cast your nets down for a catch. If you do not have nets, go get them!
Lu 18: 1 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faintGod’s purposes to pass
If God is all knowledgeable, omniscient, all wise, controls everything, pre- determines everything, is immutable (unchanging), why should I pray?
The reasons are
1. If we don’t God wont! God has honored man with the dominion of earth so much that He has left himself our of the equation- even if you fail, He will only redeem it to turn it over back to man! He wants to make a man out of me!
2. prayer is joining hands and working with God. Being in the board room with God. Not begging!
3. Prayer is a means of exercising dominion- ruling with come, go sit stand … As we pray, we are conducting business on earth.
4. Prayer brings God’s purposes to pass in our life. It will not happen automatically because God has purposed it.
You have been created with a Free will- to understand, analyze and conclude. Therefore, without your permission God himself will not bless you! Blessing is not automatic. That explains why so many lives are in weakness, frustration and defeat! Isn’t it because we are deluded into thinking , ” if God wants it , it will happen” no! it is about inviting God to intervene in your life. God asks, what do your want? Even a blind man had to need sight , who knows, may be he just needs his head ache gone!
Deuteronomy 30:19
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,
God gives us the question and the answer too- you have to be dumb, deaf and stupid to choose otherwise. You would set a trend of poverty and death if you don’t heed this advice! How you decide concerning this god-given will would decide the outcome for you and your children and their children!
In case you disown your own choice, god calls heaven and earth as Witnesses; they are called to counter your complaint, why did not God bless me?
Exercise your free will! God is not going to choose for you! He did not push down tree of life fruit down adam’s throat. Neither did He stop Adam from eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. God watched and did not do anything! I want to bless you, but I want to honor you , you are like me! You have to make a decision to come to Me for help too! Your future depends upon choosing!
Many have this idea not of choosing but sailing along.
Merrily merrily, merrily merrily
Life is but a dream.
Whatever should happen will happen! Fancying they are in God’s hands… If that were true, then our lives would have been so wonderful! We do not even come to church! We need to; we need to learn how to choose, how to exercise our free will! That we and our descendants may live. Prayer is cooperating with God that his will could come to pass in our lives.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it [for death or life]. (Proverbs 18:21 AMP)
Do you understand it? You choose it – life or death by the power of your tongue! God has given you a free will; you choose your words and you have what you say- you eat your words!
Eve and Satan spoke with each other- she said it was good to see, taste and good for this and that and then she parties of it! Through your tongue you are going to decide your destiny! All you time you come across people talking the negative things, choosing the wrong words! Failure, unbelief and defeat…
Whoever shall say to this mountain- … Shall have whatever he says!
A law of biblical interpretation emphasizes the importance of a repeated word. Notice the word ‘say’. The mountain will move away or form in front of you based on your word. You can create death by speaking it!
Those who love it will eat its fruit…Do you appreciate that this truth is valid? That your tongue is the means by which authority is exercised in this world. Do you love it? If so, you will eat its fruit! If you do not, you will speak regardless and will suffer the consequences! If you order your life around it…
How do you use it..
For this reason I am telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will [get it]. (Mark 11:24 AMP)Another translation says-
Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. (Mark 11:24 KJV)
Christianity is a religion of desire! Some have tried to make it a system of no desires. Growing beards, trying to give up this or that… Whatever things you desire…
For your career, for your family, for your relationships, for your business… Do you have any desire regarding these things?
Even this may sound unspiritual for some today. But we are people with large desires! If we speak of each others’ desires we’d call each other crazy! We ought to have desires about our spiritual life, emotional life, financial state and condition. Everything we put our hand to do. It is theses desires that we speak about when we pray! So we ought to first desire…What do you desire?
Even a Beggar on the street does! That the Sikkim lottery will fall to his name! This time… Are we just like him hoping our number will show up and we will make it big?
No! Our desire ought to come from the Word! Our desire is more sure. It is certain- it has been promised to me- promised and sworn.
I fill my heart with those desires. It does not come from my flesh or my needs problems or my perspective for this life- but God’s plans for me and His perspective! My desire!
Is your desire just a plate of chicken curry?
