Prayer

We talk about how impartment prayer is for our walk with Christ, but are we really focusing in on what prayer is all about.  We look at others middle –eastern religions  that call their people to pray 3 times a day to a false god, one that does not even exist, yet we who serve the Living God, look for excuses not to pray.  We say we are busy and God understands that.  Really, does He really understand?  I’m not sure I agree with that, after all we see that Christ spent hours in His time on earth in prayer, making sure that He made time to spend alone with His father.  Daniel felt that his time in prayer was so important that he did not allow the threat of loins eating him stop him from praying.  Then there is the question how do we pray, and  when do pray?  Are we rushing through it just to get it done and over with, like it’s a duty we have to do, so like a school child wanting to get their homework done as fast as possible so they can play with their friends we rush through it not even thinking of the words we have said.

When we do finally go to pray to God is it because we need something, you just found out that you lost your job, you come back from the doctor and the outcome isn’t good, your wife or husband told you they no longer love you, maybe you just aren’t happy about life and you want God to change it for you.  Is this really what prayer to God is all about?  What if I told you that our prayer life is a direct reflection on how we view God.  A.W. Tozer wrote, “what  comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.… Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at any given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.”  How we view God and our relationship with Him is how we come to Him in Prayer.

Daniels Prayer to God: Daniel 9:19

The thing I love about Daniel is the Love that he has for God, He continued to worship God through his entire life.  We come to Chapter nine of Daniel and we see that he had been studying the bible, he sees that in his study that God promised to only hold Israel captive for seventy years.  We come to understand that to be able to know how to pray, and  what to pray for we must read and study the bible, we must not just sit down and pray whatever pops into our head we must prepare for prayer, we might want to grab a list of people we want to pray for.  The next thing we notice is how Daniel prays, he never glorifies himself always glorifying God, even when he asks for something he glorifies God (notice verse 18).   Never does Daniel say he has done so much for God that God owes him this, always he talks about how He or Israel does not deserve Gods love. 

We must begin to realize that in this world it is not about us but always about God, we must begin to shift our focus on God.  I can only begin to think of how God is going to work in the Churches life that is focusing their time and energy into worshiping God Through Prayer and study of His word,  and who is saying my  life is going to honor God in all that I do.

He said this to test him

“He said this to test him” (John 6:1-9)

Christ has been talking to a multitude of people according to John, to other gospel accounts the number of men was 5000, that doesn’t count the children or women.  Christ looks up and sees that it is late and asks  Philip “where shall we get food for all these people?”  He didn’t ask this to Philip to have him say we cannot afford, this He was testing him.  I stopped and thought about this for a awhile, why test him with this question?  Isn’t a test from God to be when we are tempted to sin against Him?  What if our Idea of being tested is all wrong, we know that God cannot tempt us to sin against Him.  In fact if we look at the story of Job, we see that God allows Satan to take things away from Job, knowing that Job is not going to give up His faith in God.

Too many times we think of being tested by God when we have a bad day at work, or  our spouses are in a bad mood, maybe  we have  it all wrong? When we read  James 1:2-4 we see a different picture James says, “whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. ³ For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. ⁴ So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.”  James talks about how when God tests our faith in Him,  Christ knew what He was going do He wanted Philip to have faith that He could do it.  The picture that James is painting here is one of Faith, that do not worry I can feed all these people.

We can’t afford to feed all these people.

Philip looks over the crowd and says we cannot do it we cannot feed them, there’s not a enough money.  Isn’t that our response at times when God ask us to put our faith in Him, come and give yourself to me, “I can’t right know I just have to do a few more things.”   Continue to give to the poor, “I need money too why can’t they go out and get a job.”   Go and serve me as a missionary over in India, “I can’t do that I have family to think of.”  When God comes and asks us to do something He already knows the outcome He desires to use us in order to Glorify His  Kingdom.  He is also giving us an opportunity to show Him how much we love Him and trust Him.  

Going through temptations

Where does temptation come from?

