Burden in Prayer

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Stephen Nielsen

The following article is an excerpt from this book.

 

Prayer is all about carrying burdens, not only the burdens of people but the burdens of God.  He calls us to be burden bearers with Him for people, for the sake of His kingdom.

 THE BURDEN OF GOD

Throughout the Bible we see the great love and compassion of God toward all people.  Psalms 86:15 tells us, “He is full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth.”

Jesus was and is full of compassion toward us too.  While He was on this earth He was always going about from city to city preaching and teaching God’s good news; and He was healing all who were sick and diseased.  And when He saw the multitudes He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd (Matt. 9:35-36).  And now, while in heaven, Jesus still sympathizes with all our weaknesses, and gives us grace and mercy whenever we need it and ask Him for it (Heb. 4:15-16).

Moreover, the Holy Spirit cares for us too.  He is constantly interceding for us with groans, which cannot be expressed in words (Rom. 8:26).

Here is what Wesley Duewel in his book, Mighty Prevailing Prayer, said about the burden on the heart of the Holy Spirit:

No Christian has fully understood the burden on the heart of the Holy Spirit as He longs for, loves, and identifies with all the sufferings, heartaches, and heart-burdens of Christians across the world.  There is never a discouragement, a hidden tear, or an unspoken pain that the Holy Spirit does not feel completely and personally.  Never an injustice, a sorrow, or a heartbreak that the tender Holy Spirit does not suffer with us.  In addition…the Holy Spirit yearns and longs for all the broken lives, broken homes, hurting unsaved millions of the world.  He feels their tragedy.  He suffers from their hatred and violence.  He carries the sufferings of our world upon His holy heart.

Hence, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit identify with and are burdened with the sufferings and needs of all people.  And He (The Triune God) longs to show us His loving compassion.

GOD CALLS US TO BE BURDEN BEARERS WITH HIM

God not only carries our burdens and longs to show us His love, but He calls us to share His holy yearnings for others.  He calls us to be like the prophet Jeremiah who shared the yearnings of the weeping heart of God for His people.

Listen to Jeremiah’s sorrow-filled words (Jer. 8:21-9:1):

 For the hurt of the daughter of my people I am hurt.  I am mourning.  Astonishment has taken hold of me.  Is there no balm in Gilead, is there no physician there?  Why then is there no recovery for the health of the daughter of my people?  Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

This is true intercession—to suffer with God for the needs of others, to have the sacrificial spirit of Christ, a willingness to lay down our lives for our friends and bear their burdens.

But we should not consider this ministry of burden bearing pure drudgery, or pure agony.  For, though pain is involved, when we come before His throne with prayer concerns, we enter into a sweet fellowship with Him where He gives us His sweet rest.  For His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matt. 11:28-30).

And why is it easy and why is there such rest?  Very simply, because God is with us and He helps us.  He may allow us to feel the pain of others for the sake of stirring our hearts to compassion for them, but He does not expect us to carry their burdens alone.  And the joy and privilege we have of taking the sins and needs of others before the throne of God in prayer makes all the pain worth it.

Therefore, as Paul has instructed us, let us be strong in the Lord and clothe ourselves with a heart of compassion, so that we may bear one another’s burdens in love (Rom. 15:1, Gal. 6:2, Eph. 4:2, Col. 3:12).  According to Wesley Duewel, “[God] longs to pour and pour [His] love into your being and through you out to the hurting world.  He wants this love to be manifested in your words and your actions, but more constantly and perhaps more powerfully than all else, in your praying.”

I like  what Stephen J. Isham has said on this subject on His blog  post: Bearing Each other’s Burdens.  Chech it out.

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SWEET PRAYER: Keeping Our Prayers As Sweet As Incense

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Stephen Nielsen

The following article is an excerpt from this book.

 

Since David prayed, “May my prayers be counted as incense before Thee” (Ps. 141:2, NASB), one thing we may conclude is that not all prayers are as incense.  Some in fact may be offensive to God.  Such are those prayers that are offered with wrong motives, which come from a heart with impure desires (Ja. 4:1-4).

