Good evening everyone. Hope we are doing good. Am doing this post to share my benefits from the teaching conducted by mcgi.
The teaching was centered on prayer. We learnt according to Acts 1:26 that our prayers should be brief and concise. When the Apostles were to replace Judas Iscariot who betrayed Christ and committed suicide, they came to a point were they had to choose from two options and they had pray to God to show them who among the two is to replace Judas Iscariot. The Apostles needed to be twelve so as to represent the twelve tribes of Israel. God heard their prayers and they chose rightly. They didn't make vain repetition while praying;they were specific on their request and brief too.
Prayer is a request as we learnt in Phillipians 4:6 and when we pray it should be accompanied with Thanksgiving. We are not to be making recitation because that's not making request and prayer is making request by ourselves and not to pass the responsibility to any other person to pray for us. Prayer too isn't story telling, we are to go straight to the point and ask for only what we want for the moment. If we want to eat, we should pray specifically for that purpose. It's God's commandment that we pray before eating. In Matthew 15:36, Jesus prayed before feeding the Five thousand (5000). Through the word and prayer, everything is sanctified, so there's no unclean thing when it comes to the creatures of God-1Timothy 4:4-5. God is always ready to hear us. .
When should we pray?
We learnt according to Luke 18:1 of s parable of a widow didn't relent in her quest of the unjust judge avenging her what belongs to her until she was granted it. we are to pray all the time. we should pray day and night. we should pray day and night. In 1 Thesalononian 5:17,Paul admonished us to pray without ceasing. In 2Timothy 1:3, Paul prayed for the brethrens day and night. We should pray before we sleep, when we wake up, when we are going out, when we come in;we should pray all the time and this can do great deal in our lives but we shouldn't use vain repetitions while praying for God isn't slow to understanding, even the storm or quake, He can hear us. God isn't deaf for us to keep repeating ourselves over and over and over again. God is on heaven and we are on earth and our words ought to be few according to Ecclesiates 5:2, therefore when we pray, we should avoid vain repetition as the heathens do thinking they would be heard by their much talking-Matthew 6:6-8. God won't hear us if we pray as the heathens do.
How do we know our prayers would be heard by God?
We learnt according to 2Timothy 2:22 that God would only hear us if we call from a pure heart. In 1Peter3:10, we saw that the Lord is against them that do evil. God doesn't hear the prayers of the hearts of the wicked but He is delighted when the upright pray to Him. What comes from the heart is what defiles a man and not the food he eats, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks-Matthew15:19-21. Every thing that happened is first decided in the heart. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughs, murder, adultery, hatred, bitterness, etc and they are the things that defile a man. According to Jeremiah 17:10, the heart is deceitful and God doesn't listen to such a heart. In John 9:31, God listen to man who has no evil heart. Before we come before God, our heart must be cleansed. Paul was asked by God to get himself baptized and be cleansed-Acts 22:16. During baptism, we are cleansed from our sins. Only when our heart is pure that God can hear us and heal us too-2Chronicles7:14. if we have bitterness in us , God won't hear us-Ephesians4:31. Once our heart is right with God,He would hear our prayers.
We can cleansed our heart with the word of God. In Psalms 119:11,we saw there that God's word in our heart would make us not to sin against God;,it would help us have a pure heart. The cleansing of our heart is in the obeying of God's word. we should put away every form of iniquity from us-2Tim2:19,Gal5:19-20. we are known by our fruits. If the tree is evil it would produce bad fruits,but if it's good it would produce good fruits. If the heart(tree) is evil,the fruit too would be evil-Matthew12:33-34. A good man(one having a good heart) bring forth that which is good and the evil man brings forth that which is evil(Luke 7:45). What abound in the heart, would come forth from the mouth. If the heart is pure, the mouth and the tongue would be pure too and when we pray, God would listen, otherwise He would not listen.
We should refrain our tongue from evil and pursue good and cleave to it(1pt3:10). we also learnt that it isn't good to use same mouth we use to ulter cursed, abusive words to pray and worship God.It ought not to be so. when we pray to God,then it must be from a pure. All things are tamed by man but the tongue can't be tamed by any man. Our lips shouldn't be hypocritic ie saying what is different from what is in the heart. God won't listen to a tongue that speaks hypocrisy,hence we should be watchful too because some out there are very deceitful. Matthew 5:37, our speech should be yes if yes and No if No. We should be honest in our conversation with men-James 5:12. Also, when we say anything,we should always realize that we have no power of our own ,so we always say if God wills we would do what we want to carry out because we don't know what tomorrow holds. The word of God teach us how to tamed our tongue. we should open our mouth with wisdom-Proverbs 31:26. God is always willing to hear us when our heart is pure. He said he would not leave us nor forsake us; We can call on him whenever we are in danger and He would hear us and came to our aid-Hebrews 13:5
This post was first shared by me on hive.
Thanks