Specific Prayers?

This week I will be talking about Elijah and prayer.  I will only be posting Mon-Wed this week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday.

The post today regarding Elijah I want to talk about Elijah and specific requests in his prayers.  Elijah was one who prayed specifically let us look at an example.  1 Kings 17:21 – ²¹ Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and called to the LORD and said, “O LORD my God, I pray You, let this child’s life return to him.”

Here are just one example of Elijah praying specifically for what He wanted to see the Lord do.  The Lord did it and raise the child to life.  Another example for Elijah and his prayers we see that he declared or prayed very specifically for there not be rain, not even dew.  Later then after the drought he also prayed specifically for rain and again the Lord answered.

Let me tell you that I believe that the most ineffective prayers are mostly the ones that are nonspecific.  You know the type I am talking about the:  …bless my family, or the …be with me today or the bless all the missionaries.  I began to think about why we do not pray specifically.  Maybe we have a tendency to not pray specifically because we do not want to look foolish if is not answered.  Maybe we have a tendency to not pray specifically because we are lazy and it would take too long.

When we pray vague and unspecific prayers we never really know if or how God answered them.  We never give God a chance to tell us yes,no, or not now.  We need to tell God what it is that we really want from him, exactly what we want to see Him do. The Psalmist tells us, “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge” in Psalm 62:8. When we simply pray, “Okay, God, your will be done” we really are not pouring out our hearts to Him. I think we need to be pouring out our hearts to Him and then also being able to say at the same time, “Your will be done.”  Do you truly pour out your heart to God?

So let me encourage you to be praying specific prayers to God.  Lay out before God what you want to see happen in the circumstance or in the situation or in the life that you are praying for.  When you do this, you will be able to tell if God is giving you what it is your are praying for specifically or if God is giving you are partial answer or if God is simply just telling you no.  The thing is that even when you get the no answer you can have a sense of confidence knowing that you have poured out your heart to God and that His will is being done!

Let us pray specifically for what we want to see God do as we pour out our heart before Him and watch what God will do and grow in confidence in prayer and its power as God tells us yes, no, and no now.

Do you pray specific prayers?  Do you pour your heart out before God?

 

Reaction (Part 3)

Isaiah 38:1-8 -  ¹ In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, `Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’ “ ² Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, ³ and said, “Remember now, O LORD, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Now how would you like to have Isaiah’s job here.  He has to go to the King and tell him that God has told him that He is going to die.  Now in this statement from Isaiah: Thus says the LORD, `Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’ There seems to be no discussion here or bartering with God, he has sent the message and it is a flat out statement as to what is going to happen – Hezekiah is going to die.

God was remarkably kind to Hezekiah, telling him that his death was near. Not all people are given the time to set your house in order.  Because not all are given warning about this we should be living our lives in a way always that our houses are in order.  We need to always be ready because life is like a vapor that appears for a short time and vanishes away.

Again we see the reaction of Hezekiah.  Before in the desperate situations we saw Hezekiah seek God in those times and again we see it here.  Again we see that he turns his face to the wall and prays.  Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall: This shows how earnest Hezekiah was in his prayer. He directed his prayer in privacy to God, and not to any man. He is deeply moved by this news as all of us would be but he reacts in a God honoring way – that God honoring way is prayer.

Again – we have seen in all types of situations that Hezekiah goes to God in prayer as his immediate reaction.  We have seen it with things happening in his leadership and his country and now with health.  What is going on in your life right now that you need to take to God in prayer?  For me, I pray that in every situation in my life that I would take it directly to God right away – I am not there yet but it is getting better.  How about you, are you taking everything directly to God right away?  Are your reactions God honoring?

Share your thinking and thoughts on this?

Big Prayers

Joshua 10:12 – 14 Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, ”O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. There was no day like that before it or after it, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel.

God intervened supernaturally on the behalf of Israel because of a Big prayer prayed by Joshua. Think about this audacious prayer – He asked God to keep the sun from setting – that is some faith in God.  God answered Joshua’s prayer by giving him and Israel all the daylight they needed to get the job done.

What does this mean for us? Well, there are times when the Lord will supernaturally intervene in your life because of the big prayers that you pray. I have seen people healed of disease because they called on God. I have seen drunks saved and never have a desire again for alcohol or pick it by the power of God in their life. I have seen drug addicts immediately released from the power of drugs and made clean and to not return to addiction. I have seen lives changed in miraculous ways by the supernatural intervention of God through prayer. I have seen the Lord move in response to the need of His child and move any mountain that needed to be moved to get His people what they needed. That is our God! He answers Big prayers.

While He does answer Big prayers, I want you to understand, He doesn’t always move like that. I have seen drunks delivered, but I have seen others who still struggled with that sin even after they were saved. I have seen saints healed, but I have seen others die with their disease. What I am saying is that there are times when the Lord will move in supernatural power in those big prayers to meet the need of His child and there are other times that He will not.  We do not know the reason why but that should never keep us from praying Big prayers.  God will not answer the prayers that are not prayed.

