Priscilla Shirer: Invite God into Your Life and Watch Him Change It

Priscilla Shirer speaks at the Fervent conference in New York on TBN’s Praise. Listen as Priscilla shares WHY your prayer life matters, and the importance of praying for your miracles. Prayer leads to revival!

“God’s plan for you is to move you into a position of impact by infusing you with truth and employing you in prayer. You don’t need to be a genius to do it. You don’t need to learn ten-dollar words and be able to spout them with theological ease. You just need to bring your honest, transparent, available—and, let’s just say it—your fed-up, over-it, stepped-on-your-last-nerve self, and be ready to become fervently relentless. All in His name.”
― Priscilla Shirer, Fervent: A Woman’s Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer

And the Holy Spirit said to me that’s just like you and me, Priscilla because I’m behind the scenes orchestrating and crafting the chapters of your story.
All the while you think I’m doing nothing, you point an accusatory finger at me wondering where I am and why I’m not hearing your request and why I’m not moving in the way that you would like me to move.
You’re assuming that I’m sitting back passively ignoring you where all the while I am busy making a story out of your life, the likes of what you can’t imagine.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul.
I will praise the Lord while I live, I will sing praises to my God.
While I have my being some trust in princes and some trust in mortal men in whom there is no salvation but not us.
Not tonight. We trust in the name of the Lord, our God.
How blessed is the one in whom the God of Jacob is their helper whose hope is in the Lord, his God, the one who made heaven and earth, the one who made the sea and all that is in them.
He’s the one who gives food to the hungry. He’s the lord that sets prisoners free.
He is the lord that opens the eyes of the blind. He raises up those who are down.
He is the Lord who loves the righteous. He’s the Lord that protects anybody that feels like a stranger.
He is the one that supports those that might be fatherless and the widow.
He thwarts the way of the wicked. The Lord will reign forever. He is our God.
Ohh oh church to all generations.
We ought to praise the Lord for it is good to sing, praises to our God.
It is pleasant to praise the Lord. He builds up his people. He gathers the outcast of Israel.
He heals the broken hearted. He binds up their wounds. He counts the numbers of the stars.
He gives all of them names.
That’s basically his way of saying if I can control the entire universe, I’ve got your life covered.
That’s what he said. Great. Is the Lord abundant.
Is his strength sing to the Lord with thanksgiving sing praises to our God. Praise the Lord Jerusalem.
Praise him in the house tonight for he has strengthen your bars and your gates.
He has blessed your sons and your daughters. He brings peace to your borders.
He satisfies you with real good things. He makes sure his word runs very swiftly.
He scatters the frost like ashes who can stand before him because our God is good So praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him from the heights. Praise Him, all you angels, praise them all.
You hosts, praise Him, sun and moon, praise Him highest heavens, praise Him waters that are above the heaven.
Let even those people praise the name of our great God. Praise the Lord.
Sing to the Lord a new song. Praise Him in the congregation. Let Israel be glad in her maker.
Let the Godly ones exult in glory tonight. Praise the Lord.
Praise God in this sanctuary on Broadway in Times Square. Not crazy.
Praise him in the mighty expanse.
Praise him for his excellent greatness. Praise him with the trumpet sound. Praise him with the harp and the liar.
Praise him with the timber and with the dancing. Praise him with the stink stringed instruments in the pipe.
Praise him with the loud symbols. Praise him with the resounding symbols.
Let everything, the light, y’all are my people.
Y’all came to have church tonight is what you did take your seats if you can.
I want to tell you what a privilege that it is as Anthony has already said, for us to be here with you tonight to have an opportunity to lift up the name of Jesus because he’s worthy to be praised y’all.
Even with what you wrote down, what you need prayer for what’s hurting your heart, what’s ailing you, what needs to be answered?
Even with the miracle you require what you need to know is that your God is still good.
He’s still sitting on the throne.
And the truth is even if he never did one more thing, I mean, seriously, he never did another thing on our behalf.
If he doesn’t answer this request exactly the way that you’re hoping he’ll answer this request.
The truth is he has already done enough.
But the great thing about our God is that He invites us to make our requests known.
He invites us to give to Him the desires of our hearts and then he invites us to trust Him with the answer.
So I’m so excited to pray with you tonight because we get the privilege tonight.
Not only to very specifically and boldly approach the throne of grace with every single request that has been written down.
And even those that are still tucked away in the quietness of your heart, even those of you that I know are on the other side of the screen, your request.
We want to cover those tonight.
But the great thing about our God is that not only can we present our requests, trusting Him, but at the end of every prayer, we can say, Lord, do this, do what I’ve asked or do something better Because seriously the truth is he is the God of Ephesians 3 20 and 21.
