Daily Thought for Wednesday, December 28th

December 28, 2011 

Prayer – A Given Essential – So What Should We Pray For

Today’s Thought:

“If we pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart.  Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray.  The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Today’s Quote:

“The purpose of prayer is not to inform God of our needs, but to invite him to rule our lives.” – Clarence Bauman

Today’s Question:

“Have you ever felt you are working so hard for God that you have no strength to pray?” – J. Hudson Taylor

If so, you need to remember to use your strength to pray before you begin to work, then your strength and God’s power will enable you to get the job done.

Today’s Bible Verses:             1 John 2:13-15  &  Romans 8:24-26

  

These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?  But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Today’s Spiritual Thought”

“To say prayers in a decent, delicate way is not heavy work.   But to pray really, to pray till hell fells the ponderous stroke, to pray till the iron gates of difficulty are opened, till the mountains of obstacles are removed, till the mists are exhaled and the clouds are lifted, and the sunshine of a cloudless day brightens – that is hard work, but it is God’s work and man’s best labor.” – E. M. Bounds

Often Christians approach prayer as a wish list for God’s blessings or sometimes even a demand for His immediate action in a specified or particular way: yet scripture teaches us over and over that we, when we pray, need to surrender our petitions, to the wisdom and will of God’s decisions and actions.

There is no harm in expressing our hearts fully to Him: we are even told to let our request be made know to Him and we are promised that He will provide the desires of the heart, but we forget the qualifications that tell us that will be for those who walk rightly before the Lord, not following the flesh, but rather following His Spirit.

Jesus even taught the disciples to pray thus: “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” – The Bible (Matthew 6:9-10)

So to answer the question of how should we pray:  First, we should as Matthew Henry suggests, when he said; “God’s promises are to be our pleas in prayer:”  and secondly, as Margaret Gibb suggests: “We must move from asking God to take care of the things that are breaking our hearts, to praying about the things that are breaking His heart:” and lastly, whatever we pray it must always be with the provision for His will to be done, rather than our own.

“Spread out your petition before God, and then say ‘Thy will, not mine, be done.’ The sweetest lesson I have learned in God’s school is to let the Lord choose for me.” – Dwight L. Moody

Today’s Prayer:

Father, “Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way, thou art the potter, I am the clay: mold me and make me, after thy will: while I am waiting yielded and still.” – Adelaide A. Pollard (lyrics from ‘Have Thine Own Way Lord’)

“True prayer brings a person’s will into accordance with God’s will,

 not the other way around.”

- Unknown