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If it's fire, it's got to look like fire, feel like fire, smell like fire or something.

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A burning fire in my chest.

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Wanting to love and caress.

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Welcome to another Raising Home Fire Secret Place training session.

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Those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

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And our prayer and our vision for this time is that you would be further equipped,

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that you would be taken into a deeper experience of the secret place,

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into a deeper personal connection with God,

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and that you would experience what it's like in a deeper way to come under the overshadowing of God.

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Bill Johnson says whatever overshadows you will come out in your shadow.

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And the book of Daniel writes this, he says,

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those that know their God shall do great exploits.

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And so our prayer is that you would grow in your knowledge,

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not just your knowledge about God, but your intimate, personal, experiential knowledge of knowing God.

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And so enjoy this session. God bless you.

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And we're going to talk about another principle today

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that is a foundational principle or a core belief

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that undergirds a powerful and fruitful prayer life

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and a thriving connection with God.

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And that's something I know that we all want to grow in,

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is our connection and our relationship with God.

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And so today I'm going to give you the principle

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and then we're going to break it down a little bit more.

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But here is the principle.

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It's that God hears you.

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God hears you.

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So I'm going to read a couple of scriptures

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and then I'm going to share the principle with you.

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I'm going to share something that God spoke to me about.

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I'm going to share some stories and some practical things.

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And then we're going to pray.

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So here's some scriptures.

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First scripture is 1 John 5.14.

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It says this,

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This is the confidence we have in approaching God,

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that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

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John 9.31 says this,

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We know that God does not listen to sinners.

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He listens to the godly person who does His will.

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Now if you're listening to this and you're a Christian,

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you're a follower of Jesus, you are a godly person.

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1 Peter 3.12 says this,

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For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,

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and His ears are attentive to their prayer.

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But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

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Now if you're a Christian here, if you're a follower of Jesus,

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you have received the righteousness of Christ,

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and you are what the Bible calls righteous,

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and God is attentive to your prayers.

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Here's another one.

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1 John 5.15,

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And if we know that He hears us,

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whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of Him.

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So He hears us, and He acts on what He hears.

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And John 16.24, this is the last one, and it says,

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Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.

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Ask, and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

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And the principle or the core belief that I want to talk about today is this,

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It's impossible for you to pray and not be heard,

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and it's impossible for you to pray and nothing happen.

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So one of my daughters came to me, and she asked me this question.

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She said, Dad, how do you hear God's voice?

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She'd just been watching me prophesy over some people,

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and watching me pray for people,

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and she was just watching me and the way that I was hearing God,

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and she was inspired.

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She just said, Dad, how do I hear God like you hear God?

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And so I started to share with her some things,

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and she already does hear God so well, to be honest,

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but I was trying to share with her some of the things that I've learned over the years,

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and some of the ways that I hear the Lord's voice,

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and some of the way I hear God.

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And I don't know, it just didn't seem to be going as well as I was expecting it to go,

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and so I was asking the Lord afterwards, and I said,

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God, how do I teach my kids?

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And an even bigger question is, how do I teach people how to hear your voice, God?

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Because hearing your voice is so crucial and so critical to building a relationship with you,

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and getting to know you deeper.

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And my greatest desire for my children is that they would be children,

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that they would be daughters, that they would be women that know God well.

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And so how do I teach them to hear your voice?

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And he said something to me that, to be honest, I was not expecting to hear.

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He said something to me that was completely out of the blue for me.

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It was not something that I would have thought of at all.

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It may be something that you would have thought of,

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but it definitely was not something that I would have thought of.

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He said this to me.

