John 17:1-2;14-17 (NASB)
1 Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You,
2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.
14 “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
15 “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.
16 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
17 “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.

When we approach Easter Sunday, we turn our thoughts to the sacrifice of our Savior and the resurrection of our Lord. I have to remember that it wasn’t the Roman scourging or the crucifixion that ultimately took His life. As bad as those were, it was the combination of being separated from the Father and the enormous weight of all the sin of the world for which He gave His life. It was our sin. It was my sin: past, present, and future. It was the sin that He accepted fully on the cross that led Him to say, “It is finished”.

Then came the ultimate miracle. The resurrection of Jesus was the final proof that He was who He said He was. The scripture record that God left behind as the Word of truth. When we accept that truth, we are transformed. Then as we study and live out that Word, it sanctifies us. It is in John 17, the High Priestly Prayer that tells us what He has in mind for us. He wants us, as long as we are on this earth, to grow His Kingdom.

John 17:20-21 (NASB)
20 “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;
21 that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Hosea 6:3,6 (TLB)
3 Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him, and he will respond to us as surely as the coming of dawn or the rain of early spring.’ ”
6 “I don’t want your sacrifices—I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me.

God demonstrated the relationship that He had with Israel through the life of the prophet Hosea. Hosea was faithful to his wife Gomer, yet she was unfaithful to him. God loved Israel, yet they were unfaithful to Him. Hosea, whose name means “salvation” found his wife, redeemed her, and brought her home again, fully reconciled. What a perfect picture of the mercy and grace that God demonstrates to us through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

God’s desire is that we know Him and love Him.

Do we pursue God to know Him with the same desire that He has had to love us first? I know I fall short each and every day. Yet, through prayer I can draw closer, getting to know this amazing God who has reconciled me to Him through Jesus Christ.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Philippians 3:8a,10a
8a: More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord
10a: that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings

Knowing Christ was Paul’s ultimate and uppermost goal. When we run to Christ, pursue him with all our being as the most important goal in our lives, everything else falls into its proper perspective. Our sin is then not something that we believe we need to manage, but rather we cling to Christ to break the power of sin in our lives.

Oh, how I fall short. I try to make it so much more complicated because I want to DO rather than just to KNOW Him. I pray as He continues to sanctify me, that I will rely on His word and our prayer time to know Him more each and every day, counting all other things as loss.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Prayer is powerful. It can, when we are tuned into the will of God, cause God to answer with things miraculous. Why is it that I don’t treat it that way all the time? Why do my prayers sometimes seem to be weak?

Jesus talked about the power of prayer in Mark chapter 9, when the disciples tried to heal a demon possessed boy and they could not do it. Jesus had given them the power to heal, and yet in this situation they could not. When they asked Him what went wrong, Jesus simply said this…

Mark 9:29 (NASB)
29 And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.”

There is something very special about prayer, something that this side of heaven we can’t completely understand. However, we can still draw upon its power if we are persistent, have faith and believe.

George Mueller, who fed thousands of children by only relying on the power of prayer had to say this in his autobiography.

“It is not enough to begin to pray, nor to pray aright; nor is it enough to continue for a time to pray; but we must patiently, believingly, continue in prayer until we obtain an answer; and further we have not only to continue in prayer unto the end, but we have also to believe that God does hear us, and will answer our prayers. Most frequently we fail in not continuing in prayer until the blessing is obtained, and in not expecting the blessing.”

God wants us to expect an answer. If we pray hoping for an answer, then we really aren’t praying.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Revelation 5:8 (NASB)
8 When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

Our prayers are held by God in golden bowls, a sweet aroma to the Lamb.

Always praying for the Glory of God,

Mark 4:26-29 (NASB)
26 And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil;
27 and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows—how, he himself does not know.
28 “The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head.
29 “But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

This parable of Jesus is only recorded in the gospel of Mark. It is a parable about the Kingdom of God which reveals that our spiritual growth is a continual, gradual process. Our gradual growth in Christ is done by the Holy Spirit as He leads us. No one can be our Holy Spirit for us. And we can’t be anyone’s Holy Spirit either. That is particularly true in our marriage relationships.

If we desire to try to change our wife or our husband, it can only lead to disappointment. This is also true when we are single and contemplating marriage. If we are in a relationship where the other person wants us to conform to the image of who they think we should be, then they are trying to be our Holy Spirit. Trying to satisfy a partner in marriage in this way leads us down a path that God has not chosen for us and is destructive to both partners.

Prayer is the answer. I am so fortunate to be married to a patient woman, one that prays hard for me. She depends on the Holy Spirit to grow me as He wants.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Philippians 4:4-7 (NASB)
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!
5 Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near.
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians describes a church that loves Jesus. Let’s pray this week each day that your church would be like the church at Philippi.

Pray that we would be the people and the church that God wants us to be.

Always praying for the Glory of God,

Genesis 4:25-26 (NASB)
25 Adam had relations with his wife again; and she gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, for, she said, “God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, for Cain killed him.”
26 To Seth, to him also a son was born; and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the LORD.

Some commentators say the last sentence in verse 26 is a reference to prayer, others do not. The lineage from Seth led all the way down to Jesus. However, the lineage of Cain led to ungodly men. One of Cain’s offspring, Lamech was the first person to distort God’s plan for marriage by taking two wives. However, the offspring of Seth, led to men that “call upon the name of the Lord”. While the word prayer is not specifically used in this passage, it is likely that this was not only worship, but also prayer. In fact, these words were used several other times in the Old Testament and often linked to the building of an alter prior to calling on the Lord.

The building of an alter requires planning, dedication, and labor. It is not something that is done on a whim. And the worship that follows is not something that is taken lightly either. Prayer also requires planning, dedication, and yes labor, too. We have to be intentional about our prayer time.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Philippians 1:9-11 (NASB)
9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,
10 so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;
11 having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Paul had a profound love for the church in Philippi. And Christ has an amazing love for His church. It is His will that we continue to grow in love, that it will abound more and more as we draw closer to Jesus. How easy it is to be pulled down by the things of this world, yet the Holy Spirit will fill us with love, more and more each day until we are united with Christ.

Always praying for the Glory of God,

1 John 5:13-17 (NASB)
13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
14 This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
15 And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.

John presents some interesting thoughts on prayer in the 5th chapter of 1 John. In fact they are amazing promises. Clearly, he is writing to those who are Christians, giving us the confidence that if we as Christians ask according to God’s will, He will hear us.

It is a comfort to know that, but it also requires that we actively seek His will and allow the Holy Spirit to intercede and guide us. The Bible is our primary source of understanding God’s will, which is why it is so important to not only pray, but to study His word. It also implies here and is confirmed in other passages of scripture (John 15:7) that we should not come to Him with unconfessed sin, or our prayers will be hindered. If we come to Him having confessed our sins and praying in His will, not only will he hear us, but we “know” that we will have the requests that we have asked of Him.

Have you ever prayed a request and immediately had a sense that the prayer had been answered? I think that is what John is trying to say in these verses. George Mueller, who fed thousands of orphans with food provided in answer to prayer, said: “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance. It is laying hold of God’s willingness.”

Always praying for the glory of God,