In this sermon, the speaker shares his personal routine for prayer and devotion. He starts his day by spending the first half hour listening to old hymns, which helps him enter a spirit of submissiveness and worship. After that, he engages in journaling to reflect on the previous day and understand what God is doing in his life. He emphasizes the importance of discipline in prayer, stating that 60% of his commitment to prayer is determined by discipline rather than desire. The speaker also highlights the need for gratitude, expressing concern over the lack of thankfulness among Christians in Canada. He shares a personal story of how his daughter received a scholarship through prayer and the influence of the Word of God in her life.

We want to thank you for being back here this morning. It's been a great encouragement to my own heart to be able to be here these days in, sorry, in Australia and just to be able to share with you in some of these sessions. Graeme came to me this morning and said you still have a burden for Australia and I said absolutely, you know, we have the privilege of travelling to about 30 to 40 different countries, Asia, South America, the African continent, and Europe, Eastern and Western Europe, and then of course the blessing of being in New Zealand and the blessing of being in Australia and this is an amazing country. I think it was someone who said to me that the way that they discovered copper wire in the world was because there were two Australians fighting over a copper coin. I'm not sure if that is true or not, you know, but, you know, knowing Australia, a man said to me some time ago, I was talking to him and he said, how are you doing mate? And I thought, where is that word coming from? So I said, do you refer to a cellmate or what are you referring to? And he just walked away on me, so I obviously didn't say the right thing, you know, and because I didn't read the history of Australia, you see, that's the problem. So, but it's been wonderful to be able to be with you and I've got a deep love in my heart for many of you and also the years-long friendship that we've had with the Moors, Robert and Karen and the children, because I spent eight years in the old country and three of those years was in and out of the north of Ireland and I remember Robert and Karen, you know, Robert was still kind of wild, running in the mountains with his tail not being cut off yet, you know, but I remember them as students, spoke at the Bible college where they studied and there the two of them sat, you know, didn't have much knowledge and Robert still doesn't have much knowledge today, but you know, so anyway, I need to get back to him because he's doing all kinds of things to me, but it's been, but it's been wonderful. In fact, I remember it was an island that someone told me about this, these two Irish men and the one jumped out of the plane with a parachute and he didn't know how to open it and as he was coming down, someone was coming from the north of Ireland up towards where the parachute was coming down and so when they met halfway, the Irishman that was falling down shouted to the one that was coming up and said, do you know how to start a parachute? And the one that's going up said to him, do you know how to start a barbecue? So anyway, I'm not into the joking business, but it's just one of those things, you know, so great, that's right. A couple of things that, you know, we have given you lots of material and I want you to take them home and I want them to become a blessing to you. I want you to pray, pray about them, but I've got a few things here that I really would like to read to you and we're going to do a number of things this morning that is different, you know. I feel that we have heard so much over this weekend and we have had some great times of prayer together. If you are with us the first time this morning, one of the things that we have done in all the sessions, people often ask me, why are you doing that? I said, you know, if we would have had a weekend like this, I mean, if I ever come back to this part of Australia, I'm not sure if I would be interested to be involved in an Easter weekend or something like this, but I was praying and thinking this morning, it will be tremendous here in South Australia or in the Adelaide Valley if you can find 50 or 100 people that has this kind of interest in prayer and what we are doing in different countries is to take people for prayer weekends or we call them prayer encounters. I take pastors in different countries to three days of prayer and we spend an average of about five or six hours a day just in prayer and then we have about three or four hours of teaching as it relates to prayer. And you know, people came into this weekend, brother and sister, and they didn't anticipate this. They thought they were coming to an Easter convention and it's wonderful and I think it's great if you need to continue to do this. But I tell you, if I ever come back into this neck of the woods, maybe you sit here this morning and say, I never want