Hey there! Welcome to episode 33 of The Prayer Podcast. I’m grateful you’re listening today, and I’d love to know where you’re listening from. I’m in sunny Wichita, Kansas today, enjoying the spring weather and readying myself for what will likely be yet another toasty summer in south central Kansas. Have a prayer need? Click here!   Today I’d like to share a few verses with you that are super encouraging for us regarding prayer. The first verse is from the book of Jeremiah, and we will look at chapter 33, verse 3. This is a somewhat well known verse, so it may be pretty familiar to you. It’s a very encouraging verse.  Jer. 33, verse 3 in the NLT says this: Ask Me and I will tell you remarkable secrets you do not know about things to come.   Yeah, that’s an actual verse in the Bible and God is the One speaking in this verse. Call to Me, He says, ask Me, and then He goes on to promise that He will tell you remarkable secrets, things you do not know about things to come. This is profound.   We worship the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies, we stand amazed and in utter awe of Him…and that is exactly as it should be. So verses like this one can hit us smack dab between the eyes and seem impossible to be true.   But it is true! God says so, right here in Jeremiah.   Today, right now, are you willing to be bold and brave enough in your faith to believe that this is true for you? That is, you will do the asking, if you will call out to God in prayer, He will tell you remarkable secrets that you don’t know yet, about things which are to come?   I think we all have areas in our life where we really need the Lord’s wisdom. Let’s ask for it, and let’s pray really boldly and ask Him to tell us secrets about what’s coming. I think that we can trust the God who puts a verse like this in His Word for us to read and for us to believe, we can trust Him fully with all the things we bring to Him in prayer. It’s easy to pray and not fully trust - and when we get super honest, we can admit that this is true. It’s harder to pray and trust Him completely with the things we’re concerned enough about to pray about. Let’s pray big today, and let’s trust big today.   Psalm 86, and I’ll put the entire psalm in the show notes but I will only read some of the verses from this psalm out loud.   Vs 1 - Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer’ answer me for I need Your help. So right off the bat we know the psalmist is praying over some things weighing heavily on him. Can you and I go to prayer when things in life get heavy? Vs 3 - Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am calling on You constantly.  Vs 6-7 - Listen closely to my prayer, O Lord; hear my urgent cry.  I will call to You whenever I’m in trouble, and You will answer me. Vs 11 - Teach me Your ways, O Lord, that I may live according to Your truth! Grant me purity of heart, so that I may honor You. Vs 16-17a - Look down and have mercy on me. Give Your strength to Your servant; save me, the son of Your servant. Send me a sign of Your favor.   As I’ve worked on this episode, I’ve been praying this psalm over several people who are facing hard things right now. And I’ve also prayed it very broadly over every listener who is hearing this episode.    You are not alone and you are not forgotten, and the God to whom David was praying when he penned these words is the same God I have been praying to about you. He still moves mountains, He still parts seas, He still hears and answers prayer. And His love for you is unending.    As always, you can email me at JanLBurt@outlook.com with your prayer requests and I commit to praying. I also have a link in the show notes where you can send your prayer requests. I’m praying and believing, and I’m seeking the God of the Bible to move on your behalf!    Thanks so much for listening today, from wherever you are in the world. Lord bless you!   Psalm 86 A prayer of David. 1  Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer;     answer me, for I need your help. 2  Protect me, for I am devoted to you.     Save me, for I serve you and trust you.     You are my God. 3  Be merciful to me, O Lord,     for I am calling on you constantly. 4  Give me happiness, O Lord,     for I give myself to you. 5  O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive,     so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help. 6  Listen closely to my prayer, O Lord;     hear my urgent cry. 7  I will call to you whenever I’m in trouble,     and you will answer me. 8  No pagan god is like you, O Lord.     None can do what you do! 9  All the nations you made     will come and bow before you, Lord;     they will praise your holy name. 10  For you are great and perform wonderful deeds.     You alone are God. 11  Teach me your ways, O Lord,     that I may live according to your truth! Grant me purity of heart,     so that I may honor you. 12  With all my heart I will praise you, O Lord my God.     I will give glory to your name forever, 13  for your love for me is very great.     You have rescued me from the depths of death.[a] 14  O God, insolent people rise up against me;     a violent gang is trying to kill me.     You mean nothing to them. 15  But you, O Lord,     are a God of compassion and mercy, slow to get angry     and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. 16  Look down and have mercy on me.     Give your strength to your servant;     save me, the son of your servant. 17  Send me a sign of your favor.     Then those who hate me will be put to shame,     for you, O Lord, help and comfort me.

Prayer. How would you define it or describe it? And do you think it makes an impact on people & situations? After decades of praying for people & circumstances, here are a few things I've learned: 1 - Prayer is unstoppable.       Seriously...what can stop you from praying? It's a mighty weapon that God gives His people, and you can pray anywhere at any time. Realizing that no devil from hell and no human on earth can stop you from praying both emboldens and encourages us to keep on praying! 2 - Prayer should never be generic.      If something is worth worrying about, it's worth praying about. And more than praying, "Lord, please bless my loved ones today," why not pray specifically about the things going on in your loved one's lives? Get specific when you pray and start seeing specific answers to those prayers! 3 - Prayer coupled with worship is powerful.      Ever feel like your prayers don't make it past the ceiling? Have times when you don't feel like praying at all? Try adding some worship time into your prayer schedule. Worship for a song or two, and then go back to praying. You'll likely see a difference and your prayers will be oriented toward God's glory and will be powerful and effective!  4 - Prayer should be rooted in faith.      Praying without faith that our prayers will be heard or answered is like trying to breathe underwater...it doesn't work very well. If you need more faith, ask God for it. And if you need to remind yourself of how faithful He is, and how He always keeps His promises, do that, too!  5 - Prayer does not need to be stagnant.      Stagnant water isn't fit for drinking. Stagnant prayer isn't a good thing, either. Don't stay in a rut of praying through a checklist day after day...asked the Lord to make your prayer life come alive and expect Him to enliven you when you pray.  6 - Praying for "small" things, not just the "big" things.      If something concerns you, it concerns the God who calls you His own. Take all your concerns to Him in prayer, big or small. 7 - Your praying can be a litmus test of how much you trust (or don't trust) the Lord.      When we find ourselves unwilling or unable to ask God for certain things in our prayer time, we may need to ask whether or not we trust God enough to entrust this need to Him in prayer... 8 - Intercession (praying for others) is God-honoring, important, holy Kingdom work.      There are not enough words in the English language to sufficiently thank all those who stand in the gap and intercede on behalf of others! This work is life-changing, both in this life and the next. If you are an intercessor, can I just say THANK YOU!!! 9 - Study what Jesus taught about prayer & then do what He taught & get busy praying!      It's a worthy use of our time to study what Jesus taught about prayer in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and to take a look at Acts and Revelation to see if we find any information about how we ought to pray in those New Testament books. Pray how He taught His followers to pray & expect to see your prayers make an impact!       Psalm 91 Pray It & Believe Audio Course access here

