Lord, Teach Me To Pray Ask God Series

LORD, Teach Me To Pray

ASK GOD

by

Dr. Gale A. Ragan-Reid (May 28, 2014)

“They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand” (Habakkuk 1:9, King James Version, KJV [Habakkuk's prayer]).

Greetings in the Holy Name of Jesus,

My brothers and sisters, continue in prayer and Ask God, the fourth day of your seven day cycle. Habakkuk asked God, “How long shall he cry for he saw violence and captivity and God did not save (1:2, KJV)?” How many of you feel you are exposed to those people who relish violence as much as a meal at supper time? It seems those folks received but you ask yourself, “Do they believe in God? Why did God give them wealth? Why do they walk all over us in power and authority doing as they will to destroy us, taking our property and possessing that which is not theirs to possess, wreaking havoc at every turn killing their own as well as others without a conscious?

Why did God place violence in their hearts? Why are they gathering us up in captivity again?” God judged the tribe Judah. Sometimes we feel we can keep on keeping on in sin against God because he loves us and provided a plan of salvation. He even promised and did send Christ Jesus, foretold in prophesy during the time of Habakkuk the prophet yet he saw the heathen in the power and authority that the tribe Judah had---that the tribe Judah used to have in the glory of God.

Habakkuk saw the vision and cried out to God. It's not a good feeling when you used to be the most loved of God with his favor. It's not a good feeling when you used to have the wealth of God and your wealth is known to all near and far. It's not a good feeling when God lets the heathens the unbelievers excel in power and strength over you denying you as you denied your God when you chose to sin in His presence for all to see how you denied your God even though His will provided you a salvation plan in spite of your disobedience and placed you in saving grace. It's not a good feeling when you receive wrong judgment, when you are cast in captivity and when your God does not save you?

God answered Habakkuk (vs.2-4):

“...Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may

run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time,

but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait

for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold, his

soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall

live by his faith.”

What happens when God does not defend you, when God does not save you and permits the heathens to have their way with you? Do you even pray when you get to such a place in your heart when your desires get as large as hell and there is no satisfying you because you are as death? You even surround yourself with all the people of the earth as if they love you yet they taunt you with their proverbs and wait to rise up against you because you spoiled many nations to get what you have and now the remnants of those nations surely rise up against you. You are without God---in battle and war without God, now the trouble is ready to consume you because many of your own people you cut off thinking you could covet them taking what they had setting yourself up on high as a nest so no evil would come to you. God said, “Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood and established a city with iniquity!” (2:12).

Even more so, Judah worshipped graven images of wood laiden in gold and silver, denying their God. “But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.” (v.20) Habakkuk prayed for mercy for Judah so God would revive his works (3:2) How many of you are so hell bent in

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your desires that the divine works in the church are met with division, you are your own worst enemy and no one can work with you, for you alone you convinced yourself are the only one when if the truth be told you are but a mere member of the one body---the church the bride of Christ Jesus and the works of God suffer for your wickedness, your sins against God?

Is it not your vanity that weary the people and insufferably so do you not miserably fail to fill the earth with the knowledge of God's glory? God said, “Behold is it not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity? For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” (2:13-14) What happens when false leaders do not move out of the way so the one body the church can be about the business of God and do the divine works of the LORD? Habakkuk said in prayer, “He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.” (3:6)