What is prayer? Part 2

Last week we saw that PRAYER IS WORSHIP OF GOD and that PRAYER IS FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD. This week: PRAYER IS FAITH IN GOD. This includes four points. ** James 1:2a THE STRANGE REQUEST This is the inspired word of God. So strange as it may be, we must pay attention to this statement, which is hard to understand and even harder to practice. We are to count trials as joy! 1Thes 1:6 The word brought about affliction and persecution, and at the same time, it brought joy of the Holy Spirit. Heb 10:32 joyfully accepted the plundering of your property. Christians look beyond the trials and the posessions that they have and that they have an abiding inheritance reserved for them. The world, by contrast, knows only to be happy when everything is rosy. Paul and Silas knew it in prison, Daniel knew it in the den of lions, and which his friends knew in the fiery furnace. ** James 1:2b THE STARK REALITY It does not say "IF you meet trials" but rather "WHEN you meet trials" 1Pet 4:12 Don't be surprised by suffering. ** James 1:3 THE SOVEREIGN REASON Why the trials? To produce steasfastness. In our lives, everything that we accept as worth something has usually been tested. How do we know that we are really a child of God? By how we fare when the trials and tests come. 1Pet 1:6-7 Tested genuineness of our faith is more precious than gold. . . ** James 1:4 THE SURE RESULT The blessed outcome is that God's plan to perfect us is working in us. One often feels God's strength in our lives during those difficult times. HOW HOW HOW can all this be a reality in our lives. Our gracious Father does not make a request of us without showing us how to do it. If this is our question, then the answer is that we need WISDOM. James 1:5a We need to ask of God for wisdom. Such a simple solution. Ask God. Matt 7:7-11. James 1:6 HOW WE MUST ASK. We must ask in faith. Prayer without faith is like a bIcycle without wheels. Heb 11:6 Without faith it is impossible to please God. . . This brings us to the title PRAYER IS FAITH IN GOD, Matt 21:21-22 The greatest barrier to joy is LACK OF PRAYER, and the greatest barrier to answer to prayer is a LACK OF FAITH. Concluding with this quote from one of Spurgeon's sermons: There in this method of approaching God by asking, also,a clear sight that salvation is by grace. It does not say, "Let him buy of God, let him demand of God, let him earn from God." Oh! no, "Let him ask of God." It is a beggar's word. The beggar asks an alms. You are to ask as the beggar asks of you on the street, and God will give you more liberally than you give to the poor.