Waking Your Spirit ( A most important teaching for spirituality)

 This teaching will help you to understand how you can start getting more results in your prayer life and how to become more tuned into the Lord as well.
How many of us just pray every now and then and really have no prayer life per say?
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could become more focused and start to see things that we thought were impossible take place as a result of our prayers?
Here is a little guidance in starting us out on a good path towards obtaining a healthy prayer life.

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Have you noticed that the biggest factor in your walk with God is that you fail to wait on the Lord, you fail to read the Word and you fail to pray?

It is those three things that really bother you, and if you could have something that could start you on track- if somebody in the morning could give you a little push so that at least you got started, you know that the day would be all right.

But as it is, you get to hurrying around and the first thing you know, it's the middle of the afternoon and you think, "I haven't prayed."

Evening comes, and before you go to bed, you read the Word and pray, feeling a guilty conscience, "I should have been praying; I should have waited on the Lord.

All day long I didn't do what I should have done."

This is very common.

But I can give you a key so that each day can be lived in the Spirit, and that day will see you walking along in at least a measure, if not all, of what God has for you.


  Take five minutes- five minutes as soon as you're wide awake.

Five minutes won't hurt you: you can brush your teeth in that time, but in five minutes you could do something that would help you all through that day.

Suppose you start out with a verse of Scripture, maybe something predetermined the night before, or planned for a whole week, so you don't go leafing through the Bible.

The verse that you are going to use is priming the pump, so that you get the water started in the morning.

One verse of Scripture, then you pray and open your heart to the Lord very simple.

Just a couple of minutes of prayer, and then you pause, and open your heart, "Lord, I open my heart to You to lead me today."

This is the way you start.

Now you may know that in the next ten minutes you're going to come back and read the Word for half an hour.

You may be prepared to spend two hours in prayer; but on the other hand, the unexpected may come to wipe you out.

Or, you may find that there's a schedule to keep.

If you have an appointment in the morning, you've got to move.

But you've started something: now you won't be going to the appointment or to school with self-condemnation, thinking, "I didn't start right: I didn't get to pray this morning. I didn't wait on the Lord," approaching the day with something less than faith.

You've taken five minutes and stirred your self into the realm of the spirit.

You have opened your spirit to God.

You will do your exercises to get yourself in shape, eat your morning oats or rice, swallow your wheat germ oil or something- you feel like you've got to get yourself going- but you fail to remember that your spirit has to wake up too, and your spirit has to be activated for the day.

Some people wake up physically, right away.

Other people are slow to do it.

But whether you wake up quick or late physically and mentally, you still can awaken your spirit to God and you've given your spirit something of the Word of God to reach into.

Then it's very easy the rest of the day to develop a hunger.


  you can take your Bible, a little sermon- something that you are going to read- with you to work, or wherever you are.

Put it in your lunch, if you take a lunch.

Remember now, it is just as necessary to sustain your spirit as your body, so you take something to feed your spirit.

Make always that opportunity when you get the coffee break, a little rest period, the rest room, or when you get any time during the day where you can stop.

It is surprising how you can meditate at a stop light.

nothing in the world can interrupt you until they start honking behind you!


  It's almost like a thing of spiritual isometrics, because already you have started; you are beginning to look for places to make that contact with God, times in which you can almost dial out the conscious level and reach through to that sweet fellowship with the Lord.

Isometrics is motionless exercise- you strain against an immovable object and it is beneficial for the muscle tone of your whole body.

Suppose you do the same thing spiritually?

Would you like to know how to let your faith grow?

Would you like to know how to begin to exercise yourself spiritually and really grow?

Spirit's don't have muscles; they move entirely through authority, not through your muscles.

The physical man moves through muscles, but the spiritual man moves through the authority and as he submits to the Lord, he moves into greater authority.

Everybody should have their little isometric spiritual list.

Would you like to know how to make a list of spiritual isometrics, so that through the day you can begin to test yourself or exercise on them and find that spiritually you begin to grow?

It's very simple: only one little principle to follow.

Make a list ahead of time, carry it in a notebook, write it on a little three by five inch card: or, if you have a good memory, remember it.

(With all of the aerial sprayed  aluminum powders being released in the sky through chemtrails today, most people find that their  memories are being impaired.)

