this blog and its content are meant to glorify the Almighty.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

How can you pray with confident?

Abide
Jesus says abiding is the key to successful praying. "If you abide in me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you." in other words, if you are abiding in Christ - if your life is totally yielded to Him and His Word is abiding in you so that you know His will - you can ask anything you want because your will is to do His will. Abiding, then, is simply living a life of faith and obedience in the fullness for the Holy Spirit, surrendered to the Lordship for Christ with no unconfessed sin, and being totally available to God.

Ask
If you expect answers to your prayers, you must ask. James says: "You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." Jesus says, "You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete." In His sermon on the mount, Jesus said, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seek finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." The unsolved problems in the world are so great they are almost without number. People are still sick; souls are yet unreached for Christ; evil people still wield ungodly political and financial power; and many injustices continue - largely because the children of God do not ask!

Believe
Jesus promises in Matthew 21:22, "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." Believing is at the heart of answered prayer. But how do you get this faith to believe? Should you try to work up some kind of state of mind that will in some way equal faith? Of course not. God does not require you to have great faith. You simply are to have faith in a great God. Jesus says: If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, "Move from here to there" and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. James instructs you to "ask in faith without any doubting" for the double-minded person cannot expect God to answer His prayers. You see, it's the quality, not the quantity, of the faith that is important. Faith comes from God. It is not something you try to muster on your own. A life of faith is experienced only by those who walk in obedience. you cannot be on the throne for your life and still pray in faith. You will never meet a person who has great faith in a great God who refuses to obey the God in whom he is commanded to place his trust. The Holy Spirit uses three basic means to produce faith in the one praying. First, He uses the Word of God. As you study the Scriptures you learn more and more about the character of God - His love, His wisdom, his power, his works, His sovereignty. The more you know of God, the more you trust Him. "Faith," Paul writes, "comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." Second, He uses fellowship with other Christians and various circumstances and experiences. For example your faith in God grows as you observe a friend being used of God to introduce others to Christ. When he shares his experience with you, this encourages you to believe that God can use you, too. Third, He uses strong impressions or convictions. Paul recorded in Philippians 2:13, "It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." For example, five young high school students began to sense their responsibility to God according to Matthew 28:18-20. Each of these students felt impressed to make a list of three friends whom he wanted to claim for Christ. The first week they met daily to pray that these friends would sense their need of God. The second week they prayed to be instruments of God. The third week they prayed for opportunities to speak to their friends about Christ. That week fifteen students received the Savior.

Receive
By faith, claim the answer to your request. If you know you are abiding in Christ and are controlled by the Holy Spirit and are praying according to the Word and will of God, you can expect God to answer your prayer. So be prepared to receive the answer. Imagine right now that you are receiving the answer to your request, and begin to thank God for it. In 1954 Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. It had never been broken in all the centuries of recorded history, but Bannister believed it could be done. He developed a mental picture of himself breaking the four-minute mile record, and he did it. Since 1954, several hundred other athletes have broken the four-minute mile, simply because Roger Bannister proved that it could be done. If an individual with only human resources is able to accomplish outstanding success, how much more can you accomplish when you place your faith in the omnipotent God and draw upon His supernatural, inexhaustible resources? It is a simple fact that whatever you vividly envision, ardently desire, sincerely believe and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass - assuming, of course, that there is scriptural authority for it. Remember that, as you bow in prayer, you are tapping a source of power that can change the course of history. God's mighty power, His love, His wisdom and His grace are available to you if you will but believe Him and claim them. Remember always, Jesus promised that you would do the same miracles which He did, and even greater ones. Prayer is the greatest privilege of the Christian life and the most revolutionary source of power known to man. If you were to take seriously the promises of God and begin to claim by faith in prayer all that you have been promised, miracles would attend your way, multitudes would be introduced to our Lord Jesus Christ, the whole course of history would be changed, and you would help to fulfill the Great Commission during your lifetime.

Adapted from 'Calledtobefree.org'

eugene.

Last edited 2:35 PM

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