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Lord you teach them to hear me, first of all teach them that I hear them and once

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they know that I hear them, they will be able to hear me. And that statement just

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blew me away. That statement is a statement that I actually haven't fully

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unpacked yet, but I want to begin to unpack with you today and the scriptures

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that I read just now are scriptures that share with us and show us and prove to

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us that God in fact is a God who is attentive to us. God is a God whose

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attention we have and God is a God who hears us. He doesn't just hear us, he's

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also for us, he loves us and he's a God that acts on our behalf. And he's a God

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that when we pray to him it's impossible for us to pray and not be

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heard, it's impossible for us to pray and nothing happens. And something powerful

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happens in our lives when we're living in the reality of the truth and in

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agreement with the truth that we have God's attention. And with this core

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belief and with this principle it's important for us to not just know about

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this, but to truly know this. To not just know this in our head, but to know this

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by experience. And this is something I believe that you grow in over time, this

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is something I believe that deepens in your life over time, that matures in your

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life over time, like a muscle, it's something that grows bigger and grows

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stronger with use. And this truth has deeply impacted my life, it's caused my

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relationship with God to grow so much deeper and it has absolutely

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blessed me from the inside out. And there are some practical things that I've

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done in my life that have really helped this truth go deeper in me and this

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revelation become more of an experience to me, have really caused this principle

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and this core belief to transform me from the inside out. And so here are some

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of those things, those practical things that I've done. One of them is

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journaling. I've gotten into the habit and the practice of writing down

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my prayers so that I can look back on what I've written down and see where my

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prayers have been answered and where God has heard my prayers and of course

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God hears all my prayers. But it's one thing to know that in your head and it's

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another thing to experience that through your life. And so often I will

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look back through my prayer journal and I will look back at prayers that I

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forgot I prayed. But one of the amazing things to me about prayer is

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that God remembers the prayers that I forget. And my prayers are more precious

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to God than my prayers are to me. And what I have to say to God is more

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precious to God than it is precious to me. And so one of the encouraging and one

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of the impacting things for me has been to look back in my prayer journal to see

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these little prayers that I've prayed that maybe even at the time feel

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completely insignificant to me but have been significant enough to God that

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He has answered those prayers even when I've forgotten that I've prayed them.

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And I'm going to share one of those stories in a second but let me

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just share a couple of other things. Another one of the things that I attempt

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to do is I try and pray very specific. I pray general prayers like

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everybody but I try and keep my prayers also specific and I hone them in and I

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get specific enough to the point where I will know when they've been answered.

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Another thing I do is I look for answered prayers and I build memory

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stones. So when I look back through my journal when I become aware that a

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prayer has been answered and a prayer has been fulfilled then I actually take

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note of that. I keep a list of that. I talk about that and I build a memory

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stone or I put them in a place where I can come back to that and refer back to

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that. And that's important because there are seasons in our lives and there are

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seasons in my life where sometimes it feels like God are you listening to me?

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God are you hearing me? God I'm praying but I'm not sure if you're listening. And

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one of the encouraging things for me is to be able to look back at some of those

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memory stones of answered prayer and to realign my heart with the truth

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that well God you are a God that hears me. You are a God whose attention I have

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and it's impossible for me to pray and not be heard and it's impossible for me

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to pray and nothing happened. One of the moments in my life where I first

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realized some of the power of this was the moment where my wife and I

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we bought our first home and the story goes like this. We went to the bank and we were

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newly married and we wanted to buy a home in Auckland New Zealand and our

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income wasn't so great and we had no deposit and basically all the criteria

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the bank look at in order to borrow money from the bank to buy property we

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we met none of the criteria. So we went into the bank we spoke to the bank

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And basically, long story short, she laughed in our faces.

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It was the opposite of encouraging.

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We, in fact, especially me, I was deeply discouraged.

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And so we got back home, and I remember talking to my wife Renee,

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and we just said, well, let's just dream into this, and let's pray.

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And we had a big whiteboard in our office, and we got into our office,

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and we just started to pray, and we started to praise God.

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And then we just started to write down our audacious dream,

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which was audacious at the time.

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And we just wrote down, we believe in you, Lord, for this.

