Those who know God pray for things to happen

prayers-of-hope-when-youre-going-through-the-storm

I love the spiritual expression where God continues to love those who know Him and He gives favour and does good things towards those who are in right standing with Him. It is here in this thought that I should know of my need to pray that I can stay in this part of my relationship with Him.

Continue to love those who know you and to do good to those who are righteous. – Psalm 36:10 GNT

Even though I have experienced His love and grace, I need a continuing flow and I need to ask Him for it.

In trouble, I make a decision. Do I let the accuser set the agenda or am I intentional about allowing the Holy Spirit to become involved in the process. It is a decision that requires deliberate, careful, thoughtful, and spiritual insight and action. Especially because I am prone to operate out of my humanity and most unspiritual nature. It is why the world is filled with broken relationships, unhealed hurts and prolonged divisions. Paul tries to tell Philemon that there is a different way, that we can approach God first through prayer, before we accuse and speed up the level of conflict.

Brother Philemon, every time I pray, I mention you and give thanks to my God.  For I hear of your love for all of God’s people and the faith you have in the Lord Jesus.  My prayer is that our fellowship with you as believers will bring about a deeper understanding of every blessing which we have in our life in union with Christ.  Your love, dear brother, has brought me great joy and much encouragement! You have cheered the hearts of all of God’s people. – Philemon 4-7 GNT

 What a great example of starting a prayer with thankfulness. Even though there is conflict, and let’s face it, most of his letters were sent to churches where there was conflict, he takes time to thank God for them and their church family. Paul approach to conflict was not to be the accuser but the one who prayed.

In fact, I believe that it is evidence of Paul’s spiritual practices – to pray for others. Paul knew that prayer mattered especially when it came to conflict.

His prayer also give a secret to how hearts are changed – “our fellowship with you as believers will bring about a deeper understanding.” Special things happen among the relationships of believers. Things that were thought to be impossible, are now possible. So Paul prays that God would set the right conditions so that something new and transformative would take place between the two in conflict. Paul recognizes, by prayer, that God is the only one who can make this reconciliation possible. So I have learned that when I pray for those I am in conflict with, I do not only thank God for them, I ask Him to make the conditions right – God working on mine and their soul, so that our faith can see the powerful effect of God in our lives.

 

Proper frame of mind to pray

proper state of mind to pray

The title is a little bit off today because I actually do not believe that you have to be or that there is a proper frame of mind one has to be in so that you can pray. I was thinking of this as I engaged with Psalm 35 and I heard a description of it as being an “imprecatory” prayer. When I used the Google dictionary, it could not define it but it did define the verb tense of the word which would be to imprecate – meaning “to invoke or call down (evil or curses), as upon a person.”

So what does that mean – are we giving ourselves permission for such a prayer because David prayed it? May be David prayed it because God Himself cursed those people for continued evil. One thing for sure, David’s choice of emotional words would indicate that he could not win the fight he was in alone. He needed God’s help and he asked for it. Maybe in really desperate times I might be moved to pray this way too.

Lift up your spear and war ax
    against those who pursue me.
Promise that you will save me. – Psalm 35:3 GNT

Here is the call for God to step in and get involved. I have to assume that I can only engage this kind of prayer if I myself am in right standing with God. This is not a wish for evil to happen, it is one where I am in real danger of harm, maybe death.

But destruction will catch them before they know it;
    they will be caught in their own trap
    and fall to their destruction! – Psalm 35:8 GNT

I think David knew the character of those who were trying to oppose him and he knew they would not stop unless they were made to stop by force. That force seemed to be such that it needed more than the strength of a person or of people. Even the most powerful people we know have limits on what they can do. I can imagine this prayer being so relevant to those of us who have no power at all.

In review, I can pray this kind of prayer when my cause is one God can support, I may experience terrible harm and there is no one else who can come to my rescue. This is not a prayer for vengeance but one of dependence on God as my only hope of help. When I try and put myself in this situation, I think of how will I have the patience to wait on God when I need Him to act so quickly?

They do not speak in a friendly way;
    instead they invent all kinds of lies about peace-loving people. – Psalm 35:20 GNT

It is not just about being annoyed or bothered, if you will. This is about verbal abuse that is cruel and unrelenting.

Rouse yourself, O Lord, and defend me;
    rise up, my God, and plead my cause. – Psalm 35:23 GNT

This is what goes through my mind while I am pleading for God to relieve me from the evil that I feel is coming my way – can my enemy be asking for the same relief because of my call for God to take action against them? This is why I need to be sure I am in right standing with God.

You are righteous, O Lord, so declare me innocent;
    don’t let my enemies gloat over me. – Psalm 35:24 GNT

This is not an issue of mutual recrimination – I am innocent and there is nothing I have done to bring on this kind of hatred. I believe that this kind of prayer does not come from a heart that simply wants to harm someone. I will know this for sure when God comes through for me – I should experience joy.

Then I will proclaim your righteousness,
and I will praise you all day long. – Psalm 35:28 GNT

How long will this joy last – how long will I be praising God? It could last all day long.

What does all of this look like in terms of my eternal life.

If you wait until the wind and the weather are just right, you will never plant anything and never harvest anything. – Ecclesiastes 11:4 GNT

This is another point about being in a proper frame of mind in order to pray. If I go by my feelings and do not remember that I have a Saviour who has infinite power to save me, I will not engage in prayer or in faith. If I continually look at my on condition in life, my own hopes, my own broken promises, then I will stay exactly where I am.

