Your Father Knows Your Need

YOUR FATHER KNOWS WHAT YOU NEED BEFORE YOU ASK HIM. Matthew 6.8.

What great confidence this promise should afford us and how great an encouragement it should be to you and me in our daily prayer life! There are some who say, “If God already knows what we need, then there is no need for us to pray!” But in today’s passage, the Lord dealt with that myth by encouraging us to pray and even teaching us how to pray for our daily needs. When you read from the Bible about prayer and learn what the LORD Jesus teaches about it, you will find it to be very simple. It is so straightforward that even a little child could understand and begin to pray!

I am interested in prayer and I am always eager to learn more about prayer. It is because I want to pray better and of course I want to get all my prayers answered – prayers for myself and for others. It is also because of the disappointments and frustration I experience when ‘I don’t get some of my important prayers answered’. I often wonder why it should be so when the Lord told us that prayer is just ‘asking God and receiving!”

Let us take a fresh look at the things about prayer that the Lord Jesus taught and seek to follow them. They are fundamental to your prayers and essential for God’s answers.

“When you pray” - You and I must pray and continue in regular daily prayer if we expect answers from God.

“Do not be like the hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full” – You and I must be sincere when we pray and pray to God and not for people to hear, if we want God our Father to answer!

“When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen” - You must find a definite place so that you can pray in secret without being disturbed and pray there regularly. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Hypocrites love to pray in public but saints pray in private!

“When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans”. They think they will be heard because of their many words – Be natural and tell your Father what you need. There’s no need to beat around the bush! Doesn’t God know even before words are out of your mouth? He knows all the details!

“Do not be like them” for your Father knows what you need before you ask him – Repeating the same words or the same thing in different words are what pagans do. Praying by rote or rosary is not what God wants. Let your prayer be humble, straight to the point and from your heart.

"This, then, is how you should pray,” said the Lord, and gave us what we know as the Lord’s prayer – which is to be ‘Our prayer to the Father’.

We have the simplest of prayers here, taught by the ‘Master Pray –ER’ Himself in today’s passage. I never cease to wonder at its simplicity and straightforwardness and pray it often.

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, teach me to pray like You. Help me to pray like You. Father in heaven who sees and hears my secret prayers, grant me the things I need in life, which You already know. Amen.

Set Minds On Things Above

SET YOUR MINDS ON THINGS ABOVE, NOT ON EARTHLY THINGS. COL 3.2.

These days, increasingly we are hearing ‘the voice and message of the world’ in the Church! Economics and financial issues and even politics, have become burning topics of sermons and seminars. It is not without reason, for most of the urban churches today have become the cradle of the rich, famous and powerful. There are no poor in our churches and if there are, they are ignored! Looking at the urban churches of today, those with discerning minds cannot but concede that we may be truly in what may be called the ‘Laodicean period or state’!

The risen Lord who walked in the midst of the Laodicean church had this to say to the leaders, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. …You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Rev 3.15-17).

I once heard a preacher earnestly encouraging the people in a large and prosperous city church to spend time with God that they may hear His voice and get direction for their lives. But it so happened that all his illustrations were about how God frequently ‘gave words’ which when the people obeyed, they gained vast riches and greater prosperity and health!

In contrast, I remember a small church in the city where I once preached. It was a church of the poor, working class believers. Their theme for that year was, ‘Be you holy, because I am holy!” They invited me to teach them ‘lifestyle personal evangelism’ in their eagerness to reach out to the lost.

Wealth and honour come from the Lord (1 Chr 29.12). You needn’t seek after it. It is high time that the church of Jesus Christ and its leaders seriously consider ways and means to separate themselves from ‘the world and its lusts - interests’. Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all the things you need will be added to your life” (Mt 6.24).

Dear believer, the Word of God clearly states, “greed is idolatry”. But it has entered the Church by the backdoor, camouflaged in the present-day prosperity gospel and millionaire seminars!! See how greed is equated in the Bible with all other serious sins! Dear believer, you are cautioned , “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived” (Col 3.5-7).

We need much spiritual wisdom and courage to live in this world and not to be of this world; to walk on the earth but be heavenly minded! But it is possible to the one who believes and acts! Will you?

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, , let me not be entrapped by the snares of the riches of this world that I have no time to labour for the riches of heaven through reading Your Word, prayer and ministering daily in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rend My Heart

REND YOUR HEART AND NOT YOUR GARMENTS. RETURN TO THE LORD YOUR GOD, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Joel 2.13.

There is an alarming rise in the incidence of ‘superficiality in spiritual things’ in our churches that frightens devout leaders and believers too! It was very much so in the days of Joel, the prophet amidst the ancient people of God, Israel.

When God spoke to them through Joel and condemned them for their sins, they responded only with a ‘superficial conviction and repentance’. According to their custom, they ‘rend’ their clothes, which was the usual manner of expressing sorrow. God saw through the veneer of their external attitudes and recognised what was in their hearts. Through Joel, God accused them of their hypocrisy and insincerity. He told them in stern words, “Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God”.

What about you and I today? Are we ‘playing church and religion’ like the old Israelites? The other Sunday during a solemn church worship, there was a young couple, married or not I don’t know, who were hugging, cuddling and caressing all the time, disturbing those around them! It is not a few who answer their phones loudly or send SMS unashamedly during the service. Talking to one another and joking while singing songs are very common among the youth. There are adults who pay no attention to the preaching or simply sleep and snore even! Many are those who ‘hear but do not hear’ so that their minds are blank and the Word does not benefit them!

There are times when you and I raise our voice or hands when we pray but we do it out of practice or in our eagerness to impress others! There are those who ‘lightly’ practice slaying people or ‘making them fall’ to the ground. There are people who make it a habit to ‘fall at any suggestion’ but without any spiritual or physical effect whatsoever! Some capitalize on prophesying because there are always those who hunger for a ‘word from the Lord’ whether they take note of it and obey it or not! We engage in speaking in tongues in a very glib manner not realising that it is a divine manner of conversing with the Lord.

Thank God there is still a good number who worship the Lord in spirit and truth. One would find here and there sincere souls shedding tears as they sing with the joy of the Spirit. However, observing the spiritual stage of today, it is time for you and I to hear afresh what Joel had to say to Israel, “Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing”. There is calamity everywhere, even in our own lands! It is God’s megaphone to call us to attention to Him!

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, forgive me for the times when I am like the Israelites, rending my clothes but not my heart. You look at the heart. Make me honest and sincere in my heart in all that I do in Your presence. Amen.