Skip to main content

Trusting prayers ...



In 1 Chronicles 5:20 we read ... "(God) answered their prayers because they trusted in Him."

We know that across the world there are many people that pray. For example, in the book "Christian Prayer for Dummies" a survey is quoted stating that in the UK 82% of adults and 89% of teenagers pray at least once a week!  We know, too, that prayers may be directed to a 'god', 'divine being' or 'someone/something' that it is supposed can help in time of need, whether or not there is an experience of being in a relationship with the object of the prayers or not. 

However, what strikes me in this verse is that the peoples prayers were answered not simply because they prayed, but because they exercised faith, they trusted in the One they were praying to ... which leads me to the question "How do we have faith?" How can our experience move beyond a blind hope into a confident trust? For me the answer is about a relationship with our Creator through trust in the work and promises of Christ ... 

 The Bible makes many promises, including;
  • 'Here I am,' Jesus said, 'I stand at the door knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.'
  • 'I will be with you always and never leave you ...'
  • 'I give them eternal life ...'
Faith is not merely believing that God can fulfill His promises but trusting that He will daring to believe these promises to be true and acting upon them and, over time, we begin to build a bank of experiences that confirm them to be true;
  • We do not need to earn God's approval to draw closer to Him ... We trust in the work of Christ ...it is a gift to be received.
  • He walks with us and nurtures His character in us as we yield to His leading ...we need to walk with Him to see this is true.
  • We develop compassion for others ... and an expression of His character working in and through us ... so we see our aspirations, desires and heart change.

 So how do we have faith? It develops through exercise taking first one step, then another ... daring to trust ...

 Anyone want to share a testimony of how this has worked out in your life?

 Press on!
 
Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 27, 2013 at 10:19 AM

    Truth!!! Thanks, mate!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ajbaggFebruary 27, 2013 at 10:28 AM

    Challenging to always allow ourselves to be 'stretched' all the time though. Even if we know it is for our own benefit and blessing!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Feel free to add comments or ask questions:

Popular posts from this blog

Does God really lead us?

  Often as evangelical believers we talk about the concept of ‘calling’ explaining it along the lines of God speaking to his people, sometimes this is narrowed even to the experience of a special, select ‘few’ and limited in scope to those who are engaging in full-time Christian ministry. The following are some notes I prepared for a talk: Firstly, I would like to say that most Christians would believe that God communicates with his people, and that this may happen in many different ways. What is of utmost importance is that it does happen. We are in relationship with a Living God, who we call Father, and who communicates with us His creation and covenant people.   God communicates in a number of ways and one special way in which He leads and guides his people might be termed a vocation or calling and it’s this particular aspect of His communication I want to focus on.   So what is the calling? Who is called? And what are we called to? The whole i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thoughts from a previous incumbent ...

In reference to 2 Tim 1:7 "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of p o wer, of love a nd of sel f-discipli ne."   Norman Grubb decl are d that; "We are set in our day and generation to be overcomers, not to sail through calm seas but to walk on storms, to replace need with supply, to transform aspiration into realization. The language of defeatism, fear, lack and weakness is not to be in our vocabulary. "Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it. As for these giants, they are bread for us," we say with sturdy Caleb.  We are to act as the men of faith of old; we are to visualize our goal in clear outline; we are to take it for granted that we shall reach it, for we have both the commission and anointing of God?   We lay our plans ,build our organisations, produce our written and verbal pronouncements,  prayer our prayers, do our work, not as those who will fail and fall by the way, but...
2 comments
Read more

Helpful read ...

Sacred Pathways: Discover your Soul's Path to God - Gary Thomas  When you became a christian did you look around other people's lives and seek to model some of their spiritual disciplines? Did you find that somehow they didn't work for you in quite the same way as they seemed to work for them? Did this lead you to a place of discouragement? Did you think that, somehow, the things that bring such life to other people but don't bring life to you must mean that there is something wrong with you? Or that maybe God doesn't love you as much as He loved those people whom you sought to emulate? These are very real questions that all c hristians probably grapple with at some point. As we grow and mature in Christ we eventually reach a place of liberty where we realise that we are unique and therefore we shouldn't be surprised when our Father deals uniquely with us - and the way we most easily 'connect' to Him is also unique. Or perhaps we find over time th...
Post a Comment
Read more