A Call To Abide | Wednesday Night Service

So if you're brand new, you may not know who I am. My name is Stephanie Petrunich. I'm one of the pastors here. I lead the prayer ministry and lead the women on Mondays at Monday Morning Prayer. Come on, ladies.

Monday morning prayer, but we call it mmp. So I'm so glad to be here tonight and thankful for the opportunity that Pastor J and Mel give me, even though I'm not really always thankful, because I really like talking to women. But I do it to honor. And I really do believe that God has given me a word. So that makes it a little easier because I know he did put something on my heart to share.

So I'm thankful for that. The message is gonna be called a call to Abide. So you can probably guess where we're going with that message. I wanna just tell you real quickly, though, what my last three weeks have looked like for those of you who don't come to Monday morning prayer. Because the Monday morning prayer ladies know everything about my life.

But if you don't know, three weeks ago, three weeks ago, in a day, I broke my knee cap. So it's interesting because leading up to that, I had been feeling this stirring all summer about just contemplative prayer and slowing down. And in fact, the next Monday, Heather Littrell, one of our deacons, who really does a lot of contemplative prayer. If you don't know that, basically it's being quiet before the Lord. But she.

I had already asked her two months prior to speak. So that was already set up. And in. In preparation for it. I felt like the Lord had been stirring me to just kind of sit back.

And I had ordered a book called the Elimination of Hurry. Okay. By what's his name? John Mark Comer. It arrived Tuesday afternoon via Amazon.

I'm sorry, Steve. I'm not allowed to use Amazon. So I have it sent to my son's house, which is still using Amazon. So repenting in front of everyone about that. My husband's a small business owner, so he does not.

Amazon is the devil in our house, okay? Because they're putting a lot of business owners out of business. But sometimes, you know, like, it's the only option. Okay. But I really do try not to.

But I do call one of my sons if I'm in an emergency situation. Okay? So anyway, this book gets delivered the night before, and we're during. And we're in a selah fast, right? And, man, I had really been sitting with the Lord and just pressing in and pushing in and the Fast was going well, and it was Wednesday.

And at noon we were having staff prayer in here at noon. And I was setting up for it. And I'm calling it a wardrobe malfunction. Okay. I had really baggy girls.

We love the baggy jeans, right? Like they were really wide leg. Or maybe it's just me. Anyway, somehow my jean got. My shoe got caught in it.

Right about the place where Pastor Jay and Mel are sitting. I went flying onto this concrete and ended up breaking my patella. Okay. And just a hairline fracture so that they helped me get to the emergency room and do all the things. And the next day I find myself in a brace from here to my ankle.

And I'm sitting there with this book called the Elimination of Hurry.

So I don't know if this is theologically correct. I want you guys, you can ask Pastor J about this afterwards. But I. He would probably know, but I think maybe God pushed me down.

I don't know. Can ask Pastor Jay about that. But I spent the next week sitting, like, not moving. And if you're gonna do anything bad to your knee, this would be the best scenario. Because once after the few days, the pain is really minimal with a patella.

It's just if you move it. But like sitting there, you can read and no surgery. So I feel like the Lord was just like, you're going down. You know what I'm saying? In the best way possible.

I don't know. I don't know if that's scriptural, but, you know, the Lord works in mysterious ways. So I sat there for a week, basically, without leaving my house. And if you know me at all, I am like the superest, busiest, busy body person. I can't sit down ever.

I think I stand up to eat most of my meals. Like, I'm like, just. I love going. And so even with me trying prior to this to sit and I had been preaching about it on Mondays, I still hadn't mastered it until the incidents. Okay.

So anyway, I have learned a lot. John Mark in comer, in one of his teachings, he talks about this being the busiest generation. Okay. So when I say generation, I mean who's the youngest person in the room? Are you like 20?

Any 20 year olds? How old are you? 21. 22? You're that old already?

Okay, 22 to 70s, 80s. I'm calling that a generation. Right. This group of people in this generation are finding ourselves in the busiest time in history prior to this. Thinking of my grandparents.

My grandparents, grandparents. I love this. I'm quoting Him. John Mark Comer said, when we used to stop at a red light, we were just stopping at a red light. Okay?

Now when you stop at a red light, you're gonna check your Instagram. You're gonna see what 15 people had for lunch that day. You might have to call your aunt, like, check your email for work. Like, two minutes, right? We can't even sit for two minutes just to sit.

And this generation. And so we've been talking about this at Mondays and just trying to go, how do we break this cycle, though? Because we're in this world. We've, all of us now have been given these. I didn't grow up with an iPhone.

But now we all have them, right? And we are just. We have these things in our hands that are causing us so much distraction. So much distraction. And how.

