I wanted to read to you something that Dickson said about the subject of prayer, which is the one that concerns us today. Today I bring you a message that I have titled, Let us pray without ceasing, based on the text of 1 Thessalonians 5, 17. And he says the following, When we depend on organizations, we will obtain what organizations can do. When we depend on the academy, we will obtain what education can offer. When we depend on men, we will obtain what men can do. But when we depend on prayer, we will see what only God can do. Father, You know our sins, Lord, our limitations, our needs, Lord. I ask You not to take into account the condition of the one who preaches. but that you give us according to your grace, according to your mercy, because we need you, Lord Jesus. Amen and amen. And I wanted to start, brothers, as part of my introduction, with a prayer that a Puritan preacher would make. And I love the Puritans because they were men who knew how to balance the issue of our sin, our guilt, but the wonderful grace that God offers us. And I want that while you listen to this prayer, do not focus on the beauty of the prose or of the searched words that this author uses, this preacher, but on the heart of the man who is claiming them. I want you to focus on that, because at the end of it, I'm going to ask you a question. And he prayed like this, O Lord, I am subject to you as to an anchor. I see, I believe, I live by your will and not mine. I beg for nothing in myself, I have nothing of value. It is only your providence and promises, your good blessing. If your mercy makes me poor and vain, blessed be you! I know that the prayers that rise for my need are preparation for future mercies. Help me to honor you, believing you before feeling, for great is my sin if I make of my feelings the motive of my faith. Show me my sins, those that hide from me, that eclipse your love. Help me to be humbled by my evils, that I may walk with more care, for if I do not walk with mercy before You, what is the sign of my salvation? It is to the meek and the humble that Your covenant is shown, Your will, who is forgiven and healed, who by faith depends and rests in Your grace, who is sanctified and enlivened, who evidences Your love. Help me to pray by faith and thus find Your will, resting in Your rich and free mercy, believing that You will give what You have promised. Strengthen me so that I may pray with the conviction that what I receive is a gift from You, and thus pray until my prayer is granted to me. Teach me to believe that every degree of mercy comes from various degrees of prayer. that when faith begins, it is imperfect and must grow, just as the dry earth cracks more and more until the rain falls. So I will wait for your will, praying that it be done in me, and by your grace, to obey it. Amen. Beloved, do we pray like this? I am not saying that we should copy someone else who is praying. We pray with a heart of this kind. Are these the prayers that come out of our hearts, or are they prayers more centered on me, on my need, on my desires? This was the prayer of a man who had known his God and who knew that it was about Him and only Him. Brothers, the prayer, and I do not intend to define it, I do not intend to define it because much has been spoken of the prayer and much is still to be said. But we could say that it is the act of connecting the need of man, of the fallen man, with the resources available to him by God through Christ. It is the act of connecting the need of the fallen man, of me, with the resources that God puts at my disposal through the person of Jesus. And there can be so many other definitions. This one seemed very practical and concrete to me. It can be private or public. It can be as simple as the one we see in Luke 18.13. Lord, have mercy on me, sinner. What a great prayer. That is one of my favorite prayers. I repeat it continuously and I put it under my signatures, in my e-mails, in my e-mails and so on, because I identify with it. Or it can be as extensive and detailed as the prayer that Jesus did in John 17, that intercessory prayer for the disciples. It can even be a prayer about prayer, as we see in Psalm 54, verse 12. Listen to my prayer, O God, lend your ear to the words of my mouth. Here the psalmist is praying, even for this prayer that he is going to make to the Lord. And brothers, many things could be said about prayer, but in reality it is very simple. It is the way in which the believer connects with his God. It is simple. It is the way in which we, children of God, through the sacrifice of Christ, have communion, we have contact, we have a relationship with God. How wonderful it is, my brothers and sisters, that God, in His sovereignty, complies in carrying out His purposes through men and women sinners like us. But how wonderful it is to know that He carries out those plans through us and through our prayers, as if He needed such a thing. He uses us in His plan, but then there is still plenty, according to those prayers that we read, we do, and an anonymous said the following on one occasion, The true prayer recognizes that it cannot change neither God nor circumstances, but it understands that frequently God is pleased to achieve His purposes through it. Isn't that so? We know that God is sovereign and that He is going to carry out a plan that He has already determined from eternity and until eternity. But how incredible it is that He then asks us to intercede, to pray, Let us come to Him in prayer, in supplication, as if that were doing something. