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The Wake-Up Call
The Difference between the Power of Prayer and the Power of God
00:22:35
This episode centers on Mark 11 and the difference between the power of prayer and the power of God. The speaker argues that Jesus’s teaching on faith is not a blank check for “name it and claim it,” but a call to trust God’s sovereignty, live in constant prayer, and understand prayer as a relationship of receiving rather than begging. He ties the lesson to discipleship, saying followers of Jesus learn who God is by watching Jesus and by allowing the Spirit and the Word to shape their prayers. A major emphasis is forgiveness, which he presents as the one thing that can block the life of faith and prayer. He explains forgiveness as choosing not to retaliate or nourish bitterness, then urges listeners to examine where they need to trust God most in real life. The episode closes with a practical, encouraging challenge to receive God’s provision by faith, give generously in anticipation, and live as people being awakened and strengthened by Christ. CHAPTERS: 00:04 The Power of Prayer a...
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Good morning sower nation. It is Friday, July 24th, in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm John David Walt and this is your wake up call. Are we. Can we just dive straight in today? No preliminaries, no niceties. Jesus is a hearer and he's ready to meet with us. So let's open the door by consecration. Wake up, sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you. And we're praying in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, today's entry is entitled the Difference between the Power of Prayer and the Power of God. How about that? Our text all day long. Mark chapter 11. I want you to read the whole chapter with me. I'm going to read verses 18 to 25 right here. Hear now the word of the Lord. And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him. For they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, they went out of the city. As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. And Jesus answered them, have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. The word of the Lord. Now consider this. How are we to understand this? Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. If ever there were a proof text for the Name it and claim it crowd, this is it. In fact, entire theological systems and faith movements have been built by a few verses like these and others strung together. However, I think any biblical interpreter worth his or her salt would quickly say, not so fast, my Dear friend Ben Witherington III often puts it this way. A text taken out of context becomes a pretext for anything you want it to say. So what's going on here? Remember that we are coming to the end of the three year period of discipleship for the 12. They've been schooled in the nature of the sovereignty of God. They've been taught and trained in the ways of the Kingdom of God. And let's remember the bigger context at work. In the last entry, Jesus cursed the fig tree and cleaned house at the Temple. In contrast to the religious machinations of the Temple in which Israel placed so much confidence, Jesus tells his disciples to have faith in God. As they stood there on the Mount of Olives, looking at the withered fig tree that would indeed never bear fruit again, they couldn't but help to have seen the towering temple across the valley in the mighty Jerusalem. Jesus in essence told his disciples the whole project had become a house of cards that would soon come crashing down. Don't have faith in the corrupted system. Have faith in God. This is the big deal, the whole point of discipleship. As they followed Jesus, he showed them what God was like every step of the way. Discipleship is learning by word and spirit who God is and what God is like. It is learning to trust the true God. This is manifest through a life of prayer, which is the hidden way the life of faith works. The way of faith depends on the life of prayer as one's heartbeat depends on one's breath. Dr. William Lane, one of my teachers, through this Gospel of Mark, said it well. When prayer is the source of faith's power and the means of its strength, God's sovereignty is its only restriction. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. When a follower of Jesus lives immersed in the word of God and is animated by the Spirit of God, their prayers with ever increasing resonance, ring true to the will of God. God funds his will through the faith filled prayers of his people. We must learn to think of prayer not in the terms of the power of our faith, but the framework of the faithfulness of our God. Prayer is that constant, abiding conversation Jesus wants to have with us, us all the time. It is simpler than we could have ever imagined, yet more consuming than we can conceive with today's text. Jesus teaches us what it means to be the people who live and love with power. There is one other restriction though. And whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that Your Father also, who is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. The only blockade to the way of faith inspired by the life of prayer is unforgiveness. To the degree we withhold forgiveness from others, we deny it to ourselves. As has been aptly said, unforgiveness is drinking poison and expecting it to kill the other person. A final practical note on forgiveness. Forgiveness is not saying what happened was okay. It doesn't mean everything is hunky dory after. It's not about kissing and making up. Forgiveness is the willful decision to cease retaliating in any form against the person who harms you. That includes harboring bitterness and anger, fantasies, fantasies and so forth. Is prayer more about something you say, which is not a bad thing, or is it taking the shape of constant conversation? Is it more about something you say, or is it taking the shape of constant conversation? Invite the Holy Spirit to search your spirit and ferret out any unforgiveness festering there. Are you ready to let that go? Can you confess unforgiveness as a sin and invite the Holy Spirit to cleanse you of its poison and to empower you to let go of your need to pay them back, if only in your mind. It's just not worth it to hold on to unforgiveness. Don't waste another minute of your life. That was a lot, a lot there. It's amazing how he ties that unforgiveness bit right in here with this massive statement about faith and prayer. I love this. Therefore I tell you whatever you ask in prayer. Believe that you have received it and it will be yours. This is some. This is something the Lord's been training me in for a while now. He's changed my way of praying. I don't ask in prayer anymore. I receive, I say. For instance, when praying for healing, I don't ask for Jesus to heal. I say, jesus, we receive your healing. Isn't that what he's saying? He's trying to shift us. He's trying to shift us from asking to receiving. You got to believe you've received it. And how do you believe you've received it? You declare it, Jesus, I receive your healing. I receive your provision. I receive your care. I receive your whatever it is that you're going to ask for, just go ahead and tell him you receive it. That's