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As we continue to talk about God’s promises and how He fulfills them, we must also pay attention to some promises that require some action from us. Those promises usually hinge on God’s desire for us to have a relationship with Him. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be open.” – Matthew 7:7-8. Here God promises that whenever we ask things of Him, He will respond to us by giving them. Of course, we must also remember the warning in the Bible that says we must always ask with the right motive. “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” God will always fulfill His promises when our motives are pure, and He is the sole judge of that. In Jeremiah 33:3 we also read, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” God wants us to pray, and without ceasing. He wants us to ask for things we need, but He also wants us to just call unto Him and fellowship with Him so that He can reveal more of himself to us.
All through the Bible we get the idea that God wants us to pray. God is pleased when we initiate a conversation with Him. Many times, Christians behave in the same way that children behave. Right after our conversion we cannot seem to get enough of God. We seem to take all our issues to Him, and I must add that He graciously listens to all of them. However, as we continue to grow and get accustomed to the blessings and great benevolence of God, we seem to relax and kind of step down in our relationship with the Lord. When I think about my children, it seems like they do exactly the same. When they were younger it is almost always “Daddy can I have this?” or “Daddy can I have that?”. If not asking for what they can get, they were asking “Daddy what is this?” or “Daddy what is that?” Now fast forward to their teenage years when they only want to speak to teenagers like themselves. The only time they remember to talk to me is when they need something. However, I don’t want that, I really would like to have conversations with them. In fact, if only they can have meaningful conversations with me, they may not need to ask for many things that they do because I would have known that they have such a need and they too would have understood my heart much more than they currently do. The same holds true for our God almighty.
Our God desires communion with us, He wants to know us, and He wants us to know him. No human activity draws us more deeply into the heart of God than prayer and there is no better way to learn about prayer than by praying. God wants us to pray, not only when we want something, but every time. However, praying is not always easy. We struggle to find the time to pray. Sometimes we are not sure exactly how to pray and what to pray for, except in situations when we are in great need. Clearly, God wants us to pray, therefore when Christ’s disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, He gave them and us, the model prayer which teaches us to pray. This is our model for prayer, and it can be done in any order and at any time. It is about communing with God. We can do it with words, we can do it in songs, and we can do it in worship. The main thing is to commune with God.
When we pray, we must do it in total submission and trust that He answers, but His answers to our prayers will be what is best for us, His beloved children. “For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” – 2 Corinthians 1:20 (KJV)
So, I urge each of us, as we seek to live in God’s promises, to always remember that His promises are sure and steadfast. Let us learn to develop a relationship with Him through our conversations with Him. Remember that the idea is to commune with Him, so put aside all weights and all other things that get in the way of a great communication with the Lord. Open your hearts and pour them all out to Him. Remember that while our experience of prayer may be easy or difficult, we must know that in praise, songs, or prayer, we will always meet God and His promises for us shall also be fulfilled. – Pastor Simbo Odunaiya