Christ is the sweet aroma of our prayers.  If our prayers are not sweet before God it is because we have not allowed Christ to dwell in us and change us.  But if He is our reason for living, if He is loved by us and if we have let Him be Lord over us, to teach us and guide us and help us, and if we have let Him renew our mind, thus, if we have received from Him such precious graces of faith and love, etc., then our prayers will rise up to God as sweet incense.

As Spurgeon has pointed out in His book, The Power of Prayer in a Believers Life, just as incense has a special mix of spices formulated just right to make the incense fragrant, our prayers are made sweet only when there is a mixture of precious graces that God has put in us, such as faith, love, repentance and humility.  These are the sweet qualities of Christ.  They are as the sweet spices making up the incense of which God is well pleased with.

Spurgeon wrote, “The prayers of His saints are acceptable with Him …because they are the pleadings of His Son.  The saints are members of Christ’s body, and as they plead, Christ pleads in them.  The very strength of their pleading lies in this—that they urge His merits—and the Lord delights to be reminded of His Son’s excellencies.  It is a theme that His soul delights in.”

So we have seen that the sweetness of our prayers depends on how we abide in Christ.  The more we abide in Him, we could say, the sweeter our prayers will be to the Father.  But let me also say this: God understands our weaknesses, and that we aren’t always as pure as we would like to be.  And just because we have sinned doesn’t mean that He will never accept us. In fact, God is waiting to hear our prayers. He loves everything we say to Him when we come to Him in repentance. And He loves to hear us pray just because we are His Children. Yes, He loves to hear the voices of His children; and He loves the unique way we pray.

And you know what else?  I think prayers are especially sweet to God when several of us, his children, pray together in unity.  Each individual prayer has its own special flavor; but the prayers of a group of saints offered up together in unity I think brings to God an even greater pleasure.  Thus God delights in united prayer as one who would sit back and enjoy the sounds of a harmonious choir or of a full orchestra.  Thanks and praise be to God for His special delight in us!

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How to Become a Christian

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Stephen Nielsen

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This article is an excerpt from my book, Prayer A to Z.

There is really only one prayer that a non-Christian can pray with the assurance that God will hear him.  It is the prayer for mercy—from a humble heart that sincerely has decided to go God’s way.   Any other prayers that are uttered by a non-Christian are an abomination to God and are not heard.  Why?  Well, it is not because God is not good.  He is good (Read Matthew 5:43-45).   It is because He can not grant any other request of the unsaved, because they naturally do not do what is right or seek after God (Romans 3:10-11).  Isaiah 64:6 tells us that the unsaved are unclean and all their righteousness are like filthy rags to God.  Therefore, God will not listen to their prayers because all their requests are made with selfish, ungodly motives.

Listen to what the Bible says regarding the prayers of unbelievers.  In John 9:31 we read, “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.”  Also in Proverbs 15:29 it says, “The Lord is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous.”

But are all unbelievers wicked?  Just because people don’t believe in God does that make them wicked?”

Well, what does the Bible say?  In Romans 3:23 it says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  It also says in 1 John 3:8, “He who sins [the non-Christian] is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.” And in Matthew 13:19 and in Ephesians 6:16 the devil is called the wicked one.  Therefore, because all non-Christians are of the devil, the wicked one, we must conclude that they are wicked.  And so, God does not hear (listen to) their prayers.

But let’s go back to Proverbs 15:29.  The last part of the verse says, “…But He hears the prayers of the righteous.”  We have said that God will not hear the prayers of the non-Christian because of his sins.  But here the writer of Proverbs tells us that He hears the prayer of the righteous, those who have been saved from their sins.

So what must the unbeliever do to be saved?  There is only one thing he can do.  He must pray the only prayer that God will hear, the prayer for His mercy—mercy that will forgive him of his sins and make him clean and righteous.

And He has made a way for everyone to be clean and righteous through Jesus Christ who died for our sins.  In 1 Peter 2:24 (NIV) it says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”  Also in Isaiah 53:6 it says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

Yes, God put all of our sins on His Son; He died and paid the penalty for all our sins.  Our response must be to believe in Him and to cry out for His mercy.