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. And this is one of the many great mysteries of our faith. I would like, going into matter, to go through three points with you this afternoon. First, why should we pray? And there could be hundreds and hundreds of reasons why a Christian should pray. But I'm going to focus on seven, which I found to be very specific. Second, how should we pray? And I'm going to give you five ways. And at the end, then, two observations that I want to make very specific about prayer. I want this to be a practical teaching. I don't want to come with a lot of theory here. I want to leave you with some practical teachings that you can take home tonight and that can improve your prayer life. And so, why should we pray, my brothers and sisters? We know that the Word asks us to. We have to do it out of obedience, because the God who saved us asks us to pray. A good reason would be It's a channel, it's our channel, it's the channel that man has to maintain communion with God. It's like they say in English, it's a lifeline, it's a lifeline. It's like that sick person who is in a hospital bed with a serum connected to an arm and a machine connected to another part. That machine and that serum are keeping him alive at that moment. Prayer for us, beloved, is our lifeline. We need prayer as believers to stay alive. Do not believe anything else. It is a ground that we must daily have connected to us. And look at what Martin Luther said about this. To be a Christian without prayer is as impossible as to be alive without breathing. Have you ever seen it like this? We need prayer to be alive, for our spirit to remain alive in us. A second reason why we should pray. Prayer keeps us dependent on God and reminds us of our need for Him. It keeps us dependent on Him and reminds us, in the midst of prayer, of the need that I have for my God. Albert Day said, the function of prayer is to clarify God in the center of our attention. When we are praying, brothers, God is the center of our attention because I am in communion with Him, I am in contact with Him. Tell me if it is not true that when I stop praying, my thoughts go to me, to me, to my things, to my agenda, to my problems, to my tribulations, to my needs. It keeps us dependent on God and reminds us that, apart from Him, we cannot do anything good. There is nothing good in us. So I need to be in connection with Him continuously. A third reason why we should pray. It develops and matures our relationship with Christ. Prayer helps us develop that relationship that I want to grow more and more. Someone said that prayer is the gymnasium of the soul. Don't you like that? Prayer is the gymnasium of the soul. We, men and women, are very concerned with our physique. And we live in those pagan temples, the gymnasiums, full of mirrors and little clothes, because our physique takes up a lot of space. We say that it is for health. That is the story we get into. But we know what it is about. But this man said with a lot of knowledge, it is prayer. Prayer is the true gymnasium, because it exercises your spirit, which is the only thing that is going to be eternal and permanent. That beautiful body that you are exercising is not going to last a long time. And we know what Pastor Pablo said in 1 Tim. 4.8, when he said that physical exercise takes little advantage. I love that verse. I love it. So it is our way of developing our faith, praying daily, continuously. A fourth reason why we should pray. It helps us to be honest with God and to agree with Him. Our heart is very deceitful, brothers. You know it, the Word says it. It is deceitful and perverse. Who can understand it? When I am in prayer with God, That state of connection with God allows me to come to Him honestly and say, Lord, how can I hide from You what You know? Here in the secret, here in the intimate with You, how can I hide what You already know about me? It allows me to be honest with God. He wants a humble heart. He wants a transparent heart in front of Him. And it is the way in which we confess to God, in which we ask Him for forgiveness, in which He amonizes us through His Word, in which we thank Him, in which we praise Him. It is the way in which I communicate with Him. It is the only way. It is like the koinonia with God. Now, at the end of the cult, I will have koinonia with some of you out there, at the exit. We will greet each other. How do I have koinonia with an invisible, uncontainable God? It is through prayer. That is why he says, pray, pray without ceasing, so that you may have communion with me. And others say that it is the aperitif, it is the aperitif of what will be our eternal conversations. Can you imagine? It is like a tasting. Durante estos años en la tierra, de lo que van a ser nuestras conversaciones con Dios por la eternidad, tenemos que ejercitarnos ahora para ir aprendiendo a cómo hacerlo. Una quinta razón por la que debemos orar nos ayuda a enfocarnos en lo eterno y no en lo terrenal, que es nuestra tendencia natural. Nuestra tendencia como hombres y mujeres caídos es ver hasta donde mis ojos ven. Pero Dios quiere que veamos por encima de lo terrenal, to the eternal, to our home in heaven, to the place where we truly belong. It is said that prayer brings heaven to the soul and raises the soul to heaven. That is prayer. It brings my heavenly home to me, it brings it close to me, and it brings it close to my Father in heaven. And look at what John Piper said on one occasion. or how we need to wake up and realize how we spend our time doing nothing. Apart from prayer, all our eagerness, our speaking, our study is nothing. For most of us, the voice of self-sufficiency shouts much louder than the bell of prayer. The voice shouts to us, answer that mail, return that call, get ready for that meeting, check your Facebook. But the prayer bell sounds low. You can't do anything away from me. That's not our situation, brothers. I don't know if yours is mine today, standing here in front of you. Those voices shout to me much louder than the bell that tells me, come to me, look