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YOUR CHOICES AND DECISIONS
Submitting Your Mind To Jesus Through Prayer
Jesus explains The Three Keys To All Of Christianity in Matthew 7:7-11: Mat 7:7-11 (NIV) ASK and it will be given to you; SEEK and you will find; KNOCK and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who ASKS receives; he who SEEKS finds; and to him who KNOCKS, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son ASKS for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he ASKS for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ASK Him! How do you get good gifts from your Father in heaven? He gives them to those who ASK Him.
Self-Help Rather Than Prayer
Prayer is a new experience for us humans; we don’t use it for any other reason than for talking to God. If you intend to do something yourself, you don’t pray about it; you just do it. But, if for any reason you want God’s help, you realize you would have to pray some kind of prayer. If you are convinced that your choices and decisions are pretty much always good ones, it is doubtful you will use prayer to make them. If, in your opinion, you have had very good success in you decision making process, you won’t see any great need to pray. But, if things start going wrong, if your decisions start backfiring on you, you may start considering prayer. You want something to happen from a greater source than yourself; so, you pray.
Human Effort Rather Than Prayer
James 4:1-2 (NIV) What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. Everybody who is anybody does it this way; some of the most successful people you know have written books telling you they did it this way. None of the most “successful” people in the world prayed for any of the things they have. So, why should you include prayer in your choices and decisions?
Praying To God
Isa 55:8-9 (NIV) For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. When you pray, you get God’s knowledge, His knowledge of the future, His understanding, His wisdom, His love, His protection, and His power. When you pray, God forces EVERYTHING to work for your good: Rom 8:28 (NIV) And we know that IN ALL THINGS God works for the GOOD of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Those who appear to succeed without prayer end up being a slave to sin, money, greed, and emptiness.
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A Permission Based Relationship
God wants you to ONLY get those things that flow through Him. But, He doesn’t want you to get anything through Him that you don’t PRAY and ask for. Gen 1:27 (NIV) So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God created you with a God-given free will; you can’t be programed to do the right thing like a robot. God won’t force you like a slave to do the right thing. You have to DESIRE it or God won’t do it for you. The way for you to invite God into what you want is to PRAY for it. That is you giving God your permission to do what you DESIRE.
A permission based relationship is one where you and God have to have each other’s permission. When you pray, you are giving God your permission to do something for you, in you, with you, or through you. If He answers your prayer positively, then that is Him giving you His permission to have it. Since you lack God’s knowledge, foreknowledge of the future, understanding, wisdom, and love, you will OFTEN ask for things that you are convinced are good for you; but they aren’t. When this happens, you don’t get God’s permission to get them from Him. You may get them through some other source; but, you won’t get them through PRAYER.
Submitting Your Choices And Decisions Through Prayer
Each day, as you go through these studies, Jesus takes you through Biblical truths on the first page. Then on the next page you spend time praying for all those things Jesus exposed you to. If you pray for them with true DESIRE and willingness, Jesus installs them into your HEART, SOUL, MIND, and STRENGTH of will. You have been praying a lot of prayers that you may not remember; but, Jesus remembers them. Each one of those prayers have become like spiritual food to you. You may not remember what you ate yesterday; but, that food is feeding your body right now. That is the way these PRAYERS are for your spiritual growth.
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