Participants: Ivor and Atonte Myers
Series Code: BOF
Program Code: BOF000030
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00:14 Welcome to Battles of Faith, we're your hosts,
00:16 Ivor and Atonte Myers. Today's program is entitled 00:20 "The Art of Deep Breathing". If you've been watching 00:24 the last few programs we have been talking about several 00:26 different arts, and this helps us fight in the battle against 00:30 our enemy. The first one was stillness, 00:33 learning how to be still; silence, learning how to be 00:37 silent; and the last one was focus, learning how to focus, 00:40 and today is the art of deep breathing. 00:43 As you can see, we're kind of forming a thought here, 00:46 a pattern that will at the end, you'll see how this can all work 00:50 together so that we can fight the battle more effectively. 00:53 That's right. We've seen in our previous 00:55 programs that the art of stillness prepares us for 00:58 the art of silence, and then the art of silence prepares us 01:01 for the art of focus, and now we're going to go ahead 01:04 and take a look at the art of deep breathing. 01:07 What does it mean to breathe deep as a spiritual warrior? 01:11 I want to illustrate this with a story found in the book 01:14 of John 20, and in John 20 the disciples gathered together, 01:20 this is right after the resurrection of Christ. 01:22 They're gathered together for fear of the Jews. 01:26 Christ is about to appear to them and empower them to go 01:30 out and to witness to the world. And notice what John 20:21 says: 01:38 "Then said Jesus to them", this is after He had appeared 01:40 to them, "Peace be unto you. As My Father has sent Me, " 01:46 "even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed" 01:51 "upon them, and sayeth unto them, Receive ye the Holy" 01:56 "Ghost. " How is He going to prepare them 01:58 to go out and to do this work, the Bible says He breathed 02:01 upon them, and His breath was likened unto the receiving 02:07 of the Holy Ghost. That lets us know that we're 02:10 talking about deep breathing. If you could just imagine Jesus 02:14 breathing out to the disciples, and the disciples inhaling, 02:18 or breathing in that Spirit. They were to be filled with 02:21 the Spirit to go out and do the work of the Lord. 02:25 In return, so are we supposed to be filled with the Spirit, 02:28 and the deep breathing, if we receive of the Spirit is also 02:32 another way that we can fight. 02:35 That's right. Now, I want to jump to another verse, 02:37 it's Job 32:8, Atonte, I'm going to ask you to read that 02:40 because there is another reason, there is something that Jesus 02:44 wanted the disciples to understand when He did this. 02:46 - So go ahead and read Job 32:8. - It says: "But there is" 02:50 "a Spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty" 02:55 - "giveth them understanding. " - Okay, we know that according 02:58 to this verse the Bible says that a spirit, actually, 03:01 the margin actually says "The breath of the Almighty" 03:04 "giveth understanding", so when Jesus breathed upon these 03:09 disciples, Jesus, He is God, there was something that Jesus 03:13 wanted the disciples to understand, and what was 03:16 that thing? The Bible tells us in 03:19 Zechariah 4: "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, " 03:26 "sayeth the Lord. " They were to go out and conquer 03:29 not by might, not by power, but by the indwelling of 03:32 the Spirit of God within their lives. This is how they were 03:36 to go forth and conquer in the name of Christ. 03:38 That's right, and it's interesting, that same verse in 03:41 the Amplified version says "But there is a vital force, " 03:45 "a spirit of intelligence in man, and the breath of" 03:48 "the Almighty gives men understanding. " 03:51 That's right, and we're going to look at another translation, 03:54 the Revised version says "the breath", or "the inspiration" 04:00 "of the Almighty giveth understanding. " 04:03 Now, when we use that word "inspiration", another word 04:09 that we can use in its place is inhalation. When you inhale, 04:13 take deep inspirations of breath, you're saying 04:18 "take a deep breath, inhale deeply". It's interesting that 04:24 as we consider this art of deep breathing, that what God is 04:30 trying to say to us as Christians is that we are 04:33 to be breathing in deep the Spirit of God, and in breathing 04:40 in deep that Spirit, that empowers us to go forward 04:44 and to conquer not by might, nor by power, but by His Spirit. 