From Quick Prayers To Deep Presence: How Praise, Priority, And Persistence Transform A Life

Prayer isn’t meant to be a last-minute checklist before bed; it’s a living relationship that reshapes what we want and how we walk through the day. We open with the three kinds of prayer—personal petitions, intercession, and the prayer of praise—and lean into why praise isn’t optional. When we magnify Jesus, we shift from talking about God to meeting Him, and that’s where the Holy Spirit breathes life into weary hearts and scattered thoughts.

We get honest about distractions, the tug-of-war between faith and the world, and how morning prayer can reset the entire day. The heart of the conversation lands on desire: loving God first is the engine of a focused, effective prayer life. Through the parable of the pearl of great price, we explore what it means to place Jesus above competing loves so prayer stops skimming the surface and starts cutting deep. Stories from everyday life—a quiet riverbank, a child healed after simple obedience—remind us to go to God first and often.

You’ll hear practical wisdom on growing progressively: Scripture in your bones, church life in your rhythm, fasting that sharpens focus, and praise that stays in the valley, not just on the mountaintop. We contrast zeal without depth with a sharpened blade—prayer and the Word honing the soul to do real work. Above all, we keep coming back to relationship: being known by God, hearing His voice, and keeping nothing between your soul and your Savior. Ready to trade quick prayers for a life anchored in presence? Follow the show, share this episode with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review with one way you’ll “sharpen the axe” this week.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Purpose
• 0:55 Three Kinds Of Prayer
• 2:05 Praise And God’s Presence
• 3:35 Making Time And Fighting Distractions
• 5:50 Pray Always, Not Just At Bedtime
• 8:20 Levels Of Prayer And Travail
• 10:03 Loving God First Fuels Prayer
• 12:05 Pearl Of Great Price And Priorities
• 14:05 Misplaced Desires And Jealous God
• 16:00 The Widow’s Mites And The Want To
• 18:10 Go To God First, Not Last
• 19:45 Growth Is Progressive, Not Instant
• 21:05 Relationship Over Contract
• 22:30 Loving Him Back And Hearing His Voice
• 24:05 Sharpen The Spiritual Blade
• 25:15 Intimacy With God, Not Just Works
• 26:50 Nothing Between My Soul And Savior
• 28:10 Carrying The Cross Without Self-Pity
• 29:40 Praise In The Valley
• 30:30 Watch And Pray One Hour
• 30:45 Support Info And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:25

Hey, you're listening to Truth Talk with Greg Abraham and Hubert Saylor. Truth Talk will be airing every third week of the month. Go visit our website for all the latest content and information at HOR421 Show.buzzprout.com. Now I give you your hosts, Hubert Saylor and Greg Abraham.

SPEAKER_03: 0:43

Welcome to Truth Talk. We're glad to be a blessing to anybody listening and to magnify the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. He's soon coming back. Revival is all over this land and it's going to intensify. Now let's talk about prayer. We need to be in prayer much. The first kind of prayer is we pray for ourselves. The second kind of prayer we pray for others, our intercessory prayer. But the third and probably most important is the prayer of praise, where we recognize our Lord and Savior. We lift him up, we magnify him, we give him thanks and glory, and thank him for each and every blessing he's poured out. And as we praise him, as always, when God's people praise him, he inhabits the praise of his people. The Holy Ghost comes forth and he rewards us for our diligence and our praise. And we give him glory and glory and honor in his holy name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54

Amen. Yes, amen. I think when I think about praise, I think about he inhabits the praise of his people. Amen. And uh anybody that's ever felt the manifest presence of the Lord upon them. Our last show, we just talked about how that we're supposed to be connected to the Lord. And uh that's what we were created. He created us after all, and he made us uh to be connected to him. Uh in essence, you know, he's supposed to be part of us. And of course, we know there's many people that have removed themselves from the Lord that are not connected to him in any way, but the person that does get connected to him, oh my goodness, and they feel that manifest presence of him uh on your in your body, you know. Uh it's just an amazing feeling, a man to feel uh his manifest presence on you, the one who created you, the one that uh will love you more than anybody has ever loved you, and one that can do for you more than anybody can do for you, that knows what lies out ahead of you, you know. Uh it's just a wonderful feeling that comes from when you praise him in spirit and in truth.