for me. I have much more to give you than the world can offer you. A sixth reason why we should pray is our soul, our weapon against the enemy, prayer. Someone said that Satan trembles when he sees the weakest of the saints on his knees. Satan trembles when he sees the weakest of the saints kneeling in prayer." Wow, that's wonderful. That prayer has that power. And it has it. It has it. Thomas Lyle once said, I prefer to stand before the cannons of the impious than before the prayers of the righteous. I fear less a cannon than a Christian praying. That is the power of prayer. But I know that many of us are not aware of that reality. Many of us are not aware of the power that prayer has, and hence the insistence of our Father in Heaven that we pray without ceasing. A seventh reason why we should pray is the method by which we come before the throne of grace to ask for the portion of grace necessary for the day that God has granted us. Brothers, as believers, as Christians, we cannot afford to open the door of our home and go out in the street in the morning without having prayed to the Lord. If you are doing that, listen to me carefully, you are in a very dangerous situation. We cannot afford that. We have to come to the Lord in prayer, early in the morning, and ask Him, Lord, give me the grace that I need for the day that You already know that I will have before me. The day that You have already orchestrated for me. You know my weakness, my need, my sin. Give me the dose, the portion, the ration of grace, perfect, that only You can give me for the day that You have created for me today. Do not leave me a drop more. that I finish it when I go to bed, to come and ask you the next day, the next one. It is so. John Newton said, for an hour of intimate access to the throne of grace in prayer, where the Lord makes His glory pass before the soul that seeks Him, this is you praying in the morning. This is you presenting yourself before the Lord in the morning, in your desk, on your knees, in your armchair, where you meet the Lord early. For an hour of intimate access to the throne of grace, where the Lord makes His glory pass before the soul that seeks Him, we will find more spiritual knowledge and relief than we could find after twenty-four hours of conversations with the best and most knowledgeable of men. And is it not our tendency to do the opposite? To pray for three minutes and then go to see a sermon on the Internet? Which is very good, very good. I am sure that the Lord magnifies us greatly through the preachings and articles that we see on the internet. But he is telling me, this John Newton is telling me, you are going to get more out of spending a good time praying to your God than a whole day going to wise men, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what it's about. No salgamos de nuestros hogares, hermanos, por la mañana, sin haber tenido un tiempo con nuestro Señor. Ese es uno de los temas lema que el Señor ha puesto en el corazón de mi esposa y el mío. Y aunque enseñamos sobre la familia y el matrimonio, esa es una de las banderas que enarbolamos, el tiempo de devoción con nuestro Dios. Lo necesario que es para el cristiano venir temprano en la mañana, al inicio de su día, y tener un encuentro con Él. Get me out of here, Lord. Get me out of here. You know what my need is. Equip me for what awaits me today. I don't want to leave this place if you haven't done a work on me first. And I don't know if you noticed, because you are a very well-taught congregation, a very well-taught congregation, I don't know if you noticed that until now I have not quoted a biblical quote. I have quoted men Contemporaneous, read from 100 years ago, from 200 years ago, with quotes that express what they have learned about prayer. And I do this because in the Council, which is what I do the most during my week of work, of ministerial work, no matter what you come to see me, in a Council meeting, you are going to come out talking about devotion to God. If you're going to see a picture of Saul in the Ibis, it doesn't matter what the council brings you, at the beginning, at the middle, or at the end, I'm going to talk to you about your devotion to the Lord. Because for me, that's vital. And many times, speaking of prayer, my brothers tell me, Pastor, but it's really not possible, it's very difficult with the life we live today. That was Moses, and that was Joshua, and that was Daniel, and that was Joseph, and David, and Paul. But today, in reality, it is very difficult to work, to develop a life of prayer of that nature. And that is why I wanted to share these quotes, because these are men from not long ago. It is true that in the last 100 years, in the last 30 years, things have changed a lot. But these are men who obeyed the Lord and discovered the power of prayer for their lives, and how their lives were transformed because they obeyed God and prayed to Him continuously, they prayed without ceasing. But now I want to talk a little bit about how to pray. There are some reasons why we should pray, and I know that we can find dozens and dozens of reasons why we should do them, in addition to the fact that the Lord does not ask for them. But then I want to go over five ways of how to pray. Again, this is practical. I know that we have been taught a lot about prayer on many occasions, but for some reason, brothers, we still do not do it. For most of us, it is still hard for us to work, to pray as the Lord asks us. And then, a first way of praying. In private, as Matthew 6 says. But you, when you pray, enter your room, and when you have closed the door, pray to your Father who is in the secret, and your Father who sees the secret will reward you. And when we speak of private, it does not mean with the door closed with a pin. Yes, there is a sense of