But on this list, if you list the impossible things, things that you have not been able to believe for- for the church, for the pastor, for yourself- some circumstances or problem that to you seems impossible.

You could list something that you want for yourself, in this walk with God, that you've never been able to have.

All of these are possibilities.

It would even be better to stay away from yourself and stop and think, "Now who is the most impossible character in the church?

Who is the most difficult one to help?"

Then you write down what they need, as far as you can understand it.

You may have five or six things, maybe more.

But don't get too many; just tackle the hard ones.

And every time you have a break, worship the Lord and then get some Scripture, some promise ( do it originally each time), and say, "Lord, I'm going to believe for this."

You set your heart to believe it and exercise it, and you're claiming it.

You're straining at the immovable object according to your spirit, and it's surprising how your spirit keeps drawing from the Lord, appropriating it, and the impossible is done.


  I'm giving you keys on how to walk with the Lord, how to be a spiritual individual.

Write down the Scripture that you started out with in the morning on a three by five inch filing card, with the reference on the other side.

You're going to memorize both of them during the course of the day.

You have started out to open your spirit up to God through that verse.

All day long stand on that promise and pray over it and meditate on it.


  Paul wrote to Timothy and told him to remember the prophecies over him that by them he might war a good warfare.

( Does your church or fellowship exercise prophecy?)

If you'd like to war a really good warfare, make a little capsule summary of what God has said about you.

Sometimes just a few words will remind you: "I'm going to be a handmaiden of the Lord."

"I'm going to be a prophet ( or a prophetess) of the Lord."

"I'm going to have a discerning of spirits," "I'm going to prophesy", or just write " prophecy," or whatever it is you are to do or be.

Jot down also the prophecies.

Then whenever you have a free minute, do what Paul told Timothy, "Meditate on these things; give yourself wholly to them and your profiting will appear to all."

Make a business of being spiritual, and every time you get the chance, turn your eye away from the passing parade.

Look back to that which is important, the prophecy over you, the Scripture, the verse of Scripture, and reach into the Lord.

Don't say, "Forget that! I pray when ever I feel like it."

When you don't have a plan or have a simple course, you say it, but you don't do it.


  Anybody, for a few bucks, can buy a set of dumb-bells or a bar-bell set and a few exercises to do.

Thousands upon thousands of people buy those sets, and they sit in the garages or attics or wherever they've been stored, and they're not growing muscles on anybody.

But if a man pays for a years membership in a gym and he's going to get specialized training, he is taking on an extra load.

He has to come home, get whatever he's going to work out in, make a trip to the gym through the traffic.

He has to change, he has to work out, then take a shower, redress and drive back home.

It's a lot more complicated than coming home and going out into the garage and running through a few exercises.

But he'll do that, rather than work out with something simple.

Why?

Because he'll think, "well, I'll work out tomorrow."

But something is demanded: "This is my gym day; this is my day to work out."

It's the same way with school; anybody can get a good book and sit down and read it and probably get more out of t than they'll get out of a college course, using the same book as a text.

But because it's required to be there at a certain hour and certain days and they have to pass the examination, they bone up on it.

An average high school graduate in a year's time could have a college education, if they were a good reader and had nothing to impede their progress.

Four years of college could be cut to less than twenty-five percent of the time , with lasting benefits and knowledge that could be applied, because much of that is just wasted time when they're in college.

But they won't, because they don't discipline themselves.

Now the same thing is true in the spirit.

If you say, "Well, I'll do it when the mood hits me," you'll never do it.

But set yourself to do certain little things systematically.

You have your promises, you've started yourself off for the day, you have a prophecy, you have a little resume', you have some spiritual isometrics, impossible things that you're testing your faith on.

Let yourself come into a full focus.

A good way is to get mad about something.

Write down something that your really angry about.

Tackle something that stirs you up- something that you can get your teeth into.

Is there something in the church that is irritating you?

Would you say, "There's something in my home that aggravates me?

There's something in my family that aggravates me.

There are some things in me personally that aggravate."

Those are the things that you write down for your isometrics.

Lose your temper over losing your temper.

Do something like that.

These are the things that you are putting your faith to.

Find the thing that has wiped you out the most often, where you've been defeated so often.