04:50 - And breathing deep is prayer. - That's right, if you take 04:54 a look at the book of Acts 2, and we know what event took 04:58 place, in Acts 2 the Bible says the disciples were gathered 05:02 together, it was on the day of Pentecost, and then there 05:07 fell from heaven the sound of a mighty rushing wind. 05:11 Incredibly enough, that word of "wind" is actually the word 05:16 "breath", so what were the disciples doing on the day 05:20 of Pentecost? They were praying. 05:23 - They were breathing deep. - They were seeking the Spirit 05:29 of God, they were in earnest, and deep prayer, and in answer 05:33 to that earnest and deep prayer the Bible says that the breath 05:36 of God, the Spirit of God, the wind of God fell on 05:41 the disciples and filled them with the Holy Spirit. 05:45 And from this infilling of the Holy Spirit the disciples 05:48 went forth, conquering, and to conquer, they went forth 05:51 to spread the gospel message. In the very same sense, 05:55 as Christian warriors we must understand this art of deep 06:01 breathing. What does it mean to be filled with 06:05 the Spirit of God? As you said, deep breathing 06:08 is really symbolic of prayer, and we, as Christians, 06:11 ought to be taking in the deep Spirit of God, we ought to be 06:16 drinking it in, we ought to be spending that time in prayer 06:19 that takes us deeper than we have been before, 06:23 - and the things of God. - This is not your quick, fast, 06:26 "let me get kinda up late, in a rush, bustle" kind of prayer. 06:32 These other arts prepare you for this type of prayer, 06:36 first you have to be still, you have to learn how to be silent, 06:39 focus, and then you'll be able to have deep breathing, 06:44 prayer that actually connects you to God, where you're not 06:48 just rushing around, not focusing and things like that. 06:52 You know, it's interesting that as you look at Pentecost, 06:55 they were gathered together for 10 days, and the Bible does 07:01 not record any account of preaching per se, going on, 07:06 what were the disciples doing? They were gathered together 07:09 and they were praying, and praying, and praying. 07:12 Now that's what I would call deep breathing, they were 07:15 into deep prayer. Can you imagine what it would 07:18 be like if all the churches were to gather together in their 07:22 various churches for 10 nights to do nothing 07:28 but prayer, even for just 1 hour. 07:30 All the churches around the world, they were gathered 07:33 together and prayed for 10 days, I believe that we would see, 07:40 and we could very well see, the beginnings of that later 07:43 rain, because that deep breathing, the disciples 07:47 gathering together and praying in the way they pray 07:51 is what brought about that incredible revival in the days 07:56 of Pentecost, and that's what will bring about the incredible 07:59 revival in the last days, but the problem is that we are not, 08:03 as Christians, used to deep breathing, so we have no power 08:09 in our fight, we have no power. In fact, if you're breathing is 08:15 shallow, you have poor circulation, you don't have 08:19 a lot of energy, breathing deep gives a person energy, 08:23 and this is what we're talking about when we say the Christian 08:26 must learn the art of breathing deep. Be still, be silent, 08:31 focus and breath deep, allow the Spirit of God to fill us, 08:36 to enter into our lives, to direct our thoughts and this 08:40 is where we begin to really experience the victory 08:45 - in our conflicts. - And again, all of this takes 08:49 time. You're not going to breathe deep in a 5 minute 08:54 prayer session, or even a 10 minute prayer session, 08:57 it takes time, and again, these are lifestyle changes. 09:01 When we're talking about being in a war, and needing to learn 09:04 how to fight, we need to be diligent students and to learn 09:08 of Jesus, so that He can teach so that we can be 09:10 victorious, it is the only way we're going to beat our enemy. 