Day 4
WEEK 1: THE IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER
PRAYER'S POWER
SCRIPTURE
- James 4:1-3 (NIV) 1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
James gives us two thoughts about prayer in a larger discourse about friendship with the world. He tells us that many of us don’t ask God for what we want, and many times when we do ask we don’t always get it because our motives are wrong.UNDERSTANDINGThe central theme of the larger passage is that friendship with the world means hostility towards God. We can’t love both God and the world. The world’s mentality is always a selfish one. We want stuff for ourselves and for our personal pleasure. That motive stands in direct defiance of a life surrendered to God. If we are truly God-followers then we are to submit ourselves to His will and purposes – our prayers should always have the perspective of praying for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.And when we live with a selfish mentality we tend to get angry when we don’t get what we want. We fight, get angry, give up on God because “He didn’t answer my request.”The other thought here is that some people won’t even ask God because they don’t believe that He cares or that He will answer – which speaks to believing the world's thinking over believing God’s word. We cannot love the world and love God at the same time.LIFE APPLICATIONGod there are times my selfishness gets in the way of things. I pray for things with a completely selfish motive and then get angry at you if you don’t give it to me. Many times I am praying for the wrong things; a stone when you want to give me bread, a snake when you want to give me a fish. Forgive me for not trusting you when you say that when we ask you will answer. You may tell me no, you may tell me wait a while, you may tell me grow or you may say yes, and all of those are answers to my prayer. Give me the wisdom and courage to grow from the answers that you give me. Forgive me for allowing the thinking of the world to crowd out your thoughts, forgive me for being selfish and self-centered.Lord I will continue to ask because you tell us to but I will place every request before you and I will trust you that the answer you give is the correct one. I trust you God.