All in Daily Devotional
Do you pray and not receive? Have you blamed or doubted God for His silence towards your prayers? Well, sometimes He is answering and we are not listening or we simply don’t wanting to hear the answer. Sometimes our timing and His are out of synch, but often we are completely outside the will of God in our requests. The book of James speaks to our asking "wrongly" and that is what I am contemplating this morning; praying outside the will of God and how I can know and avoid this.
This morning I have been concentrating on Matthew 6 and a statement I read in my morning devotional. I am contemplating what it takes to be consecrated and filled with the light of God, and what we must do when we stumble. Pastor E.M. Bounds wrote "Consecration is really devoting oneself to a life of prayer. It means not only to pray, but to pray consistently and effectively... It puts him in reach of God. It places him where he can get hold of God, and where he can influence God to do things that He would not otherwise do."
This morning let’s explore an important truth... Prayer and consecration are inseparable. These two attributes of a faithful life go hand in hand. I can imagine a scenario in which a person dedicates their life to God, but how long can that ideal be continued without having a personal conversation with God; without prayer? Such a dedication without the relationship that goes along with it is purely infatuation, and destined to fade away. Prayer is action; it is intimate, and strengthens us in our faith.
God doesn't force us to seek and worship Him; our freedom of choice is paramount in our relationship with Him because He desires a true, not contrived, relationship with us. We have asked ourselves many questions over the past years, not the least of them were… Have we dedicated ourselves to the Lord in such a way that we are considered consecrated? And, have our actions and prayers sought out righteousness and allowed God to sanctify us and make us holy? However, an equally important question is this… Do we love Him freely, just as He loves us?
As I read the title of the devotional message that Pastor E.M. Bounds had written this morning I was captured. It read "Bad Praying = Bad Living” but, as I read further, it was actually telling us that the way we live can impact the success of our prayers. When we are actively engaged in sinning it is nearly impossible to pray as we should. Oh, we might say the words, but the connection to our heart is broken, and our outreach towards God is without sincerity and strength.
To consider yourself consecrated requires a complete dedication of yourself to God. He does not give a measure of Himself to us; He gives us Himself totally. This morning I am contemplating the path to consecration and what that actually means.
When we speak of consecration, or declaring someone, or something, sacred, who, or what, comes first? Are we dedicating ourselves to the sacred service of the Church, to the defense of religion, or to God Himself? Scripture gives us a clear understanding of how we should focus our consecrated life...
This morning I am contemplating the changes brought by prayer; how this act of communion with God restructures our lives and faith. Of course, it isn't merely the act of praying that makes this possible, but our obtaining God's mercy and grace through the spirit in which we pray.
One morning I was reading about the multifaceted nature of prayer and paid special attention as the devotional spoke about the role that prayer played in consecration. I read on about the misconception that a person could be consecrated with little or no prayer, and wondered aloud to the Lord how that could possibly happen... how someone could truly dedicate their lives to Him without constantly speaking with Him in prayer.
In Paul's letter to the Romans he presents a list of greetings to the church in order to insure unity within the newly forming bride of Christ, and he warns them to separate themselves from those who would bring discord within the Church. Paul was concerned about the Church moving away from the true gospel of Jesus, and becoming fractured. We should be equally concerned about this today.
Does our life get in the way of our praying? Do the hardships we face each day stifle our inward enthusiasm for prayer, or do we redouble our effort in it as we bring those trials before the Lord? Often, when faced by incredible hardship or suffering we attempt to fix those things first and pray for them second. The pitfall in this strategy is frustration, depression, and a loss of hope. This inevitably leads to difficulty in prayer.
Prayer should bring us to repentance, and then transform our character. God revels in the repentance of sinners, but repentance involves much more than the empty words "I'm sorry", it requires a change of heart... A turning away from what offended. In fact, that is the literal meaning of the word; turning away.
Living righteously through our prayers and faith every day, and taking care not to reduce our faith to a simple mental exercise. This is the subject of our contemplation this morning. Christ will return suddenly and at an unknown time; and, in the meantime, our lives can be recalled and death come to us at any time... Are we living lives that at a moment's notice we would be comfortable laying at the feet of God?
This morning we explore a life of personal holiness and the prayer which leads us to it. If we pray continually, and seek God's presence, then the natural and inevitable result will be our consecration and eventual holiness.
Does what we do in practice affect who we are or will become? Or, is who we are inside the sole determinate of what we do? This is an interesting question dealing with works, faith, and their interaction... But it is also a developmental question for us as Christians. In seeking the answer to this question I enjoyed reading the words of Pastor E. M. Bounds who wrote..."It was the inner character, not the outward appearance of men like Abraham, Job, David, Moses and others, that had such great influence with God in the biblical days. Today, it is not so much our words, but what we really are that counts for much in our praying. At the same time, character affects conduct to a far greater extent and has a superior influence over prayer. Our inner lives give color to our praying."