09:14 Because Satan is coming at us at so many different angles, 09:18 and with so many different attacks, we have to have 09:21 this type of power to be able to fight in this way, 09:25 and God is the only one who can teach us how to do it. 09:27 That's right. You know, deep breathing is a sign of life. 09:31 If you're not breathing you're dead, and the same is true 09:34 with prayer, if you're not praying you're spiritually dead. 09:38 Prayer is a vital sign for a Christian warrior, you look 09:45 at the account of Adam. After God had created Adam 09:49 and formed him out of the dust, Adam was not alive, not until 09:53 the Bible says God bent over and breathed into his nostrils 09:59 the breath of life, and that is exactly what prayer is, 10:03 it is the breath of life, filling us with the life 10:07 of Jesus Christ. We receive that life 10:10 through prayer. As we sit, and as we learn to pray, 10:14 and to pray long, and to pray hard, and to pray earnestly, 10:18 to hear the voice of God, something happens in that moment 10:22 of prayer, in that time of prayer, the life of Christ 10:25 is given to us in a very special way, and we are, 10:29 as it were, filled with power. Now, it's interesting that 10:32 in New Age circles they will meditate, and meditate 10:36 for hours to be filled with some kind of spirit. 10:40 I believe that that is a direct counterfeit of what 10:43 the Christian ought to be doing, a direct counterfeit of 10:46 the truth, because God tells us that ought to be praying, 10:50 that we ought to be praying diligently, praying fervently, 10:53 and as we pray we would be filled with the Spirit of God, 10:58 and remember, how are we going to conquer self? 11:00 Not by might, nor by power, but by His Spirit. 11:05 We need to learn how to deep breathe. We were just talking 11:10 a short while ago and someone mentioned yawning as sign 11:14 of deep breathing, and how often to you go into prayer and deep 11:18 breath, not in the way we're talking about, but yawning? 11:21 You go down, as soon as you hit the floor, you're deep 11:24 breathing, you're yawning, you're tired. 11:27 That's not the kind of deep breathing that we need to be 11:29 exercising as Christians, we need to be breathing 11:32 in deep the Spirit of God, that means being willing 11:35 to spend that time in prayer, and to go beyond 11:39 the surface. When we breathe shallow, shallow power, 11:43 when we breath deep, deep power. 11:45 I have learned that Satan is hoping that I will not be able 11:50 to spend that quality time with the Lord that day because 11:53 he knows if that happens I'm an easy target, it's like 11:56 "Oh, she's going to be blown away easy today because" 11:58 "she didn't spend the time that she needed to spend. " 12:00 And God has shown us that this is a weapon, or an art, 12:05 in the battle that we have to learn, it is a necessity, 12:10 or the enemy will over come us. Jesus did not come and die 12:14 on the cross for that to happen, everything is available for us 12:19 - to win. - That's right, this point 12:22 is also illustrated in the book of Ezekiel 37, and in this 12:27 particular chapter God has taken Ezekiel to what is called 12:32 "The Valley of Dry Bones", and Ezekiel sees this valley, 12:36 and they're full of dry bones, they're scattered, and God 12:42 asks Ezekiel the question: "Ezekiel, can these bones" 12:45 "live? " And you can imagine in Ezekiel's 12:48 mind, he's looking, he's saying "From what I see, and from" 12:51 "what I know, these bones can't live", but God is asking him, 12:55 and so he says "Lord, You know". Then God says to Ezekiel: 12:58 "Ezekiel, I want you to prophesy to these bones that they" 13:02 "may live. " He says "Prophesy and let these bones" 13:05 "comes together. " The Bible says that Ezekiel 13:07 began to prophesy, and it describes the bones coming 13:13 together to form this army that stands up on its feet, 13:19 but it says that the army was not yet living, and now notice 13:24 what it says in verse 9: "Then He said unto me, " 13:27 "Prophesy unto the wind, prophecy son of man, " 13:31 "and say to the wind, Thus sayeth the Lord God, come from" 13:35 "the 4 winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain" 13:40 "that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded" 13:43 "and the breath came into them, and they lived, stood up on" 13:48 "their feet, an exceeding great army. " 13:51 That is a powerful illustration because we understand that we, 13:54 as Christians, are in a holy war. God wants us to be 13:59 an exceeding great army, but in order for us to be 14:03 an exceeding great army that is alive, that is powerful, 14:08 the wind of God, the breath of God must come upon us. 14:12 We must learn to breathe deep, to breathe this breath in us, 14:17 and it is then that we become a mighty soldier, a mighty warrior 14:20 for Christ. And it may be that there's 14:23 things in your life that are like the dry bones 14:26 that Ezekiel saw, it could be alcoholism, it could be drug 14:30 addiction, it could be a child that you have, a wayward 14:34 child that you just don't think is every going to come back 14:37 to the Lord. The deep breathing can work such a miracle 14:42 in your life, and in that person's life that you can 14:45 - finally have victory. - That's right, there's studies 14:50 being done that show that pollution in the atmosphere 14:54 greatly reduces one's power to breathe correctly. 