| Prayer Part 1 – Praying with understanding Ephesians 6:10-18, talks about the armor of God and it ends with pray at all times. In the gospels we see how Jesus would go alone and pray. It is not recorded in the bible that the disciples asked Jesus, to teach them to how to heal, do miracles or cast out demons, but they asked Him to teach them how to pray. Why is that? Obviously because they saw the power of prayer. But what is prayer? And how do we pray? What does the bible tell us about prayer? Is prayer repetition of words? In the religions, there are words or sentences and paragraphs that you repeat as a prayer to God. They are given to you by the priests of that religion. In the hindu religion there is a necklace with 108 beads that you use as a counter. You are to repeat a phrase 108 times a day – and that is considered your prayer to God. Is that what prayer is? What does the bible say? Matthew 6:7-8 (New American Standard Bible) 7"And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their (A)many words. 8"So do not be like them; for (B)your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. So prayer is not just repeated words over and over again. What is prayer? Prayer is talking to God from your heart. It is a simple thing. It does not have to use fancy words. It doesn’t have to be long. It just comes from the heart. It doesn’t have to start a certain a way. It doesn’t have to end a certain way. It is your communication with God. It can be as simple as, “God help me” or “what should I do”, or “thank-you Jesus!” Is prayer asking for what we want? Many times when people think of prayer, they think of making a list of things we want and presenting it to God. But that is not all prayer is. Prayer also involves talking to God and thanking God. It can be singing of His goodness or greatness. Prayer builds our relationship with God. How do we pray? There are two types of prayer 1) prayer with understanding 2) prayer in the spirit Paul speaks about the importance of praying in both these ways 1 Corinthians 14:15 (New International Version)15So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind. Why do we pray with our understanding? Prayer and our relationship with God, go hand in hand. As we see the prayers we pray answered we see how much God loves and cares for us. We see that He isn’t a make believe thing that we have created to comfort us, but that He is very real. We see that He isn’t just a super power in heaven, but that He is very close and loving and that He cares about everything that is important to us, even if it is insignificant. When we pray with understanding we develop a relationship with God. We can talk to God about our day and how it went. We can ask for His advice. We can tell Him our hopes and desires and we can ask for what we want. Can I really ask God for what I want? Of course! Matthew 7:7-11 (New International Version) 7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! God wants you to ask for what you want. And not only that, He wants to give you every good thing. As a parent, you want your children to be able to come to with their hopes and dreams and needs and desires and you want to do whatever is in your power to help them get every good thing they can in their lifetime. You gave birth to your children, but God made you and your children. So His desire to do good things for you is so much more then yours for your children. But He is God and my heavenly Father, won’t He just give me what is good for me? Why do I have to ask? Because God wants you to see how good He is. The scary thing about asking God for anything is what does it mean if you don’t get it? Does it mean He doesn’t love you? Does it mean you are not important to Him? So sometimes it is hard to ask. But He actually wants you to ask so you can see how good He is and how much He loves you! When you ask for what you want and He gives it to you, you realize how real God really is. That He really does care about you personally. That He really does listen to your prayers. That you may be one of a billion or more people, but He takes the time to hear your voice. He wants you to ask for what you want so that He can show you His love. Of course He will give you things without you asking, just like any good parent, in some things He wants you to build up the courage to ask and then He wants to show you His love, power and trustworthy character. James 4:2 (New International Version)2……. You do not have, because you do not ask God. But what if it is just for my selfish reasons I am asking, is that ok? Yes it is! You can ask God for anything. There are no conditions on what you can ask God for. I personally ask for cell phone ornaments with bells on it, chocolate, pizza, jewelry, money to travel, ministry, people to come to God, people to contact me, anything I want. I just come to Him and tell Him. I know He has the power to do it. He loves me enough to do it. I also know He has the wisdom to know if it is good for me, or if there is something better. So if I don’t get it, He will do the better thing, but there is nothing wrong with asking. Now you may ask, then what about this scripture- James 4:3 (New International