to see you again. That's fine. But if I ever come back into this neck of the woods, I tell you what I would love to do is to find 50 or 100 people who has a real interest in prayer and we find a place totally away from everything where there's no distraction and we spend those three days together. I wish I can take you to some of the countries where we are doing this and it's unbelievable how God helped us to develop a personal prayer life, how God helped us to cultivate a personal prayer life, how we introduce material to people and we send them home with that. And then they began to learn the language of prayer. And brother and sister, I'm concerned about this country. I tell you, I'm really concerned about this country. And I'm not an Australian, but I tell you this morning, if God is not going to start the prayer movement in this country, I mean, we are in deep trouble already. And where I live in Canada, we are in deeper trouble. But what needs to happen is that God needs to start a prayer movement. And what we do in the countries where we go to, we start with the top leadership of the country. And it happens so that, and I don't push my way into these things. We get invitations to do this. But I take the top leaders, Christian leaders of the country. And we take 50 of them and we say, we want you to come for three days of prayer. Because they know what we are doing. They trust our integrity and our commitment to God. And we focus on the leadership. And then come down to people. Now in Peru, where we have been doing, where we have been seeing a prayer movement develop in the land of Peru the last few years, where there has been such blessing. And you know, and I don't want you to misunderstand me, but aspects of the charismatic movement and the seeker-centred movement, and all these movements have tried to come into Peru. And the Christians in Peru have just said, there is something not right here. We don't feel this is right. And three years ago, when I was asked to go and minister to the leadership of a church in Peru, and they said, so what is your philosophy? And I said, my philosophy is a longing for revival, but it needs to come through prayer. And they said, do you just speak about prayer? I said, no, you've got to be kidding. I said, we're going to spend twice as much time in prayer as I'm going to speak to you. And so they said, then what is your understanding of prayer? I said, you can't go from experience to exposition. And so they said, so how are you going to do this? I said, we're going to spend the times in the Scriptures, and let the Scriptures sanctify the times of prayer. And then we see what happened. And brother and sister, in that very first time when I went there, God began to do something in the country of Peru. And we are in the third year now, just been there. Next year we are back in the fall, and there is a country-wide movement of a hunger for prayer. And they are saying we want to see the church becoming a house of prayer. They are saying we don't want churches full of people, but we want churches that will be full of people that will be full of God. And they are saying we don't want experiences that is a mile wide and an inch deep. We want to go deep. And so we are teaching in the principles of prayer, and of fasting, and the biblical understanding how prayer is initiated by God. And let them come to grips with the Scriptures and see what God is doing. And you know, God is stirring my heart about Australia. I don't know the rest of this country, to be honest with you. In fact, I think I've known enough just being in some parts of Australia to sense the depth of a need. But there is a burning in my heart that God will start a prayer movement in this country. And you say, you know how does it start? It starts with little groups like this. When men and women begin to catch the vision, and they see the possibilities, and they say it's possible that God can visit this country with revival. Brother and sister, it can take 15 to 20 years before we systematically pray this thing through, and dissect the burden of God, and systematically pray it through. But I want to tell you this morning, there is no other way in which it's going to happen. There's no way. Because purity flows out of prayer, brokenness flows out of prayer, the crucifixion of a self-like flowing out of prayer, the fullness of the Spirit of God flows out of prayer, transparency, integrity flows out of prayer, the unction of God's Spirit flows, the passion for God flows, a passion for souls, and everything. Troy came to me yesterday morning, I think it was, and he said, what do you mean by a burden for yourself? And I said, let me explain to you. I come into the presence day by day, and I said, Lord, I need a burden for your work. I want your word to speak to me. I want to pray about your work, so it will speak to me. I need a burden for my own relationship with God. You can't take people further spiritually than you are yourself. You can only impart to people what you possess. If you are the husband of your wife, you