The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: God wants to answer our prayers, and there are prayers that get answered. But there are prayers that don't get answered because we are praying the wrong way. And I want to tell you today how to pray the right way.

Guest (Male): Welcome to The Healing Word. Here's Pastor Jack Morris with today's message that will grow your faith in God and lead you to a closer walk with Jesus.

Pastor Jack Morris: Prayers that get answered.

God answers prayer. Do you believe that? Will you say amen?

Audience: Amen.

Pastor Jack Morris: God answers prayer.

I prayed before I came into the pulpit this morning that the Lord would help me to say what He wants me to say in a way that we will hear Him and respond in faith to what we're hearing.

And I'm praying that now.

God wants to answer our prayers, and there are prayers that get answered. But there are prayers that don't get answered because we are praying the wrong way. And I want to tell you today how to pray the right way.

Because you need answers to your prayers. You want answers, and more important than that, God wants you to have an answer to prayer.

He wants to answer prayer. He's not stingy, He's not selfish. He doesn't lose any power when He answers a prayer. The power that He has is just as great after He answers prayer, blesses, heals, removes a mountain. He still has the same amount of power.

So He doesn't just empty Himself out of glory and power. It is there, and so you just can keep right on going back and going back and going back and receiving from the Lord.

Minister Hill and Clarita were away last week and he had some knee problem, his knee swelled up, and he was in misery. And I guess it was, you were up at Ocean City, driving along. He needed the Right Aid drugstore. And they had a particular ointment there that would help his knee. And Clarita looked up and she said, there's a Right Aid drugstore. Listen, do you know God put that drugstore there 50 years ago, knowing that Bob Hill was going to need it?

Knowing that Bob Hill was going to need it.

Now, God looks out for His people, and you're valuable to Him.

And I sincerely believe that. God knew that Bob was going to need that. Well, I was talking with just this morning with Paul Brock, and he's in the booth this morning. And I thought Paul was going to have to have heart surgery, open-heart surgery. And he said, oh, I was misdiagnosed. And he said, but God answered prayer, put me with the right surgeon, and they said, hey, this can be treated okay with medication. We're not going to have to do that.

You know, God will put a drugstore out there for you. God will give you the right surgeon. God knows what you need, and when you pray, He meets your need in a variety of ways. It's wonderful how God is so creative to answer prayer in the way, just the exact way that I need that prayer answered.

But then Mr. Brock told me he said he got a call from the hospital and they said, well, Mr. Brock, we're going to treat your broken back.

He said, my back isn't broken.

But you know, people get things mixed up sometimes.

But God is right on schedule. He knows who we are, where we are, and He's going to take good care of us.

God's going to take good care of us, just like we take good care of our children the best we can take care of them. God's going to take good care of us.

Now, there should be no reluctance. Listen to me now closely. There should be absolutely no reluctance to go to God in prayer, none whatsoever. Somebody said, well, you know, I don't pray for myself, I pray for others. Friend, go ahead and pray for yourself. You're God's child. He said, ask. He didn't say just ask for somebody else. We are to pray for others, but we're to ask for ourselves. And there's no reluctance, on His part, there should be no reluctance on our part. We shouldn't be shy in going to His throne, hesitant at all, because Jesus invites us to come. We have an ongoing, open invitation to come to the throne of grace to receive help in the time of need. And would you put on the screen Hebrews 4:16, please? And let's read this in unison.

Audience: Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Pastor Jack Morris: Now, look at these words for just a moment. I want to go over them with you. Let us. Let us who carry His name. Let us who are Christians, who carry the name of the Lord. Let us who are redeemed. Let us who know the Savior as our Savior, who know God as our heavenly Father. Let us. Us, come to the throne of grace. So, friend, if you need to go to the throne of grace today, please, Jesus is saying, by all means, go with that request. Let us approach the throne of grace. Say that, throne of grace.

Audience: Throne of grace.

