Hello and welcome to one-on-one. We are so pleased that you've chosen Christian programming to be in your homes and we are honored and blessed that you have chosen us, Buddy and Veronica McLaughlin, to come and to break the bread of life with you and bring the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So there's wonderful technology in wherever you're hearing us from. We're just thankful that you've taken the time to allow us to share God's Word, God's goodness with you.
And many times we don't take the time, we like to take every bit of the airtime that we have to bless the Lord. But we want to thank our partners, those that have been with us all these many years that have blessed us and prayerfully, financially. You've encouraged us in ways that we can never thank you enough for. We just appreciate it and we're going forward in this year for greater things than we have in previous years.
So thank you for your continued support, for your love. Veronica, it's just humbling for us, it really is. It is, I mean, and we are so grateful for your prayers and for your financial support and the trust that you give us to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, not our opinions, but God's Word. We want it to come directly from God's Word when you are going through difficult times, when you're going through happy seasons.
You know, we share, our lives were very transparent with you how we have lived our lives. And standing on God's Word has been tried and true for us and for our families and for our children. And we are sitting here before you because we have had people who have prayed over us. You know, I had, my grandparents were pastors for over 52 years.
My grandfather was an evangelist longer than that. You know, he passed away when he was 83 years old and 62 of those years were spent preaching the gospel. They devoted their lives to Christ. And that was such an inspiration for me.
And for me to pass on to our children, that we have a great heritage and that heritage, I can remember, comes in prayer, in dedication. And that's what we're going to talk about today. You know, it's, first it's so wonderful, Veronica, that we have a God that allows us to come and speak to Him, that He hinges on our words to Him, our future and our destiny hinge on our words to God, that the things that we want, He allows us to lay them at His throne in prayer, just saying God, you know, direct me. He longs to hear from us.
We are His children. We're created in His image, just like our children. I get a lot of joy when I'm not being able to see my children, my girls for some time they've been in school, and they call me, and they fill me in on everything that's going on, and I can hear the excitement, or they call and say, Mom, I've got an issue, things are going so well. You know, we're the same way with our heavenly Father.
He longs for us to talk to Him. And you know, I long to talk to Him. I commune with Him throughout the day. There are certain times in my day that I'm very focused on prayer and very focused on talking to Him.
And then throughout the day, as I'm working or driving or doing other tasks, my mind is upon Him and my thoughts are upon Him, because I know that He loves me and I love Him. You know, it's so wonderful to know that we can go to the creator of the universe. We can look at the vastness of the universe. We have a neighbor who has this huge telescope.
I love it because he likes to post the pictures. David likes to do that online, and he'll tell us about all of the galaxies, and I'll drive by his house and this huge telescopes out there. And I'm like, who can ever deny that there is a God when you look at the stars and when you look at the galaxy, but also that God who made the galaxies also lives in my heart and communes with me and speaks to me throughout the day. That still small voice, that speaks to me, that I know that He is God and that He loves me, and that there's nothing the enemy can do to take that away because a price was paid for that 2,000 years ago on Calvary.
Jesus came and blad and died so that we could have that intimate communication with our heavenly Father, and we don't need to take that lightly. But God does hear a lot from me throughout the day. My mother accused me that God just gives me what I want because I pester here all the time. I do know that when I need a prayer, I know a prayer is going up, I call you.
I know I pray. Because I was raised in a household, I can remember my grandparents especially. My grandfather would say, I've got a burden, and he would go to the church, and he would lie on his face right there on the floor and cry out to God. I remember my grandmother would walk and pray through the house.
I mean, as a small child, she would get on her knees, and I could hear her interceding. There's a difference. You know, when you intercede, you're in that intercession, praying and crying out to God, but then I can remember her walking through the house and saying, I plead the blood of Jesus. Oh, how powerful that was, and what an impact that left upon our lives.
And we need to leave that impact with our children as well. I hope that my children understand that we are people of prayer and we want to leave that as our legacy. Buddy, there's nothing more important than the power of prayer. Well, you know, we talk about how your grandmother, grandfather, and I remember all those many who have gone on that were at their church that loved you so much.