And what do we do with that? Honestly, I feel like it's one of the hugest plants of the enemy. I'm just saying most of us have a thing in our hand every day that has an apple bite bit out of it. Okay. I don't know.

You can do whatever you want with that. But that's just an interesting thought, right? And we're carrying them around, and they are just completely. We're attached to them. So I've been doing this little thing where I'm, like, putting it in a different room, or I'm, like, going on my screen and porch to pray, and I'm leaving it, but then I go check on it, you know, just to make sure it's.

Anyway, why do we feel like people have to have 100% access to US now, Right? That. What if Steve needs me, you know, even though he never needs me, but, like, my Instagram needs me. So you need me. You definitely need me in your life.

So I've been just asking the Lord to help me just slow down. You know, I love to pray, but if you're in a prayer meeting with. You know, I'm in a prayer meeting, like, shut up. Like, I. I even love moving in a prayer meeting. Like, I like to move.

And I don't think that God is. He built me the way I am. So I'm not saying we can't move, but there is this place, and it's the call to abide. And I feel like God wants to give us an invitation. So whether you're literally Melanie, Gracie, Pastor Jay, Pastor Nathan, have spent years, decades, and on and on and on spending time with the Lord, I really believe that he wants to.

So don't tune me out if you've already have this, I feel like he wants to invite us into the more. Okay. Into the more. There. If we took a poll in this room, all of our different.

All of our prayer times would look different, be different, different links different depending on how long you've been doing this. Right? And I feel like I have really, since my 20s. I'm in my 50s. I've been doing this a long time.

I sit with the Lord every morning, but I have felt him go, no, I need you to come. I need you to come closer. You're too distracted. I've been hearing him say that, so that's why he pushed me down. Y' all.

All right? Matthew 7. Okay. 21 to 23. Not everyone who calls out to me, lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven.

Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. I hate this passage, by the way. On judgment day, many will say to me, lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and perform many miracles in your name. But I will reply, I never knew you get away from me, you who break God's laws. Is Janet here?

She's not here tonight. I think she's traveling back from Ohio. I just want everyone to know that I use my Bible hub and looked up stuff. Greek words.

They only get that because that's just not me. Okay, but I looked it up. Ginosko is the word know. It means to properly to know, especially through personal experience, firsthand acquaintance, experimentally. No, just an example they used when Mary was a virgin, said to the angel, how will this be?

Since I do not know it's a man. And so he is referencing no in a sexual intimacy. I know that's kind of weird, but that is the kind of no he's talking about here. So in Matthew 7:21-23, he is saying, you did all these things. Wouldn't that be, like, the worst for us who live.

You guys are here on a Wednesday night. You're not playing like you're serious, right? You give up your Wednesday night to come to church? What if we were, like, casting demons out and prophesying? And he's like, I don't know you, man.

That would be the worst. And I'm trying to live my life after to not hear those words, because I don't believe that we're going to be graded on those things. We're going to be graded on how much we knew him.

Right? Gifts are irrevocable. I mean, people can teach and have A teaching gift and be far from God. And they can wow you with their teaching and not have a close relationship with God. So don't look at people as if they have a certain standard, because only the heart, only God knows, only God knows that place with the Lord.

So my point in all of that and just bringing that up is we can do all these things and still miss the abiding part. And I really feel like tonight God wants to talk about that and invite us into it in a deeper way. And I know for me, guys, I've been serving the Lord since I was like five. I did have a few bad years in high school. I do repent about that.

But then when I gave my heart back to Jesus fully, I've been running hard after him since I was like 18 years old. I'm 58, so do the math. But still, there's lots to learn. And we're constantly going from glory to glory and we're constantly getting pulled in. And it's not about age.

It's not about age, right. Cause some of us could be drinking milk for 40 years, you know. So Psalms 91:1 says, he who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. The word dwells there means to live as a resident. Okay, this is super cool because I'd already had my message all done and had already sent my title over and all the things I'm supposed to.

And this morning my friend Summer texted me about 9:30, so I was just gonna kinda just spend the day praying, you know, I'd already had this kind of written out, but I just was gonna spend the whole day praying and sitting on my porch and just trying to abide. Trying to do this. Trying to do this. Okay. And Summer texted me and said she was online this morning and she saw that Michael Culianas spoke at Jesus Image this Sunday and his title was about abiding.

Okay. And so I was like, okay, Jesus Image, yeah, I'm feeling like I'm hearing from God right now. So I listened to about half of it this morning. But I'm gonna quote him from this. And he said, and his title was Abiding Life.

And he spoke it this Sunday, last Sunday night, if you wanna look it up. But he said, he used this passage and he said, God is not looking for visitors.

