Hello friends. Today is National Day of Prayer. It is a time of fasting and prayer for many of us. Some may have prayed in a group before work or school; others may have a special ceremony at church or elsewhere. We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing. That is very possible to do. It is to have a direct line of communication with our Heavenly Father who will meet our every need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus according to Philippians 4:19.
In our world today, we have so much to pray about. There are issues in our cities, states, our country, our government leaders, and in our world. We have personal issues we are dealing with as well. There is no shortage of things to pray about.
Philippians 4:6-7 says, Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and mind through Christ Jesus. Whatever we are facing, we can, and should, take it to God in prayer, asking our Heavenly Father, with gratitude. We are promised that when we take our problems to God and spend time with Him in prayer, we will receive the peace of God to keep our hearts and minds through Jesus. What kind of peace is it? It is the peace that does not make sense. It is peace that will cause others to look at you and wonder, "How can you go through all that and still have peace?" It is only peace that comes from God. Jesus said in John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. We may be facing some scary situations and we begin to allow fear to take up residence in our hearts, but Jesus is telling us not be worried or afraid because He gives us His peace.
We can confidently go to our Lord Jesus and ask anything we need and we know that He is listening to us and will help us in our time of need. 1 John 5:14-15 reads, And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us: And if we know that He hear us, we know that we have the petitions that we desired Him. The key to this verse is that we ask according to the will of God. We cannot ask for selfish requests so we can be popular, have more money to spend on vain things, or to promote ourselves. We are here to carry out God's plan for the world and if more money or material possessions will cause us to stray or glorify self then we already know we are not going to receive those things. We must be in line with God's will.
A very popular verse, one that many of us have heard and/or quoted many times is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14. I feel that it is so important to include in today's blog post. It says, If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. It is no secret our land needs healed. If we take the confidence we just read about and humble ourselves, pray, seeking God's face and not His hands, and repent of the evil and wickedness then God in heaven will hear us and forgive us and heal our land. America is a very sin-sick nation. It is time we return to our Savior Jesus Christ and repent of the wicked ways we have done and allowed in this nation. It is time to honor and bless God as a country. We must become humble again. We need to seek the face of God, not to get more blessings and things from Him, but to spend time with Him and honor Him and love Him.
I am so thankful there is a day set aside to pray and fast, for those of us who will do that. I am going to spend time praying and seeking God about some big needs in my life and in this world. I know He will hear and answer me. I have confidence that He cares about us and the things we care about. I hope that you will be praying, too.
There is nothing like praying to God and Him answering prayers. I love to prayer journal because there are so many things that we can look back on and see God's fingerprints all over. We see how we struggled and how God answered and how we grew. Many of you know that we, at Blue's Blessings, have three prayer journals available on Amazon now. You can see the Men's Prayer Journals here. We have a Women's Prayer Journal here. And we have Youth Prayer Journals which is an interactive workbook with devotionals, prayer prompts, memory verses, SOAP Bible study pages and room for note taking, plus so much more. It is a wonderful gift for graduations, Mother's Day, Father's Day, birthdays, or anytime.
This Thankful Thursday I am thankful for the gift of prayer. I know God hears and answers the prayers of His children. God bless you!
~Bridgett Owens
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