Call to Prayer 6

Call to Prayer

Part 6

“What You Think About God”

Heb. 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

Today I want to talk about how our prayer life is directly affected by what we believe about God.

First we see that this verse is a prayer verse—“He that comes to God.”

And notice how the writer connects praying faith to some things we “must believe” about God!

We must believe that He is (exists) and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

In other words, what we believe about God is what inspires our faith, and our faith determines what we will dare to pray for.

If we know He’s a rewarder, we will eagerly seek Him for His rewards.

And remember, last time when we looked at the Lord’s Prayer, we saw that the first thing Jesus taught was HOW TO VIEW the GOD we’re praying to!

“Our Father in heaven...”

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If your God is a small God you will pray small prayers.

The bigger your God is, the bigger your prayers will be!

If your God is a loving God you will feel accepted and welcome.

If your God is a reserved, angry God you will feel intimidated.

If your God is a forgiving God you will go to Him for forgiveness.

But if your God is a stern, judgmental God you won’t have much motivation to seek His forgiveness.

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When we follow Jesus through the gospels we see that He was always about revealing to His disciples Who He really was...

And the more they learned, the more they prayed for bigger things.

For instance, one day Jesus commanded them to get into a boat to cross over to the other side of a lake.

As they crossed, Jesus fell asleep in the helm, and suddenly “a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and were in jeopardy. 24 And they came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” (Luke 8:23-24 NKJV)

Now, because He was God, Jesus knew this storm would come before they ever launched the boat...He wasn’t the least taken off guard.

So this whole trip across the lake was designed as a classroom to provide a teachable moment.

The Bible says, “Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. And they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 But He said to them, “Where is your faith?”

Look at what Jesus was focused on—not the storm, not the water-filled boat, not the need to reach the other side—his focus was on their FAITH.

Jesus intended to stretch their faith...and how did He go about it? By revealing more of Who He was!

It says, “And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, ‘Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!’” (Vs. 24-25 NKJV)

Their question is exactly what Jesus wanted them to ask, because the only answer was “He is God.”

He stretched their understanding of Who He was so that their faith and prayer life would also be stretched!

The bigger Jesus was, the more their faith grew, and the more their faith grew, the bigger their prayers became!

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So how big is your God?

What is your God like?

How do you view Him?

How do you picture Him when you go to the place of prayer?

What is the image of Him you have in your mind?

What are your beliefs about Him, what are your convictions about His character?

Let me give you three things we must believe about Him to enjoy a fruitful and growing prayer life.

First, we must believe...

He cares

Do you believe God genuinely cares about you and the things that affect you?

Jesus took great pains to repeatedly tell His followers how much God truly cares.

“Then turning to his disciples he said, ‘Don’t worry about whether you have enough food to eat or clothes to wear. 23 For life consists of far more than food and clothes. 24 Look at the ravens—they don’t plant or harvest or have barns to store away their food, and yet they get along all right—for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than any birds!’” (Lk 12:22-24 LB).

If God feeds birds that Jesus DIDN’T die for, will He not feed His children that He DID die for?

“Look at the lilies! They don’t toil and spin, and yet Solomon in all his glory was not robed as well as they are. 28 And if God provides clothing for the flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, don’t you suppose that he will provide clothing for you, you doubters?” (12:27-28 LB)

And then Jesus went even further to make the point of how much God cares:

“All mankind scratches for its daily bread, but your heavenly Father knows your needs. 31 He will always give you all you need from day to day if you will make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom” (12:30-32 LB).

So Jesus says God cares!

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Then secondly, we must know that...

II. He hears

John tells us that a key component of effective prayer is knowing God hears you:

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15 NLT).

Notice how knowing He HEARS YOU brings the confidence that He will give you what you ask for!

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How often we go to prayer and the devil whispers in our ear “God’s not listening.”

It’s that quiet whisper of a lie that let’s the air out of the tire of your faith.

The devil says, “You’ve prayed before and nothing happened.”

“If God is really listening, why didn’t He answer that other prayer.”

The bottom line lie of the devil is that God doesn’t care about the things you care about, and if He doesn’t care, He’s not listening.

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If the devil can ever convince you that God’s not listening because He doesn’t really care—he can kill your prayer life.

But the Bible says that, no matter how you feel, God is listening!

“For the Lord is watching his children, listening to their prayers;” (1 Pet. 3:12 LB)

“The eyes of the LORD watch over those who do right; his ears are open to their cries for help” (Ps. 34:15 NLT).

In fact, your prayers are extremely precious to God!

John the Revelator was shown an incredible scene taking place in heaven...he saw:

“...four living beings and the twenty-four elders fall down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they held gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God’s people” (Rev. 5:8 NLT).

The prayers of God’s people are literally preserved in golden bowls in heaven that are like incense to God.

That’s how precious your prayers are to God!

So God cares, and because God cares, God listens!

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And the last thing we must believe is that...

III. He answers

If we’re going to have a fruitful, growing prayer life, we MUST believe that not only does God listen, He also answers!

“We know that we have what we asked of Him” (1 John 5:15 NIV).

This KNOWING doesn’t depend on timing or circumstances.

It is a deep, settled confidence that God cannot lie, He has heard my prayer, and how and when He works it out is up to Him.

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Abraham’s faith illustrates this:

When waiting for God’s promise of a son, it says,

“Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping....And Abraham’s faith did not weaken, even though, at about 100 years of age, he figured his body was as good as dead—and so was Sarah’s womb...Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger...”

Now listen to what’s next: “He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises” (Ro. 4:18-21 NLT).

Abraham had the KNOWING John talks about—that God would answer his prayer, and he never wavered!

And of course, God wonderfully answered with the birth of Isaac!

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He cares, He hears, He answers!