When you pray for His mercy to be saved you must be sincere.  Here are…

Three Things You Need to Ask Yourself to Make Sure Your Prayer for Mercy is Sincere

1.  Do I admit that I am a sinner and that my sins have separated me from God?  (Read Romans 3:23 and 6:23)

 2.  Am I repentant of my sins; that is, am I willing now to give up my sinful ways and to go God’s way?

 3.  Do I believe in God and His Word?   Do I believe that He died on the cross for my sins?  Do I believe that He will hear and answer my prayer for mercy?

 If you said yes to all of those things, you are ready.  Now is the time to cry out to God for His mercy.  In your prayer to Him you must admit your sins, repent of your sins, and believe in Jesus to save you.  Ask Him now to come into your life.  The Bible says He stands at the door of your heart (or of your life) and He is knocking.  He wants to come into your life to save you from the ultimate penalty of sin—hell.  And He wants to make you a new person.  He says to all unbelievers, including you, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20).

Do you sense that Jesus wants to come into your life?  Do you feel that God is calling out to you, that He wants to save you from hell, and that He want you to be His follower?

If you are reading this now and you sincerely want to be saved but you are unsure of what to pray, you can pray the following prayer:

Lord Jesus, I am praying to You now because I know I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness.  I believe You died on the cross for my sins and paid the penalty for my sins.  Please come into my life and forgive me of my sins.  Make me a new person and show me how to live as You would want me to live.  Amen.

 If you prayed that prayer, here are…

Three Things that Just Happened to You and that You Can Look Forward to as a New Christian

1.  You have been saved.  You have been saved from the penalty of sin and now you have eternal life.  Romans 10:13 says, “For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  Also in John 3:16 it says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

2.  You have been adopted into God’s family together with all believers (John 1:12).  As His children we stand in His grace (Romans 5:2) and we enjoy the privilege of talking to Him and requesting from Him anything we need (Read Romans 8:15-16).

3.  God has given you many precious promises you can claim and enjoy through prayer at any time.  Here are nine wonderful promises: (1) Assurance of Salvation, John 5:24; (2) Assurance of Forgiveness, 1 John 1:9; (3) His Guidance, Proverbs 3:5-6; (4) His Provision, Matthew 6:33; (5) Victory over Temptation, 1 Corinthians 10:13; (6) Peace of Mind, Isaiah 26:3; (7) His Help in Trouble, Psalms 34:4; (8) His Strength, Isaiah 40:31; and (9) Answered Prayer, John 15:7.

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UNANSWERED Prayers

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Stephen Nielsen

The following article is an excerpt from this book.

 

Here are three possible reasons why your prayers aren’t answered–from my e-book Prayer A to Z.

1.  You really aren’t abiding in Jesus and His Word as you think you are.  A good test of whether you are abiding or not is whether you bear fruit.  Jesus said, “He who abides in Me, and I in him bears much fruit (Jn. 15:5).  Fruit is that evidence that you are a Christian—a true Christian that abides in Christ and grows to be like Him.

Are you becoming like Christ?  Do you love others as He did?  Do you reach out to others and share the love of God with them?  Do you have the faith that Jesus had?  When you pray do you expect God to answer you?  If you can’t say yes to any of these questions I suggest that you go back and read again those pages in group #2.

2.  Your prayers are not according to the will of God.  If your prayers are not according to God’s will, that is, if they don’t line up with scripture and if God is not pleased with them, He will reject them.  Likewise, if your prayers are selfish, for your own pleasure, then you are not abiding and God won’t answer them (Ja. 4:3-7).

If you want God to listen to your prayers, your motives in prayer must be to bring glory to God and to advance His kingdom.  Therefore, when you pray, you should always have in the back of your mind (as a reason for your prayer) that you want to please God, to advance His kingdom, to help yourself and others grow in Christ and to bear His fruit.  If these are not the motives of your prayers then this could be the reason why your prayers are not being answered.

3.  You have the wrong idea of what prayer is.  If you think that prayer is just a matter of asking and that answers to prayer are always immediate, that’s the wrong idea of what prayer is.  The very nature of prayer means to wait on God.  Yes, prayer is asking for things, and sometimes God answers immediately.  But usually not.  Most of the time prayer demands our patience, persistence, and earnestness.  Prayer is like a wrestling match, or a battle.  Sometimes the battle of prayer is short, sometimes long—depending on the strength of the enemy and our own faith and determination.  But I maintain that if we are praying according to the will of God and we are abiding in Him, our prayers will be answered, but in His time.  God has His own reasons why answers are sometimes longer than we expect.  Sometimes it is to build our own faith and our desire for Him.

