GYC SE 2009: More

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GYC Southeast

Experiencing God

Janet Page

Session 1: New Life in Prayer and Praise

Father, I just thank you for how you lead in our lives.

And I thank you that you promised to be here when we asked you to be.

We thank you for filling this room with your presence.

Lord, just pray for you to put your words in my mouth.

Help me to share about you in the way you want.

I thank you, Father, in Jesus' name, Amen.

The handout, we'll look at it in a little bit, but not right away here.

What is it that we're commanded the most in scripture to do?

If you go through and count it, do you know what we're commanded the most to do?

If you go through and count it, what it found is praise.

And you know the scriptures like Psalms 103 and Psalms 104 that talk about to glory in his name.

You know what it's like to glory in God's name?

But 1 time a friend of mine, my husband and I had talked somewhere and we shared a little bit about praising God.

And afterwards this friend came up and she said, you know, what is the big deal?

God knows I love him and I know that he loves me.

Why waste all this time with praise and Thanksgiving?

You know, in the last few years we've heard more about it than we used to.

And I didn't really have an answer for it.

She said, why not just get down to that laundry list, those wants, those needs, and be done with it?

And so I didn't really have an answer for her right then, but as I thought and prayed about it for the next several weeks, what came back to my mind was the first year that Jerry and I were married.

We'd been married, I think, probably 7 or 8 months.

And 1 day I was busy, it was a Sunday, trying to get the laundry done before the new week began.

And as I'm doing that laundry, Jerry comes up to me.

And he says, Janet, can't you tell me once in a while that you love me?

I'm busy putting this laundry away, and he's following me.

He says, but I need to hear, once in a while, that you love me.

I need to hear nice things, how you feel about me.

And I thought, you know, this guy's good looking, start telling him how great he is and get conceited, who knows what could happen.

And I just kept on putting the laundry away.

Well, he wouldn't leave me alone with this for some time after that.

Then he says, I need to hear how you feel.

And so I read some of these books on marriage and found out that it really can be important to your mate that you let him know you love him.

You may think you may want to leave right now.

That I didn't realize that, but that it was really important.

But do you know that what happened as I told Jerry how much I loved him and would tell him nice things about him, what happened was as much as I loved Jerry, my love for him just grew, it just increased.

And it made me realize, wow, I really got a great guy here, even better than I realized.

And it also made me realize how much he loved me.

And it made me want to do nice things for him.

And as I thought back to that first year I was married, I thought, that is why I need to take time, spend time adoring my God, worshiping my God, praising my God.

It's not that he's got some big ego that needs to be stroked, but it's for my benefit.

As I do that I realize how much God loves me and that He is doing all He can in this world, you know, to bless my life.

And it makes me want to do good things for God.

I, a lot of times we get into thanksgiving, But there's so much to praise God for about His character as you study Scripture, just His redemption, His sustaining powers, just for the wonderful God that He is.

Do you know how to have God's presence with you throughout the day?

Psalms 22.3 says, Thou art holy, O thou that inhabits the praises of Israel.

If we want God's presence with us throughout the day, all day long, continually be praising Him, giving Him thanksgiving.

And I don't know how it is for you, but I don't know if you ever asked God to wake you up in the morning.

I heard my son when he was a teenager tell somebody, don't do it because he'll do it and it'll be early.

But sometimes when God wakes me up, I don't want to get up.

And the last thing I want to do is praise God this morning or give Him thanksgiving.

All I want to do is tell Him about all my problems.

And that's what I love about the Psalms, because God doesn't expect us to be like a Pollyanna that just comes to Him and says, oh, everything's just great and wonderful.

No, He wants us to come and pour our hearts out to Him.

In Psalm 62, 8, it says, trust in Him at all times, oh people.

Pour out your hearts before Him, for God is your refuge.

I don't know how it is for you, but if I don't, if I don't open up to God what's on my heart, there's a wall of separation that comes up between God and I.

All I know is if I don't do it, and it's happened to me over and over, if I don't do it, there's a wall that'll come up between God and I.

Go telling God, you know, I don't like Sally.

He'll just tell me to go love her, right.

Or you know, I don't want to tell God I'm angry at him for what's happened because he's God.

But no, God's word is that we are to pour our hearts out to him.

And the more we pour our hearts out to him, the more it unleashes his power in our lives to work.

And you read the Psalms, every emotion is there From joy to hatred to jealousy to grief, anger, depression, everything's there.

And the more I take the Psalms and meditate on the Psalms, even pray them back.

You know, sometimes when I wake up and I don't feel like praising God this morning, I don't have the words.

I'm in so much grief over what has happened.

If I take the Psalms and start using the words of the writer and pray those back to God using the words in the Psalm, what a difference it makes.

