2003-03-18
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
Each day that I sit down to write to you, I ask the Holy Spirit to fill me. When He does, He calms my spirit and leads me to focus on God, the Son, and Him. Prayer is a channel, one that I like to describe as a “two-way channel, where we should let God speak first.” Often, we find ourselves in desperation before we will have the sense to turn to God and pray. The Psalmist’s desperation can be felt in PS 85: 4-7, which I cite again. “Bring us back, O God our Savior and stop being displeased with us! Will You be angry with us forever? Will Your anger never cease? Make us strong again, and we, Your people, will praise You. Show us Your constant love, O Lord, and give us Your saving help.” There are some aspects of this plea that reveal a certain spiritual immaturity on the part of God’s chosen people. They understand that God is displeased with them, but it’s almost as if they are saying that God should forgive them first and then they will praise Him. If we know God, we know that it should be the other way around. Even with this, let me recite IS 41: 10-14, which is really God’s response to this plea for the nation’s welfare. “Do not be afraid-I am with you! I am Your God-let nothing terrify you! I will make you strong and help you; I will protect you and save you.” The Jews had forgotten God’s promise in the Noahtic covenant of GN 9: 11, “With these words I make My covenant with you: I promise that never again will all living being be destroyed by flood; never again will a flood destroy the earth.” They had also forgotten the Abrahamic covenant in which God promised the Jews population, land, and a King. They needed to understand that God is a Promise Keeper. How can we miss the compassion and love in God’s response?
Let me recap the steps in how defensive prayer works. My reason for doing this is so that we can keep in our minds and hearts the reasons why we can turn to God and know that whatever response He gives us to our prayers is out of His love for us and in our best interests. 1) Thank God first, knowing He is eager to bless us. Acknowledge God for His grace, power, compassion, love, and unselfishness. [EPH 1: 3]; 2) Praise God for His grace and for the sacrifice of His only begotten Son. [EPH 1: 6]; 3) Know God’s plan by daily study of the Scriptures. [EPH 1: 9-10]; 4) Ask God for the power of the Holy Spirit to fill us. This will give us wisdom and allow God the opportunity to reveal Himself to us. [EPH 1: 17]; 5) Approach God with confidence, which comes from being in union with Christ. [EPH 3: 12; JN 15: 7]; 6) We must have our roots and foundation in love. [EPH 3: 17-18]; 7) Know that we can be God’s friends and experience God through prayer and obeying Him. [PS 85: 5-7; PS 18: 3; IS 41: 10-14]. There is one more citation that applies here, MT 18: 18, 20. “And so I tell all of you: what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven…For where two or three come together in My name, I am there with them.” Even in our darkest hour, our greatest time of pain and sorrow, our Lord is there with us to offer His love, wisdom, and compassion. Remember, His answer to Paul’s complaints about his affliction in 2 COR 12: 9 was, “My grace is all you need, for my power is strongest when you are weak.” The Jews being exiled by the Babylonians refused to listen to JER 25: 11, “This whole land will be left in ruins and well be a shocking sight, and the neighboring nations will serve the king of Babylonia for seventy years.” Had they done so, they would have realized God was allowing Satan to punish them for a time, but that their nationhood would eventually be restored.
If we have ever questioned whether or not God hears our prayers, 1 JN 5: 14-15 answers that. “We have courage in God’s presence, because we are sure that He hears us if we ask Him for anything that is according to His will. He hears us whenever we ask Him; and since we know this is true, we know also that He gives us what we ask from Him.” So, we can add to our list: 8) We need to trust God to lead, preface prayer with meditation, and make specific supplications. If we know that we need to ask God for several things, then it’s a good idea to list them first in their order of importance. In our minds, it’s also helpful to separate needs, which should be our first priority, from wants, which should follow. That’s not always easy for us to do, but it’s still important. In doing this prioritizing, we are always better off if we know God’s will from studying His word. Then, we will have His perspective on what is important when prioritizing our supplications. It’s much more important for me to pray for something that will help me better join Him in His work than for a pink Cadillac, for example. J Dear Ones, each of us needs to examine our prayer life to see in what condition we find it. A good way to do this is to look at the list of how defensive prayer works in order and compare the way we pray to it. What we see should be a subject of our meditation.
PRAYER: O Lord, today we offer our thanks to You, as we should every day, for the sacrifice of Your Son at Calvary, for His obedience to You in going to the cross, for the faith that You have given us, and for the gift of the Holy Spirit [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25; JN 14: 16-17]. You are an awesome God, our One and Only Heavenly Parent, Who deeply loves His children. These words are in our hearts from PS 145: 20, “The Lord watches over all who love Him.” And so are these words from HO 14: 9, “May those who are wise understand what is written here, and may they take it to heart. The Lord’s ways are right, and righteous people live by following them, but sinners stumble and fall because they ignore them.” Timothy (in 2 TIM 3: 16-17) has told us that Your word reveals what we need to know for instruction of the truth, correction of faults, rebuking error, and showing us how to live right with You. That is sufficient reason, Dearest Abba, for us taking daily time in Your word. You reveal Your wonderful attributes and Your will when we do this. We find that You are eager to bless us and to encourage us, as well. We When we study Your word, You reveal Your plan for bringing mankind back to You for an eternal life of joy, bliss, fellowship, and peace. You remind us to keep that plan in mind when Satan hits us with his fiery arrows. We ask You for the power of the Holy Spirit to fill us and pledge to empty our spiritual vessels of human agendas. PS 62: 5, “Only God gives inward peace, and I depend on Him,” are David’s words for what we receive from You when we listen for Your commands and obey them. You have told us through Solomon in PR 3: 5-6 not to lean on human understanding, but to trust in You. Then, You will make our “crooked paths straight.” We express our heartfelt love for You for being the awesome God You are. We thank You for telling us that we can have confidence in approaching You, since we are in union with Jesus Christ. We confess our sins in humility and plead with You to make each of us better servants and friends of Yours through our adoration, worship, loyalty, diligence, trust, obedience, glory, honor, thanks, and praise of You. Guide us into leading lives of holiness, purity, and genuine piety. In Christ’s name, amen.
The Spirit leads me to begin discussing offensive prayer in tomorrow’s message. When we take the time to understand all that the Spirit has given me to share on defensive prayer, we are very likely to find ourselves restructuring our prayers so as to better please God. This Covenant of Grace relationship that we have with our Lord is really remarkable when compared to other belief systems that exist. Nowhere else do we find God reaching down first to invite His enemies [ourselves before we repented and came to faith] to come to faith and join Him in His work. No other gods are unselfish, compassionate, patient, always-righteous, and loving, as the One and Only True God is. There has always been a certain element of mystery about our God; that deals with the things the human mind and heart are not yet prepared to know. But, as our God gradually has revealed His mysteries over our history so far, we can see that each mystery has been made known at the exact right time to produce the most righteousness in mankind. There is no evil of any kind in our God; He opposes Satan’s evil one hundred percent. Through Christ’s Atonement, He has arranged the defeat of Satan, and His promise is that Satan and his followers will be destroyed [REV 19: 20-21; REV 20: 10]. Our job is to be obedient and prepared for the call of that last trumpet to a meeting in the air [1 THESS 4: 13-17]. This will be the prelude to our invitation to the great wedding feast of the Lamb [REV 19: 5-10]. So for God’s profound love for each of us, we should say, “Hallelujah!” Peter and I send each of you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn