When you pray are you expecting God to answer?

When you pray, are you expecting God to answer? Or, are you praying just to be praying? In Act 12: 1-17, you will see that although they prayed earnestly for Peter's release from prison, they were not expectig God to answer.

"James is killed and Peter is imprisoned. About that time King Herod Agrippa began to persecute some believers in the church. He had the apostle James (John’s brother) killed with a sword. When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish people, he also arrested Peter. Then he imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring Peter out for public trial after the Passover. But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him.

The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate. Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel struck him on the side to awaken him and said, “Quick! Get up!” And the chains fell off his wrists. Then the angel told him, “Get dressed and put on your sandals.” And he did. “Now put on your coat and follow me,” the angel ordered".

So Peter left the cell, following the angel. But all the time he thought it was a vision. He didn’t realize it was actually happening. They passed the first and second guard posts and came to the iron gate leading to the city, and this opened for them all by itself. So they passed through and started walking down the street, and then the angel suddenly left him.

Peter finally came to his senses. “It’s really true!” he said. “The Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod and from what the Jewish leaders had planned to do to me!”

When he realized this, he went to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered for prayer. He knocked at the door in the gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to open it. When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the door, she ran back inside and told everyone, “Peter is standing at the door!”

“You’re out of your mind!” they said. When she insisted, they decided, “It must be his angel.” Meanwhile, Peter continued knocking. When they finally opened the door and saw him, they were amazed. He motioned for them to quiet down and told them how the Lord had led him out of prison".

What about you, are you amazed too when God answers your prayer? If so, where is your faith and confidence in God answering your prayer? 1 John 5:14 says "And this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will (that is consistent with a Godly life) he hears us, and if we know that he hears us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petition that we desired of him.

Being Grateful Right Where You Are

Sometimes when you are alone, what do you find yourself daydreaming about? a new home, a new job, a new car, possibly going on vacation, or wishing that you had more money to do the things that you would like to do? What about just being grateful right where you are. Thanking God for His provisions and protection, for eyes to see, hears to hear, nose to smell, tongue to taste and the strength that He gives you to do all the wonderful things that you do on a daily basis. Next time you find yourself daydreaming about things you don't have, think about all the wonderful blessings that you do have. I heard a saying that goes like this: I use to complain about my shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.

Don't Be So Hard On Yourself

Have you ever done some things that you thought you will never do or say some things you thought you would never say, and the moment it happen, you felt remorseful and condenmed, because you knew that the act that was committed you could not take back? How did you deal with it, did you walk around in condemnation and disbelief because you couldn't believe you done what had happen? What about forgiving yourself and asking for forgiveness and forgiving others. Don't be so hard on yourself, everyone makes mistakes, if this was a perfect world we would not need Jesus. Rememeber, we do not have a High priest who cannot smypathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrew 4:15-16, New King James).

Spiritual Death vs. Spiritual Life

"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned." (Roman 5:12). The picture is as if Death is standing outside a closed door and man's sin is throwing the door open and allowing Death to come in to the human. This is not Physical Death, but it does have reference to another kind of Death which Pauls speaks about constrasting Spiritual Death and Spiritual Life.

Spiritual death is the Nature of the Devil and Spiritual Life is the Nature of God; out of Spiritual Death come hatred, jealousy, murder, and out of the Nature of God come love, forgiveness and peace. We can understand the prevalence and power of sin in the world today. We many legislate all we please, but until we change the Nature of Man, sin will grow and flourish; we may stop it here or there, but it will spring up elsewhere. The only hope of the human is a new Nature. Spiritual Death, then, is the Nature that lies behind all sinned committed. Man commits Sin, because his Nature produces that kind of conduct. Spiritual Death made Man mortal, only Spiritual Life can make him immortal.

Logos Word verses Rhema Word

Jesus is the "Logos", the "Word," the personal manisfestation of God in the flesh (Matt 1:23). Rhema denotes "that which is spoken. The significance however of rhema as distinct from logos is that "to take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" Eph. 6:17, here the reference is not to the whole Bible as such, but to the individual scripture which the Spirit brings to our rememberance for use in time of need, a prerequisite being the regular storing of the mind with Scripture.

Faith is Present

Where the Word of God is spoken, faith is present. Faith is the energy that is in the Word that gives it the ability to bring itself to past in your life.

Let's look at the word spoken in Abraham's life. "As is it written, I have made you a father of many nations according to what was spoken. "So shall your descendents be. And not being weak in faith, he did not waiver at the promise (the spoken word) of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what he had promised he was also able to perform (Roman 4:17-21). When God spoke these words to Abraham the reality of this truth did not come to past until many years later. "Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace so that the promise (the spoken word) might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (Roman 4:16).

The Faith Walk

Have you ever wondered why God put faith as a requirement for receiving from Him? It seem unnatural. It has made blessings seem unattainable. It seems to put them just beyond our reach. Remember man was created in God's image (Genesis 1:26), a spirit being. We were created to walk with God, who is a Spirit (John 4:24). It is the faith realm. It is the realm of the one "Who calleth those things that be not as though they were" (Romans 4:17). When man died spiritually, he became alienated from God. He ceased to live in the spirit. He became separated from God's ability and began to walk in the flesh. According to Roman 8:5-7, "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God." It is this mind that lives according to the five senses. Living by faith is living in the realm of the Spirit. Are you recieving from God by faith or by your own ability through the five senses?