Pray then Move
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Pray then move toward your breakthrough
"Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you." - Saint Augustine
Pray and wait vs. Pray and take action
*In bed at night and your spouse says from out of the dark. “I am thirsty”. Then go get something to drink. “ I am to tired. Implying will you go get it for me? Praying and then not taking action is
God I need a new job (prayer). But I am to lazy (tired) to go look for it. No action.
We have been praying for God to open doors for an opportunity to serve our city and the people of Riverside.
Pray, pray, pray, - Pastor Karen, I just happen to find an advertisement in this Riverside magazine stating that the city of Riversides Park and Rec. is looking for community partnerships for various city sponsored events. Should I reach out? YES!
Email lead to a Google hangout meeting with two city workers and Pastor Karen and I.
We shared our vision to love on our city and I got to shared my past experience working closely with the city of San Bernardino and SBCUSD. At the end of the online meeting they said to us you are our kind of people.
Could we schedule a second meeting and come visit Church on The Hill? YES!
Second meeting: We have never partnered with a church before. Concerns about city politics. Don’t worry I have navigated these waters before. We will show up and just love on the people of our city. Of course wearing special Church on The Hill volunteer shirts advertising our church on the front and in big letters on the back that stating Volunteer / Serving Riverside. If someone ask about our church we will tell them. We will not proselytize.
Proselytize: convert or attempt to convert (someone) from one religion, belief, or opinion to another.
They agreed: talked about us hosting a young men’s conference / and ask if I could be the keynote speaker. YES!
We have a single mom that needs financial assistance. YES! We can help. Karen and Denise loved on her.
They sent out their parks and rec team to our Dad’s and Donuts event at our preschool. For free. YES!
Then the most glorious email. They invited us to help volunteer at the city sponsored Easter Egg Hunt. YES!
Good deeds = Good Will = Good News
We Prayed, Prayed Prayed, for an opportunity, took actions, now it is your turn to join us in loving our community with good deeds = good will = good news.
Pray with expectation that God is going to move then take some action. - Dating - I am waiting for God to bring me my future spouse on a silver platter. Or maybe God wants to use the amazing tool of Christian dating sites. Or have you join a christian hiking club where other singles could be at?
When we join God in what He is doing it is powerful. Prayer… Where are you moving God and how can you use us? Instead of planning and inviting God into our plans.
20 This is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah, doing what was good and right and faithful before the Lord his God. 21 In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.
When we pray, we pray like it is all God. And then we do everything we can to make those prayers come true. Not by our own might but by God’s grace. We do so joyfully because we know it is all in God’s hands. That gives us freedom and peace. And that, my friends, is the blessed existence of God’s children.
The Christian life is meant to be a wonderful adventure. Praying that God will give you the opportunity to show God’s love to your neighbor, then keeping a watch out to find ways to bless them.
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
Faith to pray God honoring prayers and asking Him to move. Then accompanying the faith prayer with (deeds) action.
Gabe: Knee pain for quit a long time. Let’s be faithful and pray. Laid hands asking God to move. As soon as I was done praying with Gabe, the Lord reminded me of a guy that had a exercise program that helped people with bad knees ever in their 80’s get mobility back and lessen their pain. One exercise worked for me. You should check it out. Gabe went and took action. Could this be what God had intended for Gabe. Will you have the faith to pray as if it all depends on me, then will you put your faith into action and take steps toward your breakthrough?
Jesus' life and teaching included both prayer and action. Presumably, if God meant for us to spend all of our time praying, Jesus would have spent all his time praying for people instead of going out to help and teach them. Although Jesus devoted plenty of time to prayer, it was not the only thing he did.
Andrew Murray, wrote in his spiritual classic, The Prayer Life:
“The enemy uses all his power to lead the Christian and above all the minister, to neglect prayer. He knows that however admirable the sermon may be, however attractive the service, however faithful the pastoral visitation, none of these things can damage Satan's kingdom if prayer is neglected. When the Church shuts herself up to the power of the inner chamber, and the soldiers of the Lord have received on their knees ‘power from on high’, then the powers of darkness will be shaken and souls will be delivered. In the Church, on the mission field, with the minister and his congregation, everything depends on the faithful exercise of the power of prayer.”
