68 Faithful Prayer Rewarded. 1Thessalonians 5;17

In this day of instant everything, we often expect God to jump, and instantly answer our requests, and if He doesn’t, we automatically presume He has turned us down. This is very often not the case. Especially when we know we are within God’s Will eg. when we are praying for the Salvation of a friend or family member. Scripture tells us that God desires all mankind to be saved, so we know we are praying in God’s Will, so what is the problem? Our sincerity and love for that person... How long are we prepared to storm Heavens gates for that one soul. During his lifetime, British evangelist George Muller prayed in millions of dollars to feed the orphans in His care. He didn’t believe in broadcasting his financial needs, yet he always had enough to pay the grocery bill – because God always supernaturally provided. However, Muller’s faith was stretched in other ways. For example he prayed regularly for a list of five men he earnestly desired to see won to Christ. After five years the first man gave his life to Jesus, the second and third after ten years, and the forth after twenty five-years, but here’s the clincher; Muller prayed for the fifth man’s conversation for a whopping fifty-two years, in fact the man made a profession of faith in Christ a few months after Muller’s funeral. Would you pray about something for fifty two years without some visible sign of an answer? You should, and you must! In Muller’s own words, ‘God delights to increase the faith of His children.’ We ought, instead of wanting no trials before victory and no exercise of patience, to be willing to take them from God’s hands as a means of pushing through. Trials, obstacles and difficulties and sometimes even defeats are the very food of faith. If you are praying and asking God, ‘Will You?’ His answer is ‘I will’ Psalm 91:15 tells us ‘He shall call upon me and I will answer him, I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him’ And in Jeremiah 33:3 God says ‘Call to me and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ In (john 16:33) Observe these three things :- 1. Jesus never said that following Him would be easy. ‘In this world you will have tribulation.’ So when you attempt things for God, - expect difficulties and delays. When construction crews work on roads they sometimes put up signs (Orange cones) that mean EXPECT DELAYS The walk of Faith is littered with these signs. Abraham and Sarah waited twenty five years for Isaac to be born, So why do you think you should get an instant answer from God? 2. You must persevere to receive. Waiting is an uncomfortable concept for us. We are used to having everything “On Demand”. If someone tells us to wait, we find an app on our phone to speed up the process. But there’s no shortcut when it comes to perseverance. Sometimes Faith is painful because God is stretching our capacity to receive. So press through the pain – there’s gain on the other side! ‘Keep on asking and it will be given to you’(Matthew 7:7) 3. The end result of faith is larger territory. Twice after Isaac dug a well, the Philistines laid claim to the water. And he named the new well Rehoboth which means ‘a broad place’ (Genesis 26:18-22) Isaac kept on digging and when the brake through came, he declared ‘At last the Lord has made room for us and we will be fruitful in the land’. And the lesson Isaac learned is still part of our faith curriculum today. We must stretch our faith until there is no stretch left in it, and we must pray beyond all delays. Faith and perseverance go together. If you think you have the faith to believe for someone or something, a wise check to see if this is really what you want is, to ask yourself “How long am I prepared to pray for this. Then you will know just how important it is to you. It is your commitment to God, to people and your prayer for them that The Lord is looking for. So trust Him, He will answer your prayer in His perfect time Thank you for reading my thoughts on “keeping your communication with God open. That is our Hot-line to The Creator, The Saviour of Our Souls and the Souls of those we love. God Bless. Phaline .