"Have the Faith of God: When You Pray!" Parts 3-1b & 3-1b-1 July 27, 2014

[Dr. Dorothy E. Hooks, PsyD]

2.  Ask – Part 3-1b: When we ask, we are asking that God’s will be done in the matter NOT OURS! We are not to tell God what we want but ask what He wants for us. Yes, I know David said in Psalms 37:4 that God will give us the desires of our hearts, another Scripture taken out of context but let’s look at the verses 3, 4, & 5 together:

 

3 Trust thou in the Lord and do good: dwell in the land, and thou shalt be fed assuredly: 4 And delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee thine heart’s desire. 5 Commit thy way unto the Lord, and trust in him, and he shall bring it to pass.

Verse 5 sums it up, we are to commit our way unto the Lord, forgetting our will but asking what is His will for our lives; God’s will becomes our will once we commit ourselves to Him, trusting He will bring to pass what is best for us‼ If we commit everything we do to the Lord then our heart’s desire will be for the things of God, not material things! We do not need to pray for material things (food, clothes, etc.) because God already know what we need so why ask? Jesus said in Matt 6:8 – Complete Chapter that God, our heavenly Father, knows what we need before we ask! Then in verse 25 of Matt 6, Jesus lets us know not to worry about food or clothes; all we have to do is seek first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness and EVERYTHING else will be added to us (Matt 6:33).

When we go to God with our petitions and ask, we are asking that His Kingdom come in our lives and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven so He can get the glory out of the situation and our lives – this is the essence of our petitions; this is why we pray! Our hearts are supposed to be connected to God’s heart and what He want we should want – we should not want anything God does not want us to have – we should not want to glorify the flesh but want God to get the glory out of our lives! When our heart’s change, our desires for God will change!

The only way to change our heart and stop desiring to satisfy our flesh is to do what Paul said in Rom 12:1-2:

 

12 I call upon you, therefore, brethren, through the compassions of God, to present your bodies a sacrifice -- living, sanctified, acceptable to God -- your intelligent service; 2 and be not conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, for your proving what [is] the will of God -- the good, and acceptable, and perfect.

When our minds are transformed, we will be able to know the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God and we cannot be transformed until we give ourselves over to God, by accepting His Son Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior – we cannot go to the Father without going through the Son; Jesus is the ONLY way to the Father! John 14:6 tells us that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life!

a.Definition of the Word “Ask” – Part 3-1b-1: Let’s look at the different between the words “Ask” and “Tell” so we will know what each mean before we pray. This is the definition of the word “Ask” according to dictionary.com: 

i. To put a question to; inquire of (as you can see praying and asking are the same thing – the definition I gave you from dictionary.com for “prayer” was “to ask earnestly a question; entreat). Therefore, when you ask a question, don’t you expect a response? Not only do you expect a response, but you are willing to wait for that person to respond to you. It should be the same way when we pray to God – we should wait for God to respond to us before we move or if the prayer did not go the way we thought it should, we should respond back to God with thanksgiving – thanking Him for working that situation out for our good and according to His will!

ii. To request information about. 

iii. To try to get by using words; request: to ask advice; to ask a favor. When we ask (pray to) God, we are saying “God what You think about this? When we ask of the Lord, we are inquiring of Him; we are communicating with God so we can hear His heart on the matter – He knows it all and don’t miss a thing!

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God bless,

Dr. Dorothy E. Hooks

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