Ever Interceding - Diana Brown

Ever Interceding

GOD LISTENS

written by Diana Brown

I pray that as you are reading the Voice of Truth every month and spending time with God in His Word and in prayer daily, that you are growing in your walk with the Lord and drawing close to Him. That closeness is vital for your spiritual survival.

If you are saved, your sins are forgiven by God because they were paid for and replaced by the perfect righteousness of Christ. Your sin no longer keeps you separated from God. You are now God’s child and He sees you as perfectly righteous, in the same way that He sees Jesus, His “beloved Son in whom (He) is well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17, NKJV) As His child, your prayers are always heard by God. 1 Peter 3:12 (NIV) says, “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” Because of Christ, His eyes are always on us and He is always attentive to our prayers.

In James 5:16 (NIV) we are told that “the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” Our prayers will always be effective when we yield to God’s ultimate authority and trust that He will answer them according to His will. His will is revealed in His Word and by the voice of the Holy Spirit that can be heard when we are in relationship with Him. James says that we develop an “effective” prayer life when we are living as a “righteous person.” This is not because God ceases to hear our prayers if we are choosing sin rather than righteous living, it is rather that we are not able to rightly know God’s will in order to ask for it unless we are aligning our hearts and minds with His. We do this by listening to His voice of conviction over sin and responding with repentance and new obedience. But God, in His mercy, uses even our selfish, worldly prayers to work in us to make us more like Christ, that is, more righteous in our actions, our thoughts and our prayers.

Even as God’s children, we will often choose sin rather than righteousness. When we do, God, in His faithful love to us, draws us close to Him by convicting us of our sin. When we choose not to quench His Spirit, but to respond with repentance, we open our ears to His voice and align our heart and mind with His will. This is an ongoing process, a lifestyle of keeping our hearts open to God’s voice. This is how we live as “righteous” people whose prayers are therefore “powerful and effective.”

Psalm 139 contains the words of David, whom God called “a man after his own heart.” (1 Samuel 13:14, NIV) David had one of the most intimate relationships with God that we see in all the Bible. In Psalm 139:23-24 (NIV) he cried out to God, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.” David committed some horrible sins in his life. He was a murderer and an adulterer, yet God drew David close to Himself. When David asked God to “search” him, to “know (his) heart,” and to “test” him, he was telling the Lord, in honesty and humility, that he did not want to have a heart that quenches God’s spirit of conviction. He wanted God to continue to show him his sin. He desired to be open to God’s voice and to respond with repentance and new obedience. His humility and repentance before God allowed him to come closer to God after he sinned and to continue growing in his relationship with Him. David is called a “man after God’s own heart” not because of his righteous living, but because he responds to God’s forgiveness, faithfulness and steadfast love with repentance.

If God forgave David and built a special relationship with Him in spite of his sin, He can do the same for us. God in His faithfulness will draw us close to Him. We need only to accept His love and respond to His voice with repentance and obedience. When we do, we will have powerful and effective prayers.

In Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster said, “To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives. The closer we come to the heartbeat of God the more we see our need and the more we desire to be conformed to Christ. To pray is to change.”

Father, what a privilege it is to talk to You. How awesome to think that You love to hear our prayers. Help us to spend more time talking to You—about everything.

In the precious name of Jesus,Amen.

Foster, R. J. (1988). Celebration of Discipline: The path to spiritual growth. San Francisco: Harper & Row.