Prayer is a cycle. Prayer comes from the Father, in the Son, through the Spirit, and to the Father. When we are involved in prayer, it has to go through us, also. The Father speaks through the Son, by the Spirit to us.

Disciple means “disciplined one.” Continue means “all the time.” The biggest problem in the body of Christ is no discipline. People do like they want to. If we were as undisciplined in our jobs as we are in our prayer lives, we would lose our jobs. Most of our prayers are as we are “on the go.”

Undisciplined people produce undisciplined children. Undisciplined children produce an undisciplined world. We have to have intimate time with God. We cannot follow other people; we must follow God to stay on track. If we continue in His Word, we shall know the truth and be set free.

We are the sheep and we enter into God’s pasture through the gate of thanksgiving.

We are made up of three parts. We are a spirit; we possess a soul; and we live in a body. The spirit is “fixed” when we get saved. The soul realm is made up of the mind, emotions and will. Emotions are what we feel. Some of us pray according to what we feel. The mind is what we know and what we reason with. The mind produces the same results as the emotional realm -- nothing.

The will of a man is the link to God. The will is when we decide what we are going to do regardless of whether we feel anything or understand. Emotions tell us how we feel; our minds tell us that we should understand. When we are led by the spirit, we have the will of God. Our character is our inner man and our conduct is our outer man. If the inner man is messed up, then the conduct will “show up.” We cannot hide anything from God or others.

We have never been taught how to enter into a place with God. If we are led by our emotions, then our prayer lives will only be effective when we “feel it.” We need to make up our minds that we are already “in a place with God.”

We need to thank God and praise Him even when we do not “feel” like it. Grace is in the spirit, not in our minds. It does not matter if we do not feel like we “get there” with God in prayer. We enter into prayer thanking God. We cannot come boldly before God if we listen to how we feel.

If we continue in prayer, then our emotions and understanding will join in. Everything will then appear differently to us after we have been in God’s presence. We need to tell ourselves how we are going to feel and what we are going to do.

The secret to getting into prayer is getting past ourselves. We cannot get past ourselves until we know the Word. Battles will be won in the presence of God. People are depressed and down because they have not been with God. We get delivered when we get in the presence of God.

We have a free will, therefore we are accountable for our actions. Animals do not have a spirit. Because we have a spirit and a will, we have the ability, through the blessings of God, to rise above. God is not moved by our emotions, soul or body, but only by our spirit and will. God can only talk to us through our spirit.

People have good intentions about prayer but will often begin to waiver. We break the will we establish with God. We then wonder why we cannot walk in power. Prayer is not easy. Through the hardships and struggles, the treasures of truth are found. We are so busy being the treasure that we cannot find the treasure. We want the treasure but do not want to have to pray, go to church, fast, etc.

The will is independent of your feelings, understanding and reasoning. Our will is sovereign. It cannot be going in two directions at one time. When our actions are based upon our emotions, reasoning, or understanding, we are not fulfilling the will of God. Our will has the opportunity to be in the will of God or out of it. God is sovereign. He is only one way. Our will is fixed on something. When we jump back and forth, we are listening to our feelings, etc.

Prayer is talking with God and being in His presence. People try to become sophisticated with prayer. Our emotions will base everything with God on feelings. God is based upon truth. Truth deals with the will, not how we feel or what we are thinking. Our will is the only thing that will decide our destiny.

When we choose to pray, our will throws God’s will into gear and we pray in His power. When we pray out of our heads, God cannot honor that. He wants to hear the Word because that is what He honors. God’s will is His Word. We cannot pray if we do not know the Word.

Prophecy will not deliver us. Only the Word will deliver us; that is all that will set us free. People run around trying to get “words” from people, when they should be getting “words” from God in prayer.

Prayer is not easy. In prayer is where God tell us things.

In these scriptures, David is saying that he will bless the Lord. David was getting his will in line with God’s will. Humility is lining ourselves up with the Word. David had to deal with his soul but he determined his will to be fixed on the things of God.

We should not let our feelings decide if we pray or not. The church needs to get some backbone. The devil will sift us if we are not fixed on the things of God.

The Lord will preserve us when Satan tries to attack us. We need to go by what we know and not by what we feel.

Sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise will cost us. Thanksgiving gets us through the gates; praise gets us into the court, and the spirit gets us into the holy of holies.

God puts something into our spirit. If we do not feed it, it will get dimmer instead of bigger. It begins to die instead of becoming more alive.

David is talking about his soul, not his spirit.

David was going to praise God regardless of what his mind and flesh were telling him. The difficulty in the emotions is what stops people from reaching the fullness of the will of God.

The only way to take command of our minds and emotions is with our will. Our will is sovereign and is our link to God. God only works through our will. The will of God is His Word.

We should set our wills to pray. When it is the hardest to pray, we should pray the hardest.

Our will is the controller of what God does. When our wills are fixed, our thinking will follow.

When our thinking is lined up with God, we will only have to deal with our feelings. Many people need to be emotionally delivered and this is a painful thing. We want God to use us, but when He does through other people, we get mad. We want God to change us, but when He begins to, we get upset. We should not give in to our emotions.

There is a price for serving God. It is death to us and life to Him.

The will of us learning how to praise and thank God past our feelings is the secret key that unlocks the door to intimate prayer