He's looking for those who want to take resident, you guys. And I believe that. And this is sad, but I believe our churches are filled with visitors and they visit God on a Sunday or Maybe a few times a week. And they don't really know him and they don't abide. They don't abide with him.

And I know that's not any of you, so. John 15:4. I'm gonna read the passage out of John 15. We all love this, but I'm going to read this really quickly over us. John 15:4.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. I'm the vine, you are the branches. Right?

You all know these passages. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he is one that bears fruit. I love. Tiffany's not here tonight, but, man, she did an awesome message on fruit. I've actually thought of it a lot over the last few weeks on a Wednesday night, if you wanna look it up.

We cannot have fruit if we don't abide. We can't have fruit because we wanna have fruit. We can't have fruit cause we see fruit on other people. I can't have fruit because I listen to a podcast.

Fruit only happens in the abiding. And I wanna insert this here. God spoke to me years ago. I was listening to tons of teachings on holiness and I was, like, in my house, praying in tongues and listening to all these messages. And I left my house and I literally went.

I, like, turned into evil person. I don't know what happened. I, like, was ugly to somebody. Just had a yucky day. And the Lord's like, you can't be holy by listening to people talk about holiness.

Holiness is only given from abiding in me. And my character changes you because we are podcast driven. Y' all were podcast driven, and I love them. I'm gonna actually show you a clip from one in a little bit, but I can't make that my abiding time. Do you know what I'm saying?

Anyway, side note, if anyone does not abide in me, he's thrown away. This is scary. He is thrown away like a branch and withers. And the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.

Anyone want to think about that? That is not what I want to happen. If you abide in me and my words abide in you. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this, my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit.

So prove to be my disciples. As the Father loved me, so I've loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my. You know what I want to tell you this little story.

So it was like 4 o'. Clock. No, it was like 2 o'. Clock. And I had been on my screen and porch since nine.

Okay? Not listening to podcasts, Just had my Bible, trying to pray. I didn't even have music on. I'm just. Literally.

And then I'm. You know, then I get up and walk around the yard for a bit and I come back and I'm just. I'm like, lord, I want to do this. Okay? I had already had my morning time from like 6 to 8.

So this is like, when you gonna do the dishwasher and call a friend, Drive somewhere. You know what I'm saying? And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna sit. I'm gonna sit. So by 2 o', clock, I'm like, lord, I just gotta get out for a little while.

So I got side note, me and Steve have a little cute convertible and we've had for years. And so I was like, I'm just gonna take a drive and pray. So I'm just gonna drive and pray. So I took. I had listed every single scripture on a bide that I had wrote a couple days ago and typ in my car.

So every stoplight. I wasn't sitting, I was reading another verse, okay? So I'm at a stoplight and I read, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. And then I start driving, and I was like, okay, Lord, well, how do I abide in my love?

How. How do I abide in love? How do I buy. Like, I'm just meditating on that. Praying, praying in the spirit, talking, talking to the Lord.

Next stoplight, I stop, and the next verse says, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Because I was like, how do I abide in your love? He's like, if you keep my commandments. I was like, wow. He just answered that, like, right there.

So my prayer for tonight is for everyone to fill this invitation to draw closer to God, to be still and know that he's God. To quiet the noise, y'. All. I deleted Instagram. Should I get an amen?

A clap? Thank you. And it's been two weeks. I don't know what's going on in the world or with my family. No, I'm just kidding.

I mean, I'm not kidding, but really true. So I'm trying to live this out because I know that I can miss a lot of what God wants to do in my life, you know? Side note, I love This I did a word study on abide yesterday. The word abide is in the Scriptures 118 times. 40 of them are in the book of John, and 24 of them are in first John.

Literally, most of the word abide are in the johns, okay? And I just think it's funny because John is the one who said Jesus loves. He self said that, but he said that Jesus loves the one Jesus loves. Well, he must have found some place of abiding that would have him know that. Do you know what I'm saying?

He knew when he learned, he learned to abide that he found out how much Jesus loved him. And that's what's gonna make us love him back when we know how much he loves us. You know, you can say, sing the song, Jesus loves you. People can tell you. But until you know, until you really know, it won't change your life.

So go read John and just circle all the abides. If you have an nlt, it's going to say remain. But the ESV says abide. So the word abide in Greek is menno, something like that. Nathan, you can help me.

Means to remain, to stay, to wait, to endure, to exist permanently. And this one's my favorite. To maintain unbroken fellowship. The Lord is calling us to this unbroken fellowship, okay? There's a place in him that we can abide, y'.

All. So my question, does it have to be the same for everyone? Does it look. What does it look like? Does abiding look like from 6 to 7am does it look like.

