All tagged will
God hears our prayers; He gives each of them audience and provides us with all those things we have prayed for within His will. The question that we who pray should ask is this... “Do I have confidence that God hears me as I pray and that He will answer me?” Confidence in the Word of God is of the utmost importance to those who pray. Put more simply, we must trust in the fact that God will do what His Word says He will do. But, do you we know what that is?
Do we seek out the will of the Father and obey it as we go about living each and every day of our lives? Do we say that we do the things which Jesus taught, and yet neglect to ask, seek, and knock on the door of God in search of His Holy will? If this is true then we are in dire straits, and Jesus will know us not when we stand in judgement. Nothing is more important to Him than to know and obey His Father’s will.
Each day I begin my prayers with an expression of love for God, then a plea for His forgiveness of my sins, followed by my thanks for His many blessings, and next I ask for three things I would like to talk about today... wisdom, knowledge, and intelligence. Do you ask the Lord for these things? Not that you should receive them in a worldly way, but more-so in a spiritual sense... Do you desire supernatural enlightenment in understanding God’s will for you this day?
Satan would have us think that obeying God’s will means that ours must be done away with, and that we must become some kind of automaton to God. He would have us believe that if we are within God’s will then our own has been erased. Friends, this couldn’t be further from the truth; our will is valued by our Heavenly Father. He desires that we choose to be obedient to His will and plan for us, but that it must come by our own free choice and be in concert with His own willingly. Jesus wasn’t forced to choose God’s will… He chose to set aside His own desires and to obey God’s will of His own accord.
Do we wait patiently for God’s provision and direction? Have we become practiced in allowing Him to do all things in our lives, or does He teach us over and over again how to wait? Have we set our spiritual clocks, and our expectations to His divine time, the time of heaven? As the time of an earthly day is constantly changing, and our bodies acclimate to that change, we must also acclimate spiritually to the natural variation in the will of God... the days of heaven.
How is your faith? Are you strong in it, or is it lacking in some regard? Can you move a mountain, or do you think your faith is too small to move even a grain of sand? The disciples were chastised by Jesus on more than one occasion for their lack of faith, so do not lose heart, but ask Him why you can’t do a thing, or why you don’t receive the ability to perform a miracle. You may find that in some cases it has less to do with faith than you think.
Have we given up everything we are to Jesus Christ? It is easy to lay down the sinful, and evil things in our lives, but have we also laid down those we have always considered to be good? Abandoning those things to God that we naturally identify as being good and wholesome is the most profound test of our faith. Even though being able to leave behind those things that are sinful and contrary to God’s commandments and desire for us remains the foundation of our faithfulness and obedience.
God works within us every day. He brings us to the doorstep of His will and then perfects us as our efforts join with His in accomplishing it. However, none of our achievements are possible without His efforts in us, and none is possible by our own doing. So, when His will is done in some manner how do we respond to others as they acknowledge it in gratitude or amazement? Do we take the credit ourselves, or humbly give him all the glory for what His grace has brought forth by our obedience?
When God is working in another’s life do we get in His way? Are we one of those people that is referred to as a “fixer”, but who lets Himself get out of control on a regular basis? Do we find that in our attempt to repair a situation we come between God and the miracle He is about to perform? Do we let our own will and intellect overreach its bounds? Well, if so, then get ready to be corrected... and to quite possibly hurt the very soul we are intending to help.
When God speaks do we answer Him straightway? When He says “Come” do we immediately go to Him? When Jesus says “Go do this...” are we willing to drop whatever we are presently doing and go? By our very nature we are procrastinators, some of us more than others, but all of us have some degree of this trait within us. When God reaches out to us He expects action and not excuses and asks for us to obey His will exactly as He has instructed us without delay. Are we able to do this?
Do we go about rationalizing our own actions while claiming to be a servant of God and follower of Jesus? Do we use the good nature of God as an excuse for doing just those portions of His Word that we agree with? Do we believe that this is anything other than outright disobedience and a lie we tell ourselves? If so, then we need to re-evaluate our faith and interpretation of His Word. God may not be forcing us to obey Him or do His will, but that doesn’t diminish its importance in the least. He expects us to obey Him to the letter without quibbling or doing so halfway.
Are you prepared to pray? By this I mean, are you prepared to pray and receive the blessing for which you spoke with God? So often we come to the Lord unprepared; living one life and praying as if we were living another. I was reading a devotional writing by Pastor Oswald Chambers, and as I did so he wrote of a truth regarding this topic that might cut deep; it answered in part the question of why our prayers are not always answered.
Does Jesus preach in your city? God often tells us to do a certain thing; to reach out to someone, or to establish a church in some place, but once we experience the power of that happening, we are inclined to remain there in that moment or place and bask in the glow of it. How often do we get in God's way once our job is done? How often does Jesus come to take the pulpit only to find us stubbornly standing there?
Does God have to move something, or someone, out of the way before we will see Him? Is our attention focused somewhere other than on Him? Our God is a jealous God... He told us so, which begs the question... why do we taunt Him with our inattention? This is my concentration today and I invite you to join me. I am asking myself if there are people or things in my life that keep me from Him or draw my attention away from His desire for me.
Am I seeking the Lord as I should? Am I asking Jesus for the things that are right in the eyes of God? This morning, I am asking myself these questions among others and seeking to place Him foremost in my thought-life as I pray and walk this world. How can we pray right if we don’t think right, and how can we think right if we don’t focus right on God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit?