Pray with confidence and assurance until it comes

praying with confidence and assurance until it comes

How many times am I told to wait on God – how many before me have given testimony to the eleventh hour of God? Many have turn to God in their time of need and in that expectation God delivers. God’s power is enough to help the weakest, His grace is enough to help the unworthiest, He is present and can be trusted to deliver. Waiting means that my deliverance does not happen quickly and in the waiting I continue to be found believing, hoping and praying.

I waited patiently for the Lord‘s help;
then he listened to me and heard my cry.. – Psalm 40:1 GNT

It does not mean that I am always comfortable in waiting, but I have enough experience to know God’s goodness and I will honour God and offer others encouragement. I do not wait in vain – my Father always hears my prayers.

I am encouraged to draw near to God to order to gain His help in my time of need.

 Let us, then, hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we have a great High Priest who has gone into the very presence of God—Jesus, the Son of God. Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin.  Let us have confidence, then, and approach God’s throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it. – Hebrews 4:14-16 GNT

I deliberately depend on God for my ability to follow Him. I plug into Him as my conscious decision to cry out for help, say no to temptation and live my life in right standing with Him. My prayer is an act on the fact that Jesus took my sin on the cross so that I might die to sin and live my life in right standing with Him.

Humble people pray. It is the way I find God’s power in my weakness. I seek to trust His leadership. I ask for help and I act on His promise of help. When I pray for help, I find myself getting in the game of serving Him. When I do not pray, I stay paralyzed.

I pray because I am convinced God is my provider and that He will do what He promised. I will pray to the extent that I know He is good and He is good to me. It is not that my knowledge about God matters, it is my experience with God that fuels my prayer. I have found Him trustworthy, so I trust Him. It is in trusting Him more that I know Him more and my prayers rise.

May I find myself drawn to the throne of God today, in prayer, with confidence and assurance that I will find help there.

I pray to the Father through the mediation of the Son and by the enabling of the Holy Spirit. I may speak also to the Son and the Spirit directly when this is appropriate: that is, when I am praying about something that Scripture specified as the direct concern of either. – J.I. Packer

 

 

Talk with God, my prayers are heard

brianajackson.1200w.tn

There was a song that we sang in youth group on Friday nights that would come out of the core of my being. It is hardly sung these days, but when it is, it still rocks my soul.

As a deer longs for a stream of cool water,
    so I long for you, O God. – Psalm 42:1 GNT

Thirst is the second strongest bodily desire after the need for air. That is where I was at in my journey of discovering and expressing my love for Jesus. I discovered that I could worship Him anytime, anyplace because of the Holy Spirit who was within me.

It was part of David being honest that makes the prayer so real. He goes on…

Why am I so sad?
    Why am I so troubled?
I will put my hope in God,
    and once again I will praise him,
    my savior and my God.

Here in exile my heart is breaking,
    and so I turn my thoughts to him.
He has sent waves of sorrow over my soul;
    chaos roars at me like a flood,
    like waterfalls thundering down to the Jordan
    from Mount Hermon and Mount Mizar.
May the Lord show his constant love during the day,
    so that I may have a song at night,
    a prayer to the God of my life. – Psalm 42:5-8 GNT

In other words – “I know it is foolish to be down, but I am.” What about the expression he uses at the end – “a prayer to the God of my life.” God’s love never fails and His ear is ready to hear.

The intimacy that exist here is real.

While I slept, my heart was awake.

I dreamed my lover knocked at the door.

Let me come in, my darling,

    my sweetheart, my dove.
My head is wet with dew,
    and my hair is damp from the mist. – Song of Solomon 5:2 GNT

 

I have seen God delighting and joying over me. I am just as important to Him as a lover is to their loved one. He longs to hear my voice – why is it so easy to forget to pray? He reaches out to me but I am too busy. I am His dove that He wants to hold and speak gently to, but I struggle and keep trying to fly away.

Jesus time of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was given a different perspective from the author of the Book of Hebrews.