He is the one that does immeasurably more than you can ask and listen.
If you can’t ask it because you can’t, your brain can’t even come up with the right words to vocalize what it is you’re trying to ask for.
He says that’s all right. Just think it and I can do past that.
So we can boldly bring all of our request to the throne of God tonight.
Trusting that He is a great big God who still does great big things. I believe that God works miracles.
Anybody I’m, I’m talking about flat, uh flat out jaw dropping straight up. Can’t explain it.
Miracle where you stand back and go. Oh no, you know, oh, that kind of stuff.
We’re gonna pray about that tonight. I love that.
We have a God that allows us to do that in even this setting that any place is a sanctuary where God can meet us.
I love this unique opportunity that we have to be in this place where many a celebrity, many a talented person, many a gifted person has stood on this platform.
Many productions have taken place and in a place where people have been celebrated for their gifts and their talents on this kind of a platform.
I love that in this place today. There is only one celebrity and it’s nobody on the stage.
I love that. I love that. The celebrity is Jesus Christ, man.
I can’t tell you how that takes the weight off us.
There’s just no pressure for us up here because we ain’t trying to impress you. How about that?
I will tell you more about them later.
But my three sons, you might see them sort of around and about that.
We kind of all dive in together in ministry.
As Anthony said, he’s my younger brother and just in case you wondered everything he knows about music he learned from me anyway.
And, um, my husband is here as well.
We have three sons. Um, they’re 14, 12 and eight.
Jackson is our oldest and then Jerry Junior and then Jude, Jude is our surprise baby, Jude.
That’s why I named him Jude because that’s as close as I could get to revelation because it is finished.
That’s it. That’s the end of the line.
Jackson, Jerry Junior and Jude and Jude and I were sitting together on a airplane and he was seated over the wing, our seats were directly over the wing of the airplane.
And so he was sort of just looking out at the wing of the plane and there we were suspended in air flying to our destination.
And I could tell he was mesmerized by this whole concept that this tube of steel is in the air holding us up and that this, this wing is connected to the plane.
He was sort of just dissecting this entire, this entire situation.
And as he looked over the wing, he looked back at me and said, mom, how do they get that wing on this plane?
And I said, buddy, I gotta be honest with you. I have no idea.
I have no idea how they get that, that wing on the plane.
I don’t know how it works, but I have an idea for you, Jude.
You have an uncle, their dad’s brother, Uncle Vaugh. He works in the airline industry.
He actually works in the business where they, they make all the veins and the wiring that connects the different parts of the aircraft.
So I saw this as a teachable moment.
I said, you should talk to your Uncle Vaugh when we get home.
It’d be a great opportunity for you to learn something.
And then I said to him, you know what you can be whatever you wanna be when you grow up to do, you know that you can do whatever you wanna do.
Like if you wanna make airplanes like your Uncle Vaugh, when you grow up, you can so totally do that if you’d like to.
And as I said that to him, I said, buddy, you can be anything you wanna be in your life, anything you wanna do, you can do it.
He looked back at me and he said, mom, I don’t wanna do what Uncle Vaugh does when I grow up.
I wanna do what you do when I grow up.
You know, it’s one of those moments where you’re just thinking, baby, what do you want?
Whatever you want? I’m gonna give it to you.
Oh but wait for it because I looked back at him and said, buddy, what does mama do now?
I had expectations about what his answer was going to be. At least some framework about how he might respond.
Lord, I’d love to or mom. I’d love to share the Lord with people. Mom, I’d like to write mom.
I would like to do a, a myriad of different things.
Maybe that he could have said, but he looked back and he said, he said, mom, I want to do nothing.
Just like you, you do nothing all day, every day, you do nothing.
I said, buddy, you see how like the clothes you’re wearing right now are clean.
How do you think that they actually get clean? He said, well, that’s just like washing. That’s no big deal.
I said, but you eat every day, you eat actual food. How do you think it gets cooked?
And he said that’s what moms do. That’s no big deal.
And I said, but, you know, every now and then there’s a book or there might be a bible study.
There’s even, there was a little film, a little movie.
You remember it spent, we spent like three months making that, that what do you think I’m doing?
He’s like, you just sitting behind the computer all day just doing this. You’re doing nothing.
I laughed.
And then I thought in that moment right after the conversation, how much that is like my relationship with the Lord.
In fact, there was confirmation of that because the very next day and I only share this with you to make this point.
But the very next day after that conversation with Jude, my publisher sent me an email, they sent an email to tell me about something that they know.
I never know because I’m keeping up with three sons.