are the leader of the house. God needs to deal with you ferociously. Why is it? Because you are a leader. You say, what is a leader? A leader is a monomaniac with a mission. He's got a compass in his head, and he's got a magnet in his heart. He doesn't wait for things to happen, he makes things happen. He doesn't work on the basis of pleasure, he works on the basis of pleasure. His work is not an endurance, his work is an enjoyment. Listen folks, we cannot become great leaders unless we become great followers. And so God needs to deal with us. And the essence of leadership, if it's in my house, in my relationship with my wife, my children, if it's in my church, if it's in my community, the essence of leadership is that I live a Christian life that creates a supernatural explanation, and it creates a vacuum in my relationship with God. And it's a vacuum which I suck people into the atmosphere of my intimacy with God, where they become so hungry and so thirsty for God, simply because of the way that God is dealing with me in my relationship with I'm not speaking about the self-life, I'm speaking about the understanding that what has happened is that God has come and he has put the sentence of death upon my self-life. And the cross has got a threefold message in the New Testament. The cross for my sins, the cross for myself, and the cross for the sanctifying service of God in my relationship with God. And so when the cross becomes part of my life, the cross in my everyday spiritual experience lifted up the centrality of Christ in my life. When Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men to me. And so what is it? I carry with me a fragrance and an aroma in my relationship with Christ. So what does it cost? It costs absolutely everything. I want to read this to you because it relates to us as it comes to prayer. Cyril Baxter makes an excellent point. By the way, if you want to get hold of one of the greatest daily readings, you know, many of us read Oxford Chambers, or Daily Bread, or Screams in the Desert, or Screams in the Valley, and those are wonderful daily readings that we read subsequent to our times in the Scriptures. And let me encourage you, I think I said this the first night, one of the greatest encouragement of my relationship with God in my personal times when people say, you know, how does it work with you? Can you give me a breakdown of how you spend these times alone with God that they don't become stereotyped and dry, and that they don't become lifeless? I mean, many of us, we have quiet times with brother and sister. They are very, very quiet, quiet times, you know. And sometimes nothing is happening in those times alone with God. And so, there are ways that you and I can, just in the practicality of our times, just say, what happens to you? I get up in the mornings, and I take a shower. I don't have any babies to look after, like Bruce, as he's just taking off there with one of his wee, wonderful little ones. But I get up, and I take a shower. I open some windows, get some fresh air. And then I get down into my study, and you say, what do you do? The first half hour of my time with God every morning, you know what I do? I listen to some of the old great hymns. And it just brings me into a spirit of submissiveness, and a spirit of humility, and a sense of worship, and a sense of thanksgiving to God. Brother and sister, you know, Christians are so unthankful. I mean, they are so unthankful. We live in Canada, and Canada is one of the wealthiest countries, you know, today. But I've never in my life met people in the country of Canada who are so unthankful. They can never get enough, you know. And it's like the richest man in the world, when someone came to him one day and said, what's the greatest desire of your heart? Do you know what he said? Just to make a little bit more money. Isn't that sick, you know? And you know what I do? The first half hour, I just sit there, and I listen to these old things. And you say, what else do you do? I journal. I love to journal. Write things down. Write about the things that happened yesterday, and just to reflect, and get a sense of what God is doing. Takes me about 30 minutes, and then you say, what do you do after that? And you would say, oh for goodness sake, why would you do a thing like that? Well, I tell you, I've been doing this for more than 35 years. You say, what do you do? I write out the Scriptures by hand. Oh brother, I can't. You have no idea what it means to sit down and write out God's Word, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, word by word. You say, why are you doing that? You just go and try that. You know, we read so flippantly through the Word of God, and it just goes like this, and we're not getting anything. I mean, some of us, you know, we don't have enough brains to give ourselves a headache, you know. And we just, it doesn't sink in. And I sit down, and I just write word after word. If you take 15 verses of the Old Testament, every four years, you come through the whole of the Old Testament. I'm