DAILY PRAYER TOPICS

Pray for God’s will, not your own: In the world, most pray for selfish reasons. Some ask God to bless them in winning the lottery. Others pray that their enemies will get their “just desserts.” But are they seeking God’s will?

Notice James 4: “You lust, and have not: you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight and war, yet you have not, because you ask not. You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts” (vs. 2-3). If your mind is set on foolish, carnal lusts, God will not hear you.

Your requests must be centered on what God desires. The Apostle John wrote, “And this is the confidence that we have in [God], that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He hears us: And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him” (I John 5:14-15).

Just before He was arrested, tortured and crucified, Jesus cried out to God in anguish. He prayed, “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39).

Humanly, Jesus did not want to suffer the brutal torture and death that awaited Him. Yet He still prayed that God’s will be done, not His own. Christ always put God first. He always approached Him with a yielded, humble attitude.

Follow Christ’s example and God will answer your prayers.

You can know God’s will by studying His Word. The Bible contains more than a thousand pages and 750,000 words of God’s expressed will. If you study it daily, replacing your thoughts with His, you can understand what God wants.

For example, notice Jeremiah 9: “Thus says the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says the Lord” (vs. 23-24).