privacy, that I am the Lord, the Lord and I. But what the text refers to is in the intimate, in the interior. in what no one sees, in the secret. That is a way of praying, opening your heart to the Lord who knows everything, whom you cannot deceive with your appearance of piety, whom knows your heart and knows your sins and your weaknesses. Richard Newton said about this on one occasion, the principal, and speaking of his personal case, He said, I owe the main cause of my spiritual squalidness and lack of fruit to my carelessness in my times of prayer. I can write and read, listen and talk with a very willing heart, but prayer is more spiritual and introspective, and I see that the more spiritual my duty is, the more my carnal heart moves away from wanting to carry it out. They don't say amen to that. I see myself reflected there completely. I can teach here, preach there, and share in a small group, and read there, and hear that, but when it comes to being the Lord and I in private, Him and I alone, what work, what work does it cost me to maintain a prayer for a certain time, to speak to Him for a certain time, I pray in the church with the pastors, I pray before a council, I pray at the end of the council. If the council is complicated, I pray in the middle of the council. But when I have my time with the Lord in the morning, that I have my devotional books, I have my Bible, I have two or three more books, it is much easier for me to read the books than to stop and pray to the Lord. And I have to force myself and ask for help, and even starting with my prayer, I have to call East Franklin about this thing. I have to tell Eduardo about this thing. And I have to start asking for help because my mind goes away. How laborious it is. And about prayer in private, someone said, ¿Existe algún rincón en alguna de nuestras habitaciones donde la alfombra o el piso se vean desgastados por nuestras rodillas? Ouch. ¿Hay algún lugar, tu lugar de devoción, donde al tú pasar frente a él veas evidencias de tu tiempo con Dios? Yo tengo mi devotional en un escritorio que tengo en mi habitación. My wife Laura does it in the living room. And then I read this in a book I read a while ago. I remember my front door is over there and I do like this against the light to see if I see, if I notice any change between the wood, between the part where the arms are and the wood that does not touch the arms. And I noticed it. I noticed that there is a part that is like worn out. Glory to God. I thanked God because it's not all the time I'm praying, it's not that I'm like this all the time, but it's my time that I spend there, because I don't use it for anything else. The rest of my work I do in the office. But is there a place in your house that has a trace of you meeting the Lord there, in private? Acts 9.11 tells us, Ananias, go to the house of Judas, on the street called Right, and ask for a certain Saul of Tarsus, because he is praying. It happens to you that if someone calls you, the one who picks up the phone says, no, I can't give it to you now, because this is the time he prays. I have a sister in our church, that if you call her between such and such time, No, she's praying. I won't touch her. I won't touch her. Call her after this time. That shouldn't be the case for all of us, brothers, as children of God, who want to have intimacy with God, who want to be intimate with Him, who want to spend time with their Father in heaven. That shouldn't be our case either. A second way of praying, with a grateful heart, With a grateful heart. Psalm 136, verse 1. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for forever is his mercy. Philippians 4, 6. In all, through prayer and supplication, with actions of thanksgiving, give to know your petitions before God. Brothers, there is an indisputable and powerful connection between prayer and a grateful heart. There is a connection there. That it is seen in the Word, and that if you have lived it, you can confirm it. The heart that recognizes the goodness of God, and that comes in prayer to Him, is a heart that will grow in the knowledge of his God, and that will deepen in that relationship with Him. That is indisputable. We must be grateful, brothers, for the mercy that the Lord gives us, for the proofs, for the good, for what He gives, for what He takes away, for prosperity, for adversity. Our prayer must begin, and I do not want to tell anyone here that there is a specific pattern of prayer. That is not what I want you to take away today, nor do I want you to think that it is a model that must be imitated. But I encourage you, I move you, that when you pray in the future, try to start with words of gratitude. You may be in a terrible test, a sick child, a devastating economic situation, but let the first words that come out of your mouth when you address your Father in Heaven be, Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord. Because the most important thing, you have already given it to me, which is my salvation and my eternal guarantee with you. And then, open your heart to Him, cry before Him, beg, because He says, cry to Me, cry to Me, I will answer you. But let us come to Him with a grateful heart. Another way of how to pray constantly, as the text that occupies us says, 1 Thessalonians 5, 16, Be always joyful, pray without ceasing, because this is the will of God for you in Christ. Constantemente. Hermano, yo no oro constantemente. Con dolor se los digo. Algunos de ustedes sabrán que mi esposa Laura y la esposa del pastor Saladin, Patricia, están en un ministerio, son parte de un ministerio que se llama Viva Nuestros Corazones de Revive Our Hearts allá en Estados Unidos, que a su vez es un subministerio de Live Action Ministries. And in recent years, since they have been involved in this ministry, of which they