Welcome to God Today. Hi, I am Daniel Lim, the CEO of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, where prayer never stops. In the book of James, the scripture says that the effective prayer of a righteous man prevails much. When we think about prevailing in prayer, most of the time we are thinking about prevailing in the effect of prayer externally; that is the impact of our answered prayer. That is very important, however, there is another dimension of prevailing prayer that is the transformation that happens to the person who prays. This morning I want to share with you a very simple method to help you jump start when you wake up in the morning. Every morning that you are not sure what to pray when you don’t have a specific burden or target of prayer in mind.
This model of prayer is taken from Isaiah 6:1-9, where we saw that prophet Isaiah encountering the Lord in the year of King Uzziah when King Uzziah passed away. He encountered the Lord and He saw the throne room. Not only did he see the throne room, but he saw the condition of his own life and he finally encountered the commission of God. In these 9 verses, we saw that three questions were fundamentally answered. First question: Who is God? Who are you, Lord? Second question: Who am I? And the third question: What shall I do for you, Lord? This is precisely the same thing that happened to Paul on the road to Damascus. Throughout the scripture, there are many names of God. That has been embedded in scripture: Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Nissi.
I want to give you an example from John 10:9. Jesus says, “I am the door.” All you need to do in the morning is to remember one of the names of God. Jesus said, “I am the door.” When you close your eyes and you remember one of the names of Jesus, you say, “Jesus. I am the door.” The next thing you will remember is that Jesus said, “This is the door that my sheep pass through.” As Jesus is the door, we are the sheep. Then we can ask the question, “What shall we do?” His sheep hear His voice, so you can ask the Lord to help you hear the voice of God that morning. Pray for others around you, that they may hear the voice of God. What is the advantage of doing this simple three-step prayer form?
We plumb line our prayer to its God-consciousness. This is a God-centered prayer, a prayer centered around the name of Jesus. Our identity is strengthened. Every day we are reinforcing who we are in Christ. And finally, we are launched right into the commission and the works of God.
I want to pray with you this morning. Even from this prayer in John 10:9, to bless you with this prayer that you can go about your day strengthened by the power of the Spirit. Jesus, you are our door. We are your sheep. Your sheep hear your voice all over the world today. Your sheep need to hear your voice. We pray you will open our eyes and our ears that we will hear your voice and follow you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.