#ChurchHurt #Church #Hurt   Well, hey there, hello to you today. Thanks so much for joining me here on The Prayer Podcast. I’ve been praying and listening for the Lord’s leading, wanting to make sure I am hearing from Him and obeying Him regarding all aspects of my life, which includes podcasting. And it’s been a minute since I recorded an episode for this show.  Praying Psalm 91 Course Choosing to really ask God for His exact will means I had to set aside time to really pray and really listen. And pray I did. Listen I did.  There’s an area of my life that God has done a tremendous work in since fall of 2019, and it was a good work, a needed work, but a hard season to walk through.    Recently I began working on something that I thought was just going to be for me, like a journaling exercise…many of us have Bible study journals and prayer journals, so I thought my journaling was going to be something like that. Uh, no. A solid nope.  It has been something else. So far, it has turned into about 9k words, and I am not even close to being finished with this project (for lack of a better word).    Two things that have jumped out at me lately are: Number 1, I am way better off, more healed and whole in this particular area of my life, than I thought I was. Number 2, I am seeing that many, many Christians have been dealing with this same issue and the Lord has very clearly led me to talk about it.   Now before I get really bold, which I am incredibly prone to do, I want to share that I’ve vetted this topic with others, of course with my husband, and also in a group I’ve been part of that is led by Joanna Weaver (you know her as the author of the book Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, which has sold over a million copies), and in that group we discussed this topic that I’ve been writing about and so I’m not just out here shooting from the hip. It’s taken a bit to get here, today, to record a podcast episode on the somewhat sensitive, often misunderstood, seen as too hot to handle topic of church hurt.   And since I am often bold when I speak, I want to mention that I have prayed and asked the Lord to make me more meek and caring and less bold for this subject. Because it’s a tender and sensitive topic, and the experiences so many of us have been through warrant thoughtful words and compassion and empathy and the love and truth of Jesus over all.    Lord, may my words be only what You want them to be, set a guard over my lips to stop unhelpful speech. Bless Your people, and may Your heart for them in this area of life overflow and bless them in ways that bring healing, and hope and Your highest favor. In Jesus name - Amen.   Church hurt.   First things first: it’s real, so if you don’t think it’s a real thing, I want to let you know it’s okay to stop listening to this podcast because my aim isn’t to argue, or to upset anybody, and my aim is not, as the Lord knows, to damage or malign the church, His church. I’m not here to badmouth or to bash. I’m here because God put me here, frankly, and because His church is made up of His people, and we don’t do right by the people He loves so dearly when we set aside the hurts that many of us have experienced within His church. I love the church, because how can I love Him and not love His church? Out of that love, I served. Long time service to the body of Christ. In many different ways. And in total transparency, some of that was to the detriment of my health, when I kept on keeping on in ministry longer than I was physically equipped to (a heart failure diagnosis, to be specific, and I served for three years following that diagnosis, even though it came with a high price). And to the detriment of my time raising my children when they were young, also in total transparency. To them, all five of them, I owe an apology and I am so very sorry that I did not see clearly that what was being asked and even required of me, in order for the five of you to have a place in children’s ministry I had to serve enough to let all five of you have a spot, as crazy as that sounds it was true way back in the 90s, and I am so sorry that I, with my health struggles and my little tots to care for, gave up too much and did not see, know or understand that what God had given me to use to love you well at times was poured out on all the ways that the church demanded it… I didn’t totally get this wrong, but too often I was more tired than you deserved and often we were go go going when you needed to be home home homing. For that, my sorry is never going to be enough, in my mind. It grieves me, and I believe it also grieves the Lord. To the mamas out there listening today who feel like they have to serve so much in order to even be able to attend Sunday morning services, who are serving and serving so their older kiddos can attend a mid-week group or to those who don’t go to Bible study or small group because they have been told that they have to meet the impossible x y z requirements for use of the nursery, or who don’t want to leave their little ones in the nursery (which is not a bad thing, honestly… we read that God’s sheltering of His children is a good thing, see Psalm 91 for a powerful example, but the church that bears His name tells His people to stop sheltering their young children…and for what? Numbers? The head count? Seats filled? Oh if you have dealt with this, I am so very sorry!).    Are we able to love the church well when we don’t love those who make up the church well? Do we honor or dishonor our Lord when we fail to love them well? And is it possible that part of loving well includes helping people to heal from church hurt? How is healing possible if this is a taboo, off-limits, untouchable subject? How can they get well if they’ve never had their illness, their hurt, acknowledged?  I know that we can address this huge issue while simultaneously not malinging the church as a whole. But we have to start somewhere. Maybe we start here, by stating that both can be true at the same time: people have been hurt by the church and the church is not my personal punching bag when I’m reeling from and dealing with church hurt.    I hope you hear my heart behind this episode. I’m going overboard to make it super duper crystal clear. God loves His church. He loves those hurt by His church, too. And we can love both well while also confronting some problems, tendencies, expectations, and at times confronting some people who are doing too much church hurting. When we are hurt by the church and in the church, it isn’t the same as when we are hurt at work, by our neighbor, at school, other places and relationships. It’s just not! We expect the lost and broken world to be a hurtful place, that just comes with the territory. We expect our unsaved bff from high school to get snarky and sometimes a bit mean, because we changed dramatically when Jesus got hold of us. Does it still hurt? Yes, of course! But it’s not unexpected. It would be really odd if that never happened to us when we’re doing life around the unsaved, at work, in friendships that used to be both of us without Jesus and now one of us is in Christ, with neighbors who don’t like you praying over the meal at the block party, it would be weird to be totally without anything that’s hurtful in those scenarios.   And I’m not talking about church hurt that is, say, an offense taken at a super Biblical spot on sermon that touches a raw nerve, that hits home in an area we haven't surrendered to Jesus and His total Lordship. We have all experienced that, right? And that’s not the same as what I’m aiming to address.    There is a hurt that the church can inflict when we invest years, decades, serving and loving and giving and praying and at times entering into hard conversations, facing things in our own life that need to be faced or stepping up and challenging things that are not in line with the Word of God…anybody else want to raise their hand and say, “Yes, I’ve been there, served and loved and prayed and had the hard conversations and given until it hurt”…and then, boom, got thrown away when I could not serve in the same manner anymore… I needed some support when my aging parent was in hospice and I got nothing… I was asked to leave because I thought I could ask about why there were 25 two year olds in a classroom with only 2 adults, and I was thrown out of my paid ministry position and told not to upset the big givers…anybody else not been given pertinent legal information about someone that could have, and did, end up harming others because that family had money and could be utilized to pay for things when the church was in a pinch?    Those are real scenarios, and they really happened.  And here’s another one that was just really sad.  My mother was dying, out of state, and we’d been in that local church body and in leadership for over two decades. Our kids had grown up there, literally.  The grandparent they were closest too in their growing up years died, and they did not get a single text, call, card, hug, message…nothing. Now being in leadership, I knew what the normal procedure was for a loss like this, and this was a very small church, about 70 people at that time. My five kids were all grown or in college, and they got literally nothing. I also got nothing. Not a card, not a hug, no care or concern from anyone in leadership. I was totally set aside in my grief. The only time it was prayed over was when I asked, and the only thing the pastor said was, “If you need anything, let me know” and knowing him well for twenty plus years, I knew that meant, “I’m out. You won’t be hearing from me. Best of luck to ya!”    These are people that we stood by in their losses of loved ones. So it wasn’t like I hadn’t been there and this was tit for tat. They just did not care, as a whole or individually. Now one person on the leadership team did tell me he was sorry for my loss, and he meant it, but he was the only one. And it was painful and felt pretty personal. Seeing my kids hurting and them wondering what they did wrong to not even get a single hug or any condolences at all from people that said they were family…it did not make sense. It still doesn’t make sense.   In the end, we left that church, but not for this reason at all. That's the total truth. We did not leave that church because of my mom’s death. Period. The pastor knows why we left, and frankly we have left it up to him to explain it to those who’ve wondered, because with him, we’d seen times of basically slander in the pulpit when people left the church, we’d heard him talk at leadership meetings about people who left, seen the callousness and heard the cruel words and we knew that would come for us and for our kids. And some very pointed things were said to my husband when we stepped out of a leadership role due to my heart failure…and I’d kept serving from 2016 to early 2020 with heart failure. I just couldn't keep doing it. And it got heated and nasty and the total lack of care for my health was really bizarre. And another situation that is too personal to share, well, that was it. Time to go. And he wanted us to go, he even said so. But when we went, we didn’t slander. People turned on us, not everyone, but some, and we let them. We opted to be misunderstood and disliked over slandering and damaging the church. Maybe we should have said more, but we didn’t really have the bandwidth. We’d been through so much and we just had no more fight left in us, we needed to be sheltered by the Lord and we needed to heal.    Sometimes that’s how we exit a church, isn’t it? Really wounded, really needing shelter, finding it in the Lord and leaving the results and what people say and think about it with Him. Anybody else been there?   Now I may catch some heat for sharing parts of our story. That's okay. God has done more than just remove the sting. He really has brought me forward in all of this. I love the church more now than I did then. I just wish it were healthier! And that this kind of stuff didn’t happen. I mean, things happen, people are people, but it doesn’t have to be so painful. I really do believe that. And when we leave a church, we didn’t leave the entire church, just one branch, one location. We’re not in gangs. We don’t have to hate those who go somewhere else, who turn to Jesus to heal the church hurt. We don’t need to slander one another. We are not in gangs! If we go down the street, it isn’t a criminal offense. And slander from leaders or from the pulpit, that’s wrong. I know it’s hard. I’ve done church leadership in many forms for decades. I know it’s hard. But it is not an excuse to slander people and turn others against them. God told Jeremiah to toughen up, that if he couldn’t run with men, how would he be able to run with horses? Jeremiah chapter 12, I think verse 5.    We need to get thicker skin and toughen up if we turn on our church members with haughty, nasty, hurtful, hateful attitudes and spite when they have problems, when they go elsewhere, when they experience church hurt. Leadership, time to toughen up. If you can’t run with men, how will you run with horses? Gotta get tougher. Really hard things come with this calling. And if you defend and protect your own family, your spouse, your children, from all the ways that being a pastor’s family can run roughshod over them (and you should do that - don’t sacrifice your kids on the altar of ministry work) - you should be able to understand why church members at times also need to protect their wives, their children. Don’t hate them for doing what you do. Sheltering is never a bad thing in God’s word, see Psalm 91 for hard proof. Some of the things the church does behind closed doors when leadership meets, some of the things that are said about people, are things that never happen in other realms. Some companies would never tolerate the kind of verbal slandering nonsense that churches think is allowable venting due to the hardships and frustrations of ministry. Well, what does the Word say about it? My Bible, as I read it, does not give much room for such behavior. And it happens a lot. And it needs to stop. Because the church, the people Jesus died for and loves so much, for God so loved, not sort of loved, but so loved, those people are not to be slandered behind closed doors by pastoral staff because they moved on to another church location due to hurts inflicted on them that are often never apologized for or acknowledged, let alone the kind of public repentance that the New Testament calls the church to. If you give it coming and going, then you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too. Ministry difficulties are real, to be sure, but they are no excuse for doing ministry in ways that are unbiblical. Don’t become a Pharisee with a hard heart. Get out of church leadership and go sell used cars before you let that happen.    I’ve got a lot more I could say on this topic, and I am certainly not the only one. It’s real, church hurt. And it needs to be addressed and dealt with per God’s word rather than left as the elephant in the room.    Let’s address it! And for all of you listening who’ve experienced church hurt, can I say this to you today? One of the best things I ever did in the wake of all this stuff was to stay close to Jesus. I just kept going back to Jesus, again and again and again. Keep your Bible open. Keep praying - pray continually, Paul wrote, and my oh my does that ever apply to us in a season of church hurt recovery. Keep seeking His love, His healing, His grace, His peace. Keep choosing to forgive, because Jesus said we must forgive and because Jesus forgives us, so keep choosing to forgive, out of love for the Lord if you can’t do it for any other reason. He’ll be with you, He is with you in this, right there so close that He is catching all your tears in a bottle. He will never leave you nor forsake you and He does not expect you to pretend it didn’t hurt. He knows, He sees, and He cares so very much. Stick close to Him.    No lectures from me about getting back into church…not today. That’s not today’s message for you. Stick close to Jesus. Please keep praying. Please keep reading the Word of God. Please keep seeking Him to lead you into healing and to a safe place, a well place. And please, don’t totally throw out the church as a whole, because Jesus wouldn’t want you to do that. I see you today. You are seen, I want to say that to you now. You are seen. And this message was prompted by the Lord, and He wants you to know that He sees you. You’re not out there all alone. The God of the universe sees you and is right there with you. His love for you is unending and His pursuit of you will never stop. And rather than pray as part of this episode, I am committing to pray for any needs that make their way to me. You can email me at JanLBurt@outlook.com or DM me, on Instagram find me at @janlburt and I will stand with you in prayer.  Thanks for joining me today for this tender subject. I hope it was helpful somehow!

