There are a few Bible verses about the prayer that we can take a look at the very beginning:
- Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always. - 1 Chronicles 16:11
- And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. - Ephesians 6:18
- Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. - Luke 18:1
- Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. - Colossians 4:2
Through prayer, we reach out to the Lord and ask him for help and express all of our needs in front of Him. However, these few verses talk about a different type of prayer.
We as children of the living God should not just pray our list and the things we need for our day to go better. We should not just pray for the things that concern us or the people we care about. We need to commune with God, talk to Him, take off the veil, and believe that He loves us, that He is in the room whether it feels like it or not, and start declaring the truths about us and our life.
In this video, Dan shares that he learned in his life that there are a lot of people that do not want to become love. Instead, they hold onto the rights that the fall of man gave them. They are looking for a reason that is qualifying them to not love.
He is asking us - ‘’Does it mean that we are supposed to just put up with people no matter what they did or said to us? - Well, what if God took the attitude that we are trying to hold on to and took that towards us? This is how we know when the thinking isn't clear.’’
If we cannot put our thoughts in God and make them work, then they aren't coming from Him. If we cannot put our attitude in the mouth of the Lord and make it speak towards where we can hear it from the Lord, then it is not from Him. Dan is convincing us that we do not need a justification to stay the same, we have every reason for a change.
God is loving and He is amazing and that is not passive, nor weak. God’s love is not passive, nor weak and God is not a pushover. He is incredible. The Bible talks about loving-kindness and mercy, however, the men nowadays grew up thinking that wasn’t the way to be cool and manly. Instead, we should not try to be cool, we should aim to be more like Him. So if the world says you have to swear every other word to be cool, that’s probably not cool in front of the living God. If the world says you have to be mean and tell somebody off and not turn the other cheek, we are probably missing God.
Most of us grew up with the mentality - if you treat me wrong, I will get you bаck somehow and make you pay. That vengeance that we all grew up with and the anger - it is all so perverse. So Dan is challenging us about the things that haven’t produced life in us and is telling us to stop believing they are normal. If they allowed us to be discouraged, angry, if they allowed us to justify our offense and hold on to it - let’s stop calling it normal, let’s stop saying everybody is doing it, because Jesus isn’t doing it.
Knowing about the Bible and knowing what the Bible says isn’t what transforms a life. Knowing Him is what transforms a life. There are a thousand plus one lies out there trying to keep us from knowing Him, trying to keep us from getting close to Him. When the only place we are semi-comfortable with is in a corporate setting and we brush against God because the atmosphere is amazing, however, when we are alone in the bedroom it doesn’t seem like that. Dan is telling us that this is a lie. The enemy is trying to keep every Christian from knowing Him in a very personal and intimate way. It is only through our relationship with Jesus that our life is going to change. We can only afford so much diligence or discipline, we only have so much capability and ability in the flesh to transform our own life and it is very limited and far below what He created us for.
Dan is telling us straight, the Christian life is supernatural. To walk out Matthew 5:43-45 and beat attitudes is impossible in our flesh but yet He calls us to it and yet He tells us to live there.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. - Matthew 5
In our own strength, we can never fulfill Matthew 5 but in the Holy Ghost, it is beyond possible. If we want to become love, if we want to forgive, show mercy, make peace, then we can get alone and tell God: ‘’I have been fashioned wrong, I have been schooled wrong, I have been cross-wired and wrong-wired, I want to be brand new, I want Your heart in me and I thank You it is here. I want to look through Your eyes when I see men. I want to see what You see when I look at men. I am done with first impressions and judgments and walking in a room and trying to figure it out. God, I want to see what has always been there in You. I know that You are doing work in me today and I thank you for it.’’ This is the way Dan is encouraging Christian to begin praying today.
I’d love to know what you think about that and if you have other tips on how to pray please tell us about them in the comment section below.
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