You know what I'm saying? Like, I think once people get saved, like, what does that look like? Okay, how. How do we abide? You may be asking that question, how do.

How do I abide? Well, there is no exact manual book. I mean, I've read the book, the Bible through. Actually, can I just side note, Summer. Summer and I are reading the Bible through.

I'm not going to ask where you're at in this moment, but Summer and I are doing 100 days reading the Bible through. And tomorrow I will finish Revelation in a hun. So I read the whole Bible in the last hundred days. But y', all, even that thank you for my one clap that blessed me. But even in that, like, if you don't let it sink and just try to do it as I works thing, right?

I've been trying to like sit when I read it through. I'm writing scriptures down every day that like hit me. I'm not trying to just speed read, except maybe through Leviticus. And numbers. But other than that, I'm really soaking it in.

But yeah, I don't know that there is a perfect way to abide. You know, when Heather came, she talked. She's not here tonight either. But when she came, she spends the whole hour in complete silence and just, you know, she does imaginary prayer and she does all these things. That's probably not gonna be the way I do it.

But learning from her, I'm like, okay, I'll try to add some of that to my. To my time. But you guys, we don't have to do it exactly like someone else does it, right? Some people walk and pray at a park, some people sit. The main thing is get the word in you and spend time with God.

Like, it doesn't have to look a certain way. I do think that there is a benefit to doing it in the morning. Cause it starts your day off. And to. How are we going to.

You know, what if I was married and I was like, well, I'll just talk to you tonight from 6 to 7, you know, it wouldn't be a great marriage, right? When we're in this communion with the Lord, there has to be this constant communion. That's the abiding part. That's the living, permanent part. And I'm guilty.

I'm guilty, so guilty of, like, I have my morning time. It's amazing. And then by 3 o', clock, I'm like, God, what Jesus? Who? You know, not really, but you know what I'm saying.

I've just been zooming through my life, you guys. I worked at a 9 to 5 job when I was in my 20s and I had just gotten filled with the Spirit. I prayed in the Spirit all the time. And literally once an hour we got a break and I would go into the bathroom in the stall and pray in tongues for 10 minutes every hour. Not as a religious thing.

No one told me I should do that. That's what a Christian should do. I was so hungry for more of God, I couldn't wait, you know, and then I asked the Lord and like, lord, if you let me quit my job and have all this time, I'm gonna give you all these hours. And then he did, and then I didn't. And I got busy.

Right? So jobs can't be an excuse. I know it's. I know it's hard, but it's. You can do it.

So I know there's no exact guidelines in the Bible, but we do have one example, okay. Who spent a lot of time abiding, who was It. It's not a trick question. Thank you, Jesus. Okay, Jesus.

Jesus, who was God, spent a lot of time abiding. And I really believe it was the key to what he walked in. I'm gonna read a couple scriptures. Mark 1:35 before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up, went out to an isolated place to pray. Isolated.

After telling everyone goodbye, he went up to the hills by himself to pray. Jesus said, sit here while I go and pray. Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer. One day soon afterwards, Jesus went up a mountain to pray. And he prayed to God all night.

So he didn't say every single morning. It's from 6 to 7. It was when it fit in. He was busy. He had a lot pulling on him, right?

But he would find times to pray. And I really believe the Lord is calling us to this. I feel like this is worth saying, and it's been so overused, but I'm still gonna say it anyway. The disciples could have asked him anything. And they asked, teach us to pray.

So they knew what the secret sauce was, right? They didn't say, teach me to prophesy, Teach me how to lay hands. They were like, teach us to pray. I believe that everything else is gonna flow out of it if we can learn to pray. Okay?

And pray, that encompasses a lot of things. It's reading the Bible, it's meditating, right? It's not just talking to the Lord. It's listening to the lord. So Matthew 6, 5, 6 says, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them and tell you the truth.

That is all the reward they will get. Go in your room, shut the door, and pray to your father who is unseen. And then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you guys. You know what the coolest thing is? When we actually obey him, then we get rewarded for it.

He calls us to do it. He asks us to do it, and then he's gonna reward you for just being obedient. How awesome is that? There's a lady named Carol Ward who I'm gonna introduce you to in a few minutes. That has been my mentor.

I call her my mentor that. She's never met me in my ent, but I met her online. But she calls this prayer Communion prayer. She calls it, come have union. I have adopted that.

It's now my saying. I say it all the time, Come have union. That is all God wants. He doesn't need all of this show, he just wants us. He wants us.

He wants us to listen, he wants us to talk, he wants us to share. We're making it too complicated. But honestly, if we don't carve out time to do this, we're going to miss it. We really are. I have a slide.

