Wednesday, August 26, 2009

A God Who Answers Prayer

I want to encourage you today to pray without ceasing. Why? Our God ANSWERS PRAYER. This has been on my heart for almost 4 months now: pray without ceasing.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 pray continually;
... pray without ceasing;

Wanna know whats great about praying? The answers..

Our God has answered this poor man's prayers for decades, one after the other after the other, often in spectacular ways. Don't be caught in the trap this world sets for people by making you think someone is more "special" than you in some way and that's why things happen for them. I am here today to tell you that there is nothing special about me apart from him who lives in me: the Spirit of Jesus. If you have given yourself to him, then he is within you too.

Our God is a God who answers prayer. I want to say it every way and any way I can to help you understand, to somehow make it sink in. The King of Kings is still Almighty, his word is still true, and he still answers prayers in spectacular ways today. We are told to search for him with all our hearts and we will find him:

Jeremiah 29:13
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

So lets do that ^^^ today. Ask, Seek, Knock! Matthew 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;knock and the door will be opened to you. <---And this does not mean do it one time then give up, it means do it and keep on doing it. When a person has turned to the world for answers their entire life and they find themselves crushed under the weight of all their troubles, what should they do? How about looking for answers in new places?

For many people, trusting Jesus would be something new for them. I am here today to tell you its worth it to trust this God, this Jesus to come through for you. Seek him like you would seek hidden treasure if someone gave you a treasure map and told you if you follow it you will find untold mind boggling riches. In fact, that is what you find when you find the true God. The treasure map is the bible. Don't take my word for it, read it for yourselves. I hope you will take my word for the fact that the God who talks about himself in the bible delivers on what he promises. That is my testimony, that Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit are GOOD and they can be trusted.

If you are weighted down with all kinds of sin, Jesus can help you with that too. Only he knows how many sins I have been delivered from. He will show you his lovingkindness and his grace if you will let him.

These are the days of Noah and Lot. I look around me today and I see pre-flood, pre-fire and brimstone days. I see people getting on with their lives as if these days were not the "last days." People are all concerned about the "health care debate" and all the signs Satan is sending to the world and a million other things while the Lord has his hand held out to the world.

These "pre-flood" days are days of GRACE. There is coming a time when people will not see the side of the Lord I am seeing today. There is coming a day that will be unlike any other, a day that people will not want to see. The Lord tells us about this day here and how people will long for "former days."

Luke 17:22
Then he said to his disciples, "The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.

People long to see good days right? The days of the Son of Man are good days. This scripture in Luke 17:22 comes from the discussion Jesus had with the disciples about the days of Noah and Lot. I'm sure as the floodwaters rose and the fire and brimstone fell, people wished they could turn back time but they could not. I have no idea what tomorrow holds for this world, but I do know this, the Spirit is saying kind and tender and merciful things to me and to this world today BEFORE the dark days that are ahead arrive at people's doorsteps.

The ark has been constructed, the door is down, the sun is shining, its a beautiful day....so far. I can tell you that I am not brave enough to walk more than a step or two away from the ark, which in our case is Jesus the Son of God, our refuge from the coming storm.

Pray, stay in the word of God, that's what I am hearing from the Spirit today. grace and peace