DOES GOD REALLY HEAR ME WHEN I PRAY?

"Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped. And Jesus said, “Who touched Me?” When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, “Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, ‘Who touched me?’” But Jesus said, “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.” Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately" (Luke 8:43-47 NKJV).

Jesus’ entire life was a journey that would culminate in His going to the cross. The story told in Luke 8:43-47 happened during the time that Jesus’ popularity with the common people was at an all-time high. They came out to hear Him in very large groups and often they were pushy and unruly. Everyone wanted to get close to the Man who worked miracles; everyone wanted to see what was going on.

A dying, desperate woman made her way through the crowd to get close to Jesus. What little we know of this woman’s story is remarkable in several ways. Her sickness had put her on a search for help and she had spent virtually every dime in her possession chasing cures but nothing had helped. Instead, she daily drew closer to the end of her life.

Someone told her about Jesus and a spark of faith was ignited in her heart. This was a tenacious woman who was not at all cowed by the unruly crowd. The sheer magnititude of what she had to do to get to Jesus is remarkable. The woman was sick, in pain, and an unruly crowd stood in her way, but she let none of it stop her. She just kept pressing in and pressing in until she got to Jesus! I know a little bit about pain and dealing with the weariness that sets in until your mind says, “Stop pushing and it will stop hurting so badly.” She could have made a valiant effort and then backed off, saying, “You know, it just wasn’t my day; the crowd wouldn’t let me get through.” But she did not quit—she kept pressing in.

Luke 8:44 says she “touched” just the border of His garment. Immediately Jesus stopped and asked, “Who touched me?” Peter and the disciples thought the Lord was losing it right there in front of everybody. Their response was, “What do You mean, somebody touched You? This whole crowd is pushing and shoving.”

There are touches and then there are touches. The crowd was attracted to the celebrity status; their mind-set was, “We wonder what amazing, spectacular thing He will do today. Perhaps we can get His autograph or maybe even shake His hand.” Their touch was simply the curious touch of the casual observer. But such was not the case with the dying woman. In her dwelt the hunger of desperation and a spark of faith that said, “If I can get to Him, I have a chance.” And where the others reached out to touch Jesus just so they could say, “I touched Him…I actually saw Him,” the dying woman reached out and the original language says that her touch contained the desire to “cling to Him, to adhere to Him, to fasten herself to Him.”

Jesus immediately stopped and addressed the disciples. And this is where we get to the part of the story that I find so meaningful. Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” (v. 45). The disciples responded in wonderment and I believe that for just a moment that little lady wondered, “Does He even know why I am here? Does He understand that this is life or death for me?”

“Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before Him” (v. 47). And she was beautifully healed! The original language for the word “hidden” is that Jesus was not unaware or ignorant of her and her cry for help. He knew! He was immediately aware! He knew this was not the touch of the curious, it was the touch of desperate faith.

Her desperate cry, my prayer, your prayer do not go unnoticed by the Lord. Heaven is not so busy answering prayers that the switchboard gets bogged down and confused. When we talk to God with an open, honest heart, He hears, He knows, and He will answer. The timing of His answer is not our business. I reject the notion that I can treat my heavenly Father like a slot machine, stick in a prayer and He is duty-bound to answer it on my terms, with timing that I dictate. That is just a very poor concept of who God is and what His purposes are for us.

He does hear your prayer and He will answer. Sometimes the answer is immediate, sometimes within a few days, and sometimes over a period of time. But your prayer is not “hidden” from Him—and He will answer!

PRAISE GOD FOR ME?

One of my favorite passages to teach from is Psalms 139:13-16. I don’t think any other portion of Scripture shows more artfully God’s process of creating a person. Each person is a unique individual, personally crafted and put together by God. We are not simply randomly chosen strands of DNA that mysteriously or accidentally came together. No, we are much more than that! We are one-of-a-kind, unique creations fashioned by the Master Craftsman, our Lord God.

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered (wove) me in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13 NKJV).

Verse 13 of this psalm speaks of the creative act and also uses a very revealing verb (covered) meaning “woven or knit” indicating that we were woven to be a one-of-a-kind work of beauty, a type of tapestry.“You knit [wove] me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13b NIV).

