3. It’s not a perfection, His grace fills in or gaps when we obey and love one another…(What to pray for and how)

Jn. 13: 35 By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.

Who’s disciples are we? Jesus’s. How will all people know this? Our love for one another.

I pray that all may be one…that the world may believe that you have sent me. Jn. 17:20,21

Jesus prayed that all his disciples would be one, so that the world would believe that God the Father sent Him. So obviously all us disciples aka believers or the saints being in one accord must be a very important testimony. Jesus told His disciples this would be a testimony to the world and He also prayed to the Father for it. This shows us that there is a special relationship between all believers. We have the most precious thing in common of after all, Jesus Christ.

We’ve all had our ups and downs with our fellow believers, The word tells us,  “Love covers a multitude of sins“. We all know we’re to love each other and forgive each other’s faults. We also know the truth is,  this is sometimes easier said then done.  It’s also true that in some circumstances, even among the saints it’s better to keep a casual relationship. Sometimes two people just can’t seem to get along. Sometimes people get along great but they seem to always get into trouble together, or maybe one is a drain on the other one spiritually. It happens, even in the church. We wont pretend it doesn’t. We’re saved but we’re still human, we’re still very flawed.

Being one doesn’t always mean everything is swell, but it should mean we all have the same purpose in our lives. We’re all running the same race. To bringing God the glory by becoming more like Christ. Christian means Christlike and that should be our aim. Individually and as a group.

Even if there’s that one person, you just don’t understand. You can’t get along with, or it’s better to stay away form. Your to love them, and we’re to me one. An important part of this is in prayer for each other, as Jesus prayed for us. Prayer for others is an act of love.

  Even so, I want you to, beware of four things when you pray for others. One, becoming too focused on other people’s sin or troubles to notice your own. Or don’t go to the other extreme, and be to afraid to talk to God about someone else when we have so many issues ourselves. We need to pray for other’s needs, including issues of sin. Third, don’t become overly focused on one person.This can be a sign that they’re taking up too much space in our minds and/or hearts. Be careful not to let them become an idol. Fourth. Don’t be afraid to pray for yourself as if your not worthy of prayer. It’s not about being worthy, If Jesus loved you enough to die for you, He loves you enough to want to hear your needs as well. He loves you as much as anyone else. BELIEVE IT.

Also we should regularly pray for the church as a whole, the saints we know and saints we don’t. If your going through something, you can assume someone else, out there, is going through that something. If your feeling discouraged, pray about it, for yourself and then add in, a prayer for anyone else who going through the same. This is an act of love.

I know all this can seem overwhelming, that your to pray for everyone’s everything. So you know,  It’s Okay to be brief, when your not sure of what’s going on in someone’s life. It’s Okay to pray for everyone you know at once. It’s Okay to pray the moment you see something to pray about and then move on. As long as your heart in the right place your obeying God, by praying for His church. It’s not a perfection, His grace fills in or gaps when we obey and love one another. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.“Cor. 12:9 Your Prayers are an act of love. We should just be real with God, and talk to Him about things we see.

It’s  our calling to be one. To love one another, you’ll find the more you pray for others, the more your love for them will grow. I’ve heard it said, many times that if your having trouble forgiving someone, a great way to began is to pray for them. Not that they’d see how the wronged you, but for their every need. Praying for each other is a great way to demonstrate to God or love, but also to grow in our love for each other.

The world may not hear our prayers but as our love grows they will see it. Jesus said, people know we fallow Him if we love one another.

Please pray for all the saints after you read this. Pray that we would all be one, in prayer and action. That even though we’re flawed and don’t always see eye to eye, that our love for each other would grow. That we would pray for each other and forgive one another. If there’s anyone you have trouble, with or forgiveness towards, please pray for them now. Any needs, you see, pray. Pray that you’d better understand and have compassion for those around you. Pray that your own love would grow for them. Pray that their love would grow for you.

I pray that whatever need you have in your life right now, that God in the name of Jesus would secure you in the faith that His grace is enough and He will come to your aid and fill your need. Amen.

