The battles within are far greater than those without. We must challenge the pretense inside us with the Truth's help. He will help us if He lives inside. Love is realized in prayer. And Love is first lived out in simplicty. Practically speaking, it is no more difficult than making a list of people and setting quality time aside to pray for them. Our time is our life. If we say we have given our lives to Him, but not our time, then we're deceived.

Consider making a list of people whom you know. Commit to pray for them. And observe the battle within: "Lord, bless and strengthen Lisa,  Brian and Rachel.  Rescue Donna's heart with your love...blah, blah, blah, ect. ect...and oh, yeah, in Jesus' Name amen!" We may initially parrot in our own pride. Pride is partly a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. The words may be His but the hard heart ours. However, Love Himself also lives within and He battles the pride of our hearts so we are able to contrast the two. Because of Love we are able to step back and see pride for what it is and get honest with ourselves in that moment, or atleast afterwards. The emptiness we feel inside bares witness. Yet, even then we are able to go again and hit that hard heart with His word of Love. With real perseverance something begins to happen for God's Word is alive and sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing and discerning! We begin to see the Humble Heart on the Cross. Love deepens His grip on our hearts and now we are calling out Lisa's, Nick's, Brian's, Rachel's and other's names with a different tone. That tone threatens darkness. There is a sound in a grateful heart that Hell dreads.

The repetition won't have a hardening effect over the course of time for one real reason: The Holy Spirit (Love) is in the mix. Pharasees seldomn pray for people. A heart will soften in the face of the Cross and as the Holy Spirit takes us out of whatever box we're in and gives us His perspective from above. We begin to see the person in terms of weakness and vunerabilities and begin to think and feel as God with a heart of heavenly compassion. Whatever set of strengths or position that person has, no longer defines that person so much in our minds, nor the flaws through which the enemy may move through them at times, for though God moved through Peter in one breath Satan also did in the next when speaking to Jesus about His future. We seek His heart and can do it even in regime and repetiton. soon we will be seeing and praying by His heart and eyes. Now something is happening. The Holy Spirit is moving through us and invading the world.

"Because of Love we are able to step back and see pride for what it is and get honest with ourselves in that moment."

I'll never forget the first time this became so real when I was praying in 1997 for dear friend from high school. We usually talked on the phone every six to eight weeks. He lived in Melbourne, Florida with his family and we lived in North Augusta, SC. There I was in my production studio, just thanking the Lord for him, feeling God's heart and how God had given such a wonderful gift. I was praying for him to be drawn closer to the Lord. Right as I was feeling what I was feeling, he coincidently called to check in with me. I was amazed and burst into tears telling him what was happening. The natural world was showing a correspondence with what I was feeling in my soul. Wow! The truth of God's love is the truthl! Reality is real.

Jesus was passionate. "He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears..." Hebrews 5:7 Apparently Jesus was quite emotional. Do you think He should sit on some psychologist's couch and get help? Those tears were an intrusion into darkness, because they were born of Love. And God is not so cruel to bring us to a point of believing in His love and it not being true!!! (antological argument)

No, God is not a feeling, but He intends to be felt. Emotionalism seeks to feel good at Truth's (Reality's) expense, but when the truth of God's love seizes our souls, then invades through our lips, light shines and darkness is diminished. Tears, silence, loud weeping, if inspired by God's love, changes things. God's love is real and the tears spawned by such pound Hell when they fall to the ground.

"No, God is not a feeling, but He intends to be felt."

In the West, a lot is made of our need to study the Word, but the Scripture is a record of the living Word. Much is made by American preachers concerning the proclamation of the written Word, but the real motive is often the exaltation of the pulpit and the art of preaching, not the living Word, as some tell themselves. The power of personality rules the American Church and it is killing us. We forget that the Word is a Person. His Throne of Grace should be the center of church life. This is the Personality with Whom we should be taken with first. The lack of corporate prayer in church life provides us with a cheap substitute. We get King Saul instead of the King of Kings. No wonder pastors are so exhausted trying to carry and control so many prayerless parishioners. The question we ought to be asking is the person at the top leading his or her people toward prayer? What practical steps is he or she taking to lead the people toward prayer in their hearts, homes and congregation? If that is not happening, what is really going on?