14:59 Asthma, which I used to have, asthma, but they say asthma 15:04 can be cause by the atmosphere, the air that we breathe in, 15:10 by the pollution in the air. I believe that one of the ways 15:13 the Devil tries to eliminate our breathing capacity, to stop 15:19 this art of deep breathing, is by polluting the spiritual 15:22 environment with the junk of the entertainment industry, 15:27 with the junk of the everyday things of life, so that when 15:35 it comes time to deep breathe, we're not deep breathing, 15:37 we're shallow breathing. Shallow breathing brings about 15:40 shallow Christianity. "I don't want to pray", "Why?" 15:43 "Because it's boring", "how do you pray for more than" 15:47 "5 minutes, or 2 minutes? " And what happens is we get 15:50 into this cycle of shallow breathing, and then when it 15:54 comes time for the battle and we lose, we're wondering 15:58 "Why don't I have enough energy to fight this fight of faith? " 16:01 It's because we're breathing in the Devil's pollutants, 16:05 we're breathing in his lies, we're breathing in his agenda 16:09 for our life, and in so doing we end up not having that real 16:14 spiritual power that we need in order to fight against self. 16:19 Many of us, when we fall we grit our teeth and say 16:22 "I'm never going to do that thing again", but the will power 16:26 alone doesn't work, you have to have the supernatural power 16:28 of God, and these arts that we're talking about, these are 16:32 the steps, these are the practical steps that you can 16:35 take every day. People preach about the Word, 16:38 they preach about what Jesus has done, and we want 16:40 to do those things, we want to overcome in those ways, 16:43 but we never really know practically how to do it. 16:46 Apply these things into your life, and you will have 16:49 - victory. - Right. Now, when we talk about 16:52 breathing deep, we do not want people to think: 16:55 go home, sit down on your floor, or kneel and start 16:58 to inhale and exhale, that's not what we're talking about, 17:02 we're talking about the breathing deep, the spiritual 17:05 breathing of the Holy Spirit, asking the Spirit of God 17:09 to come in, asking God to breath upon you. 17:12 In fact, in "Messages to Young People", page 249, 17:16 powerful statement here, it says: "Prayer is the breath" 17:20 "of the soul. It is the secret of spiritual power. " 17:24 "No other means of grace can be substituted and the health" 17:29 "of the soul be preserved. Prayer brings the heart into" 17:33 "immediate contact with the well spring of life, " 17:37 "and strengthens the sinews, and muscles of the religious" 17:41 - "experience. " - And that's what we need. 17:43 That's what we need, and this is the reason the Devil is happy 17:47 with shallow breathing He does everything that 17:49 he can to cause self to breathe shallow. We have to make 17:55 a determined effort to learn how to pray deep, how to really 18:00 get down, and not 2 minutes: "Dear Lord, watch over me, " 18:05 "amen", but to really get deep into prayer, because it is 18:09 in those deep sessions with God that the mysteries of God, 18:13 the mysteries of the Word, the mysteries of victory 18:17 over sin begin to open up to us, and it is there that we 18:21 come back and say "Man, I cannot believe what the Lord" 18:24 "just shared with me. " It's like an ocean, the top 18:27 of the ocean is beautiful, but the deeper you go into 18:30 the ocean the more treasure there is, and God calls us 18:35 into this deep communication with Him. 18:38 Nobody likes shallow communication: "Hi", "Hi". 18:41 "How you doing?" "Great". 18:43 "Okay, see you. " No, you can't build 18:45 a relationship off of shallow communication, God wants 18:48 us to learn how to deeply communicate with Him so that 18:55 He can deeply communicate with us the deep truths of this 18:59 - war of faith. - And breathing also, we look 19:03 at the body, it purifies the blood. 