Please pray also for anyone with that same need today.

Remember how much Jesus loves the church. Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. Eph.5:25.  Lets be Christlike have that love for each other in prayer.

2 “What does that word Supplication mean anyway?” (What to pray for and how)

 

Praying always with all prayers and supplication in the Spirit(Holy Spirit). Eph. 6:18.

That’s the “How”, I think the “What” will be that we’d know what that word Supplication means?

Couple more questions:

Is supplication prayer? Yes. Is prayer supplication? Not always. Prayer is talking to God. We thank Him, we praise Him. We complain to Him.We causally make request of Him. We sometimes just sharing our thoughts with Him. All this is considered prayer.  It’s not supplication, lets look at the definition of supplication:

sup·pli·ca·tion

noun

 the action of asking or begging for something earnestly or humbly.”he fell to his knees in supplication”

Interesting that it’s a noun. Remember 3rd grade? A noun is a person, place or thing. Yet the definition says it’s an action of asking or begging. Most of the time we’d think of prayer as an action. Us praying. Praying must be producing something. It produces a Prayer, of course! So is a Prayer,  something that can be held in your hand? Well maybe not our hands but there are places in the Bible that speak of the prayers of the saints being held in bowls. I’m not going to get into this being literal or figurative. There’s something spiritual going on here for sure. Either way it’s clear that somehow,  prayers become nouns. Back to 3rd grade,  they’re not a person they’re not a place, but prayers are  most certainly a thing. When we think of our words to God as not just vapors, fleeting thoughts and words, but something God can hold. It makes us, I believe, more aware of how  precious to the LORD our prayers are.

Now that we’ve established that prayers are nouns, lets look at the prayers that are Supplications. The first part of the definition is obvious and common. Asking. When we have prayer request, we don’t say “Would you supplicate for my mom?” No, we say, “Would you pray for my mom?” A request is supplication, even if we don’t use that word. The second part is, Earnestly. I find that interesting because earnestly means that your sincere, that you really mean what your saying. It seems obvious but then again, how many times have we prayed a prayer just because someone ask us to? Or because everyone else said “Amen” at the appropriate time, so we did too? Earnestly would mean you actually care about the outcome. Not just in the, “Sure I care.” but really truly care. We all battle with, being more concerned with things that don’t really matter. We all battle with self more than anything. We might too concerned our own wants or our own disappointments, to really have our hearts in it. We must, only by the power of the blood of Christ fight against this, to be earnest in your prayers.

 The 3rd word is Humbly. Here we are battling self again. Sometimes we even get angry with God, that He hasn’t done what we’ve been asking for. We feel we’re entitled to what we have coming. Well when we remember what we really had coming when Jesus stepped in and saved us filthy sinners, it kinda knocks us down a peg. Again this something we all struggle with. We must remind ourselves that God is the creator of all . He owes us, the creation nothing. Yet look at all He give us, including the right, yes he gives us the right, to come into His thrown. The thrown of what? Grace. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, Heb. 4:6. We only have the right to come to Him because of HIS grace. Grace is not what we deserve, grace is what He gives out of love.

So when the Bible talks about supplication, lets not just glaze over this uncommon word, lets remember the three: asking (or begging) ,earnestly, humbly. We need to check our own hearts, we can’t overcome our Self, on our own. Again it’s by His Grace that we can do so.

So lets pray for our request to be real supplications to God. That we’d understand the meaning of supplication, when we read or hear it. Pray that we come boldly to the thrown of grace, remembering that it’s grace that brings us there (Humbly). That His Son’s blood was shed so we could come, not because of anything we’ve done. Lets pray that we’d let all our request be known to God. Philip. 4:6(Asking) that we’d mean it with our whole heart, (Earnestly). Pray that the Lord search our hearts and correct us where we’re wrong, by the faith in the blood of His Son. That we’d remember that our prayers are precious to out Lord and Savior.

for the Glory of Christ…

Lord I’m angry (Prayer example…

 Lord I’m angry. I could tell you all the reasons why but you already know. I know I should forgive, but right now I’m not feeling that! In my head I know I have no right not to forgive.  I sin myself. You who are perfect and never sin forgive me. You love me anyway and I should love them as well. What right as a forgiven sinner, have not to forgive others? I sometimes feel forgiving them is excusing what they did to me, as if it’s OK when it differently is NOT OK.

