How to Get Answers to Your Prayers - Loyal Evangelical Church, Loyal OK

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." ~Jesus Christ, in Matthew 28:18-20

Pastor Leon Seaton

How to Get Answers to Your Prayers

Stephen M. Crotts writes that during World War II an incredible Christian woman in England kept a personal diary. She wrote of her husband's death in the war effort. She talks about food rationing and the horrible bombing of London. She wrote of her children's evacuation to the countryside.

One night during the bombings she confessed that she woke up. She was so worried that she could not get back to sleep. She kept thinking of Hitler, the invasion, and the S.S. troops. She trembled with a cold chill until she had a powerful thought:

"Where is Alexander the Great who gobbled up the world?

Where is Caesar's dogmatic rule upheld on the tips of spears?

Where is Napoleon?

They are all in their graves and come to naught," she wrote. "And that is where Hitler will be, too. The same God reigns!" And she rolled over, laughed, and went back to sleep!

What about us? Do we stay awake worrying about the economy? Do the problems in the Mid-East, terrorism, crime, and abortion all disturb us? Is this what your eyes are upon?

Are you gazing at the world, and glancing at Christ? Rise above it! Lift up your eyes and see! The same God still reigns. Be assured!

Stephen M. Crotts, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing – found at www.esermons.com

Before I got out of bed yesterday morning I prayed a simple prayer that will become part of my morning routine:

* Lord, help me to walk in Your wisdom, not mine.

* In Your strength, not mine.

* In Your will not mine, and fulfill Your desires, not mine.

* Please fill me with Your peace, Your joy and Your love so

that my life will be a blessing to those I meet today.”

No doubt the short version would be, “Lord, help me zip my lip and mind my manners” but that doesn’t sound very spiritual!

In thinking about prayer it helps to remember that God is not Santa Claus and He is not a short order cook. He is the leader and we are the follower. But He does have exciting plans for your and me that require us to take action and walk in fellowship and obedience to Him.

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

You have to love that promise: it came in a letter that Jeremiah sent to the Jewish people that were in exile in Babylon. Although God had said that they would be in Babylon for 70 years He still had exciting plans for them. 70 years meant that some of them would die while in Babylon and never return to Jerusalem. Yet God had exciting plans for them. They were to stay busy and not sit around feeling sorry for themselves. He instructed them to “build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Get married and have children. Also they were to pray for the city where they were being held against their will.

He gave them this promise: “I have not forsaken you. “For I know the plans I have for you; plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

That promise is true for all of us! God loves us; He does not get pleasure and satisfaction from punishing us. God really wants what is best for you. The question is do we want what is best for us?

To be truthful, we usually focus on the here and now; God focuses on the today, tomorrow and forever.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of Him.

If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true--even in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. 1 John 5:13-21

John, the author of this book, also wrote St. John and 2^nd and 3^rd John. He was one of the original 12 apostles and probably outlived the rest of them. His writings focus on God’s love and the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Whenever you hear someone teaching that Jesus was just a good man and not the sinless Son of God run as fast as you can! That is heresy!

He wrote that we can “know that you have eternal life.” True Christianity is not an “I sure hope so” religion. We are not being presumptuous when we say that we are heaven-bound children of the living God. Not at all! If you have met Jesus Christ and established a personal relationship with Him you will know it.

Granted, there will be times when you do not feel saved. There will be times when you feel lonely and rejected. You aren’t – these are just those times when God allows us to “walk by faith, not by sight” because He knows that those seasons are good for us.

So, the Holy Spirit says that if we pray according to His will He hears us. Now, as you might have guessed, there is a qualification to this.

When we pray God looks at three things:

1. Our prayer

2. Our motive

3. Our life (manner of living)

If those three things line up He will answer your prayer providing it fits in with His overall plan for your life and the lives of anyone else that is affected by your prayer. Acts 16:6-10 tells us that Paul and his companions had planned to preach in Asia, but the prayers of a man in Macedonia changed those plans.

You have been there… you have a day all planned out and one phone call changed everything.

As members of the body of Christ we are always subject to the needs of the rest of the body. If you develop gall bladder problems everything changes until that is resolved, right?

Because God looks at our total life before He answers our prayers we are commanded in 2 Corinthians 7:1 to purify ourselves. (Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.)

When I asked a friend what she considered the secret to getting prayers answered she asked, “Why is all of this so hard? Surely God already knows our needs. Can’t we just pray, ‘Lord, Thy will be done?’ and get everything taken care of?”

Great Question! My wife answered it with this illustration: A lot of people are worried about swine flu – better known as H1H1. She said, “Now you can pray that you won’t get the flu, but unless you get enough rest, eat the right foods and drink enough water, you are going to get sick. And if you do all those things and don’t wash your hands you could still get sick!”

It’s called, “Trust and obey.”

Hebrews 12:1-10

What is the conclusion of the matter?

3 John 2 (KJV) Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

Matthew 6:33-34 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”

God is really on your side and He wants the very best for you. But His primary goal is to help us duplicate the life and love of Jesus Christ in our dealings with God, our church and our fellow man.

Peter Marshall once began a Senate session with this prayer, "O Lord, forgive us for thinking that prayer is a waste of time, and help us to see that without prayer our work is a waste of time."

Someone else used this illustration to help us see the need to get along with God:

"When are you going to get your new bike, Johnny?" said Larry.

"I don't know if I will ever get it now," said John.

"What's the matter? Won't your father give it to you?" inquired his friend.

"We're not talking to each other. I'm mad at him," said John. "I've money in the bank, but I don't know how to get it out."

"You'd better make up with your father," said Larry. "It's foolish to be angry with him. You just can't win that way."

It is true most people have money in the spiritual bank account. They have a great inheritance sufficient to supply all of their needs and all of their wants. But they do not know how to get the money out of the bank and some are too stubborn to communicate with their Heavenly Father.

They are offended by their own narrowness, stubbornness, and ignorance. These are reasons why people fail to accept their religious heritage; short-changing themselves in the joys of living.

They miss out on friendships and thrilling experiences. They are never quite ready to admit that they don't know how to pray and don't know how to communicate with God. So they tell their friends they are offended with the Church, the preacher, the religion or with God and continue in their unfulfilled dreams.

It is more than a pity -- it is human tragedy to live and not live, to desire love and not obtain it and to ignore the presence of God's love, when it is the answer to human suffering.

"Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another." St. John 15:16, 17

Found at www.esermons.com - 0-89536-182-5

Sunday, August 23, 2009