Things to Remember About Prayer
Prayer is defined as a devout petition to God or spiritual communion with God. Prayer is encapsulated by five important words, (1) invitation, (2) conversation, (3) separation, (4) transformation and (5) dedication. When we talk about prayer all five of these words are very important.
First, prayer is an invitation. God is inviting us into His presence when he calls us to pray. The invitation to prayer has three important elements, (1) the invitation, (2) the inviter and (3) the invited. God extends an invitation to us to come into His presence (Jeremiah 33:3, St. Matthew 7:7 and St. James 1:5-6). God longs for intimacy with His people more than we long for intimacy with Him. Prayer is an invitation into intimacy. If we fail at prayer, it’s not because God didn’t want us to succeed or make Himself unavailable to have a conversation with us.
Who is this God who longs for intimacy with us? Isaiah 57:15 tells us who God is. God is transcendent because He has no limits or boundaries and fills all possible modes of the infinite. God is immense and His immensity means that God fills eternity. Eternity only knows what eternity is because God is there. Eternity doesn’t define God, but God defines eternity. The late Dr. Charles Walker once said, “God doesn’t need heaven to be God, but heaven needs God to be heaven”. Our God is holy. Holy and purity are synonyms. God’s name is Jehovah and Jehovah’s name is Holy. God is at least three times holier than we think He is. The seraphim say holy, holy, holy (Isaiah 6:3).
Who has God invited into His presence? God has invited sinful and unrighteous people to call on Him. Why does God invite imperfect people into His presence? God loves us. God has mercy on us. God understands us. When God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice of His life in a human body was necessary for our preservation. Our preservation is evidence of the effectiveness of Jesus’ prayers. God’s amazing grace allows us to interact with each other and pray better to God. God’s grace is how God can operate through human life. Grace says that the entire debt has been paid. Grace says that we don’t owe any thing and God is now free to work on our behalf. God fixed our lives Himself so we can accept the benefits of His grace. We should not define our prayer life in the light of other people. We need to define our prayer life in the fact that God invited us into a conversation with Him.
Prayer is a conversation with God. There are three things we need to remember when having a conversation with God, (1) God’s love makes Him available to us, (2) God’s grace gives us access to Him, (3) and God’s mercy causes Him to care about us. If God didn’t want to talk to us, then He wouldn’t have invited us to come into his presence. Having a conversation with God is one of the most important aspects of prayer because you are not only seeking God, but you find out that God is seeking you. Prayer is not a monologue, but prayer is a dialogue. The only way to have a healthy conversation is when both sides of the conversation have something to say. The problem that we have is that we pray and say amen and then walk away. Sometimes we don’t realize that God has something to say too.
When we pray, we should always remember that God is our Father. He is our Father, but our Father is also God. Jesus dealt with God as a human being. Jesus raised a question while on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1, St. Matthew 27:46, St. Mark 15:34). The obvious question is, ‘Did God really forsake Jesus?’ The correct answer is, yes. There are seven dynamics related to the answer for this question. (1) This was a real moment in Jesus’ life as God is dealing with Jesus as a human being. (2) This moment took place in Jesus’s life so that it would never take place in our own lives. (3) God forsook Jesus so that he would never forsake us. (4) The fracture between the Father and the Son is because of sin. (5) This is the first time in eternity when there was a division in the Godhead. (6) We are the cause of the fracture between God and Jesus. (7) God turns His back on His son so that He never turns His back on us. Jesus’ sacrifice set us free to have a conversation with our Father God.
We need to keep in mind while having a conversation with God that God is omniscient and knows everything at once (Psalm 147:4-5). God is not gathering information from us because He already knows about us. No one needs to inform God about anything. God is not collecting information or data from anyone. How do we know that God is omniscient? We know that God is all-knowing because one third of the Holy Bible is prophetic.
Prayer lends itself to separation because God invites us to cast our cares on Him (St. Matthew 11:29-30). God invites us to pick up His yoke and put it on and walk with Him, work with Him and get away with Him so that we can recover our lives. God is gentle and humble, and we will find our rest in Him. We need to separate ourselves from our heavy burdens and sinful laden lives and cast all our cares and concerns on Him.
Prayer leads us into transformation and when we pray, we ought to anticipate change. We need to keep in mind a couple of things about prayer. First, there will be a change and, secondly, change will take place in one of two areas. There will be change in the thing that we are praying about and/or there will be change in the one who is praying. God allows circumstances in our life to force us to our knees. We are incapable of handling some of life’s situations without Him, so it causes us to depend on him. Prayer can change circumstances. In Acts 9:36 God did three things for the church. (1) God changed the moment of pain that the church was experiencing. (2) God changed the moment of pain for the church because He can do it, and everyone present knows that it is God doing it. (3) God does it for His own glory and so that His name and reputation spreads throughout the world. We need to also keep in mind that whenever a person keeps going back to God about the same thing repeatedly then God is more concerned about changing the person rather than the circumstance.
