How to impact time and eternity

“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”  James 5:16b

To impact time and eternity, PRAY.

But there are conditions.

1.  Be a righteous person.  How?  Believe in God.  Or more specifically, trust Jesus.  Trust Him because of who He is and because of what He has done.  He is God in the flesh, completely God and completely human.  He died in our place and rose to give us a new beginning.  If you trust this, God considers you righteous for two reasons.

a)  He forgives all of your sins because Jesus paid the penalty for them:  death.  There is one penalty for disobeying God—The Death Penalty.  But Jesus died, so we don’t have to.  Because God pardons us of our crimes, it is as if we never committed any crimes, or evil actions, or acts of disobedience to God.  God declares us innocent, not guilty, as if we’ve never been guilty.

b)  We are reborn.  We receive a new spirit, a new life, a new identity. This new person is a child of God, and has never sinned against God. 

So to be righteous, trust in Jesus, and live according to this trust, or faith.  Faith in God is real righteousness.

2.  Pray in agreement with God’s will.  It is written, “If we ask anything according to God’s will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we’ve received what we asked of God.”  A righteous person, by definition, only wants God’s will, because he totally trusts in God only.  She does not trust herself at all!

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful:  Very capable of bringing about changes and actions on earth from heaven.

But not only this, the righteous person’s prayer brings about specific actions and specific changes.  In other words, it accomplishes the goal it sets out to accomplish:  It is effective!

Because I’m sleepy, I ask for energy to go to work for my family.  And God gives it to me!

Because of anxiety, I ask God to relieve me and give me peace.  And He gives it to me!  (Even if circumstances don’t change.)

To powerfully and effectively impact time and eternity: PRAY!

The ONLY TIME God will help us

The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received. ~C.S. Lewis

I hate my job.  I loathe the day I must return to work.  But I’m not at work. I’m at home playing with my children.  We play hide and go seek, but my mind is on dreading work. 

But I’m not at work.  I’m at home.

So the only strength I can expect from God is strength to play hide and go seek with my children.  They are right in front of me, hiding very badly!  My goal:  To act like finding them is the hardest thing I’ve ever done!

This moment is good.  Perhaps a bad moment is waiting for me after the game.  When or if that bad moment at home with my children finally comes, I’ll pray for wisdom and strength right then and there.  Or I can pray right now for any coming bad moments at home, or at work.  Praying, right now, is something I can do, and something God will give me the strength to do.

Ok.  I prayed.  Now I must focus on “finding my children.”

But now I hear one of them crying.  Her voice fills the house.  I feel a temptation towards irritation.  After all, her mother is sleeping.  Should I become irritated?  How do I know why her voice fills the house unless I investigate? 

So I pray for wisdom and strength to help my crying child…strength for right now.  Because right now is when I need it.  Not for work tomorrow, God willing. 

Right now.

The EASIEST way to directly ENCOUNTER GOD!

“The LORD is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth.”   

Psalms 145:18

What is the easiest way to directly encounter God?

PRAYER!

Make no mistake.

Not just any kind of prayer, but praying with total honesty and very specifically.

As Jesus said,
“If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”  Matthew 21:22

Many make Jesus’ promise a blank check written to heaven.  Not so.  The assumption of Jesus, as seen in “The Lord’s Prayer,” is asking that which agrees with God’s will. 

Having said that, I believe there are two specific things we can expect when we pray with total honesty and very specifically:

1. God’s Presence.
2. God’s Peace.

As it is written, 

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, through prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.”

God’s presence feels like someone attentively listening, and not like the feeling of thinking out loud.

God’s peace transcends comprehension.  You will have an intuitive sense that God has given you exactly what you asked for, or a peace that God will NOT grant it, and the ability to be content WITHOUT what you asked for.

I have experienced this.

Once I wrote a vulnerable email to a friend and was anxious for a response.  I asked God to inspire a response THAT NIGHT, or to give me indescribable peace if I got NO response.  I knew that if I was OK without a response, it could ONLY BE GOD! 

