“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed.
In the morning, O Lord, You hear my voice. In the morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation.”
Mark 1:35, Psalm 5:3
If we are waiting with expectation like a woman about to give birth knows, there are certain things you start doing and other things you no longer do.
A faithful expectant heart leaps with joy even as did John the Baptist while still in his mother’s womb. It sees by faith the
REALITY of God’s Eternal Word. Open your heart to God and place yourself in His hands. Yes, it requires one to be vulnerable but do you really think you can hide behind those “walls” of resistance thinking He doesn’t see? Not anymore than the fig leaves kept Adam and
Eve from His sight. As with them, God longs to cover us with His love if we will only come expecting something good from Him.
Are you really satisfied with where you are now? Do you want to know real, lasting peace and joy in believing God? He is the God who answers prayer and those that come to Him must believe that He is and that He is a faithful rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Seek Him first and the needs shrink in comparison to what He provides. He longs to lighten your load and light your path.
“He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.” Romans 8:27
Jesus said that His Father’s house is a family of faithful sons and daughters praying in one accord for the nations.
God in Psalm 2:8 says:
“Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the whole earth as your possession.”
Prayer is God’s children on earth co-operating with the Father in heaven. It is powerful and effectively at work!
We do not know how to ask but the Father knows what we need before we even ask but we are to come asking, believing to receive for He delights to give us what we need. He has already given us His Spirit to lead, guide and help us fulfill His will.
“We do not know how to pray worthily as sons of God, but His Spirit within us is actually praying for us in those agonizing longing which never find words.” Romans 8:26
When we pray “in the Spirit“, our heart is wide open to receive the fullness of God. Our thoughts and ways evacuate the premises as God enters the house. As His thoughts and ways are much higher than ours, in the Spirit we are seated with Christ in heavenly places far above all other powers. As we pray, fasting our own thoughts and ways, we unseat and uproot the tentacles of our adversary who is the accuser of the brethren. He finds no place in us to work. His plans are overturned.
“He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.” Hebrews 7:25
Jesus is at the highest place seated at the right hand of God the Father with His personal seal of approval. His Holy Spirit is actively at work within our hearts to will and to do as the Father desires. We have everything we need in this fight for souls. We can come with the confidence of knowing that Jesus is Lord and Savior. This is how we can ask and wait with expectant trust. We know Him who supplies our need is gloriously beyond our wildest imaginations.
“It is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.” Philippians 2:13
Nothing is impossible to him who believes but apart from Him we can do nothing. God delights to take the weak, the foolish, the woefully inadequacies of His creation to manifest the strength, the wisdom and wondrous abundance of His great love! God is for you! It is you who have turned your back on Him. Turn around and look straight into the face of the One who loves you completely. Ask Him to fill you with the powerful fulfilling love that is yours if you simply admit your need of it.
Petition. It is praying for a specific need. It involves asking for something. To petition is specifically asking God to grant our request for a specific need.
This is God’s Message, the God who made earth, made it livable and lasting, known everywhere as God: ‘Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.‘
Jeremiah 33:3
God promises to hear and answer prayer.
Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
Ephesians 6:18
Prayer invites the Almighty God into our world. The battle belongs to the Lord and in prayer we concede that apart from Him we can do nothing. But with God, nothing is impossible! All things are possible to him who believes! Prayer-LESS-ness is actually arrogant pride saying we don’t need God.
God waits for one of His children to invite Him into their life in order to show Himself strong and mighty through any who realize that if not for His magnificently extravagant gift of grace, we are weak and powerless.
‘I looked for someone among you who could build walls or stand in front of me by the gaps in the walls to defend the land and keep it from being destroyed. But I couldn’t find anyone. Ezekiel 22:30
See my sons, Abraham, Samuel and Moses! Did not they take their stand before me on behalf of the people?
So he said he would destroy them–had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them. Psalm 106:23
God chose Abraham when he was a childless old man and made him the father of many nations that in Abraham, God would bless all peoples for salvation is of the Jews and Judah was the son of Abraham’s grandson, Jacob (Israel).
