How many
of us would love to have confidence when we pray that God hears us, and not
only that He hears us, but that we know that we are going to have the things
that we have asked? God says that we can have this unwavering faith in His
Word:
“This is the confidence which we have before
Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we
know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that
we have of Him” (1 John 5:14-15)
The key to this faith is God-centered prayer. If prayer is not God-centered then we have no business trying to muster up faith, positive thinking, and expectation that God will give what we have asked. This attitude will only produce disillusionment and discouragement because we don't see God doing what we want. Prayer must be built on the solid foundation of the will of God. How may I know the will of God? God's revealed Word contains his complete and perfect will for us and has everything that we need to live a life of godliness. (2 Tim.3:16, 2 Pet.1:3) This is God-centered prayer. God's Word is the authority of our prayers: not us.
What is
the opposite of God-centered prayer? Man-centered prayer. We live in a society
where even Christians live and pray in a very self-centered way. We have a
desire or a motive, so we pray expecting God to grant our request when we have
not even the first clue what God has to say about our request in his Word.
Then, we go about boasting and blaspheming the name of God when we say that we feel
like God is leading us to do or ask for something without any clear basis
for our request in His Word. We make ourselves out to be God and expect Him to
act like our puppet. We blaspheme
the name of God to the people who are watching by making Him to be a liar
because he does not do the things we ask. We ask with wrong self made motives
to consume it on our lust. (James 4:2-3)
If we
pray on the basis of His Word and His authority then we can pray with absolute
confidence that we are going to have the things that we ask of him. The result
is that God is glorified because he has answered our prayers and His Word has
come alive!!!
When I was single and unmarried I was
urged to pray, expecting with confidence, for a husband. I liked the idea very much and tried to
think positively and pray this way and talk to others about my faith in God
giving me a husband. But deep
inside I lacked confidence because this was just a desire of mine and I had
nothing concrete in Scripture to base my request on, or to suppose that God was
going to answer it. God showed me through His Word that His ultimate desire for
my life is for me to know Him. The request for me to know Christ was definitely
something I knew He wanted for my life. So I prayed in surrender, “Lord God, if
I can know you better by being single, then I want to be single and if I can
know you better being married then I want to be married.” In just a few weeks
after praying that prayer God led me to my husband Michael. Then the process began of knowing
Christ even better through marriage.
God did not give me a husband because I claimed a promise that He
would. As much as I wanted to find
one in Scripture, I could not. But
He gave me the desire of my heart because I delighted in Him. I was willing to know Him better, no
matter what that looked like.
-Christina (Jalbert) Priest
No comments:
Post a Comment