Prayer Is The Door To Everything

“Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy for our failures and find grace to help in good time for every need, the appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it.” (Hebrews 4:16 Amp.) A door is a most interesting invention. It is a swinging or sliding means of access, through a barrier (a wall, a fence, etc.), and can be closed or opened to obtain access to all that is on the other side. It is not only an access to all that is on the other side of the wall, but it a means of security. A door that is locked or barricaded cannot be opened without a key, or removal of the barricade. Prayer is the door to everything! To enter that door we must have the key and/or remove the barricade. The key is having a forgiven and cleansed heart (I Jn.1:9; Prov.15:29; Ps.66:18). The barricade may be doubt that God will hear us, that He can answer or that He cares. I assure you that if our hearts are pure before Him and desire His will, He will hear us. He does care more than we can imagine. And “He certainly is able to carry out His purpose and do super-abundantly , far above all that we dare ask or think (infinitely above our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams” (Eph.3:20 Amp.). Another barricade may be asking selfishly, wanting our own will. His will is perfect and always wants the best, and knows what is best. So, when we come to Him in prayer we must remove the barrier of self-will and yield our will to His will, knowing it will be the best for us. If we do all the above that Door to Everything good (the door to God’s heart) will open to us, we can run through and right into His arms of love! It helps me to know that when I come to the Heavenly Father in prayer that He invites me (us) to come “boldly to His throne of grace (unmerited favor) (Heb.4:16),” for help of any kind. God sees us as His little children and He wants us to come confidently to Him, and crawl up onto His lap, as a little child would his earthly father, and let Him wrap His arms of love around us as we pour out our confessions (I Jn.1:9), our praise & thanksgiving (Ps.100), our heartaches (I Peter 5:7), and our problems and questions (Prov.3:5-6). Then let Him just hold us as He comforts us with His Word. He will forgive all our sins and failures, answer our questions, and direct us in the way we should go – all through prayer and believing His Word (promises). What a mighty, magnanimous God and Father we serve – and He loves us with an everlasting love!

If God is There......(How Big Is Your God?)

If you haven’t discovered it yet, all of life is made up of choices. A lot of things may come into our lives that if we had the choice we would not have chosen to experience them. But, when good or bad things happen we can choose how to accept them. If we remember that all things ultimately come from the hand of God; that He loves us with an everlasting love; that He will cause all things to work out to be good for us who love Him and fit into His purposes (Rom.8:28 & Jer.29:11). So if we know that God is there, we can be thankful for the good and what we think is bad, as it says in II Thess.5:18 and Eph.5:20 – be thankful for and in “all things”. Or we can choose to grumble, feel sorry for ourselves, turn against God, etc. By grumbling we are choosing to be unhappy, resentful and live with a victim mentality. Why should we be unhappy if we know God is there? How big is your god? Is He big enough to keep you in peace when the enemy comes in overwhelming waves of temptations and testings? Are you afraid to die? Or maybe you are afraid to live. Is your god big enough to keep you in life or in death? If you have made Jesus your Savior and your God, and committed your all (yourself, your life, family, friends - everything) to the only One Who can keep you through it all, you don’t have to be afraid. Focus on the One Who loves you and can keep you from falling, and present you blameless to the only God, our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord (Jude 24-25). Happiness is a choice! Satan starts his deceit in our minds. There is an old saying, “We can’t stop the birds from flying over our heads, but we don’t have to let them build a nest in our hair.” We can choose the things on which we think – “what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and lovable, kind, winsome, gracious, and worthy of praise – fix your minds on these things (Phil.4:8 Amp.). It is Satan who puts the negative, doubtful, fearful and deceitful thoughts in our mind. After all, he is the one who has come to steal from us, kill us, and destroy us (Jn.10:10). As in the garden (Genesis 3) Satan wants us to think negatively about God – “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from every tree of the garden?’” Satan cast doubt on God’s veracity, love, integrity, omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. He wanted to steal any trust Adam and Eve had in God (El Emunah) – “The One Who is faithful and true.” In Genesis four, in verses four and five, Satan lied and called God a liar, “You shall not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil and blessing and calamity” – (partial truth). There is no “Truth” but the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Partial truth is not truth. Satan is still a murderer and a liar and there is no truth in him, “You are of your father, the devil, and it is your will to practice the lusts and gratify the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a