Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe shares her message, The Inner Life, about viewing prayer as an art form, not a science, and how you can weave heartfelt prayer into your day-to-day life to make an impact for Christ. The generosity of friends like you keeps broadcasts like this one going out around the world, so you and others can experience life through the biblical teaching and resources of Telling the Truth.

As thanks for your gift today, we'll send you Powerful and Effective Prayer, a newly curated collection of messages from Stuart and Jill that will give you timeless wisdom on the subject of prayer and help you build a more consistent and inspired prayer life. So call today to request yours at 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Jill Briscoe with today's message, The Inner Life.

Jill Briscoe: Once your children leave home and certainly get married, you're done in some ways. Although my husband's got an incredible talk on parenting for a lifetime, which I think needs to be emphasized. You're never done, but in many ways, you're certainly out of control. And I knew that my job was to do my work on my knees for our family at that point.

The reason this ever came into being was because it was my own journey. And I decided to look in the Bible and find out somebody whose prayers worked because I needed my prayers to work desperately. And of course, I found Elijah. And as I turned to 1 Kings 17, 18, and 19, I found something amazing. It's all about his prayer life.

There's nobody else there. Only God. Only God in the ravine, only God in the cave, only God under the broom tree. And I thought, how neat. If I can figure out what he did right here, and what did God say, and what was he saying to God, and what worked, then maybe I can grow in my prayer life.

To tell you quite honestly, I had grown in many dimensions up to that point in my life. But as I honestly looked at my spiritual disciplines, I realized maybe I'd grown as a teacher, maybe I'd grown as a leader, women's ministry leader and all of that, but I hadn't grown one whit in my prayer life. And I didn't realize it until trouble came. And often that's the way it happens.

With that background, and I don't know how much of this material we're going to do in the time, I'm just going to go with what comes to mind. So I have no idea how I'm going to go through this. But if you turn to James chapter 5, which is where I began. And incidentally, if things happen in your life, sit there and think, which part of the Bible addresses this? Where do I go? Well, I went to the Psalms for comfort.

I went to the epistles for instruction. And then I sat there and I thought, who is there in the Bible that I could look at their life, this ordinary person, and learn from them? And of course, that's when I remembered Elijah. And it says in James chapter 5, verse 13, "Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray." Well, you should if you could and you would, but you don't.

Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him, anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise him up. If he's sinned, he'll be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other. Pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous man is dynamic in its working is the full meaning of this verse. The prayer of a righteous man, King James says, availeth much. New King James is similar. So the prayer of a righteous man is dynamic in its working. It's dynamite. It works.

So the first question, of course, as I looked at this that James, the brother of Jesus, had written to the early church, the thing that came to my mind was, "Well, that's probably what's wrong why my prayers don't work. I'm not righteous enough. I'm not a good enough Christian. I'm not in tune with God. Maybe that's why my prayers don't work." But then, of course, you have to do a study on righteous. What does that mean?

And basically it means forgiven. So everybody in this room is righteous, if, of course, you've accepted Christ. And so as you represent leadership in the churches, there came a point in your life where you either realized if you're churched that you need to own this for yourself, or you came out of the blue like I did into Christ. And you can look back to that day when you became righteous. Justified. Just as if I'd never sinned.

And that means you were forgiven. And it says that the prayer of a forgiven person is dynamic. It works. And I got all excited. And then James looks for an example in the Bible. And he finds Elijah. Elijah was a man just like us. Normal, ordinary. I wish I was like that, but he said he was just like us.

He prayed earnestly that it wouldn't rain, and it didn't rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. "Now my brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins."

So here we have the example of Elijah praying the most incredible prayers and God answering. His prayers worked. They were dynamic in their working. The word prayer and work go against the grain of some people. They say, "No, prayer is mystical, prayer is worship." Worship is one aspect of prayer only. And I'm not going to be touching the subject of praise and worship, but I'm going to be talking mostly about intercession for us.

