The Transformative Journey of Prayerful Living

Embark on an enlightening exploration of the sacred practice of prayer with Dr. David Chotka, as he passionately shares his expertise and personal experiences on its transformative power within the church and individual spirituality. Uncover the deeper meanings embedded in the Lord's Prayer, and be inspired by miraculous stories that exemplify the profound influence of earnest intercession. This episode promises to offer fresh perspectives on cultivating a rich, dynamic prayer life that echoes the intimate Father-Son relationship Jesus introduced to the world.

Dr. Chotka, founder of Spirit Equipped Ministries, takes us through various prayerful encounters, from the simple yet potent prayers for healing to the grand petitions for the nations. Reflect on the historical context of prayer and its pivotal role in the life of believers, and discover how our modern approaches might be reinvigorated by the practices of Jesus' time. Whether seeking to deepen your faith or enhance your communal worship, Dr. Chotka's insights are bound to stir your soul and invigorate your devotion.

This episode doesn't just recount moments of divine connection; it challenges us to engage with spiritual teachings in a practical, everyday context. Dr. Chotka's discussion extends to navigating spiritual darkness, interpreting the implications of our prayers, and integrating these profound lessons into our daily routines. Join us for a conversation that transcends the boundaries of the temporal, inviting you into a lifestyle harmonized with the eternal rhythm of prayer as exemplified by Jesus Christ and his followers through the ages.


Here is Dr. David  hotka's books, and also his website,

https://www.amazon.com/sk=David+Chotka&crid=1ZBK2ER3QXPD5&sprefix=david+chotka%2Caps%2C624&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

https://www.spiritequip.com/

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Transcript

Dorsey Ross: 0:15

Hello everyone, thank you again for joining us on another episode of the Dorsey Ross Show. Today we have Dr David CHotka who is the founder and director of Spirit Equipped Ministries. He has served on the chair of the Alliance Player Team, the national player equipping team of the Alliance Church in Canada, for more than 20 years. He is an author, conference speaker, director of a renewed society and an associate and as a lead pastor of multi-staff churches in the Canadian province of British Columbia, alberta and Ontario. Dr David, thank you so much for joining us today.

David Chotka: 1:12

Well, I'm thankful to be here. It's a delight to be on your program and warm thanks for the invitation.

Dorsey Ross: 1:17

Absolutely. Yeah, I saw your bio and saw your thing on Podmark I was like, hey, I've got to have this guy on my show.

David Chotka: 1:28

Well, thank you, I'm glad to be here.

Dorsey Ross: 1:32

What is your biggest passion?

David Chotka: 1:35

Actually, it's to mobilize prayer in every way, shape or form, and it's to teach people not to do this way, shape or form, and it's to teach people not to do this. So hold your nose and say if it be your will, without an expectation of an answer. So I had a funny. So I've written a series of books actually I've written five, and all of them are on are some form of prayer, equipping one form or another. And I actually believe this jesus ministry was entirely rooted and grounded in the practice of prayer, and every single thing that he did has to do with him being in a prayer relationship with God, the Father and the Holy Spirit imparting to him whatever he needed to be able to accomplish what was in front of him. If you look at it, he was in this Hebrew framework. Now, our culture doesn't understand this, but if you were in a French village or a German village or a Dutch village 150 years ago, there would be a bell that would be rung halfway through the day and everybody would stop and pray, and then the bell would be rung again in the evening and everybody would stop and pray. They would do that in the morning as well, and everybody would stop and pray, and it didn't matter if it was Lutheran, if it was Methodist. If it was, if it was a Catholic or whatever all the people would stop it. There was a culture of prayer that was built into the rhythm of life, and when Jesus came to earth, he came as a Jew, and Jews would always pray a minimum of three times a day together, and on Shabbat, on Sabbath, they would pray four times, and there would be a special series of things that they would do in the evening, and then on festival days, they pray as many as seven times in the day, and when the scripture says that Jesus prayed, jesus went off by himself to pray. It was over and above a prayer-saturated culture, and so we don't get it, because we don't live in that kind of a world anymore. It's just not part of secular American or Canadian or Australian society. It just isn't part of what we think about, although you still have hints of it in places like England, where the queen actually now the king would actually talk about calling on the name of the Lord. So you have these kinds of things happening.

David Chotka: 3:36

So my passion is to restore the prayer principle to the Church of Jesus Christ across the planet, and I honestly don't care what kind of Christian you are. So I mean, whether you're a Presbyterian or a Baptist or a Pentecostal or a Catholic, it doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that the ongoing dynamic of being engaged with God on a regular basis through interactive presence toward the presence be taught and learned. And evangelicals and of course I'm in the evangelical tradition evangelicals tend to reduce prayer to words and, by the way, if you run out of words, you finished your prayer and some people aren't wordy. So the bottom line is, when Jesus prayed all night, I don't think he just kept talking.

David Chotka: 4:23

My own personal view here is that he was present to the power of the Spirit. He was present to the presence and he would sense the nearness. He would probably have seasons of silence, seasons of worship, seasons of interactive conversation, and sometimes he would lie still and sometimes he would just be present to the Lord. He'd meditate on scripture and so on. So when he chose the 12, I don't think he spent the night talking to God. I think he spent the night present to the presence. How do I say this? When you pray? In scripture there's all kinds of different ways of praying. There's prayer of lament and there is the prayer of silence, there's reverential awe, there is praise that involves music, and there is reflection on the Scripture, and there is prayer walking. You have all these kinds of things going on. I want to see every aspect of prayer restored to the Lord's church. That's what I want to see.

Dorsey Ross: 5:18

What do you think? Maybe not now, but 20, 30 years ago we would have at least in the churches that I know of, they would have prayer nights, yes, nights, where you would go and, like you were saying, they would go and worship and they would have time to go up there. But now we don't seem to have that anymore.

David Chotka: 5:42

Yeah, you only have isolated pockets and most churches, if they call a prayer meeting, they get five or six people, even if your church is 1,600. It's just crazy and it has to do with the way that we shape praying. What we've done is we've reduced it to the assignment of the desperate. Oh, by the way, there's nothing else we can do now. We better pray, or they reduce it to, and you get these kind of strange things where the only person who shows up for the prayer meeting is grandma and she's got three grandkids and she's praying for their salvation and she always prays the same prayer, what you see going on inside the framework of the early church. Now, there was an exception that just happened. There was a revival in asbury seminary. I don't know if you saw that in the news. Was it two years ago or a year ago, somewhere in that?

Dorsey Ross: 6:24

region yeah, the one you want to conduct you.

David Chotka: 6:28

Yes, actually it was young people and they prayed for uh, I think it was 10 consecutive dates. Now I went there I, as it turned out, I'm only about a six-hour drive from there and I was teaching a class and there was another pastor up the street from me and he said David, do you want to go to Asbury? And I said it's six hours there and six hours back. You want to do that? And he said, well, listen, this is amazing. It's incredible. We should see what it's like. Now, as it turns turns out, my co-author in the healing prayer book, maxie dunham, used to be the principal of asbury seminary, and so there's a warm bond with uh, with with me and asbury, that kind of thing anyway. So so this guy steve, he calls me up and he says you want to do it? Nice? I looked at my calendar and the only window I had to do that was the very next day. He talked to me on a, a Thursday, and we had to go on a Friday, right? So I said the only time I can go is tomorrow, otherwise I've got appointments booked in, you know, next week, et cetera, et cetera. And he said, oh, and then he hesitated and then talked to his wife and he said to his wife this thing he said I was talking to the Lord and I felt I was supposed to invite David to go and if he could go I was supposed to drop everything and go with him. But Friday was not my go-to. So his wife said you mean you told Jesus of Nazareth you'd go with David? And David said yes, you're now going to say no to Jesus of Nazareth. And he said I don't want to do that. And she said you better go.

