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PRAY

Psalm 18:6 “But in my distress I cried out to the lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help. He heard me from His sanctuary; my cry to Him reached His ears.”

1 John 5:14-15 “And we are confident that He hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases Him. And since we know He hears us when we make our requests, we also know that He will give us what we ask for.”

We can know assuredly from the Word of God that the transformation of our lives is the will of God. It is written, “This is the will of God: your sanctification.” (1 Thessalonians 4:3) The Psalmist was crying out to the Lord because he knew that he was not able to save his own life to any degree. The Gospel makes it clear that salvation is of the Lord and is found nowhere else.

We are encouraged and exhorted to know the will of God and to live into that will by the power of the Holy Spirit. God’s Word written, the Bible, gives clear revelation about the things God calls good, the things He wants us to walk in as a matter of course. Thus, there are things we do not have to pray about wondering if it is “OK” by the Lord.

In the early church people cried out, “What must we do to be saved!?” Sadly, and all too often people now ask, “What can I do and still be saved?” Salvation is demonstrated in a radical transformation by the Holy Spirit’s power working in the life of a Christian. His Life within us results in a changed way of living, a radical departure in what one does now that they used to do then.

When we pray with understanding coming from God’s Word, we can know the Lord hears us. When we are struggling against sin, be it envy or sexual immorality, greed or unforgiveness, when we cry out to the Lord for help, we can rest assured that He hears us and will help us to say “Yes!” to righteousness and “No!” to sin.

Asking the Lord to strengthen your faith, to anoint you for ministry, to guide you by the Holy Spirit, to heal the wounds on your soul and to continue His work of rescue and restoration in you, He will always answer those prayers. God wants to be whole, holy, free, ethical, and moral in the way we live and interact with others. Because we belong to Him in Christ Jesus, we know, based on His promises, that He will complete in us the good work of salvation and life-transformation He began when by His grace He saved us through faith in Jesus Christ.

God never leaves a saint where He found them. A sinner saved by God’s grace becomes a one of His sons or daughters; they are made saints by God. Because God has made us His people, His saints, we can now grow up into and become that which He has created us to be as His new creations. The Apostles, in their writings, the Epistles, never address the early believers as “sinners saved by grace” for they are always called saints, God’s own people. Your Heavenly Father cares more for you than you could ever know, and it is His great joy to answer the cry of His sons and daughters in need as they pray. Always pray.

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