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Abiding in Christ: Eight Things a Christian Does to Keep Himself Abiding

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Stephen Nielsen

The following article is an excerpt from this book.

 

The key to answered prayer is to abide in Christ and to let His words abide in us.  In John 15:7 it says, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (NKJV).

Here are eight things an abiding Christian does to strengthen his faith in order to keep himself abiding in Christ—taken from my e-book Prayer A to Z. 

1.  He makes it his habit to meditate on the Word every day.  This daily meditation time helps him to see things from God’s perspective, gives him a desire for God, and helps him to adjust his desires to God’s desires.

 2.  He obeys God and keeps himself busy with His work. The abiding believer knows that faith isn’t really faith without obedience and work.  In fact, he is convinced that his faith is perfected by obedience (Ja. 2:22).  Therefore, he is always diligent to listen to God as he prays, so that he can do everything He tells him to do.

 3.  He commits himself to holiness.  He is not one to merely obey God’s commands as an obligation or duty.  No, he seeks to please Him in everything.  Therefore, he works hard to get to know Him and what He would desire of him.  He especially tries to keep himself pure and holy, a vessel fit for His use.

 4.  He believes and prays without doubting.  The abiding Christian is not like the waves of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.  Rather, he is strong in faith and prays without doubting.  And as a reward for his faith God grants his request (Ja. 1:6-7; Heb. 11:6).

5.  He prays according to God’s will.  He always prays according to Bible promises and according to how the Holy Spirit confirms His will to him.  Therefore, he prays with a strong will and with great confidence that he will receive God’s answers (Read 1 John 5:14-15).

 6.  He prays specifically.  The abiding Christian always prays specifically, not generally.  Those who pray generally are really not seeking or expecting an answer, but are usually praying just to fulfill an obligation.  The abiding Christian prays specifically because he is always seeking and expecting an answer for a specific need.  Therefore, he exercises great faith; and as a reward God is pleased with him and grants his requests (Heb. 11:6).

 7.  He prays earnestly.  Earnest prayers are fervent, desperate prayers, prayers that are repeated over and over again.  They could possibly be misinterpreted as pagan prayers: those that are made repeatedly with the intention of impressing God or others with mere words (Matt. 6:7).  However, when the abiding Christian prays repeatedly he is not meaning to impress anyone with his words, nor does he pray out of fear or obligation.  His prayers are made with great sincerity and determination, and often with fasting because of some great burden the Holy Spirit has laid upon him.  Therefore, his prayers are earnest because he prays out of love and concern for others and for God’s good will.

God is always pleased with the abiding believer’s earnest prayers.  So much so that He rewards him by building up his faith so that he can pray with even more intensity—and receive the answers he desires!  James 5:16 says, “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”

 8.  He prays together with other believers.  A few days before Jesus ascended into heaven, He prayed for all believers that they would be made perfect in one, just as the Father and the Son are one (Jn. 17:22-23).  This indicates to me that all those who truly abide in Jesus and His words also abide in fellowship with other believers.  The abiding Christian therefore is not a loner. He is knit together in fellowship with a body of believers who do things together and pray together.  And because they practice praying together in unity and agreement, they experience God’s awesome power and are often delighted by the answers He brings them.

Matthew 18:19-20 says, “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

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Answers To Prayer: Three Reasons Why We Can Be Confident that Prayer Works

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Stephen Nielsen

The following article is an excerpt from this book.

 

Prayer was never meant to be an end in itself—not an exercise to glory in, to impress someone, or even merely for communion and enjoyment of God (though that is part of prayer).  Rather, the main purpose of prayer is to glorify God when we receive from Him the things we ask for (Jn. 14:13).  And that is what we should expect when we pray—that He will give us exactly what we ask for, nothing else, nothing different.  Here are three reasons why we can know that we can recieve answers to prayer—taken from my book Prayer A to Z.  

