Tag Archive - prayer

How do you pray?

March 17, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

I have been watching the DVD’s from Andy Stanley called He still has the whole world in His hands, and the second message of the series really stuck with me the last couple of weeks/days.

I took his message from Phillipians 4:4-7

4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (NIV)

Now, this is a really well known piece of scripture, and I do think that we tend to read over this without getting the meaning of this.

The whole teaching series of Andy Stanley is about the people in the USA that has lost their jobs, and then sit in church saying, that is all good and well that you say God will take care of me/you, but you don’t know what I am going through. I think this is very relevant to most people today, across the whole world, as everybody is struggling in some way or another.

But we need to know the scenario in which Paul wrote this piece of scripture, especially verse four.

4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Do you know that Paul was at this stage in jail, sitting there for almost 2 years awaiting trail by the Roman Emperor, which in the end never happened, and he got decapitated without ever standing trail to defend himself against the accusations brought against him by the Jews? You obviously also know that Paul was before he was thrown in jail, stoned, flogged, etc. all in the name of God?

Now then, I really think that when Paul writes that we need to rejoice, no matter what, he means it, and we need to learn to do it ourselves.

Andy Stanley further points out that in verse 6 Paul uses words that usually doesn’t get associated with prayer. Words like ‘petition’ and ‘thanksgiving’. Going back to the original Greek text, he points out that what Paul was trying to convey here, is that we need to stop praying the easy little questions, and we really need to start praying for that inner fears and feelings we have.

We need to get down to our fears and feelings, and stop praying only for a job. Why do you want/need a job. What are you afraid will happen if you don’t get that job, etc.

I have been applying this in my prayer for a while now, and all I can say is that once you start getting down to you real fears and feelings, and putting them before God, quite a bit of weight gets removed from your shoulders, as you can trust the God will take care of them.

Kick up the backside

October 20, 2009 in Challenges with 0 Comments

I read this blog post from Mark Betterson yesterday.

Now this post is everything that I needed, to get a wake up call, in term of my quite time with God.

For a long time I would get up at 4am in the morning to do Bible study and simply to have time during the day, where the house would be quiet and I could really listen to God, but due to my weak human nature, of wanting everything in life to be comfortable and easy, I let that slip, which resulted in me not being at the spiritual level that I want to be at.

Thanks to Mark, I have once again started, this morning, to focus on my quiet time with God, and I pray that I will be back at the place I need to be sooner rather than later.

Real Religion

October 1, 2009 in Challenges with 0 Comments

James 1:13-27 (The Message)

Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.So, my very dear friends, don’t get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.

Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.

But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.

Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

Reading this passage has so many different meanings in my life.

I have been lately agitated by Organised Religion, in it not being real. It being people that goes to church on Sundays and pray to the Lord, and then when they walk out of the church service, they carry on with their lives, and not give anything to anybody.

I have a huge issue with this dualism in life. How can we, as believers, think that we can separate God from daily lives? How can we get onto the golf course and cuss like it is nothing, and the very next day, walk into church and make as if we are holier than thou?

I have been guilty of this for a very long time in my life, being the biggest two faced person I knew. I served in the worship team at church, but for the rest of the week, I would be worldly in every way possible.

I have been saved by grace, since then, and just realised yesterday, that satan doesn’t like this at all. He is pulling out all the stops to try and get me to turn off the road I am currently on, and to go back to my old ways. Thank the Lord for the fact that I know He loves me, and is standing by me, in every situation.

I do want to ask all of you however to pray for me, to stand strong in this journey of mine, and to go after my studies with fervour, and me seeking the Lord in all that I do.

I love all of you, and if there is anything that you need prayer for in your life, please let me know, and I will set up a specific time every day to pray for each and every one of you.

That feeling of helplessness

September 27, 2009 in Challenges with 1 Comment

So, last night we had a bit of a long night with BabyGirl that would be crying every other hour. And not just crying, but you can really hear that something is hurting somewhere. All would be allright, if she was able to tell or show you where what is hurting, but alas, she is only starting to learn some word at this stage in her life, and through all the crying, she is unable to show you what is hurting.

At 3 in the morning, this is moments of nightmares for me. I hate it to feel helpless. To be standing next to her cot, trying to console her in some way, whichever way possible, just so that she can get a good nights rest, as well as me.

Sitting here, I was just thinking how God, our Father, must feel sometimes, when we are crying, unable to hear His voice, and unable to help ourselves? How do you get back to that point where you can just keep quite, and listen. God always has an answer, not like us, that sometimes simply don’t have a clue. But the fact that God has the answer, means nothing if we can’t hear what God wants to tell us.

My way of getting to that place of quite again varies quite a bit, depending on the place I am, as well as the situations in my life, but more often that not, it help me to just sit down and PRAY! Just confess, and talk. It sometimes feels for me like I am babbling at God, but I know that He doesn’t care. He just loves to hear what we have to say and ask, and more often than not, He will give you the answers that you are looking for. Maybe not right away, but they will come.

