I have been in a series of messages namedPray More. We’ve talked about praying with confidence, the tabernacle model for prayer, and praying with persistence. Today, my message is about dynamic prayer and I am using the Lord’s Prayer found in Matthew 6:9-13.

Jesus’ disciples were not foreign to prayer but even they struggled with prayer. Luke 11:1 records them asking Jesus to show them how to pray. I find it interesting that, after all they had seen Him do, the thing they specifically asked Him to teach them was how to pray. This tells us there was something special about how He prayed. 

Jesus unpacked this dynamic prayer for them. Prayer should not be ritualistic (bland). Prayer is about a loving relationship (dynamic). When I think of ritualistic prayer, someone praying in King James English comes to mind, or an expectation of rewards based on a point system. I think of feeling guilty if I don’t pray enough or handing God a list of wants. Imagine, if I woke up each morning, leaned over to Christine, and proceeded to list all the things I needed her to do that day. I would get a whole different reaction than if I wake up, lean over and tell her how much I love and appreciate her. The disciples knew ritual prayers, but Jesus knew Father God personally, He had a relationship with Him. God wants to give you answers and impart power to you. He wants to intimately share truth with you. Dynamic prayer is personal

1. Start with God’s Personhood - His name (Our Father) and His address (in Heaven). We don’t just throw something out there hoping someone catches it. It’s a dialogue, talking to Him and listening to what He is saying. Jesus' secret was that He was talking to his father. Why does this matter? We can’t get closer to God than our concept of Him allows. In my case, I thought God was looking for what I did wrong all the time. I was always begging for forgiveness. Settle in your heart that He loves you. He is not annoyed when you approach Him. He instinctively adores you. You are precious to Him. When you’re aware of this, it’s easy to enter into prayer.
2. Seek God's Presence (Hallowed be your name). To hallow means to honor. This is a reminder that you are addressing the One who rules and reigns. His name is holy, sacred and to be respected. Jesus Christ is not a curse word. He was the One crucified for you. When you do this, you are worshiping and your faith is activated. What is your focus? Focus on the One with all power, Who knows all, Who has all wisdom and authority. No circumstance you may find yourself in is ever overwhelming to Him. Magnify the Lord during prayer. Focus on Him knowing He is bigger than all your problems. We tend to magnify our problems but worship opens the door to His presence and empowers our prayers. 
3. Shift to God's Priorities (Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven).  We like things our way but to surrender, we have to shift to His way. God’s Kingdom refers to God’s spiritual and eternal reign in our life. Prayer is not God moving toward us, but us moving toward Him, toward His way, toward His will in all aspects of our lives. Lack of prayer says “You’re not invited. I can handle this without You.” It will help to understand that God wants better for you than even what you want for yourself. Do you believe this? If you only knew what He has prepared for you, you wouldn’t want your own way. You would want God's way. Your life, submitted to God, is always better. It is the life you’ve always wanted. 
4. Solicit God's Provision (Give us this day, our daily bread).  When you don’t ask, you make yourself your own provider. Will you worry or will you pray? This is a choice of peace vs. stress. Worry causes poor decision making and strife. But God won’t let you down. If a problem is big enough to worry about, it’s big enough to pray about. Believe God is loving and loves to provide for His children. If you have this mindset, you won’t hesitate to go to Him. God loves caring for His kids. Don’t rob Him of what He loves doing. 
5. Secure God's Pardon (Forgive me as I forgive others). When we sin, the natural response is to hide from God but take your sin to God. His work covers the past, present and future.You are not what you’ve done. You are the righteousness of Christ and no longer a slave to sin. When we go to God with our sin, we are ensuring our closeness with God. Be mindful as you do ask for God to forgive you, that you need to let go of any unforgiveness. Holding resentment will restrict your relationship with God. Read this scripture again, ‘as we have forgiven.’ You are praying,‘God measure out grace to me in the same measure I use.’ God will honor this prayer. Don’t let the worst relationship of your life (the one that hurt you the most or negatively impacted you the most) ruin your best relationship (your relationship with God). When you hold onto resentment that is what happens. When you receive God’s forgiveness, know you have power to forgive others. 
6. Stay in Step with God's Plan(Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil). This is asking God for help when temptation comes, for Him to show you the way out. One of the most important decisions you make every day is who you will take guidance from. Every day, the Holy Spirit and the enemy offer to guide you. When you pray, it is like taking the Holy Spirit’s hand so He can lead you into His direction and protection. Give the Holy Spirit permission to help you step into God's plan for your life. 

