In our beautiful relationship with God, prayer is the most powerful gift we share with Him. Our prayers reflect our dependency on God; we believe that God responds to the prayers of His children. And there are some prayers that God responds to as it is necessary for our growth as Christians. In this series “Honest Prayers” we look at certain prayers from scripture that God is keenly interested in answering. These prayers must be asked honestly, boldly and daringly. They are not easy to pray; we open ourselves to risks that God our loving Father is in control of and leads us into. Expect God to respond in unconventional and unpredictable ways for His Glory, for the expansion of His Kingdom and for the benefit of our souls.
Lord Make Me Humble
By: Joshua Mathew
God loves humility; He bestows grace to those who are humble and exalts them in His due time. In our first sermon “Lord Make Me Humble” of our “Honest Prayers” series, we looked at what it means to ask God to humble us. This is an important (but also very dangerous) prayer. When we ask God to humble us we are asking Him to search us, break us and mould us. It is an open invitation for Him to clean out anything that He does not find good. As a Loving Father, He will do anything to purge out our sin, our pride, our perspectives, our independence, our ideas of what is good and bad, our own self-security, our idols–absolutely anything–in the most inconvenient way. The tools He will use to fulfill this prayer in our life will be surprising. Yet after being searched and pulled apart, God full of love, mercy and grace, takes our broken pieces and puts it back together for what is right and good for us and for His Glory. If we truly don’t want to waste our life for Him, dodging this prayer is not an option; it is mandatory and essential.
Clearing Up The Clogs
By: Joshua Mathew
For Christians, prayer is more a dialogue than a monologue; as we speak to God in prayer, God speaks to us through our worship, meditation of the scriptures and by the impressions of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is our communication and connecting channel with God. Yet often this important channel is cluttered and clogged through the busyness and tiredness in our lives. Our souls are daily tempted by the world, Satan and our own sinful desires making it difficult to hear God’s voice above all else. In this sermon “Clearing Up the Clogs” we look at different hindrances that affect our connection with God and what we must pray for in order to clean up those filthy clogs. As we talk to God every day, we must honestly pray to have a repenting attitude, a renewing mind and a remorseful heart so that by His grace and the strength of His Spirit, we will put to death everything that ruins our harmonious walk with God.
Use Me For Your Glory
By: Joshua Mathew
If there is one prayer that every Christian well-intentionally desires to have answered, it is the request of God using them for His glory; where by the Holy Spirit, we will be able to spread the love of God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In this sermon “Use Me for Your Glory”, we focused on two passages (Acts 23-31; John 15:18-23 ESV) where we see the hardships the early church (and which Jesus said) endured for their faith in Christ. We learned that when we pray to be used by God for His glory, we are going to face alienation, rejection, opposition and persecution from the world around us. God may respond slow to this sincere and very important prayer request because He is preparing us with humility, boldness and grace to endure everything that will advance this Gospel of hope to our broken world.
Show Me Your Glory
By: Ian Opiniano
We looked at Moses’ famous prayer, “Show me Your Glory.” We defined God’s glory as His holiness manifested, and discovered that this prayer is a prayer of Desperation, Confirmation, and Transformation. God meets us in our desperation for Him, confirms our identity in Him, and transforms us in the image of Him. Just as Moses asked to see God’s “ways” so that he could “know” Him more (Exodus 33:13) we do the same when we cry out, “Lord, please show me your glory!”
Your Will Be Done
By: Joshua Mathew
The fulfillment of God’s will in our lives and in our world is an important prayer. In this final sermon of our ‘Honest Prayers” series, we learned that when we pray, “Your Will be done” we are putting away our will to accomplish His will; we are putting to death our sinful and selfish desires while we conform to Christ (Romans 8:19-20; Galatians 2:20 ESV). We learned that we are surrendering completely to Him, opening up ourselves to receive whatever He has sovereignly planned out for us from His goodness that will make us more like Christ. Though it sometimes may be hard to perceive and fulfill, it will always be for our good and for His glory.