In his life on earth Jesus made his prayers and requests with loud cries and tears to God, who could save him from death. Because he was humble and devoted, God heard him. But even though he was God’s Son, he learned through his sufferings to be obedient. When he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him – Hebrews 5:7-9 GNT

Jesus came to pray that night as a high priest – He is interceding – standing between me and God and praying on my behalf. The following day, like the high priest practiced, He will offer a sacrifice for sin. Rather than an animal, He would offer Himself.

Jesus prayed and God heard Him – not because of His loud cries, or even because of the quantity of tears – He heard Him because He was humble and faithful. Rather than demanding, He prayed for the will of God to take place. He learned to be obedient, not that He was disobedient, but rather that I might have a model, an example, of what it looks like to learn obedience in suffering.

The reason became clear – He was made perfect three days later and the source of eternal salvation. So when I pray, I pray as a child of God who is talking to His Father in heaven. That is where I begin my prayer – with the confidence that God hears them for Jesus’ sake – Jesus intercedes for me. So I do not worry if they are passionate enough, or articulate, whether they come as cries or with tears, they are heard because of Jesus. I pray humbly and faithfully as Jesus did.

“Our prayer must be in full, grateful awareness that our access to God, as Father is a free gift won by the costly sacrifice of Jesus the True Son, and then enacted in us by the Holy Spirit who helps us know inwardly that we are his children. To pray in Jesus’ name is not meant to be a magic formula, as if the pronunciation of the words coerce God’s power or mechanically taps into supernatural forces. Jesus’ name is shorthand for his divine person and saving work. To come to the Father in Jesus’ name, not our own, is to come fully cognizant that we are being heard because of the costly grace in which we stand. This is the one principle of prayer that makes it possible to be heard by God even though no one can follow all the other guidelines and ‘rules’ as we should” – Timothy Keller

 

Rebellious or suffering prayer

lonely-man-beach-prayer

I found the first use of the word, “amen.” in the Bible – and it means “I agree,” “let it be,” “so be it.”

The woman shall respond, “I agree; may the Lord do so.” Numbers 5:22 GNT

It is about being in a place where God makes a commandment that needs to be accepted and I yield to His involvement in my life.

Those times become easier when I understand that my life is transient.   

“Lord, how long will I live?
When will I die?
    Tell me how soon my life will end.”How short you have made my life!In your light my lifetime seems nothing. Indeed every living being is no more than a puff of wind, no more than a shadow. All we do is for nothing; we gather wealth, but don’t know who will get it. – Psalm 39:4-6 GNT

I am becoming more aware of this as I get older and as I look at my suffering through a different set of lens. I pray that I might learn from these times and that I may learn well. In the past I would pray to be relieved and upon that happening I would revert back to the mindset that life will go on for a long time – that cannot be anymore. I cannot forget how transient I am.

Don’t punish me any more!
    I am about to die from your blows. – Psalm 39:10 GNT

I cannot prevent the voice of prayer from being part of my life – it must never cease. I know the Lord will listen to my prayer to remove my troubles, especially if I am resigned to it. I am fully acquiescent to the divine will, yet my heart still can pray for Him to deliver me. It is when I am rebellious that I have stopped to pray about the trials in my life. Only when I turned to be submissive that I asked for mercy. I come close to being consumed from His blows but I know they are not meant to do so, they are meant to confront and discipline me from my sins.

That our wrestling is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12), we see plainly when we begin to take notice of the outward hindrances which are placed in the way of our prayers from day to day. When those hours of the day come in which we should be having our prayer- sessions with God, it often appears as though everything has entered into a conspiracy to prevent it, human beings, animals, and, above all, the telephone (and today – cell phones and computers). It is not difficult to see that there is a veiled hand in the complot. Woe to the Christian who is unacquainted with these foes! The first and the decisive battle in connection with prayer is the conflict which arises when we are to make arrangements to be alone with God every day. If the battle is lost for any length of time at this point, the enemy has already won the first skirmish. But even though we do gain the victory at the threshold of our prayer chambers, our prayer-struggle is by no means over. Our enemies will pursue us deliberately into our very prayer rooms. And here our carnal natures and Satan will take up the battle anew, though from a somewhat different angle. Now every effort will be concentrated upon making our prayer session as brief as possible, or upon distracting us so completely that we are not even now given an opportunity to be alone with God. My friend, do you know anything about this battle? As you kneel to speak with your Lord, it seems as though everything you have to do appears vividly before your mind’s eye. You see especially how much there is to do, and how urgent it is that it be done, at least some of it. As these thoughts occur, you become more and more restless. You try to keep your thoughts collected and to speak with God, but you succeed only for a moment now and then. Your thoughts flit back and forth between God and the many pressing duties which await you. Your prayer hour becomes really the most restless hour of the day. Your mind is literally torn to shreds. Joy, peace and rest are as far from you as the east is from the west. And the longer you prolong the session, the more you feel. – Prayer (Copyright 1931) By Ole Hallesby (Norway) Pages 91,92, 93 

