Prayer: God Sees Your Heart

Prayer: God Sees Your Heart takes us into Luke 18, where Jesus shares a powerful parable of two men who came to pray — and walked away with two very different outcomes. In this episode, we explore how prayer is not measured by volume, language, or length, but by honesty, humility, and the posture of the heart.

One man prayed with pride, performance, and comparison. The other prayed with surrender, repentance, and truth. Jesus makes it clear: God answers the prayer that comes from a yielded heart, not a polished one.

As we continue our journey through the New Testament, we learn that Jesus is not simply teaching us how to pray — He’s teaching us how to approach Him. Like a child, like a seeker, like someone who knows they need God more than anything else.

In this episode, you’ll discover:
 ✨ Why some prayers move heaven and others don’t
 ✨ How humility opens doors pride will always close
 ✨ Why God values authenticity over appearance
 ✨ What it truly means to come before God as a “babe”
 ✨ How to let God shape, teach, and reveal Himself to you

Whether you’re beginning, returning, or rebuilding your prayer life — this is your invitation to start again, with a heart God can see and use.

Prayer reaches every single situation. Let’s press in together.

#PressMovementPodcast #PrayerReachesEverySituation #GodSeesYourHeart #PrayerPodcast #ChristianPodcast #FaithPodcast #Luke18 #TeachUsToPray #PrayerLife #ChristianLiving #DailyPrayer #JesusTeaches #HeartPosture #HumblePrayers #BibleStudyDaily #NewTestamentStudy #PressToPray #SpiritualGrowthJourney #ChristianEncouragement #ModernDiscipleship

Follow us on Facebook or Instagram or enjoy our blogs and even more episodes at www.presstopray.com!

Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Hey everybody, welcome to the Press Movement Podcast. Thank you for joining us today.

I am excited because we are literally recording after our youth revival and the Lord has just been moving. So if you hear it in my voice or Ziya's as I'm introducing her, then just know we have been with Jesus and it has been amazing. But I'm super excited to have Ziya Owens back in the studio slash office with me today as we are continuing through the book of Luke.

And so I'm going to hand it over to Ziya. Hi, nice to do this again. So talking about Luke 18 verses 11 and 14, this is actually one of my favorite verses to talk about, especially when it comes to prayer, just because we will get to see when it comes to the position that we should be taking when it comes to being in prayer and also shows the humility that we should be showing when it comes to God.

So this is very, I don't know why I love it so much, but I just do. And so I'm actually very excited to talk about this one, but starting just to talk about it, it's between pretty much two people between a Pharisee and a publican. So Pharisee, he's considered the most religious and while the publican, he's one of the most hated.

So just to see the difference between them, it's really cool because when it comes to this, they're coming to prayer, they're coming before God. But as it says in verse 11, as we start reading, it says the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I'm not as other men are extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week.

I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes into heaven, but smoke upon his breast saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone that exalted himself shall be abased.

And he that humbled himself shall be exalted. So this is one of my favorite ones, just because we ever talked about this in press club that I used to run in the high school, but we talked about this when it came to position. We talked about how, when it comes to prayer, it's not necessarily about your physical position, but it's about your internal one.

It's about how you are approaching God that you're not lifting yourself up. But when it comes to looking at the Pharisee, he did come with the wrong approach. And we wouldn't think about that when, especially when it comes to someone who is considered the most religious.

And even with today, those that are considered, you know, holy, most holy. And I don't know, just someone that you would look up to based on appearance says that he prayed thus with himself. And so that really stuck out to me just because the one that was considered the most religious, that was the one that wasn't, their prayer wasn't accepted, but the one that was most hated amongst people, his prayer was accepted.

And so that makes me think about the church. There are people who may focus so much on looking good, sounding good, and they may actually do the right thing, but the intention behind it, it's wrong. And this also made me think about the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2, 1 to 5. It talks about the work that they did and everything they did.

It was right. However, they had left their first love. And so in them leaving their first love, it's that everything they were doing was right, but the intention of why they were doing it had changed.

And so people, they can get caught up in pride behind the work that is God assigned or God related, and God would be the missing factor in it all. So with the Pharisee's prayer, he was missing the God factor, not only lifting himself up to seem righteous, but bringing the other person down as well, especially because when it but it's that we're working together for us to all come to the same goal of everyone making it to heaven. It's important that we are coming before God, remembering that He's higher, remembering that it's not because of us, but it's because of God that we even have the opportunity to come before Him.

But that really did stick out to me, especially because for me, I feel like this was something that I used to struggle with, and the Lord, He had to deal with me on it because I had to remember that my thinking of what righteousness is, is not His righteousness. I would focus so much on looking the part and doing it right, but because I was so focused on doing it the right way and looking as others were, it was missing that God factor in it, and it was missing especially the love factor. And so I just think that's very important in wanting to be right with God, that we are also remembering that it was God that made us righteous in the first place.

But that's all I got. I think that's great because that's what you're describing is the definition of self-righteousness. It's a righteousness that we think or a rightness that we think we can accomplish by ourselves.

