Thursday, March 30, 2017

What Does It Take For God To Hear Me?




He…wondered that there was no intercessor… —Isaiah 59:16

{CHAMBERS}  “The reason many of us stop praying and become hard toward God is that we only have an emotional interest in prayer. It sounds good to say that we pray, and we read books on prayer which tell us that prayer is beneficial— that our minds are quieted and our souls are uplifted when we pray. […] Worship and intercession must go together; one is impossible without the other. Intercession means raising ourselves up to the point of getting the mind of Christ regarding the person for whom we are praying (see Philippians 2:5). Instead of worshiping God, we recite speeches to God about how prayer is supposed to work. […] We throw our petitions at His throne and dictate to Him what we want Him to do. We don’t worship God, nor do we seek to conform our minds to the mind of Christ. And if we are hard toward God, we will become hard toward other people.”

{ELGIN} The only reason that God hears us when we pray is because of Jesus.  When cannot stand before God on our own merit.  Jesus is our high priest, making intercession for us.  He has given us access to the Father through his sacrifice.  We should worry less about how we sound to other people when we pray and more about how we sound to God.  I don’t hear it so much anymore, but people used to pray using King James English.  Why? Because it sounds spiritual.  I can assure you, the saints in Haiti don’t pray that way.  Prayer is not a mantra that must be said in just the right way.  Prayer is part of worship that comes from the heart.  Do you have some sin tucked away for which you have not sought to be forgiven?  Unconfessed sin is a barrier between you and a holy God.  Don’t be so much concerned about your vocabulary, but more about the condition of your heart when you seek God in prayer.

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