What Kind of Prayer Pleases God?

 

“This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2)

The first mark of the upright heart is that it trembles at the word of the Lord.

Isaiah 66 deals with the problem of some who worship in a way that pleases God and some who worship in a way that doesn’t. Verse 3 describes the wicked who bring their sacrifices, “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man.” Their sacrifices are an abomination to God — on a par with murder. Why?

In verse 4 God explains, “When I called, no one answered, when I spoke, they did not listen.” Their sacrifices were abominations to God because the people were deaf to his voice. But what about those whose prayers God heard? God says in verse 2, “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

I conclude from this that the first mark of the upright, whose prayers are a delight to God, is that they tremble at God’s word. These are the people to whom the Lord will look.

So, the prayer of the upright that delights God comes from a heart that at first feels precarious in the presence of God. It trembles at the hearing of God’s word, because it feels so far from God’s ideal and so vulnerable to his judgment and so helpless and so sorry for its failings.

This is just what David said in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” The first thing that makes a prayer acceptable to God is the brokenness and humility of the one who prays. They tremble at his word.

THE DON’TS IN PRAYER!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

THURSDAY JUNE, 17, 2021.

SUBJECT : THE DON’TS IN PRAYER!

Memory verse: "Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful." (Hebrews 10 vs 23.)

READ: Mark 11 vs 23 - 25: 

11:23: For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

11:24: Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

11:25: And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.

INTIMATION: 

Here are some “Don'ts” in prayer:

1. Don't try to believe only, believe and act on the Word. It’s in acting that God confirms His word. “...For I am ready to perform My word,” says the Lord (Jeremiah 1 vs 12). Do your own believing. Have your own faith as you have your own clothes. Act on the Word for yourself.

2. Don't have a double confession so that one moment you confess, "Yes, He heard my prayer. I am healed," and thereafter you say "Let me wait for a week, if the signs didn't return, I will then confess I am healed." Or "I am sure God will supply my needs according to His riches in glory," and subsequently you begin to question how it is going to come and what you ought to do to get it; then you say, "I am not sure I the will get it." Your latter confession destroys the first. A wrong confession destroys prayer and destroys faith. 

3. Don't trust in other people's faith. Have your own faith. Your case is vital to you. It may not be vital to this other party to whose faith you look up to. He may have troubles that are unresolved, inward struggles that have never been settled. His faith may be at a low sub when you appeal to him or her for aid.

4. Don't talk doubt or unbelief. Never admit that you are a "Doubting Thomas;" that is an insult to your Father. For instance, He has born your griefs and carried your sorrows (your infirmities and diseases), and with His stripes you are healed (Isaiah 53 vs 5). Therefore, don’t talk of your sickness, but rather talk of your healing according to the word of God.

5. Don’t talk about failure. Meditate on the Word, and it's absolute integrity. Talk of your utter confidence in it; of your ability to act on it; and hold fast to your confession and of its truthfulness.

6. Don’t talk about fear. He has not given you the spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind (Second Timothy 1 vs 7). Fear is the strongest weapon of the devil. Stand bold in your confession without wavering, no matter what you are confronted with.

7. Don’t engage in the altar of prayer with sin and iniquities in your heart. Confess your sins and He is faithful to forgive you. If you have anything against anyone forgive him or  her, so the your Father in heaven will likewise forgive you.

Prayer: Abba Father, You are the wonder working, and ever faithful God. Destroy any form of unbelief, fear, and doubt in me regarding Your Word, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

THE BACKGROUND OF TRUE FAITH!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

WEDNESDAY JUNE 16, 2021.

SUBJECT: THE BACKGROUND OF TRUE FAITH!

Memory verse: "That your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." (First Corinthians 2 vs 5.)

READ: Second Corinthians 10 vs 3 -5:

10:3: For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 

10:4: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 

10:5: casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

INTIMATION:

True faith is not based upon reason nor upon things that men can see unless the thing they see is the Word of God. In accordance with our memory verse, our faith should not be based on wisdom (sense knowledge) of men but on God's ability. In the next two verses (6 & 7), Paul explained that fact further, saying,  "However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory."

We cast down reasonings (arguments or imaginations), for men have deified reasonings. The great reasoners of the world and the great philosophers of the world have gained the ascendancy over the human mind. And that is human’s greatest undoing in working with God and walking in His ways. Philosophy has never given anything of any value to the body of Christ—the Church. What we call our Christian philosophers are often men who denied the miraculous and the supernatural, always wanting to explain it away through sense knowledge activities and reasonings.

But unfortunately, the ways of God are beyond finding out; it’s beyond man’s reasoning ability; “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and His ways past finding out!” (Romans 21 vs 33.) It’s foolishness to start reasoning on God’s ways—His thinking and planning. His knowledge and wisdom are far greater than any human’s. 

God declares in Isaiah 55 vs 8 - 9, saying, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways...For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Therefore, we are to cast down imaginations or reasonings, everything that sense knowledge has exalted against the Word of God, and we are to bring into captivity our thinking so we will think God's thoughts instead of man's thoughts. So we will be inspired by the Word of God rather than by the word of men. And only in so doing that our faith life is solidly built in accordance with God’s ordinance.

Faith deals with facts. The Word of God has no speculations, no theories, just declarations of fact. When we come to recognize that spiritual things are as real as physical things, then we will be able to understand the background of the faith life. 

Prayer: Abba Father, forever You are God, and Your ways are supreme! Your ways are inexplicable—beyond our reasonings. O Lord, my absolute trust and confidence are in You. May I never imagine or reason anything that will dent my faith in You, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Serve God with Your Thirst

 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (2 Corinthians 5:9)

What if you discovered (like the Pharisees did) that you had devoted your whole life to trying to please God, but all the while had been doing things that in God’s sight were abominations (Luke 16:14–15)?

Someone may question this and say, “I don’t think that’s possible; God wouldn’t reject a person who has been trying to please him.” But do you see what this questioner has done? He has based his conviction about what would please God on his idea of what God is like. That is precisely why we must begin with the character of God revealed in Scripture.

God is a mountain spring, not a watering trough. A mountain spring is self-replenishing. It constantly overflows and supplies others. But a watering trough needs to be filled with a pump or bucket. So, the great question is: How do you serve a spring? And: How do you serve a watering trough? How do you glorify God the way he really is?

If you want to glorify the worth of a watering trough, you work hard to keep it full and useful. But if you want to glorify the worth of a spring, you do it by getting down on your hands and knees and drinking to your heart’s satisfaction, until you have the refreshment and strength to go back down in the valley and tell the people what you’ve found.

My hope as a desperate sinner hangs on this biblical truth: that God is the kind of God who will be pleased with the one thing I have to offer: my thirst. That’s why the sovereign freedom and self-sufficiency of God are so precious to me: they are the foundation of my hope that God is delighted not by the resourcefulness of bucket brigades, but by the bending down of broken sinners to drink at the fountain of grace.

By all means we should seek to please God, now and forever. But woe to us if our whole life proves to be based on a false view of what pleases God. The Lord is pleased not by those who treat him as a needy watering trough, but as an inexhaustible, all-satisfying spring. As Psalm 147:11 says, “The Lord takes pleasure . . . in those who hope in his steadfast love.”

So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (2 Corinthians 5:9)

What if you discovered (like the Pharisees did) that you had devoted your whole life to trying to please God, but all the while had been doing things that in God’s sight were abominations (Luke 16:14–15)?

Someone may question this and say, “I don’t think that’s possible; God wouldn’t reject a person who has been trying to please him.” But do you see what this questioner has done? He has based his conviction about what would please God on his idea of what God is like. That is precisely why we must begin with the character of God revealed in Scripture.

God is a mountain spring, not a watering trough. A mountain spring is self-replenishing. It constantly overflows and supplies others. But a watering trough needs to be filled with a pump or bucket. So, the great question is: How do you serve a spring? And: How do you serve a watering trough? How do you glorify God the way he really is?

If you want to glorify the worth of a watering trough, you work hard to keep it full and useful. But if you want to glorify the worth of a spring, you do it by getting down on your hands and knees and drinking to your heart’s satisfaction, until you have the refreshment and strength to go back down in the valley and tell the people what you’ve found.

My hope as a desperate sinner hangs on this biblical truth: that God is the kind of God who will be pleased with the one thing I have to offer: my thirst. That’s why the sovereign freedom and self-sufficiency of God are so precious to me: they are the foundation of my hope that God is delighted not by the resourcefulness of bucket brigades, but by the bending down of broken sinners to drink at the fountain of grace.

By all means we should seek to please God, now and forever. But woe to us if our whole life proves to be based on a false view of what pleases God. The Lord is pleased not by those who treat him as a needy watering trough, but as an inexhaustible, all-satisfying spring. As Psalm 147:11 says, “The Lord takes pleasure . . . in those who hope in his steadfast love.”

The Honeymoon That Never Ends

 

As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62:5)

When God does good to his people, it is not so much like a reluctant judge showing kindness to a criminal whom he finds despicable. It is like a bridegroom showing affection to his bride.

Sometimes we joke and say about a marriage, “The honeymoon is over.” But that’s because we are finite. We can’t sustain a honeymoon level of intensity and affection. But God says that his joy over his people is like a bridegroom over a bride. And he doesn’t mean it starts out that way and then fades.