are already part, and another group of women also from here, from our country, we have had to travel to Michigan, where they have their headquarters, their main offices. And we travel sometimes two or three times a year there, and they have traveled here on some occasion. And I, with a lot of pain I say it, and almost with shame, but no, I will not let shame prevent que diga lo que quiero decir. A mí me llamaba la atención cómo esos hermanos oraban continuamente. Ellos nos iban a buscar al aeropuerto y parábamos ante montarnos en el carro y orábamos. Llegábamos a nuestro destino y nos bajábamos del vehículo y orábamos. Nos venían a buscar para el lugar que nos iban a llevar luego y orábamos. Y era oración continua. Y yo decía a Laura, wow, pero esta gente sí ora. Esta gente sí ora. Amén. And I would say afterwards, imagine that they come to visit where we are. What would they think? Which of the two groups is good, and which of the two is bad? We do not pray, brothers, with the consistency and continuity that we should do. The word tells us to pray without ceasing. What does it mean without ceasing? without it ending, without it ending, continuously. I hope that many of you have that as your way of doing it, but that is not mine. And when I prepared this message a few months ago, I was greatly confronted by the Lord, because He was putting a message in my hands that I did not feel I was capable of giving. And since then, to this day, He has helped me greatly. But this does not end. This is something continuous. This is something in which we cannot rest. And you know what, my beloved? We pray sporadically because we trust too much in ourselves. That is the reason. It is not because we forget. It is not because I have other more important things to do, because if we are asked, we say that praying is the most important thing. It is because deep down I trust myself a lot. Because in my talents, in my attitudes, in my gifts, I have seen how things move, how things work when Faust is assigned something. And Faust gets confused in his sin. His deceitful heart plays dirty with him and makes him believe that he can do it. And then he says, the Lord helped me. But in reality, how many times did I come to Him in prayer, asking for help? How many times did I come to Him asking for help? The more I trust in myself, the less need and dependence I have on God. That is the reality. The more I trust in myself, the less I come to God. And a sporadic practice, a sporadic prayer practice, warm, does not reveal anything else, my brothers. than to walk inconsistently with God. Listen well, the Christian who is not praying continuously, who is not depending on God in prayer, is not walking with the Lord as he should, even if it seems from the outside that it is so, even if he does not miss a cult, even if he does not miss a conference, even if he participates in all the activities of the Church, even if he speaks peacefully and dresses as a Christian. The reality is that in the interior of his being, he is not having the walking with God that he should have. Matthew Henry said on one occasion, prayer is the key to the morning and the key to the night. It begins with the dawn and ends with the closing of the eyes. This is our life of prayer. It is our life of prayer in that way. Another way of how we should pray, fighting against our nature and against the forces of evil, in an attitude of battle, of struggle. Ephesians 6, verse 12, because our struggle is not against blood or flesh, but against powers, against the powers of this world of darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the celestial regions, brothers. We are in times of war. Although there is no persecution here in the Dominican Republic, and although you, as a Christian, can go out and enter and say whatever you want wherever you want, the reality is that we are in times of war. The bad guy is on the fence. He is always there watching who he makes fall. The devil is always on the lookout, using the most effective way to distract us from our prayer time. When I am praying and I get thoughts of the meeting I have at ten o'clock, and that I have to buy such and such thing, and that I have to move such and such sheep from such time to such time, he is taking advantage of it. He knows my weakness. My weakness is not me thinking about filthy things at that moment, nor about lust. He knows what my weakness is. Fausto is very organized, very schematic, and very square, and he has his agenda very in order. So the thoughts that attack me are, I have this thing, I have to move this person, I agreed with this one to go to this side, but this person called me last night. That's what distracts me, and it's as lethal as the most terrible thought, because it disconnects me from him. It disconnects me, it distracts me, and that's how he wants me. He wants me distracted. Because a discreet Christian is not effective. He is not effective. We have to be, brothers, aware of the enemies that are outside and inside. Outside is Satan, who is the one who has the great fame. The evil one with the fame. But do you know who your worst enemy is? The one who is inside you, your heart. Your deceitful heart, from where life emanates, but which is contaminated. It is full of perversity. I have to live as a Christian in times of battle, even if I am not in Pakistan or China. We have to have a warrior's attitude, a soldier's attitude. And our main weapon is prayer. It is prayer. If we are not praying like this, my beloved, we will be defeated. And although our salvation cannot be snatched away by the evil, He can make us ineffective Christians. Okay, you go to heaven with your God, but as long as you are here, you are not going to serve anything. We have to have that attitude of battle. We have to be continually battling in