When I look at James and what he says, he is putting his prayers that are answered in the context of trouble and suffering. And there's a lot of suffering in James chapter 5. There are people suffering. Confess your sins one to another. The church needs to be able to mend rifts and to go to someone if you need to make things right. And he talks about that. There is the healing in the church he talks about. Prayer can help that.

Maybe your church has got a split coming or it's had one or there's a problem. And the smaller the church is, the worse that problem is. Because the bigger the church, the more you can absorb those sort of disagreements. And most of you, if you're coming from the normal American church, 98% of American churches are under 150.

We hear about the megachurches. We serve a megachurch. We hear about the meta-churches. And we don't hear about the 98% of the churches, which is the church in America. And when you get a split in one of those churches, it can be absolutely devastating. My father, we never went to church. We were raised churchless. But my father, I found out at his funeral, was a backslidden Christian. It was nice to find that out.

I remember standing there with my mouth hanging open and saying to my aunt who told me, "What happened? What happened?" She said, "Well, there was this church split, and his best friend was on the other side of the church split. And he walked out the door of Bank Hall Mission and said I'll never enter the church again in my life and never did." He went to his death without ever walking back into a church. He was carried into the church for his funeral, and that was it. Isn't that sad? If there's healing that needs to be done, we can have a part. We can pray dynamic prayers that will work in that situation.

Guest (Male): This is Telling the Truth with Stuart and Jill Briscoe. Today, Jill is showing you how to make prayer a spiritual discipline and why it's so vital to your faith. She'll have much more coming up, but first, we want to share a note from a listener in the UK who recently shared: "Telling the Truth ministries is a spirit-filled ministry that enables me daily to rest in God's presence. I can't thank you enough for the work you do, especially in supporting the body of Christ, the people that are yet to believe, and the world. May the Lord bless you all immensely." Thanks for the encouragement, Chioma.

Do you ever feel like your prayers are bouncing off the walls instead of landing in the presence of God? Or do you pray more out of obligation than relationship? Maybe you recognize a lack of passion in your voice even as you pray and you're left wondering, does God even hear my prayers? Or will he answer them? We'd love to help lead you toward a more inspired and vibrant prayer life by sending you a newly curated collection of messages from Stuart and Jill called Powerful and Effective Prayer.

This one-of-a-kind resource is our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life in Christ through the teaching resources of Telling the Truth. Your support enables countless people across the globe to stand strong in the unchanging truth of scripture, and we're so grateful for friends like you. So request Powerful and Effective Prayer when you call to give at 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, let's return to Jill's message called The Inner Life about how to keep prayer at the forefront of your life and ministry.

Jill Briscoe: He talks about sickness, physical sickness. Does that mean that our prayers can work healing? Well, no, only God works healing. But it might be that God will say yes, it might be he'll say no, or it might be he'll say wait. Or like Lazarus, he might say no. This is for the glory of God, and he might take him home to heaven. Poor Lazarus, he called him back. I can just see him saying, "Oh, no. I've got to die all over again." He's the only man I know who died twice.

He didn't want to come back. We have too low of a view of heaven when we pray about healing sometimes. But here we have it addressed. And I am living proof that sometimes God can heal dramatically and instantly. I was converted in a hospital. I was busy dying. And the day after I was saved, I was better and walked out of that place. And God simply took me there to get me saved.

However, I have lived for many years with a back problem. I am missing three discs at the base of my spine. And God has never chosen to mend my spine, even though I have asked and other people have asked on my behalf. And so sometimes God says yes, and sometimes he says no, and sometimes he says maybe or wait. And James addresses this. It doesn't mean you stop praying if he says no to the big request.

As Paul said, it's a good thorn. I've got a thorn. I asked him to take it away. He didn't. But it's a good thorn because it's driving me to God and his strength is made perfect in my weakness. We don't know why God says no. And the mystery of unanswered prayer is all over this Bible. All over this Bible. And so when we look at the people in the Bible that sometimes were healed and sometimes they weren't.

Paul had the gift of healing. They'd take handkerchiefs from the man's body in the book of Acts, lay them on sick people and they'd get up and they'd be fine. But he himself wasn't healed. Gift of healing, but he himself wasn't healed. And so you need to get into 1 Corinthians 12 and figure out what is this thorn bit. But God can help you walk through all these things. So you're praying for healing in a marriage, you're praying and in our case, God said no.

