We have read the verse time and time again, and yet one morning last week, it fell fresh as if not ever read.
All prayer must originate in faith.
Some measure of faith must be possessed when one prays because quite simply, why would one pray if one did not believe in God?
We pray because we trust, or believe, God hears our prayers. We make known our fears, our needs, and our hearts in the hopes He will respond.
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.“ (Philippians 4:6, NASB)
We are encouraged to ask God for what we lack or need:
- Simply ask. God wants us to ask of Him, not because we are telling Him new information but because it reveals our love for Him as our Father, the One who is provisional.
- Ask in faith. Don’t doubt. We are to make our requests known of God, letting faith fill our souls, and set our lives on course.
- Ask aright. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures” (James 4:3, NASB). May our wants align with the will and purposes of God.
“God takes account, not only of what we want, but of why we want it. He looks at the heart.”
(from The Path of Prayer, Samuel Chadwick, page 70)
- Ask righteously. May we be a people whose live rightly before God. Our integrity before God and man is of importance to God.
“The rightness of the asking goes down to the rightness of the asker.”
(from The Path of Prayer, Samuel Chadwick, page 71)
- Ask earnestly. God desires that we seek Him with all our hearts (see Jeremiah 13:29). He longs for us to want the Giver more than we want our desires.
So remember, faith is necessary to prayer …
“Ships go East and ships go West,
Whatever the winds that blow;
The set of the sail, and not the gale,
Settles the way we go.
Faith sets the sail.“(from The Path of Prayer, Samuel Chadwick, page 70)
Photo by Chiara Di Simplicio on Unsplash
It's amazing--I heard that very poem for the first time this morning on the radio for the few minutes I had it on between errands. Chuck Swindoll quoted it in his message. I had never heard it before. Wow!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed these points. So many people ask, "Why should we pray when God already knows our needs and what He's going to do about it." But that seems to look at prayer as just asking and receiving, and it's meant to be more--it's conforming us to God's will and deepening our relationship with Him.
I just spent a few moments looking up this poem, wondering if it was from a larger one. It was: I found it here: https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/tis-set-sail-or-one-ship-sails-east.
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