Beyond A Devotion
12-14-09
God Can Fix It
James 5:13
My dear sisters, “is anyone among you suffering? Then (s)he must pray. Is sick, and the Lord will raise him (her) up, and if (s)he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him (her).”
The message above does not come from my mind but from the mind and the very Word of God. So let me ask you to do something today, something that will transform your life. I am going to ask you to radically change the way you read these devotions. As you can see, I did not call it“devotion” today, but instead, I called it “beyond a devotion.” The reason I did this is because it is essential for us to take our time with the Lord more seriously. This is something we can all do no matter what stage of commitment we are at in our personal quiet time with the Lord. God is challenging each of us to go deeper with Him. To spend more time with Him than just reading some daily devotion, therefore, I am providing to you this new format of devotion that will allow you to use it as a tool to go deeper into His word and search for yourself what He has to say. Together we can grow and strengthen our faith and walk with the Lord. Together we will watch God answer prayers in our lives and see a transformation within our personal lives, our marriages, our children, our grandchildren, our church, our neighborhoods, our work places, etc. God bless you as you seek Him with me, as you listen, learn, grow and share the Truth of God’s word. Now let’s get to the lesson.
“Is anyone among you suffering?” Good question. In the space below write a short statement to the Lord about something you feel like you are suffering with. There are no correct answers ladies, just truthful ones. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Then she must pray”. The first part of the verse tells us that if anyone is suffering they must pray. So let’s do that now. Below write out your prayer to God about your suffering, tell Him honestly what you would like to see Him do with your pain. Ask Him to reveal His will through it. The Lord tells us in Romans 12: 10-12 (look it up) that we are to be devoted to prayer. So take your requests to Him now.
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Ok, now that you have identified your suffering and asked the Lord to take care of it, let me ask you a very important question. How did you pray? Did you pray with power? Did you pray with faith? Did you confess any known or hidden sin in your life before falling on your knees and asking for something from Him? If you did, don’t worry because that seems to be the norm in today’s Christian’s life. Everyone is doing it this way. Yet, marriages are falling apart, children are walking away from the faith, churches are splitting, jobs are being lost, health is being trampled upon by diseases, the list could go on and on and all this is happening within the body of God’s believers. We have all either faced one or several of these situations in our lives, perhaps some of you are going through one of them right now, so that means we all need a deeper understanding of God’s desire and purpose for our lives through these storms. Let’s look at the verse again and this time let’s do it right.
Is anyone suffering? This is a fact in all our lives at one point or another. We all suffer therefore this portion of the verse applies to all of us. Let’s move on.
Is anyone suffering? Then he(she) must pray. Ok we know we are to pray. Even unbelievers know this, which is why so many of them will cry out, Oh God help me, when they are suffering. They may say it is only a phrase, but I believe they say it because they have the inter knowledge from God, placed inside all us, which enables us to receive Him. However, as believers we must not have only the busy life style kind of prayer with Him. No quick, hurry and get it in, prayer time. We are to pray, but how? Look up Second Corinthians 7:1. What does it say? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What does it mean to you? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The only way we can ever be at a point of perfecting holiness is if we confess our sins before the Lord, asking Him to forgive us and then making a choice to change and refocus on Him. If you are focusing on your suffering, dear sisters, than your suffering will quickly become your god. So this prayer, this quiet time with the Lord is to draw us into a focus on Him. That focus will give us a fresh outlook upon our situations; it will deepen and build our hope and faith in Him.
Beloved, take some time to write out a letter to the Father. Begin by asking Him to reveal to you any sin that could hinder you from hearing him. Listen for a moment in quietness, waiting for Him to speak to your heart and reveal what you need to confess before Him. Then ask Him to forgive you. Do not ask for anything other than forgiveness and a deeper understanding, desire, and knowledge of Him. Remember He already knows your needs and has promised to provide for you, so use this time to be focused on knowing Him better, taking His hand to guide you and not just taking what you want from His hand. He loves you and promises that the prayers of a righteous man (woman) can produce much. (James 5:16) Look up this verse now and use it as a guide for your prayer. God bless you and may His word, His light, His hope, His promise be an inspiration and a power to give you the faith to be steadfast no matter what you are facing. Together we will watch God transform our lives, our homes, and our churches.
Dear Father:
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