And so we create a system of checks and say, I've done this, I've done that, I've done this, to say how great we are, when if we were really great, we wouldn't need a God. And in trying to prove how right we are, that's what we end up saying. I've done this, I've done that, and it becomes all about you versus God has done this for me.

And I think it's amazing how God looks for the ones and responds to the ones He can work in. And so sometimes what people see as the biggest projects are actually just God's opportunity to be great. And as you stated in the scripture, you see that even the more so you see this Pharisee who from the outside is checking all the boxes, but the outside does not matter as much as the inside.

Now that also works. And I'm going to throw this out here to you against a lot of people, because there's also an argument that God knows my heart out there. And I think they use it in terms of safety, like He knows my heart.

That's not actually a good thing. He knows literally the whole motive behind you and why you're doing what you're doing, even why you can justify your mistakes, why you think you can be the way you are, why you think you can do that. And a lot of times they're using it to say, I did wrong, but He knows I have a good heart.

No, dear, that doesn't work like that. But He does know your heart, and He wants to save your heart. And He died to make sure we could actually really be saved.

And looking at this scripture then, I can understand because of all He would go through, because at this point He and I died, because of all He would go through, why He didn't want something fake. How do you encourage somebody who feels like they're coming to God, and they want to be real with Him, they want to be transparent with Him? Maybe they've been going to church all their lives, or maybe they've been trying to read the Bible or trying to get to know God, but they just don't really know how to let down that facade. How do you encourage them to actually come to God and just be real? I was recently talking to somebody about what I do.

I do a lot of journaling, but typically when I see something, I would write it down. And I'm very grateful because I have been given self-awareness, just things that like pop up in my heart or in my mind, like I'm aware of it. And when it happens, I journal it, and it forces me to see some of the things that I may not like.

And with me journaling, I don't just leave it on the page, but what I do is I turn it into a prayer, and I ask God to please help in this situation. If I see that there's anger, if there's hurt, if there's unforgiveness, oh no, I'm wanting to go after God because I don't want to stay in that position because I learn too much, especially being in church. If it's a person that's been in church their whole entire lives, they would know through the Word that it can't stay that way.

And so because I know and believe the Word, it makes me self-reflect more into changing what it is that's wrong. And so with that journaling, it allows me to see, okay, I noticed that this needs to change. Even if it's not a sin, like there's just something that needs to change.

If it's like, oh, okay, I'm a little insecure around this person, or, oh, I'm a little shy doing this, and it's not really my comfort zone. I don't want to do this, but God has wanted me to do it, and I'm walking away more being hesitant. I try to write it down or try to pinpoint that in myself just so I can actually change in doing that.

So I do recommend journaling, and there's people that don't like journaling. And so what I also do, I talk to myself a lot. So I may look crazy, or like even to myself, I feel like I sound crazy talking to myself, but it's really helping my inner man just because if I think wrong, automatically I'm going to approach it.

I'm going to say something against it, either with the Word or just because of from what I learned, even in the church of what God has said and what I should do in response. That way, I'm not letting it just stay there and just letting it rest. So especially approaching it head on is something that I recommend and not letting it just stay there resting.

So that's what I would recommend. I love that. And the way the Lord did it for me, because I'm not a huge journaler.

Is that a word? Maybe not. I don't know. I don't journal a whole lot.

I have before, but I'm not consistent about it. So my way of approaching what you were saying was just to ask God to like, show me me. That was literally one of the most depressing prayers of my life when he'd be in Israel.

I was like, please tell me you see better than this. But I see that in Psalms 139 as well when the Psalmist prayed, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts.

And he wanted God to investigate him, not just let me think I'm okay. Don't let me just keep coming to church. Don't let me just keep serving.

I want to be okay in the inside. And so one way for doing that might be journaling. Maybe somebody else just ask God and he shows them.

But either way, I do believe you have to be willing to see yourself. Before we go today, do you have any encouraging words or final words you want to leave with them who are listening? Just stay with God. I know it's like really simple, but I just say stay with God only because I learned so much even through so many different seasons that God is the most consistent.

And with him revealing yourself and him revealing even the negative things, I love just how even with the youth revival, my topic was God is love. Because even in that topic, I was talking about, though God, he may give you consequences, punishments. I love the word nevertheless, because whenever I read it, I just see how God turns it for good.

And so even though see these negative things and he gives you, shows you what these negative things are when you ask him. And even when you don't ask him, sometimes he will show you even when you don't ask him. But even with that, God, he shows it to you because he wants you to be better.

And he doesn't do it to hurt you, but it's always to help you. And so I just say, hold on to God, listen to what he's trying to show you because it's really going to help you in the end. And as you listen and as you hold on, keep praying because prayer reaches every single situation.

Be blessed. Join the movement, join the community, like, share and subscribe to this podcast. Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook.

Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears? I know some of us have prayed and we're wondering how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice. It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have. You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you.

It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer. It's designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith. Visit PressToPray.com.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.