iShare 2017: His Power

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Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Ignite Your Prayer Life!

Jerry Page

Janet Page

1. Prayer and Thriving Relationships

2. Powerful Intercessory Prayer!

3. Practical Helps for Igniting Your Prayer Experience

You are the whole reason we're here together.

We are so, so grateful for a God like You.

And Lord, I feel extremely inadequate right now in sharing and and There's so much that could be shared, but so little time and Lord You know what each 1 needs to really pray for the right words of what you want shared father And we just pray even if it's not what I share, that Your Holy Spirit will speak to every heart.

Give them just what You know they need right now, that they'll go home knowing that You spoke to them, Lord.

And we thank You, Father, for blessing each 1 in their lives.

Talking before about dating, relationship, how to find the right person.

I know With my sons it was easy Which I never realized this till I had sons that that it was a problem.

I know it's a problem for girls But they can easily get led into the wrong relationship by a very outgoing girl if they tend to be shy.

And to encourage you to read Proverbs, to read it over and over and over again.

Proverbs really Helps you to not just know the the right kind of person to marry But just about all of life how to live life and how to deal with your finances and and on and on In your handouts, you know a Lot of people ask and say, you know share how you do your devotional times.

I don't know if that's an Interest if you struggle with your devotional time, but there was a pastor In our conference a few years ago, And he was very active for God.

He was seeing many people 1 to Jesus but yet he was a different man when he was at home than he was at the church and He was depressed and grouchy irritable and 1 of his family members said to him 1 day You know, you're so happy at church and smiling at home.

You're depressed and grouchy What's up with that?

It does you know it doesn't fit together and he?

Took it to heart and Started praying about it.

It was at a time when his church was doing 10 days of prayer I don't know if any of you do the 10 days of prayers with us that we Have from at the GC we produce materials every year that are really beautiful We have a couple that write them for us and that really pray over them and they're life-changing And we did a whole in all of these series are on our website on revival and Reformation org our handout this is a condensed version of the bigger handout that's on there and But there's a lot of resources on That website that you might want to look at that could be a blessing to you.

There's ebooks that you can download also and so he Told the 10-day the people the church members that came out for the 10 days, he said, would you pray for me?

And they said, yeah, we will pray for you.

And so they really started praying for him and he started praying and he decided instead of using his devotional time to prepare his sermon, he usually would prepare his sermon, he decided he was going to use it instead just to spend time with God.

He started saying, God, help me to love you.

And I don't know how it is for you, but I went through years ago a hard time in my life, and then God started pushing on me to spend time with him and this was What 30 years ago this happened it, but it was Amazing how God does not give up on us.

I don't care where you go or what you do in your life, but God will keep pursuing you.

And whatever you get involved in, it can be bad because it leaves scars and things you will regret the rest of your life.

He will continue to pursue you I remember I I don't know if you were there this morning, but I was sharing about Bible promises and other things Do you know this this woman came up to me in a?

Evangelistic meeting down here in the Southern Cal somewhere and it was a evangelistic training seminar.

She said to me, she said, I went to Loma Linda and I was wanting to live the worldly life, but my girls dean kept trying to reach out to me.

And before I graduated, when I was graduating, she gave me a Bible as a gift.

And in that Bible, she had highlighted all of these promises from God.

And of course, I was not interested in the Bible, but she says I kept it.

She had my name engraved on it She'd written a special note to me in it and she said I kept it because I loved this Dean You know, she loved me and and it meant something to me, but I didn't want to read it She went her worldly way and life got really, really bad.

And she was absolutely desperate and did not know what to do.

And at that time is when she saw the Bible and pulled it out.

She still did not have a relationship with God.

She hadn't even asked God to have a relationship.

She didn't know if she wanted him, but she started in her desperation to take that Bible and to claim the promises in it because she was in financial trouble and marriage, relationship troubles, all kinds.

And she said to me, she said, you know, I didn't know God, I wasn't living for him, but I Claim pray these promises and God kept blessing and working things out for me We serve an amazing God And Do you know out of that she did become converted and became on fire for God became kind of a lay evangelist?

The gods weren't powerful and what he wants to do for us So this guy he starts spending time with God every day and out of that He is life change, but what he learned was it's not just about spending time with Jesus Every day and that's another thing, you know, maybe you're not a morning person Maybe you try to get up You ask God to wake you up, but you still don't get up.

Satan overcomes you with sleep, tries to get you to sleep, and then you oversleep, you don't have that time, you're rushing off to go to school or to work, and then you're kicking yourself all day long because you didn't do it.

I would like to encourage you just find some time and do it.

Even if it's only 2 minutes, 3 minutes, spend whatever you can do with Jesus.

Just spend that time, if it's only reading 1 Bible verse and just praying a little bit and just saying God help me to know you help me Lord just spend a little bit if you keep doing that it will grow it'll grow and grow as you do it and so What Dale found though was it isn't just about spending that time, but it's about abiding in Jesus all day long.

And God started teaching him how to do that, to abide in Jesus all day.

Well, his life changed so much that he goes to Jerry.

Jerry at that time was the conference president and he said he asked Jerry could I share at camp meeting my testimony of what God's done and so Jerry said sure and so he comes to camp meeting and shares and ends up doing a seminar on it And so in your handout on page 11 are just some steps that God led him to.

And you know, these were things God had already led me to do, but I had never, you know, written them down.

And I just found it good, so we've copied it and put it in this booklet.

But it says, dedicate the first hour to making yourself emotionally available to Jesus.

Now, you may say, I don't have a whole hour.

Well, whatever time you got, Just dedicate that time as much as you can to making yourself emotionally available to G.

It's just somehow whether whether you go for a walk whether you're you sit on your bed or you're lying on the floor whatever Just saying God.

Will you speak to me through your word and you see Dale writes here number 2?

He used the gospel of John see this is for somebody who's just beginning the experience with Jesus You know how to do this but use the gospel of John or desire of ages or the Psalms or 1 of Ellen White's devotional books or Andrew Murray's book abide in Christ.

I don't know if you've ever read that, but it's very, very helpful.

It's something that you can read and reread and reread.

And, but in doing this, when I first started trying to spend this time with God, for me, it was just, you know, I'm not getting much out of this.

And I'd think now is this God or is this not God?

You pick up your Bible and you start getting these thoughts.

I don't have much time And I need lots of time.

There's so much to read and to study to really understand.

And I'm so sinful, I need to read the whole book for it to help me.

And there's not enough time this morning.

And besides that, it's boring reading the book.

I want you to know many people get those thoughts and they're coming from Satan.

It's not you that's thinking these things.

You start getting those thoughts, press all the more to read God's Word.

God can do more with 1 verse than if you read chapters and chapters.

If you will meditate and let God come in and change your life with that 1 verse.

And the third 1 is have no agenda such as reading through the Bible, study a presentation, completing a book, but only to seek and experience His love.

You know, I found God to lead me in different ways with this.

Part 1 of 3

2. Powerful Intercessory Prayer!