By the time to the end of this prayer, you are charged up to declare, “Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever”. This means “let it be so”. There’s certainty because the whole prayer is centered on a person, our Heavenly Father and His authority, holiness, power, wisdom, purpose, provision, forgiveness, and goodness. This whole thing shifts prayer from a rigid requirement to a rewarding relationship. When approached from your relationship with God, prayer is not an obligation. It’s an opportunity to know Him personally. Prayer based in relationship with God is dynamic and our personal prayer is the start of revival in our life, our church, our region and our nation.

“Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you” (Romans 12:1-2 MSG).

God wants to bring the best out of you and I want to make this statement…so do I. I want to take you on a journey of unlimited possibilities, to bring the best out of you. I believe this begins with you knowing God. Secondly, I believe the journey to bring the best out of you involves settling your yesterdays once and for all. I want you to find freedom and to discover your purpose so you can make a difference in this world. To do this, you need well-formed maturity. 

You don’t have to do the impossible. You just have to do the difficult and God will do the impossible!  If this is to be a year of unlimited possibilities, then you’re going to have to make a decision and create a habit of living a God-first life. Difficult yes, but then watch what God does!

Discover Your Purpose. Life will go better when you keep yourself in alignment with your purpose on this planet. Your life will never make sense and you’ll always have problems in other areas until you align your life around your purpose. Ps 139 says it beautifully, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

We try, don’t we? However, each one of us has added a chapter to our book. And, if you’re like me, probably a few chapters! These are not chapters God wrote for us. Don’t lose hope.When we look to God for alignment, he has this unique ability to make the last chapter fit …no matter how many chapters you may have added in. 

Live by design and not by default. Define it and design it. There is constant competition for our time and attention. Don’t allow other people or situations to decide your life for you. Today you are one day closer to the end of your life than you were yesterday.I’m your friend. I’m not an expert on the subject but I will tell you this, I personally believe we are living in the last days, maybe the last of the last days.There is no room for us to live a casual, no good, who cares kind of life.Today matters.This is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice! Yesterday‘s over and tomorrow’s not here. Get today in alignment.You’ll really never change your life until you change the things that you do every day, the habits. 

1.  Decide what is important.

A lot of our lives are being defined by what’s important, or urgent. There are a lot of things that we need to do, but they can’t dominate our lives.What are the most important things? “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7-8 NLT). The only way you’ll ever know if life is really better when you put God first is to go all in and make a decision that you're going to put him first. If you’ve never tried this life, you have missed out on the best.

1. Give calendar time to important things.

It is amazing how many people have values, but they don’t show up on their calendar. If you value it, you give it time and resources. Take time to fill your calendar with those things that are important. Ask for God to teach you in the ways of wisdom.

1.     Make time for renewal. You have got to refresh yourself. You’ve got to have a day where you slow yourself down. I promise you you will get more done in six days by giving one day to God and resting your spirit, soul, and body. 

1.     Make time for relationships. The most important decisions of your life after your decision to serve God is going to be the people that you choose to spend your life with. More on this later! 

1.   Make time for reward. Do something that will bring you heavenly rewards. Someday, you’re going to stand before God and part of my job is to make sure that you’re prepared for that final exam. He won’t have to ask if you belong to Christ. He will know the answer to that question. He will ask how much you leveraged the life that he gave you? It’s really important that you are living your life on purpose and making a difference.

3.   Eliminate the nonessentials.

A lot of us have nonessentials in our life and the secret is to eliminate as many of those things in our life that honestly just don’t belong. Eliminate those things that do not make your life better. Like Hebrew 12 says,let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us” (Hebrews 12:1 NLT). Make a decision to eliminate these things if you want what you want at the end.  

4.   Regularly take inventory.

Where is your life out of alignment? Pray this prayer from Psalm 39, ““Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered— how fleeting my life is. You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath” (Psalms 39:4-5 NLT).

Take a moment and get your life back on track. Make sure your life is what it is supposed to be about. Ask the Holy Spirit to point out areas that need to line up. Ask him to show you if you are really ready to meet God. Acknowledge that you need God and that you want to serve him with your whole heart and your whole mind. Ask him to forgive you and to change you. 

If you decide to do what’s needed, prepare for unlimited possibilities. God is amazing and he will do what he has promised. 

This will be a year of unlimited possibility. Declare it with me!

Right here at the beginning of this new year, let’s consider our habits.Weare what werepeatedly do. If you haven’t read my book,Make That, Break That, this would be a great time to get a copy!

