“After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out, and their cry for help ascended to God because of the difficult labor. 24. So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God saw the Israelites, and He took notice.” HCSB
During a time of famine the Hebrew people found respite in Egypt. About four hundred years later, respite had turned into slavery. There arose a Pharaoh who “knew not Joseph,” and persecution and hardship came on unabated. Where was God? Had He abandoned His chosen people? No! He was a cry away, just as He is today. The conditions for the Israelites were terrible. Verse 23a tells that “the Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor.” They had to work all day everyday on Pharaoh’s extensive building projects. They had no choice, nor did they have recourse. Furthermore, life and death hung in the balance all of the time. Their Egyptian masters did not care whether they lived or died. They felt God-forsaken, but God was not unaware of their suffering. Whatever you have been through, are going through now, or will go through in the future, your conditions cannot be more terrible than this. You are not alone. You may never know the reasons why God has allowed your terrible conditions, but this does not erase the fact that Jesus knows and cares. He will go with you through it or around it, but be assured, you are not alone. As a result of Israel’s suffering, they cried out to God. Verse 23b tells us that “their cry came up to God.” As they were beaten by the slave driver’s whips, as they staggered in abject poverty and misery, the Israelites cried out to God. Perhaps this continual hope kept life from becoming meaningless to them. There were probably Israelites who stopped crying out to God, and their lives did become meaningless. Without the hope of God, life does become meaningless. We must not stop crying out to God as we face the many trials and temptations of life. Prayer is an act of faith, and in the very act of continual prayer, we can overcome. When we stop crying out, we merely cry, and that becomes self-pity. Through all of the years of suffering, they had a compassionate listener. For example, we find out from verse 24 that “God heard their groaning and remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” When the time was right, God reacted to the cries of His chosen people. This seems a harsh and cruel reality to swallow at times, but the fact is that God reacts when His time is right, not ours. It is really better that way, and we will “understand it better by and by.” Let this be imprinted on your heart: God cares and He hears you! In His infinite wisdom and grace, God looks upon you and remembers His covenant with you in Jesus. Your loving God and Savior will act in your life and deliver you in a way that will not only bring relief to you, but will result in glory for Him. After all, we do wish for our lives to bring glory to the Lord – don’t we? If our momentary suffering brings glory to God we should be glad that we can be instruments to bring glory to His great name. God uses the positive and negative events in our lives to serve as a witness for Him and to bring glory to Him. Learn to look at it this way, have faith and continually cry out to God. Do not stop crying out to God. He hears you, He will answer you, and when He acts on your behalf the results will be glorious. Bro. Joe
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“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
What is effective prayer? It is not measured by the things that we acquire from God, but by the changes that are made in our lives, and the circumstances in our lives that are changed for the better. 2 Chronicles 7:14, written to Israel in Solomon’s time, contains the components of effective prayer. The first component is preparation for prayer. We prepare for prayer by humbling ourselves. We are not prepared to pray until we humble ourselves before God. We cannot come proudly before God, heads held high and chests out. We come to Him as subjects to a king. False pride cannot get through to God. Self-justification cannot get us through to God. Self-righteousness cannot get us through to God. All of these drive us away from God. David gave the essence of humble preparation for prayer in Psalm 51:17: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; and a broken and contrite heart.” We do not have to inform God of anything. We do not have to remind Him of His biblical promises. We merely need to humble ourselves before Him. The second component is to actually pray and seek God. It is amazing how little we actually pray. The old hymn tells us, “Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh, what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.“ We pray by opening ourselves up to God, by seeking His face, by talking intimately to Him and listening with our hearts as He replies. We need to remember that God already knows everything about us and about what we need, so we just need to pray honestly with Him about what is on our hearts and minds. God will not wince about anything that you go to Him with, because He knows already, and because He knows that you need His help in whatever it is. The third component of effective prayer is repentance. This is what “turn from their wicked ways” means. Many Christians are puzzled by this admonition because they wonder why they need to repent. They might ask: “What do I need to repent of?” They could begin with spiritual pride. Prayer should bring us so close to God that we feel compelled to repent. If we stay in God’s presence for very long in prayer, we will see the need to turn from our wicked ways. The main point of the parable that Jesus gave in Luke 18:9-14 about the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector was that the tax collector was repentant in his prayer and the Pharisee merely bragged on himself as he talked to God. Effective prayer will always come from a repentant heart. We call it confession, and it opens the gate to prayer. If you think that you have nothing to confess, I suggest that you think more honestly about yourself. The fourth component of effective prayer is the result as shown in II Chronicles 7:14 “Then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” When we humble ourselves, pray and seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways, God hears, forgives and heals. Understand that God does not need for us to do all of these things in order to hear and answer our prayers. We need to be in the right attitude of prayer, and these components comprise the right attitude. These components plus our faith open us up to God so that we can come boldly to His throne. The throne of God is open to our prayers all day every day. We need to take full advantage of this and pray fervently and we will see the result. Bro. Joe “Then said Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”