Let us go out and be praying Big Prayers and see what God will do.

What Big prayer can I be praying for you today?

(This Post was inspired partly by the book Sun Stand Still which I am not finished with yet but would recommend to you already.)

FEAR!

Joshua 10:8 – The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands; not one of them shall stand before you.”

Notice is what the Lord says at the very beginning and that is this: Do not fear them.  Do not fear is one of the most repeated commands all of in Scripture.  Why?  Because, truth be told, we are a fearful people.  We are fearful of change, we are fearful risks, we are fearful because we might look foolish which is fear because of pride.  There are many reasons we are full of fear at times in our lives.

Do not fear is one of those things that God usually doesn’t say this unless there’s a reason to fear. In other words, Joshua might have been right to be a little fearful of what he was facing in this situation.  Think about this, Joshua is the leader but, so far, Joshua has only had to face one city and one king at a time in leading in all of his battles.  He faced Jericho and he faced Ai but now he is heading off to face five kings and armies all at once.   He might have good reason to fear but God has given him even better reason to not fear – because he said “Do not fear”.

Let us bring this around to us and what I see as a challenge from God.   God’s challenge to Joshua was for them not to fear the enemy. I see here that God was just reminding Joshua that He was still in control of the situation.   That same challenge is true for us today – we need to know and understand that God is in control.

Sometimes the thing that holds us back from taking the Promised Land or the things promised to us by God is: FEAR.  Do I need to remind you of  the children of Israel not going into the Promised Land because of fear (see Numbers 13)? All too often we don’t want to head in the direction God’s pointing us because we’re afraid.  We allow the fear to control us, which is a terribly sad thing because we are missing out on God’s best.  Always keep in mind that: We’ll never get there out of the place we are in, if we never leave, and sometimes we need to take the risk and push through the fear and trust God.

What place has are you stuck in because of fear?  What fears do you have?  What is fear holding you back from?

Make the choice today to not allow fear to hold you back from God’s best!

Listening: A Part of Prayer?

I started a new series yesterday on prayers from the Old Testament and I dealt with the prayer of Joshua in Joshua 10:6-14  but today I want to focus in on verse 8.

Joshua 10:8 – The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands; not one of them shall stand before you.”

I want you to notice in the verse that the Lord is speaking to Joshua.  The Lord spoke and Joshua heard.  Why did Joshua hear?  Simply because he was listening.  When it comes to prayer we need to be listening to what God is saying.  For many though this becomes a real problem.  Our problem is that sometimes we are so busy reading God our list of things we want him to do like he is Santa that we never listen to what He has to say.  Imagine having a friend who only ever asked you to do this and do this and do this and you are so great and because of that would you do this and this.  That is many times how we must appear in prayer to God.

Sometimes we are so distracted by all the noise and activity that is all around us that we do not hear God.  We have ear buds in our ears,the radio on, the television on, or something playing on our computers.  Sometimes we are distracted by reading all the tweets, texts, cell phones ringing and facebook posts that we do not take time to listen to God.  These things are not bad in and of themselves but sometimes they are a distraction from listening to God or being able to hear God.

In life I believe that there needs to be time or maybe even several times throughout the day were we just stop and listen.  Be still and know he is God.  Listen for that still quiet voice.  Again in the verse above the Lord spoke to Joshua and he listened.

Let me as you some tough questions:  What is God saying to you today?  When was the last time you heard His voice?  Listening is a skill, have you developed it spiritually?

We will look more at verse 8 tomorrow – there are many interesting parts to it.

His Hand

My son and I walked to my tree stand the other night.  (For those that do not know a tree stand is something you sit in while hunting deer).    We walked through weeds, then through a the edge of a soybean field, and then into the woods behind our house and walked close to a mile to the corn field where the tree stand is located.  When we got to the stand we climbed up into the tree stand and looked around.  It is getting darker earlier so I said we needed to climb down and head home.  As we started back home he got slowed down by his wanting to look at the corn that was left behind after the farmer had picked and cut the corn down.  When we finally got to the road that heads back into the woods that then leads to a path toward our house, it was dark – it was especially dark down the road into the woods. My son is a rough and tumble kid who is all boy and loves doing “man” stuff with me but he is still an eight year old kid.  As we started walking down the dark road he reached over and grabbed my hand and he held it the whole way home.  It was a rough walk home because I choose to walk through a an old cut over field which was hard walking but a little more light and he held onto my hand the whole way home.  I loved that he grabbed my hand and I was reminded of this verse:

Isaiah 43:13 – For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.

The Lord takes your hand in those times when the road ahead looks dark and scary.  The Lord tells us not to fear and he will help.  Find the comfort in the hand of the Lord holding on your hand.  Take comfort in the Lord helping you.  Take comfort in Him in those times when the road in life is dark and scary because for all of us there are those times.  He has your hand – Do not fear.