true prayer

Answered true prayer

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Praying in confidence, believing that I will receive from God whatever I ask, allows me to experience a daily adventure of answered prayer. The excitement of actually seeing God working in my life and in the lives of those I am in contact with is something that gives me daily stimulation. This is what seems to be the norm for walking with Jesus and how He intended for us to experience every day.

And so, my dear friends, if our conscience does not condemn us, we have courage in God’s presence. We receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. What he commands is that we believe in his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as Christ commanded us. Those who obey God’s commands live in union with God and God lives in union with them. And because of the Spirit that God has given us we know that God lives in union with us. – 1 John 3:21-24 GNT

Unfortunately I run into so many who believe that following Jesus is boring or at least a mediocre experience. Young adults have lost hope in the promises of God. They do not understand what transformation even looks like. Most do not know what it means to have a relationship with God where they have an adventure of seeing a living God at work, answering prayer. Prayer is the most characteristic and must fundamental part of my relationship with God. Prayer is my expression of dependence on a loving God.

The spirit of prayer is about courage when coming into God’s presence. It implies a close relationship and a feeling of belonging or having the right to be there. In other words, there is no fear of being rebuked.

Three things may be distinguished in the great duty of being spiritually minded, under which notion it is here recommended unto us:—

(1.) The actual exercise of the mind, in its thoughts, meditations, and desires, about things spiritual and heavenly. So is it expressed in the verse foregoing: “They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh,” — they think on them, their contrivances are about them, and their desires after them; “but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.” They mind them by fixing their thoughts and meditations upon them.

(2.) The inclination, disposition, and frame of the mind, in all its affections, whereby it adheres and cleaves unto spiritual things. This “minding of the Spirit” resides habitually in the affections. Wherefore, the φρόνημα of the Spirit, or the mind as renewed and acted by a spiritual principle of light and life, is the exercise of its thoughts, meditations, and desires, on spiritual things, proceeding from the love and delight of its affections in them and engagement unto them.

(3.) A complacency of mind, from that gust, relish, and savour, which it finds in spiritual things, from their suitableness unto its constitution, inclinations, and desires. There is a salt in spiritual things, whereby they are condited and made savoury unto a renewed mind; though to others they are as the white of an egg, that hath no taste or savour in it. In this gust and relish lies the sweetness and satisfaction of spiritual life. Speculative notions about spiritual things, when they are alone, are dry, sapless, and barren. In this gust we taste by experience that God is gracious, and that the love of Christ is better than wine, or whatever else hath the most grateful relish unto a sensual appetite. This is the proper foundation of that “joy which is unspeakable and full of glory.” – John Owen

 

 

Always pray, pray for everything and sometimes ask for nothing

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Sometimes when I am praying, I find myself in a place where asking is not my primary mode of conversation. Sometimes I like telling God all the things I love about Him. In a way I am declaring my confidence and my trust in Him.

David does this too, although we do not see it that often. In times of trouble this is how he starts one of his journals. It is full of faith and trust, absent of fear, despair and petition.

I wait patiently for God to save me;
I depend on him alone.
He alone protects and saves me;
he is my defender,
and I shall never be defeated. – Psalm 62:1-2 GNT

“There is in it throughout not one single word (and this is a rare occurrence), in which the prophet expresses fear or dejection; and there is also no prayer in it, although, on other occasions, when in danger, he never omits to pray.” – Amyraut, cited in Spurgeon

But even here he is sure to remind us all to pray.

Trust in God at all times, my people.
    Tell him all your troubles,
    for he is our refuge. – Psalm 62:8 GNT

Isaiah gives us a description of what Jesus will look like and I think that helps when we have prayer times like this.

The spirit of the Lord will give him wisdom
    and the knowledge and skill to rule his people.
He will know the Lord‘s will and honor him,
    and find pleasure in obeying him. – Isaiah 11:2 GNT

Wisdom and knowledge speak of authority. It is the ability to give good and right advice and skill to the ability to carry them out.

He will not judge by appearance or hearsay;
    he will judge the poor fairly
    and defend the rights of the helpless. – Isaiah 11:3 GNT

I see Jesus life as one who wants to walk with me, just like He did with Nicodemus. He speaks into the ABC’s of spiritual life, truth that could never come from human wisdom. He describes how angels live, what happens after death, how prayer works, and even how the devil works. He examplied what and who I want to be and live. What does a prayer of faith look like?

James talks about that and he does so in the arena of healing and in the encouragement to pray in all circumstances.

Are any among you in trouble? They should pray. Are any among you happy? They should sing praises. Are any among you sick? They should send for the church elders, who will pray for them and rub olive oil on them in the name of the Lord. This prayer made in faith will heal the sick; the Lord will restore them to health, and the sins they have committed will be forgiven. So then, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you will be healed. The prayer of a good person has a powerful effect. Elijah was the same kind of person as we are. He prayed earnestly that there would be no rain, and no rain fell on the land for three and a half years. Once again he prayed, and the sky poured out its rain and the earth produced its crops. – James 5:13-18 GNT

This is a place where I take all that trust I mentioned before and exercise it. I might see a physical healing, but I also might see an emotional or spiritual healing too. I look to Jesus, with His wisdom and understanding, and I know that with Him as my source of healing, He will know best how these healing should look like.

I like how James ends a session on discipleship with this call to pray with faith.

Prayer, true prayer, does not allow us to deceive ourselves. It relaxes the tension of our self-inflation. It produces a clearness of spiritual vision. Searching with a judgment that begins at the house of God, it ceases not to explore with His light our own soul. If the Lord is our health He may need to act on many men, or many moods, as a lowering medicine. At His coming our self-confidence is shaken. Our robust confidence, even in grace, is destroyed. The pillars of our house tremble, as if they were ivy-covered in a searching wind. Our lusty faith is refined, by what may be a painful process, into a subtler and more penetrating kind; and its outward effect is for the time impaired, though in the end it is increased. The effect of the prayer which admits God into the recesses of the soul is to destroy that spiritual density, not to say stupidity, which made our religion cheery or vigorous because it knew no better, and which was the condition of getting many obvious things done, and producing palpable effect on the order of the day. There are fervent prayers which, by making people feel good, may do no more than foster the delusion that natural vigour or robust religion, when flushed enough, can do the work of the kingdom of God. There is a certain egoist self-confidence which is increased by the more elementary forms of religion, which upholds us in much of our contact with men, and which even secures us an influence with them. But the influence is one of impression rather than permeation, it overbears rather than converts, and it inflames rather than inspires. This is a force which true and close prayer is very apt to undermine, because it saps our self-deception and its Pharisaism. The confidence was due to a lack of spiritual insight which serious prayer plentifully repairs. So by prayer we acquire our true selves. – P. T. Forsyth, Soul of Prayer