14 Aug
Practice What You Pray

Gwen Prayer LetGo

For the most part, we are pretty familiar with the fact that we must have faith and believe what we pray in order to receive what God has for us. However, sometimes our actions may stray off course with what we have prayed especially when it takes longer for our prayers to be answered than we expected. As a result, we find ourselves engaging in behaviors that are the very opposite of what we have prayed. We must remember to make sure our actions and words remain aligned with our prayers if we truly want to see them fulfilled.

When we pray, our daily behavior must reflect our belief that God’s word will accomplish everything it was sent to accomplish, whether the manifestation is immediate or over time.

Psalm 27:14 says “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart, wait, I say, on the Lord.” (KJV) The word “wait” in this passage comes from the Hebrew word “Qavah” meaning to wait, look for, hope, and expect. When we are expecting the promises of the Lord to manifest in our lives in response to a faith-based, Word-based prayer, our actions and conversations must reflect our expectation that the promise will come to pass.  

Here’s how Jesus did it. In each of the four gospels, it was recorded that Jesus fed over 5,000 men, women, and children with just two fish and five barley loaves (bread).

Matthew 14:19 says “And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.”

When Jesus “looked up,” He acknowledged the Father. Then Jesus “blessed” the food—meaning He invoked the favor of God over the food to cause it to prosper. (See the Hebrew word eulogeō). When Jesus prayed over the food, he didn’t struggle with whether or not the prayer worked. He merely started handing out the food to the disciples to give it to the people. And get this, there were baskets of leftovers.

We must be the same way with God when we pray in the name of Jesus—according to John 14:14 which says “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”

I’ll use the word WAIT to share four ways we can practice what we pray:

Worship: when you worship God, you are in a position of humbleness/humility recognizing His immeasurable power that governs all of creation. This helps us to remember that His word will never return void because everything He speaks must exist (or not exist) because He has spoken it.

Attitude: We must keep a positive and upbeat attitude even when we encounter challenges and temptations.  James tells us to count it all joy because we get to show others how awesome God is in our lives. A positive attitude keeps us upbeat and excited, while a negative attitude will drag us down and focused on the worst possible outcome. We must monitor our attitude regularly and encourage ourselves if we find we’re slipping to the negative side of thought.

Intrigue: I believe that when we remain curious and captivated by what God has done for us and others, we can continue to wait excitedly on the manifestation of his promise. We will engage in behaviors that let others know that we expect God to answer our prayers. I make it a point to share and listen to testimonies of God’s goodness because it keeps me both encouraged and intrigued about how and what God is going to do next. Since every good thing comes from above, I’m expecting a good thing in my life when I wait on the Lord.

Testimony: Revelations 12:11 says “And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony . . .” The promise is that if we testify to ourselves and to others what God has and will do, we will remain encouraged to wait on the Lord and live expectantly. We will overcome!!!

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