In our Committing to Grow Our Habits study, the next area we will look at is communicating with God. This devotional reading looks at why we pray to God.
Nuggets
- We are communicating with the One Who is above all others.
- We are communicating with the One Who created all things.
- We are communicating with the One Who requires all of us.
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Devotions in the Commit to Grow Our Habits study
When we think about commitment in a relationship, we know we have to spend time with the person with whom we are making the commitment. This, also, applies to our relationship with God.
We have to keep the lines of communication open so we can not only talk to God, but also listen to Him. One of the communication tools that we most often use to do that is prayer.
Jesus gave us a model prayer to help us in communicating with God. Our prayer life shouldn’t only use these words and no others, but this model gives us a framework by which we can form our prayers to God.
We’re going to take several devotions to walk through this prayer to increase our commitment to communicating with God.
Before we jump into dissecting the prayer, let’s talk about why we should pray to God. Someone we are witnessing to – or even ourselves – may question why we call God Sovereign God and pray to Him.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
What Does the Bible Tell Us About God?
God as a Supreme Being
“For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also” (Ps. 95: 3-5 ESV)
We are communicating with the One Who is above all others.
God is Sovereign God. God’s sovereignty means He has supreme power, giving Him control over all things without accountability to a higher power.
To me, God’s sovereignty is tied up with His being eternal, all-knowing, and all-powerful. He is also transcendent.
One of the great things about God is He doesn’t change. If He makes a promise to us, He doesn’t renege on it. That means if He says He is going to love and never leave His children, He won’t.
It also means God cannot lie. If He says there is no one greater than Him, there isn’t.
If God says He is all-powerful, He is. Barns made an interesting comment I knew, but never really thought of it exactly this way before. He wrote, “And as He is infinite in essence, He must necessarily be indestructible in the nature of His existence; for the power that destroys must always be greater than what is destroyed.”
Resource
Nothing is greater or more powerful than God. Therefore, nothing can destroy Him.
Everything about God is holy. We need only look to His laws to see His holiness. Barns argued that we will never be unprotected as long as we are faithful to Him and His laws.
Isn’t it comforting to know we can communicate with the Sovereign God? Nothing we are going through is too hard for the One to Whom we pray.
God will never leave us. He will provide for us.
That makes us want to be in communication with God. We don’t want to have to face trials by ourselves.
God as Creator
“You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you” (Neh. 9: 6 ESV).
We are communicating with the One Who created all things.
Still, we look into God’s creation and see His holiness. The world is governed by God’s laws of nature. We see the abundant intricacies throughout this world and marvel at how minuscule things work perfectly together.
Why was earth created as it was? Mursell said the world was created as is because it reflects God’s character.
Resource
Because God is Sovereign God, He will be victorious in this battle with Satan. One day, Satan will be defeated and cast into a lake of fire (Rev. 20: 14).
One day, “… we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God’” (Rom. 14: 10-11).
Until we can communicate face to face, we communicate with the Creator through prayer. But we don’t take advantage of that, as we should.
We would rather do for God than pray to God. We substitute service for submitted living — but we shouldn’t.
See what Ritchie said. He wrote, “Activity may afford occasion for excitement, and scope for display, and opportunity to attract the admiration of others; while prayer calls to the exercise of faith, to cultivate humility, to live under the eye of God. Spiritual work, indeed, might be expected to draw the servant near to the Master for communion and help.”
Resource
We associate praying with sitting, doing nothing. When we are doing something, we can convince ourselves that it is through our own abilities and efforts.
God doesn’t want us to work on our own. He wants us to work in faith in Jesus’ name. When we draw near to God, He equips us for the tasks to which He calls us.
When we abide in Christ through our prayer life, we grow in Him.
God as Owner of Us
“The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world” (I Sam. 2: 6-8 ESV).
We are communicating with the One Who requires all from us.
The first words of the verse may give us a start initially. Worldview people may assert that a loving God shouldn’t be killing anyone.
I think this reflects that God is defeating sin and restoring us to eternal life with Him.
The symbolism of the ordinance of baptism portrays Jesus’ death and descent into the grave, only to be resurrected into life. It also shows how our lives are to go.
We have to die to self. “And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’” (Lk. 9: 23 ESV).
Yep, we have to totally be emptied of self. If we aren’t, God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have no room in us in which to reside.
We can take great comfort in — and should praise God from the rooftops — that He doesn’t just leave us down. He raises us up to Him.
What if we looked at it as we are continually being raised from conversion to homecoming? We still are in the water, but we are going up.
Spurgeon said something that caught my eye. The Holy Spirit shows us that we are guilty of sin. We become weighed down by the realization of the punishment waiting for us.
We come to the realization that we can’t do anything about that by ourselves.
Enter Jesus. Spurgeon wrote, “The death of legal hope is the salvation of the soul.”
Resource
God, in all His mercy, provided a way for the penalty to be paid.
But it takes prayer to access this payment. We ABCD only when we pray and ask Jesus to be our Savior and Redeemer.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Making the Connections
Mursell made an interesting comment. He wrote, “We are afraid to be natural in our religious life. Why is it that so many Christian people seem to be so bloodless, lifeless, atrophied in their character? It is simply want of air. Christ came to be to us the Truth, and to be the Truth that makes us free — free from our own ignorance, and sin, and unbelief, and fear — free to do the will of the Father by ministering health and kindness to our brethren. To be whole, holy, complete; to be like Christ, is at once the noblest, freest, hardest thing in the world, the one desirable attainment, the sole way to happiness; yes, to more than happiness, to blessedness; and the only way to reach this end is to live in the strengthening atmosphere of Christ’s love, and to avail ourselves of all the manifold riches of His grace.”
Resource
Wow! Jesus sets us free to live!
What ran through my mind when I read this was a Hollywood version of the snooty, rich kid. You know, the one with his nose stuck up in the air saying, “Mother told me not to soil my garments, so I will not run and jump like a normal kid.”
Little rich kid definitely wasn’t living!
I bet Jesus had a lot of dirty garments and scraped knees, because I bet that Boy lived life to the fullest!!!
We get salvation from the best. He gives us the best life. That is to Whom we are praying.
How Do We Apply This?
- Know Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer.
- Obey God as Sovereign God.
- Rest in the palm of God’s hand.
- Live our lives under the certainty that God reigns.
- Grow our faith to focus on Sovereign God, not just an uncontrolled life.
- Pray to God in our times of need.
- Pray for the health of the Church.
- Pray that souls will be saved, reviving the Church.
Resource
Father God. We are humbled that You give us the privilege to pray to You. You are Sovereign God, the Creator of all that is. You designed the Plan of Salvation so we can communicate with You. Thank You, Lord. Amen.
What do you think?
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“For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also” (Ps. 95: 3-5 ESV)
Once again this shows us there are other gods, lesser gods, and that our Lord God, is the Soverign God. This has no end to what my mind can conjure up. We can’t even see the surface of how profound Thais is, and how little we can see of Gods world, and what he has in mind for us.
Yes! We sometimes don’t want to think there is, but there is. And they are more than just the substitutes, such as money and prestige, that we make into gods. It will be wonderful what we will spend eternity learning!