Asking and desire are synonymous. You do not go to a restaurant and make an announcement- I am hungry! My stomach is rumbling. The waiter takes you order- what do you want?
The word of God is your menu book! Look into it! There is pepper chicken and chicken sixty five… God has got it all ready, and wonderful in unlimited quantity! What do oyu want?
Choosing is important! What have you chosen? You cannot pray without choosing. Choose what you want and pray what you have chosen to want!
Do not pray your problems. (God already knows that ) God sees you lack want and difficulty. Do not talk your problems because the problems came from the devil and when you talk them, you are glorifying the devil and you’re speaking the words that he has put in your head! Pray what God’s word says- God’s words are full of answers for your problems! Take it and put it in your mouth. The devil’s words bring death into you- God’s words bring life into you! They are full of life.
You should never open your mouth and say anything that would give the impression that the devil is something! Refer to him as the defeated foe, head crushed, teeth knocked out, retarded, no good, destined for eternal destruction, no power over me. That is how you have to talk of the devil. Never exalt your problems! Let your prayers be prayers that exalt God. Heaven respects God’s word! Problems are nothing for God. It can be changed- in an instant.
Do you believe God’s word? That is what matters! God honors faith, not your needs and your problems. God will to move based on our needs and problems; if that were true, all our problems would have been solved already.
We find his will, speak it out and God fulfills it.
2. This unlimited transcendent almighty God. Nothing can downsize Him. He is beyond everything. He cannot be control by anything or anyone. He has decided to limit himself only to one thing and that is prayer! He has exalted His word even above His name!
If any man will speak to Him His word, he would do it. Almighty transcendent God would stop, listen and answer when someone says- “God you said it and you do it!” Heaven respects that.
That blows the lid off of our pet concepts about prayer. Some feel prayer is like acrobatics or even a temper tantrum.
I am not going to let God go unless He gives… A child may succeed with his parents with tantrums, they give in to them owing to the nuisance factor! God has no such compulsions! You cry and howl all you want and he would not feel pressured! Ice-cream pop corn… I won’t even swallow saliva, or drink a drop of water… I am not impressed.
But when a man says, Lord I am overwhelmed by my situation but I do not respect them… They come from a world of sin… You have promised, I call upon you to fulfill the promises you made to me….God says, that is the man I want to work with.
Someone says, “I am fighting with God…” Want to know the result? you are going to lose. If you stand in heaven, gold is not allied, his word is valued. The word of Go dust come to pass… It must be fulfilled.
For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: (Hebrews 6:13-18 KJV)
Men swear by someone greater . God does not have anyone greater and so He swears by himself. Whatever blessing God made to Abraham, he swore by Himself to give the certainty of his promises to Abraham and to us.
If there is any uncertainty that his promise will be fulfilled, he swore by Himself! To instill a surety and consolation to us who could doubt… He confirmed it by an oath! God made up His mind, to make us the heirs of promise to understand the unchanged illite of his intention. That if he purposes it, if HS counsel has determined it, he will surely bring it to pass. That you should become very sure about it.
Men make promises and forget it… God is not like that. God wants you to see that He will bring it to pass. He wants to give. You an assurance- confirming it by an oath. Even though god can never lie, God in His great love, to give us hope, swears it- and by two immutable things- promise and oath.
Your prayer should be shored up by this fact. That God has sworn it. The limitless God has limited Himself by His word.
He is transcendent and all powerful but is limited by pHis word.
Therefore we ought to take his word and speak it to Him. Consider that God’s purpose concerning you is unchanging, that He cannot lie, that He will perform what He has promised…
So before prayer, preparation is necessary. But a large number of people pray much and prepare very little. What preparation is required? The mouth has to speak out of the abundance of the heart.
It is not coming and crying out God don’t you hear me? You have to know that it is God’s will for your life. Read His word, meditate on whatHis will for you is. Then you come to God on His word.
You do not want to come and complain, God I am crying out to you , why don’t you hear me?… I have asked so many times, it has still not come to pass. You can attend all night prayers, fast for days, it still will not produce the result.
God says something and it comes to pass. He ensures it. People usually go to great lengths to convince that they a serious in their promise. On my mother, upon my child- based on someone greater or based on what they value highly.
