The thief comes to do nothing but steal, kill and destroy. I came so that they may continually have Zoe life and have it in much greater measure. James 1 verse 5 says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask from God who gives to everyone liberally without any prejudice or condemnation and it will be given to him.

I want to ask you a couple of questions today. When you come to the Lord in prayer, what is on the top of your prayer list? What are you hoping for him to do for you? And then when you visualize God answering your prayers, what do you see in your mind? How do you see yourself getting the answers to your prayer? And lastly, how will you know that he has answered your prayer? Will you know when you see the manifestation of the thing you asked for? Or will you know when you hear him say yes or no? Many of us are confused when it comes to receiving from God and especially when we come to him in prayer. We all have different ideas of how God is going to answer that prayer.

And at the end of the day we are sometimes praying and hoping and wishing and mostly we're waiting aren't we? Waiting for God to do something. Now I'm going to throw a spanner in the works today and I'm going to tell you that you are the key to your future. You are the key to your future.

You see the Lord never imposes on us in any way. He usually gives us the things that we desire and he always fulfills the promises in his word. Now for us to experience these things, two things are needed.

Firstly we need to be able to tap into and make use of the forces that are in our recreated spirit. These three forces are faith, love and hope as I've shared many times. The answer always starts in your spirit and then those forces become amplified by the condition of your soul.

One of the most famous scriptures is beloved I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in good health. But we forget the second part which says just in the same way that your soul is prospering. Your soul needs to prosper for these things to happen.

So what is in your soul will amplify these spiritual forces and give them greater power. The second thing that is needed is some form of outward activity and this is where we often miss it. You see you have to do something.

Spiritual power is always released through things we say and the things that we do, words and actions. You can never remain passive. You don't need to sit and wait for an answer.

Why is that? Because God will answer immediately. I'll say that again. When you pray God will answer immediately.

You say but I've been praying for years and God still hasn't answered my prayer. But I'm going to change today the way that you pray, the way you respond to God. I'm gonna help you to understand how to enter into this fuller greater life that the Lord has for us and how to pray correctly to get the answers.

You see God will always answer immediately when you ask him for something and this is the answer that you're going to get from him. He's going to tell you what to do. He's going to tell you what to do.

That's going to be his answer because you see the answer lies in your hands. You say well then you know I've been praying and God hasn't done anything. Actually God answered the moment you prayed.

Trouble is you probably didn't hear his answer because you've never learned how to listen. You could learn how to listen would have heard his answer. Come on you who even as children used to go to your parents and ask for something.

When you came and said please mom please dad can I have this. How did they do you? Did they just pretend they didn't hear you and just carry on doing what they're doing? Did they ignore you and walk away as though they didn't hear you? Not even a bad parent does that. You got some response okay and the natural that response may be and shut up and stop nagging me or no or I'll think about it or maybe or yes our heavenly father will never ignore you and never turn his back on you and pretend he didn't hear.

When you come to him to ask him for something he's going to respond immediately and you need to learn how to pick up his response because his response is going to give you some kind of idea of what's going to happen next of what you have to do next because you see you have a part to play in getting the answer. Now if you continue waiting and waiting and asking and asking I have some bad news for you. You're getting nothing.

Zilch. Zero. Nix.

You say but that's not fair. The lord said if I ask you'll answer. He does and he doesn't answer the way you expect.

You see god's going to answer by putting something in your hands that you can do to bring about the answer. Now if you don't use what he's given you he's got nothing more to give you. Why is that? Because god can only do things in this earth through human channels.

Say that again. God can only do things in this earth through human channels. So if you are asking god for something you need to find out what part you must play in working with god in order to bring about what god wants to do as a result of your prayers.

God can only work through you. He can work through somebody else as well but he has to find a human channel through which he can work. Now you say but this this is very different to the way I've been taught.

This is very different to what I believed for years. Well perhaps what you've been taught and believed doesn't line up with the word of god. Let me show you from the scriptures that what I'm saying is true.

Let's go back to what are known as the heroes of faith of the old testament. There's lots of them you find a whole list of them in in the book of hebrews in chapter 11. I'm just going to take a couple of them and mention them.

Good old Noah he was one of the first ones. Noah found favor in the sight of god and god said Noah I'm going to destroy the whole world but here's the good news Noah I'm going to save you and your family. I'm not going to destroy you.

Oh that was good news. Thank you lord that you're going to save me. When the rains come and this earth is drowned me and my family are going to be safe.

And so Noah stood and he waited for the rains to come knowing that when the rains came somehow god was going to make them float. I don't know. Was god going to transport them out? Was he going to cover them with a bubble? How was god going to stop them from being destroyed? No no god actually told Noah a little bit more than that.

He said Noah there's something you must do to bring this to pass. You're going to have to build a boat. A what? A boat.

What's that? Nobody ever had a boat before. There wasn't that much water. See so Noah obeyed god and began to build the boats.

If Noah had not built the ark god's promise to him could never have been fulfilled. Then we have Abram I shared about previously. God promised to bless him and make his name great to make him a father of many nations.

To make his income so great that there's more than he could spend. But Abram it's not going to happen where you are right now. Something you have to do Abram.

You're going to have to leave your country. You're going to have to leave your family behind. You're going to have to go to the land that I've chosen for you because when you get there Abram I'm going to fulfill my promise to bless you and make you great.

If Abram had not done something. If he'd not obeyed god and stepped out and did what he was told that promise could never have been fulfilled. Later god called on Abram to do other things.

One of the most severe was when god told him to take his only son Isaac and to go and sacrifice him. Now that seemed really quite a harsh command from god. But actually Abram didn't realize the significance that as Abram was prepared to offer up his only son to god.

God in turn having entered into covenant with Abram was obligated to offer up his only son for Abram and his descendants. That was fulfilled many years ago as one becomes the seed of Abram and the son of god paid the price across the calvary for all of us. Look at joshua.

God promised joshua the whole land. He said everywhere you put your foot joshua it's yours. I've given it to you.

Well how was that going to happen? Joshua had to put his foot on the land to make it happen. If he had not done anything that land would never have become his. All right it was a bit more complicated than putting your foot on the land because when you put a foot on the land the people on the land are going to say get your foot off my land.

Going to have to drive the enemy out. Actually it was quite a lot joshua had to do to receive the promise god had given. So you see way back in the old testament already.

God always required us his people to do something in order to experience his blessings and to get the answer to our desires and our prayers. Let's look at the best model of all and i'm going to major on him today and that is solomon. Solomon is our model of success.

Solomon had the greatest wealth of anybody who ever lived. Solomon was one of the most famous people that ever lived. Solomon accumulated relationships.

He lost count of the number of wives and beautiful women that he had. There was actually nothing that was ever denied solomon. If there's anything that you could possibly desire in this world solomon had all of that.

So you know perhaps we could learn a few things from solomon about how to at least get one or two of those because i'm sure most of us will be happy with one or two of those things that solomon had. You know i'm not greedy. You know i don't need a thousand wives.

I'll be happy with one but if only i knew how solomon did it. How did he get it? Well you don't have to guess because the scripture tells us how solomon got all of these things. All of these things were the result of one very special quality that abram had and that was wisdom.

Wisdom. Because solomon possessed wisdom people just come shower money on him just because he was so wise. They just come and pour money on him from everywhere because he was so wise.

He was so famous. He was known internationally. Everybody knew about solomon this guy who had such great wisdom and because of his wisdom he attracted famous people in high places.

Queen of Sheba a very influential person in her own right and an extremely wealthy person was attracted to solomon wanted to come and find out what he had that she didn't have. What made him so famous? What made him stand out that the whole world was talking about him? Well how did it all happen? Solomon prayed a prayer. That's how it happened.

As he took over the throne became king he came and asked god for something. Lord I'm young. I'm inexperienced.

I've been given an awesome load of responsibility now to govern your people. I need some help here lord. Lord I need your wisdom to make the right decisions and to do the right thing.

That's all he asked god for. Here's what god said. I'm going to read it straight from the scriptures.

God said to him because you have asked for this and have not asked for yourself long life nor have you asked for riches for yourself nor have you asked for the life of your enemies but you've asked for yourself the ability to make the right decisions. I've done what you said. I've given you a wise and an understanding heart so that not only has there been nobody like you before but there will also be nobody like you afterwards and I've also given you what you have not asked for riches and honor so that there will not be anyone like you amongst the kings for the rest of your life.