prayer. A fifth way of how to pray is with the Word of God. To pray the Word of God. You know that many times, if you start praying to the Lord, the only thing that is happening there is you saying many things. Many things about what you believe, what you think, what you would like. But the reality is that much of what I want and I desire is not what God wants for me, perhaps. So we have to pray to our God with what He has already revealed to us of Him. I've heard the term, I don't know if you've heard it, the term prayer concert. Concert of prayer. I love that, I discovered it a few years ago, and I love it. It has completely changed my life of prayer. And it is to take the Word of God, and I wanted to give you an example, but it takes me a long time, to take one of the Psalms, to take the Word of God, to read it and to pray over it. Pray what the Lord has already told you in His Word, then pray that to the Lord, to the extent that you adapt it to your situation, to your condition. The Word of God is the Word of God for you, for you, His Son. Now He is telling you, the Spirit is telling you, hey, amen, say amen to that, that is what the Lord is telling you, and now you in prayer you speak to your Father in Heaven with the same word that He taught you. and you thank him, you confess in front of him, depending on the text you are praying. If you haven't done that, I recommend it. That is extraordinary. And it looks beautiful when the whole congregation does it, in times of corporative prayer. that we take a psalm and the one who is directing, is reading, is reflecting on what he read, and then someone reads about that same thing, but already adapting it to our condition, to our situation as a church, in the personal. That avoids, brother, that you get confused in your prayer, because you are praying what God has already told us, and it is not the will of God that we want to do. He is there. He is there. If I pray independently of the Word of God, I am self-consoling, telling God what I want Him to do for me. And He says to me, I have a better advice for you. Look at it in the Word. And now I am asking God what God has already told me is good for me. It is not that we are going to pray like this always, but it is one of the ways in which we can pray. There are those who say, oh no, it is very boring, we don't pray because it is the same. The Word of God is alive and effective. And in each reading, you who have read certain books several times, it's not as if you read it for the first time. When you read it again, it's like, wow, incredible. Imagine now praying about that same thing that the Lord is talking to you about. Praying from the Word strengthens and strengthens our times of prayer, brothers. Try that, you will really see el efecto que va a tener. Y orar sin la palabra es sólo hablar de lo engañoso de nuestro corazón. Mi corazón quiere cosas que Dios no quiere para mí. Y en esos tiempos de oración, la palabra me ministra y ahora yo le doy gracias a Dios a través de su palabra y usando su misma palabra, él me va ministrando a mí, me va dando conformidad, me va dando aceptación de su voluntad para mí, aunque sea contraria a la mía. And I'm sure there are many other ways to pray. But I understand that those five can help us establish certain parameters that help us. My interest, brothers, is not to tell you anything new about prayer. My interest is perhaps to help you establish some parameters that facilitate your times of communion with the Lord. Because from there everything emanates. From those times with Him, the man, the woman of God that you are, will emanate. If you are not having them, no, you are not having them. And so, two observations that I want to make regarding prayer, two observations that I hear very often in counseling and in conversations with brothers in the Church. One is the discouragement of unanswered prayers. How do we get discouraged when we pray for a long time for something and we understand that the Lord does not answer us? Or, a second observation, badly motivated prayers. Prayers that I am bringing before the throne of grace, but that have a wrong motivation and that, therefore, will not be answered. 2 Corinthians 12, 8, 9 says, About this I have prayed three times to the Lord to take it away from me. And he said to me, Enough of my grace, for my power is perfected in your weakness. Therefore, I will glorify myself in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Paul prayed several times for this scourge, for this thing that tormented him. And the Lord said to him, No, it will be my grace that will lead you forward. It is not that I take that away from you, that you do not want it to be present. So, brothers, we have to understand Legitimate prayers. I am sure that the prayer of the Father was legitimate. He had a great sorrow with this Quijón. We do not know exactly what it is. He had a great sorrow. I am sure that his prayer was legitimate. But the response of God was different from what he wanted to see. And the reality is that legitimate prayers can result in prayers that are not answered many times. Prayers that start from a genuine, sincere heart before God, like the one of this Puritan who read the beginning of the message. They can have as an answer a silence from God. They can have as an answer a silence from God. And this does not mean that we are not children of God, or that my prayer is badly motivated, or that it is wrong. Have you started to think that perhaps this unanswered prayer is nothing other than God answering you in a better and superior way than what you expected? Has it not happened to you that you have prayed for something and that the Lord ends up giving you something much better than what you asked for? And in the interim you are desperate, thinking, why does the Lord not answer