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Episode 13 - How to Pray, Part 4: Yield
34 Plays3 months ago
What type of posture or attitude should we have about ourselves when we pray? Yield gives us the reminder to humble ourselves before God - for our own good, so we can experience more of His love. Listen to this episode, to the stories, Bible verses, and challenge to add this to your prayer life.
Email pray@coyfc.org with topic suggestions, or to link up with a prayer team!
Pray & See is a ministry of Central Ohio Youth for Christ.
Central Ohio Youth for Christ: www.coyfc.org
Gracehaven: www.gracehavenohio.org
WellSpring Counseling: www.wellspringcolumbus.org
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Transcript
Introduction to Unscripted Prayer
00:00:10
Speaker
I'm your host, Brian Brooks, and we're looking at part four of how to actually pray. The first few times I prayed, I i wasn't sure what to do, ah but we're giving you guys a simple plan to follow, not scripting out what you say because God wants a personal relationship, but a plan.
00:00:29
Speaker
And the plan began way back in episode 10. Go back and start listening there if you want to get all four parts. And if you're just joining us now, go back to episode one and listen back through the episodes to get a sense of why are we doing this?
Influencing Others Through Prayer
00:00:44
Speaker
Why do we want to encourage you to paint this unique opportunity you have as a follower of Jesus to positively influence people? Why are we sharing points from the Bible?
00:00:56
Speaker
Prayer is awesome. That's why. We want you to both hear that and experience it. And I want to invite you to learn with us. on the job, in a sense.
00:01:08
Speaker
You can join a prayer team for one of our ministries. These have been really exciting to watch and be a part of. But you're listening and you're wondering, okay, this sounds interesting. i'm I'm amenable to the idea of prayer, but I don't know where I stand with God.
Initiating Personal Relationships with God
00:01:22
Speaker
might be helpful for you to know that God does not force you to believe in him. God initiates relationships. In Revelation 3, Jesus Jesus initiates relationship waits for the door, but does it in way personal. could be doing with God, you want relationship with me?
00:01:42
Speaker
jesus initiates relationship and waits for us to open the door but he does it in a way that's personal he could be doing that with you right now you could ask ad do you want a relationship with me How do I get that?
00:01:56
Speaker
What does it mean? To accept Jesus's love and forgiveness because of his life, death on the cross, and resurrection from the dead. That's what it means to have a relationship with him because it's something he offers as a gift, and it's great.
00:02:12
Speaker
I hope you can hear that and talk to God about it. Here in central Ohio, We do want to launch more prayer teams, and we're doing some in-person events as well coming up in the next few months. Stay tuned for that, but you should come. I would love to meet you in person, and I would love for you to pray with us about students in our ministry.
00:02:30
Speaker
Let's pray and see what God does. Pray along with me. God, you know I asked you about a bunch of functional things and life circumstances that feel like they're out of my control today, right before recording this.
00:02:46
Speaker
And I know that you're powerful, but it's one thing to know it. It's another thing in my heart to decide to be at rest and at peace and trust that your power is going to come through, trust that you are present, and to ask you to change me and grow my faith in a process.
00:03:05
Speaker
Thanks for patience with me, that you don't want me or any of us to have everything together before we pray to you. Amen.
Understanding 'Yield' in Prayer
00:03:13
Speaker
So we looked at this acronym of PRAY, P-R-A-Y.
00:03:18
Speaker
P is pause, R is rejoice, A is ask, and today's Y is yield. And yield means to submit, to put yourself under, to follow someone else's lead.
00:03:33
Speaker
When driving here in America, yield signs tell you someone else is coming, you let them go first. In prayer, we can yield to God's presence, to his holiness and goodness, and his power.
00:03:48
Speaker
Yield is both a posture and an action. when I want tell you a story I think illustrates this. City Life on the east side of Columbus had a meeting a few years ago where our staff person, Joel, ended up being the only guy leader there.
00:04:05
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And it was a guy's Bible study. There were about a dozen students showing up. He had to call in reinforcements to get some female leaders to come lead a boys high school discussion group. They came and ended up being really good.
00:04:18
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But imagine if you're Joel. No other guys could come. That would be a bummer. Additional struggle was that his eye was swollen shut during the teaching.
00:04:29
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I've had health things in contexts like that come up. Super distracting, maybe painful even, and nerve-wracking. That was going on. what Where would your headspace be in that situation?
