Directions of Our Prayers

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God is Government called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ's teaching of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting scripture, but scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today's focused discussion will be the direction of our prayers. There are so many tragedies, tragedy after tragedy after tragedy. Sometimes I'm fascinated by television programs that do these documentaries on trials of people who murdered somebody and they go through all the machinations. They can always solve the crime in exactly fifty-six minutes every time I watch one of those. But at the end of it all, all I can think to myself, and I know it rises to the Lord as from my heart to him, is how tragic, how tragic, what a sad person, what a human eternal tragedy this is. That's the God consciousness with which you view the world. O Lord, how long does this have to go on? Please be gracious to sinners, save them and glorify yourself in that way. And finally, glorify yourself in the world at your return. Second aspect of prayer. First is the frequency. The second is the variety. Here's another use of the word all. With all prayer and petition. First one, pray at all times. Second, pray with all prayer and petition, or the old word supplication. What does that mean? All kinds of prayers. You pray all the time. You pray all kinds of prayers, public, private, verbal, silent, loud, soft, deliberate, planned, unplanned, spontaneous, requests, thanks, confession, humiliation, praise, standing, kneeling, lying down, lifting up your hands, putting your hands down, you name it. Every kind of prayer, expressive of every emotional attitude, of every kind of thinking and every kind of circumstance, that's the idea. Pray all kinds of prayer, prosuke, prayer in general, all kinds of petition, daisis, definite prayer. Pray all kinds of petitions, pray every definite prayer in every way, in every manner, on every occasion. Like 1 Timothy 2.8, I will that all men everywhere pray. Pray in the general pattern of life, in the specific issues of life, we are to pray. And this is part of our defense, this is part of the armor, this is part of our protection. This is what allows us to defeat the schemes of Satan. It's the kind of living that opens up our resources to the flow of God's power. Pray in every way you can possibly pray, and every kind of prayer, in every circumstance which calls for prayer. It is to be in variety, it is varied as the needs. We pray prayers of thanksgiving, don't we? We come together and worship. Sometimes our prayers are filled with joy, sometimes our exuberance is manifest in our praying. And then there are times when we pray and our eyes are filled with tears. And there are all the range of emotions that we experience as human beings, which give rise to certain kinds of prayers. There are all kinds of circumstances, good, bad, and indifferent, horrible, as well as wonderful, that draw out prayer. We're not talking about prayer books, we're not talking about prayers that are memorized or written down, although that in itself is certainly not wrong. We're not talking about vain repetition. Took every Old Testament passage where people rose up early in the morning and prayed. And as I was listening, I was flipping around in my Bible, Psalm 55.17, evening and morning and noon will I pray. Luke 6.12, Jesus said he continued all night in prayer. And 1 Timothy 5 5 says that godly widows that are to be supported by the church are known as those who pray night and day. Yes, pray in the morning, yes, pray at noon, yes, pray at night, yes, pray all night, yes, pray all the time with all kinds of prayer. There are no limits on that. And the third thing he talks about is the manner of prayer. With all prayer and petition, praying at all times. And the manner? It says, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition. Let's just take the word perseverance here. What we've got here is the frequency, all the time, the variety, all kinds of prayer, the manner, with perseverance and alertness. In other words, you need to know what you're praying about. One of my children, when I used to go from room to room, pray with the little kids, when they were little, at home. I had one child, I'll let you figure out which one, who was always tired and wanted to go to sleep. And so this child would say, I'd say, now I want to pray with you. And the prayer inevitably would go like this. Dear God, thank you for mommy and daddy. Bless the whole wide world, amen. You know, you're really making it difficult for God to answer that prayer. Just exactly how does he do that? Bless the whole wide world, amen. That doesn't quite get specific enough. Find something to pray about, watch. Mark 14, 38, Jesus said, watch and pray. 1 Peter 4 7, watch unto prayer. Incessant attentiveness, vigilance, alertness. Pick out specifics. I remember years ago we were meeting in a gym. There was a guy in our church named Frank. I haven't seen him in a long time. He had a spiral notebook, and he would come up to me in the patio every week and he would say, Now, what can I pray for? And I would always have to give him a list of specific things to pray for, and he'd write them down in his spiral notebook. He did that all the time. And he would come back to me week after week, and he would ask me, Now I prayed for that last week. How did that work out? And then he would write down an answer. And he was moving through, he came to me one day and I said, Now, Frank, how many of these books have you filled up? He said, thirteen. Thirteen. Now, if you were to ask Frank, does God answer prayer? What kind of prayer would you like answered? Just flip through, grab one here, one there, had all kinds of notebooks, because he watched, and he persevered, all perseverance. The Greek means intensive commitment, perseverance. So watch, see what's going on, pray on the positive side, pray defensively. Lead us not into temptation, that's a defensive prayer, as well as prayers to glorify himself, to manifest his kingdom. So we stay with it, in a continued, steadfast, consuming perseverance as we follow through praying. Most people, I think, don't pray in a persevering way unless some personal tragedy strikes them, then they do. But that really manifests our tendency, doesn't it? To be selfish. We don't get consumed with the things that consume the heart of Christ, we tend to get consumed with the things that affect us. We're a little less, sometimes consumed with the things that affect others. Persevering prayer on behalf of those things that are a concern to the heart of God, which is everything that occurs within the framework of his purpose and his kingdom, should be the mark of a believer who is mature. Watching beyond ourselves, persevering in an all-consuming devotion to prayer. Colossians chapter 4 is a good illustration of this. Epaphras, who is one of your number, Paul says to the Colossians, a slave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. I bear him witness, he has a deep concern for you. This is somebody who was a persevering person, who watched, who saw needs, and who prayed faithfully in an all-consuming effort. Then there's another all here, a fourth one. These prayers are to be offered, end of the verse, for all the saints. The frequency of prayers at all times. The variety of prayers, all kinds of prayers, the manner of prayer, watching at all times so you don't miss anything. And here, the indirect object of prayer. What is the indirect object? All the saints. The direct object is whom? God. Because in the end, John 14, the promise is this: that whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. The direct object of all prayer is God. You pray to God for God's glory. The indirect object is the saints. You pray for the saints. By means of those saints, God may display his glory. So when you want to glorify God, you pray, God, glorify yourself by putting your power on display, your grace on display, your mercy on display, your wisdom on display, your truth on display, by answering this prayer concerning these saints. So you pray indirectly for the saints, directly for the glory of God. This is critical. The direction of our prayers is outside of us, okay? For all the saints. Praying at all times in all kinds of prayers, all varieties of prayers, with all alertness and all perseverance for all the saints. This is how the body of Christ operates. A Christian is not to think only of his own conflict but that of the whole body. Not to be concerned only with his own issues, but those of the whole body. In fact, there's a certain sense in which you have a basic indifference to what happens to you. If it glorifies God, bring it on. Whatever, Lord, you need to do in my life to glorify yourself, do that. Help me to discern your glory even in the things I don't understand in my life. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of the direction of our prayers. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way.