“Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him.” — Deut 8:6
Christian life is one of obedience which is voluntary – by choice as we are operating our faculty of freewill. This obedience however should be willing for ‘delayed obedience is disobedience.
Obedience of God should involve our whole being, where we ought to be cheerful, passionate, and joyful. Why? Because God has our best interest at heart…
Plan of Action
As you read scripture, list the truths & commands which you discover. Then make a decisive effort to obey each of them.
“Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” (Romans 10:1)
Paul prays that God would convert Israel. He prays for her salvation! He does not pray for ineffectual influences, but for effectual influences. And that is how we should pray too.
We should take the new covenant promises of God and plead with God to bring them to pass in our children and our neighbors and on all the mission fields of the world.
God, take out of their flesh the heart of stone and give them a new heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 11:19)
Circumcise their heart so that they love you! (Deuteronomy 30:6)
Father, put your Spirit within them and cause them to walk in your statutes. (Ezekiel 36:27)
Grant them repentance and a knowledge of the truth that they may escape from the snare of the devil. (2 Timothy 2:25–26)
Open their hearts so that they believe the gospel! (Acts 16:14)
When we believe in the sovereignty of God — in the right and power of God to elect and then bring hardened sinners to faith and salvation — then we will be able to pray with no inconsistency, and with the confidence of great biblical promises for the conversion of the lost.
Thus, God has pleasure in this kind of praying because it ascribes to him the right and honor to be the free and sovereign God that he is in election and salvation.
(By John Piper)
00Wafiq Harris-Ashbyhttp://www.hoperoadnazarene.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/hrn-logo-520x140-1.pngWafiq Harris-Ashby2017-06-20 08:57:002017-06-20 08:57:00How to Plead for Unbelievers
“This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2)
The first mark of the upright heart is that it trembles at the word of the Lord.
Isaiah 66 deals with the problem of some who worship in a way that pleases God and some who worship in a way that doesn’t. Verse 3 describes the wicked who bring their sacrifices: “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man.” Their sacrifices are an abomination to God — on a par with murder. Why?
In verse 4 God explains: “When I called, no one answered, when I spoke, they did not listen.” Their sacrifices were abominations to God because the people were deaf to his voice. But what about those whose prayers God heard? God says in verse 2, “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”
I conclude from this that the first mark of the upright, whose prayers are a delight to God, is that they tremble at God’s word. These are the people to whom the Lord will look.
So, the prayer of the upright that delights God comes from a heart that at first feels precarious in the presence of God. It trembles at the hearing of God’s word, because it feels so far from God’s ideal and so vulnerable to his judgment and so helpless and so sorry for its failings.
This is just what David said in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” The first thing that makes a prayer acceptable to God is the brokenness and humility of the one who prays. They tremble at his word.
(By John Piper)
00Wafiq Harris-Ashbyhttp://www.hoperoadnazarene.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/hrn-logo-520x140-1.pngWafiq Harris-Ashby2017-06-19 08:52:072017-06-19 08:52:07What Kind of Prayer Pleases God?
Willful Obedience
/in Steadfast Hope“Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him.” — Deut 8:6
Christian life is one of obedience which is voluntary – by choice as we are operating our faculty of freewill. This obedience however should be willing for ‘delayed obedience is disobedience.
Obedience of God should involve our whole being, where we ought to be cheerful, passionate, and joyful. Why? Because God has our best interest at heart…
Plan of Action
As you read scripture, list the truths & commands which you discover. Then make a decisive effort to obey each of them.
How to Plead for Unbelievers
/in Steadfast Hope“Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” (Romans 10:1)
Paul prays that God would convert Israel. He prays for her salvation! He does not pray for ineffectual influences, but for effectual influences. And that is how we should pray too.
We should take the new covenant promises of God and plead with God to bring them to pass in our children and our neighbors and on all the mission fields of the world.
God, take out of their flesh the heart of stone and give them a new heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 11:19)
Circumcise their heart so that they love you! (Deuteronomy 30:6)
Father, put your Spirit within them and cause them to walk in your statutes. (Ezekiel 36:27)
Grant them repentance and a knowledge of the truth that they may escape from the snare of the devil. (2 Timothy 2:25–26)
Open their hearts so that they believe the gospel! (Acts 16:14)
When we believe in the sovereignty of God — in the right and power of God to elect and then bring hardened sinners to faith and salvation — then we will be able to pray with no inconsistency, and with the confidence of great biblical promises for the conversion of the lost.
Thus, God has pleasure in this kind of praying because it ascribes to him the right and honor to be the free and sovereign God that he is in election and salvation.
(By John Piper)
What Kind of Prayer Pleases God?
/in Steadfast Hope“This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2)
The first mark of the upright heart is that it trembles at the word of the Lord.
Isaiah 66 deals with the problem of some who worship in a way that pleases God and some who worship in a way that doesn’t. Verse 3 describes the wicked who bring their sacrifices: “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man.” Their sacrifices are an abomination to God — on a par with murder. Why?
In verse 4 God explains: “When I called, no one answered, when I spoke, they did not listen.” Their sacrifices were abominations to God because the people were deaf to his voice. But what about those whose prayers God heard? God says in verse 2, “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”
I conclude from this that the first mark of the upright, whose prayers are a delight to God, is that they tremble at God’s word. These are the people to whom the Lord will look.
So, the prayer of the upright that delights God comes from a heart that at first feels precarious in the presence of God. It trembles at the hearing of God’s word, because it feels so far from God’s ideal and so vulnerable to his judgment and so helpless and so sorry for its failings.
This is just what David said in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” The first thing that makes a prayer acceptable to God is the brokenness and humility of the one who prays. They tremble at his word.
(By John Piper)