Get Connected: A Daily Pattern for Prayer
"God Meet My Needs"
Matthew 6:11
Children writing to there pastor about prayer:
Dear Pastor, Could you say a special blessing for my Aunt Beatrice? She has been looking for a husband for 12 years and still hasn’t found one. Yours sincerely, Debbie. (Age 9, Duluth)
Dear Pastor, Do I have to say grace before every meal? Even when I am only having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?
Wesley. (Age 9, Baltimore)
Dear Pastor, Thank you for your sermon on Sunday. I will write more when my mother explains to me what you said. Yours truly, Justin. (Age 9, Westport)
Dear Pastor, Please pray for all the airline pilots. I am flying to California tomorrow. Laurie. (Age 10, New York City)
Dear Pastor, We say grace every night before we eat dinner even when we have leftovers from the night before. Yours truly, Jacki. (Age 9, Chicago)
Dear Pastor, I say my prayer before I eat my supper but my mother still makes me finish my spinach and drink my milk. Julie. (Age 9, Buffalo)
Dear Pastor, I know God loves me but I wish He would give me an "A" on my report card so I could be sure. Love, Theresa. (Age 8, Milwaukee)
Prayer we are learning about this very important part of our lives.
We are talking about getting connected with God through prayer. Growing in our intimacy with the Lord. This is our third message in this series I’ve titled called, “Get Connected: A Daily Pattern for Prayer.” God sets forth for us here in Matthew chapter 6 a pattern for daily prayer. How we can connect with God through prayer, how to know what to pray for, and how our prayers can be more effective so we can get the things we asking God for in prayer.
Two week ago we started our talking about God being our Father and how awesome He is and how hold He is. And how we need to start our prayers out focusing on praising God for who He is and all He has done for us.
Last week I shared what I believe was one of the most important message I have probably preaching in my entire life. We talked about this whole issue about the will of God.
We really want to know God’s will for our life but we really don’t want to do the will of God.
God I want you to tell me who to marry but I don’t want to go on a missionary trip. God I want to come to church and worship you but I don’t ask me to give up that sin that I want to hold onto.
God I want really want to get the job you want me to have but don’t ask me to feed a homeless person or to even go as far as to have that homeless person live in my home.
We are good at wanting to know the will of God but we are not doing as good a job at doing the will of God. Don’t miss the importance of that truth. God wants everything in your life. Are you willing to give that to Him? He says it’s either all or nothing. Do we live like that? So often I know that I don’t live like that.
My prayer is that we will be individuals and a church that not only takes about wanting to know God’s will but I want to be a group of people and a church that does the will of God. Don’t you want that? Don’t you long to live like that? God help us to be obedient to doing you will.
The Holy Spirit prompts us each day. If we are God’s child the spirit of God is trying to communicate to us and tell us what to do. Are we listening? Are we listening with a willing spirit?
So we start our prayer by saying…
“God I praise you.”
“God I want to do your will.”
The focus of this prayer changes here from the focus on God and who He is and His will and purposes to us and who we are and what are needs are.
Matthew 6:11 "Give us this day our daily bread." NAS
“God meet my needs”
God is telling us to come to Him and ask Him to meet our daily needs.
It is tough today to make the transition from “God I want to do your will” to “God meet my needs” but here we go.
I think even in the midst of “God meet my needs” there is the will of God in that if we will look for it. God has created you a certain way, with a certain personality, with certain gifts, talents, and abilities. And He has also created you with certain needs. If He created you with needs He wants to meet those needs.
Your needs are probably different than mine but the reality is we all have basic needs that we need met.
Matthew 19:12 "Some are born as eunuchs, some have been made eunuchs by others, and some choose not to marry for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” NLT
Now you see what Jesus is saying here? He is saying that God has created some people with the gift of celibacy. Eunuch is someone who does not get married. They are happy and content being single. Matter of fact God created them that way. It is normal for some people. There needs are met better single than being married. It’s God’s will for them to remain single. But if you don’t have the gift of celibacy, Paul writes in I Corinthians 7 better for you to get married than burn with lust.