But there is an equal and opposite danger. And that is the Christian who does have an active prayer life, but who never turns their prayer into action.
So to act requires prayer, but having prayed, God requires of us to act! We are, his hands and feet in this world until he comes again to complete the work he started at creation and has sustained throughout history.
On the one hand, I do believe that God is capable of accomplishing anything He chooses without any of my help. God is not in need of me, I’m in need of Him. Yet, on the other hand, in His ultimate wisdom and planning, God chooses to use me to do His work. And that’s where the tension lies (for us, not Him!): how much am I supposed to just sit back, praying and waiting for God vs how much am I supposed to get out and “get er’ done”?
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Prayer and action aren’t in competition, they are both made complete in each other. In fact, the more I thought about this and looked at it through Scripture, the more I realized that when we pray and seek God’s will, help, favor and blessing, and then act on those prayers, the more likely we are to see God show up in BIG ways!
I’ve become convinced that too many of us think it’s all up to us — we work every day by serving others and chasing down our goals with the belief that it’s up to us and our wisdom and ability. We tend to pray little, work hard, and we achieve results that lie within who we are. But then there’s another segment of people who sit back and pray, while doing little. They have a belief that if they just pray hard enough, everything will work out (which has a partial theological truth to it, making it even more dangerous!).
However, even a casual search of the pages of the Bible will reveal that God is a multiplying God — He loves to show up and multiply the efforts of His children who are seeking Him and trying to live Overboard. In fact, the more I looked for it, the less I could find people in the Bible who only prayed and didn’t act on those prayers. It’s like the great men and women of the Bible believed that prayer was a call to action, not a call to waiting. When they asked God to show up (prayer), they went to work and waited for Him to multiply their efforts (action).
I can sit here and pray all I want for good health and for energy and better sleep. Obviously, God could miraculously intervene and zap me to restore my health. But God’s Word is full of proof and instruction that while God loves to show His power, He most often does so in multiplying our efforts, not in pulling miracles out of thin air. Here are just a few examples that you might already be familiar with:
When Jesus fed 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, He only performed His miracle after the disciples gathered up what they could find. Then Jesus sat down, prayed and started breaking the bread. Could He have just pulled the bread and fish out of thin air? Of course! But Jesus’ miracle was a multiplication of the disciples’ work. (Matthew 14)
Before Esther saved the Jews from total annihilation, she asked her uncle to pray, and then she sought the king’s favor. Could God have simply changed the king’s mind without Esther? Without a doubt! Instead, God changed the King’s heart when Esther prayed for God’s favor and then went to work. God multiplied! (Esther 4:15-16)
15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: 16 “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
I am going to go do what God has called me to do. Pray first (hard, focused, intense) then go (take action). Then it is in the Lord’s hands.
In Genesis 6-8, God saved Noah and his family from a world-wide flood. Did that ark that saved 8 people just appear from the forest? Nope. Noah and his family spent 100 years building the boat that would save them!
In Mark 2, Jesus was teaching in a packed-out house. Literally. Four friends had a buddy who was a paralytic and they desperately wanted Jesus to perform a miracle. Could Jesus have healed the man while he was begging on his mat on some street corner in Capernaum? Of course! But Jesus didn’t respond to the faith of these men until they did the work of bringing their friend to Him. And then Jesus multiplied their effort by healing the man physically and spiritually! (Mark 2:1-11).
9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Ask is one level. Seek is another level. Knock is yet another.
What is the promise?
10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
The Wycliffe Bible Commentary: New Testament C. Popular Teaching. 10:25-13:21
Ask for what you do not possess; seek for what is not apparent; knock that obstacles may be removed. These three words epitomize the content of persistent prayer.