Pastor Jack Morris: Look at that. Throne of grace, throne of loving kindness. Not a throne of judgment, not a throne where God's going to come down hard on you, but it's a throne of grace. It's going to be so nice being there. Throne of grace means throne of favor. God's favor is there. God's going to do some great wonderful favor for you in answer to your prayer. It's a throne of grace. And how are we to approach that throne? What's the word?

Audience: Confidence.

Pastor Jack Morris: Boy, that is so a meek. That's a meek confidence. Hey, we are to come as the King James says, with a bold confidence. Say that, bold.

Audience: Bold.

Pastor Jack Morris: You're a child of God. Notice it says, let us. Friend, I don't know what's wrong. We sometimes forget who we are and what God has done for us and our privileges are ours in Christ. Let us with confidence. Not wavering. Now, sometimes we will waver when we come, and belief can be shaky at times. We're just not quite sure, but it's okay if we say the wrong thing and we don't say it just the way we should say it. It's okay. We're God's child. We're to come with confidence. So that we may receive two things. What are those two things?

Audience: Mercy and grace.

Pastor Jack Morris: Mercy and grace. Mercy is love for everything that's happened in the past. Grace is love for everything that's going to happen in the future, so you're well covered. Mercy and grace. Mercy means I'm getting from God that which I've not earned, that which I don't deserve. I'm unworthy of it, but God gives it. Why? Because I'm His child. You're His child. And then grace, that loving kindness of God. The throne of grace is a great place to go.

It's a great place to go. Find mercy and grace to help us when, in our time of need. God knows we're going to have needs and He comes to us and blesses us and helps us in our time of need. Is there a need today? Where do you need help?

Where? Think about it. Don't speak it out. Don't tell me. Tell Him. Where do you need help? Have you told Him? I need help in this particular area of my life, in this particular phase of my life, in these particular circumstances. Just talk to Him. Just spell it out. I don't know who I was talking to the other day. They were saying something. They said, you know, I hope I don't embarrass that person here, but they said, I pray to the Lord, and I love to pray to the Lord. But then I just get to that place, I just want to talk to Him.

Just want to, that's what prayer is. You just get to that place where you just want to talk to Him. Just a child talking to the Father. So, now we know this. We are convinced with confidence that we're to go there. Now, how do we get there? How do we go there? Here it is.

You know, when my son and daughter were here and my grandchildren the other day, the other week, just a couple of weeks ago, they don't have to knock or ring the doorbell to come in the house. The door is always unlocked to them. They don't have to come over and say, pop, can I get a coke out of the refrigerator? They don't have to say that. Why? They're family. They're family. They don't need permission. But God has invited us and He has told us, come on to My throne so that I can help you. Here are the three essentials to prayer. Here they are. We know now we should come. We know we are invited. First, self-examination. Let's look at our own heart to see where we are in the Lord. And of all people, I'm going to go to the writer of the book of James to open this part up. James in the book of James, this little book, James is not the Apostle James who wrote the book of James. He is the half-brother of Jesus. He's the half biological brother of Jesus. Now, Jesus was virgin born. He was born of the Virgin Mary. But after He was born, according to Matthew chapter 13, Mary and Joseph cohabitated, and they had sons and daughters after Jesus was born. And so here is James, the half-brother of Jesus. Now, James grew up in the same house with Jesus. Who better to go to and ask, tell us about Jesus and tell us about prayer? If anybody ought to know about Jesus, you ought to know something about Him.

Well, he had a little hard time, a little bit of a hard time, James did, in believing on Jesus. He really didn't come to full faith in Jesus until after the resurrection of Jesus. How can my half-brother, how can my brother be the Christ, the Lamb of God? But when Jesus arose from the dead, and so many of God's people, we somehow, Jesus is for Christmas, He's for Easter, and He's for Sunday. But the rest of the week, I've got to work and take care of the family and do my thing. But then come Sunday, I'm back to Jesus again. But friend, Jesus is alive and with us all the time. And I pray that we will be as convinced as James was at the resurrection of Jesus. He walked away from the empty tomb that day, and He walked right here into our church, and He walked right here into your life and my life to bless and to help us. He is the living Christ who is with us even when church is over and we get in our car to go home and go to a picnic or to a movie Sunday afternoon and go to work in a frenzy Monday morning. You know what I'm talking about? Jesus is with us all the time. And we can pray not only in church, but at home and in the car, wherever we are, the Lord Jesus is there to bless us and to help us.