I have a slide. Okay. Yeah, Marcelo, I have a slide. I don't have.

This is from AI. Okay. I just put in what is a call to intimacy, and this is what AI said. It's a biblical invitation to cultivate a deep, personal, experiential relationship with God, moving beyond mere knowledge. Hello.

To a heartfelt connection characterized by trust, obedience, prayer, and spending time in his presence through daily devotionals, reading His Word, active engagement in his love. This intimacy fosters a personal relationship, satisfies a spiritual longing, and brings joy, peace, and fulfillment by allowing Jesus to be the central focus and priority in one's life.

This literally sums up everything we're supposed to do. Everything else is gonna flow from that. If you wanna prophesy, go have intimacy with Jesus. If you wanna lay hands on the sick, go have intimacy with Jesus. When you have intimacy with him, everything else is gonna flow from that, right?

And it's so simple, but so complicated because our flesh is so strong and it wants what it wants. It wants to do what it wants. And I'm telling you, prayer, fasting, sitting at the feet of Jesus. We will always be so grateful that we did that communion. Prayer is sharing or exchanging intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.

We're just having union with God. We're just talking. We're making it so complicated. Jesus, who is God, spent large amounts of time in prayer. He was very busy, but he found time to do the most important thing.

When you start a new relationship, it takes time. You guys, I've been walking with the Lord a long time. I have heard his voice. You know, I. I love him. I talk to you guys all on Mondays, all the time.

I believe I hear from God on a regular. I know how to hear him. I've sat with him for decades now. But as I'm feeling this pull to sit more, I'm like, wow, that was the longest hour and a half of my life. You know what I mean?

Like, sitting. I'm such a doer. Like, I wanna do things. I wanna do something. I wanna mow the yard.

Like, I love grasswork. I, like, let me cut down a bush. Like, I want to do things. And so to sit and just sit in his presence. That's why podcasts are easier.

And if you're a doer, that's why we love podcasts. Because you're still doing. You're still doing. We don't know how to turn this thing off. I mean, try it.

Just try it. Just try to go sit for 30 minutes and don't do anything. Don't even read. Just sit there. Like.

And when he said, be still and know that I'm God, you're gonna find him in this stillness and in this quiet. And there's no other way to do it. We can't fast forward like, we can't. And if we wanna be ones that stand before him and said, I knew him, we're gonna actually have to know him. Right.

And I'm sorry if this is sounding hard. I really. I believe it's an invitation. So I shared this at chapel that I felt like the Lord gave me these quick. Kind of just a test to see where you are in your intimacy with the Lord.

So I'm gonna run through these real quick, and then we're gonna hear from my friend Carol Ward about intimacy. But so if you wanna do a heart check, like, where am I at in the intimacy piece with the Lord? Right. The. One of the first places I believe that we can fall into is duty.

Okay? Duty is a required action. You get saved. Somebody told me that I have to have a quiet time and I have to read my Bible, Okay? So now I'm trying to do that.

Okay? I'm being a good doer of the word. I'm gonna do what I feel like the Lord has told me to. I don't feel anything. I'm not super excited about it now I have to get up early, but I'm doing it right.

I believe that this is a state of duty. So I'm doing my duty, doing what the Lord has me to do. When we spend time out of duty, someone told us that we're supposed to read our Bible and grow close to the Lord. Right. It never develops into anything more.

We're only checking off a box. It's boring. It's lifeless. Intimacy is not formed. Right.

You don't want to have intimacy with someone who is there out of duty, do you? Okay. The Lord wants us to want to be there. But I can tell you, I feel like duty is. If you're in duty, it's okay.

At least you're doing it. Okay? So we wanna ask the Lord to take us from duty into these other places. So if we want him to be the first place, we're gonna have to make some changes. That's necessary, right?

To get out of that. So number two would be discipline. So now you're past duty, and you have created disciplines which are good. Paul said, I discipline my body, right? So I'm disciplined.

I'm like, I'm strong and mighty in the Lord. I am getting up at 6. I am doing what I supposed to do. I am telling my body. I'm making myself fast, do all the things.

So we have to initiate this. It said, draw close to me and I will draw close to you. There is an initiation of discipline in our body. I do not think discipline is wrong. I think it is absolutely From Jesus.

Hebrews 4:11 says, Let us therefore strive to enter his rest. So I have to strive to sit and rest. That seems opposite, right? I'm gonna have to strive now to sit in his rest. Because your body.

This is opposite of everything your body is saying to do. Your body does not wanna do this. So you're gonna have to say you're going to do this. You're going to sit here and you're gonna. And your mind might be wandering all over the place.

