Prayer…Seriously?

Have you ever pondered the scriptures where Jesus says that we should ask for anything in His name and the Father will grant it to us? I did, many times. I wondered why I was asking the Lord for things that I felt I needed but to no avail.

As I began to grow closer to the Lord, I learned that Jesus taught us to pray by saying, “Your will (the Father’s) be done”. So I began to ask Him for things ending off my prayer by saying, “…Lord if it be your will”. That way I started to learn that the things which did come to me, came by His will.

When I learned that ‘Praying in His name’ meant praying in the character of Jesus, it began to put a new light on my prayers. How wonderful that God will use us in our daily circumstances to pray for situations and for those around us. It is relatively simple to pray for solutions according to what we think. However, it takes a bit more time and thought to pray out of Jesus’ character. What does Jesus see in the specific circumstance? How does HE feel about what we are experiencing at that point? What would HIS solution entail?

As we pray, we need to take ourselves ‘out of our shoes’ and put ourselves into Jesus’ shoes to start to understand HIS heart in the situation we are led to pray for. It is also fairly simple for us to pray for situations or people once off and not again – almost lightheartedly. What if the Lord requires us to have a real burden for our prayer topic? A burden that will occupy our minds day and night until it goes away. Are you so close to a situation or person that you are truly burdened to persistently seek God for help?

Jesus shares the parable of the poor widow seeking the Judge for legal protection from her adversary. Being a widow, she had no husband to help or protect her, so her request came from a very sincere and burdened heart. She had a clear need to keep persevering for her request. How deep and serious are the burdens we have for those around us?

Jesus speaks a parable where the Widow is being bothered by her opponent and that the Judge will have the solution to this troublesome situation. It is the same for us today. The Judge is God; the Widow is like us – burdened – and the opponent is the accuser of the brethren, the devil. As the Judge had the solution to the widow’s problem, so God has the solutions to our situations. Like the widow, we need to persevere in our requests. In order to persevere, we need to have a true burden. In order to have a true burden, we need to ask God to give it to us. If we have no desire to ask for the burden, we should ask God to help us with that as well!

In the parable, the Judge admits that he is no respecter of man or God, but that he needed to grant this Widow her request for fear that she will wear him out with her persistent asking. Jesus goes on to say, “… now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly”.

As we go to the Lord daily with our prayer requests, let us ask Him for a burden for the particular topic we are led to pray for. That way we will find ourselves seeking God seriously for the things we ask ‘in His name’ (character). That way also, God will be able to answer us quickly as we cry to Him day and night.

Praying seriously for daily protection and other topics is something we have not deeply thought about. Draw close to the Lord as He draws closer to us. Feel the heart of the Father as we sit at His feet during our private prayer times. Then, as we pray ‘in His name’, the Father will grant what we ask.

From: “time with the Master…”

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A Privilege to be Used

Have you ever wondered why it is that we find ourselves in the daily situations and circumstances that we do?

There are a number of answers to that question but one answer is that we are used by God as vessels to bring salvation to others as well as presenting situations before Him. What an exciting thought – to be used by the almighty Father! Is it possible the Lord would need to use us as ‘agents’ here on earth? Well, yes it is!

A Timeless Tale – Chapter Twenty One

 

Living a Life in the Kingdom of God – Continued

In the previous chapter we discussed the three part make up of humanity, body, soul and spirit. (http://biblehub.com/1_thessalonians/5-23.htm} We discussed the first part – the body, now we will look at the next part – the soul.

A Timeless Tale Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen: Living a Life in the Kingdom of God – Continued

“One thing I’ve learned about relationships is that I tend to become more like the people I spend the most time with”.

Motivational speaker Jim Rohn famously said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.

Considering the above statements by people who are generally promoting personal experience and scientific information, we need to accept that if we spend a lot of time with God, we will become like Him and be able to live a life of health, wealth, peace and power on this earth even as Jesus did.

I’m sure that your reaction to the above is: “Spending time with my fellow humans that I can see, touch and hear is straight forward, but what about God whom I can’t see, touch and hear”?

Good question.

Very fortunately, we cannot see, touch or mostly, hear God, because if we did, we would depart this life.

I say ‘mostly’ hear God, because as I mentioned in the previous chapter whilst we will, for the most part, not audibly hear God, He has ways of communicating with us that enable to ‘hear’ what He says.

We will be able to understand the signs that God shows us along the walk of His destiny for our lives as well as ‘hear’ what He tells us, providing we are accustomed to communicating with Him.

Those souls who are born deaf or blind go through training to be able communicate with others. The deaf train to read hand signs that others use in order to ‘say’ words to them. The blind are trained to feel letters in Braille so that they can communicate by touch.

So it is between God and us, we hear supernatural words and see supernatural signs, that only He can interpret to us.

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, the process of communicating with God, is very simple in principle. But at first sight to us, it is impossibly difficult.

Why is this?

Because we need to be trained in what we might refer to as ‘uncommon’ methods of communication, if we want to be able to, as Jesus said, do what The Father shows us and say what The Father says to us.

“God is a spirit and can only be worshiped in spirit and truth”.  If we exchange the word ‘worship’ with ‘communicated with’ we will now more easily begin to understand what is required of us.

My translation: ‘God is a spirit and therefore you can only communicate with Him through your spirit and this must be done in all straight forwardness and sincerity’.

In a previous chapter I explained that we humans are made up of body, soul and spirit. We all understand what body means. Soul is your intellect, emotion and will. Spirit is that part of your being that allows you to communicate with the spirit world, much like your service provider for internet connection.

In chapter Thirteen I gave you a seven point process to follow and one really can’t improve on that.

If you follow this process, in faith and consistency, you will slowly but surely begin to experience two-way communication with God.

Finally, remember the scripture I quoted to you previously:” Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, “This is the way you should go,” whether to the right or to the left.”

We will continue in the next chapter.

I pray that you receive touchable spiritual upliftment from these words and the way of expressing your gratitude to God in return is to share them with others. You do so by simply mailing this link to them.

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