So, here is James. The Apostle Paul referred to James as a pillar in the church. He was the pastor of the first Christian church in Jerusalem. The Jews scattered because of persecution right after the resurrection of Jesus. They met in homes. That's where most of the churches were, in houses, in people's homes. They didn't have edifices like this. This didn't come along until many, many years later. But they met in homes, and there came a dispute. People, you know, people are people. There's no such thing as a perfect church. There's no such thing as a perfect family. Have you had any difficulty, any words with your husband lately, or words of conflict with your wife lately, or words of conflict with your children lately? Of course you have. We're people. We're a church. There's no perfect people, there's only one, and that was Jesus. People make mistakes. But God forgives, and we are to forgive, and we're to keep on loving. I'd ought to get an amen on that one.

Audience: Amen.

Pastor Jack Morris: Amen. Well, in that first church, like the man said one time, and I told this story so many times because it just tickles my funny bone every time I tell it. He left the church that he was a member of and started visiting other churches because he thought maybe he could get something at one of the other churches that he couldn't get at his home church. And so when the pastor met him on the street one day, he said, John, I don't know what his name was. But I'll call him John. John, where have you been? He said, I'm looking for a church where I can grow in the Lord and I can be loved, and I'm looking for a church that has reached perfection. And the pastor said, well, John, don't go in because as soon as you go in, it won't be perfect anymore. Why do we think we are always right? We are always right. It's always the other guy. If he would just straighten up or she would. Well, this was going on in the early church. And so John, I mean, James wrote to them, and he said this. He said, don't this quarreling that is going on among you. This first church, a year or two or three after the resurrection of Jesus, people in some of those house churches began to quarrel with each other. They had fallings out, misunderstandings. Somebody didn't say the right thing. Somebody their timing wasn't right. I mean, it was a puny little thing. But people were upset, and when you get upset, you can't pray. No, there's no real prayer. Oh, you may say some words, but they're not really coming from the heart that's energizing the soul. And he said, James said, don't they come from your desires that battle within you? Listen, James is saying there's something wrong. Prayers aren't being answered. The church is only two or three or four years old. Jesus has only been resurrected from the dead just a short time. And already you're losing your touch, the touch of God on you. And he said, what is going on? He said, it's not out there. It's not the person that's sitting next to you. It's not the person that you think it is. He said, there are desires inside you. There's a war going on. You're so mixed up and confused on the inside. You don't know what's up and what's down, what's in and what's out. Friend, let's look to the Lord. Let's get everything right on the inside, and I'll tell you everybody will start looking beautiful on the outside. Woo. Amen.

Please edit that woo out of the television. You know, James put his finger right on the problem. Right on the problem. Everything that happens that is going on on the outside, it first starts on the inside, for from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Look at a person, and you can see from the outside, their behavior pattern, you know exactly, there's trouble and there's battle and there's warring and there's confusing on the inside. You don't have to use an MRI to know what's going on on the inside. The body language is a dead giveaway. Not only to you, your family, but to everybody who sees you and knows you, friend, you can only act it out and put on a sweetness so long, and sooner or later that phoniness comes out. And the Lord is telling us, that kind of living does not get answers to prayer. It won't happen. It just won't. But I have to examine myself. James says this.

This is in the book of James. This is the biological half-brother of James. I need to listen to what the word of God says. That which is going on on the outside is a result of what's going on on the inside. Look at yourself in the mirror and you'll see what others are seeing.

