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JESUS’ SERMON: Mat 6:1-4 (NIV) Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, WILL reward you.

Mat 6:5-8 (NIV) And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, Who is unseen. Then your Father, Who sees what is done in secret, WILL reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

Mat 6:9-13 (NIV) This, then, is HOW you should pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us TODAY our DAILY bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

The Holy Spirit is your prayer intercessor for bringing the life and ministry of Jesus into your life and ministry.

Giving And Prayer

Luke 6:38 (NIV) Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” It has to become clear to us that each Scripture in the Bible is tied to all the other Scriptures in the Bible. That is why it is so important for us to pray and allow the Holy Spirit to do all our interpreting of every Scripture.

When we compare Matthew 6:1-4 with Luke 6:38 we see that our motives for giving ALSO affect what we get back from God. If we were to give generously, but give to be seen by humans, then we wouldn’t get a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, poured into our lap. Without this additional information, our motives would be cutting us off from the blessings of God and we wouldn’t know why. Matthew 6:5-8 is telling us the same thing about prayer. We could pray all the information in Matthew 6:9-13, do it with bad motives, and not get our prayers answered positively.

Getting So As To Own And Keep

Giving and prayer work together in a very important way. Most people are working very hard trying to get. A large portion of their day consists of trying to get money, possessions, positions, power, popularity, and prestige. Even if they do pray, they pray with the motive of getting. James 4:1-3 does a beautiful job of drawing out the intense desires of a person who is concentrating on getting.

James 4:1 (NIV) What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your DESIRES that battle within you?

Trying to GET money, possessions, positions, power, popularity, and prestige are all coming from our body’s intense desire. It wants all these things and can’t be happy because it is designed to seek happiness within them. We were born with a selfish, self-centered hunger or desire within our heart. We start with a self-awareness that is very focused and intense. Our desire and pursuit for pleasure and the avoidance of pain causes us to do WHATEVER it takes to accomplish our goal.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? This question and the one that follows, in James 4:1, bring out the central problem we have in our relationship with ourselves, others, and God. Salvation and sanctification (spiritual growth) are dealing with this major problem. We need a healing in this huge area of our life. But, we need to be able to see what the problem is; or, we won’t know how to ask God for His help.

We Have Decided What Will Make Us Happy

James 4:2a (NIV) You WANT something but don’t GET it.

There are things we see that we focus on. We look at them and we decide we WANT and NEED them. From that point on, they become the central issue of our pursuit. We come up with strategies for how we believe we will be able to GET them.

However, there is a major belief that is motivating our pursuit and our strategies. We believe that GETTING these things will make us happy and will help us with our pain.

God, on the other hand, is telling us that GIVING is the answer to our happiness and deliverance from the pain we suffer. He is trying to change the DESIRES in our heart. He is putting other people and their needs in between us and our happiness and absence of pain. He is saying that the correct way to GET is to GIVE. He is telling us that HE will become our source of GETTING, if we will stop trying to GET and start learning how to GIVE.

We Have Developed Our Goals, Plans, and Strategies For Making Ourselves Happy

James 4:2b (NIV) You kill and covet, but you cannot HAVE what you WANT.

Some people actually kill people so as to get what they want. Others kill people with words (Matthew 5:21-22). Whether it is murder, character assassination, or coveting, the reason for the abuse is human effort and worldly systems for GETTING those things the person DESIRES. God is saying that killing, assassinating someone’s character or wellbeing, or covetousness is not the method we should use to GET those things we think will make us happy. He is saying we will NOT GET what we are seeking, even if we obtain the object we are pursuing.

James 4:2c (NIV) You quarrel and fight.

Another body, Satan, and world system for GETTING is to quarrel and fight with people. Either they have something we want and won’t share or give it to us; or, we have something they want and we won’t share or give it to them. We and they are looking to the system of GETTING so as to keep or obtain those things we think will make us happy. God is telling us that we are to GIVE to them so He can GIVE to us. He is saying that His supply is so great that we don’t need to kill, covet, quarrel, or fight over one object.

God Has Developed His Goals, Plans, and Strategies For Making Us Happy

God is loving, generous, and has everything. However, there are two systems we must involve our self in, in order to start GETTING from Him. These two systems are prayer and giving. Prayer and giving, just by themselves before we GET ANYTHING from God, will in fact bring love, joy, happiness, and peace into our lives. Plus, all the THINGS we GET from God will also add love, joy, happiness, and peace to our lives and ministries.

James 4:2d (NIV) You do not have, BECAUSE you do not ask God.

Prayer is the first part of the PRAYER/GIVING system of God. All the above systems that we looked at in James 4:1-2 involved us looking at ourselves and seeing what we wanted to get, and then involved us looking at other people and seeing who had what we wanted. Then we devised a goal of getting those things and we set up a plan for how WE were going to go about getting them.

As we get introduced to Jesus and Christianity, we learn that we won’t get any of the things we want and need, if we don’t ask Him for them (pray). From that point on, we keep our desires and attitudes about getting; but, we allow God to gradually change our system for WHERE we try to get them. We start praying to God and asking Him to GIVE us all those things we were previously seeking. In other words, we changed from looking to ourselves for being our own supplier of our needs; and we stopped looking at other people to see who had what we wanted. That was a step in the right direction.

God’s Principle Of Giving Must Influence Your Prayers

James 4:3 (NIV) When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may SPEND what you GET on your pleasures.

After praying for all those things we were previously pursuing, we soon discovered that God wasn’t doing what we were asking Him to do. We were praying for those things we wanted to GET, OWN, and KEEP. God wants us to pray for those things we can GIVE, so we can GET, so we can GIVE more. That is where the Holy Spirit adds Luke 6:38 to our prayers.

Luke 6:38 (NIV) Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

God’s system takes us into a prayer that asks God to GIVE us money, possessions, positions, power, popularity, prestige, healing, breakthroughs, attitudes, character, Him and all He has to offer, SO WE CAN learn, live, and share it all with others.