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Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
James 4:1-3
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
We’re a society that wants things now. We hate to wait and that intolerance is growing to epidemic proportions.
We want our money when we want it and so we have ATMs and you can even get cash back when you go through the checkout lines of most stores.
Speaking of stores, we have normally have express checkout lanes where you don’t have to wait as long if you have 12 items or less, that is if you can find a cashier which seem like they are going the way of the dinosaur as stores replace them with self checkout stations.
Want something to eat. No need to sit in a restaurant and idly wait for someone to take your order and bring food to your table. All you need to do is drive up, make your order, pull around to the window, grab your food, and you’re off.
Indeed, this onslaught of fast service options has had a major impact on our life attitudes and, in many ways, has eroded our patience.
Did I mention we hate to wait?
There’s little question that we do and the spillover of our impatience has impacted our spiritual lives as well as so many believers see our Lord as a fast service God. Just make your order with Him, pull up to heaven’s drive through window, and He will reach out and give you what you ask for.
There’s only one problem with this approach.
God doesn’t act in accordance with our will. He totally operates in accordance with His.
This means that our lives are to be centered on His desires and His wants. We’re expected to be God-centered and not self centered. Do this and you live in righteousness. Don’t and your life will be immersed in wickedness.
This is true today and it was obviously true in biblical times because we find the matter discussed in our scripture passage for today. In it, we see that fights, quarrels, covetousness, and even murders happened in the New Testament.
What was the root cause then (and now)?
The scriptures tell us that it is from within a person, originating from inner desires. This kind of person wants things they don’t have and so they quarrel and fight with others, maybe even killing them to take away what they have. Their drive to quench the thirst of their desires is so strong that they even see it worth taking a life to gain what another has.
Why don’t they just get what they want from God?
The answer is found in our passage for today which tells us that a person won’t get what they ask of God if they are requesting with the wrong self fulfilling motives. God is not going to provide anything that doesn’t meet His will for the person asking. Putting an order for something that is selfish is a sure fire way to end up not getting one’s order filled.
So how should we approach coming to God with our petitions?
We find the answer in God’s word but in a different New Testament epistle. For look at these words from 1st John:
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 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
There you go. Now you know the right way to approach God with confidence so that you might receive what you ask for.
Note that it starts by asking for things that are in accordance with God’s will.
How are you going to know that?
By praying and asking for God’s will to be done in your life and this shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, didn’t Jesus to pray by giving us these words to bring to His Father (and ours)?
“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will
be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:9-10
Did you catch that?
We’re supposed to ask God for His will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, we’re to submit to the Lord’s will, not ours. And when we do this, then we know God will hear us and then give us what we need so His will can be done. This is a certainty we can count on.
Note that none of this has anything to do with what we want but everything to do with what God wants for us.
Why don't you seem to get what you want from God?
Maybe you should check your approach to asking.
If it’s centered on you and your desires, then expect to find your requests unfulfilled.
But if you’re constantly seeking the Lord’s desires for your life and asking for His will to be accomplished, then stand by to receive what you ask for because God is not going to place expectations on you that He isn’t willing to help you achieve.
Seek His will, ask for what is needed for that to be done, and then wait for the Lord to provide.
It’s really as simple as that.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please
share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com
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