You may not know how to pray. Maybe you're a new believer and you're like, I don't even know what to do when I get in there. Just talk to him as a friend. That's what he wants, right? Tell him what you.

And this seems so simple, and many of us have been doing this a long time, but I really feel like that we can get stuck in our disciplines and miss the abiding presence of God. Okay? And I do this. I've been. This.

I have been in all of these things and sometimes move around. Okay, Number four. This is where we wanna get to delight, okay? Duty, discipline and delight. Delight is when we're like, this is what I was made to do.

This is, I can't wait to get home so I can go spend time with God. This is, I can't wait to get up so I can spend time with God. He has become my delight. He's not a duty. He's not.

I don't have the discipline now I want to do. That is where we want to be. And that is. He's like, I'm sitting here waiting for you. You come to me and I will be your delight.

I will be your rest. This is when it's effortless, it's a joy. We want him more than other pleasures of the world. When we would rather spend time with him than get all These other things. And I do believe that that's available to all of us.

And I'm telling you, I go through all of these things, so I would ask you to just take a heart check. Where am I at right now? Am I in duty? Am I in discipline? Or am I in delight?

And if you're not in delight, ask the Lord. Give me a delight to be with you in your presence. You guys, this is so simple. But if we miss this, we miss everything.

We can talk about every single thing and all the gifts and all the things. And I love that we talk about it at Monday prayer. We can talk about demons. We talk about that at Monday prayer. We talk about all of these things.

But if we miss this, we've missed everything, because this is what we were made for. And in eternity, all we will do is spend time with him. Right. I think I'm actually gonna have to skip that whole page. So we're gonna go right to the end.

I'm gonna just show you a little bit of a clip of a lady who has really wrecked my life and changed my life. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about if you've been at Monday prayer or been in my life at all. You're sick of hearing about this woman, but I don't care, okay? No, really, I don't care. I found this woman, Carol Ward.

She spoke at a missionary conference online that I happened to watch. And I've just been enamored with her prayer life. I've been enamored with the life that she lives of consecration and fasting is blowing my mind. And every time I listen to her, I'm like, I want to be like that. Right, Tiffany, I got you hooked on her.

I don't know anyone on earth right now that is living this, that I have seen, that is living this kind of life of prayer and fasting and devotion to God. I just. I can't find it. Why do I listen to it? Because every time it makes it like, yes, that is what I'm gonna do.

I'm living like that. So it stirs me. She grew up in the Philippines. I'm gonna give you, like a one minute version. You can actually.

Do you have her information? I think there's a slide on that. Maybe if you. If you have to do it afterwards, it's fine. Her name is Carol Ward and she's with Favor International.

She was a missionary kid in the Philippines. Her father was chased by ISIS for 30 years. Her mom was in China. I mean, her grandma was in China. Helped lead a movement in China before that.

So she's grown up around prayer, crazy prayer stories. She comes back to the States, becomes a nurse for 20 some years in Oklahoma, helping homeless people. One time she was bringing home all these drug addicts from her at the hospital and she's like, lord, where am I going to put all these, all these women and they were heroin addicts. And he said, where would you put me? And she's like in my bed.

And he goes, when you've done it to the least of these, you've done it unto me. So she slept in the garage and these women were sleeping her bed. So she didn't just live this life when she moved to Africa, she was already doing this when she was there. She led a prayer movement in her church. All the things well she feels called to go to Africa.

23 years ago, she's one white woman, she goes to Africa alone. She just wanted to go pray, help start revival. And she said then lord, you can take me home. She ends up in Uganda. She starts, she finds a little hut, she puts a wooden sign says prayer 7am 7pm and then people started coming to pray.

She ended up being used as a mighty prayer movement. While Kony was killing everybody in Uganda, Samaritan's person, everyone left and she stayed and she led a movement for 20 some years as the only Westerner, just a white woman. She's been in, now she's in 23 years later, she's in 2010, 10 countries, she has a thousand missionaries, she has an orphanages, schools, Bible schools and all of these place and she's just this simple little lady. But. And the reason I'm not saying this to brag on her because she never, she doesn't even care about that.

The reason I'm saying this is because her lifestyle of prayer and fasting is why she's seen it. This year Favor international has seen 100,000 people saved in Africa in 2025. Okay. And 88,000 of them, you can see all this on their website. 88,000 of them were went through a three month Bible school after they got saved.

So we're not just handing tracts out in a great evangelist and counting all these names like they're taking people, they're raising them up, they have churches all over. And now she's in Chad and she said she's gonna move up, she's gonna keep going up, all the way up to Iran is her plan. Like she's just taken over all these countries and, and God told her raise up the people in there and they'll do it. And that's what she's doing. So anyway, I am gonna show you a 10 minute clip.