I knew when you needed prayer, they were interceding. You know, I miss my mother. You know, I know she prayed for me. And those prayers were from the heart.
They were filled with love. They were filled with, I mean, really petitioning God from their hearts for something that was in their heart. And you know, when they're prayers, they don't need to be so superficial. They need to be from the heart.
And David is one of the greatest examples in the Bible of that. You know, Israel was getting ready to go through a great transition. David was not going to be with him much longer. And he was trying to prepare the way for his son Solomon for the next chapter to occur.
And David, oh, when you read the Psalms, you read the things that David wrote, they were so in depth, so in love with God, and so thankful with thanks, filled with joy, filled with just knowing the greatness of God, praising him for that. He praised God, he prayed to God. And he did it all from his heart. We remember God said David was a man after his own heart.
Now, he wasn't an unfalleable man. He got you said he was a man after his own heart because he knew David's heart. And David prayed from his heart. And this juncture in history, David was praying for Solomon, for him to be able to come and to build the temple and to lead this nation with the heart.
He was praying for Solomon's heart, for Solomon to have a heart after God. You know, we prayed that for our children. We prayed that for people constantly, for them to have a heart after God. God wants to hear a prayer, but wow, what do you think he does when he sees us laying their heart out before his throne room?
Just laying there in front of him, pouring it all out. Not about ourselves. David wasn't praying about himself. And yes, he prayed many times for direction.
And God gave him the victories. God gave him the direction. God told him that he would overcome the obstacles. But in this part of David's life, David was praying for the heart of his son that Israel could be led by a man that loved the Lord the way he loved the Lord.
Because he knew that if you love God in that way, that God would hear your prayers. And David would be answering Veronica there. It's beautiful in Chronicles what is written all about this. And at Chronicles, his prayer in first Chronicles 29, beginning at end 11, it says, bless, this is what David is saying.
Therefore David blessed the Lord. I love it when David says, I blessed the Lord before all of the assembly. This is what David said, blessed are you Lord, God of the Israel, our Father forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness of the power and the glory, the victory and the majesty.
For all that is in heaven and all that is in earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted head overall. Both riches and honor come from you and you reign overall. In your hand is power and might.
In your hand, it is to make great and it is to give strength to all. Now therefore our God, we thank you and we praise your glorious name. But who am I and who are my people? That we should be able to offer so willingly as this, for all things come from you and are of your own you have given.
For we are aliens and we are pilgrims before you. As were our fathers, our days upon this earth are as a shadow and without hope. Wow buddy, when I read this, it stirs me to the core. That he is giving praise, he's giving God all of the glory in front of all of his people who loved and adored him.
At the very end season of his life, says we're getting ready to transition, we're getting ready to go into another chapter. You know, we're transitioning into this year into a brand new year and we need to give God all of the glory and all of the praise and all of the majesty because as our fathers and as our forefathers, you know, our days are just very short and we're just pilgrims and aliens in this land because of this wandering through without hope, but we do have hope of Jesus Christ. So it's very important beginning this year to give God all of the honoring glory going into this new season. Yes, it's beautiful Veronica.
And he goes on to tell us, oh Lord, our God, all this abundance that we have prepared to build you a house for your holy name is from your hand and all your own. And I know also my God that you test the heart and have the pleasure and uprightness. As for me in the uprightness of my heart, I've willingly offered all of these things. And now with joy, I have seen your people who are present here to offer willingly to you, O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever, ever in the intent of the thoughts of the heart of your people and fix their heart toward you and give my own son Solomon, a loyal heart, to keep your commandments and your testimonies and your statutes to do all the things and to build a temple for which I have made provision.
You know, David's heart was to build that temple. Oh, he wanted that was, he wanted to do that for God. He just, that was the next thing that he just said, this is what I'm gonna do. And he went to the prophet, Nathan, to make sure that everything was cool for, and Nathan said, do what your heart tells you to do.
And then God speaks to Nathan and says, whoa, wait a minute, Nathan, he has blood on his hands. I want that temple built with someone who has no blood on his hands. So Nathan has to go back and tell David, no. God says, no, you can't do this.
So he didn't become bitter. He didn't, he went and became, was one of the greatest kings that Israel had ever seen and became a man after God's own heart. Through his life, he prepared, he got Solomon ready, got all the things that he would need, all the tools, put the blueprints together, had the people lined up, had the resources that he would need, had everything there. And then all he wanted was for Solomon to have that same heart, to build a temple for God with the love that he had for God.
That was, what an unselfish prayer. And you know, God heard this. And all these things came to pass. Now we know that Solomon had some issues and he was on his own ways as all kids do at times, but he had that foundation.
But David was praying, much as your grandmother and grandfather prayed, much as your mother prayed, my mother prayed, the people around us, we have intercessors that we know love us and we call and we reach out to, when we reach out across you over the air for prayer, we know that you pray for us. And that means so much. We just want you to stop for a moment and realize that don't do these prayers just in passing. Just a cursory thing that you told someone you would do, but do it from your heart.
Petition God, as David was petitioning God to keep the heart of Israel, toward him, to keep the heart of his son, toward him, because that's what God looks to, is the heart. But Kenny, what did he say about David? He was a man after his own heart. God looks to the heart.
So when we're praying, let it be from our heart. Let it not be just some names we've written on a piece of paper or someone who says, oh, I forgot to pray, I forgot all about that. I need to pray. But stop, give thanks to God.
Appreciate him for the great God that he is. Thank him for him being the one who's so capable. Who am I? I mean, as David said, who am I?
Who are these people that we can come and willingly before you to seek your face at great God? You know, it's okay to feel that humble. It's David being the great man that he was never lost his humbleness to God. And God honored those things that David had asked.
And God has honored so many things. I've seen the prayers of the righteous go up. And God honors those. Veronica, it's so wonderful that we're asked to pray for people, but it's with the heart that when we pray that God really sees it laid out on his throne.
And here's our voices. Above all the other things go, the clamor, the clanging symbols and the things that he says are not very pleasing to him. He will hear our prayers, yes. But I think he hears the prayers from the heart at a greater depth and with a greater attention to them than others.
Well, we fix our hearts on him. Our hearts are fixed on him. God sees the heart anyway. Our prayers don't need to be robotic.
I remember my grandmother saying that when she first gave her heart to the Lord, she really didn't know how to pray to this mighty prayer in her sesser that she became over the years. But when she was just a young girl, she said that she would get down beside of her bed. And she would say, Shadrach, Meshach, and in the bed, I go. And that was it.
But she really didn't know better. But as she developed that relationship with the Lord, and that's what it's all about, our relationship with him. And that's what David did. He developed that relationship in the shepherd's fields.
When he was out there alone and he was watching the sheep and he would play the harp and he would write the Psalms, he had that relationship with him. It's easy to talk to somebody whom you have a relationship with. It's so easy for Buddy and I to carry on an in-depth conversation because we have an intimate relationship with each other. I almost know what he's thinking before.
He knows what he's thinking. We have that kind of relationship. When we have that relationship with Jesus Christ, that we have that intimate heart relationship, that it's not all about me, but it's about Jesus. What can we do today to glorify you?
As David was saying here in this prayer, God, we glorify you in your majesty. We love you, we honor you, we adore you. And then it's just not all about us and our needs and about our family. Who can we pray for?
Who can we sow our prayers into prayers for other children, prayers for other ministries, prayers for other people's finances and relationships. It's not all about us. And God knows that when we get down to business with him and we begin to pray and we open our hearts up before him so vulnerable. It reminds me of the woman in the New Testament with the alabaster box.
She came unashamed to Jesus' feet, even though she had a reputation of being a very, not a very good woman. She walked into that house of that Pharisee, not caring that they were going to cheer and make fun of her. She just needed to get it Jesus' feet. And she broke open that box and that fragrance, spikenard, filled the room.
I don't care about what people think. All I want is that Jesus to be proud of me, for him to smile upon me, for me to be broken at his feet. It's all about our hearts, that when we are broken before him that he can hear and answer our prayers. But when we fix our hearts on him, things begin to shift and things begin to turn.
And it's not just those Phariseeical prayers, with you just go and you just say the same thing over and over again, like a robot. It's coming from the depths of our hearts. And sometimes when we don't even have the words to pray, when we can just say, Jesus, I need you, I need your help. And he is always there.