Oh isn't that awesome? Solomon prayed and he didn't have to wait for the answer. God gave him the answer immediately. Solomon I've given you wisdom but I've given you far more than that.

I've given you the very things that you probably do desire but you didn't ask me for it. The kind of things that all people desire and need to be successful in this world. Oh yes well you know Solomon he was one of those lucky ones.

He was in the right place at the right time right? Me? You know I wasn't born to a king. I wasn't born with the opportunity to take the throne. So what chance do I stand? You know that you are greater than Solomon.

I showed you from the scriptures and I'll show you why you're greater than Solomon. But you see you don't have to beg for wisdom. You don't have to envy Solomon for his wisdom.

All you need to do is ask God for it. He said so. If anybody is lacking wisdom just ask for it and he'll give it to you.

He won't condemn you for asking for it. He won't make any demands on you for asking for it. He'll give it freely.

James says when we come to ask for it we must ask in faith expecting him to answer. You should get the answer immediately. You don't need to go and study a bit to get wisdom.

No. Studying can come afterwards. Might help you.

Wisdom is a gift from God. All you need to do is ask for it in faith and reach out and take it. Now how will you know that you've got it? How will you know when you come to ask God that he answered and said yes you can have it? Well firstly he already promised it in his word.

But you see that's not enough. We need to hear him. We need to hear him.

See if you ask somebody for money and they put it in your bank account you could be wealthy and not know it. You need to hear. Yeah sure I've put the money in your account.

It's there. Go enjoy. Go spend.

If you didn't know it you'd carry on in poverty struggling along not realizing that you already had. So you need to be able to hear God's voice talking back to you and you ask him. Okay and here is where most Christians miss it.

They've never been taught that we can hear directly from God. They're waiting to hear by seeing when the answer comes. Ah so God answered my prayer 20 years later.

Well you know I've been praying with us for years and God finally answered my prayer. Actually he answered your prayer the moment you asked him but you didn't hear the answer. I'm going to just give you a few hints at how you can hear the answer to your prayer.

Actually you should come to the place from now on where when you pray you don't leave and say well I hope God heard me. Well I hope you'll answer my prayer. You need to know that God answered and you need to know what answer he gave you.

First place that you need to look and listen is deep inside of you. Deeper than your mind. Deeper than your five senses.

That very deepest part of your being which is where your spirit is because you see that's where God lives by his spirit. He's in your spirit. So when God answers you he's going to answer you where? Inside your spirit and actually if you only realize that God was talking to you 24 hours a day you've never heard.

Why? Because you never listen. You never learn to listen to your spirit. Now how does your spirit talk to you? You say well I heard God speaking in this audible voice.

I've never heard God speaking in an audible voice. I've heard him speaking so strongly that it almost sounded like an audible voice but I never heard it. It was my natural ears.

God doesn't have to speak out there with thunder. He speaks in your spirit and the language of the spirit actually is pictures. Pictures.

You say well how do I hear the voice of God? Close your eyes and see what pictures come into your mind because those pictures are coming from your spirit deep within and if God chooses to speak through your spirit chances are some of those pictures came from God speaking inside of you. You need to sense some of your inner emotions. You need to sense some people call the peace of God.

We call it the Urim and Thummim. You need to sense within a feeling of yes go ahead or no because if God says yes you're going to have that surge in the spirit yeah. If he says no you're going to have that block that says not this time sorry let it go but you will get an answer.

Look out for signs. Someone might say something to you out of the blue. Might even just be a normal conversation but in those words you can sense God is trying to tell you something.

You know some of us are so oblivious and wrapped up in our own little bubble someone has to hit us over the head to hear what God's trying to say so obviously to you. You might get an email. I'm so sick of these spam emails that come in all the time.

All the emails I didn't request from people I don't know putting demands on me giving me suggestions. Yeah well I read them before I delete them but sometimes an email from a total stranger even an email trying to sell me something might have a little hidden message in it that makes me think and say hang on could God be telling me something yet? Could the Lord be showing me that maybe I should move in a different direction? Could it be? Might be it might not be but hey God will give you further confirmation but keep your eyes and your ears open because God is speaking in many different ways to you. If something happens to jump out at you stop look at it again pray it through.

We have a process we call journaling. It's nothing supernatural about it even unbelievers do this they even use the term journaling. What is journaling? Just writing down your thoughts writing down the impressions that are coming from within.

Now if God is speaking within and you start writing down some of those impressions as you write them down new ones pop up and new ones pop up and again as you write something may just suddenly jump out. Hang on I never thought of that. What made me write that? Where did that come from? Could be the voice of God speaking.

You might want to mutter the impressions from your spirit repeat them out loud. Yeah you'll need to get alone otherwise people think you're crazy. Just mutter them say them out loud speak them sink them through and as you speak them more will tend to come.

These are all different ways that God can speak but you know we don't take the time. We come and we pray we ask the Lord and we don't even wait long enough to say okay Lord what is your response to my prayer? We don't we rush off and we complain. We've been praying for ages now and I don't see anything.

Lord when you're going to do something? Lord when you're going to do something? Lord where are you? I think sometimes the Lord is standing there wringing his hands and saying are you deaf? Are you deaf? I've been telling you all along because the next step is yours not mine. I've done my part I'm waiting for you to do your part. Maybe you need to get together with other believers and discuss it.

You know even in the world they have a thing called brainstorming where you throw a few ideas together and each person comes up with a new idea and that sparks an idea of another person. Well you know when believers get together I don't call it brainstorming I call it spirit storming because each person starts to get impressions that come up out of their spirit and they start sharing. It might good might do you good just sit down with a couple of others and discuss some of the things that you're desiring from the Lord.

You know somebody may come up with something really brilliant you know I never thought about that. Be open to prophetic words. Somebody may get a prophetic word a word for you especially from the Lord where we don't have to rely on it but it's possible.

These are all different ways that we can hear God's answer. Now when do we ask God for wisdom? After you've hit the wall. When you've tried your utmost to do everything in your power.

Is that when you go? And unfortunately for most of us that's it. When we get to the end of ourselves we finally come and we cry out to him and plead with him. You should do it on the run.

The moment you hit a snag in your life, in your work, in your daily life, in your personal life. Right then at that point is when you should be coming to the Lord and saying Lord I need wisdom now. What must I do in this situation? Where do I go from here? What are you wanting me to do Lord? What part do I play in order to allow you to answer my prayer? Don't take one step of action until you've done that.

Stop right where you are. Don't struggle it through and struggle it through. You know I've learned to do this in the most mundane things in life.

For many years I've been a computer programmer. And if you've ever tried computer programming you'll know that there are these things they call bugs. They come crawling out of your computer when you least expect them.

And this program that you've written so perfectly just will not work. You look at your code and you think that but there's nothing wrong with my code. Why is the program not running? Why doesn't it want to work? So you struggle on for another three hours.

By the time you finish you've smashed the keyboard a little bit. You've perhaps wanted to pick up the computer and throw it through the window. I've been that route.

If you're a programmer I think you know what I'm talking about. I've learned to stop right where I am and say Lord give me wisdom. Show me what I'm doing wrong.

If that doesn't work I'll get somebody close to me to pray. Stand in agreement with me please. Our wife's learned to do this.

My computer programming has made her a prayer warrior because she's learned that rather than face the frustration of my anger and seeing me get all up tight she'll just get into her prayer closet and start to pray. Lord do something here. Give him some wisdom please.

Now I'll be sitting there struggling and suddenly something will go and I see it. You know what I'd leave one little comment out there. That's what it was.

Wow that was so obvious. So simple. Hey I got the answer.

I called my wife and I say I found the answer. She said I know I've just been praying that God will give you the answer. Okay okay so I wasn't so clever.

Are you having a problem at work? I'm not just talking about ministry. I'm talking about your everyday secular life. I've learned a long time ago that the Lord wants to be involved in your everyday life and everything that you do.

I remember the times I tried to fix the car myself because I couldn't afford to take it into the garage and I knew nothing. What do I do here? How do I get this stupid thing off? I've stopped and said okay Lord I need your wisdom and suddenly I see it. Ah that's what I need to do.

Damn it goes. All falls into place. You know the Lord wants to be involved in every little thing in your life but we we have this little thing that starts about age of three which says I do itself.

Don't need your help anymore. I'm a big girl. I'm a big boy.