David Chotka: 7:55

So we all drove to Asbury. And so we all drove to Asbury and actually this is what happened we walked into that town and you could not get into the town. You could hardly get there and we had to park. Now, I'm Canadian so I think kilometers, so I'll try and translate this into miles. About two miles away we had to walk two miles to be able to get into that town and when we got there there was this enormous line snaking around all kinds of blocks with people waiting to be able to get into the main chapel. And as we arrived they were setting up an audiovisual chapel just across the street and thankfully we could get into that, but it was thousands and thousands of people crying out to the Lord, and it was interesting to watch.

David Chotka: 8:45

You had these old timers who believed in the old Methodist holiness principle of consecration and separation to God, that kind of thing, and the old timers were watching the young bucks and the young bucks were leading it and you could see that the old timers were being guardians, but they wanted to inculcate and nurture the faith of the younger generation. They were being very careful and so you didn't have ditzy crazy happening. What you had was focused devotion, centered in on a closer walk with Christ and centered in on winning the nation for the Lord and winning the regions from across the planet, et cetera. And so I saw that and that was amazing. And what they, what they did there there, was completely biblical. They would praise, they would worship, they would pray for the advance of the kingdom, and after they prayed for the advance of the kingdom, they'd celebrate what God was doing and it was a remarkable kind of thing. Now that's prayer as it's described by Jesus.

David Chotka: 9:34

In fact, I've written a book called Living Out the Lord's Prayer, line by Line. I'm just on the verge of publishing the book. I'm doing a test group right now. It is based on a book that I wrote years ago. Just a minute, let me see if I can find it here. Hang on. Oh, here it is. This is the one. I wrote this in 2008. It's called Powered Praying and it's based on the Lord's Prayer, and I'll just tell you how this journey of this book happened.

David Chotka: 10:02

So we had a conference in my church building, and my church building at that point could seat 1,200 people, and so it was a national gathering of the denomination that I was in, and my building was big enough, with a large parking lot, and we had inexpensive housing, et cetera, et cetera. So we did the conference at my church and we had booked in Dr Carl George, who was from the Fuller Institute, and back in the day he was talking about the power of small groups and how small groups are going to replace the big church, et cetera, et cetera, because if you want intimacy, you have to be in a small group and he was basically teaching what the New Testament teaches they would have large groups for instruction and they would have small groups for Christian life. That's what he would basically do, and he had just been to Korea, south Korea, and he had just met the pastor of the largest church in the history of the Christian world. It was a congregation of 850,000 people and they were all in small groups. Everybody in that church belonged, yeah. So I mean, this is what this incredible kind of thing.

David Chotka: 11:05

And the lead pastor of this thing had gotten terribly ill in the 1960s and he was unable to do his work, and so he asked his deacons and his deaconesses to organize small group prayer meetings, unbeknownst to him. I mean, his inability to be able to lead eventually made him sit. He had to lie on his back because he had terrible back trouble and while he was afflicted he would create curriculum and he would preach into a microphone and pass it to his deacons and his deaconesses. They would take the teaching off to these small groups and he went from a church of a thousand to a church of 10,000 by the time he got better, and then he realized that what he was doing when he was flat on his back was praying for three, four hours a day. Anyway, in the middle of this. So Dr Carl George goes to Korea and now his church is 850,000.

David Chotka: 11:51

Now put this in perspective In the day my church was 800 people and that was a big church in the Canadian context. I'm a Canadian and so if you wanted to see me you would call the office and you would book in for a week out, and sometimes two weeks out, to be able to get one hour with me. That's what you'd have to do, right? Because otherwise my time was filled with staffing and with visitation and with preparation of program or getting the sermon ready or whatever the issue was. So you know this pastor, so can you imagine somebody getting an appointment with a pastor of a church of 850,000?

David Chotka: 12:24

So Carl George gets an appointment with this guy and he knows he's never going to get another one. It's just not going to happen. And so he says he has to figure out what he's going to ask. He's got one hour to ask him, right, him, right, and he prays and he feels that he, the lord, would have him talk to him about, about what it means to, uh, to pray for three to five hours a day, because he heard the guy prayed that much based upon the needs of being sick. So he sees the guy crossing, this korean leader, and he looks him in the eye and he says um, I understand, you pray three to five hours a day. And the man said well, I do.

David Chotka: 12:58

And so carl george asked him uh, what, how, what? How do you pray, what? What method do you use? Do you have an approach, etc. Etc. And the guy said oh, it's very simple. For the first three hours I use the lord's prayer and after that I use other models.

David Chotka: 13:12

Then carl george and I'm sitting on the platform next to carl george. This is three weeks after carl george has been there and he's still processing his pain based upon this conversation. And so he said three hours praying the Lord's prayer. And then he asked the question you and I would ask what do you do? Repeat it.

David Chotka: 13:29

And the guy said oh, dr George, have you never studied what Jesus meant by the term father? And George, who'd been a Baptist all his days, and he grew up, you know, he had the Bible in his mother's milk. My heavens, the guy. The guy was a born again disciple, thumping the scripture all the time, but he got saved when he was five and he's now 55, right, 50 years walking with God. And so so he looks at him and says you know, I call him father, but I've never studied what it meant.

David Chotka: 13:57

And then the Korean guy looks at him and says well, how can you pray our father if you have not a clue what father means? So now I'm sitting next to Carl George on the platform and I'm looking over this congregation of my pastoral friends and peers of years. All of us are in the same denomination, we all know each other and they're all struggling with the same issue. They've done exactly the same thing as Carl George. And then this Korean guy says to George well, what about heaven, dr George? Have you ever studied what Jesus meant by heaven? And George scratched his head and he said well, no, I believe in it. He said well, how can you pray father in heaven If you don't know what father means? You don't know what heaven means. And what about name? You can see where this is going right.

David Chotka: 14:39

So I was sitting on the platform and I am processing Carl George's pain, because he'd been a believer for 50 years and hadn't done those studies. And I had been a pastor for 20 and I hadn't done those studies. And I looked at my peers and everybody was in the same boat. We're all scratching our heads because we hadn't done that work, and it seems so utterly obvious. So, anyway, the only time I had consolation I had studied the doctrine of the kingdom. And so I had a passing. I was able to say, yes, I have studied the kingdom. When he got to the kingdom, come and we'll be done. But the deed was done, it was sealed forever in my soul.

David Chotka: 15:18

I needed to understand what Jesus meant by the principal words in the Lord's Prayer, and then the defining moment came right here. He said how can you obey Jesus to pray? He didn't say pray any way you want. He said when you pray, pray this way Say Our Father who art in heaven. And he said this is not a memory prayer, this is a highway to all of Jesus' teaching. And so Carl George shares that in this assembly with all these pastors. And I make a commitment.