Well hello to ya, welcome to this episode of The Prayer Podcast. I’m the shows host, Jan Burt, and I’m so glad you’re listening today. My prayer is that you are encouraged and that you find yourself praying big, bold, brave prayers regularly. And not just praying, but receiving answers to your prayers. Because while it’s true that we do not pray to a genie in a lamp, but to a God who sits enthroned above the heavens, it’s also true that our God loves to hear our prayers and He does indeed answer when we cry out to Him.   So, let’s jump right in. This is episode number 30. When I really consider what prayer is all about, I think at its core, prayer has a lot to do with surrender. When we surrender everything to the Lord in prayer, real transformation starts to happen. Like, for us, as we pray, as we surrender, and for others that we are praying for. And in situations and circumstances, things start to transform.  A prayer of surrender is really at what we did upon salvation, isn’t it? I give. Uncle. I surrender all. Making trade, Jesus’ life for mine, a total surrender to the Lord.  So it does make sense that our prayer lives would involve lots of surrendering…of expectations, of hurts fears and disappointments and pain and sometimes even of hopes and dreams, surrendering to the Lord’s best for us. Mountains move when we surrender in prayer.    I live in America, and I know that not all of my listeners live here, and honestly things are not great here as of late, so I have very little “the American dream” way of thinking in my life anymore, and that’s not a bad thing, but I say that because in the Christian world I’ve been part of in like real life, not in the online space, there has been in the past a sense of taking our American lifestyle, our culture and such, and applying it to the way that we pray.    Yet when I read what Jesus said about prayer, especially when I read it with fresh eyes, if you will, and not just this is my daily reading plan, check it off and move on with the rest of my day, but really read it to understand what Jesus was saying about prayer, that American way of thinking has to be set aside.    It can be shocking to realize how much we have changed prayer into something else…how, say, we can be so polite in our praying, thinking that honors God, this sense that it is disrespectful to Him to not be ultra polite as we pray. But is that what we find in the New Testament teachings of Jesus on prayer? Maybe not so much. Maybe not at all.    As I read it, the New Testament encourages bold praying, not holding back because we don’t want to be impolite (which is what I meant when I mentioned applying our culture here in the States to our Christian life…we don’t mix impolite behavior with our church life…anybody else know what I’m talking about?) That’s more cultural, rooted in how we were raised than in the pages of our Bible.   So, a few passages in the Bible that stretch us in our praying that I think are worth looking at include the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew five, six and seven, Psalm 91, Psalm 63, Luke chapters 11 and 18, and one verse from the Old Testament that has really impacted my faith as it relates to my prayer life is Zechariah 9:12, which says this:  Come back to the place of safety, all your prisoners who still have hope! I promise this very day that I will repay you two blessings for each of your troubles.   Now of course this was a specific promise to the Israelites during a time of exile, but per the New Testament we know that all God’s promises are yes and amen through Christ Jesus our Lord (that’s found in 2 Corinthians 1:20). And that verse has challenged me: do I really believe that God, who is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8) is willing to give me two blessings for each one of my troubles? And do I pray about those troubles as if I believe that? And when I do pray like I believe that goes is who He says He is and does everything He says He’ll do, I end up praying big, bold prayers.    Prayer is asking and prayer is receiving. Let’s remember then when we go to our prayer closets. It’s not just the asking. It’s about receiving. And not just receiving answers, but receiving everything the Lord wants us to have.    Prayer is also enjoying being in God’s presence. It’s a time to worship and praise Him, to receive His comfort and His love, to be still and not be on the go go go. It’s a time for peace, a time we set apart to get apart with our God. And enjoy being at peace in His presence. Laying down our burdens, picking up the peace that Jesus promised.    And you know, we’ve been looking at the book of James here on The Prayer Podcast, and this is a break from that, just to really focus on what prayer is.    And prayer is vital. It’s a part of our life as followers of Jesus that anchors us to Him, and we don’t want to neglect it. We want to be doing things that matter for eternity. Prayer matters for eternity. It’s so much more than something we check off during our daily quiet time. The Lord really does want to hear from you. God to the Father in prayer, expect Him to hear and to answer, make a bit of room in your life to sit quietly before Him, ask for what you need in the name of Jesus, and trust the Holy Spirit to lead you forward with guidance and counsel and protection and wisdom and favor and blessing and clarity.   And this is my prayer for you today: Father, I’m coming to You today on behalf of the one listening. May they step out in faith in their prayer time and ask for things that are weighing on them, and will You take the burden from them and give them Your peace instead? Move in answer to their prayers, and then help them to pray even more boldly. Show them Your love and compassion, watch over them, protect them, open doors for them, and shut doors that aren’t Your best for them. Meet them where they are, right at this moment, but don’t leave them there if they’re in a hard place in life. Move them forward, but do it with great care and love. Do You will in their lives. And shower them with Your grace. In Jesus Name - Amen. (I’ll see ya back next time. Bye bye, and keep on praying!)

Feel free to reach out with prayer requests & I will stand with you in prayer! JanLBurt@outlook.com TikTok - @janlburt Instagram - @janlburt   James chapter one -  16 So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.[d] He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.[e] 18 He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.[f]   Continuing our look at the book of James, we’ll be praying today based on these three verses and also, this is sort of a dual episode if you will, because we are looking at some things happening in the world currently and are going to view them through the lens of Scripture.   Don’t be misled. We are making a choice in this, it seems. Once we really take the Bible as straight up God’s word and apply it to things, like everything and all the things, well, then we’ve made the choice to not be misled, in large part. And the things going on in the world right now are not outside of the Lord’s sovereignty, so we can look at the reality of what is happening and stand it up against the true reality of the Bible and make a decision to not be misled in these times. Now not everyone thinks we are in the last days, but I sort of am gonna say what Francis Chan says on this exact issue, that his view may not be the right one but he really believes that it is. And that’s how I feel, and I wanted to say that at this point in the podcast because I’m gonna pray in a few moments for us all here in these last days, and so I thought I’d tell ya that’s what I believe before I start praying from that perspective and confuse people.  Just gonna share a few things now, some real news that is super recent, like not old news, and then pray these verses from James.    It’s February 20, 2024 as I write this, so you have a date to go along with this. Russia is funding, basically building, a base in Syria right along the border with Israel. The Bible makes it clear that Israel is going to flatten Damascus, it will be defunct, and it’s a literal prophecy, it will happen. Damascus is in Syria. Russia is considered to be Magog in the end times. So what is happening here is what the Bible has said will happen.  The war in Gaza…there are passages in the Bible that make it clear what land will be part of Israel in the last days, and that taking back of land that’s going on is Biblical. And one thing I want to say - the owner or creator of something has ownership rights, and the One who created the world, planet earth, owns it. Nobody else does, not really. God created it, and He gave land to the nation, the people, of Israel and every bit He gave, that He says in the Bible they’ll have, well they’ll have it.  Creating camps on another border of Gaza, Israel, let’s just call it what God calls it as it relates to end times, Egypt is building camps in the Sinai wilderness. Very interesting. Egypt has to step back onto the stage somehow in order for them to have the end times role the Bible talks about. It’s happening, in many different ways, but this going on right over the border is important and it’s a big change, you can see the satellite footage and note that there are doing some stuff out there. Keep an eye on Egypt for sure. The moon, per a news report that was shared on CNN and other outlets, and I’m not big on liberal or conservative news options because I’m just not, my trust level is pretty low, like most of us feel, right? But I share that to say it’s not just a wonky made up story, the moon is like rusting and turning red. Pretty sure this aligns with the word of God mentioning that in the last days the moon would be red. Hmm. Okay. Wow. The red heifers in Israel are getting closer to the age when they can be sacrificed, the plan is for this year’s Passover, in late April I believe, and there are two I think that are so far fitting the requirements for that sacrifice that would enable them to begin building their temple, the third temple, which has to be in place for the end times to play out according to what we find in the Bible. Another news story regarding the red heifers - members of Hamas are saying that a big propellent for the October 7th invasion and massacre and kidnappings that took place in Israel were spurred on because they wanted to take out those red heifers. Again, just wow. And also recently, Musk did that first impact of Neuralink into a human. Well, boy oh boy.    I really could go on, but I just wanted to mention a handful of things and then pray based on James with this end times perspective, because if we don’t know what time it is, then we won’t be expecting what comes next on the Kingdom calendar, which is the soon return of Jesus. And who wouldn’t want us expectant and ready?  The Enemy, the Accuser, Satan, the dirty dog liar. Who does want us ready? God and all of heaven. What does it matter if we know the signs of the time or not? Mark 13 makes it clear - it matters because Jesus said it matters. If you knew what time the robbers were going to break in, then you’d be ready to defend your home. If you don’t know, you’ll be taken by surprise. Jesus expects us to pay attention, to be ready, and to live out our faith and our concern for those who don’t know Him, who are not ready, in a very real way because when we live like we believe He’s coming soon, everything in our life is different, in a good way. What really matters becomes our main focus and the distractions and the things that just really don’t count much for eternity grow dim and become less of a snare for us. Where we put our time is where our life goes, and if none of our times goes toward the things Jesus says matter…that’s not good.   Lord, help Your people not to be misled. You love us, You guide us, and You never want us living under deception. Thank You for Your grace and Your help to keep us from being misled in this day and age. Whatever is good and perfect is a gift from You, Father, and so we thank You for Your many good gifts to us. You never change, and this is a promise that endures. What comfort we gain from knowing You never change or cast a shifting shadow. Who You are is who You will always be, and we can trust You completely because we know You are not shifty of in the change agent business. You have given us Your true word, and we want to live daily believing all of Your Word. You made us Your prized possession - help us to know who we are, who You say we are, and to live in a manner that reflects a deep understanding that we are Your prized possession. Bless each one listening today, and equip them to do Your will in a world that needs Your love. Show us where we are on the Kingdom calendar, and remind us often, every day even, that we will soon see our King coming on the clouds. Help the truth of the Bible and the prophecies being fulfilled in our day awaken us and spur us on toward more love and greater good deeds. We love You, Lord, and in thankfulness we pray these things. Amen.