So if you are single and don’t have the gift of celibacy it is probably God’s will for you to get married. So it would not be a selfish prayer to ask God, “Give me a wife.” God meet my needs. God has given you that need and you can prayer to God in faith believing to receive what you are asking for in prayer.
God meet my need today for bread. For most of us we don't think twice about this. We are pretty confident growing up how most of us have grown up in America that we are going to have food each day. Not much here to stretch our faith or to trust God for.
The promise for God here is if we ask for our daily needs. What the need is for us. He will give us what we are asking for.
There is continuance here, that God will each day continue to meet our needs.
i.e. - Hudson Taylor praying for daily bread.
“God give us our daily bread”, is an invitation for us to come and request things from God no matter how small they might seem nor how large they might seem.
God wants us to come and daily ask for Him to meet our needs because He wants and desires that we daily depend on Him.
He wants dependent children not independent children.
i.e. - Manna in the wilderness - the principle was to trust in God to meet your needs today. Don't worry about tomorrow. Just be concerned about today and ask God and trust in Him to meet your needs for today.
When you pray:
1. Ask God to give to you. "Give us..."
Jesus tells us to ask God to give to us.
Some people might think it is selfish to be thinking about your needs and asking God for things. No it’s not! Sorry, your not going to find that in the Bible. Matter of fact you find just the opposite. God encourages us time and time again to ask Him for things. And you know what? He never tires, He never grows weary, no matter how often we come to Him, not matter what time of the day. Morning, afternoon, evening, the middle of the night. It doesn’t matter. He wants us to come to Him and He wants us to ask Him for things so He might give to us. He encourages it. He is a generous gracious giving God.
Have you met people or maybe your one who loves to give things to people? God has made people that way. God is a giver and He loves to shower down gifts on His children.
Matthew 5:42 “Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.” NLT
If God commands us to give to those who ask us for something, don’t you think He will give to us if we ask Him for something?
i.e. – I love to give my daughters gifts. I can hardly walk out of a story without giving my daughters something they want. I’m a sucker at the checkout counter. All that candy, all those little gifts.
God made us to want to give and He is the greatest giver of all. He gave the greatest gift of all when He sent Jesus to this earth with one purpose in mind to die for our sins. To lay down His life for us. The gift of God’s salvation is the greatest gift we could ever receive from God. And you know what? It’s free.
I love free things. You want to get me to a store or an event offer something free. I’m there. Matter of fact it doesn’t need to be free, just write sale on it and I’m there or I’ll buy it. Sometimes even with something I don’t need.
Have you receive the gift of Christ. God says “My Son died for you sins to forgive you and I want to be my child, I want to give you an inheritance and I want to give you eternal life in a place far greater than the garden of Eden.”
That’s good news. That’s the greatest news ever. Do you have it? Have you received this free gift? You must accept it.
God said the greatest gift you could ever give to someone else is your own life. Nothing is more precious than this.
Romans 8:32 “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” NKJ Or all good things.
If the greatest gift ever is God giving us His Son. Won’t He also give us the good things that our good for us that we are freely asking Him for?
Have you heard the saying “It never hurts to ask.” That’s right, It never hurts to ask God for something. God never is going to scold you for asking Him for something. He’s never going to send you over in the corner of the room for a time out.
James 4:2b “Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.” NLT
Part of our problem lies right here. We are not praying regularly for anything. We are not believing God for anything. Our prayer life is hit and miss at best.
How are we ever going to get what we want and see a movement of God in our life if we are not praying to God and simply asking Him to meet our needs?
Jesus says pray this way “God give me my daily bread.” Meet my daily needs. Give me the things that will meet the needs I have right now.
Part of the problem for many of us lies right here…We are not asking God for anything.
Mathew 7:9-11“You parents if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.” NLT
i.e. – Chicken Nuggets vs. Rock; Cheese pizza vs. pizza with anchovies (fish); Ice cream vs. Dippen Dots.