SPEAKER_03: 3:27

Amen. Amen. And thinking about prayer, amen. Uh many a time in my life as a Christian, I would have a busy day, a very hectic time, much like we've had today, working hard, doing what we need to do. Then we find ourselves getting ready to get in the bed, and if we're not careful, we have one of them little quickie prayers, I call it. Yeah. Where we quote a few things and ask him a few things or whatever we're going to do. And that usually lasted a short place of time. And I would ask everybody, how long does it take you to pray one hour if you added all the time together that you prayed? Oh my. That's very revealing. How much time do you spend in God's Word or seeking Him in a week's time? In a 24-hour day, we owe Him 2.4 hours of activity of worship of one sort or another, and the easiest thing to do, whether you're working, driving, wherever you might be, is to pray and give Him praise and pray for others. Whatever's laid on your heart, it doesn't have to be at church, it doesn't have to be at bedtime, it has no calendar. The great evangelist, Smith Wigglesworth, they asked him, said, Brother Wigglesworth, how long do you pray? He said, Well, I don't really pray that long at one span, but I pray a whole lot throughout the course of a day. And Brother Wigglesworth raised the dead and healed many people in the name of Jesus. I would consider him a good example to follow. Seek the Lord all the time, one way or another. Yes. Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 5:24

Amen. Um, I know when I go to pray, when I have time, like you said, we've worked today, we're tired, we're worn out, we've got responsibilities to our jobs, to our families, things we have to do throughout the day. And I know that when I can find that time to pray, that everything in the world will come into my mind to try to deter me from that. I think we talked about this last time too, about the enemies that come against us. You know, we we've got the world that's going the opposite direction of what we're choosing to do, we're choosing to live by faith. And um we got the devil, of course, that fights us. Uh, but even our own flesh will will fight against us. Uh so you have to make time, you have to prioritize to do it. And um and I've been trying to do that a whole lot lately when I get up of the morning time, especially, because I don't know, to me, prayer seems so much sweeter of the morning. You know, when the day gets going, it just gets filled with voices and things to do, and just gets all um busy, busy, busy. But of the morning time, it just is such a solemn time. And e but even in the morning when I first get up, I'll I'll find myself diving into household responsibilities first, you know, and all these other things that I want to get done before I leave to go to work. But I have found that I have got to say no. Amen. I've got to say no. Uh my Savior comes first. And uh and I believe that's why the devil fights against prayer so much and stuff like that, and um because he knows there's power in it.

SPEAKER_03: 7:21

Amen. That's just like I have had occasion to be on a fishing trip on the Cumberland River and be down there on the river by myself and sit down on a rock and begin to look at the works of God and the beauty of his creation and begin to pray him with praise and thanksgiving. And I start to pray when when I close my eyes and begin to pray, it will make you think he's somebody around coming up towards you or getting around you because that's the way the enemy works. When you get deep in prayer, he wants to stop that. And and and those of you who have had experience praying, you know what I'm about to say. I can get down and begin to pray and start giving what's on my heart or my mind, but it's kind of like you're in a shallow spot, but after I pray hard for a little while, the scene changes. Amen. And I've gone deeper into his presence, and I start feeling his presence. It ain't no just talking around no more, we're getting serious now. I've gone into the presence of the Lord, and the Holy Ghost is there in the midst, and we're getting somewhere now, and he comes and makes his abode. He loves to fellowship us in prayer and praise. And when we get in that atmosphere, it don't matter who's doing what or where they are, we have entered another zone of spirituality that if you have not done so, you just keep trying it and watch what happens. He will show up. You will be blessed, you will grow, your faith will become stronger. And James 4 said, submit yourself to God. I quote this often, and resist the enemy and he'll flee. That's a key point. And when he flees, he says, comma, draw nigh to God, and God will draw nigh to you. Well, one way I can draw nigh to him is prayer. That's the strongest way I know of. And I praise him for those instructions and that opportunity. Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 9:37

So true, brother, so true. Um I think that's what the old timers called uh travailing in prayer. Uh travailing in prayer, persistence uh in prayer. And I man, that's powerful what you just said, Brother Hubert, because there is it's like levels as you continue travailing in prayer, you'll feel yourself going deeper and deeper. But I'd like to rewind just a little bit here, uh uh and uh go back a little bit, and we're talking about prayer, and we're talking about an effectual prayer life. But you know, we must start first and say, you've got a want to.