But you never tell me my sin is OK, that what I do to others including You is OK when it’s not. You just forgive me out of love. Well right now, logically I know I should forgive I don’t feel it. I know I should love them but I don’t feel it. So Lord, I’ll say this:

 I choose to forgive them, I choose to love them. But right now in my heart I’m not there. I ask  you , please, out of Your great LOVE, make it real in my heart. So I can be more like you. Forgiving like you and loving like you!  Let me show the love and forgiveness of Christ. In Jesus name, Amen.

1. Trust He understands you…”I bow my knees to the Father…that He would grant you…to be strengthened with the might of the Spirit.”(What to pray for and how)

 

I bow my knees to the Father…that He would grant  you…to be strengthened with the might of the Spirit. Eph. 3:13,16

Why are we able to pray for the Holy Spirit to do this?

And there came a fire out from before the LORD, and consumed  the altar the burnt offering and the fat: and when all the people saw it they gave a loud cry, falling down on their faces. Lev. 9:24

After the sacrifice was made for the people’s sin, the Spirit of God came down and the people worshiped seeing this awesome power! People are sinful and God is Holy so He cannot be with them. Sin’s Punishment being death, there must be death to atone for us. I remind you of this because we must always keep in mind that we can only approach God because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.

By this which we are sanctified(made holy) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Heb.10:10.

When we pray for the Holy Spirit to strengthen one another as  Paul was for the Ephesians, we can ask because Jesus made atonement once and for all. We know God freely gives His spirit to the saints.

We’re praying with the power of the Holy Spirit!

Likewise the God’s Spirit also helps us because we are weak. We do not know how  we ought to pray. But God’s Spirit Himself prays on our behalf. He cries to God on our Behalf in a way that nobody could say with words. Rom. 8:26

SO AWESOME!

The Bible tells us things we should pray for, but much of how prayer even works can be a mystery. However God”s Spirit, the Holy Spirit knows. Living with in us, even though our feeble minds cannot fully grasp it. Even when our feelings but cannot be put it into words God knows. Don’t talk to the LORD as if he’s someone you have to explain things perfectly to. I know some Prayer “Experts” like to tell you there’s  certain words you must pray in order to be effective. As if God is unable a to misunderstand you. As if He might even misunderstand you. How could this be?!  God knows everything in our hearts. Psalm 44:21 would God have discovered it, since He knows the hearts?

God knows everything!  He is not capable of misunderstanding.

When  our heart is right and our words are wrong, He knows our weakness and hears our heart instead. Don’t let anyone intimate you out of praying! Many pray out of pride and sound wonderful, again God knows their heart as well.“They have received their reward” Matt.6:5

Back to our title verse: I bow my knees to the Father…that He would grant you…to be strengthened with the might of the Spirit. Eph. 3:13,16

Pray for the Spirit of God to strengthen all members of the church. That they would be living in the might of His Spirit. Not for themselves but for His Glory. Pray for areas of weakness you  see in the church or in yourself. Pray that everything we do is in His might and brings glory to His name. Pray relaying on the fact that His cross has brought you to the presence of God to pray, and that God Himself now lives within you and prays though you, even when your lost for words. All this is possible because of His sacrifice for you, we must keep that ever present in our minds. Know as you pray that words might fail you but God hears your heart as you pray for your fellow believers and yourself. Be aware careful of any pride that may be guiding your prayer life.Remember He hears that too. Keep in mind His glory and not your own. When you find yourself being prideful confess and receive His forgiveness . Turn your focus again to bringing Him glory.

To Christ be the glory…