May I just get to that point, when I am feeling helpless in helping my own child. To just take a moment, get silent, and focus on God, and let God do the helping in that situation, and not try to do it on my own.

Philippians

September 9, 2009 in Challenges with 13 Comments

This morning, as I started my new way of spending time with the Lord by prayer jogging, after reading the Bible, I read Philippians 1, and the verses that stood out for me was verse 27-28

Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel

without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved–and that by God.
This just got me back to the point where I realised, yes God has a major plan for my life, and He is not sitting back and not doing anything, but in the mean time, I must do whatever I do, in order to glorify Him as well as the Gospel.
This gave me strength for the day, and today I am expecting great things from Him, while being content with what I have and with what I am able to do.

Prayer jogging

September 8, 2009 in Challenges with 26 Comments

Ok, so from tomorrow morning onwards, I am going to start a new routine in trying to get closer to God and to really make time in my day to just connect with Him.

This is an idea I got from JR Briggs, even though I know that it is a commonly done routine, known as Prayer Walking.

Now, I need to get myself back into shame, and quickly by that, and time is a bit of a problem for me, so from tomorrow morning at 4:00am, I am going to get up, do a quick bit of Bible study, and then I am going to go prayer jogging. At this point in time, my focus while doing this is going to be what I need to do with regards to my job and everything, and I really believe God is going to speak to me in very interesting ways while doing my Prayer Jogging.

Later on, I also want to start to pray for my community that I live in, and really bring God back to the people around us.

If there is any of you in the Centurion, South Africa area that would like to join me in this challenge, feel free to contact me, and we can arrange something to make this work.

Prayer Requests

August 26, 2009 in Challenges with 1 Comment

prayer1

Again, we have 2 babies and families that are in dire need of miraculous intervention form our Lord.

I want to ask you to join us in prayer for the following two cases

Please pray for Alecia and Christo’s baby girl, born 27 August 2009. She is currently in ICU weighing less than 700grams.

Please pray for her to stay healthy and to grow big and strong, so she can be a testimony for our Lord as a living miracle.

Please pray for Jean-Luc and his parents Johan and Leatitia.

Jean-Luc is a couple of months old and is having heart surgery tomorrow, 27 August 2009. Please pray for healing and peace and joy and a long life for him and his parents.

Thank you all

I am again trusting in the Lord to show us a miracle, as he did with the little baby girl a couple of months ago, and please post your prayers in the comment section of this post.

God’s Word

July 22, 2009 in Challenges with 1 Comment

Hebrews 4:12-13

God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey.

Nothing and no one is impervious to God’s Word. We can’t get away from it-no matter what.
Sitting this morning, thinking what God has in store for me and my life I got this scripture.
Now it kind of hit me between the eyes, as I am sitting at a place where I need to make a change in my life regarding my job as what I do with my time. I enrolled at the seminary a couple of weeks ago, and am going to do a certificate in Worship, and then carry on from there to do my pastoral degree.
I would love to be in full time ministry, just making music to the glory of our Father all the time, but I am also a realist, in that these things take time, especially when you have been in the work force for 10 years already. Now, if you know God has a plan for your life to make music, but you don’t have any options at this stage in life to simply make that move, how do you manage that.
My current job is sapping my soul, and I need to make a move, and I do have some options, but to stay in the same career. Is this what God really wants for me, as a stepping stone, to get myself in a position to really go into ministry, or must I take the plunge?
I ask all of you to please pray for me on this matter, please…

Urgent prayer needed…

July 8, 2009 in Challenges with 6 Comments

baby girl

Would you all please pray with earnest for the following family…

The mom has given birth to a baby girl yesterday, 07 July 2009, but was told today that she has a kidney disease that is deadly.

This family has already lost a baby boy at one month old, due to this same disease, and they need a miracle from our Father, as nobody deserves to go through this twice.

Can we maybe all pray here on Unsafe Challenge for a miracle

Dear Father

You are almighty and good, and we trust in you to come to this families aid today, and to please remove this disease from this day old baby girl, in order for her to be a living testimony to you awesome power and love.

We praise you for who you are and for the love you have for us, as a sinful nation.

Glory be to You

Amen

A prayer challenge

June 23, 2009 in Challenges with 0 Comments

prayer1I want to put a challenge out there, and this comes from my own personal situation, and after reading the following blog post at Red Letter Believers.

What difference would it make to your everyday life at work, if you started to, first thing every day, pray for you office. Pray for the people that work with you in that office, and pray for the equipment in your office to work properly for the day. Also pray that God will give you the wisdom and strength to do your job, to the best of your ability as if you are doing it for him.

A lot of people, including me, look up to going to work, and would much rather be spending your time doing something else, but what difference would you be making in your life if you started with this discipline. Do you believe that God will make a difference to you, and you workplace, if you fervently started to pray for it?

I certainly do!

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