Amen.

Audience: Amen.

Pastor Jack Morris: All right. The first thing I need to do. The first thing I need to do. What do I need to do?

Audience: Self-examination.

Pastor Jack Morris: Self-examination. I mean, praying is not fun. It's not enjoyable. It's an effort. I'll look for every excuse not to do it. If there's a war going on, there's a battle going on on the inside. I won't enjoy prayer anymore. And my prayers will be short, I'll tell you, and I'll put an amen on it as quickly as I can. Because I'm really not talking to God. I don't know who I'm talking to. All right, the second essential to prayer. What is it?

Audience: Abba relationship.

Pastor Jack Morris: The Abba relationship. You see, if I'm not relating the way I should in love to the people around me, if I don't love my brother whom I have seen, how can I love God whom I have not seen? That's a good question. And that's a hard one to answer. Maybe it isn't quite so hard, because if I don't love you, then I don't love Him. It just isn't that way. It just isn't that way. I remember growing up, I had one sister. She went to Heaven when she was 26 years old. And I remember as a little boy, I'm three and a half years older than my sister Grace. And I was spoiled. I'll tell you, my mother spoiled me. She really did. But I'm not spoiled. Ask Karen, I'm not spoiled anymore. No more. I've got it all together, and I've had it all together for a long time. But my sister and I would quarrel. I was just so jealous of her. I wouldn't say it then. It took me all these years to come to that conclusion. And I remember my mother said to the two of us one time, she says, you two, you're all you have. You have her, and she has you. You're all you have. Why are you doing this? I was just a little boy. I hadn't even reached my teenage years yet. And I can remember that so long ago. Friend, you have the church. You have people who love you. You have people who care for you. Love one another. Isn't that of God? Love. This is all we have. Those people out there don't relate to us, but we relate to each other in love and in mercy. So, first we go through self-examination. Secondly, we examine, do we have that relationship with God? And how I know I have a relationship with God, or at least one of the ways, is I look at the thermometer, and what is the thermometer? The thermometer is you. If I look at you and say, hey, I've got a good relationship with that person, then I more than likely have a good relationship with God. But if I don't have a good relationship with that thermometer when I look at you, I know I don't have a good relationship with God. So I go through that self-examination. I call God Abba Father because I do have that relationship. It's not just words I'm saying, but it's coming from my heart. I have a relationship with God. And thirdly, what is the third one? Say it.

Audience: Submission to God's will.

Pastor Jack Morris: Submission to God's will. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. When I say Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, what I'm doing, I'm enthroning Christ. Now, when I pray, that's what I'm to do. I'm to put a crown on His head. I'm to put Him on the throne of my life and on the throne of that request that I'm praying for. I'm going to enthrone Jesus in this request. I'm going to glorify Him, and He's going to be glorified in the answer. So when I pray and I submit to His will, the answer that comes back will glorify Him, and I need to think, now, what am I praying for? And whatever I'm praying for, if I get what I'm praying for, is that going to enthrone Jesus? I've got to think ahead just a little bit. Is the answer to this prayer going to please Him? Is it going to enthrone Him? Is it going to make Him happy? Is it going to lift Him up? It's not only going to bless me and my family and whoever I'm praying for, but when the answer comes, we're going to be able to praise the Lord. We're going to be able to sing. We're going to be able to rejoice because God has answered prayer. My prayer request, I pray it into God's hands. He will take it now, and He will return Heaven's best. The scripture says in First John 2:17, he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. So I'm to go through self-examination. I'm to examine my heart and make sure I'm right with God. I make sure I'm right with God's people. I make sure that my motives are okay. That this is not a prayer that's just going to bless me, but it's going to bless others and it's going to glorify the Lord. Secondly, I pray with a relationship with Him. I know I'm His child. I can go to His throne, a throne of grace, a throne of favor, a throne of kindness. And I submit to His will, whatever that will is, because I know His will will return Heaven's best to me.

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