Friday, August 19, 2022

Ask Now

Prayer is a right now kind of thing. Not a later thing. "Pray without ceasing." - 1 Thessalonians 5:17 KJV My answer to 'Will you pray for me.' is often 'Yes, Lets pray together right now.'

There may be no later. You may forget. Pray now and later also. Great... It will be now again really soon.

If something is urgent and important when do you do it? Later? No, stuff you do later can wait. It isn't important enough to do now.

If your prayer is some religious exercise by all means.. do it later... much much later. If it is you touching Heaven because of love why wait? That can't wait. I want to run to him breathless asking for what only He can give.

"The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." - James 5:16b ESV

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit' - yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." - James 4:13-17 ESV

"For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." - Romans 14:23b ESV

Our good intentions mean nothing. Our words don't have power in and of themselves. Just try to tell someone else's dog to do something if you want to find out. Unless that dog is very well trained to listen to other people he or she isn't going to do what you say. If a dog won't listen to you why should God?

Everything God does, including answering prayer, glorifies Him.

I'm not saying God does things BECAUSE they glorify Him. I'm saying that what He does always has that result.

"The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works." - Psalm 145:17 ESV

"For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." - James 1:7-8 ESV

Does God withhold things because the double-minded man is a bad boy? No, God answers the prayers of bad people all the time. God isn't glorified by answering that prayer so He tells us beforehand that He isn't going to.

Wow!

Glory ishas two meanings which overlap. Brightness and the revealing of something to show it is amazing.

"... glorify God in your body." - 1 Corinthians 6:20b ESV

When I see people talking in public and suddenly one person takes the hand of another person and they both bow their heads... even if they are too far away for me to hear what they are saying I recognize something.

'These people are talking to God.'

That public act glorifies God. It puts the focus on Him. I see two people but I am mentally looking into Heaven to see the One they are talking to.

There are no formulas here. I'm not saying later is bad. I just want to give God fresh prayers that boil over not warmed up leftovers.

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