Welcome to the 28th episode of 'The Prayer Podcast'. I am your host, Jan Elbert, here to lead you into a deeper understanding of the Bible and what it says about prayer. In this episode, we examine verses 12 through 15 of James Chapter 1, discussing how we ought to patiently endure testing and temptation in our lives. Grounded in these verses, we pray for increased patience, a need for us as followers of Jesus to crucify our flesh, and the strength to resist sin that leads to death. Throughout this journey of examining the scriptures and applying their teachings to our prayer lives, we gain better insight into the transformative power of praying according to God's Word. We discuss the importance of praying for strength to endure, the understanding that God is not a source of temptation, and the necessity for personal responsibility in managing our own desires. This prayer journey aims to improve our perspective on life and enhance our prayer lives. We recognize the significance of steadily crucifying our flesh and dealing with our desires, as they wage war against us every day. The podcast seeks to instill a realization of the life-altering reality that sin first gives birth to sinful actions and then to death. In this light, we pray for the Spirit of God to help us put to death the deeds of the flesh. This episode pushes you to introspect, question, and reevaluate your relationship with God, encouraging you to take a stand against the carnal desires that sometimes seem to overtake us simultaneously. It persuades listeners to take the Bible's teachings to heart to gain a better understanding of prayer—the way to communicate directly with our Creator. The Prayer Podcast is here to assist you in your journey—a journey that starts with patience, moves through understanding, and culminates in crucifying the flesh. The aim is to be more wholly and fully dedicated to the Lord each and every day. Join us for each episode to deepen your understanding of prayer and strengthen your relationship with God.

Private Prayer Group - Click to Join   Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements. (verse 12) God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him. ~ Point number 1 - humbles circumstances equal high position (there is a great reverse order of things in the Kingdom of God - in military terms, it’s like an about face where the first shall be last and the last shall be first - this passage says that God has honored those who are poor, they can actually boast about it, and the rich should boast that God has humbled them - how can this impact the way that we pray? Maybe you can think on that in the coming days, for say the next week to ten days, and ask God to help you see more clearly what’s true according to His word in the lives of people all around you.) ~ Point number 2 - rich men are to be thankful when trials humble them (thankfulness in all things is very much a New Testament teaching, and it frankly needs to be a bigger part of my life - this passage helps us to accept our human frailties, and we are frail, we need a Savior and we have one in Jesus, aren’t you grateful for that? It is sort of un-American to accept our frail state, perhaps, but it’s not unbiblical - this is when we discover that true riches are found in the grace of God, and cannot really come from any other place) ~ Point number 3 - verse 12 - I’m going to read this verse once more: “God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.” (And for this episode, I’m going to pray a blessing for you based on this verse. Would you pray with me now? Lord, thank You for Your word. Thank You for the blessing of being able to come to You in prayer and to make our requests known. Thank You for hearing us when we pray, and for answering our prayers. Would You, even now in this very moment, bless us with patience to be able to endure hard seasons in life, times of testing and temptation, whatever those may look like? Some may be tempted to complain, I know I certainly can fall into that camp, and that is not befitting a child of God, a child of the King of all kings should not be a complainer. Lord, whatever our struggles may be, would You strengthen us to stand firm in the face of testing and temptation, to endure because we know that Your word says that he or she who endures til the end shall be saved. Give us long term, long suffering endurance. Equip us for the things we face in our lives. Heal us, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and in every other way that we need Your blessing on our lives. Hold us close, and also send us out to do Your will. Heal us completely so that we can be a blessing to others, sharing with them about the One who heals us, offering what we have because we’ve lived it, experienced it, seen You working in and through our lives. Thank You for this promise that those who patiently endure will be blessed, will receive the crown of life from You. Help us to love You above all else, to not grow weary in well doing, but to trust that we will reap a harvest in due time, so long as we don’t give up. Be our everything, Lord, our all in all, and be glorified. In Jesus Name, Amen.

Well hey there, welcome back to The Prayer Podcast. Happy, blessed, Jesus focused new year to you. May the blessing of the Lord be upon you every day of this year! I’m so thankful you’re listening, and today we are jumping back into our series on James, where we look at verses from this powerful New Testament book and we pray based on those verses.  2024 Prayer Planner from Shannon Roberts And I also have something fun to share with you today - so, if you’ve been around Amazon over the last few years, I am thinking you may have seen, or purchased, the really pretty chalkboard themed prayer journal - in fact, if you open Amazon and search for “bestselling prayer journal”, the one I’m talking about pops up first. Its title is Prayer Journal for Women by Shannon Roberts, and it’s for the whole year, 52 weeks. It’s so pretty, and she now has something new for 2024. It’s a planner for the whole year, but it’s a prayer planner. And I actually won a copy during an Instagram giveaway that Shannon held. I was so excited that I actually squealed in delight! I got it in the mail right around Christmas and it is gonna get prayers written in it all year long. I love having my prayers and the ways God answered in one place, and this is going to be really special for me to look back on later in the year, just a testimony to God’s faithfulness and to how He answers prayer and a written record of God moving in real time. I’m going to share a link so you can take a look at this prayer planner, and I’ll be sharing about it on The Burt (Not Ernie) Show too, so if you are looking for something like this, maybe give it a look and pray about grabbing a copy. Maybe as a gift for someone else, too. So, Shannon, thanks so very much for creating this prayer planner. It is really going to be a blessing to me and to so many others during the year. I’m expecting to have some stuff prayed through and documented in 2024!    A couple of episodes ago we took a look at James chapter one, verse one through four. And now we’re back in this James series, after a couple of special episodes for Christmas and the New Year, and I would love to invite you to listen to those if you haven’t, because I prayed on those a lot before working on them and the blessings that are shared in those shows, episodes 24 and 25, are what I know the Lord led me to pray for all of you. So, if you could use a blessing, feel free to check those out. And I also really need to mention one more thing. The Prayer Podcast has had a large uptick in listeners and download via iHeart radio. If you listen via iHeart radio, can I just give you a shout out and tell you that I’m so thankful you’ve found this show, I am humbled and honored you’re listening, and I am excited to get to know you maybe hear from you if you’d like - via email at JanLBurt@outlook.com, if you ever have a prayer request, I do pray for every request I receive and they are always confidential…my senior pug is here in my office when I pray and if I pray out loud, he can hear me maybe…he is sort of going deaf as he is north of 14, but other than that, it’s just me talking to the Lord and it is a privilege to pray. Or find me on TT IG @janlburt. Verse 5 NLT - If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. Vs 6 - But when you ask Him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Verses 7 and 8 - Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.    Okay, there’s a lot in these four verses. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. This is telling us to pray, ask for what we need when we need it in terms of wisdom, and there’s the promise that God will give it to us. He is a generous God. Sometimes we pray as if He were stingy, but He is anything but. He won’t rebuke you for asking - isn’t this good to remember? Do we sometimes pray with hesitancy, with some pauses and some angst because we’re not totally sure we can pray about any old thing? Are we ever afraid of His rebuke? Well, this states that God won’t rebuke us for asking. And then there is a BUT…when we ask Him, we need to be sure that our faith is in God alone. What’s James saying here? Is it really an issue for believers to not have our faith in God alone when we pray and ask Him for specific things we need, when we need wisdom and ask for it? Well, sure. That’s exactly what James is saying. Let’s not do that! Let’s pray with our faith in God alone! Not in our own plans for how God needs to get something done, and not with the divided loyalty that is, quite frankly, far too prevalent among God’s people. In God alone. There’s no wiggle room here, no room for any other thing to have hold of some aspect or portion of our faith. Not anything - not job status or lack thereof, not bank account numbers, not the guru we follow on social media, not our estate planner, not the self-help book we’ve been hearing about, not in anything else at all - just solely and singularly in God. And then there is a period. Not a comma, not a question mark. A period. Do not waver - okay, so make up your mind that your faith as you pray is only in the One to Whom you are praying, and then, do not waver on that point. It sounds terrible, like a rough and tumble and just awful life, one that is as unsettled as a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. The sea is restless, isn’t it? So restless. There will be no sea in heaven, no more restlessness…let’s live a life of the peace Jesus promised to leave with us, and let’s stop wavering when we pray and be done with the unsettled life that tosses us around like the restless sea. Be at peace, be at rest, and set your faith in God alone as you pray for the wisdom you need for the life you’re living on this planet. No divided loyalties between God and the world - because, ick! No longer unstable in everything that we do - because we have turned from that instability that comes from divided loyalty. We do not waver. We know the One in whom we trust, and we pray with our faith firmly rooted and grounded in Him.  And that’s my prayer for you today.  Lord, take these words from the Bible, Your love letter to us, and make them true for the one listening today. Move in their heart, mind, soul, all of their life, and show them the way to remain in Your peace, never again unsettled, but coming to You with their needs knowing that You have promised to provide the wisdom they need. Give them Your wisdom, Lord. Insight and understanding and clarity and favor all come from Your hand, and I ask You to bless them with those things. Root us deeply in You this year. May we see You exalted and lifted high, honored and glorified in all sorts of ways, and Lord, move in our lives. Act on our behalf. Life can be so good, and also so hard, often in the same life season. Bless them highly, open doors and shut others, protect and heal, lead and guide, set our feet on paths of  Your choosing, show up and show off, and all the glory is Yours. Thank you for all You did for each of us and for all of us corporately as Your body in 2023. Would You do even greater things in 2024? Make us to shine bright like stars in the universe, and grow us in all the ways that You choose so that we may be fully ready to meet You one day. Thank You for the gift of prayer, we don’t take for granted what an amazing thing it is to be able to enter the throne room of grace and bring our needs, our hopes and dreams, our hurts, our praises, and our innermost fears and thoughts and the needs of our loved ones directly to You. It is a gift, and I thank You for the blessing of praying today. Hear and answer, in Jesus Name, Amen.  Thanks so much for joining me today. And as always, feel free to share this episode because honestly, that’s the highest compliment you could give. I’ll see you back here next time! Bye bye.