I do itself. He wants to help you. Well some of us want to get so supernatural.

We want God just to do the thing you know. You know. Okay Lord I'm going to pray and it's just going to fall off.

Sorry. Doesn't happen. Doesn't happen.

God's not going to physically intervene. You know even when he uses the angels. The angels actually they don't actually do it.

They just come and whisper an idea in your head to help you do it. But if we can learn to do this in every part of our life. Simply ask him for wisdom.

Everything that you do should be successful. I don't care what it is that you do. If you bring the Lord into it and ask him for wisdom it's going to happen.

Now you need to prepare your heart because as I said all of this is coming up out of your spirit. You need to fill yourself with the word. You may need to speak the word over and over again.

A process we call bulldozing. You may need to pray in tongues because when you pray in tongues your spirit is praying and you're actually linking up to the Lord through your human spirit and you're actually hearing the voice of your spirit. You may need to spend a long time speaking scriptures and praying in tongues before you finally get that flow and know what to do.

When it comes do what he tells you to do immediately. Don't wait. Do it immediately and when you do it expect to succeed in everything that you do because he wants you to succeed.

And as a result of what you do God is now empowered to bring the answer to the very things that you desire. If you want to experience living in abundance you're going to need wisdom and ask God to do it. Ask him what you should do to bring it about.

Ask for wisdom first like Solomon did and wisdom will bring you all the answers that you need. Solomon learned this one and he actually tried to teach it to us in the book of Proverbs. He says in Proverbs 4 verse 5, acquire wisdom, obtain understanding, do not forget nor move away from the words of my mouth.

Do not forsake her and she will preserve you. Love her and she will watch over you. Wisdom is of prime importance therefore acquire wisdom and to make your possessions complete acquire also understanding.

Exalt her and she will promote you. She will bring you to honor when you embrace her. She will give to your head a garland of favor and a crown of glory she will deliver to you.

You mean I've been begging and pleading God for years when I could have had the answer already? I'm afraid so. All you needed actually was his wisdom. And as a New Testament believer as we saw you have the right to ask for that wisdom.

You say but you know Solomon still was the greatest remember? God said him there's never been anybody before you. There'll never be anybody as great as you afterwards. Well that's not entirely true.

Not in the New Testament. See Jesus speaking to the crowd said the queen of the south will rise up in judgment against this generation and will condemn it for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. But look a greater than Solomon is here.

There is somebody greater than Solomon and he arrived on this earth in the form of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now here's the good news. As the believer you have Christ in you and you are in Christ so that as you stand you can make the same claim.

A greater than Solomon is here. Who's that? That's you folks. That's you.

So don't envy Solomon it's all that he had. Don't get bitter and twisted and say Lord it's not fair you gave it to Solomon and he didn't even serve you very well. You know I've been faithful Lord and serving you through the years.

Lord I've done everything for you and you can't just even give me something small. Don't stand and look in the mirror and say you are looking someone is greater than Solomon. Believe it.

Receive it. Embrace it. Like Solomon continue to ask God for his wisdom.

Hear his voice and find out what is God telling you to do right now to bring about the answers to the things that you desire. Write it down. Journal it.

Make a list. Make a priority list. It's okay what do I do next? What do I do first? Tick them off and the next time you're tempted to complain to the Lord and say Lord it's not fair.

Lord I've served you faithfully. Lord where's the answer? Go and have a look at your checklist and be honest and say you know what have I really done everything you told me to do? And if your checklist is all ticked off the chances are there's a few new things you need to add on it. So I suggest you get back into prayer and say okay Lord what else? What else do I do next? So that together we can make this thing happen.

Can you see how different that is to the way we've always prayed? God wants you to have the best. He's not going to deny you anything especially if he's promised it in his words. He's going to say yes.

When you come to him and say Lord how do I get it? He's going to show you what to do to make it happen. As you get that wisdom you will rise up and you can become as wealthy and as famous as what Solomon is because you have the greater one living inside of you. I hope this inspires you.

I hope it challenges you. I hope it convicts you. I hope it brings you to the place where you realize who you are in the Lord and what he has for you.

Motivate you to get in there and grab it. You gotta put your foot on the land and claim everything that God's promised you. Amen.

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