“No Prayer Request is too hard for our Lord” – R. Nelson
BIBLE MEDITATION
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Mark 11:24;
ENCOURAGING WORD:
As I sit down at my computer, I always ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to me the message that he would like me to share. But every now and then something may come up throughout the day or week where someone may say something, or some strange event might take place that will trigger a topic. This week that happened to be the case. Most of us in America have turned our attention to the NFL playoffs. This last week something was said on Fox NFL Sunday by one of the commentators that has moved me to share this message. Just before the game between Minnesota and New Orleans they were all going over what they thought the outcome of the game would. It was an overwhelming consensus that New Orleans would win. Even I didn’t think there was a chance that Minnesota could win, until I heard one of the commentators say, and I quote, “Minnesota doesn’t have prayer” Right after I heard that statement, I turned to my wife and said, “Minnesota is going to win this game.”This particular commentator obviously used it as a figure of speech, but he really didn’t think through what he said, or he obviously doesn’t know the power of our God. Galatians 6:7 tells us, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” The statement made by this commentator says, that even God could not help the Vikings win this game. You may say, “Aren’t you getting a little technical” and my response is “Absolutely not. “The point that I want to make is this, “there is nothing that God cannot do, even if it means doing the unthinkable.” If I was a betting man, I would have bet against Minnesota just as everybody else did, but no matter how bleak something may seem, God is still in control.
Let us take a couple of stories from the Bible that paint the perfect picture of what I am trying to say. We have all heard the story of David and Goliath. We read in 1 Samuel 17:10-11 where Goliath says, “And the Philistine (Goliath) said, “I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.” When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. In verse 4; we read “And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.” A cubit is generally around 18 inches. That means that Goliath stood at least nine feet tall. As we read verses 11-25, we finally get to verse 26 where we hear David say, “What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?”David had no fear of the enemies of his God. Then we read verses 44 – 51; “And the Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!” Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And we all know the rest of the story. David did go out and face Goliath. Even though Goliath was all decked out in his armor from head to toe, Goliath did have one weak spot within his armor. All David had was a slingshot and five stones. It was not that David was unconfident that he could kill Goliath with one stone, he chose five smooth stones because Goliath had four brothers, and David was readying himself to dispatch all five giants. Well, as we know, David fired his slingshot and planted a stone right between Goliath’s eyes. David did not have a sword with him, so he took Goliath’s sword and took off his head. Most people would have said, “David didn’t have a prayer.” All David needed was the trust and confidence in Gods Word and nothing else. This kind of faith I believe is absent in the world in which we live in today! I say this because, I do not know of anybody (including myself) that would go up against the odds that David went through with the confidence that he had.
God will not be mocked. Another story that we are all acquainted with is the crossing of the red sea. We read this account in Exodus 14:11-13; “Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness. “And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvationof the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever.All the Hebrews thought that it was over, they were probably thinking it was over, they didn’t have a prayer. However, Moses had faith in God and knew that God would not leave His people to die in the wilderness, especially after being told that God promised they were going to the land of milk and honey, and if God says something, there is nothing that can stand in the way of its fulfillment. Once again, we would most likely have said also, the Hebrews didn’t have a prayer. I’ve heard a few people go as far as to say, that it was only three feet of water that they had to cross, Oh really, then the whole Egyptian army drowned in three feet of water, which was even a bigger miracle! I just had to add that bit of humor!
There are always those that try to discredit the Word of God. People will go through hours and hours of reading the Bible to try to find out how to disprove it, you know what, many have tried, and none has ever succeeded in doing so. The most obvious question that I have for those people is this, instead of spending all your time trying the rebuke the Word of God, why don’t they spend the same amount of time trying to understand the truth of the Bible. The rewards are much greater. The answer to me is obvious based on scripture, there is an evil force in our universe that is bent on destroying man kind and the best way to do it is to take away absolute truths, make people believe that the Bible is just a bunch of made up stories, and tell people that they have evolved over millions of years from cosmic sludge. Sound familiar! Unfortunately, this is what our children are taught in the universities today and we wonder why we get incidences like Columbine and other school related shootings. I could expand on this topic for hours, but I will move on.
There are so many more stories where God went out of the way to help His people through their prayers. But one thing that all these people had in common was this, they knew the Lord personally and trusted in Him completely. The biggest issue that we have today when we pray is that we really do not believe that God will hear our prayers or worse yet, not answer our prayers. Let me give you an example of what I am saying. If you knew someone that had something very valuable that you wanted, but you didn’t really believe for a second that he would ever give it to you, would you still ask Him? Most likely, not. Then let me ask you this, why are you praying to God for things that you don’t believe He will give you? I mean really believe. When you pray, you need to believe that you will receive, if there is a smidgen of doubt, then God will most likely not answer your prayer because of that doubt. We read in Matthew 7:7-11; “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!“Do you think for a moment that God would say this if He didn’t mean it? God means what He says and says what He means, the problem lies within us, our unbelieving hearts. When I say us, I mean me also, I am as guilty of this as anybody. There is nobody that I know personally that has this kind of faith, but we do all need to strive for this kind of faith and the way to do this is by entering into fellowship with Jesus Christ daily and get to know Him personally. This will show God that you are moving in the right direction. It is why God judges the heart because we cannot live up to His standards. If you wanted to do something for someone because in your heart you felt it would glorify God, and then something fell through that didn’t allow it, God would still judge you by the intent of your heart and not the result. He will judge us by the intentions of our hearts. I understand this very well, because there were times in my life when I had a job to do and someone would always say to, “How are you going to get it done that way?” My reply was this, “Do not judge my technique, judge my results.” I always had a different way of getting things done, but when the job was done, it was always done right. Romans 12: 22 tells us; “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” God knew that nobody would ever be able to live by His perfect standards, therefore it was necessary for Him to come down from heaven in the personage of Jesus Christ and bring us to righteousness through the blood sacrifice that He suffered for you and me. There had to be a reconciliation (the state of being reconciled ) for our sins, otherwise none of us would be saved.
