Merciful Father, Hallow be Thy Name. Let Your Kingdom come and Your will be done on earth. Eternally Rock of Ages, we thank You, we blessed Your Holy Name, Be thou exalted, Emmanuel!
Beloved, we are right before God now at this day of prayer, being aware that we can only access the throne by Divine revelations and through true communion with Him. We therefore humble ourselves before Him, for in Him shall our hope arise and be fulfilled. Praise God!
Last week, we considered “God keeps promises and He will never return genuine prayers unanswered”, wherefore then we should be confident in Him Alone. Trust not in the arm of flesh for it will fail you rather believe strongly in this only One God, Whose Word never and will never fail.
Let all unbelief in your heart, spirit, soul and body be destroyed in Jesus Name. Wherever the unbelief be rooted, may the cleansing power in the blood of Christ, wash it away and restore you to the glorious position as ordained by God from the beginning.
She recognized Peter’s voice, and because of her joy she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter was standing at the gateway. “You’re crazy!” they told her. But she kept insisting that it was true. Then they said, “It’s his angel!”—Acts 12:14–15
You can say prayers in your mind but doubt in your heart. At times God will answer such prayers as He did when Peter was in prison, scheduled for execution. The believers in Jerusalem were powerless to free him, so they prayed. When God released Peter, their reaction revealed the doubt in their hearts. They argued that Peter could not possibly be free, even as he stood outside knocking on the door!
Is it possible to be a “person of prayer” and yet not have faith? Is it possible to fool yourself into believing that because you ask God for help, you have faith in His ability to meet your needs? Is your faith so weak that you are surprised when God answers your prayer? As a child of God, you ought to expect God to answer your prayers. Do you ask God to do something without adjusting your life to what you are praying? If you are praying for revival, how are you preparing for its coming? If you are praying for forgiveness, are you still living with guilt? If you have asked God to provide for your needs, do you remain worried and anxious?
Ask God to increase your faith and then begin living a life that reflects absolute trust in Him. Out of His grace, God may choose to respond to your requests despite your lack of faith, but you will miss the joy of praying in faith.
Absolutely, you will miss the joy of praying in faith, and am sure you don’t want to do that. Can you imagine standing before your Red Sea, with Pharaoh behind you and you are still faithing faith as this generation will call it. Beloved, it will only take an absolute trust in God to do that. The Israelite through whom this story originated fretted during they experienced but you know the end of the story.
Their God arose and made Name for Himself despite their unbelief. Their lack of faith in God destroyed that generation and none enter into the Promised Land, may that not be our portion in Jesus Name. Amen! We also have another incident where a decree had been passed, in fact they are bound ready to be consumed by the sevenfold fire but in spite of that, they rather confessed the Mightiness of God to deliver them and peradventure their God choose not deliver them, they will still not bow down to a god lesser than their God.
Today, we read their story and do the claiming but how many of us are ready and willing to go through that same experience to encourage those looking up to us in faith. Come along with me to read about the three Hebrew boys, I don’t know where the storms of life has left you, perhaps it will strengthen you and re- echo what was said by them to your hearing:
“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said… Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods.” Daniel 3:16,18
The narrative of the manly courage and marvellous deliverance of the three holy children, or rather champions, is well calculated to excite in the minds of believers firmness and steadfastness in upholding the truth in the teeth of tyranny and in the very jaws of death.
Let young Christians especially learn from their example, both in matters of faith in religion, and matters of uprightness in business, never to sacrifice their consciences. Lose all rather than lose your integrity, and when all else is gone, still hold fast a clear conscience as the rarest jewel which can adorn the bosom of a mortal.
Be not guided by the will-o’-the-wisp of policy, but by the pole-star of divine authority. Follow the right at all hazards. When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honour to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle. See whether He will be your debtor! See if He doth not even in this life prove His word that “Godliness, with contentment, is great gain,” and that they who “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, shall have all these things added unto them.”
Should it happen that, in the providence of God, you are a loser by conscience, you shall find that if the Lord pays you not back in the silver of earthly prosperity, He will discharge His promise in the gold of spiritual joy. Remember that a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of that which he possesseth.
To wear a guileless spirit, to have a heart void of offence, to have the favour and smile of God, is greater riches than the mines of Ophir could yield, or the traffic of Tyre could win. “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and inward contention therewith.” An ounce of heart’s-ease is worth a ton of gold.
Are you strengthened dearly beloved? Is a new hope and joy swelling up in you? Then go before God today in that might and you will like the Hebrew boys be delivered.
Praise God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Remain blessed in the Lord.