Version)3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. Doesn’t this seem to say, I should ask things for my own pleasure – only if there is a greater good for people or some noble cause? The answer is no. You have to take the whole bible in context and you have to see that God desires to bless His children. There was a king in Israel named Solomon and God told him to ask for anything and it would be given to him God looks at the heart behind everything we do. This king asked for wisdom to lead the people and God gave him that and riches like no other king (I Kings 3:5-14). God is not against material blessings. He doesn’t want our eyes focused on them instead of God. It clearly says in the bible He will give us the desires of our heart Psalm 37:4 (New International Version) 4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart. As you delight in God – He will fulfill the desires of your heart. He’s given me so many material things – my IPOD, Chanel sunglasses, and gold ankle bracelets. Didn’t need any of them, but I wanted them and He provided them. We can boldly come and make our requests known to God, even if they are selfish and God will answer them (unless they are evil – to harm someone, kill someone etc.). God does not help us do bad things. That said, if we do something bad and want His help, we can come even then and His help is available. In the bible there are many examples of this. Jonah was sent to the city of Ninevah (Jonah) to declare that it would be destroyed because of its evil ways. The whole city repented (asked God for forgiveness) in hopes that this would change the punishment. God forgave them all and did not destroy the city. Ahab was a wicked King and God sent a messenger to speak of the destruction to come because of his wickedness and because he repented – God delayed it. My brother’s friend stole a car and then was afraid he would be caught by the police. He promised God he would never do it again if God would save him this once. God did. He didn’t get caught by the police, even though there was clear evidence pointing to what he had done. In all things, we should boldly come to God. Just think of your child. If they want a nice car and you can provide it, you will in most cases. If your child does something wrong and you can help them fix it, you will. If your child commits a crime and you can hire a lawyer to help them get less of a punishment or maybe not have to go to jail, you would do it. How much more would God do all these things. Now sometimes, we need to go through something to really change. My brother’s friend was a drug dealer. He turned himself into the police and they said he would go to jail for 9 years and never be able to get a job after that. We prayed and God reduced his sentence to 48 days of sleeping in jail, but going to school during the day and his record would become clean enough to get a good job. He still went to jail, because he himself says, if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have changed. But God reduced it so much; it was a blessing to him. Now if we are continually sinning and don’t desire to change – God does sometimes stop listening to our prayers until we decide to repent/be sorry and change and come to Him. He does this so that we will change and do the right thing. God blesses the good and the bad, simply because of He loves them. His desire is that His kindness leads them into repentance (Romans 2:4). That is why in Matthew 5:43-45 (New International Version) 43"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.' 44But I tell you: Love your enemies[b] and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. God loves to bless, but more then bless He loves people to go to heaven. So when the goodness won’t change them, He stops answering their prayers until they realize they need to change (one such warning is given to married men in the New testament in I Peter 3:7). Many times in the Old Testament as the Israelites would stop following God He would stop protecting them and they would finally realize that they need to turn back to God and as soon as they would repent He would send someone to help them out of their bondage or captivity and make them a free prosperous nation again. Now this does not necessarily mean that if your prayer isn’t answered, it’s because of sin. It could just be God has something better, for when you are sinning and God wants you to change, if you truly love God and want to follow Him, you will know. And to repent, all you have to truly be sorry and change your ways – and you can ask for His help to do that. He will answer that prayer always when it comes from the heart. What if I ask God for something once and don’t get it. Does that mean God doesn’t want me to have it? Should I stop asking? No, not necessarily. You can ask until you receive it or God tells you it isn’t good for you and He gives you something better. Luke 18 (New International Version) 1Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' 4"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' " 6And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly…… So does this mean you have to pray everyday until you get what you