1 John 5:14-15: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him.”
I love that movie Bruce Almighty. Bruce thinks he can do a better job than God, so God gives him His power and lets Bruce give it a try. Bruce realizes that the job is a lot harder than he imagined when the prayer inbox start loading up. His email is full of unanswered prayers, so he decides to take the easy way out. He hits “Reply All” and types the message “YES”. Everybody is happy, right? Wrong. What follows is chaos. Everybody who prayed to win the lottery suddenly wins, so they only get about $40 each. A riot breaks out because everyone thinks they got cheated and next thing you know, the city is on the verge of destruction.
God could easily just hit the “reply all” button and say yes to all of our prayers, but He doesn’t answer prayer that way. He answers it according to His plan for us and we should pray in submission to those plans. Jesus gives us a great example of how to pray. In Matthew 26, the time for crucifixion was near, and Jesus in His humanness was overwhelmed with sorrow. He went to Gethsemane to pray and three times He asked God - if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Each time He ended with a statement of submissive obedience – that God’s will be done.
When we pray, our petition should always be followed with a declaration of submission. If our prayer is according to his will, we will have it. God always answers prayer – sometimes with “yes”, sometimes with “no”, and sometimes with “wait”, but He always answers.
We have to prepare our hearts and be willing to walk forward in obedience to His will when we approach Him in prayer. God doesn’t answer prayer like a great puppet in the sky or a genie in a bottle. Prayer is for communication and relationship building with the Lord and often times we forget that. God wants us to honestly share our hearts with Him. Jesus didn’t just pray that God’s will be done, He shared his petition first – openly and honestly. Then He professed his desire to be obedient to God’s will.
Remember:
We truly can trust in the Lord instead of our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5)
Our God has plans for us to prosper (Jeremiah 29:11)
His thoughts are higher than our thoughts & His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9)
His wisdom is deep, His judgments are unsearchable and his paths are beyond tracing out. (Romans 11:33)
God wants us to share our petitions with Him, but we can’t forget to acknowledge our smallness at the same time. So pray that God will open you up to His will and build a heart of obedience in you. Remember to pray for His will in all things. Put your petitions in His hands and let Him take the reigns of your life. He knows what’s best for us and what’s best for all of mankind.
What petitions have you placed before the Lord lately? Have you asked Him to answer them according to His will?
Today's blog was posted by Bridge member Kelly Coxe
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Faith and prayer go hand and hand, unfortunately God is not the Jack in The Box drive through at midnight we put the order in and we want for that 5 min. responses. I guess now I’m speaking to myself.
ReplyDeleteThen it goes back to his will be done not ours. How many times I said boy this must be God so God just come along with me on this one, Right. There I go again telling God what is right. Just be still and wait on the Lord thing? You know what the Word says; that the wisdom of man is foolishness to Him, I would say so. I look back on my life and I always see his perfect timing it's just getting myself to that place in Him where Paul was (I learned the secret of being content in all things) Wow the secret, boy I can't wait to press into that place.
But the Word says Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. The more I'm in the Word every day the more I start to understand Him. I said start to understand! That whole thing, don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of the mind. That is a daily thing for me.
He is beyond words to me in every area of my life, I'm so thankful that He chose me. I just pray that the people in my life and the people I come into contact with can experience that oneness with Him as I do.
As bad as we are as a people we are all He has to work with, we all have to remember that people.
We are the only hope this world has, The time is short, the harvest is plenty and the labor is few.
Well I'm speaking to myself again, like Danny said I better not let self rightness get in my way or I will be on my knees tonight, well like that would be any different than any other night.
PS: I know there are allot of teachers in the class so please don't critic the writing!
Andy
Thanks again to Carol and Kelly for this wonderful forum! *I too am so grateful that the Lord doesn't answer all prayers according to man's will. The chaos would be something else indeed. This reminds me that God also allows us room to be human, make mistakes, then learn and improve. If He did not allow for this, we would merely be ROBOTS and God a DICTATOR. Anytime I see the words "thy will be done" or hear them, I think of the Lord's Prayer(prayer of Jesus) and then immediately think of "deliver us from evil". According to the Gospel, THE EVIL ONE is the subject, not just evil in general. Therefore, I must be in constant prayer and meditation in order do descern as to whether or not I am in the Lord's will. If I said it's easy, I'd be lying!! However, I did not say impossible, as the Bible clearly tells me I CAN do the Lord's will. In fact, the prayer of Jesus says"...Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven." The most practical, pure, prophetic, and holy one to ever walk this planet gave instructions that enpower us. I love the anachronim for the Bible-->Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Lastly, most instructions and commandments given to us are difficult, as we are of fallen man. For this reason, sometimes the best I can do @ any given moment is to NOT SIN, even if I'm not quite sure what the Lord's will is. This is why perhaps my favorite verse of all(as far as behaviorism)is Psalm 119:11-> Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee. Not only am I strengthened by the word, but this strength enables me not to sin as often as otherwise...Be a blessing!
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