Praying according to His Will

good morning and welcome to Midweek

Insights with Pastor John i'm Pastor

John Moore from Popular Assembly of God

and like to welcome you to this week's

um study today we're going to be in the

book of First John chapter 5 and I want

to talk about something John said

um and it's I believe it's really

important and he was talking about

prayer

and specifically he was talking

about praying according

to God's

will and he actually starts it in verse

13 he says "These things have I written

unto you that believe on the name of the

son of God that you may know that you

have eternal life and that you may

believe on the name of the son of God."

And this is the confidence that we have

in him that if we ask anything according

to his will he heareth us and if we know

that he heareth us whatsoever we ask we

know that we have the petitions that we

desired of him i think it's really

important uh for believers to realize to

understand and realize

that you can pray a miss you can pray in

uh for things that don't line up to

God's word and when you do God will say

no you can

also by studying about different things

because we all have we all have needs

and Jesus in the sermon on the mount he

said that God knows what our needs are

before we even ask him and he gives us

the key to getting our prayers answered

in uh the sermon on the mount which is

this he says "Seek ye first the kingdom

of God and his righteousness and all

these things shall be added unto

you." And he follows that with "And take

no thought for tomorrow for sufficient

to the day is the evil thereof."

A lot of times we're we're going to God

and we're

praying for things that

uh that we're stressed about which is

things we should do when we're we're

facing situations and issues in life and

things that we're trying to kind it is

important that we go to God

with our in our times of need uh Hebrews

4:16

uh speaks to that

directly and I think it's important

hebrews 4:16 says "Let us therefore come

boldly unto the throne of grace that we

may obtain mercy and find grace to help

in time of need." So we're always going

to

face

situations that are beyond our control

that are beyond our power to

resolve and one of the hardest things

that we have is

that because of our finite

humanity we fail to realize that God can

overcome

anything that we ask him to but the key

is asking him to and then releasing it

uh I made a statement a few months ago

about learning how to pray

open-handed and it's really a critical

thing open-handed prayers get

answered an open-handed prayer is a

two-way prayer and it's how we're

supposed to pray remember we're not this

isn't we're not talking religion we're

talking about relationship and there's

the relationship is what Christ came to

restore they had religion already and it

did nothing for them uh they had a lot

of rules to follow they had a lot of

different things to do but the

relationship part between God and man

was

broken and so they followed religious

practices as laid out in their law to

try and come to the middle and meet God

where God was at

when Christ did his atoning work on the

cross and provided salvation and

redemption to

mankind and uh one of the things that

happened after he said

um it is finished is the temple veil was

rent which signified to believers there

was no longer a separation between God

and man we had direct access to God and

Hebrews 4:16 brings that point out very

clear u and we have to realize that when

we

are in our times of great distress and

we get into those because we're trying

to handle these

situations that we're facing in life on

our own strength and we have to go back

into God's word and we have to look at

what God's word says

and and one of the biggest keys of

learning how to deal with worry and

stress is Matthew

6:34 take no thought for tomorrow for

sufficient to the days the evil thereof

well for us to

understand

that tomorrow hasn't gotten here yet it

hasn't

arrived we only live in the present we

We try to live in the past

uh we try to either rely on past

successes or we fa or we dwell on past

failures um we try to make plans for the

future and I'm not saying don't make

plans and I'm not saying don't have

goals i'm saying that we as human beings

we tend to get focused on those two

extremes either failures or successes

from the past or things that we really

have no control over that are coming in

the future so Jesus said live in the day

live in the day that you're in because

it's only that day that you that you

have to make a

difference

um and we need to do that in every area

of our life how do I live in today and

still do the other things well one of

the things that Paul said in Philippians

was "I let those things go which are

behind me let go of them don't go back."

