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October 21, 2018

Prayer Series 9: Yielding

God really laid this blog post on my heart in a roundabout way. Over the past month, every time I saw or heard the words “according to” in the Bible, the Holy Spirit would just poke me. When I looked up the meaning of the word κατά in the Greek, it’s simply a preposition that occurs 482 times in the Bible. No wonder I was seeing it a lot – it’s all over the place! Then I finally realized it was God simply giving me the prayer topic on which I was supposed to write next. Praying according to God's will and not our own. Thank you Lord!

Last time, we discussed our heart’s motivation behind what we are asking for during prayer, and we’ve started focusing our prayers so God may be glorified and honored instead of wanting our own selves to be glorified, comfortable, or our desires fulfilled. Now, to take that a step further, after we ask God for help and bring our petitions to Him, we then must yield to God with the confidence that He will answer our prayers according to His will and not our will.

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, 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 the petitions that we have asked of Him.” 1 John 5:14-15

Did you hear that? God hears us when we ask ANYTHING according to His will – big or small – ANYTHING – as long as we ask according to His will. We have total confidence that, if our prayer is according to His will, then what we asked for will be done! But what about our prayers we consider unanswered?

First of all, are you sure it’s not answered? Maybe God has answered it…according to His will and not yours. Maybe He is answering it in His perfect timing, and His timing hasn’t come yet. Or, finally, maybe your prayer request was not in His will. Are you ok with it going unanswered? Is the Garth Brook’s voice singing “sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers” twanging in your head yet?

In a conversation about prayer with my beautiful Aunt Sue last week, she said something so profound, and I’ve just been chewing on it all week. She said that so many times she catches herself giving God her problems AND a solution versus just the problem. I mean, think about that – does God need our solutions? No way. His perspective is so much greater than ours.

Of course, we can look to Jesus as our primary example. He Himself prayed when His soul was extremely sorrowful in the Garden of Gethsemane before His betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion. Both Matthew and Mark recall that Jesus said the following prayer three times. In fact, the gospel of Luke says Jesus, being in agony, prayed more earnestly, and then His sweat became like great drops of blood. Here was Jesus’s prayer:

“Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” Mark 14:36

From Jesus’s mouth and a promise to us in His word – for God, all things are possible. He could answer your prayer according to your will right now if He wanted to…He is absolutely capable. Sit for a minute, and think about this prayer. Jesus, God’s own son, dripping drops of blood, in agony, extremely sorrowful, and praying earnestly asked for the pain of crucifixion to be taken from Him, and God could have said “ok.” Thank God, Jesus yielded to His Father’s will and said: “nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” God’s plan was accomplished, and our salvation was made possible through the painful, horrific sacrifice that was ahead of Jesus in that very moment. Wow! And we are so quick to give God our solutions! Shouldn’t we all add: “nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will” to each one of our prayers?

Secondly, Jesus taught His disciples to yield to God’s will when He showed them how to pray by example in The Model Prayer (remember, it isn’t The Lord’s Prayer, it’s Jesus’s example of how we should pray):

“Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10

I love the way Chuck Smith put it: “Prayer was never intended as a vehicle by which I can get my will done on the earth. Prayer is the vehicle by which I cooperate with God in order to get His will done.”

Rejoice in the confidence you have that when you pray God’s will, HE HEARS YOU, and your prayers WILL BE ANSWERED. When we pray with this confidence, it gives us rest and turns our eyes back on Him and His eternal purpose and sovereignty and away from ourselves and our circumstances. It's how we live by faith - trusting that His will is what's best and giving Him the reigns. Don't forget to give yourselves some grace too...you may have to pray the same prayer many more times than Jesus’s three times as our eyes so easily turn back to our own selves and away from God.

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9

“Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.” Psalm 147:5

"Look among the nations and watch--Be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you." Habakkuk 1:5

Posted by Lindsey Pintar with

Tags: god's will, interceding, jesus, jesús, petitions, prayer, sovereignty, yielding

September 20, 2018

in Lindsey Pintar

Prayer Series 8: Asking

In my last blog about prayer, we discussed our heart’s motivation and attitude towards prayer – to come to Him and seek Him with a motivation to know Him. After all, He already knows ALL of us, so our role in our relationship with God is to quiet our fleshly loud spirits that are focused on our own selves and to focus on Him with a servant’s heart that’s willing to respond.

In this blog, we are again going to focus on our heart’s motivation, but this time focusing on how we ask or lay our petitions before God. Asking is a key component of prayer, but it’s probably the component we too easily jump right into and spend the majority of our prayer time doing. God is not Santa, but I fully admit I regularly catch myself jumping right into my laundry list of requests for God, without: 1) taking the time to put my heart in the right place of submitting to who I am talking to through praise and thanksgiving (previous blogs) and 2) thinking about the “why” of my heart’s motivation in whatever I am asking (this blog).