19:05 That's right. You look at prayer, when we breathe deep 19:09 it's a process of purifying the blood, when we pray 19:12 deep it's a process of purifying our lives, when we breathe 19:17 deep, when we pray deep, that is, the Spirit of God 19:21 can come in and cleanse our lives. The blood brings 19:26 oxygen to every part of the body, so when we breathe deep 19:29 the Spirit of God is moving into every area of our life, 19:33 cleansing us, purifying us, and that's what we need 19:37 the Spirit of God to do. Again, this is be still, 19:42 be silent, focus, and breathe deep because in doing this 19:48 the power of God becomes a reality in your life, and you 19:51 begin to become cleansed, every area of you life 19:55 begins to be cleansed by the Spirit of God. 19:57 And when you're breathing deep then you start to get 20:01 an appetite for the Word, you want to be in God's Word, 20:04 God's Word feeds you where you're more fulfilled by His 20:08 Word then you were when you were just shallow breathing. 20:11 That's right. They say that as you breathe deep it creates, 20:15 or it stimulates your appetite, and a lot of people do not 20:19 have an appetite for the Word of God because they see it 20:21 as boring, they don't have an appetite for the Spirit of God 20:24 because they've never tasted of the Spirit of God, 20:27 but when you begin to breathe deep and have those experiences, 20:31 something incredible happens, prayer becomes more than 20:34 a duty, it's a privilege, it's a desire, you yearn after God 20:39 with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all 20:41 your might, and all this is a result of breathing deep. 20:44 But we will not breathe deep if we do not know how to focus, 20:49 and we will not focus if we won't take the time to be 20:51 silent, and we will not be silent if we're not taking 20:54 the time to be still, these are all arts that are necessary 20:59 - for us to overcome self. - You know, when you're dating, 21:01 when Ivor and I were dating no one had to make me spend 21:05 time with him, I wanted to spend a lot of time with him, 21:08 and that's what God is calling for us. When you're in love 21:11 with someone, you want to spend time, and Jesus is in love with 21:15 us and He wants us to be in return deeply in love with Him, 21:19 and spending that time, the deep breathing will just bring 21:22 us closer and closer to Him, and all of these things will 21:25 - follow. - That's right. When we look 21:27 at prayer, most people consider prayer to be a 1 way 21:32 communication: "I talk to God, and then that's it, " 21:37 "the prayer's arrived, said everything I needed to say", 21:39 but prayer in God's eyes is communication 2 ways. 21:46 Not only does God want to speak, or want us to speak to Him, 21:51 but God wants to speak to us as well. 21:55 Very often, if you had an interview with some famous 22:00 person and you came back and you were telling all your 22:03 friends "Guess what, I had an interview with so-and-so", 22:05 the first question they'd probably ask you is 22:08 "Well, what did he or she say? " And the same is true when 22:11 we pray to God. When we say that we are praying 22:15 to God we are actually saying that we have had communication 22:19 with Him, that God has spoken to us, we've spoke to Him, 22:23 and if you were to ask most people "What did God say? " 22:27 after your prayer time it would be an "Ahhh, I don't know, " 22:33 "I wasn't listening". If you said you'd interviewed 22:36 somebody famous [?], and you came back to me 22:39 and went "I interviewed so-and-so", and I said 22:41 "What did he say? ", and you said "Oh, he didn't say" 22:43 - "anything". - "I wasn't listening". 22:46 I'd say "you didn't even interview the guy, you're just" 22:49 "pulling my leg", or something like that. 22:51 No, God desires to speak to His people, He desires 22:55 to communicate, and when you learn this art of deep breathing 22:59 prayer becomes, as I've said, a privilege. 23:02 It's also interesting that when we breathe deep it soothes 23:11 the nerves, and that's really, really important in this art 23:16 of holy warfare, because you may hear people all the time say 23:20 "so-and-so gets on my nerves, and this gets on my nerves, " 23:23 "that gets on my nerves", and everything makes the person 23:26 angry, or irritated, or whatever it might be. 23:29 Sometimes you say "Man, why don't you just take a deep" 23:32 "breath, and breathe, and relax. " 23:34 Well, God calls us to learn how to breathe deep because 23:37 in so doing we get control over our spirit, we get control 23:44 over the renegade self, the self that wants to do whatever 23:49 he wants to do, and go wherever he wants to go, and say 23:51 whatever he wants to say. We learn how to control self, 23:55 we learn how to be relaxed, and how to be calm. 23:59 Whenever somebody is nervous they say "Breathe deep", 24:03 and in our last program we talked about the importance 24:07 of remaining calm in the midst of a crisis, and how focusing 24:11 upon Christ can help us to remain calm. 24:14 Well, this is one of the ways in which we learn to remain 24:17 calm, it's learning how to breathe in deep of the Spirit 24:21 of God, the deeper we breathe in, the calmer we will be 24:26 - in our crises. - These are lifestyle changes, 24:30 none of this is going to happen if we're not willing to fit 24:36 this into our life, if you will, if this doesn't become a major 24:40 portion of our daily activities, if we just keep going, 24:45 busy, in a hurry, 5 minute prayer here, and a quick little 24:50 1 verse reading, not even really thinking about what it's saying, 24:53 it's not going to happen with that, it's like we regret 24:57 it when we don't spend that time, when we fall, 25:00 and we've done something that we don't want to do, 25:03 but it could be prevented if we spend that time with 25:06 the Lord, and take these arts of war, and really begin to fight, 25:08 because again, this is what I tell my kids: Satan never 25:11 takes a holiday, he never takes a break, we cannot 25:14 afford to not apply these things into our life. 25:17 That's right. One other thing that deep 25:21 breathing does is it gives us sound sleep. 25:27 Jesus invites us as His people, He says "Come unto Me" 25:31 "all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give" 25:35 "you rest. " As we learn to take in 25:39 the Spirit of God and allow the Spirit of God to fill us, 25:42 in fact, as this church, as Christians as a body, learn how 25:48 to breathe deep, just like the disciples did on the day 25:52 of Pentecost, not only must it be a corporate thing, 25:55 but it must also be an individual thing because 25:58 as we learn how to breathe deep the Spirit of God is poured 26:01 out and we are empowered to do the work, not only of winning 26:05 souls, but winning the victory over ourselves. 26:09 We get that rest that we've been looking for. 26:13 God says "When you breathe deep, when you take in" 26:17 "that Spirit and allow it fill you, I will give you that rest", 26:23 "that sound sleep". You'll be like Jesus in the midst of 26:25 the storm while the boat was being rocked to and fro, He was 26:29 able to rest in peace, and that's what we want, 26:34 we want to be able to rest in peace. So many people do not 26:37 have peace. They're saying "Well, I don't know why I don't" 26:40 "have peace, I'm Christian, I'm trying to do right,", 26:44 but part of the problem is shallow breathing. 26:48 Remember, shallow breathing equals shallow Christianity 26:51 - and shallow power. - That's right, and when we 26:54 apply this into our lives, then we can really and truly 26:57 be a light in the world because people will be attracted to us 27:02 and we'll be able to share the Gospel with them, and we can 27:05 evangelize, and soon Jesus can come. 27:08 That's right. So we want to put into practice the art 27:12 of being still, being silent, focusing, and breathing deep. 27:18 When we begin to do these things they will prepare us for 27:21 the further arts of fighting against self. 27:26 These arts are so incredible, so powerful that unless we 27:30 do these things beforehand, when it comes time for 27:33 the actual, face to face, hand-to-hand combat, 27:36 spiritual combat with self, we will not be able to do this, 27:40 it's like the levels in any fighting system, you've got 27:43 to learn the foundation, and then as we continue to move 27:46 on we learn the deeper things, and that's where we move 27:50 - in this war against self. - Amen. We challenge you 27:55 to take some time out of your day, start today, and spend 27:59 that time with the Lord, and He will teach you. 28:02 Well, we're all out of time, until next time, God bless. |
Revised 2014-12-17