Before You Ask - Friday August 28, 2015
God also said to him, "I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come forth from you." Genesis 35:11
How many times have we asked God for something and did not expect much to happen, if anything? We need to stop and take the time to consider who it is we are addressing. Before God promised to bless Jacob and the entire world through Jacob's descendants and before He promised to give him the land of Israel, He first wanted Jacob to remember who He was: "I am God Almighty."
This is where we must start too. We must know with whom we are speaking-God Almighty! We are approaching the God who made the world and everything in it. Paul began his proclamation to the crowd in Athens with, "The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands" (Acts 17:24). Begin prayer and evangelism by focusing on the Almighty, and not ourselves and our limited abilities. Then we will pray for miracles, grow in our faith, and expect lives and circumstances to change. Otherwise, we will just be asking for things we could do. Our faith will be little; we'll see little happen for His glory.
Of course, God also wants us to persevere in our prayers. He is not weak because He does not answer us immediately. It may not be His timing. Bill Thrasher, author of A Journey to Victorious Praying, said, "Perseverance in prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance but rather laying hold of God's willingness. Our sovereign God has purposed to sometimes require persevering prayer as the means to accomplish His will."
Submitted by:
Stephen Scott Nelson
Atlanta House Churches
Atlanta, Georgia
One-Year Reading Plan:
Job 28:1-30:31
2 Corinthians 2:11-17
Psalms 42:1-11
Proverbs 22:7
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SCRIPTURE REFERENCB-ES: Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible B) The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are from the Holy, Bible, New International Version, copyright B) 1973, 1978, 1984 by InternaB-tional Bible Society; (NKJV) are from New King James Version B) 1982 by Thomas Nelson; (NLT) are from the New Living Translation, B) 1996, Tyndale House Publishers; (ESV) are from English Standard VersionB., B) 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers; (TM) are from The Message B) 1993 by NavPress Publishers.