However, God commands his people not to swear. Your yes has to be yes and your no, no. However god himself swears here! Why dos. he not practice what He himself said?
God codes not have any body greater than Himself to swear upon! He is the greatest. If you won’t believe Him, on whom can you trust?
And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise
He swore on Himself, because he wanted Abraham to be sure that God will do what he had said. Abraham being old had to believe that he and good old Sarah we going to have a child. The blessing of Abraham comes to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ! Through abraham, through Jesus Christ, we are all party to God’s blessings now!
God swore not just to give a certainty to Abraham, but to give a certainty of His promise to us!
For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
When you get a greater person to witness your promise, it ends dispute and doubt that what you have said will be fulfilled. Above the promise when an oath is made it settles the matter once for all!
Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:
Confirmed his counsel by an oath . God was willing to show to us the Immutability of his promise- the unshakeable quality of his nature. If God has said it, it will soon come to pass! My purposes are eternal and unchanging, man has ot becomes certain about my promises. I want you to be sure that I will perform my promise, therefore I will confirm it by an oath. He swore by Himself.
These two things do not change-
God can never lie- but just to give us a strong consolation – he swore an oath!
This is the basis of my prayer. That god has sworn it by an oath! That is how I go to god, that the limitless God has limited himself by His word! That if we speak his word, he is right there- to preform it! His love has done this for us. Respect it an put this in our heart and mind- that the unchanging will and purpose of god will come ot pass iim my lfe!
Tht is why much preparation is required prior prayer.
What preparation Is necessary?
3. Th mouth must spark out of the abundance of the heart! Prayer is coming to God- with his word filing your heart. You know his word is going to come to pass in your life. After His word has filled your heart- what come out is prayer! It is not lamenting and howling or temper tantrums!
Which is why John says, we have our petitions that we desired of Him, because we know what he hear us when we ask of him.
Therefore do not say- I have asked, let us see what will happen! No. “I have asked , I have spoken…I know I have it… How do you know you have it? because he swore by an oath, by Himself. I have a consolation and certainty!
Preparation is like Muhammad Ali preparing for a fight!
He had a whole team to help him prepare- he ran 6 miles in the morning, he had bought a mountain so he could trin on it. He had runners to help him keep pace, run faster and faster. Then they would make him do weight training, then he would have to punch the bags- to help him gain accuracy and endurance in the fight. It is not enough to try to punch the opponent in the ring, he would get punched out! He had to fight with real fighters paid to fight him to give him training. Months and months of preparation for th is one Fight. Finally he gets in ring for the fight and – in a few minutes it is over! Prayer is like that! Preparation is so crucial before prayer!
Preparation takes much longer than prayer itself. In Preparation the heart is prepared. Prayer is about our heart getting ready to receive what God has already provided.
In the olympics, for years great effort is put into preparation. So too must a great deal of time must be put in to understand what God has said in His word and getting a surety of his promise. What god has said he will do for us! Such a man will get his prayers answered 100% of the time!
Now then, O Lord God of Israel, let thy word be verified, which thou hast spoken unto thy servant David. (2 Chronicles 6:17 KJV)
Prayer is just asking God to come through with his word! Solomon just prayed for God to keep up his word that he had given to his father David. “God do what you promised.” Let your word come to pass in my life! Do what you promised! Prayer is not you begging God to do something for you!
prayer is not you trying to get God to do something for you- it is him bringing His will to pass in doing what he said he would do! He wants me to go to his word, find out what heaven respects- he wants you to fill your heart with that word- and meditate it night and day!
That is why god told Joshua to meditate on. his word night and day and do what is written in it and he. Oswald make his way prosperous- no wonder!
Take the word fill your heart and mind with it, and what your mind and heart is full of, your mouth must speak! Your mouth must not speak the problem- I must not blabber whatever it feels like! It must choose the words.
When you choose the right word, you are choosing life, you are choosing hope, victory, success and closure! The only way to ensure success is to choose the right word, speak it towards God and it pierces heaven, brings the answer that is God’s will; and it brings honor and glory to God.
That is prayer!