You probably recognize that this verse is centered in Jesus’ temptation by Satan after JESUS had fasted for forty days and forty nights. Satan was trying to get Jesus to worship him, but Jesus made it plain to Satan that people are to worship God and God alone. ("Worship" and "serve" are closely related in the Bible.) We read about worship throughout the Bible. Worship is important for it takes place when we center and focus our minds and hearts on the Lord. We are to worship privately and publically. Worship is as necessary to the Christian as eating and drinking. That answers why we worship, now we need to look at how we worship. We worship God through prayer. Prayer itself is an act of worship. When we pray we concentrate our hearts and minds on God, either in petition or meditation. Petition and meditation are important parts of worship. In petitioning God we are confessing to Him that we know that all of the things that we need in this life come from Him. In meditating we focus our minds and hearts on God and just let Him speak to our hearts. Worshipful prayer is a two-way communication: God hears us when we pray and we hear His “still small voice” while we concentrate fully on Him. Prayer is a great act of worship for it verifies that we know that we are wholly dependent on God in all of life. We worship God through singing. Paul wrote about this in Ephesians 5:18-19: “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit. 19. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” We come together to worship in fellowship with fellow Christians and a large part of our worship together is singing. We do not sing to show off our talents, or to merely make merry in song. We sing to worship the Lord. The words of hymns can help us to focus our minds on God. Many of our hymns remind us of what Jesus did for us at Calvary, and we worship Him in the process. When the choir sings, we are not to just listen to the beauty of the music, but we are to see the beauty of the Lord. But we do not worship in song only in fellowship with other Christians. There are times when I sing some of the hymns that I know by heart in my private worship. The familiar words of the hymns help me to focus on the Lord. I have found that I can concentrate on what God is saying to my heart when I am “making melody in my heart and soul to the Lord.” There are many new songs that are being sung today called “praise hymns.” They also have a message about the Lord and lift up praise to Christ Jesus. We worship God through the preaching of His word. In most non-Catholic churches, the pulpit stand is in the center of the pulpit area. This is simply a symbol that God’s word and the preaching of it is the central act of worship. Whether the pulpit is in the center or not, preaching is still the central act of worship. That is why we are to listen reverently while the preacher is preaching. The preacher is sharing a portion of God’s word and applying it to life. While the preaching is going on, the Holy Spirit is at work in the minds and hearts of the preacher and the people. When I preach, I sometimes remind the congregation that what I am saying is important. It is not important because I’m saying it, but because it is what God has given to me to share with them on that day. The “preaching moment” is an act of worship by the preacher and the congregation. There is certainly more to worship than I have written here, but the three things that I wrote about are familiar to us and need to be recognized as part of our worship. Bro. Joe “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”
It is difficult to decide what to write about in Romans 12:10-12. It is certainly important that we love one another with “brotherly affection.” (We could add “sisterly affection.”) We should certainly go out of our way to honor one another. Verse 11 gives advice that we all should follow, and is sorely missing in churches today: “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord." Think of the revival that we would have in our churches if we adopted each of these things. I decided to write about verse 12, because I saw virtues there that we need if we are to live at peace with God, ourselves and others, and if we want to live in victory. This verse contains what I am calling “Three Indispensable Virtues.” We are encouraged to “rejoice in hope.” The Greek word translated “hope” here is not what we call hope. We use the word as a hunch that maybe something good will happen, or maybe we will make it through. The word as used here means that we have a solid hope in Christ, no matter what is going on around us. Our situation today certainly doesn’t look very hopeful for us. We see all kinds of moral values being devalued and paganism seems to be creeping into our country – if it is not already pagan. I remind you that this is the kind of society that Paul lived in. Rome was perhaps the most pagan of all cities. But Paul had the audacity to rejoice in hope and to tell us to do the same. Our hope is not in the world situation, nor is it in political victories; rather, our hope is in Jesus Christ – period. We who truly believe that Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross to save us from sin, rose the third day, ascended to the Father, and has promised to return, have a hope that transcends the world. This