DON'T TAKE THE GIFT OF PRAYER FOR GRANTED!

 

DON'T TAKE THE GIFT OF PRAYER FOR GRANTED!

Believers pray to God for all sorts of things!

• I want that new house.
• I want to go on a date with that person.
• I want that promotion at work.

But we also pray more serious prayers to God.

• LORD- please heal my child.
• LORD- I'm hungry, I need some food.
• LORD- I don't have a job and I'm about to lose my home, please help me.

While specific prayers are good, I have come to believe that seasoned believers rarely pray to God for specific outcomes! Why is this?

In my opinion, seasoned believers have absorbed the lesson from the lives of Joseph, David, Job, Ruth and all the other Old Testament legends. And what is this lesson? Simply this- life rarely goes as predicted! There will always be hills and valleys. Detours and dead-ends. There will be storms!

So seasoned believers pray a different type of prayer. My husband taught me a prayer like this years before we even got married. Maybe you have a similar one that you use. I still pray this prayer at least three times a day. In this prayer, I ask God for His:

• GUIDANCE
• STRENGTH
• PROTECTION

I ask God for His guidance in order to choose correctly from the many options in front of me. I ask God for His strength so that I will have the courage to endure the storms of life. I accept that there will always be storms in life! And I always ask God for His protection because there are many hidden dangers and wicked people who are waiting to harm us. 

As believers, we take for granted that we can turn to God whenever we need His wisdom, encouragement or security. But we shouldn't take this access to the Almighty for granted!

KING SAUL TOOK ACCESS TO GOD FOR GRANTED
Do you remember the story of king Saul? After he rebelled against God, God withdrew Himself from Saul. Thus, when the king needed wise counsel, Saul could not find God. When anxiety and mental confusion overcame him, Saul was not able to receive God's strength in order to encourage himself. And finally, when the king needed protection from the Amalekites, God allowed Saul to be killed. 

Re-read 1 Samuel to learn from the lesson of king Saul's decline.

1 Samuel 28:6 (KJV, emphasis mine)

        6 And when Saul enquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him NOT, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.

1 Samuel 28:15 (KJV, emphasis mine)

        15 And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, AND GOD IS DEPARTED FROM ME, AND ANSWERETH ME NO MORE, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.


THE AMOS 8:11 PROPHECY
Amos 8:11 was a prophecy given to the kingdom of Northern Israel but it is also a prophecy about the last days. Just like king Saul, the Israelites of the northern kingdom were believers in name only! Saul relied on divination for guidance and the northern Israelites worshipped Baal- the pagan god. Therefore, when calamity struck, neither was able to access God.

AMOS 8:11 (KJV, emphasis mine)

        11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, BUT OF HEARING THE WORDS OF THE LORD:

Amos 8:11 tells us that in the last days, many 'believers', will suffer from this same problem. God will send a 'spiritual famine' to the earth. So called 'believers' will not be able to access God! These 'believers' think that they are Christian but their actions prove otherwise. These 'believers' have not embraced God's true New Testament message (i.e. Christ's gospel of the kingdom- which is emphasised in the Apostolic Scriptures). So, just like the Israelites in the northern kingdom who followed Baal, these modern day Christians have embraced the teachings of the false apostles. They will suffer the same consequences- loss of access to Almighty God.

Don't get caught in this spiritual famine! Watch the video above and listen to Pastor Jon Courson's excellent explanation of the Amos 8:11 passage.

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‘HARVEST TIME Prophecies’ is the blog post site of TNG Academy. Our blog post site gets its name from Matthew 13:30- the separation of wheat and tares that occurs at harvest time (i.e. the endtimes). Remember, the ‘wheat’ symbolises the things of God and the ‘tares’ symbolise the things of the devil.

The purpose of this blog is threefold.

1. Some of the posts are written to help the reader develop a deeper understanding of the theology of Christ’s core message- i.e. the ‘gospel of the kingdom’.

2. Some of the posts are written for the reader’s personal discipleship journey. We need to understand what God expects from us. After all, all believers should be on a journey of ‘becoming’ our best selves, capable of impacting and changing the world!

3. Finally, some of the posts are written to answer this question:

    What would our faith look like today IF we had fully embraced Christ’s doctrines, as recorded by His Apostles, and rejected the doctrines of Paul and the other false apostles?

If we are sincere about our desire to restore Christianity to its roots, i.e. a return to Christ’s original message, then we must start by admitting that ‘while men slept’ (Matthew 13:25) the enemy planted false teachings (tares) into the New Testament!

Visit our website- WWW.TNGACADEMY.ORG, to see our Bible study books. Which books would I recommend for you to read first? Start with these three-

• WHAT IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD?
• MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN!
• THE APOSTOLIC SCRIPTURES.