David Chotka: 15:49

So I got myself a great big three-ring binder and I bought a bunch of little notebooks, you know, with all the three. And so the first one, I wrote down Father. On the second one, I wrote down Heaven. On the third one, I wrote down Name. On the second one, I wrote down Heaven. On the third one, I wrote down Name. On the fourth one, I wrote down Kingdom. The next one, I wrote Will.

David Chotka: 16:04

And so I went all through the key words of Jesus' prayer and I assigned a notebook to each one of these words. Then I said to the Lord, I'm going to open up the Gospel of Matthew, because that's where the longer version of the Lord's Prayer is, and every time I run into one of those keywords I'm going to circle the word and I'm going to open my notebook and I'm going to journal what that word means in the context that Jesus is using it. And I said I think it's going to take me about three months to faithfully do this. Oh, dorsey, three months. No, no, no. I got through Father in three months. That no, no, no, I got through father in three months. So and then I realized you can't just take one word, one gospel and look at the meaning. You have to look at the whole package. So I decided to look at all the synoptics and john. I looked at actually the apostles and paul, and after I finished the new testament, I thought I got to understand the old testament background to these words. And here's what I discovered. This was incredible.

David Chotka: 17:05

The word father was never used personally in any Jewish prayer at all until Jesus of Nazareth came. Not one person in Hebrew Scripture or in Hebrew writing. There was a scholar by the name of Yoshim Yeremias, who examined all of Hebrew prayer that was extant, every manuscript that was Hebrew that was Jewish in any way, shape or form. He examined every prayer inside the whole context of Hebrew Scripture and Hebrew writing and he discovered that there was a reference to Messiah attached to calling God father, where God would call them son but, and so Jews would use the term metaphorically. And my favorite one is Malachi 1.6, where this is where God is telling off the Levites. You know what he says hey, you give your daddy's respect. How come you don't respect me? That's that kind of.

David Chotka: 18:01

That kind of analogical thing is shows up in scripture and, like Psalm 103, as a father is compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. You know, there's these, there's these analogies. Right, there's about 14 of those analogies in scripture where God's called father, but there isn't one. There's where God's called Father, but there's two places, one in Deuteronomy and one in Isaiah, where God is called Father and it's kind of like metaphorical Father of the Nation kind of thing. So Americans would say George Washington, canadians would say Sir John, a MacDonald, by the way, you're our Father, you're our Creator, kind of thing. But there's none of this personal thing.

David Chotka: 18:39

And then I found this out. I found out from psalm 2 and psalm 89 and there's a couple references in chronicles that one born from the line of david would call god father and god would call him son, and he would put his hand on the rivers and the seas, he would raise the righteous dead to create a mighty army, he would bestow the gift of the spirit, he would restore the land, he would be the overseer of the nation. In other words, to call God father was to claim that you were the Messiah. And so when Jesus starts to, the first time Jesus calls God's father.

David Chotka: 19:21

He shows up when he's 12. He's in the temple and I don't know if you've ever been to a Jewish wedding or not, yet If you've been to a Greek wedding or a Ukrainian, one of these ethnic Italian weddings all the relatives come and they're second and third and fourth and fifth cousins and they all do this big party and the kids sleep in the center and they all do this big party and the kids sleep in the center and they're with all their cousins, you know, and the couples dance around them. It's completely safe for the kids because it's a tribal society and the Italians still have it, the Greeks still have it, you know the big fat Greek wedding kind of thing. Anyway, getting back to this, jesus is part of that kind of a travel society where everybody goes on entourage to his bar mitzvah when he's 12. And they assume he's with the cousins and they lose him. They look for him for three days and then when they find him I don't know if you ever lost a kid, my heavens. My son wanted once on me in a grocery store and when I found him I didn't know if I should hit him or hug him.

David Chotka: 20:14

So Mary looks at Jesus and I don't know what her feelings were at the moment. But so Mary looks at Jesus and I don't know what her feelings were at the moment. But she says son, son, how could you do this to us Three days? What did you do with three days? And he looks at her and says didn't you know? I had to be in my father's house.

David Chotka: 20:29

Now, of course Mary knew he was Messiah, she had the virginal conception, but nobody hears that except Mary and Joseph and him. But when he receives the spirit at his baptism, the voice says this is my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased. And from that point forward, every prayer of Jesus calls God, father, except one, the death on the cross. Or he says my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? Put brackets around that? Because I think he's quoting psalm 22.

David Chotka: 21:04

But if you look at all the other prayers of jesus, in every tradition he doesn't call god anything else. There's not one single reference to any. He doesn't say creator god, or sustainer god, or or even just god. Every prayer that he prays has one of three appellations in front of it. It's either Father, my Father or Holy Father.

David Chotka: 21:25

Now he says to the disciples, when they say he teaches to pray, he says I want you to pray this way. When you pray, say Our Father, now wait a minute. Listen, dorsey, I think you're a wonderful human, but I don't think you're the Messiah. You're a wonderful human, but I don't think you're the messiah. So and I, every now and then I have a delusion of grandeur and every now and then I think I'm more important than I really am. And then something happens and I discover I'm not right. We're not the messiah. Let's just, let's just blow up the stereotype and let's eliminate that.

David Chotka: 21:54

So what's jesus of nazareth telling us to pray, father, for that title, when everybody in Judaism knew that to call God father was to claim you Messiah. Yeah, and here's what it means. Um, when you are born of the spirit, the spirit of Jesus joins with your spirit and the two spirits together say Abba, father. Here's what happens the Spirit lands on Jesus, god calls him Son, he calls God Father, and when the Spirit of Jesus comes inside of us, we receive Jesus' relationship with the Father. And when you say our, you're not thinking about you and all the Christians across the planet. You're supposed to be thinking about the fact that you and Jesus have been joined together and he's given you the right to be able to use his name to have a relationship with God. So the hour is not me and all those Christians. The hour is me and Jesus, and the Lord has made us a joint heir with Christ. And that means we get two things we get his amazing relationship with the Father and we get his messianic mission to complete across the planet.

David Chotka: 23:13

And so I realized this one day when I was praying through the Psalms and this is before this revelation came about. Father, I was praying through the Psalms and I got to Psalm 2. And so I'm reading the Psalm and I'm trying to pray what the Psalm is saying. It was one of my methods to reboot my prayer life. And so it says ask, and I will give you the nations. And I said, oh, isn't that a marvelous? That's a Messianic prophecy. It's a prophecy about Jesus. Yeah, isn't that nice? No, and the Holy Spirit spoke to me no, I want you to ask me for the nations. I said, jesus Lord, I'm not the Messiah, I can't do that. That's a messianic prophecy about Jesus. I don't want to take something that doesn't belong to me and pray it is if I'm something that I'm not. And I had this argument with God, and so the Holy Spirit prompted me.

David Chotka: 24:00

I went to the book of Revelation, and you know that there were these bad churches in the book of Revelation, and the worst one of the bunch was Thyatira, because they tolerated that woman, Jezebel, right, you know the false prophetess. They'd not disciplined her, and it was a really slimy, ugly mess. There's a promise to the overcomer, to every one of those churches, to the overcomer, to every one of those churches, and this means that the slimy, unrepentant, nasty, obnoxious people who were blowing it and not doing what they needed to do were given a promise if they repented. And the promise to the church of Thyatira is that we would join Jesus' kingly rule and that we would become co-regents with Jesus and we would rule the nations with a rod of iron. In other words, the promises that were attached to Jesus in Psalm 2 were given to the church in Thyatira to a bunch of slimy jerks who could repent.

