Do You Make God Wait For You To Pray? Series

As always the question:

Do you make God wait for you to pray?

In your life - are there things that crop up each day - things that grab your attention and draw you away from taking the time to pray?

When we should be praying and asking God to speak, to act, to move, to bless,

it seems that often we can be too busy to pray.

Relationships, families, work, situations, circumstances, likes, wants, desires,

even our hobbies can stop us from taking the time to pray.

Wether we are in a time of joy or a time of trouble, we must take the time to pray.

Romans 12:12 simply tells us we should:

Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying (Romans 12:12)

This is an essential command for each of us to follow isn’t it.

In good times and bad we are to speak to God,

we are to draw near to Him,

to grow in our relationship with Him.

He is our confident hope.

The fact that you are here this evening suggests that you have hope in God,

It suggests you want to know more of God,

that you are willing to draw closer to Him.

To be in a real relationship with Him.

How has your relationship with God been lately?

Have there been some days when you really felt close to God?

Have there been some days when you really sensed His presence in your life?

Have there been days when it has been easy to walk in the purpose and plan God has for you and other days when life just got in the way and you struggled to focus on God?

How often have you thought about the things of God?

How much time have you committed to prayer?

How much time have you spent reading the Bible?

There is so much in God’s word that we need to put into practice in our own lives.

We need to ensure we are not running on empty.

Following Christ is a daily journey.

And God wants our daily commitment to Him.

To trust Him, to serve Him, to learn more about Him.

To think about the things of God.

There was a little girl called Esther who told her mother that her stomach hurt.

Her mother replied, “That’s because it’s empty. Maybe you should try putting something in it.”

The next day, a friend came to their house for lunch.

She mentioned having a headache.

Esther quickly said, “That’s because it’s empty. Maybe you should try putting something in it.”

Just as we need to regularly pray,

We also need to regularly fill our minds and our hearts with God’s word.

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When you read the Bible do you understand everything you read?

Let’s be honest, there are some parts of the Bible that we love to read,

words that bring encouragement,

words that bring comfort,

words that bring assurance,

words of promise that you claim for yourself, examples of answered prayer,

those parts we love to read.

Then there are parts we skim over,

things like the genealogies,

this one begat that one, that one begat the other.

Then there are the parts that we read but don’t fully comprehend.

We trust them.

We know they are true -

but we can’t wrap our minds around the depth of what they really mean - like the passage I want us to consider together this evening:

1 John 4:10-17

10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expression in us.

13 And God has given us His Spirit as proof that we live in Him and He in us. 14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love.

God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face Him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. (1 John 4:10-17, NLT)

That is an amazing passage - so much truth and depth.