I’ve Prayed, now what?
Illus. by sermon central
Bill Broadhurst, who entered the Pepsi Challenge 10,000-meter road race in Omaha, Nebraska. Ten years earlier, surgery for an aneurysm is the brain had left him paralyzed on his left side. But on a misty July morning in 1981, he stood with 1,200 lithe- looking men and women at the starting line. The gun cracks! The crowd surges forward. Bill throws his stiff left leg forward, pivots on it as his right foot hits the ground. His slow plop-plop-plop rhythm seems to mock him as the pack fades into the distance. Sweat rolls down his face, pain pierces his ankle, but he keeps going. Six miles and two hours and twenty-nine minutes later, Bill reaches the finish line. A man approaches from a small group of bystanders. Bill recognizes him from pictures in the newspaper. He’s Bill Rodgers, the famous marathon runner. "Here," says Rodgers, putting his newly won medal around Bill’s neck. "You’ve worked harder for this than I have." Broadhurst had also been a winner. He didn’t win but he was faithful and finished the race.
We live in a now generation and society, everything is instant. We expect our computer access to our information to be instant, the preparation of our food, the way that we expect everyone to respond to us. Everything is now now now and when it’s not now now now, we grow tired and quickly move on or redirect our energy into other areas, or the next expectation of instant gratification!
Our prayer life is no different, we tend to pray feverishly for our needs and place them in God’s hands for a short time and if the answer or desired outcome is delayed, we take our efforts in another direction on what we think will be a quickly desired outcome.
Ephesians 6:13 MSG
Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out
What we have been given access to is a big deal! The shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the word, the breastplate of righteousness and the ability to access all those weapons through our prayers through the One True Living God, is a huge deal!
Let us never take what we have been given for granted! Through our relationship with Jesus Christ, we have been given access to the one true living God!
The same God who created the heavens and the earth! The same God who measured the galaxies in the universe with a span of his hand! The same God who spoke The world into existence and breathed life into man!
Sometimes we like to think because of our limited knowledge, that God is out there somewhere in the universe.
I heard Karen Wheaton say, “The universe doesn’t contain God! Everything that has been discovered, everything that is yet to be discovered in our galaxy, in our solar system, and what we know as to be the universe, is contained within God!!!”
Our world is part of God!
Have you ever googled earth? The location in which you live is a tiny area, viewed from outer space. You have to magnify your location hundreds of thousands of times times to see it. And you are even a smaller space within that space!
We are like a dot, on the dot, of the dot on the radar screen of life! And we, this tiny microscopic dot in the universe, have been given complete access to the creator of it all!
I mean think about it, if you were to go down to the local factory to apply for a job, you wouldn’t even get past the front door without an appointment. Much less be able to see the person who does the hiring, let alone the one in charge of the operation and certainly not the actual owner of the business!
And yet, through your relationship with Jesus God‘s only son you have been granted unlimited access, to the one who is responsible for the very air you breathe!
Your direct line of access and communication, is prayer!
When you get a new phone, what’s the first thing you learn how to do? The first thing you learn how to do is use the device, because if you don’t it will never be any use to you!
Far too many people including Christians, are to unfamiliar with how to use what they have been given and the ability to pray. We shouldn’t pray like a need to know basis, we should have the ability and attitude to pray like a need to flow basis!
A need to know basis, is a limited basis, a need to flow basis is unlimited direct access!
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 New King James Version (NKJV)
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
What the word is saying is, we should be in a continual state of prayer and communication with God! Our prayer life is our umbilical cord and life support system, that makes our measure of faith God has given to us, radioactive for every circumstance we encounter!
TBS With Men nothing is possible, but with God all things are possible! We don’t have to accept and we should never accept, the way things seem to be!
Far too many Christians are too willing to offer their own opinion as to what God’s will is. Leaving Far too willing to readily accept, with God all things are possible except for their circumstance. Like God’s will is less than what would be best for our well being or something!
James 1:17 New King James Version (NKJV)
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning
John 10:10-11 King James Version (KJV)
10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
Now we can set the record straight once and for all as for God’s will! God’s will is for you to have life and for your life to be abundant life! And God’s will, is backed by the fact that He willingly gave Jesus His Sons life, so you could and are able to enjoy His will anytime and all the time!
The accusers will for you is and will always be death!
Pray Gods will, God’s will changes hearts and circumstances! God’s will created everything, God’s will creates and produces miracles!
God’s will liberated His people from slavery to freedom from Egypt,
God’s will softened the heart of Jonah and delivered the massive city of Nineveh,
God’s will changed the heart of the prodigal son and returned him to his father,
God’s will has been and continues to do the impossible in every heart and situation given the opportunity!
Isaiah 49:24-26 MSG
Can plunder be retrieved from a giant,
prisoners of war gotten back from a tyrant?
But God says, “Even if a giant grips the plunder
and a tyrant holds my people prisoner,
I’m the one who’s on your side,
defending your cause, rescuing your children.
And your enemies, crazed and desperate, will turn on themselves,
killing each other in a frenzy of self-destruction.
Then everyone will know that I, God,
have saved you—I, the Mighty One of Jacob.”
This Scripture tells us that everything and anything is possible with God, and God’s will is to deliver us and cause our enemies to turn on themselves.
This scripture also tells us that anyone can pray and ask God to help them do the impossible in their lives and in the lives of those they love!
Abraham was a great man of God, Isaac His Son was a great man of God and both were very obedient. But Jacob, Jacob was known to have stolen his own brothers birthright, Jacob was a scoundrel.
But God’s will changes hearts doesn’t it? Jacob later in his life repented for what he had done and God forgave him and renamed him Israel, which means a man seeing God, a man triumphant with God!
We who have come to Know Jesus as our Lord and Savior, know and realize all of our names could easily replace Jacobs name in that scripture! Because God is not a respecter of persons and none of us are righteous, without the righteousness of God!
I believe God used Jacobs name in that scripture, to let us know anyone can make the decision to change, to call on his name and expect his help in the time of need!
2 Corinthians 5:16-20 MSG
16-20 Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.
God has called us to not only speak over our own lives in and through our prayer life. But also speak life and to speak his name which is life to everyone and everywhere we go.
The Bible says, God’s word does not return void! Gods Words run to and fro trying relentlessly to accomplish the tasks they have been given!
We have been chosen and given the assignment to spread the good news of Jesus Christ and the Salvation message! Including all the benefits that go with what Jesus accomplished on the cross for those who are willing to believe!
And the words of God we speak, the words our mothers and fathers spoke and the words that their mothers and fathers before them from the beginning spoke, are still seeking to accomplish the tasks and the requests, they have been given until they accomplish those tasks!
Which brings me back to my title I’ve prayed, now what?
Now you stand! You’ve done all you know to do in the Bible says now is the time to stand and to watch God take action!
Standing is an observation stance! It’s like when the commanding officer says, “at ease” standing allows you to rest in God’s abilities rather than your abilities!
How long must I rest?
My heart can sing when I pause to remember?A heartache here is but a stepping stone?Along a trail that's winding always upward,?This troubled world is not my final home. ??Chorus?But until then my heart will go on singing,?Until then with joy I'll carry on,?Until the day my eyes behold the city,?Until the day God calls me home.
Let our prayer be, “Lord help me to rest in your ability forever” until you accomplish the work you started in me!
Help us to Realize what we have been given and the power our prayers truly possess and the gift of faith and resting in God’s ability to give us his very best.... each and every time we call upon his name!