David Chotka: 24:55

So then I realized that means I can ask for the nations, not because I am anything special. I can ask for the nations Not because I am anything special. I can ask for the nations because I've been joined to Jesus' mission and I've been given Jesus' Spirit, who then prays through me to accomplish God's purposes. And so that first word, our, changed my life. We're talking about oh, I had no idea that I was supposed to enter into Jesus' messianic ministry and that I was supposed to participate in his sufferings and share his glory, and that I was supposed to carry out my work through the process of entering into this relationship with the Lord, who would impart his spirit to me and communicate to me in two-way communication. And that's the first word. I mean this is incredible. That's just one word. Now, if you carry on with the prayer.

David Chotka: 25:55

The other one that's mind-blowing is the word kingdom. And I'll just tell you this Most Christians, when they think of the word kingdom, they think about the end of time. It's about the Lord's power coming back and how the bad guys are going to end up in the fiery pit and the good guys are going to be. The come to winners and the false prophet and all that kind of stuff. They're all going to die. The fire that does not cease is going to be filled with all kinds of obnoxious people and the good guys are going to win. They think of that when you read the scripture. There's two meanings to kingdom and because it doesn't make any sense, we know the kingdom's coming. So why is Jesus telling us to pray for the kingdom to come, if the kingdom's coming? It's a logical inconsistency. It has to do with the fact that the word kingdom and the word spirit are intertwined.

David Chotka: 26:45

And here's what I discovered back in the day when I started to do the research when Samuel was rejected as the leader remember the story they said we want a king, don't give us another judge. We're done with these judges things. It doesn't work. We want to become just like those Philistines over there. And oh, by the way, why didn't you fix this? Samuel's grieved because the role of the judge was to be the prophet, the priest and the king, and he was supposed to lead by the power of the spirit landing on the leader in directing the nation. And now the Israelites were saying this is not going to work. It's never worked. What are we doing? Give us a king with a standing army, because when the Philistines attack, we want them just to be able to have an army ready to go, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So he cries out to God and he says oh, they've rejected me and God is whining with him. And he says, no, saul winds up chasing donkeys and comes present to that man has not a clue. He's going to be the king. Samuel sees him and the Lord says this is the one that I've chosen, pour the oil on him. And he pours the oil on him. By the way, it was precious oil that was reserved for priests. You weren't supposed to misuse that oil. It's because everybody would smell the savor of the priest and the holy presence, et cetera, when this oil was put. That oil gets put on the king. It was reserved for the judge and for the priest.

David Chotka: 28:12

And now this guy, this farm boy, who's been traveling and sleeping in ditches for three days, who shows up at this fancy feast. Now listen, if you don't wash for three days, do you smell bad? Think about this. And he's been chasing donkeys and sleeping at the side of the road trying to find these donkeys. I am sure he's stunk to high heaven and he has 20 cents left. He can't even afford a bath. He shows up and Saul winds up at the head table. Now, I don't know if you've been to a special event where there's a head table.

David Chotka: 28:44

You don't put the guy who smells bad, who's been sleeping out in the wild, at the head table unless you give him a bath. So he's at the head table, he eats this fancy leg of lamb and then he sleeps on the roof. And on the rooftop, samuel anoints him with oil and says you're the Lord's anointed, you're going to become, become the king. And oh, by the way, here's what's going to happen. And it gives him a bunch of signs. But one of the signs was you're going to walk by the Philistine garrison. On that hill. Over there there's going to be a bunch of prophets who are coming down the hill. They're going to be using musical instruments, they're going to be singing you, and when the spirit lands on you, your heart's going to be changed and you're going to be the king. That's exactly what happens.

David Chotka: 29:27

When the spirit lands on the farm boy, he becomes the king. And so kingdom and spirit are intertwined even in Hebrew thinking. And then, when Saul does not listen to the Lord, not once, not twice, but three times, the spirit is removed from Saul and it lands on David. And David becomes the king when the spirit lands on him. And so the whole intention of Israel was that they be led by a ruler who is infilled by spirit, by a ruler who is infilled by spirit. And when they ask for a king, he doesn't become the king until the spirit is on him. Now, the spirit couldn't infill him. And so in the New Testament, when Jesus starts to function in the role of the king, the spirit lands on him, and then he becomes the one who baptizes in the spirit. And so the kingdom is about the power and the rule of the spirit on planet earth through a community of people who are infilled by spirit as a result of Jesus' death, sacrifice and resurrection from the dead.

David Chotka: 30:35

And so I mean, when I did this thing about kingdom, I thought I've been always thinking it's the end of time about kingdom. I thought I've been always thinking it's the end of time. Actually, there's truth there, but I'm not praying for the advance of the end, I am praying for the release of God's spirit across the whole planet. When I'm praying for the kingdom to come, that's what I'm doing Anyway. So this amazing kind of I mean this is the Lord's prayer. So the way I do this, when I'm doing a seminar on this, I say to people want you to picture a wall, a blank wall with 28 feet of wall, okay, and give one foot to each chapter of matthew's gospel. Actually make it a 29 foot wall and make chapter six twice the size, right, make sure the lord's prayer is really big, make sure it's in bold type so everybody can see it. See.

David Chotka: 31:20

And then I asked somebody their favorite color. So, dorsey, what's your favorite color? Okay, so the first word is father. So I circle the word father in blue and now, remember, all of Matthew is on the wall and the Lord's Prayer is twice the size in chapter six, right, and you circle it with blue and then you draw lines to all the different places where the word father is used in Matthew's Gospel. You got 58 lines. That's a lot of blue. Then I ask somebody else for another color. Somebody gives me red, and then I circle the word heaven and I draw lines in red to all the places where heaven is found in Matthew's Gospel. From the Lord's Prayer. There's something like 54 of those lines. That means you now have 124 lines based on two words, and sometimes the red and the blue intersect and it turns purple. See, now we go to the next word, which is name, and that's not only 12 of those, but you could get a different color. You got 12 different lines. And then you come to kingdom and it's everywhere. We're talking about 65 of these, right? And so by the time you get to the word will, the wall is covered in color.

David Chotka: 32:35

That means the Lord's prayer is the on-ramp to all of Jesus' teaching, all of it. And what we are supposed to do is we're supposed to memorize it, which is what we have done, so that we can remember. But we're not just supposed to memorize it so that we can say the thing. We're supposed to memorize it so that we can follow the pattern that Jesus told us was in harmony with his teaching. And so what I do in the Lord's Prayer Book is I open up all the meanings and then I create a grid, a framework that people can use in their devotions to pray the Lord's Prayer in harmony with Jesus' teaching about how we're supposed to pray. So I mean, what I want to do with that is to teach the planet can the other methods you're supposed to pray jesus prayer? He said you're supposed to do it. It's not like so. I mean, listen, listen.