They said, Priscilla, we just want to let you know that fervent, a little book that I had written.
We want you to know that it’s on the New York Times best seller list.
It actually won a few awards.
They said that to me in the email and all I could do when I looked at it was chuckle because it was just the day before that my son said to me that when I was doing to him to what looked like and amounted to nothing.
That is exactly when I was crafting something that hopefully would be a blessing to people’s lives.
And the Holy Spirit said to me, that’s just like you and me, Priscilla because I’m behind the scenes, orchestrating and crafting the chapters of your story all the while you think I’m doing nothing.
You point an accusatory finger at me wondering where I am and why I’m not hearing your request and why I’m not moving in the way that you would like me to move.
You’re assuming that I’m sitting back passively ignoring you where all the while I am busy making a story out of your life, the likes of which you can’t imagine.
I came to encourage somebody today that there’s a chapter that is being written right now with your story I’m talking about right now in that difficulty right now in that valley year of your marriage right now, in that trouble in your finances, that difficulty on your job, that hardship with your coworker.
I’m talking about that one coworker.
The one that if she says one more thing to you, you go knock her out. That one.
There is a chapter. He is crafting a manuscript. He’s writing that one day.
When we see him face to face, we’re going to see the story that he was telling.
And every single crown we get, we’re going to turn around and place it right back at his feet and say thank you Lord for this privilege that we had to live a life, a life in relationship with you.
And so even with these hardships and even with these hurts, we pray and we pray in gratitude.
We pray in gratefulness in advance.
Thanking him for the answer that he will give us that is simultaneous to what we’ve asked for or the answer that is so far beyond our capacity to even comprehend and pray that we trust him for something that, that has so much generational ripple effect.
The likes of which we may never see in our grandchildren. And our great grandchildren and our great great grandchildren.
I’m so glad for the prayers of a grandmother and a great grandmother and grandfather in my life who prayed himself that y’all, they didn’t get to see the fruit of their prayer, but how glad I am that they trusted him to do what they were asking or something better.
So, in that mindset, I invite you to pray with me tonight.
As Anthony said, we couldn’t have an event called fervent and not.
And nobody actually fervently pray about nothing. In fact, it would be an injustice.
Actually, we’d be ripping you off if we came in here and all you did was watch stuff happen up here.
The point of tonight is for you to meet with God.
And the truth is if your life, if your life has been anything like mine, you, you’ve been busy, there’s been stuff pulling you left and right, there’s been traffic that you’ve been fighting.
There have been soccer games that you’ve been going to, there have been errands that you’ve been running and I know you might, you might think you might, some of you might think that I’ve just been, you know, sitting up on a mountainside, fasting and praying and thinking about you.
But the reality is my life is just like yours.
I’ve been trying to figure out a new way to cook chicken for dinner just like you.
My clothes right now, laundry at my house, it is washed, it is dried, but it is dumped out on the dining room table waiting for somebody to come and fold it.
Our lives are full of stuff and every now and then, we just need to be offered a moment to meet with God.
He is omnipresent.
That means He is everywhere all at the same time.
And I thank God for his omnipresence, meaning that wherever you are seated in this room, whether you’re in the furthest reaches of this theater tonight, or you’re right here on the front row, you can have a meeting with God, whether you’ve ever prayed before or not, whether this idea of actually talking to God um is new to you.
Whether or not you’re not sure whether you have to say specific word, there’s no magic to prayer.
It’s just taking a minute to just offer to Him the needs.
You’ve written down the ones that are still hidden in your heart to just thank Him for what he’s already done that maybe you’ve neglected because of the rise of needs that you’ve had in your life.
This is our invitation to you to join us in a moment of prayer.
And together, we’re going to collectively cover some categories of prayer tonight that we find a lot of the requests that are written down.
And by the way, if you did not write one down, but you kind of want to get in on this at any point just bring a request down into any of the boxes.
I know there, there are some there on every level.
You just bring them down and put them here at any point because we’re going to cover them all collectively.
And then I’m going to tell those of you who are here in the theater, how we’re going to cover every single one of these requests individually before the night is over.
But even you at home, listen, pray with us. We’re going to pray and include your requests in our prayer.
Tonight, we’re gonna cover some categories of prayer. You’re gonna help me to do that.
Um The very first category of prayer that I want to cover because we find many of these requests into these larger categories.
The very first one that I’d like to pray for is in regards to your marriage.
We find that many of these requests have to do in and around the topic of marriage.
And the reason why I bring that up first is because you do know that the enemy even more than, than many things the enemy is, is really after your marriage, you’re married.
He’s trying any any which in a way he can to destroy, dissolve, dis unify your marriage.
He doesn’t want the two of you to be happy.
He doesn’t want the two of you to be content in your relationship.
He doesn’t want you walking in health and fullness.
So we want to pray for your marriage tonight because I bet you there are some requests that are written down here that have to do with that particular relationship.
And I believe that if there are anybody in this room or on the other side of the screen and you guys are on the brink of divorce, I mean, you’re teetering right on the very edge and you know that apart from a straight up miracle, the two of you are not gonna make it.
You’re in the right place tonight.
I can tell you that because we know a God that can snatch you back from the brink that you might be teetering on tonight.
So we’re going to pray about that.
So if you are in this room, here’s how you all are going to help me in this room.
If you’re in this room tonight and you actually have a testimony because you can remember a time where you thought you and your spouse were not going to make it and you’re here tonight and you’re not just still married, but you’re happily married and you know, it is a straight up miracle that you’re actually happily married.
You know that God did something that revolutionized your marriage.
If that’s the case for you, would you please stand up and just be a living visible illustration of the power of God in this relationship in our lives and stay standing when you stand, please stay on your feet.
Ok. Stay on your feet. And the reason why I want you to stand, I hope that you all can see each other even up in the top there of the theater.
Because the reason why I want you to stand is because I want you to recognize that the message that many people came for tonight.
We hadn’t even opened up the Bible yet to teach from God’s Word.
And the message that somebody need tonight is coming through your life. This is why the Lord brought them.
He wanted to say to them through your testimony that what he has done for others, he can also do for them.
So please stay on your feet for just a second. You’re encouraging somebody.
Oh y’all, please don’t let this moment pass you by.
Look all over this room, from the back to the front. The Lord wants to encourage somebody tonight.
He’s got your back, he’s got your back. He has not forgotten you.
If you need healing, whether it is something small, I say that loosely because listen, even if you just have a headache, that pain is not small to you.
Pain in the small of your back, a knee, a show.
If it’s just something, a tumor that has just been diagnosed, whatever it is, we’re going to pray for you tonight.
If it’s a broken heart or a broken mind, whatever, if you need healing for yourself or a loved one, would you please stretch out your hand?
We cannot wait to be the body of Christ and pray for you y’all.
There’s so many hands those of you that are standing, would y’all be the first?
It’s almost like you’re paying it forward, just reach out to someone who’s near, you’re just extending to them.
What it is that God has done for you and then those of you that are seated even beside other people that have their hands raised.
Come on, y’all, would you just make sure that everybody is touched by another again, even if the two of you both have your hands raised, just grab hands or put your hand on the knee or the shoulder nearby.
If you feel like you’ve been missed, don’t worry, I got you. I got you.
Come on y’all for 60 seconds.
Let there be a chorus, a symphony of prayer that we bring out to our God, Lord Jesus we have there.
That’s good.
Here is p Yeah, yeah, there is you Jesus.
Break every shame, break every shame. We get rich Father.
I thank you that we can boldly approach your Thrones and that we can ask you for something as bold as healing.
Lord, I ask you right now in Jesus’ name for every cell in our bodies that is not under the authority of Jesus Christ.
I pray right now in Jesus’ name that you would realize every misplaced cell in Jesus’ name.
I pray for organs to begin to function at 100% capacity again.
In this name, Lord I pray for tumors to shrink in jesus’ name.
Lord, I pray for x rays to be completely different in jesus’ name for tests.
Lord to be negative that were positive in jesus’ name, father, I pray that you would heal broken bodies.
Take away the pain. Lord diminish the difficulty father and make it be so radical that everybody has to point to you to give you the glory and the pray.
I pray for broken hearts to be mended tonight.
Father wipe tears for their eyes, their eyes, restore them Lord from this grief or this betrayal or this loss.
Lord walk with them through the flames, restore fissured fractured minds, Lord and do it for your own glory.
We give you our healing, we entrust it to you in Jesus name.
Everybody agreed with me tonight when they said amen.
Amen.
Amen just in case you were wondering, prayer is not like the stuff we do before we get to the good stuff.
Prayer is the good stuff.
Listen, you might not actually be aware of it, but this is actually what you came for you.
You might not even know. This is what you came for. I’m telling you. It’s what you came for.
This is the good stuff right here.
Just one more little category that I think we just must pray for together.
Let’s pray for the church, let’s pray for the church.
Let’s pray for I mean, y’all this opportunity to pray together in this place where we’re together across lines that would normally divide us, whether they’re denominational lines or racial lines or cultural lines or geographical lines just because we don’t live in the same place.
So we don’t all go to the same church stylistically with worship.
Sometimes you go to that church because you like that style.
We go to this church because we like that style And it divides us, not, not bad, necessarily not negatively, but it divides us.
And here we are in this place where you know, the only time in scripture where God commanded a blessing is in the Psalms where he said in that place where brethren or sister and dwell together in unity.
He says in that place, I will command that there will be a blessing.
So here we are in a place where we’ve gathered across lines that might normally divide us.
We’re united in this place no matter how different we may be.
And in this place y’all tonight, we’re underneath an open heaven. The commanded blessing of God is upon us.
So why wouldn’t we milk it for all it’s worth and ask God to drench the church of Jesus Christ.
And listen, when I say church, I’m not just talking about your little sea church.
I’m grateful for your local church. We’re going to pray for your pastor. We’re going to pray for his wife.
We’re going to pray for the leadership team.
We’re going to ask that the Lord put a wall of fire around them so that they would not be caught up in the snares of the enemy to entice them toward immorality or financial under dealings that will undermine the name of our great Lord.
We’re going to ask God to give them integrity and let them walk in character and wholeness and help.
We’re going to ask for a fresh outpouring of God’s spirit upon your local church.
We’re going to ask God to let your church be so set a fire with His glory that the community around you can’t help but come into that church to see what’s happening in those four walls.
But we can’t stop there.
We gotta pray for the capital c global body of Christ that all of God’s people will be set a fire.
Y’all that revival would come in this generation because he said, if my people who are called by my name, listen, he’s like, you don’t even have to have to evangelize necessarily for this promise to take place.
You don’t need a whole bunch of new folk.
He said, if the folk that are already claiming, they know me, if they would just pray, if they would for real, seek my face, if they’d stop messing around and just go ahead and be for real about calling out to me.
He says, I will hear from heaven and I’ll sweep revival through this whole land.
So I figure tonight this is the greatest opportunity as any right in the middle, the heart of the city to go ahead and just ask God, would you picture in your mind, your your local church, would you picture your pastor?
Would you picture the leadership team there? Would you picture that family in particular?
So you ask the Lord to put a wall of fire around him.
Come on just for 60 seconds.
Pray for an outpouring of God’s spirit on your church, Lord Jesus, I pray for Oakland power.
So Lord, we lift up the body of Christ to you in every corner of the globe.
And I ask you right now for every local church that is represented in this room.
I pray, father no matter the tribe, no matter the tongue.
Lord, no matter the denomination, no matter the worship style.
I pray that in every case, Lord, we would not be pleased to impress people but that we would impress the audience of one.
Lord. I pray that you would be glorified that you would be lifted up.
Lord, I pray for every pastor, his wife, father, the leadership team at that church.
Lord, I pray right now in jesus’ name that you would guard them with a hedge of protection, wall them up father, so that they will not be ensnared by the attacks of the enemy.
Lord, I pray that where he is coming in like a flood, you would push him back, Lord, so that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church of Jesus Christ.
We ask you for integrity, Lord to mark the leadership of your church.
Lord, we pray that you will be so highly esteemed and highly lifted up that we will be like a city that is set on a hill that will pronounce the the name of Jesus Christ.
And then father, I pray that all across the globe, we will come together in unity, forgive us father, where we have been divided, where we have judged and we have criticized father so that the enemy has been so pleased to see God’s people divided from this day forward.
Lord help us to love one another. Father and in doing so bring glory to your name.
We honor you tonight. Lord, it is in jesus’ name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Y’all remember y’all remember that one part of the lion king.
I’ve been thinking about this today because the lion king’s next door.
Y’all remember that one part of the lion king where Simba’s thinking he’s all big and bad now because he’s got a little bit bigger and the hyenas are there and they’re like, are you for real little boy?
And he’s a little teeny and he comes up to him and he’s like, wow, and they’re like, and he’s like, and they’re like, seriously, that’s not gonna do anything.
He tries it again and they’re just laughing hysterically all over the place because they’re like this little teeny cub of a lion can’t do anything to us.
And Simba’s so upset, he can’t believe that he’s not threatening them or intimidating them at all.
He’s going to give it one more try.
And so he opens up his mouth to roar and it is the loudest, most profound roar.
Even Simba is shocked that he created such a loud noise and the hyenas go scampering away because there’s a valiance has come to this young cub that even he was not aware that he had, he did not know that his father Mufasa was coming up in the rear.
He was standing behind Simba so that he could help to scare away the enemy.
And here’s what I’m saying, when you pray no longer, is it just you trying to attack the enemy with your little wimpy sad self?
But now you’ve got the power of Almighty God who is fighting on your behalf.
And I’m just saying if God before you, who can be a case.