It didn't happen because he comes up against the will of man and he will not interfere. And he will not make us do what we need to do. And so there is a huge mystery in prayer. Can we pray for this? Should we pray for the other? And the answers are in here as much as we need to know. As much as God knows our tiny little minds can understand.

And for the rest, it's better to accept mystery than a bad answer. Do you find yourself always struggling to give an answer for everything? We have to give an answer. No, you don't. Because God has not chosen to give us answers to some deep, deep things in this world. For those we need faith and trust in a God who is intrinsically good. He's good even if things are bad. He's good even though we're suffering. He's good. He's good if he says no.

The goodness of God doesn't change because of an unanswered prayer. Now that's revealed. And so prayer is not a shopping list in the heavenly supermarket. Prayer is far more than that. And of course, it's our speaking relationship with God. Let me just run through a couple of things here. Prayer that doesn't work doesn't work. And you've got to work at it.

People say if you're a Mary and you have the gift of prayer. Listen, the prayer itself is a gift because it speaks of your relationship with God. That's all of our gifts. But don't get out of it like that and say, "Well, she's got the gift of prayer and I don't. Oh, I'm so glad. I've got other gifts." The prayer itself is somewhere you go. It's not something you're gifted with. The gift is a relationship with God and prayer is your speaking relationship with God. It goes with it.

What you have to do is learn the art of leaving things undone to get it done. And all of us need to learn that art. What is the best dish? The whole thing of Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus. Jesus is playing on words if you read it. I am told, I don't read the original languages, but I can get tools and figure it out myself. All of us can do that.

And when Mary's sitting there and she's being criticized for it by Martha, Jesus says, "Leave her alone. She's offering me the best dish. Martha, Martha, you're busy getting a seven-course meal ready. All these dishes. She's offering me the best dish. She's nourishing me by her attention and her listening. She's chosen the best dish and it won't be taken away from her." That whole thing just lights up when you realize what Jesus is saying.

The art of leaving things undone as Mary did, that the greater thing be done, the invitation to come and listen to him, is all part of prayer. And the art is in the middle of everything else that needs to be done to choose that dish to offer to him and nourish him. Prayer is as much nourishing God with our attention, giving him satisfaction, as it is him giving us satisfaction. That's all part of prayer.

We need to realize prayer that doesn't work doesn't work. The art of leaving things undone. We need to learn to pray in the middle of the muddle. Are you waiting for this idyllic? It'll never happen. And so we have to learn to pray in the middle of the muddle. Sleep deprivation's better than God deprivation. Did you know about that? For me, that's what it's meant since I began my journey of faith.

I am sleep deprived. I have been gloriously sleep deprived for 12 years. And I'm none the worse. Listen, just 20 minutes off your sleep schedule. Start there. I have never had so much energy in my life. And I use my jet lag at the moment when I wake at 3:30, which I have for the last five days. I get up. No point lying there wishing myself back to sleep. It's not going to happen.

Those early hours have been so precious to me. Then I try and catch a nap later in the day, and if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. But sleep deprivation is better than God deprivation, and that's what we need to think about. We need to meet with God without an agenda. Leave your Bible, leave your prayer list, just you and him. I was hoping you'd ask me. Five minutes a day.

So that you're not meeting with him for someone else, okay? Now you have to do all that help stuff and take your list and your Bible another time. But give God five minutes a day without an agenda and just intentionally put yourself into his presence. Stay there until you sense his grace and the focus changes from you to him. And I can't tell you what that will feel like, but you will know. Because what happens when we go to prayer is we are all over the prayer room. And somehow you have to get your attention off you to him.

Guest (Male): That was Jill Briscoe, part of the teaching team that makes up Telling the Truth. "I'll pray for you." "Just pray about it." "Prayer changes things." You've probably heard statements like these from other Christians or said them yourself. But if you ask most believers how prayer works, the answers are likely to be all over the map. So how does God want to use prayer in our lives? Is he listening to every single request? And can prayer really make a difference?