ACTION POINT:
Friends, there is no way that any human being could live up to the standards that God has set for us. That is why we need to understand that good works cannot save us, nobody would qualify, and perfection is required. James 2:10; tells us, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” This is saying that if you have broken one commandment you are guilty of breaking them all. Here is a commandment that I’m sure that every man is guilty of, Matthew 5: 27-28; “You have heard that it was saidto those of old,‘You shall not commit adultery.’But I say to you that whoeverlooks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Any man not guilty? My point is this, there are 613 actually commandments in the Bible and to earn your salivation by your own merits, means you have to keep everyone perfectly. So that puts us all in the same situation, we all need a Savior. Might I suggest my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, He has not let me down and I don’t believe for a second that He ever will. But if you want to try to make it on your own God will not invade your sovereignty! It is your choice; God will not make that choice for you! “Written To the glory of God.” Amen!
A Commentary from our Chaplin – R. Fritz
We don’t know how good we have it. We just have to let our God know what we want. I look at the simple things that he does for us. For instance, a couple of days ago I have a 15 year old dog that would not quit barking, he barked for about 5 minutes and I could not figure out what he wanted, I finally asked God to give my dog what he needed, within 20 seconds, he stopped barking and I did not hear any barking the rest of the night. That was something simple that God did for me. I just say, “Thank You” Lord. When I went to work, there were a number of times that all the traffic lights were green, sometimes 4 or 5 lights, I again tell God “Thank You’, You see even the little things God does for us. We need to look at what is going on around us to see the things he does for us. You should now be looking at the little things you thought was just a coincident.
If you read the Bible, you will see all the miracle that Jesus carried out, some very big and some very small. But one of the big things we see throughout the scriptures was how many times He is healing the sick. Many people believe that these miracles only happened during Jesus time. Let me assure you, it still happens today. It happened to me! About 18 years ago, I could barely stand up at work. First, I visited a chiropractor for a month before He finally said he could not help me and decided to send me to an orthopedic doctor. After spending some time talking with the orthopedic doctor, he said I needed an MRI. After getting the results from the MRI, he said that I needed surgery for a herniated disc. I told him that my God would take care of my back issue and I left. A few weeks later I attended a church that had somebody special. As I was sitting in my pew, he called me out and told me I had a back problem. He proceeded to pray for me and immediately I felt better. The thing I needed to do was believe, I truly believed, and I was healed. Most people do not understand that Satan will tell you that are not healed and give you some spiritual pain to make you believe it. Within a few days I was good as new, and I have never had a problem with my back since. What I never realized was that our God makes house calls. About 12 years ago, I all of sudden I had a problem going to the bathroom, and God said to me “Trust me” The next night I woke at midnight and knew my God was doing something. I was awake for about 3 hours and when I got up in the morning, I was healed and was good to go.
If you look at John 11: 1-44 in the Bible, verse 42-43 where Jesus says “And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.” Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead after 4 days! Jesus gave first the disciples, then his people authority to use the name of Jesus to do the things he did. Mark 16:15-18 says “And he said unto them, Go you into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
You now see that Jesus gave his true believers the ability to heal others and do the miracles and wonders He did. All we have to do is believe, remember Satan does not want you to be healed and will tell you are not healed, you need to get rid of those thoughts and “believe”. We have a God that “Loves” us and wants us to have a good life. We need to be around people that have a high degree of Belief. Learn from them!
In Conclusion – R. Nelson
After reading the first part of Rick’s commentary, it made me think how important it is to open our eyes to the small prayers that God answers each and every day all day long. When we go to prayer, we should not just focus on the big things we feel we need, like maybe winning a ball game or getting healed from some minor illness or something else that we feel is important in our life. How about just going to bed at night saying, “thank you Lord” for the air that we breathe, the food that we have on our table or the beauty that surrounds us. These things we just seem to take for granted, but in reality, they are more important that most of the things that we pray for. Instead of asking all the time, we should spend more time thanking God for what He has already blessed us with. Do you know, if you have a roof over your head, food on the table and clothes on your back, you are in the top 15 % of the world’s wealth. Like Rick said, we don’t know how good we got it. Another way to approach prayer is to just simply say, “God, I die to myself today and turn the life over to you, let your will be done”! I can guarantee if you mean that from the bottom of your heart, God will bless your day. But also keep in mind, God will allow us to go through various trials to get us to the point where He can work with us and have His will done in our life. We read this in John 12:24-25; “truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.” Jesus is saying that a death must occur before any fruit can be borne. He is also saying that we must die to ourselves and live for Him. This simply means being born-again into the Holy Spirit and giving your life over to His will. So tonight and every night, ask the Lord to take residence in your life and guide you through the life that He created you for. You won’t be sorry and I can guarantee this based on the written “Word of The Holy Bible” Give it a go, you will eventually realize that it is the best decision that you ever made. Trust in the “Word of God” and have “Faith in all His promises,” it will change your life! “Written To the glory of God.” Amen!