You that have kids or grandkids. If they come to you and ask you for something that is good for them, will you give it to them? Don’t you?
i.e. – Something with a lot of sugar before they go to bed? Apple? When they ask for something that is good and really a need. You will gladly give it. You won’t give them something that is bad for them. How much more will God who loves perfectly give you what you really need.
Sometimes I am one of those parents that doesn’t act in love towards one of my daughters. And they might ask for something, but because I am busy or just don’t want to do it, or I’m selfish, I won’t give them what they ask for. My love for them is not a perfect love. My love for them is tainted by my sin. But God is not like me. He loves perfectly. So when we ask Him for something that is good for us and according to His will He hears and He answer and He gives.
Pray and tell God what you need. Let Him know.
Why should I let Him know, He knows already what I need? Won’t He just give it to me?
Remember what Jesus said in verse 8. Your Father in Heaven already knows what you need. But He has told us we don’t have because we are not asking. God wants us to ask. He wants to answer and He wants to give us what we need.
God wants a relationship with His children. What kind of relationship do you think we would have with God if we never prayed to Him about anything? Never poured our hearts desires out to Him? Never told Him how much we love Him and thank Him for all He has done for us? It would be no relationship at all. And there would definitely be no intimacy with Him. God so desires for us to have a intimate, personal, growing relationship to Him.
Relationship with my wife. What kind of relationship would I have with her if I rushed through my day without a thought of her? And I never thought about wanted to hear about her day. And what her needs are. And I didn’t want to see her and spend time with her. And I didn’t want to kiss her and hold her. It would be no relationship at all and are intimacy would definitely not be growing.
Doesn’t God deserve better? Do we really love Him? Or do we just say we love Him. He says “I already know what you need but come to me and ask me anyway so I can meet your needs. I say “Sign me up.” I want that in my life daily.
Don’t just pray for your daily needs. Intercede and pray for the daily needs of others.
Ask God to give to you.
2. Ask God daily and persistently. "this day"
We are suppose to daily come and ask. Wed aren’t suppose to let a day go by without coming to God and crying out to Him and telling Him our needs.
God wants us to have a daily prayer life. Don’t let a day go by without spending tie with God in prayer. No this is a not a quick prayer to bless the meal. Or we pray as we are falling asleep in bed. No this is a daily, regular time, just you and God together.
I think Jesus is also trying to communicate something deeper to us here as He shares this. This is not asking just once “God give me a job, or give me a wife, or give me the money I need to buy this thing I really need.” No! He is trying to get us to recognize that we need to be persistent in our prayers. To not give up until we get what we really need and are asking Him for.
The point is this continue to pray and ask God until He gives you what you need.
“If I say I love this person, but I never pick up the phone and call them, and I am so busy rushing through my day that I don’t take time to at least send an email note, and I don’t ask them out on a date, and I don’t buy them some flowers or some candy to show how much, then it really it’s love.”
The Psalmist in Psalm 88:13 “O Lord, I cry out to you. I will keep on pleading day by day.” NLT
I don’t come and ask God for it just once or twice. I unashamedly continue to come to Him and persistently cry out to Him and ask and ask until He answers me.
Hebrews 5:7 While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God. NLT
Jesus wrestled with God in prayer. If God wrestles with God in prayer how much more do we need too?
Sometimes we need to wrestle with God in prayer. And we need to cry out to Him, and plead our case before Him, and shed some tears before Him, and persist until God gives us an answer to our prayers. Christ did that with God in prayer.
Matthew 7:7-8 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” NLT
Jesus tells us here one of the keys to answered prayer is consistency and persistency. Are prayers can be more effective if we continue to ask God. If we continue to seek Him out for an answer. If we continue to knock until He comes and answers our prayer. It’s the child that continues to ask, seek and knock that receives what they are asking for in prayer.
i.e. – Has you child asked you for something and maybe at first you really don’t wont’ to give it to them? But because they continue to come and ask and ask and ask, you finally give them what they are asking for because they are so persistent.
Luke 11 parable
Ask for what we need. Ask daily and persistently.
3. Ask God specifically for what you want. “daily bread”
Jesus said when you ask God tell Him exactly what you need. Spell it out. Let God know what it is. “God give me some bread.”
