A teacher of mine always says this “prayers are twofold.” One is supplication, which is taking your requests before God, and the other is action. He said when we pray, God hears and moves to do that which we have asked Him for, especially when we pray prayers of faith.
When we pray, our actions should match the prayers we have prayed for. I cannot pray for financial growth yet belittle myself for how small and poor I look and not believe that God will do anything. What I should do is open my heart to what God may say concerning my situation. I must eagerly trust that He hears me, and He cares even if answers don’t come right away. God may place ideas, even peace, and knowledge about certain things in answer to my prayer, or He could tell me to trust Him and wait patiently. The Bible says we should pray in faith and with confidence, knowing that He hears us.
Our love and devotion to God is shown by our obedience to His instructions. A genuine child of God seeks daily to live in obedience to God. A genuine child of God does not make the practice of sinning. A genuine child of God’s one desire daily is to live her life according to what God is saying, to live by the truth and to do what is right, no matter the cost.
Living out the Word of God is so much more important than listening to it. In fact, the Hebrew word for listen is not just to use your hearing faculties to receive a message, but it is for your life to look like what you have heard, for your actions to mirror the words you have heard.
Living for Christ in our world is not just to be labeled as a Christian. So many people have that label, but their lives look nothing like Christ. To live for Christ is to live like Him. The disciples were first called Christians because people saw their lives and realized that they had seen this kind of lifestyle before. They had seen it in Christ. Living for Christ is patterning our lives after His life. It is to pattern our thoughts, words, and actions after what His Word says they should be. The system of the world is firmly against the system of God. As long as one lives by the system of the world, she cannot live for Christ. The ways of God are found in what He says, and for believers, the Holy Spirit brings to mind these things and helps us to walk faithfully in these truths.
To truly and wholly live for Christ, I have to give myself to the obedience of His Word. I have to daily choose to stand for Christ in my thoughts and actions. Anything apart from that would be living in deceit.
The more we live in obedience, the more our lives are transformed into the full stature of Christ, who is the author and finisher of our faith. He is the goal and journey.
My prayer for you and me is that we will daily live as Jesus lived—in total obedience to the will of our Father. Amen.
