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Praying God’s Will for Your Family, Finances, and Nation

As a Christian we have all prayed for personal needs, family needs, church or community needs more times that we can count.

I heard Germaine Copeland say, she is the author of Prayers that Avail Much, she said, if there is an effectual prayer then there is also an ineffectual prayer. Many times I thought I must be praying a lot of ineffectual prayers, or maybe I was not a righteous man. The quandary set in and the want to give up was heaping up all over me.
Yes, in prayer we must know that if we are heard and comprehend that our righteousness is based on Jesus: what He did on the cross. Say with me, Jesus died on the cross and took away all my sin, my unrighteousness, my filthy rags, and when he rose from the dead he defeated the enemy of my soul. So let’s settle this we can learn how to pray effectively.

Jesus taught on the subject of prayer, personal needs in Matthew 6 : 9-13 GNT. So let’s go there
“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven: May your holy name be honored; may your Kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need. Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us. Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One.’”
Matthew 6:9-13 GNT

THE FIRST THING HE TAUGHT!
OUR Father, not my father, not the Jew’s father, not the American Father, not a special groups, no he says. OUR

So if God the Father, is our Father, there are a bunch of kids in His household.
He goes on to say – May your name be honored! Interesting when we look at all the names of God. In this lesson, Prayer 101 I am going to look at some his names with respect to our subject matter… I could pray His name in this manner, to honor His name as….
I bless Your name, Jehovah-Jireh, the One Who sees my needs and provides for them. I honor Your name!
The name Jehovah- Jireh means he provides for my needs. So if there is a need for finances we can honor his name.
For family we can pray…..
I honor Your name, El-Shaddai, the God Almighty of blessings. You are the Breasty One Who nourishes and supplies. You are all-bountiful and all-sufficient. I honor Thy name!
For Community we can say.
Honor the name of Jehovah-Shammah, the One Who will never leave or forsake your people, You are always there. We take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say, The Lord is our Helper; We will not be seized with alarm — we will not fear or dread or be terrified. What can man do to us? We honor Your name!

I encourage you to look up the names of God, write them down in your tablet, your diary, a notebook for the references as we are praying.

The next thing he says is the will of God done in earth as it is heaven. This brings us to place about learning the will of God from the Scripture.

I will relate a story from when I first became a believer and knew I was called into the ministry.
I went to Bible College, but you know money did not drop out of the sky to pay the tuition. So one summer I worked in the steel industry in northwest Indiana to pay my tuition. I worked the night shift in the summer time. It was hot and muggy almost everyday. The men I worked with, well they were not Christians. When they discovered I was a Bible School student they gave me a rough time. My job title was hooker, meaning I hooked up the chains for the overhead crane to move the steel bars from one place to another. The crane operator was a very large man and could cuss like nobody I have ever heard before. One night he was giving me a hard time, cussing me for not knowing what I was doing and using the Lord’s name in vane a lot. Well it made me mad, I prayed for God to show me how to call down fire from heaven to shut him up. What I believe the Lord told me do was not call down fire, but to curl up in a fetal position covering my head. The man yelled down to me asking me what was going on, I stood up and said, If you continual ask God to damn this and that and He decides to answer your prayer we are all in a heap of trouble. He laughed, laughed, and laughed the rest of the night. He did not use the Lord’s name in vane again that night. God gave me a solution and it wasn’t killing the man or sentencing him to hell.

In praying for family, community, finances, let’s ask ourselves did we do something foolish with money, did we offend a family member, do we need to repent. Do we need to forgive others for things they have said or done…… The rest of the teaching from Jesus is to forgive those who have done wrong to us. I am working on this myself and I believe you and I will need to recognize this part for effective prayers.

Life in Jesus Christ is praying the will of heaven to be in the earth, to be in us. We are made of earth!

I hope you are enjoying lessons of Prayer 101.
Ok now for your homework assignment – Your assignment today, go through Matthew 6:9-13 and practice what was taught today, make it personal. Then pray it in a personal manner.