me? And He has something better for us. But since my petition is part of my heart, and my heart is not reliable, I have to wait for Him. And He will respond according to His good, pleasant, and perfect will. Unanswered prayers can be used by God to produce more beneficial and satisfactory results than the original petition. Do you believe that? Sometimes I think that the Lord answers me if He answers what I expect Him to say. That's when I know that He answered me. And yet, He answers me with something different, or I don't see an answer from Him. And He is preparing me for a much greater and superior answer than the one I imagined. Unanswered prayers exercise the soul and produce greater dependence on God. Have you ever thought that perhaps a prayer that you think the Lord has not answered you is nothing more than a way for God to keep you at His feet in prayer? Because if He answers you after three days, you get up and forget what God did for you. Those of us who have prayed for a long time for something in particular, a wife praying for the salvation of a husband, for the salvation of a teenage son, a long chronic illness that would seem to never get better. Those times of extensive, uninterrupted, continuous prayer for the same cause, for the same petition, haven't you realized that you have come closer to the Lord? Independence to Him. Lord, I can't. I can't take this situation anymore. If you don't intervene, if you don't do something, I don't know what will become of me. That type of unanswered prayer, brothers, keeps us close to God. Because if we don't, we get distracted and we are going to do a lot of things, as is our tendency to be very busy with so many things, like Martha. That is our natural tendency, no matter how noble and good those things are. It is our tendency to pray less and do more. And sometimes God has to subject me to periods of long prayer responses to keep me in that state of prayer, of communion with Him. God answers prayers according to His sovereignty and to His eternal plan, not according to what you want to see. To His sovereignty and to His eternal plan. We expect answers according to our understanding and to the temporality of our life. I want it now, Lord. Tomorrow. It's just that I've been waiting for this for three years. And He says, what are three years compared to the eternity that you will be with Me? We have to understand that difference. I read in a place once, nothing is out of the reach of prayer except that which is out of the will of God. Let's believe that, brothers. If God has not answered me something, it is because it is not in His will. Let us learn to wait to go. Lord, what do you expect from me in this time? In what direction should I go? Do I stay here still? Do I know that you are God? Do I continue to pray for this? And a second observation. Badly motivated prayers. Bad motivations in our prayers. Saint James 4.3, which we know well. They ask and do not receive because they ask with bad intentions. That does not mean to ask for things bad, that means that the motivation of my heart is not the right one in front of God. Many times we say prayer, but in reality what we are doing is saying to God, God, agree with this that I want to do. Sometimes they come to a consultation, to a counseling for a big decision that this couple has to make. But when they come to me, the decision is already made. What they are looking for is supporters. They are looking for people who say yes to the plan that they already have in execution. I say, did you pray for that? When they tell me that I already have the tickets, I already bought, I already spent, I already gave the deposit. But did you pray for that? Yes, of course, pastor. That's what I prayed a few minutes ago with me. It's the truth. Our motivation is, Lord, I am praying for you to grant me this that I want. And many times, well, because we are Christians, we are not going to ask for bad things, I hope. But it is not what God wants for me. It is not what is convenient for me. It is not what is going to give me the benefit in the long term. On one occasion, A brother told me how he had a problem with another brother of the congregation. And that he was desperate because when that brother came through that door, he then grabbed that door over there. And if he was going to sit here, he saw that the brother was coming through there, boom, he got up with a lot of cunning and hid and grabbed to the other side. And that he was tired of that situation. And that he prayed as follows, Lord, you know my situation with Salvador, my brother. You know, sir, that we are sinners, he and I, both of us. But you know what I have done, sir, as much as possible to improve this relationship. It's not true. And no, we don't succeed. Every time I see him, it's one thing that I sin because I think of things that I shouldn't and I'm running away from him all over the temple, sir. If you could take him away, far away, Sir, maybe you'll get a job offer in Puerto Plata, better in San Juan, Puerto Rico, if not in Miami, even further away. But you know, sir, that I don't want to sin against you. Hey, what a beautiful prayer. I don't want to sin against you, sir. Take it far away, that he can be happy there in his other congregation, and I here in mine. Do you think that prayer is well motivated or badly motivated? I said to him, brother, a better prayer would be, and I do not intend to give you the perfect prayer, but I believe that knowing what God has revealed to us of himself, a better prayer would be, Lord, you have revealed to me what I am before you. You have revealed to me the horror and the disgust and the rottenness that is in me, and that you only look at me because Christ is between you and me. because He paid my sin, He paid my debt, and now you can look at me as