May 29, 2009

Responding To God’s Petitions Ought To Be Our First Priority Part II

Subject: What to Ask For When You Pray? For We Also Have The Requisite Ability To Grant Petitions To God Part II

When God needs something done in the human biological world, he more times than not calls upon a human (not an Angel) to answer and to fulfill his petitions. However, petitioning works both ways, just as the prayer (communication) line works both ways, it is a 2-way line. There are numerous examples in the bible when God called upon humans to obey his petitions, Jonah for example, and the petitioners ran the other way.

The following is a sample of what typically happens when God needs something done in the human world, or when God wants something from us.

1. God calls us, but typically the line is always busy. (Rarely does anyone take out the time to hear from God, or to try to answer God’s petitions, for most of us cannot conceive of God needing to have his petitions answered by humans).

2. But suddenly, a call comes into God on the 2-way line, and it goes something like this.

Dear father in heaven, I call upon you to help me or a loved one, or to give me or a loved one something, or to straighten out someone (that has somehow offended me by any means necessary), or to heal me or someone who is dying or in poor health. And just as suddenly without waiting to hear from God, the prayer is ended and the communication line is terminated before God can in turn relay his petitions to the 2-way caller, or respond to at that time to his or her request.

The following is what God wanted from the caller, and what the caller would have been petitioned for, had they waited. Remember God petitions us too!

1. I need you to you love, forgive, help, understand, to serve someone else today?
2. I need you to obey my word which is essentially this, to love me and your neighbor as yourself? I need you to abstain from destructive behaviors and other things that distort and hurt other people and yourself?
3. I need you to place me before yourself?

A day or two later, the caller who hung up prematurely, cannot understand why God hasn’t answered his or her petition. The caller is thinking, weren’t we taught to take our petitions to God, and wasn’t it my right and duty to go to God in prayer?

So God sends someone else to explain to the petitioner why their petition was not answered, and to explain what God wanted from the caller. The messenger says that God said that he has answered your prayers all the days of your life, and:

1. God will answer your prayers when you ask things or for things that are in keeping with my will.

2. As God has already given you life; parents who loved, raised and still love you; siblings; shelter; water; food; warmth; primary and post-secondary education; a spouse; children; home ownership; automobiles; vacation; travel; healings; friends; finances; savings; investments; joy; access to me; peace and more, that he will continue to answer your petitions and grant you what you have not asked for, when you seek me and respond to my expressed petitions to you.

3). God desires that you will seek to know his will daily, instead of continuing to ask for things for yourselves, keeping in mind that it is already God's will for each one of us to prosper.

When you think about all of what God has provided for, over the course of a lifetime, and by comparison the number of times that we have ignored or rejected God’s petitions wholesale, it seems kind of unfair for us to continue asking God to grant our petitions for more things for ourselves, our friends our lived ones. God is not Santa Claus.

It is time for us to learn to ask God, what is your petition for me today? Next, we ought to grant God’s petition which in the end with benefit humankind as well as each one of us, including loved ones.

Think about this everyday, all of what God has granted and be thankful instead, then ask yourself what is keeping us from granting God's petition that we have placed on hold?

Love, Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon


Addenda: Trust me for your next breath.

Years ago, a friend pastor from another state ministered at the church where I pastored. He told a story of how he lost faith in God and told God that he could simply no trust God anymore. Next, he told this story about a dialogue that took place between he and God.

Friend: God, I cannot trust you anymore.
God: Can you trust me for one more year?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for one more years.
God: Can you trust me for 6 months?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for 6 more months.
God: Can you trust me for one month?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for 1 more month.
God: Can you trust me for a week?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust for a week.
God: Can you trust me for a day?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for a day.
God: Can you trust me for an hour?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for an hour.
God? Can you trust me for another minute?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for another minute.
God: Can you trust me for another second?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for another second.
God? Can you trust me for your next breath?

God's last query put everything into perspective, all of us
are here as guests of God and by the grace of God, God does
not have to permit anyone of us our next breath, therefore
we all to seek the one who has granted us life and so much
more and grant God's the few petitions that he requires of
us.

Our answers to God ought to always be, yes and amen!

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