knowledge should cause us to rejoice. I will not pretend to be happy with the direction of our country, but in this I rejoice: “I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded (convinced) that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” (2 Timothy 1:12b) Hold to that hope and rejoice in it. We are encouraged to be “patient in tribulation.” In today’s vernacular, it would be “endure in all of your troubles.” It is easy to give up when things are not going well for us. (The Greek word translated “patience” here means more than just to wait in patience. It means to thrive in it, to live above what troubles we have.) We can get discouraged and just want to throw up our hands and quit. We might say, “What’s the use, nothing seems to be going right.” This can happen to us at home, at work, at church, or wherever we might be. When we are going through trouble, we need to remember two things: (1) No one’s life is trouble-free, and (2) It’s not all about me. No matter what your problems are today, if you will look around, you will see others with worse troubles. This is where "rejoicing in hope" comes in. You are not alone in your troubles, for the Holy Spirit is with you, and you have fellow Christians to encourage you. This brings us to a third thing that will help us "rejoice in hope" and be "patient in tribulation," and that is, “Be constant in prayer.” In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Paul admonished us to “pray without ceasing.” In Luke 18:1b, we are encouraged to “always pray and not to faint.” “Faint” here means to lose heart. “Take it to the Lord in prayer” is always good advice. No matter what the “it” is that we take to the Lord in prayer, He has an answer for us, and will encourage us to go forward. We should pray constantly, even when we do not feel like praying, for the Lord is always ready to listen to us and give us encouragement and guidance. Think on these three virtues! Pray over them! Memorize them! Hold them close to your heart and live in victory. Bro. Joe “Withhold not your tender mercies from me, O Lord: let your loving-kindness and your truth continually preserve me.”
“And (Jesus) spoke a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint.”
Luke 18:1 reminds us that Jesus prayed and taught His disciples to pray, because prayer is ultimately important. The New Testament mentions several times that Jesus went apart to pray. If Jesus, God’s Son, saw the importance of prayer in His life, we certainly need to see it too. Paul also saw the importance of prayer for he wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:17: “Pray without ceasing.” The Bible reveals to us that prayer is the lifeline of the Christian. I want us to look at three good reasons to pray. The first reason to pray is that it is our means of communication with God. Communication is one of the important elements in human relationships. Some marital counselors say that communication is the number one element in marriage. If we need to communicate with each other, we surely need to communicate with God. If husbands and wives do not communicate, they grow apart. The same is true of our relationship with God/Jesus. God has given us the privilege of communication with Him; therefore, we should take advantage of it and follow Paul’s admonition to “pray without ceasing.” The second reason to pray is that it is our means of fellowship with God. We put great stock in our fellowship with each other; therefore, we should certainly do the same with our fellowship with God. In order to fellowship with each other we have to meet. This fellowship can be at church services, homes, or etc. We must also meet with God in order to fellowship with Him. We can meet Him any where at any time during the day, but it is meaningful to have a special place to meet with God in prayer each day. (I realize that there are differing opinions on this, but some, like myself need this discipline.) We need to view prayer primarily as fellowship with God, not just a time for asking Him for things. This prayer fellowship with God makes a difference in the way we live. The third reason to pray is that it is one of our means of releasing the power of God in our lives. It is unthinkable that a powerful Christian would be one who does not pray constantly. Someone once asked Charles Hadden Spurgeon, the great nineteenth century British preacher, about his power in the pulpit. He took the questioner to the basement of his great church in London. There the man saw about two hundred people on their knees in prayer. This was the reason for Spurgeon’s great power and his great success. He was a great preacher, but great results from preaching do not result from mere oratory. It takes a lot of prayer by the preacher and the people to whom he preaches. I read one time, or heard someone say, that if you want a better preacher pray daily for the one that you have. It is no wonder that people were saved at the Metropolitan Tabernacle every week. Dwight L. Moody believed so much in the power of prayer that he once said, “Every great movement of God begins with a solitary figure on his knees.” If we really want access to God’s power for our lives and for our churches, we will do as Paul suggested and “Pray without ceasing.” There is absolutely no substitute for prayer if we want the power of God. Bro. Joe “Masters give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that you have a a Master in heaven. 2. Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.”
"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
“For innumerable evils have compassed me about: my iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up: they are more than the hairs of my head: therefore my heart fails me. 13. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me: O Lord make haste to help me.”
“But as for me, I will come into your house in the multitude of your mercy; and in your fear will I worship toward your holy temple. 8. Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before my face.”
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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