Free 2024 Word of the Year Printable Join the Prayer Group to Pray Through the Psalms with Jan    Well hello, so glad to be back with you today for this episode of The Prayer Podcast. I hope you had a blessed Christmas and that you are able to spend some time in prayer as we near the end of 2023 and move on to 2024. It’s often been said that the way you finish one season is the way you enter the next one, and that holds a lot of truth. Having some time to get quiet, sit before the Lord, pray and ask Him to lead you so that you end this year well, per His definition and not the world’s or even perhaps your own, and ask Him to bless you as you begin 2024. We will all experience new things, different things, in the coming days, and so praying over those coming days and over ourselves as we prepare to walk worthy of our Lord into those days is a great time investment. Hopefully there is some bandwidth in your life to do that. I’ve done that, and I had the opportunity to spend time in prayer in November and I needed to have that time to pray and to listen, more than I realized, because during our travel around Thanksgiving time I developed some new and not good symptoms related to my health, if you don’t know I was diagnosed with heart failure in 2016 and I have had a thyroid condition most of my life and have been fighting those health related issues for decades. And I had some stuff come up that to me seemed out of the blue, and it is sidelining kind of stuff. So all of that to say, if you do not see me in person for a while, please don’t worry too much - I just have this new battle for my health that I’m dealing with and I’ll probably be out of sight for a while. There are also a few things happening in our life that have to do with things other than my health, and we’re just trusting the Lord in all these things and keeping sort of on the down low during this time. So when you don’t see me or my husband, well, you’ll know why! But it does not look like I will have to cease the ministry work, I can manage to navigate this health stuff and hopefully be able to do things like both podcasts and send out weekly emails with links to both my podcasts and have a weekly time of prayer and study of the Psalms each week in the Facebook prayer group I founded (we’re starting that in January and I’ll add a link to that group in the show notes if you’d like to join us and also a way to get on my email list if you’d like to have the podcast links land in your inbox weekly).   Okay, let’s get on to a blessing for you, one that I hope will be a blessing that continues all throughout the coming year. I’m going to read Psalm 1 from the Amplified Bible and then pray based on that psalm.    The Righteous and the Wicked Contrasted. 1 [a]Blessed [fortunate, prosperous, and favored by God] is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked [following their advice and example], Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit [down to rest] in the seat of [b]scoffers (ridiculers). 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And on His law [His precepts and teachings] he [habitually] meditates day and night. 3 And he will be like a tree firmly planted [and fed] by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season; Its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers [and comes to maturity]. 4 The wicked [those who live in disobedience to God’s law] are not so, But they are like the chaff [worthless and without substance] which the wind blows away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand [unpunished] in the judgment, Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. 6 For the Lord knows and fully approves the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked shall perish. That is my blessing for you as we move into the next year on the calendar. We are one day closer to eternity with the Lord, and I do think that 2024 is a time when we need to be much with the Lord. Be close to Him, pray all throughout the day, pause and listen for Him to lead and guide you, giving you the wisdom you need in every situation. Seek Him daily, even if it means you have to give up some other things. Slow the scroll and spend time with Him. It’s going to be an interesting season for all of us, 2024…and we want to do things that honor Him, and point people to Jesus. That doesn’t happen if we don’t spend a lot of time with Him. That's how to keep our lamps filled with oil. We have to be intentional, or we end up running dry and that is terribly risky at this stage of the game.    My prayer for you is this - May you be blessed, fortunate, prosperous, favored by God in every way in 2024, and especially in the areas that matter most, the ones that count for eternity. May you not walk in the counsel of the wicked, never following their advice or example, but kept so close to the Lord that you know when you are even a millimeter removed from being by His side, walking out your daily life yoked to Jesus. May you not stand in the path of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers or ridiculers - in fact, may those who are mockers and ridiculers not be in your close circle so that you would not even face the temptation of engaging in their coarseness or laughing at their hurtful humor. May your delight be in the law of the Lord, in His word, and on His teachings and precepts. May you meditate on the Word of God day and night, habitually. You will be like a tree firmly planted, well fed, by streams of living water, yielding your fruit in season, and your leaf will not wither and whatever you do will prosper and come to maturity and completion, exactly as the Lord intends. You are not like the wicked, you do not live in disobedience to God, and you are not like chaff, worthless and without substance, blown away by the wind. May you be fully known by the Lord, and fully approved of by Him because you have found your righteousness in Christ Jesus. The way of the wicked shall perish, says the Word of God. May your way lead to everlasting life and may you show that way to many, many others in the coming days, weeks and months. In Jesus name I ask this blessing for you today, Amen.   Thanks for joining me today, I so enjoyed preparing this podcast episode and praying this blessing over you. I hope you receive it fully and walk in all God has for you this year. Check those links in the show notes and I’ll see ya next time!

Recently I heard that the song “Joy to the World” was not written as a carol, and that it isn’t about Christmas. This surprised me, since I’ve only ever known it as a Christmas carol.   Isaac Watts wrote “Joy to the World” in 1719. The opening line is often misread (mis-sung?) as Joy to the world, the Lord has come…but the wording is actually Joy to the world, the Lord IS come. That much I knew already, and have often wondered why it is sung incorrectly so much of the time.    The verb IS holds within the hope of the future…and in 1710, when it was penned, Jesus had of course already been born as a baby in Bethlehem Judea. It is said that he was writing about the future return of the Lord, and that it is based on Psalm 98 which does lean toward the second coming of Jesus.    Could it really be that Joy to the World is about the coming King, rather than the newborn King?    It was written as a poem originally, not as a song. And it was set to music by Lowel Mason around 100 years after Isaac Watts wrote it. It was released at Christmastime and of course became popular as a Christmas song. I read that it has become the most published Christmas carol in America. That’s pretty substantial!  It works as a Christmas song, clearly. And it does point us to the hope that came at the birth of Jesus.    But it is worth applying this hope to the soon return of Jesus, isn’t it?  Psalm 98 says this: Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things! His right hand and His holy arm have worked salvation for Him. The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises! Sing praises with the lyre and the sound of melody! With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord! Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it! Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord, for He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.  Let me read it now as a prayer of blessing for you this Christmas season, and as we look toward the new year and the Second Coming.   Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room,  And Heaven and nature sing, And Heaven and nature sing,  And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.   Joy to the world, the Savior reigns! Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy,  Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.   He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness, And wonders of His love, And wonders of His love, And wonders, wonders, of His love.   Joy to the world, the Lord is come! The King is coming soon to judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity. May we live today ready for that moment, and may this Christmas be one in which we truly say, with a boldness that rings with hope, Let every heart prepare Him room! He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness and wonders of His love. Joy to the world, one day soon the Lord is come again!   Merry Christmas to you and may the Lord be glorified in your home and mine, in your heart and mine, this Christmas.

Well hello there, thanks for joining me for this episode of The Prayer Podcast. We are jumping feet first into a new series on the podcast - straight from the book of James. Now I know what you may be thinking, if you are like me…when the Lord leads me to the book of James, I know I am about to take a long, hard look in the mirror and be faced with the reality that I’ve got some spaces and places in my life that need to be submitted more and more to Him. I’ve learned that as call to study the New Testament book of James is a call to be changed, to be sanctified, to be further conformed to the image of Jesus, my Lord and Savior. Anything that does that is a good thing, in my opinion. And so today we embark on a new prayer series on the show, with the certainty that it will be a very good use of our time. Ready? Let’s get started. James chapter one, looking at the CSB version today. In verse one James refers to himself as a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some translations use the word slave rather than servant. I think it’s worth noting this, right from the get-go in this new series. We’ve got a tough calling, and if nobody ever told you that following Jesus as His disciples means that you are His servant, a slave to Christ, I guess today is your lucky day cuz here it is, directly from the pages of the Bible. James reminds us, by means of describing his own relationship with God, just how serious the business of the Christian life actually is. We are servants, all of us who claim Jesus as Lord, and we are also slaves to Him, for Him, for His Kingdom, for His purposes, and our life is no longer our own. Those days are over once you are in Christ. You have a higher calling, and there simply isn’t wiggle room. I am a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, I am enslaved and this is simply a non-negotiable. That’s where we begin, this is our starting point when we open up the book of James. Does this not completely level the ground? Nobody is higher, nobody is greater, nobody is less than. All who are followers, disciples, believers are the same in this respect. The great equalizer of being a Christ follower is that we all are alike in our servanthood, all of us are called to be slaves to Christ. If we bear this in mind, like have it top of mind, as we read this book, and allow this book to read us, we will find those parts and portions of James that are hard to swallow become super easy to digest…if we will but remember the foundation, this starting point. We serve Him, are enslaved to Him, and that sets the tone for all that comes at us in this book.   Verses 2 through 4 say this: Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.   To quote the armed forces, I ask for permission to speak freely. Permission to speak freely, sir?  Have you longed for more maturity in your walk with the Lord? Have you prayed for someone in your family, maybe your spouse or your children, to be more mature? Do you feel as if there is something you are lacking, that life has lost it’s zest, that there is more, you know there is, but can’t quite seem to grab hold of it? Have you felt your faith is being tested, and you don’t know why? Are the trials in life bringing you down?   James chapter one, verses one through four.  As I pray for you based on these verses, I hope that you find answers to all these questions and more…because truly, what we find in this book is a treasure beyond worth, so long as we are willing to grab hold of it and make it our very own.   Lord, I come to You today as Your servant, enslaved to You, grateful for my position in Your Kingdom. May I be a servant who does not consider herself better than her Master. May this be true for all who listen to this podcast. For the one struggling with the trials of life, I ask that You would bless them with great joy, revealing to them that these trials and tests they are enduring are producing endurance in them. Do that for us all, Lord. Grant us endurance and the ability to remember, right in the middle of struggles and hard times, that these are the exact things that produce endurance. Help us to remember that, and comfort us when the sting of life hurts, whether those hurts are a little or a lot. May we consider it cause for great joy, in spite of the sting, because we trust You and we know that Your Word is true. For anyone who feels as if life has lost it’s zest and they want life to the full, but feel as if it’s somehow missing, out of reach, lacking, would you prove Yourself true to them as this passage states: would You make their endurance complete, having its full effect, so that they will be mature and complete, lacking nothing. Remind them of Your love, draw them close even in the middle of life’s storms, and let them know that endurance is on its way and once it takes full effect in their life, they will be mature and complete, lacking nothing. For those who have experienced this and know it to be true, help us to share about it, to encourage our brothers and sisters, and to rejoice with them as they yield to Your work in their lives. Knit Your people, Your Church, close together and deliver each of us and all of us from the enemy’s schemes and tactics. Lord, as we study the book of James, I am praying that You will meet us here, mature us, encourage us, convict us, comfort us, renew us, restore us, and in our maturing, as our endurance grows to its state of full completion, will You lead us to others we can encourage, bless and disciple, for Your honor and Your Kingdom? And Lord, be glorified in us, Your people who bear Your name. In Jesus Name I ask this - Amen.   Thanks so much for listening today. I pray this has blessed, challenged, and encouraged you and that you receive every single thing the Lord has for you, settling for nothing less than His absolute best. I’ll see ya back here next time. Bye bye!

