Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
3 1 2024
How far down is God on your talk list?
You can’t be surprised that God wants you to seek him, trust him, and stand on his word. Right?
So, why do we make it so hard for ourselves?
Did your kids cry? Do they have their own problems? Have you ever cried with them?
Fretted over them? Even strategized on how to help them? Financially, emotionally or spiritually?
If that’s true why have we shut out the one who controls it all? If it’s important enough to fret about… worry about… then it should be important enough to pray about.
We need a strategy in each of these areas of our life.
What is your plan to help your kids?
Or to improve your marriage or to round off some of your precious rough edges?
We have plans for work. We plan our vacations and maybe even a date night.
But what about God’s time? what about talking to him time? You know pleading time or even begging
time? Or are we not in enough pain yet to make talking with the King of Kings a priority?
Who do you like talking to? Sister? Brother? BFF? Who’s your go-to talker and listener?
How far down is God on your talk list?
Ok, so you could improve?
Do you remember the scenes in the movie THE WAR ROOM? (If you haven’t seen it…watch it!) They posted their handwritten personal prayer list on the wall of a closet. How hard is that really?
How real are the needs you care about but cannot control?
YOU ARE THE WARRIOR THAT NEEDS AWAKENING!
List all the problems and prayer needs. Decide right now to make each of them a priority before God for just one minute a day of prioritized time…dedicated to talking to God about T-H-E-M!
What about that person or that old memory or scar?
Does god love them?
Do you love them? Do you believe that prayer can move a mountain? Can Prayer move God? Does he factor that into the decisions He has made? I believe so. His word says so! And bottom line…who are you to say No he doesn’t?
Prayer Doesn’t Change God’s Mind.
Yet, prayer does change things. “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working”
(James 5:16). We do not know God’s eternal, sovereign plan in all its details, but we do know that He works through prayer and answers prayer. Listen…
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months”. I pray you are listening!
There is no room for you and God on the throne of your heart. You will have to surrender all your feelings and attitudes…your hard, stubborn, crusty exterior…your hard-hearted heart, and believe in God to change it into a soft, subtle heart of flesh…brimming over with forgiveness, kindness, mercy, and love. A love that is so tangibly strong that you talk to God about your heart but also about the needs of others too.
The Alternative Is watching them suffer without your prayers and hope.
Watching them continue to make the same mistakes and costly errors in their life. You can’t tell me that it doesn’t rip your heart out to see them suffer. And although it is not about you, it is stealing your joy, killing your faith, and all this happens in the shadows of your life. We need to bring this into the light of what God says in His word! Do you think he or she is the reason for your folly or that this person is the cause and the enemy? No…Satan is. This is a spiritual fight. Start fighting the good fight.
Acknowledge God is God and you are not.
Confess it and pray for the heart of these people… your causes. (God put them in your heart) Keep a journal… write down what and who you’re praying for. Write down your praise reports and victories and create a list of them. Ps 65:5 promises: “You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds, O God our savior. You are the hope of everyone on earth, even those who sail on distant seas. James 4:3 gives a hard word: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures”. Or look at 1 John 5:14-15. 14 “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him”.
One of the ways God answers our prayers is by going through our struggles with us. Honestly just the truth of that! Just knowing I am not alone in the dark is such a comfort.
Don’t get spiritual. Just talk to god. Bare your heart and soul and fight the good fight. Ask forgiveness for being judge and jury. Ask him to take over and take the anger, and frustration and to refill your heart and life with love and hope. Ask him for help!. Write it down. He has come for you to have life abundantly. James 4:7 says “Resist the devil, and he will run away from you. CJB. Therefore, submit to God. Moreover, take a stand against the Adversary, and he will flee from you!
Why? Because you’re fighting the good fight, the right way…In Jesus Name!
He will change what you can’t… and he will change you too.
casting crowns Only Jesus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eQd3K2Fxp4&list=PL3oW2tjiIxvTstLS9GlgaT_mqONT0WVDw&index=18