David Chotka: 33:28

I was a faithful believer from the time I was 16 until I was 40 when I had that encounter with this, this carl george guy. I was a faithful believer and I was doing my very best to pray as best I could. But I and I would always pray that prayer because I did recognize Jesus said you're supposed to do that, but I would just say it, not recognizing that the beauty of the prayer was not in the fact that it was a condensed thing that you're supposed to say from time to time. The beauty of it was that it was in fact the Lord's command to think Jesus' thoughts after him and to pray in harmony with Jesus' teaching. That's what I discovered, what I just said to you I mean what I just said that probably blew your mind. That's two words. I didn't even begin to tell you all the rest of the things I learned about Father and about heaven and about me. So my point is I'm still learning. I am still learning about the Lord. I just did a reboot of this prayer, this book. I want to republish it because I've learned many things since I wrote the book. But the point I'm making is just this the intention of the Lord is that all his disciples use that prayer as the framework around which we live. Jesus did nothing until he prayed, and I'm quite convinced that he used that pattern. Only he said my father instead of our. That's the only difference.

David Chotka: 35:02

I've been to many prayer meetings. I can't tell you the number of prayer. I've been to many prayer meetings. I can't tell you the number of prayer meetings I've been to over all these years. The bottom line is this there's always somebody there with a list of sick people, right. There's always somebody there with a list of people who need work or have to succeed in their school or something like this, and those are important things to the people who are directly affected by that. But most people in the prayer meeting don't even know who they are. And what happens in those prayer meetings is somebody says let's sing our favorite hymn, and they sing it. And then they sit down and they offer up intercessions for each of these things that are part of this, and then they pray the Lord's Prayer and they leave the room and instead of say and, and what they do is they pray oh god, heal suzy, if it be your will. Oh god, john needs a job. Find him work, if it be your will. So I'll tell you what I did with the will thing.

David Chotka: 35:54

I decided that I I wanted to find out how jesus used the word well, because he prayed, and so he said all the way through John's gospel in particular, it's really clear he doesn't say oh Lord, would you please heal the leper here, if it be your will. He doesn't pray, that, he actually waits. Then he gets a leading and then he cooperates with the leading. And there's two places in the whole New Testament. I'm talking about every reference to the word will. I looked up every single reference to the word will in the entire New Testament because it was what I was doing for the Lord's Prayer thing. And here's what I discovered Not one person, not one in the scripture, ever used that word like we do in our prayer meetings. Not one.

Dorsey Ross: 36:46

There's not a single how do they use it.

David Chotka: 36:49

Here's what they do. So they would. So there's there's two places where the word will is possible to be compared. So there's Gethsemane, where Jesus is praying and he's asking God to change his mind. Right, he's saying to him I know I'm going to get killed, I know it's ugly, I know it's awful. And he doesn't. He says, uh, can something, can there be another way? And the father speaks to him and says no, and so he resigns himself to the will that he already knew, and so he does it. But in that case he knew what the will was asked for God to change it. In our case, we haven't got a clue.

David Chotka: 37:27

The other one is in 1 John, where it says we know that if we've asked things according to his will, we have what we have asked for. But that is not a statement where he hasn't got a clue. This is where the apostle is aware of what the will is and he prays it in harmony with what he believes to be the will of God. Now, if you go back to how they pray it in the scripture, they would put their hands on someone who was sick and they would wait until they got a leading and then they would pray, heal this person according to your will, not if it be your will, and provide God an escape clause. What you have going on inside the pages of the New Testament is the awareness that prayer is two-way communication and praying in the spirit is where God takes over your spirit and you find yourself praying with groanings that are too deep for words or with ecstatic joy as somebody gets saved.

David Chotka: 38:24

And every church listen, I've been to 17 countries. I'm going to go to my 18th this year to preach to a crowd of about a thousand people there. Anyway, regardless every culture I've gone to, every single one of them struggles with this issue. And when I say, do you want the will, all the hands go up. Then I say, do you struggle with the will? All the hands go up. And then I say, how do you know the will? And they don't know. They don't know. So what I've discovered is that what we can do with it, every church that I've been to has intercessors, whether they want to be or not. They'll wind up in some prayer closet and they'll start praying for some situation, whether it's the salvation of a lost person, whether it's their grandson who's been in a car accident, whether it's the church up the street and the pastor trying to create a revival in the town.

David Chotka: 39:13

You know, whatever the issue is, suddenly they will discover that they're weeping as they're praying and they're groaning in anguish as they're praying for that pastor and they haven't got a clue that he's in terrible trouble.

David Chotka: 39:28

They haven't got a clue. They just know that they have to intercede here because something is happening that's just going to change the destiny of this church or something. Or they're praying for their lost loved one and suddenly they feel the lostness inside their spirit and as they're praying, they're groaning out requests that this would not be any more like this, but that instead there would be an intervention from the divine to transform the situation that they're in so that they can get saved. That kind of thing happens, and so every church it doesn't matter what kind of church it is, every church I've been to has people who will admit that, even though they're embarrassed by it, they'll hide in their closet. They won't do it in church itself, but they'll do this. In fact, the Methodist revival had groaning prayer meetings. They would intercede before the Lord and suddenly all of them would start to cry out into groan and anguish some. And as they did this, they would discover that there was this sense of power inside of them and they were talking to the Lord, and they would feel the increase of the withdrawing of that presence. That's praying in the spirit. That's where the Lord prays through you.

David Chotka: 40:36

And it actually says in the book of Romans I'm actually quite convinced that when Paul is talking about that, he is describing what he personally went through than what he describes in Romans chapter nine. In Romans chapter nine he says I am an unceasing anguish and grief over my kinsmen, according to the flesh, you know. He talks about the Jews and many of them did not respond to the Savior. Many did, many did not. And he is anguished and he actually prays to be separated from Christ for the sake of his kinsmen. And and he is anguished and he actually prays to be separated from Christ for the sake of his kinsmen. And he says I'm not lying, my conscious spirit wins to the Holy Spirit. I prayed this crazy way, you know. He says that Of course he doesn't get damned. He winds up being used by God to become an instrument of salvation. But the point I'm making is that when he's doing this, he is describing the personal experience of intercession. Describing the personal experience of intercession where the Spirit and His Spirit intertwine, speak to each other and they pray about matters of eternal destiny. Every Christian I've met, when I start to describe this, they will eventually nod their head and say you know, that happened to me when. And then they'll tell me.

David Chotka: 41:42

And so what you're supposed to do is to use the Lord's Prayer framework and start with praise, because that's what you're supposed to do is to use the Lord's Prayer framework and start with praise, because that's what you do with the first movement, and then you request the Holy Spirit's presence and power to intervene in whatever matter is before you, because that's where you pray for the kingdom to come, and then after that, you ask for provision around the kingdom dynamic. Most prayer meetings focus on personal needs. That's not the Lord's Prayer. Seek ye first the kingdom, and all these things will be added to you. So when you get the kingdom praying, you are praying for the advance of the kingdom and you're asking for the resources that you need to be able to do that. You're not praying for Jane to get a job. You are praying for the kingdom to advance and for whatever is needed to be supplied to get that done, and that's how the Lord's Prayer logic works. So the reason why prayer meetings shrink we're not praying that way.

David Chotka: 42:39

So yesterday I wound up in a prayer meeting. I'm no longer the lead pastor of a church, I now attend a church and I wound up in a prayer meeting with a marvelous guy by the name of James and we had a couple of matters that were heavy, these things that were really important to pray and listen. Dorsey, I have to tell you something. I don't remember the last time where I sat before another man and started to weep as I prayed about the outcome of this particular thing. I wanted that to happen and I wept with him for about 25 minutes and then I sensed a release in my spirit, as we sensed that the answer was on its way. Now that's praying in the spirit, now, when we see the answer and we testify to the answer. That's incredible. People come to prayer meetings like that because something's happening, do you?

