Month: July 2021

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Teach US to Pray – Part 4

The Kedge Anchor
Photo by Ben Mack on Pexels.com

Welcome to part four. If you have been following these posts on prayer, we looked at what prayer is and isn’t. Prayer is communicating with God and a form of meditation. God is not a genie and will only grant us what is best for us. He is our Heavenly Father and wants to bless us like a father would provide for his children.

Sometimes it appears God is silent. But it’s really us who need to stop and listen. Just because God is silent, doesn’t mean He is saying no, sometimes He is responding with a wait, not yet, in His time. He is sovereign and He has a plan for us. Philippians 4:6 tells us to “pray without ceasing,” “praying at all times,” Ephesians 6:8. God wants to hear it all. He wants us to pour our hearts out to him. Sometimes we don’t know what to pray but God has provided the Holy Spirit to hear the cries of our heart, the words we don’t know how to express and with groans, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” Romans 8:26

So, to whom do we pray? The Scriptures make it clear that we are to pray to the Father.

Matthew 6:6-13 – “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; …”

Philippians 4:6 – “...but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God …”

John 16:23-24 – “… Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. “

John 14:13-14 – “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”

In Matthew 6:6-13, Jesus tells us to pray directly to His Father. He tell us to send our requests no to Himself, the Holy Spirit or to dead saints, but to go directly to the Father, our Father with our prayers. Paul confirms this in Philippians 4:6. In John 16:23-24 and John 14:13-14 Jesus instructs us to not only pray to the Father but to pray in His name. We are to pray to the Father in Jesus’ name. By doing so we acknowledge that it through Jesus’ blood only that we have a direct connection to Him and the Father. We see this in John 14:6 – Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Jesus is the only way to eternal life and to our Heavenly Father.

I do believe there is a way to pray, but not to get our prayers answered. This is what Jesus is telling us is the best way to enter into prayer so that the Father will hear us. I see it as God’s love language. This is how we are to address our prayers to the Father. We all have a love language. Don’t know about you but I don’t like when people just bark orders at me. A “please,” “a would you do me a flavor, please.” And I certainly don’t appreciate attitude. But at the same time we can go to the Father in all reverence but still talk to Him as if we could see Him sitting next to us.

I have gone to God telling Him how I feel. There’s no hiding that I have been mad at Him, so for me to even try and cover that up, He KNOWS my heart, He sees my anger and it’s ok to be angry and express it to Him as long as we don’t sin. He understands our limited knowledge of our situation. And usually after I have expressed my anger, I not only feel better but I fell comforted knowing that God knows all and in time He just may reveal to me some or all details at some point.

There are some examples in the Bible of God’s people being mad at Him. Numbers 11:11,15 – “Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you treated with your servant so badly? Why haven’t I found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? . . . If you treat me this way, please kill me right now . . .” and Jonah 3:10-4:9 . “Therefore now, Lord, take, I beg you, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.” . . . “I am right to be angry, even to death. Anger is an emotion God gave us, He just wants us to express it wisely.

So go to the Father in the name of Jesus about everything at all times. No holding back. We have a big God, He can handle it. He knows our hearts.

Thank you for stopping by. If you liked this post, please like and share. If you have any comments or prayer requests please leave them in the comment section.

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Teach Us to Pray – Part 3

The Kedge Anchor

Welcome back again and thank you. Prayer is an important part of the Christian life. After all it is how we communicate with our Heavenly Father. “Never stop praying.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:17. The KJV says “Pray without ceasing.” The greek word for ceasing is adialeiptōs , translated –  incessantly. Makes me think of a pesky insect, like a fly continually landing on my food or buzzing around my face. It just doesn’t stop.

That’s what God is trying to tell us in Paul’s letter to Thessolanica, be pesky with prayer. Philippians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” And Ephesians 6:18 – “Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.” Pray at all times and go to God about everything.

He wants to hear it all. The small things, like finding your lost keys, helping you with deciding where to go for dinner, He wants to be included in all you do. He wants to hear about how excited you are about finding something you lost, or how a memory makes you happy, and He wants to hear about your bad day, how a co-worker made you feel angry or how you messed up. Sometimes we don’t know what to pray. And the cool thing is, we don’t always have to talk. We just need to be present in His presence and listen. We can always find something for which to praise Him. Thank Him for all that He is doing, has done and will do because God is faithful. Thank Him when you get the perfect parking space, thank Him for finding a lost item, thank Him being able to tie your shoes and if you can’t thank Him for the person who could. Praise Him for His creation, for the song birds, the rain, the sun, praise Him for the small things and the big things. Thank Him for the person who delivers your pizza 🙂

So as you begin the weekend, be pesky in prayer, in all things, all the time and be present in His presence.