That's where your going to put your isometrics.

Every day you're going to believe on that thing.

This is the wisdom of Solomon.

It is practical teaching.


  Now this will help you to develop one deep underlying feeling in your spirit that will get you away from the deadliness of saying, "Well, I'm going to start walking with the Lord tomorrow.

Next week, things are going to change, I'm going to work some things around and I'm going to start walking  with God."

Isn't that what people feel?

Instead of that, think, "Oh, I contacted the Lord! I'm started."

It took only five minutes, you've started and your working at it all day.

All day long, you've got the good little feeling "I am walking with God!

I am a part of this church, a part of the thing that's functioning and moving."

And in that little prayer in the morning, you could say one thing, "This day, today, Lord, I open my spirit up that I'll be a participating member.

Whatever is happening in the whole place- if there's anybody under a burden, Lord, just lay it on me and let me pray with them, too."

Suddenly, you will sense the Body.

You'll come to church, to the house of God and look around thinking, "Isn't it wonderful?

This is what I'm part of.

I'm living in it, I'm walking in it, every single day.

Oh, how delightful!"


  You can be out in the business world so much, that before you realize it, you've adjusted yourself to it's thinking.

If you're in a world of red, after a while you are not aware of red.

If you're in a world of blue, after a while  you're not aware of blue.

But if you keep coming back to the spiritual world you will always see the contrast.

Your discernment will be ten times sharper; you'll quickly sense what is wrong.

If you don't, you get swallowed up with the thing that it has overwhelmed you and you miss seeing; you don't have the sense of contrast between the spiritual things and the things that are not of God.

It will keep a business woman or man really sharp, if they keep going to the Spirit.

This will help anyone who might be snowed under in their 0desire to conform to the business world.

They get trapped.

They get taken in, they become oppressed.

Constantly going back and forth through the realm of  spirit keeps you from becoming a business man during the day and a man of God and a family man at night.

It keeps the whole thing in balance.


  As you are praying and remembering promises that have come over people, write them down and your faith becomes definite.

 God didn't say, "Keep on praying and lots of things are just bound to happen."

He said, "whatsoever you ask."

Writing out, "this is what I believe for that person; this is what God said," makes it definite.



Writing out, "this is what I believe for that person; this is what God said, " makes it definite.

"Whosoever" boils down to a specific individual.

"Whatsoever you shall ask" boils it down to a specific promises.

Sometimes it's good not to be praying about everything.

You can be bogged down in tedious detail.

Did you ever notice that a service becomes nonspiritual where you throw it open to a lot of prayer requests?

Why?

The people have lost their focus.

They're not tackling the things that count, but are just praying about little things that count, but are just praying about little things here and there.

It's just like buck shot, scattered all over everywhere and it isn't doing anything.

But when you get right down in your prayers, aim at something that is really important.

Ask yourself, "What's the most important prayer that I could make in this church?

What's the impossible thing to believe for?

And stay with it.

It's like the old kingpin, you hit that and everything else falls.


  Write this down: "First thing in the morning, take a little step."

Not a big one, take a little step.

That makes you a self-starter, just a little Scripture that starts you, just a little prayer, "Well, I have to get things going, get the kids off to school, then I'll settle down and I'm going to pray an hour."

How many times has that backfired?

So take a little step and start yourself in the spirit and you can ward off everything else, the inertia, becoming self-centered.

Take one little step.


  Have you ever heard someone say, "Boy, have I had a big Thanksgiving dinner!

I'm not going to eat anything for a week."

Probably before sundown you were back at the table for more, because you started something in motion.

These notes that you have taken down about what you are going to do the first thing in the morning will do that- start everything in motion.


  This is very important: start out with a thought in the conscious mind that opens the spirit.

By repetition of this promise and prophecy through the day, the thought becomes an attitude.

Attitudes are in the subconscious as well as the conscious.

By repetition the thought becomes an attitude.

You want to get to the place where you don't have to stop and think when you are under pressure, "Well, how do I react?"

You react according to the attitude of heart which is one of faith.

You have the Scripture, you have the prophecy.

By constant repetition, that thought becomes an attitude.

You don't work at that very many times until your spirit, in every situation, will respond right.