Dorsey Ross: 43:33

have another question for me. I don't know why we haven't even hit the crux of all these questions I got. I think we may have to split this episode and have you come back and have you ask the rest of them. Sure, I do have one more. You touched on it a little bit when you mentioned about healing. About healing, and what is the difference between or I guess that's different, uh, or difference between instant healing and one term, dynamic of healing prayer?

David Chotka: 44:14

well, actually that shows up in the first chapter of the healing prayer book, and so, uh, the way we start the book, I tell about an instant healing when I did not have a clue what I was doing. And then my co-writer, maxi Dunham, who was principal of Asbury, talks about his grandson's miraculous healing. And they're both miracle, but they're two very different kinds of miracles. So in my case, what happened with me was I was in a liberal seminary and I'm born again Bible thumper. You know, I love the Bible, I love the Scripture and of course there's unbelief and there's belief side by side in a liberal seminary. Anyway, bottom line was one of the profs said something about the Scripture not being historically accurate and I said something to the effect oh, I believe the Bible is a faithful, you know, I believe it's Scripture, I believe it's God's word, et cetera, et cetera.

David Chotka: 45:03

And there was a guy in the classroom. He could have been a standup comic. I mean, the guy was hilarious, right, and if he wanted to laugh he'd just hang around with that guy. He would just crack some line in the middle of some, or he had this perspective on life that always demonstrated the humor. Now, when it was harmless, it was fun. But I'll just tell you this there was a moment here I said something to defend the scripture and he cracked the joke and everybody exploded in laughter in that class. It was about 30 of us, but I was the object of the joke because I believed in Jesus walking in the water, something like that. And I thought, well, he obviously doesn't believe in Jesus walking on water. And you know, I went to the next class and somebody said something that said something about the scripture not being true, and I defended the scripture. Then the same guy was in the class. He cracks a joke, the whole room breaks into glorious laughter and I'm the object of the humor, and this went on for months. And so eventually you just say to yourself well, it's clear we're not going to be friends, that I would avoid him if I could, right?

David Chotka: 46:05

Anyway, one day I am walking, there was I had a Greek class that met three times a week and I had to walk across the plaza to get to that Greek class and there was this lovely lady and I call her Susie in the book and she walks up to me and she says hey, david, how you doing? I said, good, I'm on my way to the Greek class and she said listen, I got something to tell you. I said what's that? Said you know the comedian in the class. I said I surely do. And she said he's in. See that hospital down the road, six blocks down. I said yeah, he said he's in there. I said oh, and actually, dorsey, I didn't feel bad. I had to repent of my bad attitude, you know anyway. So after I repent of my bad attitude, I said what's wrong? And she said he has phlebitis. Now, probably your listeners don't know what that is. It's a clot in your vein and if the clot breaks free, it travels through your bloodstream and if it hits your lung or your brain 95 times out of 100, you're dead instantly. Okay, this guy has phlebitis, and this was back in the 1980s, when the research on this was just getting started, and so it was a very, very dangerous thing. He could have died. He was in his 20s, he could have died. And so I said well, I'm so sorry to hear that. Is he getting good care? I said he's in the hospital down there, but he asked me to ask you something. I said oh, okay, what's that? She said he wants you to come and pray for him. I looked at her. I said I'm not going. Now there were two reasons I said I'm not going. Number one I had never seen a miraculous healing, nor had I met anybody in my walk with God who ever prayed for healing, except the crazies on television who slapped people on foreheads and threw hankies in the air. You know, I didn't think that was a helpful method, right? The second, the second thing was um, I had, so I'd never done it. That's one thing. But the other was I was terrified that he was going to mock me and it was an excuse to to make fun of me now, cause I had. I'm. I was helpless in front of this guy's humor. He was really good at this and I could not be fast enough to defend myself. Anyway, she said to me well, he's been cruel to you. I said, yes, he has. Now she was a very sweet, kind Christian girl. She was one of these do unto others as you would have them, do unto you kind of people who always, always showed up if you were in trouble, sat with you while you wept. One of these wonderful, godly saints. Anyway. So she says I'll talk to him. So she goes off and she, the next day I'm in the coffee lounge of the school and she walks up and said well, I went and talked to our comedian friend. I said okay, what happened? She said he's terribly sorry and he wants you to come and pray. I said I'm not going and she said well, he wants you to come. I said I'm not going, I'm just not the plaza again. And there's Susie and she sees me and she says David, how are you doing? I said I'm good, I'm on my way to Greek class. And she said have you gone to see our friend? I said no, I'm not going Now.

David Chotka: 48:53

Dorsey, ever been told off by your mother? This girl got the look. You know what I'm saying. She just had this. She said, david, aren't you going around this school telling everybody that the Bible is the word of God and it's supposed to be obeyed? I said yes and she said how about this scripture? I was sick and you visited me. Oh no, I don't want to go. And I said well, you know, it says sick and visited. It doesn't say sick and prayed. She said sick and visited or sick and prayed, it doesn't matter. He's asked you to go, as you better go. It's the Bible, she said so she walked, she walked away.

David Chotka: 49:36

I'm left with this crushing anguish that I'm going to have to visit the guy. It's only six blocks down the road. So I go to my class and at the end of the class I walk the six blocks. I go into the hospital and there he is and he's wired for sound, he's got all these wires coming out of his body and there's intravenous tubes and there's all these little meds and cups and and nurse. A nurse walks in and takes his vitals and checks him over and he's he's pale and he's drawn and he's scared. You can see he's terrified. And I go in there and I talk with him about the weather lovely weather we're having, oh yes, anyway. Then I asked him about his course loads, you know and then I said well, I visited you, I can go. And I was thinking I was, I was sick and you visited me and he said wait, aren't you, aren't you going to pray? And I said I have to clarify something with you right now.

David Chotka: 50:29

Every single time I've ever said that Jesus did those healings, or if I talked about any kind of miraculous act of power, if I talked about the necessity of the atonement or the belief in the bodily resurrection. You went after me and you mocked me in front of our peers. You made me the laughing stock. Why, in the name of all that is holy, do you want me to pray for you? You went after me and you mocked me in front of our peers. You made me the laughingstock. Why, in the name of all that is holy, do you want me to pray for you? He said the man burst into tears, he's weeping and just absolutely you could see he's repentant. He said I am so sorry I did that to you, but I have phlebitis. I'm 27. I could die. I want to live. You're the only guy I know who believes that the Bible is completely true, from cover to cover. Won't you please pray that Jesus heal me? I mean Dorsey, what are you going to do? I mean I.

David Chotka: 51:16

But I was still incompetent. I had no clue what to do. But I remembered in the Bible Jesus put his hand on people. Now, I'd received no training. I knew nobody healed. I'd never met anybody who even prayed for healing. They always prayed for comfort, that kind of thing, or quick recovery or something. So I thought, okay, jesus prayed that way.

David Chotka: 51:35

So I said well, listen, can I put my hand over the spot. He said yeah. I said where is it? He said left side. So I went to his left side, just above his elbow, put my hand there, put my other hand on top of his head and I prayed some kind of prayer.

David Chotka: 51:48

Honestly, to this day I can't remember what I prayed, but I will tell you what happened. It was some honest thing about oh God, fix this guy, something like that. And I prayed it and suddenly the whole room filled with presence, just absolute, shining, glorious presence. It was like I was inhaling compassion and love. And so here's what happened inside me I could only see him and I became incredibly aware of the power of Jesus spirit, these two. I never felt anything like this before. This is the very.