And um there's a country music song

that's

uh believe it's by Randy Travis

um where he says

uh he's digging up bones exuming things

that are better left

alone and you know that song actually

resonates with me in the fact that we do

that a

lot nobody's immune to

it u we'll go and dig up what's in the

past and we'll go and play with it and

if you ever played with anything dead it

leaves a smell on you um a little bit of

a joke there um but it's true if you

keep digging around in the past if you

keep wallowing in past failures you're

never going to have a clear vision for

what you could do because you're

hampered by what you did and that's the

essence of

salvation um and God loved us so much

that Jesus came and died for us and that

atoning sacrifice that he made on the

cross cleared the way for our

relationship with Christ to be

everything it could be to be all it

could be it kind of reminds me of the

army the army u uh slogan they had there

for a while army be all you can be well

that's what Jesus wants he wants the

very best for you but we have to learn

what is the very best for us well it's

God's will he says that in everything

give thanks for this is the will of God

in Christ Jesus concerning

you he also says all things work

together for

good to them that love the Lord and are

the called according to his

purposes so where do we draw the

line well we need to find out what God's

will is in a

situation well how would you know what

God's will is in a situation uh simply

by spending time with God god desires as

I said many times a relationship he's

not looking he wants us to recognize

that without him we can do nothing and

if we come to where he's at

uh we can get the answers to everything

in life uh sometimes it's just what we

need is peace and he said I give you

peace not as the world gives peace but a

peace that surpasses all understanding

when you can stand in the middle of a

storm in life and be completely at peace

with whatever the outcome may be you

have moved into a place that's not only

u a a blessing it's a wonderful place to

be because you don't have to worry about

what's going to happen next how am I

going to deal with this how can I how

can I

uh how can I ever get to the next level

in my life if I can't get past this but

God says "Take no thought about that

think about what you can do what can I

do?" You know

um a lot of people uh serve God this way

they get into trouble they

pray they turn everything over to God

god takes care of the situation gets

them out of the trouble that they

created for themselves and then once

they get past this

trouble then they want to take the

reigns and take control again and so

okay God you you took care of that

situation i got it now and that's not

the what God's actually asking you to do

what God's actually asking you to do is

let me have the reigns all the time

and I will help you get to where you

need to go and when we do that the

things we

overcome and the things we face

become less and less stressful they

cause less and less worry they get us to

a place where we can look at things and

say "You know what god's got this all I

have to do is go along for the ride and

trust him

and that's the part that's the the big

thing is we have to learn how to trust

him when it seems like everything's

falling

apart i've been through that in my

lifetime i' I've questioned God and

there's no pro there's nothing wrong

with questioning God there is nothing

wrong with asking God

why

um just prep be prepared for the answer

because sometimes the why is things we

did had nothing to do with God it's the

consequences i mean uh Paul made it

clear in Galatians 6:7 it says be not

deceived for God is not mocked for

whatsoever a man seweth that shall he

also reap jesus made the same statement

in the sermon on the mount he said if

you do something you're going to pay the

price for it

you know um if you you know if someone

takes you to court and sues you

uh he says you're going to you're going

to do the full uh you're going to pay

the full cost of the penalty for that

what Jesus did for us was he created a

clean even pathway between us and God to

communicate with God to have a

relationship with God to have fellowship

with God and I don't know if you really

wrapped your mind around the thought of

God the infinite creator of all there

is wants an intimate relationship with

you he wants a one- on-one relationship

with

you and he he went to the cross to prove

it man that's awesome that's

overwhelming actually if you stop to

think about it the creator of the of the

universe the creator of

everything wants to have a

personal intimate

relationship with you

learn to pray according to God's

will find out what his word says about

different

things when you when you

pray don't think of God as somewhere way

far off in heaven somewhere

unreachable because he actually lives in

your heart if you've confessed Jesus as

Lord and Savior if you have confessed

with your mouth and believed with your

heart that God has raised Jesus from the

dead he's restored fellowship between

you and him and all you need to do is

approach

God from the point of view that God

cares about what you care about god

cares about you god's concern is about

the things you face every day

so I want you to think about that this

coming week i want you to realize that

God's not far off that he's right here

that he's standing right beside you that

he lives within you and he's waiting on

you to cry out to him and say Lord I

need

you and we sing that song Lord I need

you but we need him we need him to do

everything that he says he's going to do

and that requires us to pray according

to his will see you guys next week you

have a great week