As I prayed, I felt indescribable peace.  But I wasn’t satisfied.  I knew the test would be whether I continued to feel peace if my friend didn’t write back.  But I sensed the Spirit's assurance of a response. 

Sure enough, I checked my email, and read a beautiful response!

So, what should you do to easily and DIRECTLY ENCOUNTER GOD?

Before today ends, set aside 10 minutes.

1. In the first 5 minutes, think out loud about the most pressing issue on your mind.  How does this feel?
2. In the last 5 minutes, talk directly, specifically, and honestly to God about the pressing issue.  How does this feels?
3. Leave a comment about this experience.  (Or leave a comment about your own God encounter through prayer.)

Why it is sometimes hard to pray

"All difficulties in prayer can be traced to one cause: praying as if God were absent."
St. Teresa of Avila

It's usually easier to talk on the phone than to text or email, not in terms of convenience and time, but in terms of clearer or fuller communication.  And it's easier to talk face to face than on the phone for the same reasons.  In person we can consider facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language as affirmations of the words spoken.  In addition, we can simply feel the person out by intuition, sensing their vibe or spiritual impressions through all of the mentioned communications.

With God it is the same, though our senses are spiritual instead of physical.  In other words, because God is a Spirit, or because He is Spirit, He simply is who He is.  He is always all of Himself, and never less than real, never other than genuine.

Prayer is simply conversation with God, the Supreme Ultimate Person, Personality, and Community of Personalities. 

But think of this.

Imagine you are with two other people who both know you, or at least know of you.  They talk to each other about you, as if you were absent.  How do you like that?  How does that make you feel? 

Or imagine you and one other person in conversation, someone you like to think of as a friend.  This "friend" talks to you as if you are absent, as if he has NO idea who or what you really are, as if she has never met you (or anyone like you) before in her life.

It's hard, if not IMPOSSIBLE, to communicate or respond to someone who speaks to you as if you are absent. 

God is all knowing, which makes Him infinitely sensitive in the most beautiful and strongest sense of the word.  He knows when He is being treated as though He isn't there (or worst of all, as though He does not exist.)

Would you share your thoughts or emotions with someone who treated you like this?

How to NOT be ANXIOUS about ANYTHING!

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."  Philippians 4:6-7 NIV

How, you ask, can you not be anxious about anything?

First, realize that God commands those who believe in Christ not to be anxious.  So anxiety is a choice to worry instead of trusting God.  And that is a sin. 

Now I'm not speaking of anxious feelings. I'm not speaking of anything physical, chemical.  I'm speaking of a mindset that focuses on situations outside of our control, situations of uncertainty.  In times like these, we have a choice: 

Focus on our lack of control, or focus on God's complete control. 

That is what God commands.  
Worrying is chosing to distrust and disobey God.

Second, realize that God has given a way out of worry, an activity, something to do instead that solves the problem.

PRAY!

That's right.  Good ole prayer!   As someone somewhere at sometime said, "Prayer changes things!"

It really does!  Really!  It changes the state of anxiety to one of tranquility.

How and why?

This is how.  This is why.

When we pray, thanking God for what we already have, and asking Him for what we don't have, God assures us that He will provide for us or give us the ability to be content with what we have.  In other words, a supernatural assurance will be given to the one who prays until God answers.  God promises us peace of mind and emotion when we trust Him.  He gives us this certainty, which destroys our every anxiety.

Is it really that simple?

Look at the alternative.

What if we don't pray or trust God or ask God for help.  We refuse to ask Him to be what cannot be and to do what we cannot do.  We instead place all of our trust in ourselves.  We solely trust in our own minds and will power. Yet everything outside of ourselves is outside of our control.  Everything! 

So...we worry...and rightly so!

But if we REALLY see the Almighty as the one who is in control, the one who cares, the one who provides and sustains, we can simply ask Him for what we need.  We can request that which will relieve our anxieties. 

I love the word of God because it is so practical, so simple, so beautiful!

Pray instead of worrying.

Pray.