Link to join Jan's private prayer group on Facebook (starting in January 2024, this group will be going through the book of Psalms & praying based on the passages we study).    In this episode we look at Ezra chapter 8, where we find a bold declaration and a bold prayer for protection which God answered. Expect to be blessed during this episode by a spoken prayer of blessing for you and your life based on this passage.

Psalm 69 is an amazing passage and it literally teaches us how to pray with raw honesty from the depths of our despair and suffering, and it reminds us that it is okay to take our hard things to the Lord and to cry out to Him. Sometimes we think crying out to Him should look like anything but actually crying out. How’s that supposed to work? Is that piety and religiosity that is not what He wants from us? Could it be that He loves us so much that He wants us to bring it to Him, casting all our cares upon Him because He cares for us, as Peter wrote in the NT. What might happen for us, in us, and through us and how might God be honored and people less stressed out if we took the worst moments and the hardest things to Him first in prayer? Not text about it…but pray about it. Not gripe about it…but pray about it. And leave it with the Lord, in His safe and competent hands. Don’t take it back after praying on it. Let Him have when you give it to Him in prayer.    I’d like to read a few verses from the 69th psalm from the Amplified Bible today.  Verses 1-3: Save me, O God, For the waters have threatened my life [they have come up to my neck]. 2    I have sunk in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, where a flood overwhelms me. 3    I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched; My eyes fail while I wait [with confident expectation] for my God.   Vs 14-15: Rescue me from the mire and do not let me sink; Let me be rescued from those who hate me and from the deep waters. 15    Do not let the floodwater overwhelm me, Nor the deep waters swallow me up, Nor the pit [of Sheol] shut its mouth over me.   Vs 20-23: Reproach and insults have broken my heart and I am so sick. I looked for sympathy, but there was none, And for comforters, but I found none. 21  They (self-righteous hypocrites) also gave me gall [poisonous and bitter] for my food, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. 22  May their table [with all its abundance and luxury] become a snare [to them]; And when they are in peace [secure at their sacrificial feasts], may it become a trap. 23  May their eyes be dimmed so that they cannot see, And make their loins shake continually [in terror and weakness].   Vs 29-30:But I am sorrowful and in pain; May Your salvation, O God, set me [securely] on high. 30    I will praise the name of God with song And magnify Him with thanksgiving.   There is a lot of emotion in this psalm. A lot of crying out to God, getting real and raw and honest with Him.    Do you relate to this at all?    The holidays are hard for a lot of people. My dad died right before Thanksgiving when I was 15 years old, and it was difficult. Add other losses to that, and November to December were not my favorites for a long time. Having my own family, I began to rebuild this time of year, in a way, with the Lord’s help. And it’s not hard now. But I did have a moment of being honest with God about some hard things. That was helpful. He helped me. I shared with Him in prayer, being honest, and He heard me, helped me, changed me.    My prayer for you is that this Thanksgiving and moving onward toward Christmas will be a season where God heals you, helps you, blesses you, comforts you, holds you close, changes you, and sets your feet on solid ground. As I just spoke those words, I was praying them over you. And I am expecting God to hear me and to answer. Lord bless you and be near to you this holiday season.    I’ll see you back here next time, and thanks so much for joining me. Bye bye.

Psalm 2   New Living Translation     Psalm 2 1 Why are the nations so angry?     Why do they waste their time with futile plans? 2 The kings of the earth prepare for battle;     the rulers plot together against the Lord     and against his anointed one. 3 “Let us break their chains,” they cry,     “and free ourselves from slavery to God.” 4 But the one who rules in heaven laughs.     The Lord scoffs at them. 5 Then in anger he rebukes them,     terrifying them with his fierce fury. 6 For the Lord declares, “I have placed my chosen king on the throne     in Jerusalem,[a] on my holy mountain.” 7 The king proclaims the Lord’s decree: “The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son.[b]     Today I have become your Father.[c] 8 Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance,     the whole earth as your possession. 9 You will break[d] them with an iron rod     and smash them like clay pots.’” 10 Now then, you kings, act wisely!     Be warned, you rulers of the earth! 11 Serve the Lord with reverent fear,     and rejoice with trembling. 12 Submit to God’s royal son,[e] or he will become angry,     and you will be destroyed in the midst of all your activities— for his anger flares up in an instant.     But what joy for all who take refuge in him!

When we read the words the Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 1, verses 4 & 5, they remind us that we are so loved by God that He created us with intention and purpose. Knowing who we are according to the Bible impacts how we pray, because it impacts why we pray.    Be sure to check out the Vibrant Home Life Summit - an online event aimed at strengthening Christian families.    Jeremiah 1:4-5 Amplified -  4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 5  “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you [and approved of you as My chosen instrument], And before you were born I consecrated you [to Myself as My own]; I have appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”   He knew you then; He knows you now.   He knew what Jeremiah would do with his life, and He knows all about your life, too.   If you ever feel forgotten - you're not! If you ever feel as if you have no deep, meaningful purpose or calling - you do!   Your calling is, first and foremost, to know Jesus. And within that life-long calling, you will have many varied tasks and assignments from the Lord.   Consider reading these verses to help "shore you up" in your true identity & purpose. Jeremiah 9:24 Philippians 3:10 Isaiah 43:10-11 1 Timothy 2:3-4 John 17:3   My prayer for you is that you will know this calling, this deep need in your heart and soul to know Jesus personally.  And that you will know your tasks (or assignments) under the umbrella of this calling.   Know Jesus = #1 Then do what He ask of you = #2 Do what He leads you to do from a place of knowing Him & being known by Him. Tasks change over the course of your life - calling does not.

Hey there, hello and welcome to this episode of The Prayer Podcast.    FREE access to The Vibrant Home Life Summit   On a recent episode of The Burt (Not Ernie) Show…which is a podcast I’ve hosted since 2019 that focuses on knowing and believing God’s promises…I shared a verse from 1 Kings chapter 8. And during my study time for that show, I landed on a verse that is such a great one for this show. In chapter 8, King Solomon, son of King David, is dedicating the temple and part of the dedication ceremony is a lengthy and beautiful prayer.    1 Kings 8:52, and I’m reading from the Amplified today…not the entire verse, just portions:  ..that Your eyes may be open to the supplication of Your people…to listen to them and be attentive to them whenever they call to You.    The definition of supplication is this: entreating - humble and earnest petition or prayer -    Prayer coming from a place of humility honors the Lord. But coupling that humility with an earnestness that we will be heard, and we will receive an answer, that’s a powerful and beautiful way to pray.   When is the last time your prayer time could be described as entreating? An earnest request that is somewhat akin to begging?  That’s our picture of supplication.   And we know as Christians who have read the New Testament that we are not beggars, we are those who are told in Hebrews chapter 4 to come boldly to God’s throne of grace to find help and obtain mercy in our time of need. Begging and coming boldly don’t exactly go together, they kind of feel like a mismatch in a way. But the humility that comes to mind when someone is really in need and is just flat out begging for the answer to that need, true humility that isn’t always neat and tidy and prettied up, but is so raw and genuine that it isn’t fake or manufactured, let’s think of that kind of humility regarding prayer today. Bold but humble. Expectant yet grateful.    Lord, today I come before you based on this verse from the book of 1 Kings. Would You hear me as I pray today, and would You respond to my prayers? All of us who are Your children have needs today. Some are huge and some are smaller, but no matter the size of the need, they are all real needs and we need You, our loving Father, to come to our aid at our point of need. Today my prayer is that You will open Your eyes to my supplication on behalf of Your people. Please, Lord, do not be far from us. Do not close Your ears to us today. Draw near and remain near. Do not ignore my prayer today, and do not leave us in this place. But deliver us, protect us, show Your power in the situations that are on our hearts, and speak Your truth over us and over our loved ones, our health, our finances, our work situations, our ministries, our families and our churches, over every big and every small aspect of our lives. O Lord, hear! O Lord, move and act in power. O Lord, respond and quickly. We are crying out to You today, and taking You at Your word, believing that You will be attentive to us in this time, in this season, at this very moment, because we are calling to You. Do miracles in our midst. Vanquish our foes and restore what the locusts have devoured. Strengthen our hearts and our minds as we place all our hope and trust in You. We choose not to try and solve all our problems on our own, but we seek Your first and foremost, and we will follow where You lead and will obey You because Your Holy Spirit in us will help us to follow and obey. We need You every hour, Lord, and in this very hour I am asking on behalf of Your people that You will respond to our needs and will reveal more of You to us in this time, and will grant us all we need in these relationships and circumstances we are praying about today. With all the humility and boldness I can muster, and with the authority of the name of Jesus I pray this today - Amen.    Thanks so much for joining me today and for the privilege of praying for you. Standing with God’s people in prayer - what a blessing! Also, just an FYI. I am a sponsor for an upcoming online event. The Vibrant Home Life Summit is happening super soon, October 29 thru November 3 2023. It’s a Christian based event that aims at helping families to keep their faith and focus on the Lord. I’m blessed to be part of this event and I’m going to leave a link to grab your free ticket in the show notes. Lots of benefits to checking out a summit like this, not the least of which is being encouraged yourself as you go about your daily roles of both being a disciple and making disciples. Thanks again for listening today and remember you can text me prayer requests anytime via the text option on my website, which is my name, I’ll spell it out J A N L B U R T dot com The text option is right on the main page and the phrasing comes automatically with my website which is built in a CRM, so it says something like a representative will be with you shortly (sounds like a CRM, doesn’t it? Not like a ministry website…haven’t been able to change that verbiage just yet but no representative is gonna call you. I’ll pray for you request and prayer requests are always confidential, started that in my online prayer retreat group and just apply it across the board when I pray, and I’d be blessed to pray for you at any time.)

