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We wrestle not against principalities and powers and rulers of wickedness in high places.

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Why?

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Because of who we are in Christ and because of his word.

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We are called for such a time as this to pray for the nations.

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I don't know about you, but I am watching the news and hearing reports and my heart

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is heavy for what is happening in the Ukraine.

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And I just want to share with you a little bit today some basic foundational principles

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of prayer that I think will remind you of how good God is, how powerful prayer is, and

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how faithful he is to keep his word.

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First and foremost, the word is truth and Jesus is good.

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We're praying for the will of God to be done in the earth and we always can know that by

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going back to the Lord's Prayer, Lord let your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

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So when we're thinking about prayer and how do we pray for what's happening in the earth

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today, first and foremost, we just need to know that God is kingdom minded, not political

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party or leader minded.

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God's kingdom is a heavenly kingdom and he's interested in the word of God being preached

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to all of the nations.

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So I just want to encourage you today that there's some principles in prayer that you

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can't go wrong with.

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And I want to recommend a book called The Mighty Warrior by Elizabeth Alves.

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Now this book was written by an incredible intercessor who was actually, she was best

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friends with Kenneth Copeland's mom and these ladies would gather and intercede for ministries.

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I met her at my first staff meeting when I was teaching school at Victory Christian School

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in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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And she came into the staff meeting and the first thing I remember was Billy Joe introducing

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her as one of the ministry's intercessors, one of his personal intercessors.

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And he gave her the floor to share whatever was on her heart.

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And she began to lay out principles that she had prayed regarding the school.

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And I remember all of it just coming into my spirit.

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And I felt like I was really hearing from the Holy Spirit what did he want to do in

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this place.

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And I will tell you over all the years that I worked for the school, in my spirit man,

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I would always go back to those foundational truths that Elizabeth shared.

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That we would disciple believers.

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That we would take the Word of God to the nations.

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That we would train a generation of young people to share the Word of God.

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That we would win the lost.

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That the priorities within the Christian school would always stay the same.

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And it always hung with me.

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And then she came back a couple other times and ministered.

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And after that initial meeting I was introduced to her book.

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And her principles on how to pray, when to pray, and just prayer strategies in terms

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of breaking the week up in how to target in prayer specific things.

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Elizabeth was meticulous about speaking the Word of God.

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About sticking to the will of God regardless of what we might see or feel.

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Regardless of what our feelings might be telling us at the moment.

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Our feelings have to line up with what the Word of God says.

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God does not operate in fear.

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God does not operate in anxiety.

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You can know things are right and true if they line up with the Word of God.

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Now more than ever intercessors need to be trained how to stand in this hour.

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You know, I

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I can honestly tell you that the most important battles are, first and foremost, one in prayer.

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I learned over trial and error that prayer and worship and singing and intercession,

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they all go hand in hand.

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Why?

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Because, first and foremost, you want to come into God's presence with thanksgiving in

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your heart.

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You want to enter his courts with praise.

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You want to come into his presence with singing.

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You want to remind God of his goodness and his greatness and his mercy.

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You want to thank him for his goodness.

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And I will be honest with you, generally, at that point in time, I shift over into repentance.

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I judge my heart.

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I look at my motives.

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I deal with my own flesh.

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I look at my motives before I come before him because I want to make sure that when

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I come before God, that my heart's right, you know, that ultimately, I mean, a lot of

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I'm going to say human nature is to come to God with, God, I need help or God, I want

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this or God, give me that.

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When in reality, we should think about what is God's plan first.

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And you know, sometimes he's so good to us and he loves us so much.

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He's not going to give us something that we're not able to handle.

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Or he's not going to give us something that we don't have the character yet to carry.

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He's not going to put us in a place or a position that we don't have the grace to sustain.

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It's all by his power and by his spirit that we do all things.

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It's not about us and our flesh and our agenda.

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When we align our heart with the will of God and with the word of God, and we begin to

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speak the word of God in prayer, I'm telling you, heaven shows up.

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We can pray.

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Now, one of the things you've got to remember is God doesn't do anything in the earth without

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prayer.

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He has to be given permission.

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He operates in agreement.

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He looks for saints.

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The Holy Spirit is waiting on you.

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He's waiting on your heart and your mouth and your ability to speak his word, to line

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up so that he can do something in the earth.

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It's time for intercessors who really know how to pray to begin to pray the next generation

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and to pray for the next generation and to train them to be skillful intercessors.

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I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and when I first came to Tulsa and I first came to ORU, I was

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really a baby Christian, and I had a voice teacher at Oral Roberts University, and she

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was very close with a woman by the name of Jeannie Wilkerson.

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And Jeannie Wilkerson's intercessory prayer groups in Tulsa now really are legendary.

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The Holy Spirit showed her how to pray across time zones.

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She prayed that the word of God would be able to be preached in all regions and nations

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of the earth.

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She was another one that knew how to record and journal what she got in prayer and to

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keep track of it.

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And during the 60s and the 70s, while Jeannie Wilkerson was praying, she was interceding

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for the men in the Hanoi Hilton.

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One of them, of course, was John McCain, but another one, one of my personal heroes, is

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a man from Sioux City, Iowa, Bud Day.

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And Colonel Bud Day was with John McCain.

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And it's very near and dear to my heart because Bud and his family were from the same side

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of town that my mom was and raised over on Riverside, which was kind of a rough part

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of Sioux City.

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We used to call it the Little Chicago.

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But God took a man with really a tough character and empowered him to do something that very

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men could not, very many men couldn't have the courage or the strength to do.

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And that was to withstand that horrific Hanoi Hilton.

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Well, anyway, the intercessors, they prayed and they journaled night after night.

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They journaled moments where things were happening to them.

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these men, and they had dates and times and locations.

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Their intercession and their group of prayer warriors became legendary.

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Now I want to encourage you today.

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Is God talking to you about stepping in the gap and being a prayer warrior for him?

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If the Holy Spirit is leading you and guiding you to do it, then I highly recommend that

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you just start the daily discipline of praying the Word of God, praying according to Scripture,

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and begin to journal.

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I've got to be honest with you, I used to journal all the time, and I haven't journaled

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as much lately just because it seems like I'm overwhelmed with this new position that

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I have.

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But I will tell you this, when the Holy Spirit wants me to pray, he knows I will wake.

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It's usually around 3, and I'll go downstairs to my recliner and grab my Bible and open

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up a tablet.

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I have Elizabeth Alves' book on my tablet, and I have an e-reader that I carry with me

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pretty much everywhere now.

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I will begin to just pray, or I will just get really quiet and say, Holy Spirit, what

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are you saying to me right now?

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And how am I supposed to pray?

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Now this is really important if you have family members or loved ones that are in desperate

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need of intercession.

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We can stand in the gap, and we can pray for the Word of God and the will of God and divine

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intervention to manifest in their life.

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It's time to rise up, intercessors.

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It's time to pray.

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Thank you for listening.