James 4:1-2 says:

“Where do wars and fights [come] from among you? Do [they] not [come] from your [desires for] pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.”

The Bible says: “you do not have because you do not ask,” so it is absolutely Biblical for us to lay out our concerns before Him and to ask for His help.

Earlier in this verse, it points out the reason we are all bent out of shape about many issues in our own lives…from our desires for pleasure. This verse uses pretty strong language that’s easy for our self-righteous selves to skip over – wars, fights, lust, murder, and covetousness – but, STOP, we all are guilty of these sins in seeking our own pleasure. Do you argue? Do you have conflicts? Do you always have to be right? Do you want to be comfortable and have it easy? Do you want that “perfect” life someone else has on social media? Do you want what you don’t have- that house, that “perfect” body? Do you hate or disdain anyone (murder)? Is there someone you haven’t forgiven that still overwhelms you with anger and malice (murder)? We are all guilty of desiring our own pleasure – putting ourselves first before others. In a sermon by Greg Laurie this week on GraceFM, he asked: “Are you more concerned with your own comfort than the souls around you?” Ouch! My answer was yes, many times I am. Many of my requests for prayer are often fueled by these very pleasures.

Secondly, there is heaviness and tragedy everywhere you look because of sin – cancer, death, sickness, injuries, car accidents, murder, people getting hurt because of other people’s sin, and on and on. As Christians, we are called to intercede and pray for others (1 Samuel 12:23, Acts 12:5, Ephesians 6:18).

Quite frankly, I’m often overwhelmed with where to start – my list of requests for my own self, my family and friends, our church family, and for the world around me is LONG! I could pray all day! I think we can all agree we have a lot to ask for in this fallen, sinful world and God wants us to seek Him and depend on Him. So, now, what about our heart in asking? Stay with me for this…

James goes on to say in verse 3:

“You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend [it] on your pleasures.”

WHOA! Ah-ha moment! Sometimes we ask and we don’t receive because we ask amiss? In Greek, the word amiss is kakōs which means "to do improperly, wrongly, or with bad intent." We ask for things with the bad intent of “spending it on our pleasures.” Ok, instead of what?

In studying Malachi this week, my heart literally stopped on this verse where the Lord is correcting corrupt priests. We too, like these priests, are corrupt with sin that we know better than to commit.

“'If you will not hear, And if you will not take [it] to heart, To give glory to My name,’ Says the LORD of hosts, ‘I will send a curse upon you, And I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have cursed them already, Because you do not take [it] to heart.’” Malachi 2:2

We must take it to heart to give glory to God. It’s not enough to just say the truth and hear the truth, we must be motivated to glorify God authentically from our hearts through our lives, our actions, our activities, our body language, our attitudes, our words, our thoughts, and OUR PRAYERS.

"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” John 15:7-8

When we abide in Him, our desires become His desires. We are to crucify our own flesh. Our desire will be for Our Father to be glorified through our lives of discipleship and bearing eternal fruit (good works) in His name.

So…what does this have to do with what and how we are asking God for? Next time you pray, think about what you are asking for and the “why” you are asking for it? Are you asking for your husband’s salvation because you want him to be more loving to you and you can’t bear the thought of him spending eternity in hell? This is absolutely an appropriate prayer to ask of God, but the motivation should be that God may be glorified and not dishonored by a life not lived for Him rather than for your own pleasure (feeling loved and so you’re not grieved). Make sense?

Let’s lighten this up here. It’s that time of year again – cold and flu season! When school starts, germs run rampant, and let’s face it, a lot of prayer for healing and comfort comes into play. I had to take my three boys in for flu shots last week. Last year it was a disaster. They literally were screaming and crying, all three of them, at the top of their lungs: “don’t hurt me, help me, save me!” during the busy flu clinic at the pediatrician’s office. So, OF COURSE, I prayed about it this year! First, I will admit, I was 100% praying for my own pleasure - so I didn’t have to go through the discomfort again and be embarrassed. During prayer, I stopped and changed my request so God could be glorified by my family while we were at the pediatrician’s office this year. I even put on my new C4 t-shirt to project God even more (haha!). God was glorified by my loving, respectful kids, and the prayer was answered.

So, practically speaking, start paying attention to your heart’s motivation behind what you are asking for while you are praying. Start focusing your prayers so God may be glorified and honored and put your own comfort and pleasure aside. If it’s God’s will for you to have discomfort or to have to go through something you don’t want to go through, all so He can be glorified in this sinful world, it’s worth it (Romans 8:18). Have faith that, despite the temporary discomfort, He knows all and is working it all out for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).