| Four Secrets to Answered Prayer |
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| By Rick Warren — Dec 6, 2015 |
“Then [Nehemiah] said, ‘O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands, listen to my prayer! … I confess that we have sinned against you .… Please remember what you told your servant Moses: “If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored” …. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me.’” (Nehemiah 1:5-11 NLT, second edition)
Here are four secrets to answered prayer from the life of Nehemiah:
- Base your request on God’s character. Pray like you know God will answer you: “I’m expecting you to answer this prayer because of who you are. You are a faithful God. You are a great God. You are a loving God. You are a wonderful God. You can handle this problem, God!”
- Confess the sins you’re aware of. After Nehemiah based his prayer on who God is, he confessed his sins. He says, “We have sinned.” It wasn’t Nehemiah’s fault that Israel went into captivity. He wasn’t even born when it happened, and he was most likely born in captivity. Yet he’s including himself in the national sins. He says, “I’ve been a part of the problem.”
- Claim the promises of God. Nehemiah prays to the Lord, saying, “I want you to remember what you told your servant Moses.” Can you imagine telling God to “remember”? Nehemiah reminds God of a promise he made to the nation of Israel. In effect, he prays, “God, you warned through Moses that if we were unfaithful, we would lose the land of Israel. But you also promised that if we repent, you’d give it back to us.” Does God have to be reminded? No. Does he forget what he’s promised? No. Then why do we do this? Because it helps us remember what God has promised.
- Be specific in what you ask for. If you want specific answers to prayer, then make specific requests. If your prayers consist of general requests, how will you know if they’re answered? Nehemiah was not hesitant to pray for success. He’s very bold in his praying. Have you ever prayed, “Lord, make me successful?” If you haven’t, why haven’t you? What is the alternative? A failure?
Is it OK to ask God to make you successful? It all depends on your definition of success! I believe a good definition of success is “fulfilling God’s purpose for my life in faith, love, and the power of the Holy Spirit and expecting the results from God.” That is a worthy life objective that you should be able to pray for with confidence.
Consider this: If you can’t ask God to make you a success at what you’re doing, you should be doing something else. God doesn’t want you to waste your life.
PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick >>
Talk It Over
- Why does God want you to expect him to answer your prayers and pray in anticipation?
- What are the promises in God’s Word that you can claim?
- Think of some of the requests you made of God this week. How could you have made those prayers more specific?
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| Today’s Scripture |
“Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water. He said, ‘Come!’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water, and he came toward Jesus.”
(Matthew 14:28–29, AMP) |
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| Step Out of the Boat |
Why do you think Peter wanted to get out of the boat? Why did he all of the sudden think he could walk on water when Jesus called him? Well, you might say, “Joel, it’s because he saw Jesus open the blind eyes and cleanse the lepers.” Yes, that’s true. But the other disciples in the boat saw the same things. Why didn’t they want to get out? I believe it was because Peter understood that it was his time. He stirred up his faith. He believed at that moment that he could do what God placed in his heart. Jesus said, “Peter, do you want to get out of that boat?” He said, “Yes, I do.” Jesus replied, “Well, come on out.” Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “Peter, stay in that boat. Don’t you know I’m the Son of God?” No. He said, “Peter, I like your attitude of faith. I like the fact that you believe you can do great things.”
I encourage you today to have that same kind of boldness. Start believing that your time is here! All the dreams that you’ve buried, those desires that you thought would never work out, it’s time to start believing again. It’s your time, and it’s time to step out of the boat!
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| A Prayer for Today |
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| “Dear Father, today I choose to believe Your Word. I believe You are faithful to complete the good work You’ve started in my life. I choose to follow Your voice and step out of the boat. Thank You for bringing to pass the dreams in my heart in Jesus’ name. Amen.” |
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