heading towards the book of Leviticus, and Janice said, so what is going to be, I said, I'm going to be covered with blood for months. I mean, it's all the sacrifice. But then what do you do with Leviticus? You read it, or you write it out with the epistle to the Hebrews. You'll never be able to understand the epistle to the Hebrews if you don't write it out with the book of Leviticus. But just a blessing. And I mean, for instance, say, you know, some of us, we're going to get 80 years old. If you do that for the Old Testament, and say you became a Christian, you were 20 years, and so you've got 60 years that you're writing out the scriptures. Brother and sister, you have no idea how many times you're going to go through the Old Testament. And then I write out the New Testament. I'm in first speaker, and I'm coming down my times in the Old Testament to Genesis chapter 49 and 50, and then begin to move into Exodus and Leviticus. But it's a tremendous blessing. Now, you sit here and say, oh man, you have no idea. I'm in my 70s. You start to do it in your 70s, and you will discover it will become just such a tremendous blessing. And that's what I do, brother and sister, every day. And I can't carry how God speaks to me. Then I tell you there are mornings when I just weep my way through the scriptures. You go to some of my Bibles, you won't be able to read the words anymore, because God just broke my heart. I said, you become part of my life. You think of the New Testament, and the word would jump out in the New Testament. If it's the word righteousness. If you've gone through the New Testament so many times, and the word righteousness stands up. And then you go through Matthew, that 1071 verses of Matthew, and discover righteousness. And you go through Luke 1151 of the verses. You come to the book of Revelation, there are 404 glorious verses in the book of Revelation. And you discover Paul's understanding of righteousness, the Apostle Peter's understanding of righteousness, the Apostle John's understanding of righteousness, Matthew's understanding. And you get five or six different aspects of righteousness in the New Testament. And you bring them all together, and you discover the fullness of the righteousness of God. And brother and sister, God has given us His word, and it is so precious. Our children who are here this morning, when our Monica, and we've just really, really let the word of God become part of her life. And I'm not kidding you, but from grade 1 to grade 12, she never had less than 100 percent for Bible in this Christian school where she's going to. And she's got my wife's brains. I can tell you that. And she's never had a term from grade 1 to grade 12 where she had less than 92 percent as an average. And I said to her, you better work, because we don't have money. And I said, you need scholarships. And now she's been given a scholarship of $18,000 every year for the next five years to go and study. And I said, you need that money. Forget about studying. Go to the mission field. We need the money, you know. She said, Daddy, you can't do that to me. But you know, we just took the word of God. And brother and sister, from the day she was born, do you know what I did? I would put on a CD player in her room, and when she slept at night, the word of God was playing right through the night. And Janice would say to me, why are you doing that? I said, Janice, God works in the realm of the subconsciousness. And you wouldn't believe that when that child... she got saved when she was just more than three years old. But when that child developed a sensitivity for the Scriptures, and there has been times that I would preach, and I would make a little mistake in an aspect of a verse or something, and she would come to me afterwards and she said, Daddy, I think you are in a bit of error here. And why is it? Because we have just let the word of God being infiltrated into her life. Brother and sister, listen, this is why the psalmist said, where shall a young man cleanse his way? And the word cleanse is beautiful. It speaks of a purifying efficacy of what we discover in Ephesians chapter 5, when the apostle Paul said, be not drunk with wine wherein there is an excess, but he said, be being full to the Spirit. You see, there is one initial filling of the Holy Spirit, but there are hundreds and thousands of subsequent fillings of the Spirit of God. And Paul gives us the consequences of being full to the Spirit. And he said to us, sing to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. He said, Gerard, what is that? That is spiritual worship. Then Paul is saying unto us, why submit yourselves unto the Lord as it is due you. And that, he said, that is spiritual submissiveness. That is the second consequence of being full to the Spirit. Now the apostle Paul comes and he gives us the third one. And he said, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church? He gave himself for it. Why did he give himself for it? So that he might sanctify it through the washing of the Word. And so you see, as a husband, as