The idea of a master weaver creating an original is repeated in verse 15: “I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought [woven together].” The original language used here indicates this was a mixing of colors and types of thread just as a master craftsman uses when creating a unique piece of art. The artisan was creating something original, not simply repeating the same components over and over. Knowing what and how the tapestry was to be used, the craftsman would carefully select just the right kind of thread to fit the circumstances of use, the right strength, and the right length, etc. So it is when God supervises the creative act of conception, knowing everything about the life of the person about to be created; He selects just the right “everything” the creation will need to face the challenges of his/her life.

When I first read and studied verse 16, it was a staggering revelation for me. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (NIV). We live our lives wrapped up in a cocoon of time; we remember yesterday, we are living now, and tomorrow is an unknown. We see in part and we know in part. God is not bound with the time constraints that we are; He lives in eternity and He sees yesterday, today and tomorrow as one. Verse 16 says that our entire life has been written in His book before our physical life actually began. God had a book on us before we were born and that book became the instructions from which we were formed!

Seeing this wonderful truth in verse 16 caused me to begin to fully realize that before God created me, He knew exactly what my life would be right now—in 2011. He put within me everything I need not just to survive these troublesome days, but to have the capacity to overcome and to thrive.

All our faith, gifts, talents, and character traits are not just automatically actualized with no help from us, even though we understand this tremendous truth. They are within us in embryonic form and we need to step out and grow, to mature and become all that God has destined us to be. I am still learning and trying to grow in many areas of my life and especially in my spiritual life. Trust, faith, love and many other fruits of the Spirit have plenty of room for growth in me…but I’m working at them and I won’t quit, because I know He made me to be alive at this time.

I purposely skipped over one verse in Psalm 139 because I have a confession to make and an understanding to share. Verse 14 says: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (NIV).

I confess that I avoided verse 14 when I taught on this passage because it seemed to me to be egotistical to say, “Praise God for me because I’m just amazing.” I misunderstood the focus of the verse. “Praise God for me” is not what the verse is saying at all. Actually it is saying, “I praise God because of His incredible creative power that goes into every act of creation—and I am one of those.” I praise God not because I am something special but because I am an example of God’s creative power and ability—and so are you. That’s not something to be proud or arrogant about but to be humble about, with the understanding that the God of the universe took time to create us. That’s something about which I can say, “Praise God for His amazing work in me!”

When we praise God for His creation, and that includes each of us, we are enthroning Him as the King of our life. As we enthrone Him, He then establishes dominion over the creation, which was fashioned with today in His mind.

No matter what the circumstances of your life at this time, God created you to be an overcomer. He knit you together to survive and to thrive!

DOUBT AND THE JOURNEY OF FAITH

Peter was doing just fine. He was out of the boat walking on water. It really wasn’t his idea to do this but when he saw Jesus water-walking he asked if he could do it too and Jesus replied, “Come on!” So here he was walking across the surface of the lake!

It had been a crazy day of ministry for Jesus and His disciples. Early in the day Jesus had found out that Herod had beheaded John the Baptist and immediately He wanted to find a place where He could rest and escape the crowds, who followed Him everywhere. Jesus finally got away and spent time alone in prayer but when He returned to the disciples, He found not only His twelve friends but a huge crowd of ten to twelve thousand. Mark 6:44 says there were about five thousand men—and that didn’t include women and children.

Having compassion on the people, Jesus instructed His disciples to feed them. The disciples responded in a classic manner: “Send them away because there is no food here.” But Jesus insisted, “You feed them” (Mark 6:37). Searching around, the disciples came up with a total of five loaves of bread and two small fish. Jesus took what they had, prayed over it, and began to break it up and put it in the baskets each of the disciples held. The disciples then began to distribute the food and the miracle was on. Five loaves and two fish miraculously became more than enough for the whole crowd. Talk about an electric miracle atmosphere!

As soon as dinner was over Jesus instructed His disciples to get into a boat and go ahead of Him to the other side of the lake. The disciples headed out across the lake and ran right into a storm. Jesus, aware of what was happening, decided to join the disciples by walking toward them on the water. While the disciples had great respect for the water, they had never seen anyone walk on top of it before. Thinking they were seeing a ghost, they cried out in terror, but Jesus calmed their fears by shouting, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid” (Mark 6:50).