1.  In all of Jesus’ teachings on prayer He has emphasized strongly that we can receive answers.  In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus instructed His disciples on asking and receiving.  He told them that if they will just ask, He will give to them, if they seek they will find, and if they knock the door will be opened to them.  Here it seems that asking, seeking, and knocking are all ways of asking, asking that gets more and more intense.  Seeking is more intense than regular asking, and knocking is more intense than seeking.

But I think this passage is teaching more than just our intensity in prayer.  I see this kind of prayer as a progression of prayer that involves us in the process.  God wants us to be involved in prayer, in bringing about the answer.  He doesn’t just want to hand us what we desire on a silver platter.  So here Jesus I think is teaching: ask what you desire, but then when God gives you some insight into what exactly He wants to give you, go out and seek for it—put some feet on your prayers.  Then next, when you think you have found what you have been praying for, knock on the door. And when the door opens, test it to see if it is what God wants you to have.

An example of this kind of prayer would be when we are praying for a job.  We would begin our prayer by asking God for the kind of job we desire.  But it doesn’t end there with verbal asking.  We don’t just keep asking and not do anything.  No. The next thing we naturally do when we desire a job is to “seek”—to look around for a job.  We would look in the paper or on-line at the help wanted ads, etc.  But it doesn’t end there.  We would get on the phone and call places that interest us and then go and talk to the person offering the job.  That’s the knocking part of prayer.  So we don’t just sit on the couch and pray!  We put feet to our prayers!  God wants us to be involved in the process of prayer.

Notice that at each level, or at each step on the journey, Jesus tells us that God will give us an answer.  He said, “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

2.  God has made it our nature to ask in prayer in order that we may receive.  We are not speaking of the old nature here.  It is not in the sinful nature to want to pray and expect answers.  If you are without God you never want to pray; and when you do pray you are surprised when answers come.  But when we invite the Holy Spirit to fill us and when we learn how to pray from Him, God works in us the desire to pray and expect answers.  Therefore, it is the new nature in us that desires to pray and to receive answers.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3:16 that we are temples of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in us.  He was of course speaking to only believers; God’s Spirit dwells in each believer.  He dwells in us individually, but also corporately—in the Church (1 Pet. 2:4-5).  In Matthew 21:13 Jesus said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer…” In that context He was speaking of the Jewish temple.  However, I think we can also conclude that since we (individually and as a Church) are temples of God, Jesus was also speaking to us.  Yes, in our new nature, we naturally want to pray and to receive answers, because He has made us a “house of prayer.”  In this house of prayer, where the Spirit dwells, He will give you His heart, His desire.  And when we lift that desire up to God, when we ask Him according to that desire, that is what prayer really is.

3.  It is God’s nature to hear and answer prayer.  It is well established in the Bible, by various declarations (especially in the Psalms) and by ample evidence, that God hears and answers prayer.  In Psalms 5:3 David declares, “My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning I will direct it to You, and I will look up.”  Again in Psalms 65:2 David says of God, “O You who hear prayer, to You all flesh will come.”

In Hebrews 11:6 we find the clear teaching that God is a rewarded of those who diligently seek Him.  This is His nature.  This is who He is.  He is a God who listens to our prayers and rewards us with an answer.

He answers the prayers of all His creatures who cry out to Him for mercy and for daily needs.  Look out and see how God has fed and clothed the whole earth.  Not even the little birds lack food and shelter (Matt. 6:26-28).  He answers the prayers of Christians in particular because we are His own special people whom He died for and whom He has adopted into His family (1 Pet. 2:9; Eph. 1:5-7).  What a good Heavenly Father we have.  He is always watching out for us.  He cares for all our needs and wants because He loves us so much.

He wants to answer our little requests as well as our big requests.  He cares about the little things we ask for, not because they are so important in themselves but because they are important to us.  For just as a mother sees to the little things that an infant child cries out for, God cares about the little things that we ask for.  Likewise, God wants to give us big things too—and a lot of things.  He says to us from Psalms 81:10, “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”  Again, from Jeremiah 33:3, He says to us, “Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”

If you want to read more on this subject, check out my website.  I also invite your comments.

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