Free copy of Praying God's Word eBook   Welcome to this episode of The Prayer Podcast with Jan L. Burt Today we are looking at a verse from the book of Mark and I’m going to read from the New Living Translation.  Mark 8:34 - Then, calling the crowd to join His disciples, He said, “If any of you wants to be My follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow Me.”   Have you ever considered the fact that a dedicated prayer life requires much from us? A part-time, minimal effort prayer life, not so much. But when you are dedicated to your craft, in any area of life, it requires something from you. It requires much from you. That’s what it means to be truly dedicated to something.  If we are going to pray in a way that obtains results, and that is the end game of prayer, right? We don’t pray just to fill up time, and we certainly do not pray in order to NOT have our prayers answered. We pray to obtain God’s response, an answer sent from Him. So if we are going to pray in a way that obtains results, we need to put some time and effort into our praying. Don’t be praying and scrolling Instagram, because that’s not going to prove effective. Can we apply Mark 8:34 to our prayer time?  I think we can. Do you want to follow Jesus as His disciple?  Then you must give up your own way. Take up your cross. And follow Him.  Be dedicated to following Jesus. A follower needs to follow, right? Not run ahead or lag behind or try and be the boss of the one you’re following.  Be dedicated to following the Lord. A healthy prayer life is one way we can be dedicated in our following. It’s our conversation with God, and we should take time not only to make our requests known to God, but also to listen. Be still and simply be in the Lord’s presence. Make room and space for Him to speak into our lives.  And sometimes we will have to pray a long, long time before a particular prayer is answered. That’s not what everyone believes, and I get that, I understand it, but sometimes it is a long, long road of prayer before say that loved one turns to Jesus and makes Him Lord. When we are praying for people, it’s good to remember that they have their own wills, they have their own flesh, and the Lord isn’t going to force them to choose to follow Him. But don’t give up. Continue in prayer for the long haul, if that’s what it takes. That’s a dedicated prayer life.   Following the Lord the way this verse shows us comes with giving up our own way. And that’s the heart of prayer that isn’t trying to push and shove and fight with God to get what we want. This idea of giving up our own way, being willing to take up our cross and follow Jesus, when we pray with a heart that wants His way and His will over our own, we will be in for some very beautiful and precious prayer sessions and for some astounding answers to those prayers.

TPP Ep #16 Got a new resource to mention to you - it’s a prayer book written by a friend of mine, Geri Gardner, and I’ll have the link in the show notes for ya. Schooled In Prayer book at Amazon   Today we are looking at Psalm 52, verses 8 and 9. And you know one thing that stood out to me from these two verses was the blessing we find here. I couldn’t think of a better way to pray for you today than with an actual, biblical blessing.  Here’s how these verses read in the NLT. But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God.     I will always trust in God’s unfailing love.   I will praise you forever, O God,     for what you have done. I will trust in your good name     in the presence of your faithful people.   Isn’t that a beautiful image? Like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. Not just surviving, which is often how we feel. Like we are merely surviving, just getting by, so far from thriving that it seems like a dream to be able to thrive. But in the house of God, in the presence of our loving Father, we can thrive. Every single day.  I do my work at home, and not everyone works from home, but it isn’t often that I have people around. There are no bonuses or work parties when it’s just you doing your thing in your work. And you might think that it is terrible. Well I do love my time with my husband, I value it highly, that’s for sure.  And I can totally understand how some people would be coming undone by working alone all day, every day. (I’m not coming undone at all, just an fyi…I really enjoy working alone and even have a hard time forcing myself to go work for a few hours at a coffee shop. No need to check in on me, I really do love my little office and being able to take half a day and watch my sweet grandbaby. I’m so very blessed.) But my point is that it’s so easy to feel like we’re doing anything but thriving in our regular old life.  But what if that’s the wrong perspective? If we are ever going to be more thankful, then it starts with simply choosing to be more thankful one day, one moment, and then thankful again in the next moment, the next day, and so on. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m gonna pray for you, that you will know and see and experience and live in a place of thriving, not surviving, and I also want to challenge you a bit on this. Look for God’s favor, where do you see Him moving in your world? Thank Him for that. Where are you thriving? Are you close enough to the Lord to say you are thriving in His house? Be much with the Lord, and you will not regret it. It really is the way to have a full, thriving life. Be much with the One who knows you best and loves you most.  And when we live close to Jesus, thriving in the house of our God, then we find it so much easier to trust in His unfailing love.  That’s the second thing I’m praying over you today - that you will be able to trust in God’s unfailing love for you.  And that you will be a person of praise, making the sacrifice of praise part of your every day life. So easy to praise Him, because you do it so often.  And lastly that you’ll be able to trust in God’s good name in the presence of His faithful people. His name is a good name. Trust in that! And that last bit, in the presence of God’s faithful people…oh how I want you to have people around you, in your life, who are faithful to the Lord God Most High. What a difference that makes! And not everyone has this. It’s such a blessing! I’m going to pray that for you today.    In fact, I’m going to pray for you right now.   Lord, today I come to You with gratitude and thanksgiving, asking that You would hear me and answer as I pray for the one listening today. Would You do as Your word says, and reveal Your love and grace and favor and mercy to them now? Cause them to be drawn to praise, to be a people of praise, starting now and continuing on throughout all eternity. Thank You, praise You, for what You have done, God. You are good, and we trust in Your good name today. May they thrive in Your presence, enjoying being close to You and growing in Your presence. May they always trust in Your unfailing love, resting in You because You’re taking such good care of them. And surround them with Your faithful people to encourage them, to bless them, to shore them up when they need it and to rejoice with when prayers are answered and life is filled to overflowing with good things from your hand. Take away survival mode, and replace it with peace and thriving. May they see You at work in their world, and may You do great things in and through them. Father, I’m asking for a double portion blessing on them today, and for them to be overflowing with joy because they know how much their God loves and cares for them. Do all I’ve asked, and far beyond what I’m asking today. In Jesus Name - Amen

Well hey there, welcome to The Prayer Podcast and for this episode we’re looking at a passage from the psalms. Anybody else find themselves turning to the psalms and praying these psalms during tough times? I sort of feel as if the book of psalms has real life application for me when I am facing something and need to know how to pray, and also is a beautiful reminder to praise the Lord even when I’m hurting or needy or just in a low place in my life. The psalms help me pray better, and they help me praise better.    Have a prayer request? Send it my way via the text option here & I'll be praying!   You’re listening to The Prayer Podcast with Jan L. Burt and this is episode number fifteen.   Psalm 116, verses 1 & 2 say this in the Amplified -  I love the LORD, because He hears me (and continues to hear) my voice and my supplications (my pleas, my cries, my specific needs). Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call on Him as long as I live.   So right off the bat in the first two verses of Psalm 116, we find the psalmist talking about prayer.  When you pray, is it easy or hard for you to fully believe that God hears you and continues to hear you when you pray? When you bring your supplications to Him? Do you know that you know that you know that God has inclined His ear to you, and that as a result of this truth, you ought to call on Him as long as you live. How long? Oh, only for as long as you live. If you love the Lord, let your praying be an indicator of that love. Great love will equal great praying. And when you trust Him completely, it’s really so easy to go to Him in prayer. So much of the tug of war about prayer is stripped away when we trust Him completely and maybe even dare I say exclusively. We don’t try to pray one minute and work out a plan b the next minute when we trust in the Lord exclusively.    But today’s focus isn’t on verses 1 and 2. We’re gonna hone in on verses 12 through 14.   Let me read those verses from the Amplified Bible.   What will I give to the LORD (in return) for all His benefits toward me? (How can I repay Him for His precious blessings?) I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows to the LORD. Yes, in the presence of all His people.   Of course you and I don’t like thousands of years ago in ancient Israel, so what do these verses mean for us today? How does this impact our prayer lives?    These verses have encouraged me to be mindful about what I take to the Lord in prayer, what I give to Him…ever done that? A person or situation or your health or finances, you pray and give it to Him, with the total intention of letting Him do His will His way for His glory and purposes, and you get to have the peace of God and can rest easy because you have entrusted the burden of it to the Lord via prayer. But did you ever do that and then snatch it back? Like you’re worrying and fretting and trying to find the solution in your own strength. Snatched it right back. I’ve done that and it can be challenging to keep giving it to the Lord and leaving it with Him, which I suppose is what it really means to trust God with it.    If something comes to mind today as you listen to the podcast, would you give it back to the Lord today? Pray on it and let it go, knowing it’s in good hands with Him. He is trustworthy and we really can leave it to Him.    He has blessed you in the past, and He will bless you in the future. He has been good to you and He will be good to you again and again and again. His faithfulness and His love for you know no end and cannot be used up or exhausted. He loves you, He cares for you, and He hears when you pray.    Can I pray over you today?    Lord, today I ask You to do the miraculous on behalf of Your people who need a miracle. I’m seeking Your very best on their behalf. And if they have given something to You in prayer and then found themselves worrying about it again, trying to work out a solution or fix a really difficult problem, would You bless them with Your comfort, and Your peace, and draw them close, reminding them to rest in You and to enjoy peace of mind and peace of heart as You work on the problem on their behalf, because You love them so very much? We love You, Lord, and we are so grateful for the many blessings, too many to count, that You have granted to us. Thank You for hearing our prayers and for the promise that You will continue to hear us when we pray. Make us bold in our praying, give us faith to ask for things that only You can do, and may we continually trust You to do Your will, Your good will, in response to our prayers.  Lord, today would You bring healing and peace and hope into their lives? And Lord, we want to praise You and thank You and rejoice in all that You are and all You have done and all You will do in the days to come.  In Jesus Name I ask this, Amen. Hey, thanks so much for listening today and for the blessing of praying for and with you. I’d be honored to pray for you specifically and you are welcome to email me prayer requests at JanLBurt@outlook.com and I will be praying. See you next time for episode number 16.

