Bible thought

My faith in God is my main strength that I draw on. My pastor puts out an email everyday called "The Daily View." These posts ussually follow a theme with the theme changing every month or two. I am going to repost these here for those who may be interested. I hope you get as much from them as I do.

June 17, 2009

Good morning, Wayne Nale,

John 15:16

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-- fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name."

Jesus chose us to be privileged members of the family of God.
The disciples were invited into the family of Jesus. His Father was to be their Father. He chose them; us as their descendents so whatever we ask in His name the Father will give to us. Here again we are face to face with one of those great sayings about prayer which we must understand correctly. If we come to it thoughtlessly, it sounds as if the Christian will receive everything for which he prays. The New Testament gives definite laws about prayer.

Prayer must be the prayer of faith.
When we pray with formality, merely following the routine and conventional repetition of a form of words; "In Jesus name," our prayers do not meet this standard. They will not necessarily be answered. When prayer is hopeless it cannot be effective. There is little use in a man praying to be changed, if he does not believe it possible that he can be changed. To pray with power a man must have a belief in the all- sufficient love of God.

Prayer must be in the name of Christ.
We cannot pray for things of which we know Jesus would disapprove. We cannot pray we should be given possession of some forbidden person or some illegal thing; we cannot pray some personal ambition will be realized, if fulfilling that ambition means someone else will be hurt. We cannot pray in the name of Him who is love for vengeance on our enemies. Whenever we try to turn prayer into something to enable us to realize our own ambitions and to satisfy our own desires, it is ineffective; it is not real prayer at all.

Prayer must say: "Your will be done."
When we pray we must first realize we never know better than God. The essence of prayer is not to say to God: "Your will be changed," we must say to him: "Your will be done." Often real prayer must be not asking God to send us the things we want, but that He will make us able to accept what He wills.

Prayer must never be selfish.
Almost in passing Jesus said a very confusing thing. He said, if two people agreed in asking anything in His name, it would be granted (Matthew 18:19). We cannot take that with simple literalism, because it would simply mean if you can mobilize enough people to pray for anything you will get it. What it does mean is this; no one when praying should think entirely of their own needs. To use a simple example, the vacation traveler might be praying for sunshine while the farmer is praying for rain. When we pray, we must ask, not only: "Is this for my good?" but: "Is this for the good of all men?"

The greatest temptation of all in prayer is to pray as if nobody else mattered.

We can and must take everything to God in prayer; but when we have done so we must accept the answer which God, in His perfect wisdom and perfect love, sends to us.

The more we love God, the easier it will be to do.

Never forget that you are, as all of us are, an urepeatable miracle of God.