I desire real change this year, a transformation. In any area of life, if you want to see something new, you’ve got to make a change. The way to live life the way God has for us is challenging; it’s doable but it’s challenging.

For 2023, let’s develop some habits that are intentional and worthwhile. What I want to share with you are God principles. If we apply these principles, they will change our lives. Get rid of excuses that keep you from achieving and seeing the changes you desire and jump in all the way. Let’s do this thing.

For our journey this year (check out my sermon, “Unlimited Possibilities”), you will need hope, hope your marriage can be restored or that your finances can be improved, hope for whatever it is you long for. I have a word for you… “But God.” Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT) promises, “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

In addition to hope, the second thing you need is repentance from the past, a course correction. 

Repentance is not a negative thing. It means to stop going in your current direction, change the way you think, and go the opposite direction, no looking back. Recovery programs sometimes use a tool, “My Life in Five Chapters”. The first four chapters involve no real change, going down the same road, falling into the same hole or nearly falling into it, and taking a long time to get out. But, chapter 5 is the key. Just go down a different street. This is transformation. My goal is to help take you down a whole different path this year. Like Philippians 3:13 says, let’s forget the past and look forward to what lies ahead.

The last thing is to form some new habits. Romans 12:21 says it this way, “Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evilby doing good.” The things we put first not only show truths about us, but they have power. Let’s focus on what to do first. 

Put God first. I promise you, if you put God first in your life, it is going to be a completely different year for you. Let me make a strong statement. If God is in your life, but he’snot firstin your life, then he’snot really in your life. He will not take another place on your list if he’s not at the top of it. The first of the 10 Commandments is all about him being first, “Then God gave the people all these instructions: “I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. “You must not have any other god but me” (Exodus 20:1-3 NLT). That little “g” god is really just any love or passion we may hold dear. He does not mind you loving something, but he does mind you loving itmore than him and he will not take another place other than first. Here at the beginning of 2023, I challenge you to develop a habit of putting God first.  

Give God the first of everything. Many preach this as a money principle. It is not just a money principle. Leviticus 27:30 NLT teaches that one tenth of all we have belongs to the Lord, 1/10th of everything. This includes your thoughts and your time. Set apart a tenth of your time and your thoughts and give them to God. The purpose of tithing is to teach you to always put God in first place in your life (Deuteronomy 14:23 LB). Thank God that our giving feeds the hungry and builds buildings. But that’s not the purpose. Give to God the first of everything you possess.

Consider the following. Give God the first of your year. We are in a time of prayer and fasting at my church during January. We set aside this time to put God first in our year. 

Give God the first of your month. Review your schedule and make sure he is in your schedule. Likewise, don't schedule things that will schedule God out. 

Give God the first of your week. A good example of this is to make sure Sundays are set aside for him. Spend time in God’s presence and skip that additional golf game on Sunday morning or sleeping in. We gather on Sunday to worship God not only because that was the day Jesus was resurrected, but because the early church decided they wanted to celebrate on the first day of the week, putting God first in their week. Take the day to worship and to rest. if you give God this time, you'll be surprised what you get done the remainder of the week. 

Give God the first of your day. Talk to him first thing in the morning before anything else. Give him your first thoughts. Pastor Chris Hodges challenges people to give the first fifteen minutes of the day to God - 5 minutes in the Word, 5 minutes in worship, and 5 minutes in prayer. Do this and then watch God work in your life in amazing ways. 

When I give God the first of my time he multiplies my time. When I give God the first of my finances, he multiplies my finances. I find that the 90% will go further than 100%. When I give God the first of my thoughts, he multiplies my thoughts. Keep a notepad handy. You will want to write them all down!

Give God your first and your best. “Seek his will in all you do, andhe will show you which path to take. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. Thenhe will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with good wine” (Proverbs 3:6, 9-10 NLT).

Palm Sunday occurs every year on the Sunday before Easter. Today, we remember Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The account is  in all four of the gospels. Jesus entered the city, knowing that he was going to be tried, and then crucified. But, he also knew he would be raised from the grave to save us from sin. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Weekor Passion Week, which is the remembrance of the last days of Jesus..

One third of the Gospel writings concern this last week of Jesus’ life on earth. This week, Jesus visited friends in Bethany on Saturday. Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, held a dinner to honor the One who performed this miracle. During the event, Lazarus’ sister Mary worshiped Jesus, anointing his feet. She worshiped, not caring who was watching or what people thought about what she was doing. 