It's amazing how God's peace and joy comes over me as I do that.

And I know that may sound boring to do that, but it's life changing.

But there are many Psalms that we don't hear preachers talking about, like Psalm 44, 23, 24 says, Arouse yourself, why do you sleep, O God?

Session 2: Forever Ruined For The Ordinary

Lord, I really need you right now and I just pray for your Holy Spirit to take my words and make them meaningful to this group.

Just pray, Father, we give you permission to speak to each 1 what they need in their lives right now.

It may not be anything I say, but God, just speak to their hearts.

Thank you for what you'll do in Jesus' name, amen.

And for those of you who are poor at math, that was 17 years ago.

But my friends, I call them my ex-friends, did 1 of these black balloons, black crepe paper parties.

And of course I always say, what do I do to deserve this?

I moved across the country and when I turned 50, new friends did it to me all over again.

But the next morning, I could hear car horns honking as they went down our road.

And I go out and look, and there's a big sign in the yard, but I can't see it, because I'm on the back side of it.

So I go out and look at it and it says, honk your horn Janet, Paige's youth has died.

Well, I was gonna take it down, but my son, he's 24 now, he was probably about 4 then, he couldn't have been 4, what was he?

Anyway, I can't add, no, my math is terrible.

I went through nursing school using a calculator.

They told him, don't let your mom take that sign down, you keep that sign up.

So he was determined, put his body against it, no mom, you're not taking the sign down.

Fortunately, it started raining, it was misting, and the wind was blowing a little bit, and the sign came down.

He brings the sign in the house, and he says, mommy, will you help me get the sign back up?

And I go, uh-uh, no way am I gonna help you.

He goes out the garage, finds a hammer, and starts trying to tack the sign up, but he can't get it up.

And he stood out there for a long time holding that sign till finally all the cars that they're all headed to work had gone and there was no more.

But he held that sign, so He's faithful to his job.

You probably aren't going to identify with this statement.

But for those of us who are older, when you're young, you think, life, is it ever going to happen?

But all of a sudden, it takes up fast pace.

And I got into my 30s, and I suddenly, wow, life's really picking up speed here.

And it's almost like you're on the steam engine.

It's going faster and faster and faster and faster.

And you're thinking, whoa, when's it gonna stop?

And I started thinking about, you know, I got all these good things I need to be doing, all this stuff coming at me.

And I started thinking about, you know, I've got all these good things I need to be doing, all this stuff coming at me.

And I started thinking about, you know, what really matters?

It's been so fast to my 30s, pretty soon I'm going to be 40 and then I'll be 60 and then 80.

And as I thought about it, you know what came to my mind?

That verse in John 17, 3 that says, this is eternal life that you may know Him, the only true God, Jesus Christ whom you've sent.

The only thing that really matters is if I know Jesus Christ.

And sometimes that's hard to realize when you've got all the world coming about you and you're looking at that good looking guy you want to marry or whoever, that the only thing that really matters is if you know Jesus Christ.

The only thing that's going to make a difference in that marriage is if you know Jesus Christ.

And here I was in my 30s, and yet, when I was a senior in academy, I had a Bible teacher tell us how important it was that we spend time with God every day.

When I was a teenager, back when we had square stone wheels on our cars, nobody talked about spending time with God.

It was just, be good, be good, go to church, you know, just do these things and maybe you might get saved.

And so that's the only thing I really knew.

But this Bible teacher is telling me, you need to spend time with God.

He says, well if you don't spend time with God, you're not going to love Him.

And if you don't know him, you're not going to want him.

You will end up walking away from him, even though you may not think you will.

I've watched people over and over again end up falling into a bad situation, end up leaving God.

And what's happened is they thought they were safe without that time with God for a little while and they end up falling away.

But here I am in my 30s realizing, you know, I've been trying, trying.

I asked that Bible teacher, well just how do I do this?

Because if I'm gonna do it, you know, I wanna do it right.

And he said, well there's no set amount of time, but maybe try 30 minutes.

And I said, well how do I spend that time?

And he said, well just, you know, pray some, read your Bible.

So I got out my alarm clock, because I wanted to be sure I did it in 30 minutes, sat it on my bed, I thought I had to kneel, and I'm down there kneeling, praying, praying, praying, and I look at, I finally run out of things to pray about.

I look at the clock to see how much time I have left.

I think, what am I going to do with the rest of this time?

I didn't know how to spend that time with Him.

He wants so much to spend time with each 1 of us that if we will keep pursuing Him and spending that time with Him, He will show each 1 of us how to spend it with Him.

He is so desperate to spend that time with you.

It was actually here at Southern Missionary College then taking nursing.

And you get really busy with your nursing labs and everything going on, plus you try to have a social life.

And I would forget about spending time with God until exam week.