So buckle your seatbelt. This is very chill, this guy. It's funny, it's cause he's on a website about wealth. But he found her and he's being wrecked by God. And so this was just a couple months ago.

She's in Chad right now and he's just interviewing her. This is just 10 minutes of the hour clip, but he's asking her about her prayer life. So I want you guys to watch this and then we'll close. Okay? One of the things that you really touched me with, and there are many, is your relationship with Jesus.

The way you described your relationship with Jesus was, was so refreshing. And honestly it was, it was, it was hopeful for me of I, I could have that type of communion with him like you do. So will you? I'd like to describe a little bit of your relationship with Jesus as a child and a young adult and kind of like when did you first get ears to hear? I can remember back as far as maybe 8 or 10 years old and there were four children in our family on the mission field.

But I don't know why God singles out, you know, sometimes a person and he just drops an immense hunger in them. And as a child I would look at the way my father and mother lived as biblical examples of what Jesus must have looked like. And all I knew that it wasn't because of a sermon they preached me, it was the role model of my father's life on his knees that made me desperately hungry to hear God. It wasn't that he prayed out loud, it's that he spent a lot of time listening, a lot of time in communion and fellowship, a lot of time learning. And so now I teach leadership in Jesus's style as listening, learning, leaning and then leading and then learning to let go.

And I think those are all processes, you know, as he did with the disciples. But, but as a young girl I would take my Bible and notebook and I'd go up in the mountains, I'd climb a tree, I'd go to the ocean wherever I could to be isolated. And I felt that in the isolation, in the closet, so to speak. As Matthew 6, 6 says, Close the door. That you shut out noise, you shut out distractions.

And in the secret place he shares the secrets in his heart. His secrets are not shared out in the open and just blasted, but with those that fear him. And the word talks a lot about the secret. The secret things in the Word, the mysteries of the kingdom, and it talks about the secret places. And I became hungry for that.

I spent hours with the Lord just writing in my notebook, just listening, just communing, just fellowshipping and meditating. Actually seeing Jesus, actually taking walks with Him. He was more real to me than a person. Yeah. Those that know me well know my first experience with that.

I won't share it on the, on, on the air here for incriminating purposes, but that, that idea of meditating, of, of Jesus being there with you, that the handful of times that I've done that and sat with that for more than. And I'm, I'm so guilty of, of giving Jesus three minutes here and, you know, eight minutes here. And it's. And I think even in my, my morning time with him where I give him a lot more time, I'm still trying to. Well, do I want to.

How much time do I want to spend in the Word? And then I want to journal and then I want to do this. It's like I just. And I am, I am trying to learn how to let him lead me instead of me dictating how it's going to go. And it's a challenge.

But, but I appreciate the, the, the help there. Will you describe your relationship with Jesus today? So that's where you, you started from a young, from a young girl. You were hungry for him and you just spent time with them. And now you have an incredible amount of experiences where you know him and you know him well and you know the power of his word and the power of prayer.

What is your relationship with Jesus like now? Sweeter than ever. Sweeter than the day before. I love that song. Jesus is an incredible role model of being extremely busy and pulled on with need of humanity all around him.

But he kept his priority in order, and I think Moses did too. I love that example, you know, leading thousands of grumbling and complaining people. But his highest priority was the tent of meeting. And in Exodus, where the lord, you know, 25, he says, come between the wings of the cherubim, the mercy seat where the ark of the covenant is, and I'm going to talk to you face to face about the things that concern Israel and that the Lord's longing in his heart is to still have the face to face. Many veils shroud that intimacy of face to face.

As Second Corinthians 3:18 says, the law, our traditions, shame, fear, the unknown, many, many things cover as a veil and obscure his face from that Deep, deep intimacy. But that's what he longs for. And when we see the longing of his heart for that, it is the drawing power of heaven to pull us into a communion that's unbroken fellowship. As he said in Jeremiah 30, 31, 3, I pull you, I have an everlasting love for you, and I pull you with cords that cannot be broken. And so I visualize my heart being attached to the heart of Jesus with an umbilical cord, my nourishment, my blood supply, my strength.

And that cord cannot be cut and broken unless I allow it. And he uses it to pull me in, to live in the bosom of God. Because that's where Jesus came from in John 1. And he said, I'm preparing a place for you. This is my dwelling place, is the heart of God.

And so in the midst of immense need, immense poverty, immense action, sometimes life threatening situations and danger all around us, sometimes 50 decisions plus a day, he is my hiding place. And I wouldn't survive without that. Isaiah 33, 6 is one of my foundational scriptures. And quietness and confidence is your strength. And that's your resting place.