If I live by my frames and feelings I will get into the same situations. How often I have said, “I do not feel like praying,” and thankfully realize that this is the time I really need to be praying the most, where I am most evidently in need of prayer. If I wait until I am in a proper frame of mind to pray I will not pray. Maybe not so blunt and easy to be self-aware of but I could also say, “I cannot trust the promises of God” or another is “I should like to joy in God and believe in His Word, but I find nothing there.” How and what in the world can build myself up from there? Those are signals that I am on the wrong track – my hope is in the finished work of Christ. Winds and clouds will not get me there.

The worst sin is prayerlessness. Overt sin, or crime, or the glaring inconsistencies which often surprise us in Christian people are the effect of this, or its punishment. We are left by God for lack of seeking Him. The history of the saints shows often that their lapses were the fruit and nemesis of slackness or neglect in prayer. Their life, at seasons, also tended to become inhuman by their spiritual solitude. They left men, and were left by men, because they did not in their contemplation find God; they found but the thought or the atmosphere of God. Only living prayer keeps loneliness humane. It is the great producer of sympathy. Trusting the God of Christ, and transacting with Him, we come into tune with men. Our egoism retires before the coming of God, and into the clearance there comes with our Father our brother. . . .

Not to want to pray, then, is the sin behind sin. And it ends in not being able to pray. That is its punishment — spiritual dumbness, or at least aphasia, and starvation. We do not take our spiritual food, and so we falter, dwindle, and die. “In the sweat of your brow ye shall eat your bread.” – Peter T. Forsyth – “The Soul of Prayer,” in A Sense of the Holy, p. 137)

 

 

Prayer sweeps the field

prayer sweeps the field

I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me;
    he freed me from all my fears. – Psalm 34:4 GNT

David had a real sense of self sufficiency when it came to praying. His sometimes limping prayers were accepted by God and moved Him to help in whatever he asked. Does this not give me reason to celebrate the abundant mercy of God? I can seek Him when I have sinned. What would I be or do if there was no mercy? But there is, and mercy’s gift to me is my release from all my fears. It is the work of the hand of God and it is perfect. He frees my fears and I believe He frees me from what caused me to fear. He wipes out my enemies and even buries them.

“All prayer is somewhat impure. It is never done with fully proper motives of heart or with language worthy of its object. It is received and answered by God, therefore, only by grace.” – Keller

 

 

 

When we need to pray

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I like the acronym “A. C. T. S.” we use as a guideline for prayer. While “adoration” is a great place to start, I find that “confession” is usually where I start and out of that time comes a flow of worship.

Then I confessed my sins to you;
    I did not conceal my wrongdoings.
I decided to confess them to you,
    and you forgave all my sins. – Psalm 32:5 GNT

It is a prayer that we all need to pray.

I notice that one of the first things I lose when I find myself stepping away from God is the absence of confession and quickly it becomes the absence of prayer itself. Losing time reading/meditating on the Bible, hearing the voice of God and ultimately when I stop seeing/pondering the beauty of creation come closely after that. I start each day with this thought in mind —

I have done my best in the race, I have run the full distance, and I have kept the faith. – 2 Timothy 4:7 GNT

“Friendship exhibits a glorious “nearness by resemblance” to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are crying “Holy, Holy, Holy” to one another (Isaiah VI, 3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have.” – Lewis

Praying differently

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When Jesus prayed His last prayer on the cross, placing His spirit into the hands of God, He was echoing a bit of a prayer from the Psalms.

I place myself in your care.
You will save me, Lord;
    you are a faithful God. – Psalm 31:5 GNT

I have been praying this prayer now every night since I ran across a sermon this past Easter, committing my wife and I and our two children and their families. There is not a better place to put myself at the end of the day. Death will never have the last word for I trust in Jesus to raise me up from the dead.

It allows me to experience a full range of emotions during the day, especially sorrow. Sometimes sorrow stalls my ability to pray since I know the scripture verses that tell me to be joyful always and never stop praying. What am I supposed to do with my sadness or how will I pray if I am unhappy? What does my prayer look like?

Sorrow is better than laughter; it may sadden your face, but it sharpens your understanding. – Ecclesiastes 7:3 GNT

That is an encouraging word – I need to reflect on the fact that my sorrow is allowing me to grow and to strengthen me. I may not be glad with my circumstances but I can be glad from knowing God is working in me and is hearing me.

These temptations are both on the right hand and on the left. 28 On the right, when riches, power, and honours, which by their glare, and the semblance of good which they present, generally dazzle the eyes of men, and so entice by their blandishments, that, caught by their snares, and intoxicated by their sweetness, they forget their God: on the left, when offended by the hardship and bitterness of poverty, disgrace, contempt, afflictions, and other things of that description, they despond, cast away their confidence and hope, and are at length totally estranged from God. In regard to both kinds of temptation, which either enkindled in us by concupiscence, or presented by the craft of Satan’s war against us, we pray God the Father not to allow us to be overcome, but rather to raise and support us by his hand, that strengthened by his mighty power we may stand firm against all the assaults of our malignant enemy, whatever be the thoughts which he sends into our minds; next we pray that whatever of either description is allotted us, we may turn to good, that is, may neither be inflated with prosperity, nor cast down by adversity. Here, however, we do not ask to be altogether exempted from temptation, which is very necessary to excite, stimulate, and urge us on, that we may not become too lethargic. It was not without reason that David wished to be tried, 29 nor is it without cause that the Lord daily tries his elect, chastising them by disgrace, poverty, tribulation, and other kinds of cross. 30 But the temptations of God and Satan are very different: Satan tempts, that he may destroy, condemn, confound, throw headlong; God, that by proving his people he may make trial of their sincerity, and by exercising their strength confirm it; may mortify, tame, and cauterize their flesh, which, if not curbed in this manner, would wanton and exult above measure. Besides, Satan attacks those who are unarmed and unprepared, that he may destroy them unawares; whereas whatever God sends, he “will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” – Calvin