falsehood, he speaks what is natural to him, for he is a liar and the father of lies and of all that is false” (Jn.8:44). Refuse to listen to Satan. When he comes to whisper his lies in your ears just speak God’s Word back to him, just as Jesus did in Matthew 4:1-11. So Satan’s modus operandi is to deceive and lie about everything. He destroys our hopes, dreams, trust and faith with his deceit and lies, if we listen to the thoughts he puts in our minds. If we are a child of God we must know that we are in spiritual warfare with our enemy, the devil, who wants to kill us, if not physically, then mentally, by tempting us to think negatively, skeptically and lying thoughts about God, His children and His Word (Gen.3:4-5). God’s Word tells us in II Cor.10:5 to take every thought captive, inasmuch as we refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up again the true knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ.” But if God is there we do not need to vacillate in fighting temptations, but stand for what is right. Remember, “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character.” Sowing is a choice, reaping is the results of what we sow, so be careful what you sow – sow righteous thoughts, acts & words. Know that whatever we sow, God is there, and when we reap what we have sown, God is there also. If we sow righteously God is smiling; but if we sow unrighteous words and deeds God is weeping. The world speaks skeptically about God and His Word. They have been deceived to believe in relativism – (A view that knowledge, truth and morality exists in relation to what culture says source and historical context are, and are not absolutes. Ethical truths depend upon the individuals holding them – all points of truth are equally valid.) Actually there is no other “truth” but the Word of God. No religion, cult or belief system is valid but Christianity, which forever proclaims that only belief and trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior is the only way to eternal security with Him. Satan tempts us to believe in subjectivism which is a doctrine that knowledge is merely subjective and there is no external or objective truth, that reality is not a firm absolute but can be altered by consciousness. Individual feeling or apprehension is the ultimate criterion of the good and the right - “If it feels good, do it.” Of course the Word teaches us that God and His Word are absolute. It will not pass away whether you like what it says or not. Your feelings have nothing to do with the validity of God and His Word. Others get deceived into existentialism, which is a philosophy that cannot describe human existence and that stresses the freedoms and responsibilities of individuals to determine their own development through acts of the will. It is the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. Actually, God created us to love Him, commune with Him, and walk in His will. Another deception of Satan’s is pantheism. This is the deception that believes that everything in the universe is a manifestation of God. A belief that everything and everyone is God and God is everyone and everything. Satan does not want us to worship God, but God wants us to worship Him only – every other worship is idolatry. Then there is rationalism, which is a belief that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response. Many believe that God is too good to punish sin, but the truth is God is too good not to punish sin. He is completely holy, righteous, and just. Sin is rebellion against His holiness, righteousness and justice, and is an affront to Who He really is. Because He is absolute in all of His attributes, He must punish any and all that is contrary to His personhood, or He wouldn’t be Jehovah God. There is also another deception of Satan that many have fallen into. It is pragmatism, a philosophy which stresses the truth of the meaning of theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application. It is a philosophical movement that includes those who claim that an ideology or proposition is true if it works satisfactorily, and that unpractical ideas are to be rejected. We try to be practical regarding things in this world, but God is not always practical, but miraculous and supernatural. His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are His ways our ways (Isaiah 55:8). There is a temptation to embrace another belief system which thinks lightly about God, it is re-incarnation. It teaches “the rebirth of a new soul in a new body.” The Bible opposes this teaching. God created us uniquely and once we die it is for eternity to spend with God or with Satan, depending on our acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior Who died for our sins and now rules in our lives as Lord (Master, Sovereign). We can believe in our head that Jesus is the Son of God (even the devil believes (Jas.2:10), but we must submit ourselves to Him and trust Him as Lord, and let Him change our lives. Many have a God-view of a mixture of the above, but whatever deceitful thoughts Satan puts in our minds, and temptations to believe in the wrongful teachings or philosophies that are in the world, Jehovah God is still true and He is there among the trash and confusion. He is wooing us and wants to reveal to us the Truth of Who He is, and His love for us. So, if He is there, (and He is) how do we handle the temptations to “believe a lie” about Him? Did you notice that all the above philosophies are all about self – your opinion, your