And then it was, oh God, if you'll get me through exams, you'll help me to, you know, make good grades, Lord.

I promise I'm going to start reading your word and getting to know you.

I'm gonna start spending time with you every day.

And I would try to do that, spend time with him for a while, but pretty soon I'd get busy and I'd fall out of it again.

Session 3: Principles of Intercessory Prayer

Lord, I just thank you for this precious group of people.

And Father, you know what's going on in their lives and what they're searching for.

And I just pray, Father, for your Holy Spirit to speak to them.

Just bless them and I just pray, Father, that you might be able to use me and speak through me right now.

And Lord, you know there's so much to be shared, and help me to just share what you want.

Thank you, Thank you, Father, for being such a God of love that's so personal and intimate in our lives.

You know, I've been talking about impressions, God speaking to you.

1 thing I need to make clear in that, that we do have to be careful with that.

And He's, I'm convinced, people say, oh I don't hear God speaking to me.

I'm convinced that God is, we're not listening.

Because a lot of times God's been speaking to me and I find out later I should have been listening.

Look, I coordinate women's retreats and he was yelling at me at 1 of those, just so loud in my mind and I just was being stubborn and resisting it and I should have done what he was telling me to do because it was a, I had a problem afterwards because I didn't do what he said.

When I do I'm going to put it on that website I mentioned, but in Testimonies, Volume 1, page 413, It says, impressions and feelings are no sure evidence that a person is led by God.

Satan will, if he is unsuspected, give feelings and impressions.

I know another 1, it says that he'll come in and disguise himself as God to us.

If you ever get a thought or impression that you think is from God and it goes against God's word, you know it's not from God, because God will never go against His word.

And there needs to be in all of our lives somebody that's what I'd call a spiritual mentor.

Or maybe you might have more than 1 that you can go to for counsel.

If you feel like God's impressing you to do this or that, You need, in Proverbs it says it's good to have many counselors, but for me, you know, it's my husband.

I go to him and run ideas by him that I feel like God's saying to me to do this or that and then we'll pray together about it.

But be sure you have a spiritual mentor that will pray with you.

If all they do is give you their thoughts, they are not a good counselor for you.

You need 1 that will really pray with you.

God does speak to us, but we have to be careful that Satan isn't.

In this last hour, I'm going to talk about, I don't know, for those of you who weren't here, last time I talked about how God led me to do a women's retreat.

And he led for somebody to, a group of women for us to pray each week ahead of that retreat.

At that retreat, we saw so many miracles happen.

And we knew it was because of all the prayer going up.

And we didn't know all the miracles until weeks or so afterwards.

But 1 of them that happened was a woman was healed there.

And 2 years later, her doctors were saying that she was physically healed at that retreat.

He says, I don't have a clue what went on there, but you were healed.

But the beautiful part was we saw marriages that were healed because of that retreat.

We saw relationship with children, you know, young adults and their parents healed.

I had pastors calling me saying, what went on there?

I had men calling up and saying, will you come and do a women's retreat in our local church?

Literally, the guy said, we will cook the food, we'll do everything, just come and have another 1.

And we knew it was because of the prayer.

And as I shared, Jerry's wanting to know, you know, What did you do there?

Because he's the 1 who wanted this retreat.

And as I'm sharing with him what happened, he starts saying, that's what we got to do.

And I said, what do you mean that's what we got to do?

He says, we've got to start getting together with other families and praying together for God to work in our communities, in our academy.

So I got some families that I knew that would want to do it.

We started getting together to pray together once a week.

And 1 of the things I got them to commit to is that We would all be sure we were having quality time with God every day.

Because you can't come and pray in a prayer group if you're not prayed up.

And so we all committed to that and we started meeting and praying together once a week.

Now I don't know how it is for you, but when I get together with a group of people and she prays a long prayer, and then he turns around and prays a long prayer, and he's prayed a long prayer, they get to me, I'm asleep.

It's hard to stay with those long prayers.

And maybe you already do that, but just pray in a few sentences at a time.

Pray 1 subject at a time and go back and forth.

You don't have to open and close the prayer every time.

You know, it's a continual conversation with God.

And in fact, Jerry, he would try to get me to pray with him, and usually it was at night, we're laying in bed, ready to go to sleep, and he'd pray this long prayer, And then I start praying this long prayer and priests not hear him snoring.

You know, but when we switched it and started doing the conversational prayer, just praying a few, 1 subject at a time, a few sentences, what a difference it made.

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Experiencing God

Session 1: New Life in Prayer and Praise

Transcript

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Parent Conference

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Parts

Session 1: New Life in Prayer and Praise

52m

Session 2: Forever Ruined For The Ordinary

51m

Session 3: Principles of Intercessory Prayer

1h

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