Prayer has more to do with praise and thanksgiving than with making our requests known to God. If our prayer time is filled with asking God to bless us, our plans, and to provide us with our desires, we are simply wasting our time. God loves for us to begin our prayer time by praising Him for who He is, and for what He has already done for us (John 15:7).
Who is God? He has mercy and compassion on the whole world regardless of race, creed, or skin color (John 3:16-17), knows the end from the beginning of time (Isaiah 46:10), keeps His covenants through every generation (Deuteronomy 7:9; Psalm 105:8), and makes any sinner a righteous Saint who is humble enough to believe in Jesus’ sacrifice for us on Calvary’s cross (Luke 23:33).
We start our prayer time by praising Him for His eternal salvation, protection, principles, provision, and presence in us. Then we praise Him for times He showed us mercy when we deserved judgment. Our prayers are faith-filled, Spirit-led, and worship-based (Romans 8:26-30; Hebrews 11:6; Psalm 27:48).
When we sincerely pray for His pardon for our failure to keep His commandments, God turns His fury away from us (John 14:15-21). He shines His face on us, and He rejoices over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17; Numbers 6:24-26). He helps us to understand His Word and His desires for us, and He helps us to forgive the unforgivable horrors perpetrated on us in our lifetime.
We are His beloved, and He is our cherished Savior, so He covers us with His love (Romans 5:8; Song of Solomon 2:4-6). We are His treasured possession, and His adopted children (Deuteronomy 14:2; Ephesians 1:5; Galatians 4:5). Through Christ, we are more than conquerors, and more than enough to live for Him and to walk in His will (Romans 8:37-39).
We are no longer a citizen of this world (Philippians 3:20-21), but a child of the Almighty, and joint-heirs with the King of all kings – the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:16-18). Spiritual maturity and advancement only come by doing spiritual warfare in our prayer life, by always trusting only in God, and by proving our love for Him by keeping His commandments.
Prayer:
Father God, thank You for rescuing us from the mirey mud and quick-sand of this world that attempts to swallow us whole. Your love covers a multitude of our failings (1 Peter 4:8), and Your Word and Truth wash away our carnal thoughts and desires. Teach us to depend totally on You and to submit to Your Spirit’s direction in our personal life, our church ministries, and our community outreach and service.
Rather than to live independently and to pursue our own dreams and goals for our life and ministries, remind us to seek Your face and to depend solely on You. When You are in control of our life, we see supernatural intervention and appointments that bear fruit for Your Kingdom. Help us to see the power in praying without ceasing through each moment of our day (1 Thessalonians 5:16-28) and to experience Your victory in every one of them, so Your will shall be done on earth as it is in Heaven (Matthew 6:10-13).
Thoughts for the Day:
Disappointment invades our soul when we realize we cannot live up to the advice, requirements, and expectations of the devil’s lies, our own imagination, or the standards of the world and those closest to us. However, when we realize who we are in Christ, our loneliness, despair, discouragement, and weariness decrease, and our security, strength, sense of worth, and eternal salvation increases.
