J.D. Greear is pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., the founder of J.D. Greear Ministries, and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. J.D. is the author of several books, including his latest, “Just Ask: The Joy of Confident, Bold, Patient, Relentless, Shameless, Dependent, Grateful, Powerful, Expectant Prayer.”
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Key Questions for J.D. Greear
-What happens if pastors and church leaders don’t pray?
-What do you say to someone who really loves the Lord and loves serving him, but struggles to be a person of prayer?
-What do Jesus’ parables show us about how we should pray? What misunderstandings do we fall into regarding how to pray to God?
-How do you as a pastor develop the leadership of prayer across your congregation?
Key Quotes From J.D. Greear
“Really every spiritual awakening, you’re always going to find it coming on the heels of prayer.”
“Look at Jesus’ life…look how dependent he was himself on prayer…we may feel like we’re capable leaders, but we’re not going to get past where Jesus was in his dependence.”
“I think we’ve all learned that what looks like lasting fruit in the short-term does not always equal, not always equal lasting fruit in the long-term.”
“There are moments in your life where God drives you to a point of desperation…there are times that God just mercifully reveals that to you and shows you, ‘Hey, a lot of this is wood, hay and stubble.’ I mean, any Christian leader that does not tremble at Paul’s description that at the last day, there’s going to be a lot of things that look so impressive in the Kingdom of God, but they’re going to turn out to just be wood and stubble and not gold refined by fire. And…prayer, according to Jesus, is going to make one of the biggest differences.”
“Prayerlessness at its core is a gospel problem.”
“The least disciplined person listening to this podcast does not have an accountability partner for breathing…you do it because your body craves air. And when the gospel has shaped your soul to crave God, then you will pray instinctively. Not because you have to, but because you couldn’t imagine going an hour a day without spending that time.”
“I do think we have to get out of some of the more traditional ways of thinking about prayer. Just because, if prayer really is something we’re doing without ceasing, then there are multiple moments where I am leaning on God for some kind of wisdom, where I’m leaning on his power to do something that may not come out as a verbal prayer, but that is a kind of prayer.”
“If God has sustained you and held you up without you having found that place of desperation and prayer, I would say that’s God’s mercy to you. But you should expect that at some point whom the Lord loves he chastens.”
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“One of the things encouraging about the parables that Jesus tells about prayer is that they’re kind of built on the assumption that people are frustrated that God is not answering or answering quickly.”
“It is from cover to cover in our Bible: There are some things that God only gives in response to persistence and prayer.”
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