 

Watch and pray against

watch and pray against

How many of us deprecate the hand of God when it comes with His displeasure? I love that David could express this well and how many times do we read that even as a man after God’s own heart he stumbled a few times. He knew when God was dealing with him and for those who have experienced God’s hand in our lives when He is disciplining us know that is the one and only prayer that consumes us – more so than any other trouble in our lives. At the same time who gives us an example in how to receive that discipline better than David – for it comes from the hand of God and therefore is consistent with the love of God.

O Lord, don’t punish me in your anger! – Psalm 38:1 GNT

When Jesus came as a man, though He was sinless, He became our Champion.

Since the children, as he calls them, are people of flesh and blood, Jesus himself became like them and shared their human nature. He did this so that through his death he might destroy the Devil, who has the power over death, and in this way set free those who were slaves all their lives because of their fear of death. – Hebrews 2:14-15 GNT

The cross became the place where He met the Devil and ended his authority over all those who believe in Him. He delivers me where before I was afraid and in bondage. My simple task today is to watch and pray so that I am not mislead or hindered in my communion with God.

I have seen men standing in the street, before an engraving of that gem of the Dresden Gallery, a longer time than a good man will sometimes devote to his evening prayer. Yet, what thoughts, what ideals of grace, can Genius express in a painting, demanding time for their appreciation and enjoyment, like those great thoughts of God, of Heaven, of Eternity, which the soul needs to conceive vividly, in order to know the blessedness of prayer? What conceptions can Art imagine of the Divine Child, which can equal in spirituality, the thoughts which one needs to entertain of Christ, in the prayer of faith? We cannot hope, commonly, to spring into possession of such thoughts, in the twinkling of an eye. – Austin Phelps

 

 

 

Align our prayers with the Holy Spirit

Align our prayers with the Holy Spirit

The desires of our heart invites and involves the hand of God in our lives.

Seek your happiness in the Lord,
and he will give you your heart’s desire. – Psalm 37:4 GNT

When I have a closing prayer time with someone I do not know, but have had a wonderful time of ministry with, I usually will ask God to give them the desires of their heart. It is the best blessing I believe I can give them. I do that because I believe in an omnipotent God.

In God I am to trust, to wait, to rest, to delight, to commit, to know and to have patience. In delighting in Him, I receive my delights, His peace, His safety, His stability, His provisions, His guidance, His protection, His deliverance, a firm place to stand, a secure future, a refuge, I am free from worry, and I am free from fear of poverty. When my desire is to please God and my prayer reflect that, God can answer my prayer and while His answer may surprise me initially, upon reflection, I see His love, power and sovereignty – I see His omnipotence and His benevolence.

So my prayer looks something like this.

Take me with you, and we’ll run away;
    be my king and take me to your room.
We will be happy together,
    drink deep, and lose ourselves in love.
    No wonder all women love you! – Song of Solomon 1:4 GNT

I ask for divine grace – take me with You – I do not want to be away from Him, I desire to be close union with Him. I know that I cannot come to Jesus on my own unless the Father draws me in. I need to pray for the Holy Spirit to come and make the unwilling part of me, willing. If I am not brought into relationship with Jesus I will not have the power to overcome the world and my own fleshly desires. I am not driven to Christ, I want to be drawn to Him.

“Do not say, ‘I cannot pray, I am not in the spirit.’ Pray till you are in the Spirit…If you are averse to pray, pray the more.” – P.T. Forsyth