want? No, you pray until you have the assurance (peace that cannot be shaken) that it will be done. Sometimes this is after one prayer. Sometimes this is when you see what you want happen. Sometimes it is after you pray a few times. Is prayer powerful? Does it accomplish anything? Yes! Prayer is very powerful. Read the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and Acts and you will see the mighty miracles that happened when people prayed. Today as we pray, we see people’s lives and hearts changed. Sometimes nothing we say can change them, but when we pray, God will change their hearts and minds. God gives us a wonderful privilege to play a part in changing this world through our prayers. What is the Lord’s prayer? In the bible, Jesus’ disciples asked Him how to pray and this is the prayer He gave them. Matthew 6:9-13 (Amplified Bible)9Pray, therefore, like this: Our Father Who is in heaven, hallowed (kept holy) be Your name. 10Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread. 12And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven ([a]left, remitted, and let go of the debts, and have [b]given up resentment against) our debtors. 13And lead (bring) us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. This is an example of how to pray, but it is not something you have to repeat everyday. If you do, it should mean something to you. If it is just empty words, that you are saying, then you need to stop saying it and instead take the essence of this prayer and incorporate/put that into your prayers. 1) Praise and thanksgiving and recognition of who God is (your loving Heavenly Father) 2) Surrendering to God’s will 3) Making your requests known – asking for what you want 4) Loving the people of this world as God has loved us – realizing we all make mistakes and if God forgave us, we shouldn’t hold grudges/resentments against others 5) God to open our eyes to temptation so we can run from it and to protect us from the enemy (James 4:7-8). God is strong enough to keep away every danger the enemy plans to bring our way or take us out of it when we walk into a trap. Basically this prayer helps us realize God is everything. He makes everything happen, He protects us, He loves and forgives us and because of who He is, we can surrender our lives to Him and follow Him without hesitation because He will take care of us. Part 2 – Praying in the Spirit What does it mean to pray in the spirit? If you read I Corinthians 14 – Paul is referring to speaking in tongues. He felt it was an important thing to do. When addressing the church of Corinth he said: 1 Corinthians 14:18 (New International Version) 18I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. What is tongues? It is a heavenly or earthly language given by God to be used to communicate with God – a prayer language that you speak in when you are filled or baptized in the Holy Spirit. The first time in the bible that people were filled/baptized with the Holy Spirit, they spoke in languages people could understand. Acts 2:1-18. There were Jews from all over the world gathered at Jerusalem at that time and it says that as the disciples were all praying, the sound of a tempest blast came into the room and flames of fire appeared on each person’s head and they began speaking in tongues and as they walked outside people from all over the world were amazed because they heard them speaking in their languages – telling of the mighty works of God. And when they asked what was happening, Peter quoted from the Bible and explained that it was what had been prophesied, “and it shall come to pass in the last days, God declares, that I will pour out of My Spirit upon all mankind, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your old men shall dream dreams, Yes, and on My menservants also and on My maidservants in those days I will pour out of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy” Acts 2:17-18 (Amp) In another place in the bible it talks about how it can be the language of angels (1 cor 13:1) Whatever the language, it is prayer language where you are speaking to God – 1 cor 14:2 Why do we speak in tongues? There are three reasons that the bible gives to speak in tongues. 1. Praying in tongues is the perfect prayer because we can’t “correct”/corrupt it. If we understood what we were saying then we might try to change the prayer because we would think it is the wrong prayer. For example: say you wanted to become rich. The fastest legal way to do this is to win the lottery. So if you bought a lottery ticket, what you would pray is “God I want to win the lottery.” Now say, that God knew that if you won the lottery your picture would be on TV and someone would kidnap your parent or child for the money. He wants you to have monetary blessings, since that is your desire, but knows that this is not the best way for you to receive those blessing. So if He prayed through you in English/Japanese/Hindi/whatever language you speak, He would pray “God I don’t want to win the lottery.” Now if you heard this coming out of your mouth, you would say, “NO! That is wrong. I must be receiving wrong from God. I am going to bless my parents, pay off my debts, buy a