SUNDAY SERMON: Teach us to pray (Part two)

29 Mar, 2020 - 00:03 0 Views
SUNDAY SERMON: Teach us to pray (Part two)

The Sunday News

Apostle Chisale

GREETINGS to the beloved nation. As we continue with the subject, ‘‘Teach us to pray’’, we note that David gave us the assurance that God answers prayers. As individuals, as a church and as a nation, let us be assured that there is a God in Heaven who answers prayers. David discovered the integrity of God that He is the only God who can answer prayers. There are many gods in this world but our God, who is in Heaven, is faithful and will never change when we pray to Him with sincere faith.

In the book of 1 Kings 18:24, Elijah met with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, who were false prophets, and he said to them, “. . . call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire — He is God” (NIV). We then see the prophets of Baal calling on the name of their gods from morning till noon saying, “Baal, answer us!” (NIV) but there was no voice and no one answered. They leapt upon an altar that they had made. Elijah began to mock them by saying, “Shout louder, surely he is a god . . .” (NIV) and in verse 28 we see the prophets crying aloud and cutting themselves with knives and the blood gushing out of them. The gods of the world will always disappoint, however, our God in Heaven does not want to see us cutting or punishing ourselves in the name of prayer. He just wants our mouths and hearts that are full of faith for Him to answer our prayers.

In 1 Kings 18:37-38, we see Elijah in the time of evening sacrifice praying and saying, “Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again”. The fire of the Lord then fell and consumed the sacrifice. We see that after Elijah had prayed, God answered his prayer by sending fire to consume the sacrifice. There is a God who answers prayer. His name is Jehovah, the creator of the Heaven and the earth. He loves His people and He is waiting for their prayers.

Make time with God and make time for prayer especially in this time that we are in, where there is a lot of panic in the world. God is waiting for our prayers in order to bring healing to us and to bless the nations of the world. One must learn to plant a seed in prayer so as to harvest the harvest of breakthroughs and favour. There must be a time for individual prayers and also a time to meet with others in prayer. There is no holiday and there is no rest in prayer because the moment we rest we will be opening doors for demonic attacks.

As we go back to the disciples of Jesus, who had asked their master to teach them how to pray, we see Jesus starting to teach them how to pray. In Mathew 6:5 he says, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full”.

Jesus was now attacking the attitude of Pharisees when it comes to prayer. Pharisees were the people who were always against the teachings of Jesus and they loved to be recognised by people when they were praying. There is nothing wrong about praying while standing but they were praying to attract people and not God, their hearts were not after God. They wanted to please people and by this Jesus said they have received their reward. By reward Jesus meant that their rewards will come from men and not from God. Jesus taught His disciples not to pray like Pharisees who were praying for show off.

Prayer is not for show off but a way of speaking to God and it is done in secret.

One of the hindrances in the prayers of the disciples, was probably that they were praying like Pharisees who loved to be seen by men. Therefore, Jesus taught His disciples not to pray like Pharisees. We pray, not to be seen by men, but to be seen by God that we have prayed. There is a lot of show off among many people who tell themselves that they know how to pray. They pray to be seen by men and not by God, like the Pharisees, and this has caused hindrances in many prayers that are being done. Hence, there is need to depend on the Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray prayers that attract answers.
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