Let your requests be made known to God. PHILIPPIANS 4:6 In his book Master Secrets of Prayer, Cameron V. Thompson says we should pray specifically. He wrote that when his daughter, Joy, was a small child, she set her heart on a certain present. Asking her sisters how many pennies it would take to buy it, she prayed for fourteen hundred pennies. A few days later, some friends came by with a jar of coins they had been saving. It contained slightly more than fourteen hundred pennies. “Vague praying is lazy praying,” said Thompson. We must let our requests be made known to God and then remember to thank Him when the answers come. Toward that end, many Christians keep a prayer list or devotional notebook to record their prayer requests. Others use the flyleaf of their Bibles for this, though one soon runs out of room. Make specific requests to God for your husband or wife, your children, your financial needs, your job, your friends, and for those who don’t know Christ. Pray specifically for our local and national leaders. Pray in detail for the needs of overseas missionaries. As Philippians 4:6 says in the Phillips version: “Don’t worry over anything whatever, tell God every detail.” Dr. David Jeremiah Morning and Evening
It's been a while but there had been someone who was speaking on faith and where we place it. Sort of eluding to the fact that some people have more faith in the chair they sit in than in God's ability to answer their prayers.
It is a oft repeated story for my Wife and I about gutters on a house. This being a story within a story. We were living in my hometown because God hadn't opened the door for us to relocate to where my Wife's house was. That answer to prayer came later.
As I said, we were still living in my hometown still. While there a storm had hit down there where her house was. There were relatives living in her house at the time. They called and said there was storm damage. The gutters on one side of the house had come down.
My Wife called family and friends down there and whereas family couldn't help some friends were going to try to call around for us. Days went by and we hadn't heard anything back.
She calls down to her friend and was told that they thought we changed our minds and found someone. The gutters were replaced. We said no, we hadn't, did they get the name of the company who did it, we wanted to make things right. They hadn't, just only that the slogan on the vehicle said "Doing an Awesome Job for an Awesome God".
We had prayed about the gutters and God provided gutters.
We were praying about moving or continuing to look for work in my hometown because I needed to. Within that week, same relative gave us a notice they were moving out.
As a Pastor once told me, if you pray generally you get general answers. If you pray specifically you see how God specifically answers. You gain markers to remind you of when God provided.
We often forget when life's challenges and demands are in our face. The stress and pressure of the moment seems to force us into tunnel vision. Satan doesn't want anyone to remember what great things God has done for you or I.
We remember because we need to. Life can be hard. We need to build upon the faith God has granted us.
All too often the pleasures of this world rob us of special moments when God could have provided. Robs us of the joy of His answer to our prayers. We get more excited about things that are here today and are gone just as quickly.
As a Pastor was saying by way of illustration, people in a Church service often watch the clock. Check their phones. Check emails. While the service is going on. If the service goes over people get upset. Same people in a different setting. A sports event. Distractions are expressly prohibited. If it goes beyond regulation time, it's a celebration. Where is the priority?
Which is greater in your life? God's work in you or your own selfish desires?
Which reveals itself when the rubber meets the road?
Do you, as King David did, lament in the book of Psalms, of remembering when he USED to lead the people into the house of the Lord?
Do you consider prayer a priority or is it a last resort?
Do you watch the clock, fidget, during a Church Service?
Is your relationship with Christ at all important to you?
Is living life on your terms what is most important to you?
I can't answer for you. I can tell you that the closer that I work at getting my life right with Jesus, the less the things of this world mean to me. Prayer isn't an option, it's essential. Reading my Bible, my devotionals, isn’t an option, it's essential. Television, movies, are becoming less and less of a need in my life. There used to be great pleasure in them. Now it's emptiness. I used to be a fan of many things. The closer I get with my Savior, the less they mean to me.
The urgency of the Spirit in this hour of my life is that Christ is coming soon.
It's sort of like what you see in a movie when the general population knows a disaster is coming. Their priorities on what is important to them drastically change. They need to leave. What do they take? What gets left behind? Do they consider only themselves or do they help their friends and neighbors? All the sudden life just got deadly serious. In many their true self comes out.
Jesus said that He would give me things to say and it was upon me to say them. To obey meant altering my life, my priorities. I get up hours before going to work to read my Bible and devotionals, to write what you read here. Jesus is coming soon.
What's greater in my life has to be obedience to Christ Jesus. Not soaking up as many of the pleasures of this world as I can. To be obedient means letting go and letting God do what He wants to do through me. Every believer who struggles, who thinks they are far removed from a right relationship with Jesus, is only 1 step away from returning to His open arms.
What is greater in your life, should you review it? Will it show a life of selfishness or a life living for Jesus? The Bible says you can't serve two masters. You will love the one and hate the other. Despise one and cling to the other.
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