David Chotka: 52:24

And so I was a bible thumper believer and I did not know that you cooperate with presence in this. I did this is my very first experience of this and I was just struggling to be able to know what to do. But as I did that, fire filled my being, and it was a combination of fire, peace, compassion, focus and a gift of faith to believe that God wanted this man well, and it all collapsed together into a single event where I felt this energy, this power, flowing inside of me and it was all across the room. He felt it and I did. And as I had my hand over his left arm, that fire flowed through my arm and went into his. And then he said what is that fiery presence? I said that's the Holy Spirit. He's joining you to the atoning blood of Jesus. You're being healed. And then I ran out of the room. I'd never felt anything like that and I didn't know if that was going to happen again or if he felt anything. I didn't know.

David Chotka: 53:30

And so the next day he wound up in the coffee lounge in the school and he's there. I said what are you doing here? He said well, and he pulled me aside and he shoved me into a corner and then he looked in all directions and then he said that prayer changed my life. I said thank you. And what he didn't know was that prayer changed my life too. But I raced out of there, I went and ran away from him, and the next time I was in a class where I defended the scripture. He stood up to crack the joke, but he mocked the people who did not believe in Jesus' power. And then I found out from peers that he actually began to speak from the perspective of one who believed the scripture was true.

David Chotka: 54:09

Anyway, months later I found out the story. So we're at a little public gathering, you know, we're having a little party, and his wife is there, and this girl, susie, is there, and they're good, they're kind, wonderful people. So walk up to him and I start to shoot the breeze and talk about you know, sweet nothings. You know because you're at a party, you know. And then two girls start to give him the elbow. And then they said you got to tell Chotka what happened. Tell Chotka what happened. He said I don't want to tell Chotka what happened. And eventually he did here's what happened.

David Chotka: 54:46

So after I left the charge nurse and he said to the nurse I can go home now. Jesus has healed me. My friend from the Bible school came and prayed for me. I can go home now. And she said we don't do things like that around here. We have to run tests. He said well, run them. She said, well, I was just coming to get you because you're due for them. And they wheeled him down the hall and they ran all these diagnostics on him and the day before the clot had been very large and the diagnostics showed that every trace of phlebitis was gone from his body. He was completely healed. So of course they're in awe and my friend calls his wife and the wife picks him up and she goes home and they're going to go to sleep that night and he's home now and of course he's thankful. It means this amazing thing has happened. So he kneels beside the bed with his wife and they prayed prayers of thanksgiving and then they went to sleep and he had a dream and in the dream the Lord's voice spoke to him and said my servant David defends the integrity of my scripture. No one stands with him when he speaks on my behalf. Defend him. And he did for the remainder of my time in that seminary. It was most amazing. That was an instant heal.

David Chotka: 55:55

Now, with Maxie, he had a grandson born with optic nerve hyphoplasty, which means the optic nerve is half the size, it's white, it's thin, it's skinny and the kid's probably going to be blind. He also had an astigmatism, his eyes were vibrating back and forth. And it's his grandson, it's his daughter's son, and his daughter, kim, is married to a medical doctor, and so they are scientifically savvy people. They're medically savvy people. They take the child to the eye doctor because they notice the nystigmus. The doc says yeah, there's nystigmus here and he's got optic nerve hyphoplasia. He'll probably be blind and it's a very, very serious thing. Anyway, they have to accommodate. He said well, you know, it could be that this will get a little bit better If the child sits close to the front. Maybe he'll be able to make out the pictures, et cetera. Maybe you have to go to a special school. I mean, this is devastating news for a mother to receive a better son, right.

David Chotka: 56:48

Anyway, as it turns out, maxie was the leader of the upper room and had a prayer ministry and he gets all kinds of people in the upper room prayer ministry to start to pray for Nathan, his grandson. Some of them know Nathan, right, and so he also was pastor of a church in those days and he had a prayer meeting in the church. He gets all the people in the prayer meeting to start praying for the grandson. You know this kind of thing and he's a well-loved pastor and of course they pray with greater, with earnest expectation, and they keep this up for a year and they don't see any results.

David Chotka: 57:17

Now, after this, kim's husband, who's a medical doctor, gets a medical scholarship to be able to go to Hartford, connecticut, and he's going to study there. And as they move he's in the place where he's studying and of course they have to get a new doctor. So they go to an eye doctor and the eye doctor examines the little boy and says, yeah, these eyes are nice and healthy, this is nice and pink and rosy. And she said wait a minute, here's the file. And she takes the file with the medical diagnosis from the previous doctor about the optic nerve hypoplasia and about the nystagmus and he says, well, that can't be, there's some mistake here.

David Chotka: 57:50

Now Kim's husband knew both doctors and the two doctors knew each other and they knew that they were medically savvy and this was not a misdiagnosis. And when the doctor they got another opinion, they got another opinion. And when the doctor they got another opinion, they got another opinion. And when the three opinions happened, the optic nerve hypoplasia was removed. The optic nerve was healthy, as the day is long, and the stigmas had declined by about 95.

David Chotka: 58:16

And the good news about this is that's an old story and at the time of the writing of the book nathan got married, and so Maxie remembered that Then when he told people oh, by the way, nathan's going to get married they said, oh yes, he was the one we prayed for 30 years ago that his eye might be healed. And so a bunch of people from that church remembered the prayer and it was a long term dynamic of seeking the healing. Over a year I saw an instant heal. Maxie saw a miraculous healing. One took a lot of time and many people. One was done in an instant. That's the difference between the two of them. Now, in both cases miracle happened and in both cases the method was different.

David Chotka: 58:56

And so you have Jesus dealing with people differently with every medical account. So when he sees the 10 lepers, he says to the 10 lepers, walk toward the priest and as you walk, just, just just walk toward the priest to show him that you're healed. Now they're all afflicted with leprosy. They start to walk and as they walk they get better and better and better and eventually one comes back who's a Samaritan? And Jesus sees the Samaritan and says where's the other nine, nine? So there was a process healing there, uh with with one man who was uh blind and deaf. He praised twice. The man saw men as trees walking and he prays a second time and then the man's completely healed. And with the healing of lazarus, he lets him die and he the. The sisters set emissaries asking him to come bring healing and he didn't. And they lament when he comes there their faith was wounded. And then he raises Lazarus from the grave.

David Chotka: 59:51

Every story has a different dynamic in it, every story. And so when you go to James, the book of James, which is Jesus' half-brother, it was the son of Mary and Joseph. Jesus was the son of God and Mary right. Anyway, james is writing and he talks about praying, like Elijah did, as the method for prayer, for healing.

David Chotka: 1:00:10

Now, if you look at the story in 1 Kings, elijah spent three years praying for the drought and then he had seven consecutive prayer times on the side of the mountain for the rain to come, after God tells him the rain's coming. And so you have a dynamic of Elijah hearing the voice to pray for drought. I don't know how long that took him, but he prays for three years. There's no repentance, no repentance, no repentance. Then he's supposed to confront Ahab. He does. The prophets of Baal are on the mountain. He calls down fire from the sky, but there's still no rain. He does. The prophets of Baal are on the mountain. He calls down fire from the sky, but there's still no rain. Then he goes off to pray because he hears the sound of a heavy roaring in his ear. Nobody else hears it. And then he goes and he prays seven consecutive times and each time he asked the servant to go and see what the result was.