new home, give to church, help the homeless, give to charity, build a school, etc. I am going to put that money to good use. Who knows, I might even become a missionary.” So you would change it and pray, “God I want to win the lottery instead of I do not want to win the lottery.” So that is one reason to speak in tongues, so we can speak God’s perfect prayer without changing or corrupting it in any way. (Romans 8:27 AMP - … the Spirit intercedes on behalf of the saints according to the and in harmony with God’s will) 2. Praying in tongues allows you to intercede/pray on behalf of or for/about needs you may not even know about. When you go home, I don’t know what you need unless you call and tell me. But God always knows what you have need of and when you are in trouble and need prayer. He can use people to intercede/pray on your behalf. (Romans 8:26-27). For example: This is a story an evangelist named Tony Abram told us. One night he was woken up and knew he needed to pray but he didn’t know for what and so he started to pray in tongues. It was 3am. At 3:20am that burden lifted and he went back to sleep. A little while later he met a friend of his and the friend told him that he recently almost died. He then proceeded to tell him the story. He said one day he started to bleed from his mouth. The bleeding wouldn’t stop and so they called the doctor. The doctor came and told him there was nothing they could do, that he was going to die. The doctor wasn’t Christian so he wouldn’t pray for him, his wife was too scared to pray and he himself felt so weak because he had lost so much blood that he couldn’t pray and so he asked God to have someone pray for him. Well this was at 3am. At 3:20am he said Jesus came into his room touched his mouth and healed him! When they compared times and dates, it was the same time Pastor Abram was praying in tongues! 3. Praying in tongues edifies us. It says in 1 Cor. 14:4 that He who speaks in a tongue edifies/improves/builds up/strengthens himself. All of us need to be edified because none of us are perfect. When we speak in tongues we will notice we will start to have more of the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). I know for me when I first became a Christian, the more I spoke in tongues, the better person I was. Things that would normally bother people didn’t bother me. I could easily brush off rude comments without even being upset. But when I started to get upset, it could usually always be traced back to the fact that I hadn’t been speaking in tongues as much as usual. Also, all of us have bad habits or characteristics we are trying to change. Sometimes we struggle with them on our own and fail, but God starts to work on them as we speak in tongues and makes the process easy and sometimes He even changes habits we have without us even realizing we had that bad habit. For example there was this lady once who received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She was a very rich lady and went to a prayer meeting in her fur coat. And as she was praying in tongues, her language was Swedish and there happened to be a Swedish man in the room. What he heard her saying in tongues was “God make me a humble person.” She probably wasn’t ready to have that sin/problem revealed to her, but God wanted to change her so when she spoke in tongues, He was praying the prayer to change her. I have also noticed the more I pray in tongues, the more physical strength I have. Often when I am physically tired I pray in tongues and God refreshes me. One day I went on a 3-5 hour hiking trip and drove for 2-3 hours and finally made it home. I was tired, but one of my friends was coming for bible study. I was so tired I didn’t think I could teach her anything so I started to pray in tongues. I only prayed less then 5-15 minutes and I was refreshed and had a wonderful bible study and was able to stay up till 2am watching a movie afterwards without being tired! 4. Praying in tongues allows you to hear God more clearly (this is a personal, not biblically based reason). We all want to hear God’s voice. We want to know God’s plans and thoughts. Often times we ask and we don’t receive an answer. It isn’t because God doesn’t give us an answer; it is because we are too busy to hear the answer. Paul says to pray in the Spirit and to pray with understanding (1 Cor. 14:15). When we pray with understanding we can express ourselves and our thoughts and whatever we ask for, when we get it we can thank God for hearing our prayers. When we pray in the Spirit, our mind is free to do whatever it likes. The importance of this in my life is that it is free to hear the voice of God. Because I am not concentrating so hard on talking to God, my mouth is doing the talking when I speak in tongues and my mind is free to hear whatever God is saying. Speaking in tongues draws me closer to God, it allows me closer fellowship with my Maker. How do we speak in tongues? Just ask! Luke 11:9-13 (NIV) “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” All you have to do is ask and it is a promise that you will receive. Now sometimes we have a hard time letting go and receiving. Especially for people who are “thinkers”. So we have found it is easier if you repeat the same thing over and over again. The reason is that you stop thinking about what you are saying and can let God take control. If you are praying with your mouth and saying “Oh God, please forgive me for what I did yesterday and I am so sorry about the other day, I really want the Holy Spirit and Oh! God bless my family as well and please don’t forget the orphans….etc..” you are so busy controlling what you are saying, it is hard for you to give that control over to God. See God never controls you; He is a gentleman who has given you a free will. Only as you submit and surrender does He take over a part of your life. The one part of our body we have always had control of is our tongue. I can come up to you and move your hand, but I can’t control your tongue and make you talk. That control is yours. Yet the tongue is the most powerful weapon we have. Kings start wars, with a word. The deepest wounds inflicted in people’s lives come from words spoken or in some cases from the rejection felt from those not spoken (Like our parents not telling us they love us or think we are special). In America we have a saying, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Of course we all know that sticks and stones may break our bones, but bones heal and those wounds are forgotten, but harsh words spoken can cause a lifetime of hurt in someone. And so God wants control of this powerful weapon to make it a powerful blessing in our and others lives. So if we just repeat the same thing over and over again, then we stop thinking about what we are saying so much and we can allow God to take control. You may think you are messing up because you are just repeating the same thing over and over again, but just go with it and see what happens. Also remember, to speak in tongues, you actually have to be speaking – you must open your mouth – later you can speak in tongues in your mind. You might find you have a hard time talking, just let whatever is coming out come out, you might see words in your mind you don’t know, just speak them. The important thing is just to desire and surrender to God. After all, what do you have to lose, but you have everything to gain. So just ask and then receive. Here is a sample prayer: God, please fill me with the Holy Spirit. Then start staying thank-you Jesus or Hallelujah over and over and again. And soon you will notice that it will begin to change. Hallelujah may become hallelu, then la la and then soon something completely different altogether. Let the changes happen. If it shortens, let it. If it slurs, let it. If you start stuttering, just do it. Remember, this is between you and God. Ask and you will receive. And then pray everyday in this new language (as well as with your understanding). God will show you that it is real. |
). These verses are talking about charity and prayer and the proper way to do it. Giving and prayer are important. Giving is important. Why? Because it is a form of love. It is a way to express love to others and to use what God has blessed you in abundance with to bless those that are less fortunate. It is often said, it is more blessed to give then receive. This is something that is hard to understand for most people, until they start giving. The normal instinct many people have when they have something is to want more of it, save it or use it on themselves. However, if instead to you start to give from your abundance, you start to see something amazing start to happen to your heart. You start to have a love for people who did not have before. You start to see life in a whole different way. My neice, is sometimes in a bad mood or selfish. She is only 9 so it is allowed. But she was visiting and she decided to help with the tutoring of the slum children that my mom does. She just loved it! And had such a huge smile on her face. Giving always blesses us. Sometimes our giving is in public - like hers was - as she volunteered her time to help those in need. Sometimes our giving is in private - like an anonymous check we write out to someone in need or groceries left at someone's doorstep or presents bought for kids that will be given via the salvation army. These are things no one really knows you did, but God knows. And that is all that matters! He si the one we do things for. We dont do them for the praises of people, but for God. Every year my family feeds the hungry in our city - we have about 1000-1500 people come and we have food for all of them in abundance. Every year we pass out new sweaters to the slum children at Christmas. Everyone in our city knows we do this. God isn't saying we have to do this in secret. What He is saying is why are you doing it? Are you doing it so people will say you are great people. Or are you doing because you love the people and you love me. It would be hard to get people to come without advertising that we are doing this. So there is nothing wrong in God's eyes that we tell everyone, because He knows we are telling so that people will come. It is all about the heart. Why do you do the things you do. If it is for people, then people will reward you. If it is for God then God will reward you.