You cannot reject Your friend. That's the confidence He's talking about in the face of God.

So folks, when we have addressed all the issues we've discussed these last three days, He now says come with boldness because you're willing to respect My presence and who I am and what that does for your life so that we could be friends. Because what it does for your life is it makes you walk in a way that is pleasing to Him. It's worship to Him. That's what it means. You are now by your life worshiping Him.

You keep His worship so high that everything you do in word or in deed brings glory to His name. You're always trying to adjust your life because you're conscious of God all day long. That's what godliness means. I'm God-conscious. And as we are God-conscious and how we function, He says you'll always be before Me in how you live. So now speak with boldness because you live your life in My presence every day. Let's focus more on getting to the boldness than worrying whether or not the prayer will be answered because the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. So let's stay focused and live with confidence before God. God bless.

Guest (Male): A powerful message from Dr. Paul Cannings. We hope that you've been blessed by the biblical teachings of Dr. Cannings. To become a Power Walk partner, please visit us online at powerwalkministries.org. Our number is 281-260-7402.

Dr. Paul Cannings: A few years ago, some friends of mine, pastor friends, came to me and challenged me to start Power Walk, and by faith, we stepped out. But in the midst of it, we recognize it costs, and it would be good for us to develop partners who would share in this ministry so that it reaches the potential God has for it.

And we'd love for you to look at our website, powerwalkministries.org. See all the things that we are seeking to do for the glory of God. Become our partner and be a part of what God is doing. I know God will bless you.

Guest (Male): Log on to powerwalkministries.org. That's powerwalkministries.org. If you'd prefer to write us, our mailing address is PO Box 920517, Houston, Texas 772092. Now remember to enter into the presence of God with reverence and humility and to talk with Him each day.