The Unrivaled Power of Prayer

Click on Title for Actual Devotional Reading before reading my thoughts
November 8th
My Utmost For His Highest
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

My thoughts:
Prayer basically means “transferring my “will” to God’s will”. God may be witholding what I ask in order to do special work that He have placed me according to His plan and will (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Remember, God knows before I ask because He is ALMIGHTY God. Romans 8:26 says that "The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for". The main thing is my heart is to be right when I pray. God always answer my prayer. Do I like some of His answers? No, just like I didn't like my parents' answers when I was a kid. God does promise that He will answer prayers but His answers can vary and often we missed His true answers. Sometimes, the answer will be NO for one reason: "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives" (James 4:3). This also may include that He will not give grace as well. God will not respond to self-centered requests unless it is according to His good and perfect will (His plans). Mature Christians will not be discouraged for a "no" answer because it is more than likely that the answer is delayed because of His plans. The cause of failure is not failure itself but rather, other reasons why God chose to wait or look for grace that He have provided or any other answers He already gave that we may be over-looking. God does answer in a different way. The answer may not be the one I like or accept but God will give it to me anyway. Often He will give the promised compensating grace (Sufficient of Grace). Humility is putting God first in our prayers while pride is putting God last in our prayers. I am the clay and God is my potter. Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? In Him I am chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, so that the work of God might be displayed in my life. For God knows how I was formed, He remembers that I was dust, that He can turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay. Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, "He did not make me"? Can the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing"? I will NOT say that! Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made and I DO know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. God is able to make all grace abound to me, so that in all things at all times, having all that I need, I will abound in every good work REGARDLESS. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. God created my inmost being and knitted me together in my mother's womb. As I do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so I cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. This is what the LORD says— "He who made you, Who formed you in the womb, and Who will help you and that before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart. In Him I was chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will. The LORD said to Moses, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ?" I was born this way so that the work of God might be displayed in my life and I know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God. The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD. In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Why, I do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is really my life? For me or for God? John 9:1-3 "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life."

I should ask God for help. Psalm 40:13 God will not hear my prayers if I am willfully sinning. Micah 3:4 Prayer should be private. Matthew 6:6 Jesus taught me how to pray. Matthew 6:9-13 I should pray with an attitude of humility. Luke 18:9-14 I should pray in Jesus' name. John 16:23-24 I should pray all the time. Ephesians 6:18 I should pray without doubting. James 4:3 I should pray with the right motives. James 4:3 I should pray according to God's will 1 John 5:14-15. We have to understand that God controls everything including our freewill. The "freewill" is always subject to God's sovereignty and His divine freewill. The key is that God is ALWAYS in control even in our own freewill. Jesus gave an example about God's will when He revealed His holiness when He cried in His agony, "Not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42). So, by following Christ's example, we are to follow God's will. In Daniel 9: 2-3, God’s Sovereignty doesn’t eliminate the need for prayer. In Daniel 9: 2 explains that effective prayer is always consistent with God’s will. In Daniel 9:16-19, God’s glory must be the ultimate goal of every prayer request we make.

Additional Thoughts, the bottom line is this: I am saying what "ACCORDING to the WORD of GOD" which is the Bible. I either follow the Word of God to the word or I don't. I will not allow negative circumstances control my life. I am deaf, I have multiple sclerosis, other circumstances in my life. As a Christian, I am happy that God have taught me with those circumstances. The Beatitudes of Jesus Christ are one of the wonderful examples that God is able to provide us. Matthew 5:3-5 (NLT) "God blesses those who realize their need for him, for the kingdom of Heaven is given to them. God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted. God blesses those who are gentle and lowly, for the whole earth will belong to them." My quotes from my journal: “Okay, I have hearing loss and multiple sclerosis, and those are the ways of life for me. I take silence and pain as they come and I have learned master them in my life. My disabilities do not have me. I have the disabilities and I accept them because I know who I am from the inside.” “Everything has its wonders, even silence and pain, and I learn, whatever disabilities and difficulties I may be in, I am happily content.” Matthew 11:29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Hebrews 5:7-9 During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into my life, so also through Christ my comfort overflows. "Is there sufficient grace to help me in every issue of life?"

God is saying "You should not have self-confidence and trust in yourself in the sense you believe you're capable of anything eternal that only I can provide grace and power." Only God can overcome situation as long as I trust in His GRACE. The question here is, when God given me the grace to handle the sufferings of life, did I allowed Him? That's the issue.

In Corinthians, Paul’s thorn was not his main focus but rather something far more deeper. The thorns are not necessarily evil, but rather the works of self-righteousness. God answer to my prayers because He knows. My trouble should not lie in my own focus, but rather in myself. God is not here to get my circumstances straightened out so that I can become happy. Grace of heart is a gift from God and this has nothing to do with the thorns because God is changing me internally so that He to lift me above my present thorns and He will lead me into His will. It is a choice God give me within the parameters of His omnipotence. Grace is having all sufficiency in everything I may have an abundance for every good deed. The right perspective is to understand that in the trouble of life this is part of it trying to discern what God is doing in the trouble of it. James says count it all joy when you fall into various trials because trials will bring perfecting work. Peter says after you've suffered a while the Lord will make you perfect. God uses suffering to reveal my own spiritual condition. In the midst of the sufferings, what kind of Christian do I see myself? God answers not by removing the pain, because the pain was productive, rather God gave Grace to endure our pain. In this life it is inevitable and it is useful because it produces the evidence of my true spiritual condition, humility and intimacy with God and allows God to put Himself on display in His grace.


My Scripture Quotes
Proverbs 20:24 A man's steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way?

Jeremiah 10:23 I know, O LORD, that a man's life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.

Isaiah 48:17 This is what the LORD says— your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.

3 John 1:2 Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.

Romans 5: 1-5 (NIV) "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

Quotes:
Mark Pickup said it perfectly when he was healthy at one point, “I have been more service to God disabled than during my able-bodied years. This didn’t happen despite my disability but because of my disability.” Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick."

Joni Tada: "Sometimes God will use suffering and affliction to sandblast us to the core and get us seriously thinking about larger than life issues of heaven and hell, I just don't know that we would think about these issues were it not for an ice-cold splash of suffering waking us out of our spiritual slumber. God's purpose in redeeming us is not to make our lives happy, healthy, and free of trouble. It is not an escape from our physical pains. His purpose is to make us more like Christ. He will chose to allow spinal cord injury or multiple sclerosis or blindness or stroke or Alzheimer's or whatever to not only teach us, but also our loved ones, about what it means to become more like him