Why? Because we have that intimate communication with him. And David had the privilege of having that intimate communication because God called him a man after his own heart. Oh, how to be privileged to be called a woman after his own heart.
That's all that matters, Betty. You know, there's so much power, Veronica, in our prayer. And it says, the prayer of a righteous man, a valent much. And we want to be a righteous person.
A righteous person is a humble person that loves the Lord, that does the things that David did, that just says, God, I give you thanks for all things. I know I'm not, I am not someone who should even be able to come before you, should be able to speak to you. But yet you love me. He seeks a humble heart of someone who truly, truly loves him.
You know, I think of those who have prayed for me through my life and through the uptimes and the down times and the crazy times of my life. I mean, those people are responsible for where I am today. They prayed for me in spite of myself. They prayed for me to be able to, to be successful, to be happy, to find a loving wife, a home, and children.
They prayed for these things in my life. You know, I look back and think of all those that have thought that much of me. And you know, God thinks that much of each of us. He wants to hear from us.
He wants us to love each other as a brother and a sister. He wants to hear that love. That's really what he wants from us is to see through the clamor, see through the clanging symbols and the things that really are not, they're smoking mirrors kind of things. You know, we can pray from their hearts, from the very depth, the foundation of what God has placed in us because I can tell you, he gives us a clean heart whenever we receive him.
He will clean it up. He will clean us up. It's up to us to keep that same temperament through our walk with him and I implore you today, if there are things in your heart that shouldn't be there, if there's jealousy, you know, if there's contempt for someone, if there are things that is driving your heart away from God, you don't even feel that he wants you to come into, and to be, I want to be able to believe a legacy for my kids. I want to be able to leave a legacy for our ministry.
I want to be able to leave a legacy of prayer of people knowing that if they talk to me and ask me to pray, that they know I will pray. I know when I call Veronica, be on a shadow of a doubt. She is seeking God on my behalf. How many people are doing that in your life today?
How many lives are you doing that in? How many lives are you really speaking to God from the heart about? You know, not just again, some cursory redundant prayer that you've done. I remember our youngest daughter, we get her to pray over the meals and there was a point in her childhood that we just kind of thought and said, okay, that's a prayer you said for a long time.
Now let's say one from the heart. Let's change this up a little bit. Let's tell God what's really in your heart. Do you remember that when we did that?
Yes. She did. And since then, she understands that it's okay to say things to God, but the things from the heart are the power that we use. So today we want you to feel comfortable in knowing that there's power in your prayers.
There's power in what you do, what you say to God. But boy, when you bring it from the depths of your heart, when you love someone enough, that's why we know when Veronica's grandparents, her mother, my mother, those people that loved us were praying for us. We know they were pouring the things out for us on that throne from the love of their hearts for us. We need to have that love for everyone that we pray for, regardless of what we're praying and there's something that we're praying for that God needs to work on some.
Pray for them with that same love. That's right, that homus, thank God, who am I to come to you? Please don't let me judge Lord, but I love this person and I want them to know you in a great and a mighty way. God is I know you and God will.
He will respond for like. Don't ever underestimate the power of your prayers. There is power every time that we go into the throne room of God. Tells us in the Bible that we can go boldly before that throne room.
You have the right to go in there being his child and there is power in our prayers. I love the Psalm of David in Psalm 24. It says, who may ascend into the heel of the Lord or go into his presence or who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean heart, clean hands and a pure heart.
He's saying it's all about the heart who has not lifted up his own soul as an idol nor sworn deceitfully. He may receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the Lord is his salvation. This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face. Oh, we want to seek the face of God.
We want to see him face to face to go into that holy place to have our petitions be made known for the Lord. Just know when you pray that you are worthy to go into the presence of God. If you don't know Jesus as your Savior, you can ask him to come into your heart, cleanse your heart, come into your heart so that you can go into that holy place that he will hear our prayers and oh, we must continue to pray for our families and for our nation. It is imperative.
Well, we have counted it a great joy to come into your home until we see you again this time next week. Remember God is always faithful.