February 22, 2021 CAC Living Water Devotional : Topic - THE PRAYER GOD CANNOT ANSWER (I).
Read previous CAC Living Water Devotionals here
THE LIVING WATER
DAILY DEVOTIONAL GUIDE
Monday February 22, 2021.
THE PRAYER GOD CANNOT ANSWER (I).
Read James 4:1-4
1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
MEMORISE: You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures (James 4:3).
EXPOSITION
Being alone with God for a long period is good, because we will have enough time to discuss our situations with Him. So it praying with zeal and eyes closed. It helps us to concentrate on our prayers. Praying on our knees is a symbol of a reference to God. Nevertheless, none of these is God's way for answering prayers.
There are biblical principles we need to follow before we can get answers to our prayers. One of these is to pray in the right way if we pray in the wrong way, God will not answer . Today's Memory Scripture says that we pray and we do not receive because we ask amiss. To ask amiss simply means to ask in the wrong way, i.e in the way that is faulty, incorrect, or improper. According to this Scripture passage, what makes it wrong is the motive behind what we ask... that you may spend it on your pleasures. The Living Bible renders it thus:.. you don't get it because your whole aim is wrong, you want only what will give you pleasure. And God cannot go against His Word and principle. If your motive is wrong, y prayer will be wrong and unanswerable.
It is possible to have a right request with a wrong motive. Such attracts no answer. Only the right request with a right motive attracts answer to your prayer (I Jn. 5:14), the more reason we should work on our motives before we go to pray. You must have proper and correct purposes for your requests before God. Whatever you are asking for in prayers, why do you ask, to serve and your generation or for self-aggrandizement? Is it for God's glory and pleasure, or self-ambition? Mind your motives for praying, so that you won't be praying wrongly and fruitlessly.
PRAYER POINTS:
1. Lord, give me the capacity to live my life beyond myself, in Jesus'name.
2. Give me the grace, O Lord, to live my life for You and the benefit of humanity.
3. Pray for God to eradicate the spirit of selfishness and self-ambition among us, which causes wrong attitudes to prayer.
EXTRA READING FOR TODAY:
Leviticus 20:10-22:22; Mark. 3:1- 3:22.
Reviewed by Muyiwa Abodunrin (Muyilight)
on
February 21, 2021
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