That's the place where I just in the midst of it, I'm going to draw away and refurbish the communion in secret. Just a few minutes here and there besides an all day Sabbath, besides the morning time, but the drawing away for five minutes to just reignite the still quiet place within the heart of God that he's got this, he's got everything. I, you know, it just is a reminder, it's a reset and we need that often through the day. Yeah. So my dependency is greater than it's ever been before on the secret place.

Yes. All right. Okay, thank you.

What is your favorite way to be with Jesus today? Is it to go get away private? Is it to minister to the heart of someone? Like, what's your favorite way to spend time with Jesus now? It's a closet.

It's the closet. I feel like the closet and the communion overflow into the corporate. And if you don't have the closet, like Jesus came away from the mountains of isolation, alone with his Father, and I don't know that he was doing spiritual battle and warfare. I think it was just the intimate, sweet, sweet communion of the honey on my lips, of the feeding of my soul with his presence, with his life. And in that his voice is so clear.

And that's where my longing is. In fact, if I, if I miss my, my weeks I take. And this has always been a habit, probably for 40 plus years is to have my holiday. My vacation time is one to two weeks. Totally alone at the river with God.

And to see no man save Jesus only, to hear no voice save Jesus only, That's my lifeline for the year, as well as a Sabbath day each week, as well as the morning time. But I yearn for those times. I yearn because he's going to take the well deeper, he's going to take the walk higher, he's going to take the intimacy farther. And. And I just feel like he's sitting at the river waiting for me, and I can hardly wait to get there.

He's going to say, and what he's going to do.

Wonderful. Will you describe your Sabbath time?

Yes. And it's different every time. But my habit has been to take a full day a week. And for the Lord Jesus, it was. It was vitally important.

And you know, he says labor to enter into the rest in Hebrews 4. So I think our labor is the struggle or the determination to make sure that that time is protected, to get away and to weed, you know, the weeds out of the way and the thorns and the cares that distract to make sure that that time is protected. It's different every time because I want to with all of my heart, follow what he said in John 3 to Nicodemus. Just like a person is born again, you're born of the Spirit, and you don't know which way the wind blows. You just see the effect of it.

And that's the way my spirit moves. It can come from this direction one day and this direction another. And if we're going to learn the flow of the Spirit and learn to be led by the spirit, as Romans 8:14 says, Then we practice that in the Sabbath day. What does it mean to be led? And so I asked the Lord, what's on your heart today?

God has moods. He created us with moods. Anger, joy, sorrow, pain. And so I asked him, lord, what's your heart? I don't want you to get into mine.

I want to get into yours. And I want to learn the mood of heaven. I want to learn the. The blowing of the wind and the flowing of your spirit. So sometimes it's weeping, sometimes it's the word, sometimes it's war, sometimes it's worship, sometimes it's waiting, sometimes it's washing his feet.

And I go from one to the other to the other. And that's how he teaches me. He says, you want to know my ways? They're in the closet, they're in the closet. Because Moses cried out, teach me your ways that I might know you.

And he said in Psalms, my ways are in my sanctuary. That's the closet of his presence. And he said, sometimes warfare word, waiting, washing, worship, wondering. That's medication, meditation. So I just go with the flow.

And eight hours are gone in the snap of a finger. Just gone in, but never wasted. Deeply, deeply invested in the eternal.

Deeply, deeply invested in the eternal.

First John 2. 28. I'm going to close with this. And now, little children, abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. Let's close our eyes, God, it's our heart to know you.

It's our heart to abide in you. We want to know you, God, when you appear. We don't want to shrink back. We want to have confidence that we have spent our lives well on this earth, God.

So teach us to abide. Teach us, God. Teach us how to be with you.

Lord, I pray over every heart that's in this room. Whether you've known him all your life or you just met him a week ago. His desire is to be with us and us with him.

And I pray, God, that you would call us in a sweet conviction and a wooing, not a condemnation and like we're in trouble. No, God, you desire. You desire to be with us and meet with us. And I just pray, Lord, over all of us that you would help us and draw us in. Jesus name, Amen.

You can see why she's wrecked my life. But I love all the salvations and all the things it's also done in the secret place. And God wants to do that with us. And I believe he wants to take Charlotte.

He wants Cabarrus county.

And he's gonna use us to do that. He really can. But we gotta put some things down and make room. So. I love you guys.

Thanks for showing up on a Wednesday night. I'm sorry our time is out. I would have loved to give time for prayer and time to reflect. But go home and ask the Lord where you're at, you know, even if you've been with him a long time, ask him, have you got into duty? Are you in discipline?

Are you in delight? So maybe ask him and see what he says. So. Amen. Have a good night.