Book Signing Event

On Saturday, April 13 I will be at the Talbot Belmond Public Library for a reading and book signing event for my new book “The ASK Principle.” I will be reading excerpts from the book, selling books and signing them for you. Question and answer period will also be held.

I hope you can attan!

Prayer is Communication With God (Part 2)

I can get easily involved in a television show or sporting event.  When I do, my wife can be sitting right next to me, ask me a question, and I won’t even hear her.  She has to get my attention first before she is heard.  If she wants to communicate effectively with me, this is a necessary step.  If I am trying to talk to someone and they are not hearing me, communication will not happen.

The next step in our communication is that we must be heard. When I see a scripture that tells me if I take certain steps, He will not only hear me, but He will forgive my sins and heal my land, I take notice.  By inference, this verse says He will grant our request if we do as He asks.  The key verse I want to make sure you get a hold of is 2nd Chronicles 7:14. This verse gives us a great outline on effective prayer

“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.”

“If my people”

Paul tells us that if Christ has become our Savior (circumcision of the heart), then we are considered in the same way as Jews.  Romans 4:11-16 explains this further.  Abraham was not only the father of circumcision, but also of faith.  The seed of Abraham is not only through circumcision, but also through faith by grace.  That makes us God’s people, so we can apply these prayer principles to our situations today.

Which are called by my name

The followers of Jesus were first called Christians in Antioch.  Christian is a derivative of the word meaning Christ, Messiah, or anointed one.  Having this name says we are called by His name.  His name is the most powerful name in the universe.  This association with His name carries His authority.  He gave us that authority before He left this earth (Mark 16:17-18).  He also gave us authority at other times in His ministry (Luke 10:19 and Matthew 18:18-20).  Being called by His name also means we can call on His name. 

“Shall humble themselves”

 Here is the main point and stumbling block to a majority of our prayers, in my opinion.  As human beings, we don’t want to humble ourselves.  We want to tell God when and where and how to answer us.  We expect Him to do what we want Him to do, like we are in control.  So we pray as if we are in charge of the answer.  This is not humility.  It is pride, and pride has no place in prayer. 

Have you ever taken notice that God says to humble ourselves first?  Before we pray, seek or repent, we must humble ourselves.  When we come to God, we should have a reverence and awe for Him that transcends anything else.  We should bow low before Him, and remember that He owes us nothing and that He has given us everything.  I am nothing without Him except a lowly shell of a man.  I need His mercy and strength, wisdom and guidance every day.

“ and pray”

 This whole study is on the activity of prayer.  We have already spent a lot of time on prayer and will be going further into it throughout the rest of this study, so I won’t spend much time here.  Just a few scriptures to keep the word active.

Mark 11:24.  

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

These words of Jesus are very powerful. When they went up to the tree, there was no fruit. Jesus says that the fig tree would not produce any fruit forever. The next morning, they came by the same tree.  It was withered and dried up, and the disciples were amazed.

When we pray for the right reason, it will be answered. This fig tree is symbolistic of those who show on the outside the fruits of righteousness, but inside they are dead and non-productive. Jesus wants all of us to be fruitful, not just what people see but what is inside of us. This fig tree was hypocritical in a sense, and we must not have hypocrisy in our lives.  He goes on to say that we can move a mountain if we believe. If we are desiring the things of God, our prayers will be answered if we believe that God will answer them.

“and seek my face”

We must take time to seek Him, to seek His will and His face.  Our prayers need to line up with His will and how will we know that will if we are not seeking Him?  Zseeking Him means to be in His word, to meditate on that Word, to spend time in prayer and praise and to just be still before Him (Psalms 46:10)

Deuteronomy 4:29. 

But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.”

Psalm 119:2. 

Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.”

If we seek the Lord with all our heart, we will find him. As I said before, He’s not hiding.  He’s right there waiting and hoping that we will call on Him.  God does not force himself upon us or into our lives.  He wants to bless us.  He wants to have a relationship with us.  God does not move away.  It is us who move away from Him. If we seek him with all that we have, we will find Him.  I believe this applies to absolutely everyone, even those who say there is no God.  If they seek Him with all their heart, they will find Him.

“Turn from your wicked ways.”

