Review

Last week, we started a series titled, “I prayed about it. (But what does that mean?)”

The objective of this series is to get you to pray. . .

• Sincerely (Put your heart in it)
• Biblically (Follow Scriptural patterns and instructions)
• Attentively (Be responsive to promptings from the Spirit and your observations)
• Regularly (Make prayer a daily practice)
• Persistently (Pray through delays and denials)

We are going to cover four prayer-related topics:

• The Posture of Prayer (My attitude)
• The Content of Prayer (My words)
• The Practice of Prayer (My habits)
• The Accessories of Prayer (My help)

 

Making sense of Heart Posture

• Just like there is a posture of the body, there is a posture of the heart.

 

Why Forgiveness Matters

• Mark 11:25 (ESV): 25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

 

• Unforgiveness dishonors God.

 

Keeping Our Heart, Words and Actions in Alignment

• Matthew 15:8 (ESV): 8 “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;

 

• 1 Samuel 16:7 (ESV): 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

 

God’s X-Ray Vision

• Hebrews 4:12 (ESV): 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

 

• Hebrews 4:13 (ESV): 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

 

Getting Specific About Matters of the Heart

• Indifference

 

• Timidity

 

• 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV): 7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

 

• 2 Corinthians 4:13 (ESV): 13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak,

 

• Mark 11:22–23 (NKJV): 22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. 23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

 

• Hebrews 4:16 (NKJV): 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

 

• False humility

 

• Passive-Aggressive

 

Presumptuousness: The Silent Killer of Confidence (in God)

• Presumptuousness

 

• To be presumptuous is to make naive assumptions about what you have the liberty and the means to do.

 

• James 4:13 (ESV): 13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—

 

• James 4:14(ESV): 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

 

• James 4:15 (ESV):15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

• James 4:16 (ESV):16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

 

• 1 John 2:16 (ESV): 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

 

• But if I read this same passage in the Amplified Version, look what it says

 

• 1 John 2:16 (AMP):16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh [craving for sensual gratification] and the lust of the eyes [greedy longings of the mind] and the pride of life [assurance in one’s own resources or in the stability of earthly things]—these do not come from the Father but are from the world [itself].

 

• Luke 12:16–21 (ESV): 16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

 

How to Be Rich Toward’s God

• To be rich toward God is to have an attitude toward God that is honored by God.

• 1 Samuel 13:14 (ESV): 14 But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, . . .

 

• Acts 13:22 (ESV): 22 And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’

 

• Psalm 139:23–24 (ESV): 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!