Effective Prayer

1 Kings 18:42-45

   Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. "Go an look toward the sea,' he told his servant. And he went up and looked. 'There is nothing there,' he said. Seven times Elijah said, 'Go back.' The seventh time the servant reported, 'A cloud as small as a man's hand is rising form the sea.' So Elijah said, 'Go tell Ahab, "Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you." ' Meanwhile the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain came and Ahab rode of to Jezreel." 

Reasons why as believer in the Most High God we should pray.

1) God has commanded and calls us to do it. Psalms 105:4 says; Look to the lord and his strength; seek his face always. Mathew 26, Luke 18, and John 16 all record Jesus himself calling us to prayer. God desires to fellowship and commune with us. Prayer is needed so that we may grow in our relationship with him.

2)Prayer is the link to seeing God's blessings and power manifested in our lives. It is needed so that we may see the fulfillment of of his many promises. Check out Luke 11:5-13, Acts 1:14, Acts 2, Romans 15:30-32, 2 Corinthians 1:11.

3) God calls on us to take part in the redemptive process. "In some respect God has limited himself to the holy, believing, persevering prayers of his people" (LSSB, Zondervan pg. 504). Many times God's power in relation to the progress of his Kingdom is only released through the earnest prayers of believers. Mathew 9:38 says, "Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into the harvest field." Not praying, may actually hinder God's redemptive purpose within our own individual lives as well as within the church. 

Requirements of Effective Prayer

1) A sincere and true faith. Hebrews says, "draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith" (10:22) Mark 11:24 "Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

2)Authority in the name of Jesus. "And i will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring Glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and i will do it" (John 14:13-14). 

3) Must be in agreement with God's will and word. "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us" (1 John 5:14). Many times we know God's will because he has revealed it to us in the Bible. Any prayer that is fully based on the promises of God's word will be effective. Elijah was certain of his prayer to bring fire and water because God spoke to him through a prophetic message.  (1 Kings 18:1) Other times God's will becomes clear as we seek him to determine it. Once we are sure of God's will on any issue we can pray in confidence that it will come to pass. 

4) Our lives must be in harmony with God's will. God gives us the things we ask for only if we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness (Mathew 6:33). 1 John 3:22 says that we "receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him." An effective prayer comes form an individual who has been made righteous through a belief and faith in Christ, and who is living a God fearing obedient walk.  Psalm 66:18 "If i had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened."

5) Persistent in prayer and faith. We see this principle of persistence all through the old and new testaments. The parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18 and in Matthew 7 7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." We again see Moses and the Israelites only had victory as long as Moses kept his hands risen in persistent prayer. Elijah is yet another example of one who believed in persistent prayer (1 Kings 17 and 18)

"Please Hear What I am Not Saying" Charles C. Finn Sept 1966

Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

Don't be fooled by me.

Don't be fooled by the face I wear

for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,

masks that I'm afraid to take off,

and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,

but don't be fooled,

for God's sake don't be fooled.

I give you the impression that I'm secure,

that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without,

that confidence is my name and coolness my game,that the water's calm and I'm in command and that I need no one,

but don't believe me.

My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,

ever-varying and ever-concealing.

Beneath lies no complacence.

Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.

But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.

That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,

a nonchalant sophisticated facade,

to help me pretend,

to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope, and I know it.

That is, if it's followed by acceptance, if it's followed by love.

It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,

from my own self-built prison walls,

from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.

It's the only thing that will assure me

of what I can't assure myself,

that I'm really worth something.

But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.

I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance, will not be followed by love. I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.

I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,

with a facade of assurance without

and a trembling child within.

So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,

and my life becomes a front.

I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.

I tell you everything that's really nothing,

and nothing of what's everything,

of what's crying within me.

So when I'm going through my routine

do not be fooled by what I'm saying.

Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,

what I'd like to be able to say,

what for survival I need to say,

but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.

I don't like playing superficial phony games.

I want to stop playing them.

I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me

but you've got to help me.

You've got to hold out your hand

even when that's the last thing I seem to want.

Only you can wipe away from my eyes

the blank stare of the breathing dead.

Only you can call me into aliveness.

Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,

each time you try to understand because you really care,

my heart begins to grow wings--

very small wings,

very feeble wings,

but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling

you can breathe life into me.

I want you to know that.

I want you to know how important you are to me,

how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--

of the person that is me

if you choose to.

You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,

you alone can remove my mask,

you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,

from my lonely prison,

if you choose to.

Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.

It will not be easy for you.

A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.

The nearer you approach to me

the blinder I may strike back.

It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man

often I am irrational.

I fight against the very thing I cry out for.

But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls

and in this lies my hope.

Please try to beat down those walls

with firm hands but with gentle hands

for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?

I am someone you know very well.

For I am every man you meet

and I am every woman you meet.

Getting to the Bottom of Pandora's Box

The Greek myth of Pandora's Box was used to illustrate how all the suffering and hurt came to exist in the world. a very brief synopsis goes like this: Zeus was mad at his two brothers for giving the gift of fire to humans, so he decided to get back at them by making a way for disease, death and sorrow to enter the world. He created a woman named Pandora and gave her a box (or jar), where all the previous earthly evils were contained. Pandora was instructed to never open the box....but her curiosity got the best of her. Once she opened the box she was terrified at what she had done and tried to close it, but it was to late, all of the evil had entered into the world. After all of the evil had emptied out of the box, Pandora peered inside to find hope still contained at the bottom. Pandora's box can be seen as a metaphor for ourselves. Inside ourselves (our Pandora's box) are all of our painful parts that we are trying to avoid and keep buried. But all these hidden hurts are what cause us the most emotional and relational trouble. Once we expose our Pandora's Box to the light (as Pandora opened it) we are able to make our way to the bottom of it. At the bottom is where we find what we have been missing all of our lives...hope. 

 Here are some steps on how to begin that journey to the bottom. 

 Steps taken from Jeanne Mayo's "Uncensored" (pg 24)

Have the guts to look at some of your personal hurts(past or present) and realize the impact they are having on your present life and relationships.

Figure out what masks you wear and begin to take them off.

 We are all afraid of rejection and hurt and because of that we often put up a guard(mask) to protect ourselves. Charles C. Finn wrote a poem that any of us can relate to, (refer to next post for the full poem)

Take responsibility for running your own life-for controlling your own destiny.

You cant wait for that magic relationship or "Ah" moment to help you achieve internal wholeness and to build a concrete self-image. A healthy emotional state and self-image comes from hard work, over time, by repeating healthy choices. 

Allow Jesus to become the centerpiece of your search for wholeness.

We were all created partly empty by God so that we could fill that whole with a relationship with Jesus Christ. Many of us try to fill it with so many other things, only to find out that they do not quite fit. "He (Jesus) and He alone can be trusted to fill the vacuums in your heart, to heal the wounds, and to consistently be the kind of friend we all yearn for.