SPEAKER_03: 10:19

Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 10:20

You've got a want to. Yeah. You know, the the the first and great commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ is uh that you love the Lord thy God with all your heart, your mind, and your strength. You know, if if you've you're not doing that first and great commandment, in other words, if there's other priorities in your life that's stronger in your heart and your mind uh more than the Lord, man, prayer life is going to be a really uphill struggle for you. And I hate to say this, but you guys know it is true as well as I do, that there's many people uh that claim to be his, but love the world more than they do him. Uh they love the things in the world more than they do him. So at the very foundation of a good prayer life, I believe that you have got to get to that place to where you realize he is worthy to be first in your life. I mean he hallelujah, I feel his presence. Amen. Um he uh spoke the the parable of the pearl of great price. I love that parable. Amen. Jesus spoke that and he said, The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man seeking goodly pearls.

SPEAKER_01: 11:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:46

And what did it say? It says, When he had found one of great price, what did he do? He took and he sold everything that he had that he might obtain that pearl of great price. Amen. And um so I think that's what he means by that's like the kingdom of heaven, is when a person gets to a place through the workings of the Holy Spirit trying to bring them to reconcile with God, and they see just how awesome that Jesus is. They it finally has arrived in their heart that this ain't no fairy tale. This is real. And Jesus has died on the cross and he rose from the dead, and he's sitting at the right hand of the Father, and he wants to rule in the lives of his children. Now, when you realize that and you realize how much he loves you, uh that first and great commandment is a whole lot easier to keep. Amen. When you're not lusting after other things in this world, and therefore it will bring forth a uh powerful prayer life, it will cause praise to erupt out of you when you have got to that place to where to where your other appetites are secondary to him. And I think first and foremost, you gotta get there first. And when you get there to that place, there's an old song that says, He is my everything, he is my all, he is my everything, both great and small. You know, when you get to that place, you know, to where uh He is your everything, then uh that prayer life oh will begin to magnify very quickly. Amen. And not only that, too, you know, you got people running around, ooh gosh, 30 minutes ain't long for this program. But um uh you got people that that deceive their own selves. Yeah, yeah. And it is so sad that they tell their self that that uh they have accepted the Lord and that they're living for the Lord, but it's apparent that they love other things more than they do the Lord, that they're not keeping the first and great commandment. And these people will even go ahead and go on to pray to the Lord. Lord, you know how much, say for instance, somebody that's just um just uh uh coveting a house, a new house, really bad. Uh they want one so bad, you know, and it's consumed their heart and their mind. And they'll even go to the Lord and ask the Lord, Lord, bless me with this. Lord, you know how much I I love and do you think the Lord's going to bless them with that? He's a jealous God. He's a jealous God when they desire that more than they do their own relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Something to think about. But if we get in right standing with him, to where we realize who he is and what a treasure that he is, he is that pearl of great price. And uh we when we get to that place right there, man, I'm telling you, we're ready to enter the throne room and sup with him then.

SPEAKER_03: 15:35

We mentioned a while ago the widow mo woman with two mites that went to the temple. And all the people that were prosperous, they was throwing in evidently large sums of money. Yes. And she had two mites, they called it, a couple of pennies or whatever it was, and threw it in. Well, that's all she had, but what she did have is a want to. Yes, amen. And I can remember back when I was a kid that I saw the church on fire like it went dead later on. And of a morning you could hear people out on the side of a hill or outside their house or wherever, crying out to God, and you can't hardly hear that no more. They it just don't go on like that. And it was just obvious because they were doing it because they had to want to to seek him, and those same people, see, we lost the ability to lay hands on the sick and see them recover because we got on a silver cushion and thank God for medicine and hospitals, but you've got to go to the Lord first. He must be number one.

SPEAKER_00: 16:51

Amen.

SPEAKER_03: 16:52

I can remember our daughter having a bad fever. I hadn't been safe too long, and we'd give her aspirins, we'd rubbed her with cold rags, we'd done everything we could think of, and we looked at each other and said, we'd haven't prayed. So we anointed that child with oil and prayed the prayer of faith, and the fever's gone. Oh, yes. Are we in uh some kind of la la land and we we we try anything and everything else besides the Lord, and then in desperation after it doesn't work, we go to him. Let's go to him first.

SPEAKER_00: 17:27

Amen.

SPEAKER_03: 17:28

See how that works. Amen. And you can't just wake up one morning and say, okay, today I'm gonna be faithful. I'm gonna be full of the Spirit, I'm gonna be faithful. It doesn't work that way. These things are progressive, and we make a made-up mind. I'm gonna start growing, and I'm gonna start taking those steps to get closer to my Lord. Yes. I'm gonna get in the Bible more, I'm gonna be in church when the doors open. I'm gonna be praying, I'm gonna be fasting, I'm gonna be doing all the things that he told me to do. And I'll tell you one thing, you give him all you can give him, and you can't outgive him, because he's gonna come back at you. Then we start reaping the harvest of the abundance of the windows of heaven opening up for you and doing the things we could never do ourselves. Amen. Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:23

Hallelujah, yes, Lord. Uh for the most part, people don't comprehend that it's it's it's not a contractual agreement with God, but it's a relationship.