To help answer questions like these, we've put together Stuart and Jill's five-message teaching series Powerful and Effective Prayer. This one-of-a-kind collection of messages can help you uncover the secret to a more vibrant prayer life, one where you lose yourself in the presence of God and have confidence that your prayers are rising, making a difference. You'll gain wisdom and insight on prayer from Stuart and Jill's decades of ministry.

Powerful and Effective Prayer comes as our thanks for your gift to help more people fix their eyes on eternity through the truths of God's word shared through Telling the Truth. Your support enables countless people across the globe to stand strong in the unchanging truth of scripture. And we're so grateful for friends like you. So be sure to request your copy when you give a gift today. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Jill Briscoe with a final thought for you today.

Jill Briscoe: The biggest one is you must pray according to the will of God revealed in the word of God. That is a basic condition of answered prayer. You must pray according to the will of God revealed in the word of God. Now let me illustrate it from the life of Elijah. He lived in Tishbe. Little nowhere Tishbe.

But somewhere over the mountains, and you can see over the mountains Jezreel, the capital of the city miles away, Jezebel and Ahab were doing their stuff and Israel was falling apart. And so here's the young shepherd boy Elijah and he hears what's happening. And he begins to pray prayers that work about the rain in Tishbe. You can go anywhere on your knees. And he went to Jezreel on his knees before he ever went in person.

He goes in prayer and says, "Do something about Jezebel, God." He is praying according to the will of God revealed in the word of God. If you start in Leviticus and follow the references through, you will see first in Leviticus it says God speaking, "If you fall away from me, I will show you what I feel about that. And I will stop the rain. And when I stop the rain, you will know my displeasure and the crops will die and you won't have anything to eat and you'll get weak and your enemies will take you over."

Over and over again, before you get to Elijah's story, which is only a very small piece of this Bible. Before you get to this part of history, God has repeated that. Want to know what I think about your sin? Look at the heavens, there won't be any rain. So when Elijah prays to shut the heavens up, this isn't using prayer like a magic wand. This is praying according to the will of God. "Show them what you feel, God." And God answers that prayer.

We are not to pray stupid prayers. We are not to pray silly prayers. We are to pray things that we already know are a principle in the word of God. Those prayers work. And so when you're praying for something, ask yourself, "Is this God's will? Does God want this to happen?" If you're praying for somebody who is lost, it is not God's will that any should perish.

Do a study with your concordance on the will of God. Just make a list, which is what I'm doing at the moment for a big meeting I'm heading up. They want me to talk about the will of God. I get my concordance out, I look up the will of God, I find in the New Testament at least 11 things it says, "This is the will of God." So those are 11 points that I'll be using. You look up each one and figure out what the will of God is and then you begin to pray about it.

One of the things I found is it is not God's will that any should perish. So if I am praying for the lost, I know he wants them to come to him. And I can pray with confidence. And I can ask God to soften their hearts and to open their minds that his spirit might convince them and convert them and regenerate them. That is something I can pray in faith.

It doesn't mean it'll happen. That's not my business. They have the choice. He is not willing that any should perish. And this should help as we pray for the lost. What I do when I pray for my extended family is I pray according to his will. "It's not your will that any should perish, God." And I intercede for them. 45 years of interceding for them because we have to persist.

When there's nothing, we have to wait until there's something and pray in faith until the last no. Until the last rejection. And it might be we'll get to heaven or we won't ever know and see the answer to our prayers until the doors open and those people we've prayed for walk through. But our job is to pray the prayer of faith and leave God's wisdom and goodness to cope with those who reject him.

Guest (Male): Thanks so much, Jill. We hope today's message encouraged you. Before we go, remember that when you give today to help keep Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one going out, we'll send you Powerful and Effective Prayer, a newly curated collection of five messages from Stuart and Jill that can help you start moving from a mundane prayer life to one that's rich and vibrant.

Call now to give and request Powerful and Effective Prayer with our thanks at 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. We're glad you've joined us today on Telling the Truth. Be sure to listen next time for more bold truth to help you experience life.