A Thinking Man’s Guide to Remembering the Basics
The Key is: Find a place to pray, make an appointment with God and meet Him there daily. E.M. Bounds[2] wrote about men and prayer, “What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men, men of prayer.”
- When is your daily prayer time?
- Have you set aside a personal place of prayer?
- Are you personally seeing results from your current pray time?
- If not what needs to change?
- What is stopping you from answered prayer?
The Scripture gives ten reasons why God doesn’t hear prayer
- Disobedience – Deuteronomy 1:45
- Secret Sin – Psalm 66:18
- Indifference – Proverbs 1:28
- Neglect of Mercy – Proverbs 21:13
- Despising the Law – Proverbs 28:19
- Blood-Guiltiness – Isaiah 1:15
- Instability – Isaiah 16:7
- Stubbornness – Zechariah 7:13
- Self-Indulgence – James 4:3
- Iniquity (Sin) – Isaiah 59:2
Take time to read each of the verses listed above. Spend some time in prayer asking God’s forgiveness for any obstacles in your way that keep you from approaching the throne room of God in prayer.
A – Focus on my personal ATTITUDE
One of America’s premier pastors and Bible teachers, Chuck Swindoll3 wrote this about attitude. “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company … a church … a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past … we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude … I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you … we are in charge of our attitude.” – Chuck Swindoll[3]
Category: Living the Faith, Winter 2019