SPEAKER_03: 18:42

Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 18:43

It's a relationship, amen. You know what I mean? It's not a sign on the dotted line thing, you know, and it's it's believing in him and uh and and receiving his word and embracing his word and living by his word. And for the most part, people don't realize what a treasure that is to do that. And again, it's sort of like you know, what what did the prophet say? A wheel within a wheel. You know. Jesus says, He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, it's that person that loveth me. And the person that loves me will love him back. Amen. Now see there, and everything. So uh and there's other scriptures too, it says, like, draw nigh to God, and what will he do? Draw nigh to you. He'll draw nigh to you. If you seek the Lord, you will find him. So it's like those old, I'd mentioned this before. If you've ever seen one of those old two-man cross-cuts, it's a tool, it's a sow to cut uh timber and wood with, and it's got a handle on each end. One man cannot use this tool. Amen. You can't one man can't get nothing done with it. But if you get somebody on the other side, and one man pushes forward, and then he draws back while the other man's pushing forward. And the next thing you knew, you were cutting through that big log. That's sort of the way it is with the love of God, see. We he loved us first. We love him because he loved us first. Amen. Amen. And now, uh, if you did a poll and you started asking people, I'm sure you'd get an overwhelming response. Do you believe that God loves you? Most people would say, Oh, yes, God loves me. God loves me, God loves him. The more important question is, do you love him back? Amen. He when when that cross-cut, when God sent that cross-cut forward, Christ dying on the cross, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son. Amen. The question is, is what are you doing with that love that he manifested towards you? Are you are you loving him back? And when you do that, when by faith you receive his word, you're loving him back. And you start responding to that word by reading his word, by applying it to your life, and by living by faith more and more you're loving him back. It truly does become like a wheel within a wheel inside of you, and you feel his manifest presence. Most people don't get to that level. You was talking about levels a few minutes ago. Most people don't get to that level. They say their little laundry list of requests to the Lord, you know, and it's just skipping along the top of the water and not getting into that depthness with the Lord.

SPEAKER_03: 21:54

You mentioned about cutting wood. And I want to give you a little analogy about that. We had an elderly then, about an elderly man about like me, getting up in years, had a young bodybuilder, strong as a mule. Said, we're gonna have a contest here and see who can chop the most wood with these axes. Oh my goodness. And the old guy said, I'll take you on. He said, Well, you don't have a chance. So they began to cut wood. And that that young guy went at it like he was fighting fire. The old man was cutting steady. And once in a while the older man would stop and sharpen his blade real good, and then he'd go back at it. And the other guy, he's still swinging it hard and continuing to try to cut. And that continued back and forth with the old man sharpening his blade and the other one hitting it harder and harder. And at the end of the contest, they looked at the pile of wood, and the young guy said, How in the world did you get a bigger pile of wood than I got? You're old and not in the shape I'm in. He said, Yes, but while you were wailing away, I stopped and sharpened my blade. I've never heard that. Oh, hallelujah. That's powerful. That works in the spirit. You might be going at it and shouting a house down every once in a while, but you need to be sharpening that spiritual blade and drawing more close to your Lord and Savior, and then watch what a power you produce then by drawing nearness to our Lord and Savior. Amen. Yes, Amen. Praise God. You can let your zeal outrun your knowledge of the Word of God.

SPEAKER_00: 23:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 23:32

A lot of zeal without faith and without things to show for it ain't nothing but a lot of zeal.

SPEAKER_00: 23:37

Amen.

SPEAKER_03: 23:38

Amen. Praise God.

SPEAKER_00: 23:40

That is so true, Brother Hubert. Help us, Lord. Lordy day. We got to keep our acts sharp. And how do we do that? By spending time with the Lord. You know, Jesus spoke of the judgment day once, and he said, many was going to come to me in front of me on Judgment Day and going to start giving a big laundry list of the things that they have done in his name. And the Lord's going to look at them and say, I never knew you. Amen. You never got to the place in your relationship with me that that that I could know you and you could know me. God desires intimacy with us. Amen. Someone once told me, uh, put in a request at church and stuff for uh their little dog that had got sick. And uh said, I want you all to remember, you know, and and I I know some people uh probably thought, you know, oh, what are you you giving in a request like that for? Oh man, there is a world of people out there that won't give God the time of day. You think it ain't pleasing to him when we give the very smilest of our request to him that that that that are important to us, you know, it's absolutely pleasing to him. Oh, when I get to when I get to thinking about it, Brother Hubert, um and I think uh of how valuable a close walk with our heavenly father is. Amen. To where there's an old song that says um these words nothing between my soul and my savior. Hallelujah. Not of this world's elusive dream. Nothing preventing the least of his favor. Keep the way clean, let nothing between. When a person gets to that place and there is nothing between you and him, and uh you cry out to him and he says, Here am I.

SPEAKER_03: 26:00

Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 26:01

You know, uh I believe you could get to that place like Moses and Abraham and uh a lot of others, you know, uh that you can read in the Old Testament where they'd ask the Lord a question and they'd get an answer right back. Or the Lord would speak to them. It's like they were speaking just like me and you are, speaking right here. I believe, well, what did he say? My sheep know my voice. When you start hunging that axe, like that story Brother Hubert just told right there, you start working on that relationship with your God, amen. You'll know his voice and you won't follow another.

SPEAKER_03: 26:42

Sometimes people will say, Well now I'm doing all I can do, and I've got three or four kids, and I've got a business, and I've got this to do and that to do, and I'm wanting to dig a little deeper and get a little closer, but I am so I am carrying such a large cross. And and I'm gonna give you the hypothetical proverb that that he goes to the Lord and says, Could you help me out? I'm just carrying too large a cross here. I don't hardly believe this is right. He says, Okay, lay that one down over here and said, They're a bunch of them back here in the warehouse. You go in there and pick out the one you think you want. Well, he goes into God's warehouse and he comes packing a cross back out. He brought the one back out that he brung. It was the smallest one in there. Sometimes we are thinking that we are the one that's overburdened and that we've done too much when in fact we're the least one in the crowd. Yeah. Because in the flesh we have a tendency to get that pity party started. And oh woe is me, and oh woe is that, and I've I've done this and I've done that, and things still haven't turned around, and and like I told a woman at Williamsburg last night, though I have prayed for you and you're healed by his stripes, the devil's gonna tell you, oh you're not. And you're gonna have to hold fast and stand up on your faith. The God, the the song, the God of the mountain, is also the God of the valley. I can praise God easily when I'm just as healthy as I can be. My refrigerator's full, my paydays are coming in, my car's running good, my kids are in good shape, oh, praise God. Well, let the stove blow up and the car quit and you get laid off from your job and and your youngins is sick, and you're saying, Oh my Lord, what in the world's happening here? Do not turn into a murmurer. You have to praise your way out of trouble. Anybody can praise him from the mountaintop, but who's willing to praise him in the valley? Amen. Let me be able to praise him in the valley. Amen. Amen. Glory to God, amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 29:06

Um again, back uh to that important part of being real with God. Yeah. Uh that right there, what you just said, that that's what we've got to do. We've got to be real with God. And you know, one of the saddest stories, I think, in the whole Bible is when Jesus Christ is fixing to go to the cross and he's fixing to give his life on the cross. He's fixed to go through all that pain and that suffering on the cross, and he asked his disciples, Could you watch? Won't you pray and watch with me? And uh he comes back and he finds them sleeping. He comes back and he finds them sleeping. And he says, What could you not pray with me one hour? And he says, Sleep on. So it's we're running out of time here now. I just want to encourage. You get your business fixed with the Lord. He's ready and willing to reconcile with you, and He's ready to speak with you in a prayer life that gets things done in your life and those around you.

SPEAKER_03: 30:14

Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 30:14

Amen. All right. God asked you, please move, dear God, on anyone out there that's heard this program today. Lord, supernaturally move and let them know that you love them and you care about them and you want to be God in their life and you want to move their life. God, in Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_04: 30:39

How we will hear the different sound.

SPEAKER_02: 30:45

You've been listening to Truth Talk on the 421 Show podcast. All shows are recorded at 421 Studio. If you'd like to support the show, you can support it through PayPal slash HOR421 or you go through our website at HOR421 Show.buspro.com. Email at HOR421 Ministries at gmail.com. Phone number is two three nine eight four nine fifteen oh two.

unknown: 31:09

Hallelujah. Man, I tell you that.