4GIVEN

Praise should always precede our requests for God’s blessings. Not there’s anything wrong in asking a blessing from God. There’s not. Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” — but only after praise: “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done….” No, asking favors from God isn’t wrong, but it shouldn’t be the primary part of our prayers, or we become like greedy little children: “Gimme this! Gimme that!”. Those prayers are essentially selfish rather than self-giving. They don’t fulfill either the First Commandment, to love God with all our heart, or the Second, to love our neighbor as ourselves. The Apostle Paul put it in this perspective. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6). Notice the phrase “with thanksgiving” tucked in there with “present your requests to God.” It’s essential to keep prayer God-centered rather than self-centered. It’s also the key to praying with real faith.

Psalm 37:23-24 says, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, when He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the LORD upholds him with His hand.” Unbeknownst to us as toddlers we all stumbled and fell throughout the course of our development. Thank God for the watchful eyes of our parents and/or caretakers. So it was back then; so it is today. We all continue to stumble in life and at some point we may even fall. Like toddlers, adults simply are not perfect. But the Lord would want you to know that even if you have stumbled, even if you have fallen down or fallen away from Him, He is there with His right hand wanting to hold you up. He will never allow you to be cast down or cast away from Him. Allow God to order your steps and He will delight in you! If you should stumble, he delights in holding you until you have returned to His path. Plain and simple….He loves you with an everlasting love and He wants only the best for you! So today repeat after me, “I will not be defeated because the Lord of angel’s army is always by my side!”

YES, we all want Jesus to come back but we are often alarm at the things that are going on in our country and around the world. Jesus said in Matt 24:6, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are NOT alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.” Paul said in Tim 3:1-5, “You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good.They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!”No matter what wars and rumors of war are going on around us, our mission is the same, and it just so happens that the mission is what Jesus says is a reliable predictor of the end times, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14, emphasis added).