your son. Let me, Lord, for a moment, see this brother as you look at me, and not see me then as superior to him, or see him worse than me, but two sinners in need of grace and forgiveness. May I see him, Lord, as you see me, and may the grace that you have given me, I may receive it. to my brother with whom I have difficulty. I guarantee you, brother, that God will answer that prayer, because He goes according to His will. He wants peace between these two sons, between these two brothers. He wants His glory to manifest because these two brothers, with conflicting and different temperaments, can live in harmony because they have a God greater and more powerful than them and than their sin. That is a better motivated prayer. I ask God to help me pray like that because that is not always my prayer. Matthew 6.33, but let us first seek the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all the rest will be added according to what God has already said to you, which is important, which is good, which is necessary, according to His justice. Psalms 37.3-5, trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the earth and cultivate fidelity, put your delight in the Lord and He will give you the requests of your heart. Put God first, let God be the center of your prayers, and He will give you the additions, He will give you those delights. Encomienda al Señor tu camino, confía en Él, y Él actuará. Hará resplandecer tu justicia como la luz, y tu derecho como el mediodía. What are the motivations of our prayers, my beloved? I think this is a good exercise before our prayer time. Lord, examine my heart and see if there is a path of perversity in me. Lord, examine my heart and look at the path of perversity that is in me. Not if there is or not, it is that there is. Reveal to me the perversity that is in my heart and the bad motivations that I have when I come to you in prayer. Brothers, to close, as children of God, we are called to pray. It is a commandment. It is a commandment of our Father, of our Lord, of our Master, of our Owner. Whether you like it or not, whether you are bored or not, whether you have time or not, it is a commandment. He commands us to pray. And a Christian, as I was saying earlier, a Christian who is not praying as he should, is in a highly dangerous condition. Very, very dangerous. We are not simply being careless. We are exposing ourselves to the enemy, to the heart first, which is the worst of all, and to the devil, which is loose like a roaring lion. We have to pray. That is the characteristic, says the word, which is love, which will make others know that we are of the Lord. But if we are not praying, brothers, we will not be able to manifest that love. Because it is not my love, it is the love of Christ in me. If my love for you depended on the love of Fausto González, we would not get to the parking lot. It is the love of Christ in us. And I will receive from Christ as long as I come to Him in communion, in prayer, as long as I come to Him daily. Yo no sé, mi amado, cuál es tu condición. Yo no sé cuál es la, el, el, si estás orando o no, cuántos, yo supongo que algo estarás orando, quizá haya alguno que tengan hábitos y prácticas de oración extensas y gloria a Dios por ustedes, qué bueno, qué bueno. Pero si la mayoría de ustedes son como la mayoría de la gente que yo veo en consejería, no estamos donde quisiéramos estar. Aun el que más avanzado va, yo creo que estamos cortos. Because, hey, what is the mandate? Pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. I think this deserves, depending on your condition, this deserves, that you take a day, perhaps, if you retire somewhere, that you take a day to be in communion, like a mini retreat, you alone, with the Lord. And that you ask the Lord, Lord, do something radical in my life. Do something radical in my life of prayer. Do something radical in my life that changes my life of prayer, Lord, so that I obey Your command to pray without ceasing, because I know that there is the source of all wonder, of all miracle, of all blessing. We do not pray as we have to pray, my beloved, because we do not believe that. We do not believe that if we prayed more, we would see things that our eyes cannot imagine seeing. If we believed, our life of worship would be completely different. To close, I want to share with you something that was found in one of the newspapers of William Wilberforce, of whom you may have heard a lot. He was a Briton who played a very important role in the abolition of slavery in England. and had already passed away, among his books there were diaries where he wrote as journals, as diaries that he carried, and in one of them he found this writing, and it is very much on the subject that concerns us, and he wrote the following, Oh, this perpetual desire for occupations is ruining me in soul and body. Poor William was very tired, just like all of us. I need more solitude and stillness. I need to wake up earlier. I suspect that I have been neglecting religious exercise, personal devotion, spiritual meditation, reading the Word, and prayer. That is why I feel cold and hardened. I must resume my two hours, at least an hour and a half, of spiritual discipline. I have been going to bed very late working, so I have been dedicating less than half an hour of my time with God in the mornings. I have been able to confirm that, without enough time of personal devotion, my soul has been malnourished and feels languid. But I will recover my old vigor and enthusiasm, for prayer can do it all. Therefore, I will say to my soul, my soul, now, now, now. I hope, brothers, that like the brother William Wilberforce, we in the future, when our flesh wants to get in the way and the evil wants to deceive us and our heart deceives us, We say to our souls, my soul, pray, pray, pray.