HOPE (Part 2) Pray in Hope

When we experience hopeless times in our lives one best things we can do is to pray. Prayer brings hope into our lives. It is a wonderful way to engage in and realize hope. When we pray, we are seeking to connect our hearts with the heart of God. We are seeking to conform our lives to His will and His ways. God has a great plan for you to have a future and a solid hope. We must be eager to embrace God’s plan. We must pray in hope.

Jeremiah 29:12 ESV

12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.

1) See the Seriousness of your Situation…

“…you will call upon me…”

Difference in praying because you should vs. praying because you want to.

If our hearts attitude is, “well, I’ve tried everything else, so I guess I should pray,” then you are still far from realizing the reality of your situation.

Patch Adams illustration:

You're focusing on the problem. If you focus on the problem, you can't see the solution. Never focus on the problem!”

“See what no one else sees. See what everyone chooses not to see... out of fear, conformity or laziness. See the whole world a new each day!”

Too often we choose not to see the seriousness of our sin because we are focusing on a broken world. Look beyond the broken world our Holy and perfect God and we will see that sin is far more severe than we first realized.

When we realize how devastated our lives have been by our own sinfulness, we will not call upon God because we should, but because we must!

“Call upon me” gives a picture of crying out.D. See the Seriousness of your Situation: I cannot do this, I need God!

2) Practice What you Pray…

“…and come and pray to me…”

Serious prayer is partnered with serious pursuit.

We can never just bellow out empty words before our Creator who sees our heart and our motivations.

If we pray powerful words yet are too lazy or too distracted to live out our prayers before Almighty God, then our powerful words are weak and worthless.

Not just a prayer of words, but of will and action.

Put yourself in the place you should be with the posture you should have.

If we go to God in prayer yet we fail to seek Him in His word, then how are we expecting to hear from Him?

If we go to God in prayer yet we expect Him to tell us that He revolves around us, then who do we truly think is god in our lives?

We must live out our prayers in sincerity, humility, and faithfulness to His Word.

Don’t let words be the essence of your prayer. Let your life be a continuous prayer before God. It’s not hard to live out 1 Thess. 5:17 when we are living our prayers before God.

3) Trust in His Transcendent Truth

“…and I will hear you.”

Our desperation will not fall on deaf ears.

God hears us and His attention is towards us.

God hears and He cares…We are not written off.

CLOSING

Too often we fail to realize the hope that God wants to give us in our lives, because we fail to pray hope into our lives.

Prayer is not speaking words to God. It is communication with God: verbal and nonverbal. We must see the seriousness of our situation: we are being destroyed by sin and we need a savior. We must practice what we pray: we cannot say ‘Lord I need You’ and then ignore Him in our lives. We must Trust in His Transcendent Truth: God sees us and hears us. He hears our words and He hears our hearts. He does not write us off. So we must pray in hope.

“we will call upon our God, and come and pray to Him, and He will hear us.” -Jeremiah 29:12 (Modified)