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And I wrote down in the corner of the whiteboard,

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we believe in you for a three-bedroom house on the North Shore of Auckland.

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And I wrote down these details.

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And we were just praying through it, $320,000.

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And I wrote down that we will move in before the, and then we'll move in,

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sorry, we'll move in by the 5th of May.

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And so, and that was about six months from the time that,

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from that time, the 5th of May was.

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And so, anyway, I wrote that in the corner of the whiteboard.

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It was our dream board.

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It was covered in all sorts of dreams that we had written on that thing.

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And that little corner of the whiteboard had just got lost

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amongst everything else that was written on there.

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And to be honest, I had totally,

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I had totally forgotten that we had written that on there.

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Until about, I don't know, some months after that,

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we decided, and really actually felt from the Lord to just go back to the bank.

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We actually called a mortgage broker, sorry.

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And long story short, went to the bank, and the mortgage broker went to the bank.

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And they came back to us and said, hey, listen, we actually can do something now.

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And a lot, you know, it's a way longer story than what I'm sharing.

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But basically, we will lend you up to $320,000,

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which of course was the figure that I put on the whiteboard.

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And I got that figure because Ephesians 3.20.

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God will bless, God is a God that blesses us exceedingly,

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abundantly beyond anything we could ask or imagine.

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And so I just put that up there.

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And they came back with that figure.

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Of course, I had forgotten about writing it on the whiteboard.

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And we ended up finding a house.

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And we're moving into the house.

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And my friend, Andy, is helping me move the whiteboard into the house.

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And he looks at the corner of the whiteboard and he says this.

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He says, oh, did you just write this on here today?

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And I was thinking to myself, write what on where today?

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Because I'd totally forgotten.

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And he says, it says, move into first home 5th of May.

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And today is the 5th of May.

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And in that moment, I realized,

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because I was moving into this house thinking,

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man, I've done such a good job.

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Me and Renee have done such a good job at getting ourselves a house.

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This is awesome.

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And I was patting myself on the back.

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And in that moment, looking at that little prayer

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that we'd prayed six months previously,

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in a place of feeling completely hopeless about ever being able

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to attain this dream or step into the reality of this thing that

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was a desire of our hearts.

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I realized I did not get myself this house.

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God, you have got me this house.

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And of course, you have used other people who have blessed us.

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And different people have been involved in this.

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But ultimately, God, you have got us a house.

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You have moved us in here.

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And you have listened.

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You have heard my prayer.

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You have acted on my prayer.

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God, truly, it is impossible for me to pray and not be heard.

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It is impossible for me to pray.

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And nothing happened, God.

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You heard my prayer six months ago.

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And I'm moving in literally on the date

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that I wrote down on the whiteboard

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that I'd forgotten that I'd written down.

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But you never forgot, God.

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And in that moment, it really marked me.

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And it showed me just how much God

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is a God that cares about the things that I care about,

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even more than I care about them.

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And what that experience did in my heart

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is my trust in the Lord grew in that moment.

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My experience of His faithfulness

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grew in that moment.

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My knowledge, not about God, but my knowledge

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of God grew in that moment.

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My relationship with God grew in that moment.

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And that moment caused me to wonder.

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It caused me to ask the question,

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I wonder how many prayers I've prayed that God has answered

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that I'm unaware of.

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And I wonder if I was aware of the moments

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that God had answered my prayer, how much deeper

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my connection with Him would be at this moment.

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Because realizing our prayers are answered

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does grow our connection with the Lord

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so deeply and so strongly.

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And so my prayer for you today is

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that this principle would become a living revelation

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within you, transforming you from the inside out.

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I pray that you would know that your Father loves you

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and that your Father is itching to act on your behalf.

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I pray that this revelation will go so deep in you.

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That it is impossible for you to pray and not be heard, and it is impossible for you to pray and nothing happen.

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And I pray that that revelation deepens your experience in prayer with God.

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What about this baptism of fire though?