Prayer requires dedication. Dedication means to devote wholly and earnestly to speaking with God all the time (Acts 12:5, Romans 1:9, 1 Thessalonians 5:17, 2 Timothy 1:3). Sometimes evidence of our dedication to speak to God without ceasing is displayed by our posture (Daniel 6:10). If we can, we should try to dedicate ourselves to pray kneeling on our knees at least three times a day giving thanks to God lifting holy hands (1 Timothy 2:8). The more often we do this the more we will see a change for the better in our prayer life.
Times of Testing: A Word of Consolation In Remembrance of Sis Ruby Ford & Our Bereaved Families
In the congregation of Saints at Shiloh Baptist Church, we have suffered the loss of many whom we have loved and those who loved us. The memories of those we have lost and loved are still painful. Yet, we are triumphant.
These are trying times. The death of a loved one is one of the most painful experiences that we can have in our lifetime; and in those unexpected times, when we are caught by surprise. The natural question is, “Why?!” “Why does God allow it? / Why does He put us through it?”
We know from the word of God that wisdom is seeing things. Even our life experiences, through God’s eyes; from God’s perspective, His viewpoint. It is through His wisdom that we are enabled to face our trials with confidence knowing that He is in it with us.
God allows our trials to test our faith; to approve the authenticity of who and what we believe. We can rejoice in our trials knowing that our faith is genuine. Nothing compares to the building of great faith in our lives. The proving of our faith comes to make us stronger because untested faith is unreliable.
The trying of our faith tests our devotion to Christ. Can we obey Him in the midst of our test? Our trials come to demonstrate the power of God’s love for us – even in the death of a loved one. He has eternal purpose in mind, and in these moments when we question the trial that we’re in, we must believe that God is in control of the time and the intensity of our pain. In our trials, He has a specific purpose and the trial comes to meet a specific need in our lives.
The trials come to strengthen our faith. He allows it so that we can live out perseverance, thereby demonstrating the victory that He has given us to develop Christ-likeness in us. It comes to measure our spiritual maturity, and the velocity of our faith. With every test or trial God is at work in our lives and He is making us what He wants us to be – triumphant. He walks through our trials with us, and we are not alone.
He knows that we don’t like it, and even that we don’t like Him in those times of testing. Yet, He abides faithful. By God’s grace and power we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us (Romans 8:37).
How do we respond to the things that hurt and cause us pain? It is when we remain steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Cor: 15:58 KJV). We prevail through our personal relationship with Jesus Christ – in us and with us. This is perfection; Knowing that God has purpose in everything that He allows.
With every loss, we may wonder how we can trust God now, and the answer is: because we have trusted Him before, and He cannot lie!
We are rejoicing, in remembrance of Sis. Ruby Ford, and to all our bereaved families. We extend our sincere condolences in this season, on behalf of the Shiloh Baptist Church Family.
What’s Love Got to Do With It?
Love. We write songs about it, and we swoon to the tunes of “Luther, “Aretha,” and countless others about it. Hallmark has made millions, if not billions of dollars by promoting it. We’re in love with love, and we celebrate it world-wide; Valentine’s Day, February 14. According to history, the pagans who adopted Christianity as their religion did not entirely abandon all of their traditions and practices. One of these traditions brought into the church was the fertility celebration known as Lupercalia, which eventually became Valentine’s holiday.
Born Anna Mae Bullock, “Tina Turner,” belts out these words with all the gumption that she can muster after living in a tumultuous life and marriage with her husband Ike. It was her battle cry for understanding of the power of love, “What’s Love Got to Do with It?!” And we join in on the chorus. We’ve been on this search for love and what it means for a long time, and if we are influenced by the origin of Valentine’s Day, we truly miss the mark. Love is not a 1-day event. The Bible has a lot to say about Love, and cannot gain a better understanding from anyone else. Not Aretha. Not Luther. And while Anna Mae Bullock became a Buddhist, after much hardship, and great success in her life, in her search for love, we pray that she gives her life to the True & Living God. It is in Christ, that we live, move and have our being. It is through His Word that her cry out for understanding Love, and ours, is found.
For months now, Pastor Washington has been teaching from John’s writings on faith, hope, and love. It is in the Gospel of John, at the close of the first century that John writes, and wants the Church to understand that unity is important, but God is looking for intimacy with the Father. John takes the position that the church is the family of God and intimacy with the Father means intimacy with one another. Intimacy is the backbone of love.
As members, indeed Children of the Family of God we must make the conscious decision to live by faith, share love, and to operate in hope. Pastor Washington has defined faith this way: “Faith is the intellectual and volitional response of the soul to the truth about God as it is revealed by The Holy Spirit.” What’s love got to do with it? Evidence of my faith is that I am challenged to, and chooses to love……. you.
Authentic biblical love is an act of showing care to others with no relation to feelings; it is the deliberate act of showing compassion without any expectation of anything in return. God did it, and it is a choice for us because it was His choice. He chose to love us. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should no perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 KJV). What’s love got to do with it? He has freed us from our Sins. There is no more judgment. The blood of Jesus, shed on the cross, was the penalty for our Sins. God was offended by our sins and only the blood of Jesus could pay the cost. He made us kings and priests unto God. We (you and me) are a Holy Nation. We (you and me) are a Royal Priesthood. As a Kingdom of priests we (you and me) have been granted access, and we have been given the privilege of entering into the presence of Almighty God; to bow to the King of Kings. That’s love!