comfort, your existence, your truth, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life? (I Jn.2:16) God’s Truth is all about Him – His love, joy, peace, sovereignty. To be victorious over the deceit and temptations of Satan, the Devil, we must first have faith in Jesus and become a child of God - to be “born again” (I Jn.5:1-5). Read, believe, meditate on and obey His Word. Next, when temptations come we must submit ourselves to God and resist and stand firm against the Devil (Jas.4:6-7). Live filled with God’s Holy Spirit (Eph.3:16-19), and remember I John 4:4, “Greater is He that lives in you than he that is in the world.” Also, it is very important to read, learn and apply the scriptures so when Satan attacks you with various temptations of the mind or body, you can quote the scriptures back to him, like Jesus did in His temptations (Luke 4:4,8,& 12). In verse four Jesus was tempted with His natural appetites (Duet.8:3). In verse eight, He was tempted with idolatry (anything that you love more, fear more, serve more or spend more time with than God) (Duet.6:13; 10:20). In verse twelve Jesus was tempted to prove His divine power – that He was God (Duet 6:16). Jesus knew Who He was and didn’t have to prove it to Himself or anyone. We can be “satisfied” with who we are in Christ – (a child of God). We do not have to prove anything to ourselves or others, just submit ourselves to God and remind Satan when he puts questions in our minds about our salvation, when we first believed and quote the above scriptures to him. Then he must go, but he will later return with new temptations. He is very persistent – remember, once you become a child of God you enter a battlefield fighting against Satan. But remember the Holy spirit within you that is greater than Satan who is in the world; and remember the scripture, it is our only offensive weapon (Eph.6:12:18). Adrian Roger taught that this world is going to pass away, so we are admonished in I Jn.2:15-17 not to love this world which consists of (1) “lust of the flesh” – doing - putting our will above the will of God; (2) “lust of the flesh” - having – greedy longings of the mind; (3) “Pride of life” - being – trusting in self and the things in this world (independence from God). These three things are sin – “the misuse and abuse of something that is good.” Remember, “The world passes away with all of its passions, but those who do God’s will remain forever” (I Jn.2:17). If God is there (and He is), you do not have to fear, or give into any temptation Satan may bring to your mind. Satan uses doubtful thoughts about God and His love and care for us; and he tempts us to doubt God’s keeping power with a spirit of fear (unnatural fearful thoughts) of what might happen (II Tim.1:7). The Spirit of God brings joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (Gal.5:22-23). Choose to walk in the Holy Spirit and He will help you overcome the temptations of Satan. The Holy Spirit is our “Comforter” – (Helper, Counselor, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby) (Jn.14:26). Just ask and keep on asking (Luke 11:13). 1. How big is your god? Jehovah God can keep you in peace when you are tempted. If you submit yourself to Him and resist the devil, God will cause Satan to flee from you (James 4:7). If you keep your eyes on Jehovah God He will keep you in perfect peace (Isa.26:3), and when the enemy comes in like a flood (physically, mentally or spiritually) God will give you victory over him (Isa.41:10; 59:19). You must claim God’s promises and make them your own (Ps.27:1; 56:3; Prov.3:5-6; 29:25; Eph.6:12-18). Remember, in the story of David and Goliath David proclaimed, “The battle is the Lord’s” (I Sam.17:45-47). Read the story in II Kings 6, where Elisha and the Israelites were facing insurmountable odds, but Elisha encouraged them with, “Fear not, for those with us are more than those with them.” After Elisha prayed God opened the eyes of his servant to see that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha. Then God miraculously saved them – read it! John E. Brod said it this way, “I shall not fear the battle, if You are by my side, nor wander from the pathway, if You will be my guide.” How big is your god? Is your god big enough to keep you in peace when the enemy (physical or spiritual) comes in like a flood. Like it says in Isaiah 59:19, put your trust in Jehovah Nissi, Who is our Banner of Victory. If God is there who will you choose to love, and serve and who will you resist and turn against – God or Satan? There is no middle ground! How Great Thou Art Stuart K. Hine O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy hands have made, I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy pow’r thru-out the universe displayed! When thru the woods and forest glades I wander, and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees, When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur, and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze. And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take a way my sin! When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation, and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart! Then I shall bow in humble adoration, and there proclaim, my God, how great Thou art! Chorus Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee: How great Thou art, How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee: How great Thou art, How great Thou art! (My Blog webpage is: http://lightfrommywindow,blogspot.com)