 I guess before we can figure out where temptation comes from we must define what temptation is, a  trial; being put to the test.  James tells us in James 1:2 "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trails." But knowing what something is and where comes from are two different things.  Do trails come from God or Satan?  If we read Job chapter two we see that Satan is in a meeting that involves God, Satan ask God’s permission to put Job under temptation.  When we see this picture it should bring comfort to us knowing that Satan cannot do anything without Gods permission.  Why does Satan want to bring trails into Job’s life?  Because he believes he is able to lead Job away from God.  The trails that we go through in our walk with God are meant to cause a friction between us and God, Satan wants to bring a separation between us and God.  God allows it yes, but He does not bring it into our lives.  Who was it in the garden that was talking to Eve about the fruit of knowledge of good and evil?  When we remember that God wants all of us to be focused on Him and not ourselves it’s no wonder that when Satan tempts us it is focused on us, “You will not surely die. ^5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”(Gen 3:4-5)  You see what he did there he made it look like God had lied, he wanted to separate Eve from God.  He does the same today, did God really say it was wrong to …  if God truly love you wouldn’t he do this for you.

How do we defeat Temptation?

I know that some are thinking come on give me a break we all know how not to sin against God, we all know this basic Christian living 101.  That may be the case but we have a great deal of so called seasoned Christians allowing temptations defeat them every day.  The first thing I think we should look at is how did Christ handle the trials that came His way, we read in Luke 4:1-12.  In the chain of events Satan comes and tempts Christ three times, each time Christ comes back with scripture.  That tells us that even before the temptation comes we need to be reading, and study the scriptures, it is there we find the promises and the laws that God has for us.  Take for example that you are tempted to become rich and to not worry so much about God, you could remember that in 1^st Timothy 6:9 it says “But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.”  Then you might say let me go and read all 1^st Timothy chapter six and we would be reminded of how greed separates us from God.

We also see  that when Christ teaches the disciples how to pray in Matthew 6:8 and Luke 11:4, that Christ says “And don’t let us yield to temptation ,but deliver us from the evil one.” Then in also in Mark 14:38, Matthew 26:11, and Luke 22:40,46 Christ tell them “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”  We need to be praying for Gods guidance and wisdom as well in our lives.  I think of Romans 12:1-2, Paul tells us to allow God to transform us, we need to pray to God that He will change how we think, God wants us to follow Him and be a part of his Kingdom, once we are in  His kingdom He is not going to leave us. Remember the promise found in 1^st Corinthians 10:13 “But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. When you are tempted, He will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it.”

How do you make decisions? (John 5:16-30)

How do you decide what you are doing for the week, now let’s narrow it down to what you do in a day?  What is it that causes you do the things you do in a day?  I have given this some thought these last couple of days and realized that my days are surrounded by lists of things I have to do, I have to take the dogs out first thing in the morning, I have to go to work, I have to …  you get the picture.  But does that really tell me how to live my life?  Is that what causes me to do what I do?  I’m I doing these things because of the people around me expect me to do them so I do them to please them and look good in their eyes?  What is really the driving force behind what I do?  Christ healed a man on the Sabbath, a lot of people got mad at Him for doing so.  They harassed Him for working on the Sabbath and breaking their rules.  Christ responded with saying “My Father never stops working, so why should I?”(Jn 5:16)  Right there in the question tells us what motivated Christ it was His Father, He did what he did to honor His Father, not the people around Him. 

Christ did not worry about what others thought of Him, He only worried about what His Father in Heaven thought.  He loved Him so He honored Him.  We to must make our decisions in life to honor God, notice that Christ was more interested in bringing people to know who God was.  It was through His being focused on God His father that He was able to show people who God was.  When we go to work we should work hard to honor God not to honor ourselves or get rises and promotion.  When people ask are you working hard to impress the boss you can say, “no I work hard to honor God.” It is through honoring God that we are able to show people who God is. 

Christ Said “I assure you, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.”(Jn5:19)  Where did Christ learn to act? He learned by seeing what God the Father did.  We learn how to honor God by seeing how Christ acted it is through studying the Bible, and prayer that we learn how to honor and live for God.  Paul told the Colossians of how he has heard of their faithfulness and how they honor God by how they live in the first part of chapter one, he also tells in verse fifteen “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before God made anything at all and is supreme over all creation.”(Col 1:15)  If Christ learned how to live by seeing God, then we are to learn how to live by seeing how Christ lived His life on earth.