04 Feb IHOP (International House of Prayer) Cancel that order!
What if Anne and I invited you to dinner at an expensive restaurant. The kind waiter comes and does a thorough job of taking our order. A short time later, as our waiter walks by, I abruptly cancel my order! Unfortunately, we do this all the time when it comes to prayer. We plan our “order” with God and then abruptly cancel it!
Please allow me to share with you four considerations that will cause you to cancel or keep your “prayer order”:
- What you continually mind, you eventually find (James 1:5-8).
Here the Bible tells us, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
In verse five, the word “wisdom” translated is the Greek word sophia which means “divine insight”. The word “wavering” translated is the Greek word diakrino which means “doubting”. What these verses are in essence saying is when we are in a difficult circumstance, we can go to God for His “divine insight” concerning the problem. He will graciously and generously give us this insight. However, if we look at the answer and look at the problem, then look at the answer and look at the problem, over and over again…we begin to doubt in our hearts and we won’t receive anything from God!
At this juncture, let me make something abundantly clear. In every major answer to prayer in my entire Christian life…there has always been temporary doubt in my head. I simply didn’t dwell on it! I remember 20 years ago when I could barely walk and barely talk as I was dealing with severe heart challenges, I found in God’s Word when He had provided healing for me (see I Pet. 2:24, Matt. 8:17, Is. 53:4-5). In prayer I believed I received my healing. For six months not only did I not get better, I grew worse! I had just about every doubt in my head imaginable. But as one man of God so aptly put it, “You can’t stop a bird from flying over your head, but you sure can stop it from nesting in your hair!”
You see, wavering begins in the mind but your heart is off limits to the devil! Only you determine what gets in your heart (see Prov. 4:20-23)! The devil desires to sow seeds of doubt in your head and his scheme is that you will entertain those seeds of doubt long enough for them to take root in your heart. In other words, he wants to sow weeds into the “lawn” of your life.
We’ve all seen this, your yard is full of weeds and maybe you hire a professional lawn care individual. He comes and sprays your lawn with chemical weed killer and after a period of time, all the weeds in your lawn have vanished. Occasionally a few may pop up but you simply go out in the yard and with a few quick sprays those few pesky little weeds are gone once again.
There is a very similar correlation to our spiritual lives. When we first come to God there are lots of weeds in the lawn of our life. We come to God with all kinds of “stinkin’ thinking”, troubling thoughts and melodramatic mindsets. We begin to go to church and study the Word, and eventually over time the weeds begin to slowly dissipate. The more we grow in God’s Word the fewer weeds grow in the lawn of our lives. Now we have grown in God’s Word so much that while an occasional weed may pop up…we simply spray it with God’s Word and those pesky little thoughts vanish. However, if we aren’t diligent with those few weeds before the lawn of our mind is filled with all kinds of doubts, then eventually they can take root in our hearts an cancel our order in prayer!
The Bible tells us, “Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought into the obedience of Christ” (I Cor. 10:4-5). Remember this…what gets your attention, gets you!
Next week we’ll continue our series!