If you liked this post be sure to like and share. And please leave your thoughts, comments and prayer requests. Thank you

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Teach Us to Pray – Part 2

The Kedge Anchor
"Our Father"

Welcome back. If you were here last week we defined prayer as “an address (such as a petition) to God”… “a set order of words used in praying.” Prayer is a conversation with God. God created us to commune with Him. Not because He was lonely, but because He loves us and wants to be a part of His creation’s lives, to be a part of our lives. (That could be another post) After all He did create them, shouldn’t they get the chance to know their creator? God wants us to know Him, to know who He is and what He has for us as His creation.

But prayer isn’t a wish list. God isn’t a genie. That isn’t His purpose to prayer. He wants to hear from us, He wants us to tell Him every detail about our day, how we are feeling, what we have going on, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. And by now you may be saying “But He knows all about us and knows everything why do we need to tell Him?” Because God is love. God loves us, He wants His children to talk to Him. Yes, He knows. Don’t you want to hear from the people you love? For those of you who have friends, family that you are really close to, or are married you are so close, you can finish each other’s sentences. You know what they will say next, but you still want to hear from them, right? You want your children to ask you for help, you want to give them the things they want and you provide for them the things they need. So it is with our Father.

Our Father will provide what we need and He does want to bless us. Maybe not necessarily with material things, although He does grant us those things sometimes according to His will. He provides when we don’t know what we need sometimes we don’t have to ask. Like salvation. God knew before He created the world that man would need to be restored. He knew man would fall and all His creation would become sinful. But He had a plan long before the Garden of Eden. All we need to do is ask. He provides salvation, He freely offers it, we just need to ask and receive it.

James 4:2 says “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.” The people James was speaking to were asking for thing for the wrong reasons. God will judge our motives and only give us what He sees will benefit us and glorify Him. So it is through prayer, communicating with our Father that we can align our will and hearts with His so that those things our hearts truly desire.

We pray to listen to what our Father has to say to us. He does respond, just sometimes not right away, and sometimes not the way we expect and sometimes right away. Sometimes we need to be patient. When there’s a silence sometimes I think He’s preparing me for what He has to say about something. It may be something to correct me so He’s lovingly giving me time to be receptive to His words. I just may not be ready yet. “The teacher is usually silent during a test.” It’s during those silent moments that God may be teaching me something before He tells me something. : )

Thank you for stopping by. Please stay tuned and if you liked this post please leave a comment about your thoughts, prayer requests and be sure to like and share this post.

Free Stock photos by Vecteezyvecteezy.com

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“Teach Us to Pray”- Luke 11:1 Part 1

The Kedge Anchor
Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev on Pexels.com

Prayer can sometimes be a little daunting. We so often don’t know what to say. We have no words to express how we feel or what we want to see happen. We can feel inadequate, sometimes unworthy. We often feel uncomfortable praying in front of others and worse asked to pray on the spot. We can feel lost and start to question our faith when our prayers go unanswered.

We wonder, is God hearing me? Where is He? Why aren’t my prayers being answered? I’ve been praying for ______ fill in the blank, for years, what’s taking so long? We ask, “where are you God?” These are normal responses. We are after all human. We don’t have all the answers to anything. We don’t have infinite knowledege. We were not present when God created the universe.

So, let’s find out and dig a little deeper into what prayer is and isn’t. Let define prayer, practice it, share it. I am no expert on prayer. I have probably just as many if not more questions than you do about prayer.

Jesus gave a perfect model of prayer in Luke 11:1 and in Matthew 6:5-15. And that is just what it is a model prayer. It illustrates how to pray rather than dictating the necessary words to use. Even as a model prayer I still find myself praying it from time to time when I am at a loss for words, sometimes I pray it to calm my mind. I do believe God still hears my words, my unspoken words.

When writing about something, in some cases I was taught to start by defining what it is about I am writing. So let’s define prayer.

The Merriam – Webster Dictionary defines prayer as:

1a(1): an address (such as a petition) to God or a god in word or thoughtsaid a prayer for the success of the voyage

(2): a set order of words used in prayingb: an earnest request or wish

2: the act or practice of praying to God or a godkneeling in prayer

3: a religious service consisting chiefly of prayers  —often used in plural

4: something prayed for

5: a slight chancehaven’t got a prayer

In Biblical terms, prayer can be defined as a conversation with God. However, I do believe that God has a love language and we need to know what that is. Just like your spouse or your family members, friends, boss, co-workers, anyone in who you have a realtionship with has a love language and to communicate best with them, learning their love language can make a difference. But, I still believe that God hear us when we can seem to find the words. Romans 8:26 – “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.“

So you maybe asking, “why pray?” Stay tuned as we try to gain some insight to prayer. Please like and share and if you have any comments please share them.

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July 5, 2021 – John 8:36

The Kedge Anchor

 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed

John 8:36

Download the image to your phone or electronic device as wallpaper or print it out to keep in front of you to help you memorize scripture.

To download, click on the image, click file, click save. Save anywhere on your device and go into your wallpaper settings on your device it’s that easy. : )