New Zealand Interview - Part 5

And you know, there's different understandings of revival, and I accept that. But this thing that we are talking about, if this would come to this country, it will affect the government of New Zealand, it will affect the churches, and it needs to come to the churches. And what needs to happen, I work with leadership, pastors.

I mean, we just work with 6,000 pastors and leaders in Lima and Peru, and we are working with as many as possible, 35,000 leaders and pastors in South America and then in Eastern Europe. And what needs to happen is because the average pastor in North America spends 3 to 5 to 7 minutes alone with God, 2 or 3 or 4 times a week. And we cannot become great leaders unless we have become great followers.

And the issue about this thing is that if I don't have victory in my Christian life, there's an area in my relationship with God. I haven't allowed God to break me. And my effectiveness for God will always be determined by my last fresh encounter I had with God.

So God needs to begin with leadership. And what happens with the leaders, you know, we're helping leaders in different countries of the world to develop a personal private prayer life where they learn the language of prayer, where God comes to spend time with them and intimacy becomes a reality, and they walk with God. And what is happening is that they need to draw a circle around themselves and say, God, you need to send revival.

You need to bring brokenness to my life and purity and passion and unction. And from that circle, it flows. Because, you know, no ministry is going further than my family.

Exactly. My relationship with my husband, my children, and what I'm doing, you know. I remember that at Bible College they said that.

They said, if you want to pray for revival, draw a circle around yourself. Pray for everything in time. You're absolutely right.

Because I think, you know, it's very interesting. I've had a number of guests on the show recently. And, you know, in the past, we've always seen prayer as a means to an end.

Like, you know, you expect it's like a recipe. You put it in, and God delivers. But all it is is God wanting to get close to you at the end of the day.

Absolutely. And He'll do whatever it takes to get there, and that may be not answering your prayer. To make you closer to Him.

Do you know what I mean? The way you think He's going to answer the prayer. You know, Laura, that's so precious, and I wish we would have time for this. These 12 aspects of New Testament prayer is so rich that comes out of these 248 passages.

Jesus, when He spoke about prayer, and we will never be able to understand the teachings of Christ in prayer unless we come to grips with His own prayer life. And when one of those disciples came to Him in Luke 11 and said, Lord, will you teach me how to pray? There was something in the life of Christ. They never asked Christ to teach them how to preach.

Never asked Him to teach them how to raise funds or plant churches. They were so passionate about His intimacy with the Father, that that's the question they asked Him after three and a half years. Now, when you study the teachings of Christ in prayer, eight principles come to the surface.

When you study those eight principles, they are based upon eight words in the Hebrew Old Testament that is speaking to us about waiting upon God. Now, those eight principles or those eight words, when you study those eight words, it's not just waiting. They are saturated with activity.

That takes you into the New Testament. These 12 aspects of New Testament prayer, fellowship praying, routine praying, task-oriented praying, praying in the realm of the Holy Spirit, discovering the will of God in prayer, praying in the name of Jesus, the place of faith as it relates to prayer. What does it mean to pray through? What is the high priestly ministry of Christ in prayer? And people say to me, how can you spend hours in the presence of God? And I say, you don't understand.

It's when God comes to us, these aspects of New Testament prayer flow from the reality of Scriptures. And what is happening is that God is spending time with us. We discover His will.

We pray according to His will. When we do that, the answer is always this. I've got a book in my library.

I'm collecting books on prayer. I've got about 800 books, precious books on prayer. And I've got a book in my library, The Life Story of a Man of George Muller of Bristol.

He had 85,000 answers to prayer. Two books written about his prayer life. One was 30,000 answers to prayer in 24 hours.

The other one was 55,000 answers to prayer. And the longest he prayed for someone was 63 years. It's amazing.

When did this person... Three weeks after George Muller died. And so this is the blessing of our prayer. Learning the language of prayer.

You know, it's not a legalistic thing. No. It's in the relationship.

Relationship, yeah. Yeah, you're right. It's God learning.

I mean, when Jesus introduced the Lord's prayer, I don't think he gave it to us necessarily to repeat. Yeah. He gave unto us nine ingredients to develop a personal prayer life.

And he started by saying, you're going to say, Our Father, it's a relationship. And out of this relationship flows this thing. And these black men used to say to me, We don't know how many hours we spent in prayer, but we never go through an hour without praying.

Wonderful stuff. Thank you very much, Gerard. Thank you very much.

I'm sure we could carry on talking for another couple of hours, eh? Lekeblei, and lovely having you here.