what I think he's meaning when he says, ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened. He's trying to shift us from asking and seeking and knocking over to the side of receiving and finding and the door being opened. This is a way he is trying to shift our energy in prayer from this endless kind of pleading to claiming. And it's not, name it, claim it. No, it's faith moving in love toward Jesus. It's moving in anticipation in a powerful way. I think sometimes we put so much stock in just like, how much can we beg God in prayer? He's like, you don't gotta beg. Beg me, right? He's saying, listen, if the Father knows how to give good gifts to his children, how much more will our Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? He's like, receive it, Receive the spirit. That's what he says. Ah, I'm getting carried away here. I'm getting charged up, people. This is affecting me. It's definitely gotten into me. And I'm hoping I can get it into you. I'm hoping the Lord is convincing you of this. Stop asking, start receiving, stop pleading. You don't gotta beg God, just start welcoming, bringing it in, moving, moving out in faith. He's giving. He is giving. God is giving. He's pouring his spirit out. He's releasing the gifts of the Holy Spirit all over the earth. In all the believers in Jesus. He's giving provision. I just. I remember. This reminds me, like, I just remember. I think maybe it was Charles Swindoll way back. It was a good gray radio preacher. And he says, you know what? We're always going around asking God, just, would you write the check? Would you give it to us? Would you make it happen? Would you write us a check? And he said, and God is turning around and saying, cash has been written. Cash the check. Move out as though you have it. Start spending the money as though it's there. Yeah, there's a short step. If you get this wrong, you can bleed over into a prosperity gospel that is untrue. But I'm telling you, that's the counterfeit, friends. And the counterfeit, the counterfeit is not 180 degrees away from the real thing. That, no, the counterfeit is a shade of a degree off the truth with money. Right? It's not easy to spot counterfeit money the way they train people to spot counterfeit money. Study the authentic original. Study the genuine article. And if you can recognize that genuine article, you'll spot the very slight deficiencies in the counterfeit. Don't run from the counterfeit, because if you run from the counterfeit, you're running from the real thing. That's right beside it. So many of us have done that for fear of the false teaching. I'm telling you, get your eyes on the prize, the original, the authentic, the true Jesus who says this. Therefore, I tell you whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Let's don't run away from that. Let's run into him with that Golly, I've just been lifted up here. I hope I've encouraged some of you. We got to get out of that sort of poor, poor mouthing, begging God kind of prayer. No, sir, that's not our God. We got to start receiving. Let's pray. Spirit of the living God, just open your heart to receive, Fall afresh on me. That's saying I receive it. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me and melt me, mold me, fill me, use me. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. I think we're just gonna let that prayer be our song today. Here's a couple journal props. We're headed toward the door now. Friday. At what point in your life right now do you most need to have faith in God? What is it? Is it your. Your. Your. Your body and sickness? Is it a one of your children or grandchildren who you're. You're scared to death of what's going on in their life? Is it your business? You feel that your business is going down the tank? Bankruptcies, knocking at the door? What point in your real life right now, is it your marriage? Do you most need to have faith in God? Write that down and the next question. What practical steps does this mean you need to consider taking now? Can you just begin to even put together that prayer of. Of saying to Jesus, I receive, and then name the thing that you would have formerly just kind of begged him for? Just say, I receive your intervention. I receive your provision. I receive a miracle. Jesus. Just begin to go there, risk being disappointed in God. It's okay. Is everything we do this way going to happen? No, it's not. But we're going to go anyway. We're going to lean on through our unbelief. We're going to lean through our doubt. We're going in anyway because we know he's got us. And we know even if it doesn't work out like we want it to or think it should, that he's still got us and that he's going to work with us and that he's going to work things out for our good because we love him. Man, I'm just getting Exercised here. I feel the Lord is talking to you. So he's talking to a lot of people. I think he's telling. He's talking to you. He's moving you. Whatever he's saying, journal it down, capture it, crystallize it, come back to it again tomorrow. This is the point where he's working. We gotta go with it. We gotta run through that door. All right. I'm just gonna let the song we sang stand. The hymn, the. The. The. The prayer song. That's our song today. I just think about this song, you know, God forgave my sin in Jesus name and in Jesus name I'm born again. And in Jesus name I come to you to share the thing that he told me to. Here we go. He said, freely, freely you have received freely. Freely give. Go in my name. And because you believe, others will know that I live Freely you have received freely give. Sometimes the act of faith is to go out there and give what you are claiming you're receiving from him. Just give it in anticipation of receiving it. This is. This is the truth. Friends, thanks for hanging in there with me today. In this week, so excited about Romans coming up this fall. We're going to finish Mark's Gospel. Next week. We got Luann Riley coming in to lead us in a week with James. She's written a book, a women's Bible study. She's produced videos. I'm just calling out to women out here in Wake Up Call World to put a group together in your church, in your neighborhood, in your home, in the community center. Pull a group of women together and take a risk on this seed getting sown in your hearts, in your community, in your neighborhood. Take that risk. That's what faith is, risk. Luann, she's dynamic, y'. All. She's powerful. She's carrying something that's very rich and resonant. And I want you to know her. And the study is called. It's called Growing Up Faith Lessons from the Book of James. About seven, eight weeks long. Seven, eight solid teaching videos, a workbook that goes with it. Questions every day, discussion, insights, man. Would you. Would you go and we put a link on the email today. We'll put the link in the show notes. Would you go explore this? Would you check it out? Would you see a preview? I'm trying to get every women's group that I can possibly talk to to lean into this. It's powerful. And there's more coming after it. It's time. Church. If not me, then who? If not here, then where if not now, then when? The time for awakening has come. We're waking up. We're growing up. We're showing up. All right. For the awakening. I'm J.D. walt, and I'll see you on the field.