Friday, August 16, 2013

The Proper Attitude For Prayer


Luke 5:12-15
The Proper Attitude For Prayer
     
     And when it came about that while He was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man full of leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and implored Him saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out His hand, and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” And immediately the leprosy left him. And Jesus ordered him to tell no one, “But go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.” But the news about Him was spreading even further, and great multitudes were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses.
     I would like to discus the heart attitude of the leper. Now when the leper met Jesus he fell on his face and poured out his heart to Him saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him saying, “I am willing, be cleansed.” This man had a very real and deadly disease and when he met Jesus he was not shy or reserved in his request for healing and neither did he doubt that Jesus was able to heal him. His request, “Lord if you are willing, You can make me clean” is a beautiful prayer to our Lord. He was not demanding that Jesus heal him and at the same time he’s not implying that Jesus should have no real desire to heal him. He is humbly pouring himself out to Jesus with his very real request.
     I think that we need to take a moment and remember that Jesus is a person. He is the same now as He was then. So often I think that our prayers to Him are not real. I mean, we don’t treat Him as if He is really listening to us. Because of this we remain very reserved in how we pray to Him and rather than lying prostrate on the floor before Him with our requests, we mumble a few words which we don’t truly believe he will answer anyway, and if we have any belief it is usually that He wouldn’t want to answer us anyway.
     Our God loves us! We must approach Him with this attitude if we are to have victory in our prayer life. This does not mean that He will say yes to everything we ask of Him, but we will always receive an answer as to why He says no to some things. It is a real relationship that we have with Him, remember that! He loves us dearly and sent His Son, who came willingly, to die for us because of His love for us! Jesus purchased this relationship for us!
     Therefore, let us not be backward in our prayers, mumbling and disheartened, but rather let us be bold and enjoy the privileges and blessings of the relationship that Jesus gave to us!
     May God bless and encourage each of you this day in all these things!

7 comments:

  1. praylife should be done in faith not by rote without anydoubt that the Lord can do whatever you ask as hebrews 4;16 states come boldly into His thronroom. every pray is met there according to His word.

    In Christ,
    Keri

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Keri. You picked a perfect verse to go along with what Seth is saying. My King James says,,"Let us therefore come BOLDLY unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace TO HELP IN TIME OF NEED.''

      Delete
  2. Seth, your comment is so true: We don't believe God will answer us, nor do we believe He would even WANT to answer us! We must trust that "God is not a man that He should lie!" God says that he cares for us and He does! He wants to grant His promises to us and answer our prayers! God is like a dad who has already bought tickets to the Patriots for himself and his son to go to the game. When the son has finished his chores of making his bed and sweeping the floor (in the case of God, "Be still and know I am God through prayer and reading Scriptures to seek the will of God), the father WANTS the son to come shake his arm and say, "Daddy, I'm ready to go to the ballgame. Can we go now?" God has the power to deliver His miracles for us and answer our prayers. God wants to answer our prayers because He really does care for us. He is not mad with us and God wants us to "Ask and you shall receive that your joy may be made full." (John 16:24)
    Great teaching, Seth! Very inspirational!! And so true!--Auntie Sue

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. god will always givee us himself too all who ask not when we want but in his time. by and god bless. Rose.

      Delete
  3. Thank you all for the inspiring and encouraging words on prayer.

    I love spending time with The Lord and pouring my heart out to Him.
    I love the way I feel so secure with Him. I love the way He is always there for
    me...when I am crying...when I ask Him to hold me. He's my Love. He's my Father. He's my best Friend.

    Lastly, I want to say how blessed I am because I do not have a lot of distractions at home preventing me from prayer. Because I live alone, I don't
    have people distracting me with things like every day coversations(undogly) arguments, and things they may be doing. I'm NOT saying that people living alone is better. It's just that no one "in my house" gets in my way to prayer.

    Seth, thank you for your message on the heart of prayer.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was in a conference and the speaker was talking about prayer and how we sometime approach our prayers. He used the first time we went to war with Iraq and how the Sodom used his rocks. He said they would fire the rockets not knowing where they would hit, and that’s how some of us pray, we prayer for everything from healing to meeting the right person, then hoping one of the prayers will be answered.
    Then he used the illustration of how the United States used the Patriot Missiles, they had specific targets and usually 90% of the time they hit the target. His thoughts were that our prayers should be more like the Patriot Missiles with a specific target no matter how long it takes for the answer.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Larry. I love the way the speaker compared shooting rockets and not really aiming them to specified targets to us praying to God and not being specific (bold) to God in our pray

    ReplyDelete