Abraham was so intimately acquainted with the Lord God, he knew that the covenant cut between God was the most solid foundation one could stand upon and when God disclosed His purpose in visiting the wicked in Sodom, Abraham discerned their upcoming destruction and placed himself in the gap for the wicked before God Almighty that He might save any righteous from out among the wicked. Abraham only believed for ten righteous souls – a minyon, a number typically required to make a quorum. Perhaps Abraham stopped short in believing for the salvation of the wicked city of Sodom because he assumed that his nephew Lot’s family would surely make up a minyon and he felt that his answer was received.
Jesus tells his disciples in Mark 11:24, I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.
We know the outcome, there were not even ten righteous living in both Sodom and Gomorrah, not even including Lot and his entire family and in-laws! There was only three, Lot and his two unmarried daughters, for his wife turned back to her destruction. God’s grace is far beyond what our mind can grasp. God knew Abraham’s heart and remembered his petition and spared Lot.
“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7
If we are faith-LESS yet He remains faith-FULL. God who sees the hearts of men, also delights to give His children every good and perfect gift. Even though Abraham did not express what was on his heart specifically concerning Lot and his family, God honored his petition for the removal of the righteous before destroying the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
Ephesians 3:20-21
When the heart is purged of all the debris and clutter of anxiety, fear, doubt and unbelief, it is enabled and enlarged in the exercise of praying believing faith for others, in the personal acceptance and assurance with God that comes from knowing Him as Father, Lord and Savior! This love pours itself out unceasingly tirelessly in love which as God’s own personal seal of approval. For this purpose we were created to co-labor and co-inherit with God’s firstborn Son whose greater love lay its life down for the sake of all.
That same strong and mighty love by the powerful working of His Holy Spirit was raised to live forever far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:21)
God didn’t spare his own Son but handed him over [to death] for all of us. So he will also give us everything along with him. Romans 8:32
The highest prayer goes beyond any petition for ourselves, and to the one who is bold enough to be his brother’s keeper, is granted the personal favor of God upon such prayer. The one who seeks first God’s kingdom which is about building a family
through our prayers, praise and preaching, knows that all his needs are met by a gracious, glorious loving Father!
But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered. 1 John 3:17, Proverbs 21:13
“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Mark 11:25
Just because a need isn’t expressed, doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. God sees the hearts and knows what every one needs.
But a foolish or prideful man is blind and knows not where he is heading. God is looking for sons and daughters to join Him
in praying for the eyes of their understanding to be opened to the true condition of their hearts. Then He will cause them to turn from darkness to His marvelous light in Christ Jesus our Lord! But He is looking for someone who will not only trust Him to do it but will love the unlovely with such purposeful confidence in knowing His heart towards them! It takes faith and enduring in the face of all circumstansial “evidence” to the contrary to obtain the promises of God. It is trying and proving your complete trust in His Word and Character at stake as much as it is their salvation. Today is the day of Salvation but we are not to be lax and sitting in our “easy chair” but staking our claim, standing firm on His promise and oath towards those He sends our way!
A complacent believer is not much of a believer because he is settling for less than God’s best!
We rest best on the promises of God the Father when standing on the Rock of our Salvation, Jesus the Messiah! The Lord of Life!
“For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is Eternal Life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23
How can we neglect to love when He gave so extravagantly for us? How can we claim that it was anything in us that
made us attractive to Him when the Scripture expressly says that God desires everyone to be saved and to understand the truth.
(1 Timothy 2:4)
“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last. THEN the Father will give you whatever you ask in My name.” John 15:16
God is teaching, training and disciplining His children in love that we might participate fully in His restoration!
When Jesus cried out, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do“, this is fact because if the blind eyes are opened
they would be abhorred at the truth that they are being led away captives to mere fleshly lusts and foolish desires that are
so transient in nature. Like Esau who sold away his birthright for a measly bowl of stew just to satisfy a temporary urge–had he properly esteemed the permanent riches and position of his standing, he would not have dismissed it so casually.
We need to cry out for the release of the captives in the enemy’s camp!
“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4
We cry out, “Abba, Father You can do all things through me because Christ strengthens me with the joy and peace in believing
in the glory of His riches that are my inheritance in Him! I know that You shall supply all my need according to Christ who is seated in the highest place, the Sovereign Prince of Peace Everlasting. It is in His Name by His Authority we ask believing to receive Amen.”
Isaiah 35:5-7,
And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind and unplug the ears of the deaf.
The lame will leap like a deer, and those who cannot speak will sing for joy!