This woman was so thrilled with what Jesus had done in her life and for her family, that she took her most prized possession, perfume that was worth a fortune, and poured it all out for him.

The following day was Sunday. This was Palm Sunday, March 30 in the year 33 AD. This date was prophesied in Zechariah 9 and in Daniel 9. The crowd shouted “Hosanna!” which is a phrase directly from Psalm 118. They were crying “Lord save us!” in verse 25. In the previous verse, we find that THIS WAS THE DAY that the Lord has made. This phrase specifically speaks of this day and prophecy is precise, 173,880 days from March 5, 444 BC when the king gave the decree to rebuild Jerusalem. Palm Sunday was not just another day, but was prophesied hundreds of years before to bear witness to King Jesus.

Most thought Jesus came to deliver them from the oppressions of Rome. But according to Daniel 9, he was going to come on this appointed day and there would be a celebration, but after that the Messiah  would be cut off. In 33 AD, inattentive of the prophecies of old but fulfilling them nonetheless, the Pharisees saw the popularity he had gained and resolved to destroy him. God’s word reveals such great truths in every part of the story. As we spend time considering these scriptures, they draw us closer toward Christ and remind us that he indeed is King.

Many biblical prophecies were fulfilled during this week. Jesus came to earth to save humanity by dying on the cross on Good Friday (Passover) and resurrecting on Easter Sunday. By doing what he did, he swung the gates of heaven open, allowing our sins to be forgiven and ushering in the presence of God. Until then it was impossible for humans to be good enough to be in the presence of God, and be forgiven for our sins. Old Testament sacrifices were used to cover sin by the Jewish people, but Jesus was the perfect sacrifice once and for all, including Gentiles. He went to the cross out of his great love for you and for me so that we could stand in the presence of God.

The story of Jesus’ Passion during Holy Week started on Sunday with Jesus' entry into Jerusalem as a king which is why it was triumphant. Monday was Jesus’ first public act as King. He cleansed the temple symbolic of the cleansing he accomplishes in us, his living temple.

On Tuesday, Peter noticed the withered fig tree that Jesus had cursed. Jesus used this as a lesson for us  to have faith and recognize the power of forgiveness. The tree was a picture of what God’s people should be, a deeply rooted plant that grows leaves and bears fruit. Jesus will come out against the fruitless temple. 

Wednesday is widely known as spy Wednesday. There was a plot developed by the high priest and the authorities to kill Jesus. This is when everyone knew Jesus had to die. Judas made himself available to the plot and agreed to betray his teacher. 

Thursday we remember his last meal and the new covenant presented at the Last Supper. Jesus ministered in a personal and intimate way to his closest disciples and counseled them for the last time before his death. He revealed that the Passover meal would now represent his body and blood given for them… and us. He was the lamb that would bring freedom, sealing a new covenant, that through his death we would be free and through his resurrection he would be our King. We celebrate this act of God  today by communion when we break bread and share wine or juice, which represents the blood and the body of Christ. On this day, Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment that we find in John 13:34,

“Love one another just as I have loved you..”

Friday, Jesus was arrested and the King of the universe was questioned, tortured and condemned, an innocent man led to crucifixion and death on the cross. He was betrayed and deserted by his closest friends. Why would it be called Good Friday? It’s called Good Friday, because by Jesus’ death, he became the final and complete sacrifice for our sins. Jesus broke the bonds of sin and death for you and for me.

Saturday would be his body resting in the tomb. It was a rich man’s tomb, which again fulfilled the prophecy from the old testament in Isaiah 53. Holy Saturday is a time for us to really lean into being present in the Lord, placing our own agendas at the door, and coming before him to simply just be with him. The Lord desires a relationship with us, and the requirement of relationship is time together. I would encourage you Saturday not to ask God for anything, but simply just spend some time with him. On Saturday, we remember everything was finished and there was nothing to be added. We join Jesus in his rest and we join him in the Sabbath.

Next Sunday, we will celebrate the day of resurrection. Jesus defeated death and the news of how God’s son died for our sins and rose again from the dead spread. He reigns today, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, our King, who on Palm Sunday rode out like a rival king, who on Monday and Tuesday pronounced destruction on the temple and his final victory, who on Wednesday was prepared for burial like royalty and on Thursday announced the new covenant of his monarchy. On Friday he went to war with death on a Roman tree and on Saturday he rested from all of his work in Sabbath sleep. On Sunday, he rose from the dead and proved once and for all that he is who the whole Bible and this Holy Week claim him to be… Our God in the flesh… King of kings… Our Savior who reigns eternally.