It is a waste of precious time; A waste of people's lives in Jesus' name.

Listen again listen to the Tabernacle of History spot: http://parkcircleprayer.com/id168.html

In that history spot, we deliberately did not mention what I perceive is the final bastion of resistence in the world of religious pride toward God's purpose: The inflation and exaggeration of the power of the pulpit. American preachers would rather be heard than listen. We humans love power above all else. If we don't know this deeply of ourselves as we proceed, then much is suspect about all that we do. Only in prayer are we continually reminded of this and with fear and trembling we work out our salvation knowing that the heart is deceitfully wicked above all else. Thus, the checks and balance of the corporate prayer meeting is so very important, which is why we are warned to not forsake it in the book of Hebrews. As one author put it, "This is the Gospel of Jesus and us, not Jesus and me." But the lack of the corporate prayer meeting causes many laypeople to fight battles within and without - alone.

Preacher, you have done people little favor to pass to them a head knowledge of Biblical principles and to assume they will be lived out in their own abilities. Without the corporate prayer meeting, you may very well have set them down the path of legalism and/or bondage, for without bringing them into a life of prayer, you've given them nothing but a haughty head knowledge. The emptiness of that head knowledge leads either to religious pride or life away from the church. Beware: You will stand before Fiery Eyes of Love about this and judgement may be coming sooner than you realize. To be a pastor means being a spiritual gatekeeper over souls. He said "My house shall be a house of prayer". He died for it to be this way. "And we are that house" Hebrews says. So how many people of prayer do you produce? You will not be measured by how many Sunday service attenders you gain. You are to be a prayer leader before you are to be a preacher. If you are truly called to pastor, then it is time to get a long-term, but executable game plan from Coach, for where there is no vision, the people perish. He will send you what and whom you need along the way at the right times.

"This is the Personality with Whom we should be taken with first. The lack of corporate prayer in church life provides us with a cheap substitute. We get King Saul instead of the King of Kings. The question we ought to be asking is the person at the top leading his or her people toward prayer?"

No. Study and meditation of the written Word are an important part of the life of the believer but without prayer, we become Pharasees. A friend, once told me he would support the campaign to pray for neighbors because it was Scriptural. I laughed because people don't really do anything unselfish because it is Scriptural. Our hearts have to change first and then we understand Scripture better. Only the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the Heart of Scripture and He legally invades through Blood-bought conduits of prayer. He is a God of Law. Otherwise, the Devil will lead us in the study of God's word and he knows the Scriptures.

Scary.

"Study and meditation of the written Word are an important part of the life of the believer but without prayer, we become Pharasees."

Preaching ought to be a form of prayer and even the prophetic, fueled by both personal and corporate prayer, but if those two are not in proper place, then what we often get is another performance aimed at controlling the Sunday church attenders for another week. Corporate prayer's proper place is the center of church life. When we preach, we need to be looking into the heart of God, then the powers that be over the lives of people and then the people who are held captive in the moment. This was who Jesus was really addressing when He spoke these words: "Tear down this temple in three days and in three I will raise it up again." He was speaking to the fathering spirits of those who ran the temple." The time to turn to God has come. He has given us our kings and they are greatly lacking. We have Christian celebrities, Christian media, Christian reality shows, Christian internet programs, Christian comic books, Christian breath mints and on and on. Is the Holy Spirit so dull that He needs such assistance? No. We are blind and it is high time we admit this, then a decision will be made, either by default or deliberation. We need prayer and prayer leaders. Neutrality is an illusion. You will make a choice, one way or another. The stakes are high, including your own soul.

Choose well.