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We need to realize that the promises that
overflow our Bibles will overflow into our own lives only as we appropriate
them through prayer. God wants us to feel secure regarding our relationship
with him. He wants us to know with certainty that we possess eternal life as
part of his family. Because we are his children, then, we can bring our needs
to him with certainty in prayer - We can have the same confidence in asking for
things as we have about our salvation
Jim Cymbala
In addition to describing God as Creator,
Comforter, and King, the Bible also calls him “the Hearer of Prayer.”
This is one of the sweetest
yet least known descriptions of the Lord in Scripture: “O you who hear
prayer, to you all men will come.”
Or, more literally, “Hearer
of Prayer, to you all men will come” (Psalm 65:2).
If God did not hear our cries and prayers,
wouldn’t our world be incredibly lonely and depressing?
Fortunately, the Lord is not some distant
Creator who set the world in motion and then proceeded to ignore it.
He is the “Hearer of
Prayer” who made costly provision that his people might “approach
the throne of grace with confidence” (Hebrews 4:16).
God loves to answer our prayers, but the Bible
speaks of definite principles that govern a successful approach to him.
Just as God created an ordered universe with
physical laws governing it, so it is with prayer.
Prayer is not some haphazard, accidental undertaking.
The great reformer Martin Luther boldly declared
that God does nothing but in answer to prayer.
Over and again, as God deals with his people, we
see this cycle:
Purpose – Promise – Prayer
The Psalmist asserts that the
Lord’s deliverance is at hand because “the appointed time has come” and
then he quickly adds that God “will respond to the prayer of the
destitute; he will not despise their plea” (Psalm 102:13, 17).
We need to realize that the promises that
overflow our Bibles will overflow into our own lives only as we appropriate
them through prayer.
He wants us to know with certainty that we
possess eternal life as part of his family.
Because we are his children, then, we can bring
our needs to him with certainty in prayer.
We can have the same confidence in asking for
things as we have about our salvation.
Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with
less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of
the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary
Wilkerson.
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