Springs will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams will water the wasteland.
The parched ground will become a pool, and springs of water will satisfy the thirsty land.
Marsh grass and reeds and rushes will flourish where desert jackals once lived.
On the cross, God exchanged His limitless for our limits. He took our sin and offers His righteousness. His glorious presence for our loneliness. His wonder-working power for our weakness. His healing for our disease. His comfort for our sorrow. His joy for our bitterness. His hope for our despair. His peace for our anxiety. His love for our resentment. His grace for our suffering. His enabling grace for our inadequacy. These gifts are ours when we ask God. All things are possible to him who believes. Do you really believe? Or is there something holding you back? The only thing that will hold you back is unbelief and that is sin because it calls God a liar and He is not a man that He can lie. When we say we have no sin, we are calling God a liar. It’s time to speak the truth and
bare our hearts before the One who already sees us as we are and allow Him to exchange all our lack for His abundant grace,
mercy and love. He wants to be your personal Savior and Lord and lead and guide you into all truth. Just admit your need
and ask. He will answer you. For some of you, this may be a first –to admit your need. You may think you are good pray-ers
because you have placed others’ needs ahead of your own but God sees the need in your heart for humility in asking Him to do for you.
For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.
Romans 10:10
“He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers.” 2 Corinthians 1:10-11
Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.
James 5:17
Even Jesus learned and fulfilled obedience perfected by the love of God as a son,
For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Hebrews 2:17
Pray asking God to specifically reveal where there is sin remaining in your life. As He shows you, be faithful to agree with Him and confess it as sin and He will be faithful to remove the fear and guilt from you. Ask God to create in you a clean heart and to renew a right, steadfast enduring heart to believe Him. We must have this in order to take every thought captive to obey Christ
for God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind in Christ’s perfect obedience as Son. Who the Son sets free, is free indeed!
Hear the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 1:20,
“ I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.”
Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. where Jesus went before us on our behalf. He has become the chief priest forever in the way Melchizedek was a priest. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.
Galatians 4:6, Romans 5:5, Hebrews 6:19-20, Hebrews 4:14
Spread Out! Think Big!
“Sing, barren woman, who has never had a baby.
Fill the air with song, you who’ve never experienced childbirth!
You’re ending up with far more children
than all those childbearing women.” God says so!
“Clear lots of ground for your tents!
Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big!
Use plenty of rope,
drive the tent pegs deep.
You’re going to need lots of elbow room
for your growing family.
You’re going to take over whole nations;
you’re going to resettle abandoned cities.
Don’t be afraid—you’re not going to be embarrassed.
Don’t hold back—you’re not going to come up short.
You’ll forget all about the humiliations of your youth,
and the indignities of being a widow will fade from memory.
For your Maker is your bridegroom,
his name, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
Your Redeemer is The Holy of Israel,
known as God of the whole earth.
You were like an abandoned wife, devastated with grief,
and God welcomed you back,
Like a woman married young
and then left,” says your God.
Your Redeemer God says:
“I left you, but only for a moment.
Now, with enormous compassion, I’m bringing you back.
In an outburst of anger I turned my back on you—
but only for a moment.
It’s with lasting love
that I’m tenderly caring for you.
“By day the Lord directs His love, at night His song is with me–a prayer to the God of my life”
Psalm 42:8
“Build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.” Jude 20
Sons and daughters look not to men or you will place yourself in danger —David found strength in the LORD his God. (1 Samuel 30:6)
The Father wants us to come together as One with one another in Him in prayer. We must share in order to find strength and help in time of need. God is faithful. “O You who hear prayer, to You all men will come.” Psalm 65:2
Praying effectively is God’s will for you. He exchanges our narrow, short-sightedness for His broad perspective as we take our stand on the solid unchanging foundation of His Word which is Christ Jesus His Perfect Obedient Son.
Ask God to enable you for His best and He will honor and equip you with His favor. He is your very present help and strength!
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Philippians 4:6
Praying at all times is spiritual warfare knowing that the battle belongs to the Lord who never slumbers or sleeps. He watches over His Word to perform it in the place it is directed. We are called, chosen and appointed as heirs of the household of faith to pray for the nations.
“I will give you thanks, for You have answered me; You have become my Salvation!” Psalm 118:21
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