00:04:42
Speaker
How would you have felt? I would have felt overwhelmed. When is this going to be done? i can't believe I'm doing this. This is ridiculous. Is anything good going to happen? Should we have canceled tonight? That's what I would be thinking.
00:04:53
Speaker
Well, two guys, Andrew and David, who had started coming a few months earlier, to the meeting, they both decided that night was the night they were going to turn to personally receive Jesus's forgiveness and start a relationship with God.
00:05:09
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How awesome is that? I think Joel showing up and leading, trying to love students anyways, was yielding to God's presence and to God's power.
00:05:23
Speaker
Why should we yield and what would happen if we don't? You know, i used to think the idea of surrendering to God or yielding to God is uncomfortable and strange. I don't anymore.
00:05:34
Speaker
You know, yielding is not giving up. It's not resigning yourself to some horrible, inevitable outcome. It's a choice to submit to God, to who he is and what he wants to do. It's essential to have an effective spiritual life in relationship with God in prayer.
00:05:50
Speaker
And one author says, surrender, is the path to God's greatest blessing. Yield may be the most transformative part of prayer for you.
00:06:02
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And we yield to God's presence, yield to his holiness and goodness, and yield to his power.
God’s Presence and Protection
00:06:08
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Let's look at some of the Bible now. We yield to his presence.
00:06:13
Speaker
Psalm 84 verse 11. The Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
00:06:26
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God as a sun is a picture of proactive warmth, light, comfort, But then a shield, God's shield, defends us.
00:06:39
Speaker
When we're afraid, when we are experiencing defeat, the shield wards off attack. God is present in both ways with his people.
00:06:51
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We also yield to his holiness and goodness. You may have the Lord's Prayer memorized from Matthew 6. Give us this day our daily bread. That's the ask. And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
00:07:05
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Lead us not in into temptation, but deliver us from evil. What is that? Well, yeah, it's an ask, but also it's yield. It's an example of humility. Acknowledging God is perfect.
00:07:17
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I am not. I'm yielding. I'm humbling myself. I have debts. I have sin. I have shortcomings. Ways that I should have shown love to people today and I didn't.
00:07:30
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And we can pray for other people. But when you do that, you might remember, okay, this person has actually hurt me. I need to give forgiveness to them. We don't deserve forgiveness from God, but he's given it to us.
00:07:43
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And if you've experienced it, you should also forgive other people. Jesus says and john sixteen i said these things to you that you may have peace in saying to his immediate followers, but later he says in a letter to early christians little children you are from god and of have overcome them for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world The them are the spiritual forces which are evil set up against the knowledge of God and his goodness.
00:08:19
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God is our shield. We can yield to his presence. We can yield to his holiness and yield to his power because in Christ we've overcome evil spiritual powers and forces.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yield means if you're defeated or afraid, you tell God, I'm defeated, I'm afraid. But you decide to go his way, believing what is true about him in the midst of being afraid.
00:08:47
Speaker
This is possible. And like James says in James 4, verse 6, he, God, gives more grace. Therefore, it says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
00:09:01
Speaker
Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. This is the result of yielding, is that you experience more of God's grace and you draw near to God and experience closeness with him.
00:09:22
Speaker
We can yield to his power over spiritual forces and yield to his power to do the impossible and change people's lives, including ours.
Confessing and Embracing Forgiveness
00:09:31
Speaker
yield yield to god's presence yield to his holiness and goodness yield to his power my challenge to you today is to do just this maybe you haven't added this component to pray as you pray is god bringing to your mind and your heart things that you need to confess to
00:09:55
Speaker
And I'm not talking about confession in the sense of, I have to confess in order to earn or maintain God's forgiveness. This is just making a healthy level of agreement and confession, admitting your shortcomings to God as a regular part of your prayer time.
00:10:13
Speaker
It's a reminder that Through Jesus, we've been forgiven. But man, I really need that. I need to be forgiven. And i shouldn't take for granted the fact that he has forgiven me and given relationship with him as a gift.
00:10:30
Speaker
We're not earning his love. It's because God loves us through Christ that we can confess. And it's healthy. It's how you grow. It's not a ritual to do mindlessly.
00:10:42
Speaker
So you can and should pray for other people. even if and when you're reminded of how much of a mess you are. God still uses your prayers.
00:10:54
Speaker
So the challenge is to practice yielding. Well, if you want to connect and learn more about starting a prayer group for one of our Youth for Christ ministries, send me an email at pray at C-O-Y-F-C dot org.