He said to him, "What is written in the law
What is your reading of it?"
So he answered and said, ""You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,' and "your neighbor as yourself."'
And He said to him, "You have answered rightly; do this and you will live."
Luke 10:26-28 :: New King James Version (NKJV)
I think prayer is an important part of a successful Christian life. It is something talked about more often then done in some places. It is something we have talked about here before, and something I hope we keep to talk about for years to come. Better yet still, some thing we do!
Prayer can also be a reflector or indicator of ones relationship with God.
How? Well you can't really have a strong relationship with someone you don't talk to can you? The word relationship means how you relate, to someone. It is not a question of if we have time but rather a question as to if we make time, to be with someone. Time is short for us all, how we use it reflects our priorities in life. Where are your priorities?
I know when my Christian walk with the Lord is in struggle or not as pronounced as I would like it to be I can almost always trace it back to my Pray life. God wants us to love him with all our hearts, mind and soul. When I think about that it is awesome.... the word soul means "your whole being"!!! Thus what it means is to, love God with your whole heart, mind and complete being!
When we ask God to change our old heart of stone into a new heart with Love from Heaven, then it becomes easy to Pray and spend time with God. It will become our new heart's desire! And that new heart desire is a good thing to ask for in Prayer!
Now what about intercessory prayer??? Well that is where the Part about loving your brother as yourself comes into play. It can get real easy to get selfish in prayer life if your not asking God to keep you humble and true. God wants us to ask our hearts desire of Him and HE IS KIND, GOOD, AND LOVING, thus He will give it to us.
The question is what is the heart's desire? Well, that depends where you standing in Christ. Are you embracing Christ or Self? Do you not know you have two hearts, not one? You have a rotten heart of stone given to you at birth, and a NEW BORN AGAIN heart given to you a conversion. It is the seconds Heart's Desire God wants fill wishes from. The Old self must constantly be put to death, daily. Paul called it "Crucifying Self". The War of the Flesh and the Spirit. God can give us Victory over the old self when we ask (in prayer!).
To sum up my point here is when we turn to God and love him with our whole soul and He puts a new heart, a converted SELFLESS heart in us, and our old self is dead, then we WILL start to love our Brother as ourself! And instead of just being our selfish wants and desires in our hearts we will want to pray and ask things for all God's People.
Hmmm... How pleasing it must be to God, to see us turn from our polluted, messed up self and care for others and lifted them up to God in Prayer!
Intercessory prayer, is not just good for the one your praying for but indeed for yourself, as it moves your focus more on other people and how they need the Love of Jesus. It is pleasing to the Lord to see us display in His Power, a kind of selfless love that is rooted in him.
Does God need us to pray of people? I have seen this issue skirted around alot. Let me tell you straight... he needs somebody to ask, or accept. He can bend or break thorough free will. We ask God to do something for somebody else to things (perhaps more) happen. 1) We are asking God to intervene on somebodies behalf. 2) we are displaying God's kind of love reflecting in us from Him.
In short our prayers for others is a relationship issue with God and our fellow man which cuts to the heart of the matter in Luke 10:26-28 .
Looking forward to other peoples thoughts this week.
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~VINCE~ IN ~CHRIST~
SDA-TODAY moderator
This restless world is just illusion
All at once, there’s a message from above
This senseless world of mass confusion ....
In the name of love
There’s a message from above ... (Sammy Hagar 2000)