David Chotka: 1:01:00

And the whole point here is it wasn't a one-off, it was an engagement in prayer where the intercessor knew what God wanted to accomplish and was required to pray it into existence as God initiated and he responded. Now, that's a very powerful dynamic and it means God initiates and we respond and we're to listen to the promptings of the Spirit as we pray and then cooperate with the movement of the Spirit as we pray and we become aware internally about how this works itself out. So I described that in the Healing Prayer Book, and so that book is designed to be a primer. It's designed to teach people. So what we do with every chapter? We have a miraculous story, we have a process story, we have a story of unanswered prayer, we have a story of a mixed thing, we have a story of a pathway to a remedy, we have a story of people dying when we pray, we put them all together and we name the fact that all of this is encompassed in this thing called prayer for healing, and then we teach churches and individuals how to pay attention to the divine presence and to cooperate with what God wants done through the prayer ministry of the church.

David Chotka: 1:02:10

Now I just did 15 videos of this and there's 15 7-10 minute videos each. It's going to be put out in about a month and a half. It's going to be put out in May by a group called JourneyWise, but this book is available wherever books are sold and we're going to make sure that there are links on the Amazon page and the Shop the Word page to the video series and the goal is that you can have a Sunday school class and you can listen to 10 minutes of video and then have a conversation around how to do this and then use the book as a framework. It's also an audio book for those who are driving back and forth to work and it's in trade paperback and it's in an e-book form too, and so but you can get it at Amazon, you can get it at Shop the Word, which is the Whitaker House publishing house. You can get it at Barnes and Noble. You can get it at Walmart if you want to, for heaven's sake. Books a Million, they all carry the book.

Dorsey Ross: 1:02:56

Okay.

David Chotka: 1:02:57

Okay.

Dorsey Ross: 1:02:58

One last question before we end. Like I said, you know, a little while ago, you know, I'd love to have you back and ask you the rest of the questions that I have. Sure, sounds good, but you know, for people that say, you know, dr David, I play, you know, I've seen some players answered, but I don't see other players answered. Yes, why is that? And I know some people, you, you know. Why is that what?

David Chotka: 1:03:28

can a book be? Yeah, I'm in the middle of some of that. Now Let me use the example of George Mueller, who most everybody in the evangelical world respects him. He's the guy who fed 10,031 orphans by faith 10,000. I had two kids. That's enough for me. Can you imagine feeding 10,000. I had two kids. That's enough for me. Can you imagine feeding 10,000 and building buildings?

David Chotka: 1:03:49

So he has a book that's called 60,000 Answers to Prayer, and Mueller describes what it was like to pray in the night, to receive an internal testimony from the Lord the prayer was answered and to watch the answer come. And there's another one called 100,000 answers to prayer, and these were the prayers that Mueller prayed that weren't answered while he was alive. But the people who had his Bible and his notes found the notes and saw that he had prayed about them and saw no answer in life. And after he died, 40,000 more were answered. He died, 40,000 more were answered. And so there are seasons where there's holy mystery and we see an instant answer. There are seasons where there is a process answer and there are seasons when we pray for something to happen and the person who's being called doesn't want to do it and they say no to God, and people have done that. There are people who are supposed to give to ministries and they don't, because they're selfish or they can't focus on what it is that God wants. There's some people who are supposed to be instruments through whom God works and they don't want to do it. And there are other times where we're not to know the answer, and I'm praying about one right now. I have a very, very precious relative in my heart. I'm asking God for a transformation. I'm seeing nothing, and so when I went to this prayer meeting last night, I prayed about that with my friend James. He has the assurance that the prayer is going to be answered. I don't but listen. That's irrelevant. The point is whether you feel it, whether you don't feel it. Every prayer that we pray becomes eternal. It passes through the fabric of time and space and then it rests before the Lord until God, in his sovereignty, recreates the conditions down here on planet earth to bring the answer to the prayer.

David Chotka: 1:05:36

Sometimes the prayers are instant, sometimes the prayers are generational. So if you look at the call of Moses, for example, it's very striking. You can see in Exodus that the children of Israel cried out for a deliverer. They were groaning under the oppression of the Egyptians and they cried out for deliverance. And then Moses gets born. Now that took 40 years for him to become the ruler and 40 more years for the ruler to be banged out of him, and so the prayer took three generations before it was answered. Then Moses came at 80 years of age and became the leader of the Exodus. Now they prayed three generations before they cried out. Some answers are generational.

David Chotka: 1:06:26

Now listen, there are seasons where you and I are idiots and we pray the wrong thing. There are other seasons where your answer is contingent on some people responding to the call, and sometimes they get it right and it happens quickly, and sometimes they don't, and you can't reshape that. You can't make someone God. The sovereignty principle is intertwined with the free will principle. When God calls, some say no, I wish it weren't true, but it is, and so the question you've asked would take a whole broadcast by itself. Well, I try to answer that in this book, this Power of Praying book, which is now being rewritten, but there's 300 pages here, so it's designed to be one small bite at a time over an eight-week window, where you just process a little bit and you share together. But listen, I would be delighted to come back and talk to you more about listening to the voice of the Lord or answering some of the healing prayer questions or talking about the Lord's Prayer.

David Chotka: 1:07:29

I'm also writing a new book. I'm writing a new book on how to deal with the powers of darkness. Okay, as we speak, I am in the process of revising and creating a second draft of that manuscript because I'm going to be teaching on it in May. I also respond to people's invitations to come and speak. Okay, how will they contact you? Yeah, my website's the easiest way. Spirit Equip. So spirit like Holy Spirit and equip like equipment. Put the two words together spiritequipcom. Actually, I sent you the links to, I think, yesterday. Okay, if you could publish those on your page or something that would be helpful and on your page or something that would be helpful, and once your thing is produced, we'll share it on our social media. But if you want to be in touch with me, there's a contact form there. You go to wwwspiritequipcom or you can go to hello at spiritequipcom and you can book me and I do three-day events and I teach about how to equip your church in prayer, how to do healing prayer and how to listen to the of Jesus.

David Chotka: 1:08:20

I teach those three things in three-day seminars, and the secret sauce to learning the very best secret sauce to learning is not just to have a conference. Here's what happens. I've been to lots of conferences. I get all excited, I get my binder, I read it twice and I put it on the shelf. But if you have a conference and your people attend and they get excited but they can't process all the information that they have received in the three-day window, you give it to them in a six to eight-week window and you give them a process to process it over the six to eight weeks. You do that, and so that's what I really believe in this. You do an event and then you immediately launch a process, either with a video series or with an in-person Zoom thing, and you make it possible for people to appropriate what it is that they heard in that seminar, and that's the sauce that I believe we need to mix into the stew here.

Dorsey Ross: 1:09:12

Sounds good. That's Dave. Thank you so much for coming on the show again. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Greatly appreciate having you.

David Chotka: 1:09:22

Thank you, it's been a joy and I look forward to our next booking and we'll talk again. Sounds good.

Dorsey Ross: 1:09:26

Guys and girls, thank you so much again for joining us on another episode of the Daughter of Us, so please like and share and leave a comment on the podcast platform that you listen on, and hope you enjoyed it and go check out Dr David's information. God bless, bye-bye.