I sacrifice myself to God, I am sanctifying my wife. Do you remember Job in the Old Testament? How he would come into the presence of God and what did he do? He was afraid that maybe his children did something that wasn't right. Maybe they gave into some form of temptation. And do you remember what he did? He sanctified his children unto God. And brother and sister, those Old Testament biblical principles, because the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament, and the New Testament lives here. Those Old Testament biblical principles, they are fulfilled in the New Testament in us sanctifying ourselves unto God. It's a tremendous thing, you know. I shared last night with those of you who were here about this mountain in our farm where I learned to pray with these African black pastors. And we were in the bushveld of Africa, close to the border of the land of Mozambique. And there was a game park between us and Mozambique. And animals would come through every now and again. I was chased by an elephant twice in my life in my young days. Those days I thought it was fun. Today I'm an old man and I totally rethink my position, I can tell you that. But we were in the wildlife of Africa. And there were times that I took my dog. I had a bull terrier, his name was Nelson. And the reason why we called him Nelson, so white dog, but he had this one black hair around his eye. And we called him Captain Nelson. And we had those dogs because they were such vicious fighters. And you need those kind of dogs in Africa where we live. And so we had this bull terrier. And Nelson would go with me wherever I go. And so I would go to this mountain on my own to spend a night in prayer. And you know in Africa, in the wild night, when things get dark, the animals come out. You know, the animals of prey, leopards, and all kinds of things would come out in the night. And so I would take my dog with me and we would go to this little mountain. And I would spend the night in prayer. And Nelson was always with me. And I used to watch this dog. It was unbelievable. I mean, you think whatever you want to when I'm telling you. But I used to watch this dog. We would come to the top of this little mountain. And brother and sister, the wildlife is out there, you know. You hear it. And the smell of deer and animals and this dark, you know. These bull terriers don't really bark, but they growl a lot. And he would just do all kinds of things. And he would stand in the distance and wag his tail. Then he would be at this spot and this spot. And then I would settle down at this little place where I prayed. It was about a size like this kind of flat. And that's where I would spend the night in prayer. And I would settle down in the place of prayer and begin to wait upon God. And there is a moment when the presence of God would come in this dark, you know. And he would be all over the place and growling and wagging his tail and look in this direction. And then when the presence of God. And brother and sister, I could never figure it out. The moment when the presence of God became real. And there is this consciousness that in the place of prayer, you really were getting to the place where you are praying through to God. I used to watch this dark, you know. And you know, you would just settle down. And he would come and lie at my feet. And for the rest of the night, he's as quiet as a mouse. And I used to say to myself, isn't it incredible? I mean, it's just a simple animal. It doesn't have a soul. And all this stuff, you know, people out of heaven put out. I mean, some of you may be thinking that yourself. But anyway, I couldn't believe it, how this started. You just settle down. You say, what is it? It is the presence of God, you know. I listened to the presence of God that closed the lion's mouth with Daniel, you know. It's the presence of God that made the donkey his sheep. And the stupid Balaam, the prophet, was able to understand the donkey. They got together, didn't they? You know. So, what are you on? Yeah, it's God's. And brethren and sisters, we need to give this to our children, you know. Our children. You need to trust God that our children. And let me tell you, maybe some of your children this morning are far away from God. You can put the bloodhound of heaven on their track as it relates to prayer. God is going to follow them. And He will follow them step by step by step by step. And so, the Spirit of God will get a hold of their lives. So, let me read this to you. Sybil Baxter. Get a hold of that daily reading. It's called Awake My Heart. It's out of print. But if you go to Use Christian Books on a computer, you'll be able to find a number of copies of it. Sybil Baxter makes an excellent point when he says that most of us need to lift our prayer lines from the tyranny of our moods. He then talks about a time when he allowed prayer to get crowded out of his life. He would repent, he would try again, he would fail, confess, and then the whole process will be repeated in his relationship of God. One day he had to face up to his