I want to begin this week by praising our Heavenly Father! He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords! We are now into a month of this journey of Western Faithbook, and around 10 days of officially having a Facebook group. I wish I could share with all of you how many people “we” are truly reaching. As I write this we have 453 members, but more importantly we are changing lives! So, keep lifting people up, keep sharing. How many people know that it’s easy to share our own experiences with God because he works in our lives every day and is still in the business of miracles! If you have experienced one, share it. It doesn’t have to be on here. Share it with a friend or a family member, or better yet a stranger! I want to walk you through what the Lord has been showing me this week. From the beginning of this study, I have seen so many people change and situations change because of the power of prayer. So, I wanted to dedicate this week to the power of prayer and praying. So, let’s be brutally honest with each other. Most of the time our prayers go something like this: Psalm 107:28-30 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distresses. He caused the storm to be still, so that the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they were quiet, so he guided them to their desired haven. Which is just a fancy way of saying, “Help God, “and God saying, “Ok, here you go.” I think we all do this, and I think especially when we are immature in our prayer life we tend to do it more. We rock along with everything going well, and then we have a crisis in our lives and we go to the Lord and he delivers over and over again. Why? Why does he do that? I fully believe that the Lord answers our prayer because he loves us and he wants to have a relationship with us. This is a difficult concept for some. God controls everything, he is omnipotent and omniscient. So why would having a relationship with me be important to Him. The answer is simple. It’s because we have to choose to have a relationship with him. That’s the one thing that he cannot control. Oh sure, he can persuade and coax and pursue us, yes pursue us, but it is our decision to believe and want to have a relationship with him. I cannot emphasize the power of that, it is incredible. So, the Lord gave the wonderful gift of praying and the power of prayer, and we don’t use it enough. Look at what the Lord says in Matthew 21:22, “And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” So use it! I couldn’t sleep the other night. So I went into the rooms of my son and daughter. One at a time I prayed over their lives. I asked the Lord to bring them favor and keep them safe. Moreover, I asked the Lord to speak to them at the appropriate time so that they may know him. I didn’t just pray for their today or tomorrow. I prayed for their entire lives. Instead of waiting until we have a crisis, pray continually or “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and make prayer a daily part of your life. I have a motto in my prayer life: Go big or go home! Another thing that I have learned in maturing in my walk with God is that instead of just screaming for help in your prayers, open your prayers with praise. Phillipians 4:6-7 Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. We have so many things to be thankful for, but sometimes we lose sight of that for the many pleas and requests we have for God. So, what’s wrong with saying, “Lord I praise you, you are that Lord of Lords, you are everything to me. I desire to have a relationship with you, and I have these requests of you…..” Sometimes, I hear people say that you shouldn’t go to the Lord with requests, but instead you should always pray for God’s will in your life. Let’s see what He had to say about this: Luke 22:42 saying , “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but yours be done.” Even Jesus pleaded with God first. If you are willing, if there is any other way…… Scripture says that he was praying that so fervently that he began sweating blood. Be bold in your prayer requests, get down on your knees and pray fervently to your God. Now, you know why God didn’t grant Jesus’ request to do it any other way, because it couldn’t have been done any other way. The thing we don’t realize is that God’s will or God’s plan is so much more elaborate and incredible than ours ever was. I have to share another testimony with you. This time it was something that happened to my wife, but it lines up so perfectly with this study that I asked her if I could share it. March 27, 2013 my wife was at the United Market Street on 19th and Quaker in Lubbock. I had been diagnosed with a mass on my left kidney 10 days prior. I was in Amarillo at the Urologist to receive confirmation if it was cancerous, and they were performing a procedure to see if it had spread to the bladder. Cara was to undergo a caesarian to have our second child on the very next day. So, she received the call that sure enough the 7cm mass that I had was indeed cancer and they would have to remove my kidney in the coming weeks, she was frightened and anxious about her own surgery the next day, and her world seemed to be crashing down on her. Our son, Grady, and her mother, Jean, were with her. The Market Street had just opened and was bustling with business. They got some lunch from the salad bar and decided to sit down and eat, but eat Cara couldn’t. I can remember the stress I was going through, but I couldn’t even fathom the stress she was enduring that day. She was constantly on her phone getting updates from my sister and mother about my diagnosis and at the same time the sitting area at the Market Street became increasingly louder and made it hard to focus. Jean suggested that she would take Grady for a stroll around the store, so Cara could have some quiet time. But quiet time didn’t come. The noise in the room got louder and louder and her head was about to explode. First, quietly she began to hear a voice, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth….” It was the Apostles’ Creed. Then louder, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth….” The whole time the activities and sounds around her kept on going, but they became harder and harder to hear. Then much louder, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth….” Soon, the voice was so loud that she could hear nothing else around her except the voice of the Lord, and it was so loud, yet it brought her so much peace. Immediately it was like a ton of bricks were lifted off of her, and she began praising her Lord. The story goes on and on about how she shared it with her grandmother, who is one of our fierce prayer warriors, but I will let her share it with you. It’s a very cool story. I think the Lord speaking to Cara that day was His way of telling her, “Hey, I know you are going to have a baby tomorrow, and I know the love of your life has cancer. But listen, I am the maker of heaven and earth, and I am a big God and I can solve big problems. Just be still and listen to me, and not the world.” She did, and the next day she had the most beautiful baby girl in the world, and about a week later the Lord saved my life with an emergency surgery to remove a very aggressive tumor. Listen guys! The Lord wants us to go to him in times of need, and he wants us to fall to our knees and pray. God is in the business of saving the day, so ask him to do it and get out of the way!
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 01:33:58 +0000
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