He is talking about honeymoon intensity and honeymoon pleasures and honeymoon energy and excitement and enthusiasm and enjoyment. He is trying to get into our hearts what he means when he says he rejoices over us with all his heart. Jeremiah 32:41, “I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.” Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

With God the honeymoon never ends. He is infinite in power and wisdom and creativity so that there will be no boredom for the next trillion ages of millenniums.

LEGAL AND VITAL PARTS OF REDEMPTION!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

TUESDAY JUNE 15, 2021.

SUBJECT : LEGAL AND VITAL PARTS OF REDEMPTION!

Memory verse: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." (John 1 vs 12.)

READ: Ephesians 3 vs 16 - 19:

3:16: That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 

3:17: that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 

3:18: may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width, and length and depth and height—

3:19: to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.

INTIMATION:

Every child of God is legally in the family in the new birth. Our redemption is based on legal grounds. There are two phases of our redemption: One is legal and the other is the vital. The legal is what God has done for us in the past—like the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. It is in this that fellowship with the Father in prayer is legalized. The vital is what the Holy Spirit, through the Word, is doing in us.

The planned legality of our relationship with the Father in redemption is documented in the Book of Romans—the greatest legal document in existence. And the “New Testament,” or “New Covenant” as a whole, is the greatest document on jurisprudence ever given man.

You remember that the Bible is made up of two covenants: the old one and the new one. The first covenant was made with Abraham and sealed with blood. The second covenant was between Jesus and the Father, and sealed with the Son's blood. Israel were the beneficiaries of that first covenant, while we all are the beneficiaries of the second covenant. The Old Covenant with Abraham was backed by God's assurances. God said to Abraham, "By Myself have I sworn." (Genesis 22 vs 16). He becomes the surety of the old covenant. The New Covenant is backed by the Throne of God, Jesus and the Father are back of the New Covenant. 

The Scripture in Romans 4 vs 25, gives us a good illustration of the legality; "Who was delivered up on account of our trespasses and was raised for our justification." When we believe, an exchange takes place. We give Christ our sins, and He gives us His righteousness and forgiveness. 

The vital is illustrated in Philippians 2 vs 13, "For it is God who is at work within us both to will and to do forHis good pleasure." God never leaves us alone in our struggles to do His Will.  He wants to come alongside and do come, and be within us to help. God helps us want to obey Him and then gives us power to do what He wants. Remember what God did with Pharaoh of Egypt to actualize His purpose and Will. (See Exodus 4 vs 21; 14 vs 4; 14 vs 17).

Redemption is legal. It is in the past. It is a finished work. The new birth is vital. It is now. When you know that prayer is based on legal grounds and you know that God has legally tied Himself; has bound Himself to do certain things, then you will learn to take your place in Christ and act accordingly. Knowing this, therefore, you understand that prayer isn’t dependent upon struggle and long hours of agonizing before the Lord. It isn't based upon pity, but upon a legal foundation.

When you know the legality of your relationship with Him, and the planned vital fellowship with Him, prayer will not be work to you, rather it will expression of your love for Him, contending with Him with your strong reasons in accordance with His Word, and putting Him into remembrance of His promises in the love relationship.

Prayer: Abba Father, thank You for what You wrought for me in redemption. O Lord, engrace me to manifest fully the privileges of sonship, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

How Much God Wants to Bless You

“The Lord will again take delight in prospering you.” (Deuteronomy 30:9)

God does not bless us begrudgingly. There is a kind of eagerness about the beneficence of God. He does not wait for us to come to him. He seeks us out, because it is his pleasure to do us good. God is not waiting for us; he is pursuing us. That, in fact, is the literal translation of Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.”

God loves to show mercy. Let me say it again. God loves to show mercy. He is not hesitant or indecisive or tentative in his desires to do good to his people. His anger must be released by a stiff safety lock, but his mercy has a hair trigger. That’s what he meant when he came down on Mount Sinai and said to Moses, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6). It’s what he meant when he said in Jeremiah 9:24, “I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

God is never irritable or edgy. His anger never has a short fuse. Instead he is infinitely energetic with absolutely unbounded and unending enthusiasm for the fulfillment of his delights.

This is hard for us to comprehend, because we have to sleep every day just to cope, not to mention thrive. Our emotions go up and down. We get bored and discouraged one day and feel hopeful and excited another.

We are like little geysers that gurgle and sputter and pop erratically. But God is like a great Niagara Falls — you look at 186,000 tons of water crashing over the precipice every minute, and think: Surely this can’t keep going at this force year after year after year. Yet it does.

That’s the way God is about doing us good. He never grows weary of it. It never gets boring to him. The Niagara of his grace has no end.