own nature. He recounts this inner struggle in a fascinating way. He said, I am not the introspective type. But there came a morning in my life when I took a good look into the life of Sybil Baxter. And I found that there was an area of my life that just did not want to pray. I had to admit and I had to confess it. I really didn't want to pray. But then I looked more closely and I found that there was a part of my life that wanted to pray. The part of my life that didn't want to pray was my emotions as a Christian. But the part of my life that wanted to pray was my intellect and my spirit and my will. Suddenly I found myself asking the question, Sybil Baxter, are you going to let your will be dragged about by your changeful emotions? And I said to my will, will are you ready for prayer? And my will said to me, here am I, I'm ready for prayer. So I said, come on will, we are going to pray. So will and I set off to pray. But the moment we turned our footsteps to the place of prayer, all my emotions began to react. And this is what they said, we are not coming, we are not coming, we are not coming. And so I said to my will, will are you able to speak this one out? And my will said to me, yes Sybil, if you are willing. So will and I, we dragged off those wretched emotions and we went to pray and we stayed in an hour in the place of prayer. If you would have asked me afterwards, if you had a great time in prayer, do you think I could have said, yes we've had a good time in prayer? No, no, no. It was a fight and a battle all the way. What I would have done without the companionship and support of my will, I just don't know. Because in the middle of one of my deepest earnest moments of intercession, I suddenly found one of my principal emotions way out in a golf course, playing golf. And I had to run after it and said, come back. As if it was Kevin himself shooting kangaroos, come back. It was exhausting but we did it. The next morning came and I looked at my watch and it was time to pray. And I said to my will, come on will, it's time for us to pray. And all my emotions began to pull the other way. And I said to will, will are you able to speak it out? And will said to me, yes Sybil, in fact I think I'm stronger after our struggle of yesterday morning. So will and I went in again and the same thing happened. Rebellious emotions. If you would have asked me, have you had a great time in prayer? I would have had to tell you with tears in my eyes. No, the heavens were like brass. It was a job to concentrate. I had an awful time with my emotions. So what happened? This went on for about two and a half weeks. But will and I, we stuck it out. Then suddenly one morning, during that third week, I look at my watch and I said, will, it is time for us to go and pray. Are you ready for prayer? And my will said to me, yes Sybil, I am ready. And just as we were going in to pray, I heard one of my chief emotions suddenly saying to the other emotions, come on fellows, it's no use wearing ourselves out anymore. They are going to pray whatever we will do. That morning we didn't have any hilarious experience and wonderful visions in the place of prayer. But will and I were able with less distraction to get on with our praying. And that went on for another two or three weeks. In fact, will and I began to forget about our emotions in prayer. Then suddenly one day, while will and I were pressing our case at the throne of the heavenly glory, one of our chief emotions suddenly shouted, hallelujah. And all the other emotions shouted, amen. And for the first time, the whole territory of James Sidlow Baxter was happily coordinated in the exercise of prayer. God suddenly became real. Heaven was wide open. Christ was there. And the Holy Spirit was moving. And I knew all the time that God has been listening to me. Brother and sister, if you're going to live in emotions, you'll never get anywhere in the place of prayer. Can I give you a little thing? Sixty percent of my commitment to prayer is not determined by desire, but it's determined by a commitment of discipline. And can I tell you something this morning? There are times that I get on my knees before God. Do you know what I say to God? I say, Lord, I feel like an old dry stick this morning. I don't feel like praying. But I say, Lord, I've got nowhere to go. If you don't come this morning, nothing is going to happen. And those mornings become some of the greatest mornings for my relationships with God. So, I trust these days that you will be able. Let's spend some time in prayer. And so, wherever you are, find four or five people and we're going to spend some time in prayer. And if we have time left, I would love to share with you something out of the scriptures. Let's pray together. Find four or five or six people, even this morning, a little circle. We're not going to share with one another. We're just going to pray together. And this is what I want you to do. I want you to thank God. I want you to thank God for the things that he has been saying to us these days. Okay, let's do that.