The Heart of What Matters Most.

O’ God, with all our hearts we long for you. Come, transform us to be Christ-centered, Spirit-empowered, mission-focused people

multiplying disciples everywhere.Alliance Shared Church Prayer

Luke 5:15-16 (NASB) 15 News about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.

Why did He “often slip away”?

Remember the Lord’s prayer…“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

The Kingdom of God then, is that state, or that reality, where God’s will, His perfect ideals for humanity, and His awesome presence is known and felt in the here and now.

God’s Kingdom is where God is r___________________.

Let me show you how this plays out in my prayers…

Imagine there ’s this line… it’s a line between our immediate reality and the possible reality of the kingdom of God, becoming our immediate reality.

The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer“The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the “and” lies our great woe. If we omit the “and”, we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.

Once it was the Blessing by A.B. Simpson …Once it was the blessing, now it is the Lord;Once it was the feeling, now it is His Word.Once His gift I wanted, now, the Giver own;

Once I sought for healing, now Himself alone.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who was martyred by the Nazi’s said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

Jesus put it like this...John 3:3 NIVJesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

John 12:24-25 NIVI tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Matthew 10:38-39 NIVAnyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

* The Apostle Paul describes it like this… Philippians 3:7, 8, 10-11, 15 NIV7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

15 All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.

In The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer describes it like this…“I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted.”