Well, hey there!  Welcome to this special end times episode of The Prayer Podcast with Jan L. Burt I'll read a portion of Luke chapter 12 aloud and then discuss what Jesus had to say to His people in this passage regarding the return of the Master, and then close out the episode by praying. Thanks for joining me for the special episode, and while it is a bit longer than usual, I think the subject matter is so important and timely that it warranted a few extra minutes of show time. Also, as promised, here is a link to my other podcast which focuses on knowing and believing God's promises - The Burt (Not Ernie) Show Podcast.    From Luke chapter 12 in the New Living Translation  35 “Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 as though you were waiting for your master to return from the wedding feast. Then you will be ready to open the door and let him in the moment he arrives and knocks. 37 The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded. I tell you the truth, he himself will seat them, put on an apron, and serve them as they sit and eat! 38 He may come in the middle of the night or just before dawn.[d] But whenever he comes, he will reward the servants who are ready. 39 “Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would not permit his house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.” 41 Peter asked, “Lord, is that illustration just for us or for everyone?” 42 And the Lord replied, “A faithful, sensible servant is one to whom the master can give the responsibility of managing his other household servants and feeding them. 43 If the master returns and finds that the servant has done a good job, there will be a reward. 44 I tell you the truth, the master will put that servant in charge of all he owns. 45 But what if the servant thinks, ‘My master won’t be back for a while,’ and he begins beating the other servants, partying, and getting drunk? 46 The master will return unannounced and unexpected, and he will cut the servant in pieces and banish him with the unfaithful. 47 “And a servant who knows what the master wants, but isn’t prepared and doesn’t carry out those instructions, will be severely punished. 48 But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required. Jesus Causes Division 49 “I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! 50 I have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished. 51 Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! 52 From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against. 53  ‘Father will be divided against son     and son against father; mother against daughter     and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law     and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’[e]” 54 Then Jesus turned to the crowd and said, “When you see clouds beginning to form in the west, you say, ‘Here comes a shower.’ And you are right. 55 When the south wind blows, you say, ‘Today will be a scorcher.’ And it is. 56 You fools! You know how to interpret the weather signs of the earth and sky, but you don’t know how to interpret the present times.   In the NLT, the header for verses 35-48 reads “Be Ready for the Lord’s Coming” and in the Amplified it reads “Be In Readiness”. Be in readiness. Live in a state of perpetual readiness. Now, this is no easy task, no small order we find here.    Be dressed and ready for service. Keep your lamps burning. The oil often referenced in the Bible refers to the Holy Spirit. Be so filled with the Spirit of the Living God, be much with the Lord to put it very frankly, because that Holy Spirit oil is what will keep your lamp burning. No oil? No fire in the lamp. And if the lamp is not lit and burning, then we are not obeying the Lord Jesus and His command to us here in Luke chapter 12. If you do not spend time, and ample time, in the Word of God and with Him in prayer and thanksgiving (not talking about a Bible reading checklist here, but a personal relationship with the One who loved you enough to die for you). Talk with Him all day long, make a conversation with Him the thing you are doing as you drift off to sleep, pray and listen first thing when you awaken. Be dressed for service, as though you were waiting for your master to return from the wedding feast. You’d be paying attention, have certain things at the ready that the master would want upon his return, and if it were from a wedding feast, it would likely be a late return. Nonetheless, you’d be ready with what would please the master, ready to do your assigned tasks. That’s how active waiting should take place. Though the hour seems late, don’t slumber and don’t slack off. Stay dressed for service and be so much with the Lord, filled with His Spirit, that when He returns you are ready and waiting, and in your readied state of waiting you will be doing the things the Lord has called you to be doing.  What are those things for you? Probably not exactly what they are in my life. For example, my children are all adults now, so I do not have the same daily child-rearing things to do that I had to do earlier in my life. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all, but rather that solid relationship with your Father so that you know just what it is He wants you to be doing in this season.    This is how you will be ready to open the door and let Him in the moment He arrives and knocks. Be alert to the times and seasons in which we live. Eyes on Israel - very prudent to pay attention to what is happening in Israel in these last days. And you know, there are so many people in ministry who are talking frankly about the soon return of Jesus, I cannot think of a time this has ever been the case to this extreme. Where we see Matthew 24 coming to pass in all its varied aspects, and have church leaders who are not what could be considered out there on the fringe, stating openly that this is it, we are in the final hours. Children, even toddlers, are having dreams about Jesus and His return and there is a widening gap between those who are in the Church, who profess Jesus as Lord, this widening gap where some believe these are the last days and at any time we truly could (and I believe, will) see the beginning of the 7 year tribulation begin, a treaty that involves Israel that will be a 7 year promise type of treaty, and that’s the kick off of the final 7 years, that’s the book of Daniel and also Paul in both his letters to the Thessalonian church. We’re almost there, folks. And yet there is a large (too large!) number of professing believers who are not in belief about this very subject. They say it’s coming, but not now, later on down the road, there’s more time…and really to be fair, if they don’t search out the information about specifically Israel and things like looking at the number of earthquakes happening around the world, or looking into the state of the Euphrates River right now, and line this all up with the Bible, if they don’t know what’s going on, that would for sure contribute to not thinking we are so close. And often the one single verse, not the whole counsel of the Word of God, but one single verse that Jesus spoke, is their reasoning behind not believing this is the season of His return. Of course, that verse is that no man knows the hour or the day of the return of the Son of God. That’s a true verse, 100% true. But if we take it in context, and read all of what Jesus says in this passage in Matthew 24, all His words here regarding the end times, we would find that He is actually calling us to be ready because He will come at an hour when you do not expect it. He gives signs in this chapter to know that His return is very near, and Jesus said that when you see all these things, the end is near, even at the door. That’s verse 33 of Matthew 24.   I’m doing this episode of this podcast, and also of my original podcast The Burt (Not Ernie) Show about this topic, the signs of the times and the return of the King of kings, because the Lord put it on my heart to do so. To share on this. Right now. Without delay. To make short work of my obedience to what He called me to do.    In spite of those who don’t want to hear it, who don’t think it’s time just quite yet.  But it is time. And I hope you do hear. Things are advancing. That seven year treaty will be signed soon. As it says in Luke 12, when He comes He will reward the servants who are ready. If you knew exactly when a burglar was coming, you would not permit a break in. A servant who knows what the master wants but isn’t prepared and doesn’t carry out those instructions will be severely punished. But what if the servant thinks, “My master won’t be back for a while,”...the master will return unannounced and unexpected and will cut the servant in pieces and banish him with the unfaithful. These are the words Jesus spoke about being ready for His coming. So please, be ready. Be dressed for service. Keep your lamp burning. Be ready and waiting for His return and there will be a reward for you. It will be unexpected…so do your utmost to expect the unexpected. You must be ready all the time, it says in verse 40. Again, I use the word please…be ready all the time, starting at this time, this very moment, right now, today. Get ready, be ready, stay ready. The King is coming soon.   Lord, lead us as we serve You wholeheartedly in these last days. Show us how to pay attention to the signs of the times, the signs that mark Your soon return, and help us live ready and attentively, but not in fear or giving way to despair. Keep our eyes fixed on You, remind us of all You’ve promised, and keep us as the apple of Your eye as we are dressed for service, picking up our cross daily and following You, keeping our lamps burning, waiting for Your return. Save all who will come to You, Lord, and do not delay. Bring about a great end times harvest and move in the hearts and minds of men and women and children all over the world. Show us what we need to know, and by the same power that raised Jesus from the grave, enable us to do the things You want us to be doing at this moment in time. We still must go to work each day, and we want to do that for Your glory and Your honor, so lead us in doing our work well, as unto the Lord, even while we remain aware and watchful. May we be a blessing to those around us in the daily tasks we must do, and remind us to pray with boldness and great faith for the people in our lives who have needs, and who do not know You as their own Lord and Savior. May be remain dressed and ready for service continually, and never doubt in the dark what You have told us in the light. And Lord, work in the lives of Your people in Israel. Reveal Yourself to them as their Messiah. Come quickly, Lord Jesus, and save and rescue as many as possible in the days remaining before Your return. Amen.