Confident In Prayer
Preached by Pastor Kenneth Chin at Acts Church Malaysia on 5 March 2017
Read| Matthew 6:9-13
When you pray, things in your life or the life of those around you should not remain the same because Jesus has been invited into that situation.
Prayer is not just an optional practice, nor is it mere tradition; there is power in prayer. People asked Jesus how to pray because when He prayed, power followed and things happened.
There is no clearer Scripture on prayer than where Jesus laid out in His own words about how to pray and what to pray for through what we now called the Lord’s Prayer.
“Our Father in Heaven”
The power of prayer and its effectiveness has a lot to do with our perception.
There is a reason why the Lord’s prayer begins with us addressing God as our Father. A father might tell you off, or be angry with you, but he will always love you.
Take this unconditional love, and compare it to the relationship between an employer and an employee. Despite an employer also being in a position of power over the employee, it is not the same kind of love.
And where is our Father? In Heaven.
There is no higher place than Heaven.
Sicknesses, broken relationships –
none of these can reach Heaven.
God is the “top man” who has the final say.
“Hallowed be Your name”
“Hallowed” means “to make something holy”, and when something is holy, it means it is incorruptible, unchanging and consistent. Because of these characteristics, we can trust God even when everything else seems uncertain.
Trusting God is important because confidence is key when we pray. A reason why many of our prayers do not get answered is because we do not pray with confidence.
1 Peter 1:15-16 asks us to be holy as God is holy. God doesn’t change His nature because of our unfaithfulness. Therefore, neither should we change our nature because of others.
In Exodus 34:5-9, the Lord proclaimed His name to Moses with many words: Slow to anger, merciful, gracious amongst others. The name of God is important because it reveals His nature. God’s nature cannot be corrupted and is consistent.
Read |Exodus 3:14
That is why He told Moses,
“I AM WHO I AM”.
God is saying, “This is who I am,
and you cannot change it.
Even if you stop loving Me,
I will never stop loving you.”
“Your Kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in Heaven”
We often live by our own selfish desires while we hope His will be done, but it does not work that way. The word “Kingdom” implies that there is a “King” who has “dominion”. Thus, our King Jesus must have dominion over our lives for His will to be done.
We can be sure God’s will is done when His Kingdom comes. When the Bible says God’s will is done on earth as it is in Heaven, Heaven can be likened to the “headquarters” where orders are given to the forces at work on earth.
Jesus has stripped Satan of all authority and holds all authority in Heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). Thus, He is the One who has the ultimate authority over what happens on earth from His position in Heaven.
His will is good:
None should perish but have everlasting life.
He tells us that when one is saved,
the entire household is saved.
And His promises are “Yes” and “Amen”.
May we learn not to pray empty or memorised prayers without fully understanding what we are saying or who we are praying to!
Reflection
What is your perspective when you pray?
Do you set your mind on the things of God and His promises for you,
or on the worries and cares of this world?
Written by: Writer’s Ink
Edited by: Hailey Chung & Ivy Wambaa
