Free Range Preacher on Prayer

The Apostle Paul was distressed, buffeted by Satan. Evidently, Paul's practice of buffeting his body was insufficient to keep him humble. Paul prayed three times for relief from the thorn in his flesh, and when the answer came back, (no) My grace is sufficient for you, Paul's response was: "And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness...

We have seen the futility of trying to manipulate God from His will through the error of Balaam. We have also seen the glory of God as He answers the particular prayer of Abraham's servant in an eerily precise way. Today, we will see God answer our prayers even as they may be vague, but He knows our hearts and grants even those imprecise prayers, even as He answers our specific prayers as He k...

One correction - I mention Isaiah 66:2 in this episode. When I said it, I should have listened to myself. (Now I know what Cathy feels like.) The verse I had in mind was Isaiah 65:24 "It will also come to pass that I will answer before they call; while they are still speaking, I will hear. So think about that verse when you hear Isaiah 66:2 (which is a great verse, too.) We have also republis...

Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts. (We believe courage born of faith.) These words attributed to Winston Churchill are indeed Biblical and encouraging. The two Biblical principles expressed are: 1. We live until our ministry is done. 2. We are in a process of spiritual growth. These principles are illustrated through Moses, Deuteronomy chapter 34, Elijah 2 K...

My best days are many times sleepless nights. God has often made the most resounding impact on His hard-headed slave -me- through sleepless nights wrestling with Him. This delayed episode is just one occasion of God's work on a dull hearer.  We will see how dangerous it is to believe we pray primarily to get what we want.  We follow Balak and Balaam as they persist in prayer, which is clearly...

This episode is a repeat of our episode on forgiveness. This episode was well received, and as you will hear, praying that 2023 will be a year of Jubilee and Forgiveness and revisiting just how serious God is about His children forgiving as we have been forgiven seems like a good idea. Thank You, Jesus! The host is weak, faltering, and wholly inadequate for the task, but the word of God is none of...

Today, we highlight Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Glorious Lord in the Church around the world. Thank you all for listening. We are looking at the earthly conversations Jesus had, as recorded in the gospels, to see if we are able to glean anything useful for our prayer lives. Our latest s...

This episode is a repeat of our episode on forgiveness. This episode was well received, and as you will hear, praying that 2023 will be a year of Jubilee and Forgiveness and revisiting just how serious God is about His children forgiving as we have been forgiven seems like a good idea. Thank You, Jesus! The host is weak, faltering, and wholly inadequate for the task, but the word of God is none of...

Our first devotional in season 7 begins with Faith. We are called to walk by Faith. In this command, I don't pretend to understand the mind of God fully. At this moment, I know that walking by Faith is essential to our Creator and Savior, and for me, that is enough to take His desire seriously. Our So What? Our communion with God on a regular basis, and as we are moved by the Holy Spirit to pr...

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort;" 2 Corinthians 1:3 This is a special passage for me because on a day early in my walk with the Lord, I needed comfort, and this verse was in my scheduled reading. Today's episode has taken a turn. As I prayed this morning, I prayed, "The LORD your God is in your midst, a victor...

Finally, I get every country on a continent correctly, and the countries, Australia, that's it, that's the list! I am so pleased! (What I did get wrong is the Devotional's number!) Today, we begin a series of three devotionals, beginning with the God of all the earth, "For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the LORD of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who...

The episode ends at 16:50 Greetings from the paddock to the United States, Canada, Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica. Geography not being one of my strengths, I did not realize so many countries are considered in North America, but here they are; thank you all for listening to the podcast and sharing in the kingdom's concert of prayer. The wedding of Cana demon...

The close begins at 16.31 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, Thou dost know it all. Psalm 139:4 We know God is omniscient, yet we hear one another telling God what He already knows when we talk to Him. The good news is that we see our Biblical examples engaging in the same thing. Why? We can get absorbed by our concerns or worship so much so we tell God what we know He knows...

In examining the question, "What is Prayer?" We accidentally learn why we pray. Even though no Biblical person asks why we pray? Their lives reveal our anguished need for prayer. We are sinners. Until glory, we struggle with sin. Prayer is the act of faith that assures our soul. We are complex lonely beings, and prayer brings us into the arms of our heavenly Father, who knows us, holds u...

We highlight and rejoice in the closed countries we are heard in. We want you to know we remember you daily in our prayers and are blessed you listen. I struggled in the first year of my salvation in the area of prayer. Forty-five or so years ago, I neither understood, comprehended, nor apprehended that I was in a new and authentic relationship with my Creator, Savior, and Internal Companion who i...

Morocco has beautiful landscapes and movie sets from around the world. My favorite is Casablanca, which stars Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Thank you, everyone in Morocco, for listening. Our impossible need: To understand prayer, we need to understand being humanity. We cry before we are able to talk, but the reasons we cry and talk are the same. We are sinners. The natural state of our sons...

This episode is a repeat of our episode on forgiveness. This episode was well received, and as you will hear, praying that 2023 will be a year of Jubilee and Forgiveness and revisiting just how serious God is about His children forgiving as we have been forgiven seems like a good idea. Thank You, Jesus! The host is weak, faltering, and wholly inadequate for the task, but the word of God is none of...

Today, we make a broad but apt, I think, illustration from John 1:35-51. We see through this passage a simple conversation with Jesus and then perplexing words from The Word of God, Jesus. Finally, we see an enigmatic revelation from our Savior. Before we get to the content, we highlight, almost all (spoilers) the island nations in which we have listeners! Thank You, treasured ones (Psalm 83:3), f...

Today, we head to the South Sea to say hello to everyone in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines; we thank you, and just knowing that you are there and dedicated to our Savior, Jesus Christ, is our great joy. We found from John 1:34-51 that as Jesus spoke to His disciples first, so God has spoken to us first through the Bible. Today, we see that Jesus was there an...

The episode ends at 15.40, and then we have our close if you are disposed to listen. How do we find Jesus? A preacher, pastor, or evangelist points to Jesus. John 1:35-37 We hear about Jesus through one another. John 1:41, John 2:45 Jesus in His way comes to find us. John 1:43 He speaks to us first: "What do you seek?" John 1:43 "You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Ce...

Today is a day for introduction! We are reminded of our donation link. We introduce Saudi Arabia. Thank you for listening. Saudi Arabia has been added to our list of countries, including our beloved brothers and sisters from South America - Brazil, Argentina, and Ecuador! Thank you for participating with us for some time now! We also introduce "Jesus and His Disciples - Conversation and Praye...

Working with Skippy 2 taught me he wasn't always listening like he indicated. I learned to check everything, no matter how confident he understood what was needed. Our God is faithful; he does what He says. He tells us: "Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart," Luke 18:1 How, though, does prayer keep us from losing heart o...

While meditating in the paddock on God's goodness, "The LORD is good to all, And His mercies are over all His works." Psalm 145:9 I mused about our sorrows in this life, which led me to "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12 Those thoughts brought me to Romans 8, where Paul tells us we will hope until our final redemptio...

Just a note: Psalm 127 is a Psalm of Solomon Praying the word of is very instructional; we cannot know the mind of God if we do not know His word, but when we know God through His word, it sharpens our prayers. In 2 Samuel 7, God answers David's prayer, as it were, to build for God a temple to bring honor to His name with a resounding no. Then God reminds David what He has already done for Dav...

We conclude our Signature Episode in segments with the why of prayer and the difficulty of the truth, "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Our growth and consistent prayer move our prayers prayer from a task or discipline to the sweetest part of our day. The Apostle Paul will be our last example. With the insight of a life lived for the spread of the gospel, Paul describes earthly l...