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Dear Saddleback Family,

Use the Message Action Plan below to help put the things you learned this weekend into practice. If you missed last weekend's message, click here to watch it online.

How to Pray with Power
Zack Eswine
October 15-16, 2016

ACTION PLAN:  Before you start this week's Message Action Plan (MAP), take a look at last week's again and choose another spiritual exercise to practice this week. Find an accountability partner or tell your small group about your choice so that that can encourage you to keep up whichever habit you choose.

1. Pray your weaknesses not your strengths
   
   "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him."  James 1:5 (ESV)
   
   "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Matthew 6:11-13 (ESV)
   
   The people Jesus commends in his prayer stories are widows, children and tax collectors.

ACTION PLAN: Make a covenant with yourself to pray at least five minutes everyday this week. Set this time aside for God. 

2. Pray His promises not your doubts
   
   "But let him ask in faith, with no doubting. . ." James 1:6 (ESV)
3. 1. Doubt doesn't count you out
      
      "Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted." Matthew 28:16-17 (ESV)
      
      "Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, 'I believe; help my unbelief!'" Mark 9:24 (ESV)
   2. Doubt doesn't count you out but doubt can't get you out
      
      "But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind." James 1:6 (ESV)
      
      You must learn to doubt your doubts.

ACTION PLAN:  Write down three of your weaknesses, and then reflect on any doubts that may be keeping you from overcoming those weaknesses.  Try to journal your thoughts.   

3. Pray now don't wait
   
   "You do not have because you do not ask" James 4:2b (ESV)
   
   "And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." Luke 11:9 (ESV)
4. Pray humbly and ugly
   
   "Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." James 4:8b-10 (NIV)

ACTION PLAN: Try kneeling when you pray this week. Think about the posture of your heart as you kneel and pray.

4. Pray globally not selfishly
   
   "You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." James 4:3 (ESV)
   
   "Pray then like this: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.'" Matthew 6:9-13 (ESV)

ACTION PLAN:  Take time to write out a list of things to pray for on a large scale. Write down some things affecting the nation and the world and pray for these things this week.  Make global prayer part of your daily prayer.

5. Pray with dependent hope
   
   "And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don't know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will." Romans 8:26-27 (NLT)
   
   "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a manwith a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit." James 5:16b-18 (ESV)

ACTION PLAN:  If you'd like to dive deeper into the topic of prayer, register for Deeper Devotions on Saturday, November 5. This one-day prayer workshop will help you hear God speak in the Scriptures and respond to him in conversational prayer. Space is limited so go to Saddleback.com/deeperdevotions to register.