We need to repent of the things that we have done that don’t line up with the Word.  If you would like to do a great daily Bible study on repentance, I suggest you go to Amazon.com and buy the book entitled The Walk of Repentance by Steve Gallagher.  It is an amazing 24 week journey, and you will not regret it. We need to walk with a repentant heart on a daily basis because we are sinners saved by grace. There is never a day goes by that we don’t need to repent before the Lord, that we don’t need to turn from our wicked ways and come to Him.

After these steps God says he will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.  This is something to take deep into our souls and make sure we are a=carrying out these steps each time we pray.

If you enjoyed this post and would like to see the full study on this verse, please pick up “The Ask Principle” by clicking on the “Buy Now” button in the side panel of this web site.

Prayer is a Conversation with God

Are you a conversation starter? Can you keep a conversation interesting? Some people just have a knack for carrying on a good conversation. They have a natural inquisitiveness that knows the right questions to ask. When I was a salesman travelling in my car, I listened to a talk show host named Jan Michelsen on WHO in Des Moines. He was exceptional because he always had a follow-up question. You learned a lot about the guests because of his skills. I marveled at the ability he had to stay focused with any person on any subject.

I am not a very good conversationalist. Finding that opening question and knowing what to say next is difficult for me. Unless it’s somebody I know the right questions are not top-of-mind. When I was selling magazine ads I attended networking meetings held by the Chamber of Commerce and other organizations. Meeting new people was the goal. Saying hi and meeting them is one thing. Getting them to talk is another, especially when you don’t know them.

Prayer can be a conversation with God. It can be a give and take on many different levels if we are keenly in tune with the Holy Spirit. The biggest problem we have is taking the time to listen in the middle of our prayers. Requests seem to be what we offer up, and that is a one-way street. There are many examples of conversations with God in the Bible. Here are just a few:

Gen 3:9-13 – Adam and God have a conversation about eating from the Tree of Life
Gen 4:9-15 – Cain and God discuss Abel and the consequences of his disappearance
Gen 17:15-19 – Sarah discusses with God about having a child in her old age
Gen 18:23-33 – Adam pleads with God over Sodom and Gomorrah
Exodus 3:11-4:17 – Probably the longest conversation in the Bible was Moses and God when Moses was commissioned for the task ahead at the burning bush
Exodus 32:30-35 – Moses admits Israel’s sins
Job 38-42 – God and Job exchange words
Isaiah 6:8-13 – Isaiah’s commission to go to the people
Acts 9:4-6 Paul on the road to Damascus.

Many of the prophets held short conversations with God. One of the things I notice is that the further we read through the Old Testament the less we see people having conversations with God. Man becomes so entrenched in himself and in his everyday situations that he no longer converses with God. He just takes his request to God and then leaves without listening. Today, people come to God with their requests and then walk away, not taking the time to listen to what He has to say.

I think that God wants to have conversations with us. He wants to speak to us even more than we want to speak to Him. He wants to ask us questions and see where our hearts are. If you look at the Psalms closely you will see several times that David speaks and the Lord speaks within the same Psalm. This is the type of prayer that we should be praying. Allowing God to actually fit into our conversation and into our words as we listen to him in between what we say to Him.

For more on conversing with God, please buy a copy of my book, “The ASK Principle.”

 

What is Prayer?

Prayer is asking something of God, hoping that He hears and understands our prayer, and then listening for and accepting the response. Prayer is our faith-in-action.

I believe everyone prays, even the atheist. We all say words of hope that some being will intervene in our lives. When we are faced with a major decision, we may do all the comparisons of positive and negative points to arrive at our conclusion, but often we will ask that inner man what those points are. This is a prayer for guidance. We cannot always come up with all of them on our own. When we are faced with illness, we hope within ourselves that it will not be too bad, and that we will heal quickly. This is a prayer for healing. Even though we may not be petitioning God, we are asking some entity to intervene.

To put it simply, prayer is communicating with that entity. Most of us call that entity God. Prayer is asking something of God, hoping that He hears and understands our prayer, and then listening for and accepting the response. Prayer is our faith-in-action. Prayer can be in the form of a conversation or can be a statement of faith. It takes on many forms and all can be effective.