What is your need?
Tell God:
Job
Money for college, money to buy something I need, etc…
Car
House
Spouse
Physical need met – mental healing, physical, spiritual, etc..
Etc…
What do you need? Be specific when you ask God.
Why should be specific when we pray?
One of the clearest answers might be how will we know when God answers our prayer if we don’t ask specifically for it.
We might write it off as just a consonance.
When people came to Christ they told Jesus what they wanted Him to do.
There’s a story in Mark 10 about a blind beggar man by the name of Bartimaeus. And he is sitting beside the road near Jericho when Jesus and the disciples were leaving the city. And he hears Jesus walking by and said out loud “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”
And people here this and say “Shuu… be quiet.”
And he shouted louder. I’m mean he is crying out Christ. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”
When Jesus heard this, he told them men to have him come to him. And they say to Bartimaeus “Cheer up he wants to see you.”
And he jumps up, throws his coat off and makes a beeline to Jesus. And Jesus says, “What do you want me to do for you?”
He said “Teacher I want to see. I want my sight back. Please heal my eyes so I can see.”
And Jesus said, “Your faith has healed you.” And the man was instantly healed and then followed Jesus down the road.
Why? Why did he do this? Why did he have Bartimaeus tell him what he wanted? Was it to embarrass this man in front of a crowd of people? Of course not! He just wanted Bartimaeus to tell him what he wanted him to do to stretch his faith in God.
That’s what God wants from us…for us to simple and verbally tell him exactly what we want from Him.
And we do it so our faith will grow.
Then when God answers our specific prayers, we need to write it down, so you can look back and see how God has been faithful to our requests.
God told the Israelites to do that in the O.T. “Write down what I have done for you so that future generations can read it and look back and see how faithful I have been.”
Philippians 4:6-7 "Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." NLT
Not only are we suppose to specifically ask God for something, we should be praying to God about everything in our life. There shouldn’t be any area of our life that we’re not praying and offering up to God.
Then Paul says… “Tell God what you need.” Spell it out for Him. Do we have to do that because God has a bad memory? Of course not! We spell it our for our sakes not God’s.
God wants to build up our spiritual faith. Our spiritual muscle. When we pray specifically for something and God answers just like we asked Him too, it builds spiritual muscle in our life.
We grow. We experience more of God’s presence in our life. We experience His hand of blessing upon us. We have His peace. That’s a good place for us to be.
Ask God for what you need. Ask God daily and persistently. Ask God specifically.
4. Ask God boldly.
i.e. - How my daughter Alexis asks for things. She is not afraid to boldly ask me for anything. My daughter has no shame when it comes to asking me for something.
We should be unashamed when we come and ask God for something. We need to pray with boldness when we pray.
Hebrews 4:15-16 “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testing’s we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.” NLT
Do we do that? Do we approach the throne of God with boldness asking for something great in His name?
This is the God of the universe I am approaching, He is all-powerful and He can answer my request, no matter how bold. Nothing is impossible with my God. I need to boldly come before His throne and make great requests of Him.
But most of the time are prayers are not bold prayers. We pray prayers like… “God bless me at work today. Bless me at home. Bless my kids. Bless my food. Give me a good night of sleep (most of us have more sleep than we need). Watch over me.”
These are not faith believing prayers. How do we expect God to change our family, our church, our neighborhood, and our lives with those kinds of prayers. I’m sure Satan really shakes in his red boots with those kinds of prayers.
John 14:13-14 You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it! NLT
God wants to glorify His Son. He wants to show His Son off. He wants to show He is all-powerful. But most of the time our prayers are not glorifying to God because we are not asking and believing Him for anything miraculously.
Eph. 3:20 “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.” NAS
God can do something far greater than anything I could dream to ask Him.
Isn’t that amazing? It’s that awesome?
I think we need to spend some time this week just dreaming up some great things to pray to God about.
We need to be bolder when we come to God is prayer.
Ask God to meet your needs.
Ask God daily and persistently.
Ask God specifically.
Ask God boldly.
“God meet my needs.”