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And what does that mean?

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Because like, if it's fire, it's got to look like fire, feel like fire, smell like fire.

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Well, thank you so much for tuning in to that session.

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Guys, we are now in our time of activation.

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I've got a short activation for you today.

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Our activation times are the times that we take the information,

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we dwell in the information until it becomes revelation,

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and then we take the revelation and we dwell in that revelation for long enough

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until it becomes within us personal transformation, until the revelation transforms us,

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because we know that transformed people transform the world.

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And I just have a short activation for you today, like I mentioned,

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and then a little bit of homework.

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So here's the activation.

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You're again going to need something to write with, a pen and paper or a device or something of the sort.

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Once I've asked this question, I'm going to give you maybe five minutes.

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So I want you to press the pause button and take some time with the Lord,

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maybe put some music on, maybe just find a quiet place,

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and just take some time with God to process what I'm about to ask you.

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And here it is.

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I want you to take about five minutes,

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and I want you to write down as many specific prayers as you can remember specifically praying.

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Not general prayers, specific prayers.

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I just want you to make a list, as many as you can.

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They can be silly prayers, not that there really is any silly prayers,

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but just a list of prayers that you remember praying that are specific prayers that you specifically prayed.

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Okay, so you can press pause and do that now.

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Okay, awesome. Thanks for making that list.

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Right now, what I want you to do is I want you to go through that list,

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and I want you to look through it, and I want you to highlight all the things that you've prayed

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that you know have been absolutely answered already.

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I want you to make a list.

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Sorry, I want you to highlight the ones in the list,

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and I want you to take a moment just to be thankful to God for His faithfulness in answering your prayers.

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Take a moment just to be thankful to God for His faithfulness in answering your prayers.

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You can just take a couple of minutes to do that.

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Okay, the next thing is maybe there's some prayers in there that you've prayed,

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and God hasn't completely answered them yet,

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but you can see that He's begun to answer them.

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So I just want you to take a note of those prayers,

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and I just want you to be thankful to God and just give God thanks for beginning to answer your prayers.

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Just take a couple of minutes to do that now.

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Okay, and the last thing is looking through that list again.

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I want you to look through if there are any things on that list,

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and there probably are, where you can see it doesn't look like God has answered that prayer yet.

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And I want you just to take some time to ask God,

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God, how are you working on that prayer?

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Have you begun to answer that prayer?

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Can you just give me some revelation?

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What are you doing in regards to this prayer that I've prayed?

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Because we know that God hears us, and we know that it's impossible to pray and nothing happens.

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So God is doing something, and it's good for us to ask the question,

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God, what are you doing?

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And then within that too, ask Him if there is anything that He would like you to do

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to activate an answer or to activate progress in the answering of that prayer.

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Just ask Him if there are any specific practical things that you should be doing

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in response to the prayer that you prayed.

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And then this week, make a plan to do those things.

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So just take a few minutes now to answer those questions and to process that.

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Awesome.

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Well, guys, that's the end of our activation.

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Thank you so much for doing that with me.

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I hope that really helped you.

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I'm going to give you one last piece of homework for this week, and that is this.

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I want to encourage you to begin a journal this week,

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whether it's a file on your iPhone or you go and buy an actual paperback journal,

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a blank book to write in.

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And I want you just to start documenting some of your prayers down

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in a way that you can keep record of what you prayed,

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and then you can therefore know when God has answered your prayers.

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Faith is something that happens within a person when they are exposed to faithfulness.

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When you're exposed to the faithfulness of someone else,

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towards you, what is produced within you, what grows within you is something that we

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call faith.

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And so one of the primary ways that we can grow in our faith in God is by learning to

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become and being intentionally exposed to the faithfulness of God.

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One of the ways we can do that is by keeping record and by keeping track of our prayer

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life and realizing that God hears us and He always acts on what He hears.

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So God bless you, have an amazing week.