Peter then asked Jesus to let him come to Him (Matthew 14:28) and based on the Lord’s affirmative response, he got out of the boat and began to walk on water. Everything was going fine until Peter noticed how strong the wind was and how big the waves were. He became fearful and began to sink and Jesus immediately grabbed him and said, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31).

Learning to deal with doubt is very much a part of our journey of faith and Jesus assisted Peter in his journey by helping him understand why this happened. Jesus knew that because Peter’s attention had been diverted from his goal, he had started to sink. As long as Peter kept his attention primarily focused on Jesus and not on the raging storm, he was fine. The word doubt in Matthew 14:31 means “to stand divided.” Jesus said a man can only serve one master, not two, and if a kingdom or a house is divided it will not stand (Luke 11:17). Jesus was telling Peter that he could not have divided attention.

All of us have to deal with doubt. Situations and questions will arise that we have never been confronted with before. Storms will develop and valleys will confront us and some of the elements of the storms will be very challenging to our walk of faith. The wind and the waves will blow and assault us with ferocity and doubt will try to make an appearance.
Doubt not only comes from outside forces but also from within us. Any part of our life that is not fully committed to Him is an area from which doubt can arise. Peter got into trouble because he allowed fear to become the breeding ground for doubt and it nearly sank him.

How do we deal with doubt and stay in the journey?

Here are a couple of suggestions to assist you in dealing with doubt.

1. Make sure that Jesus Christ is the center of your attention; He must be the priority in your life. Hebrews 12:2: “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” The word looking here signifies “undivided attention, looking away from all distractions in order to fix one’s gaze.” Is Jesus first in your life?

2. Starve your doubt by feeding your faith. Regular (daily) intake of God’s Word does a lot to keep doubt under control. If doubt begins to take hold in an area of your life, then it’s time to increase your feeding habits and perhaps go to some “power food” that speaks more explicitly to doubt. I regularly read the following passages (my “power food”) to encourage me and build my faith.

a. Hebrews 11
b. Psalm 23
c. Psalm 91
d. Joshua 1:1-9
e. Isaiah 43

ALL THE FIERY DARTS!

Some time ago I wrote a couple of devotional articles on Ephesians 6:16: “Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.” If you are interested in reading these, you can look in the archived devotionals, on the blog, for 8/17/2007 and 8/21/2007.

How do we raise the shield of faith?

Each time we engage in worship, each time we pray in faith, each time we open the Word of God believing that God is going to speak to us, we are performing an act of faith. Each time we activate our faith like this, we are taking up the “shield of faith.” Certainly, there are times when individual attacks come at us and by faith, we speak directly to those “mountains.” But please understand that as our faith is being exercised, we are continually raising the shield of faith.

I recently did some research on what Paul meant when he used the term “fiery darts.” I always thought he was referring to arrows that had been set on fire, like we see in some of the epic movies. I wasn’t exactly right; I was close but a little incomplete.

When Paul speaks of “fiery darts,” he is speaking from a First Century Roman context. The world Paul lived in was dominated by Rome, and Roman military might was everywhere. A permanent Roman military garrison was just a few hundred yards from the Temple in Jerusalem. Roman soldiers maintained the rule of Rome throughout the world that Paul lived and ministered in. Paul constantly used the Roman soldier to illustrate truths he was teaching about.

The “fiery darts” were not exactly arrows. They were more like very thin, hollow pieces of reed or bamboo. Into the hollow portion, flammable liquid was inserted and somehow sealed in. Into one end of the hollow portion a wick was inserted and just before the dart was to be used, the wick was set afire. The soldiers would then throw or launch the dart filled with flammable liquid at the enemy. When the projectile hit, it would shatter, splash the liquid, and the burning wick would set it on fire. This was a first century equivalent of a “Molotov cocktail” or an incendiary bomb.

It was to protect against these fiery darts that the Romans got rid of the small metal shields used in warfare and moved to the larger wooden shield covered in leather. The Romans soaked their leather in water before going into battle so that when the fiery darts of the enemy came, the “soaked” leather would extinguish the fire. And we are to raise our “soaked” shields of faith so that when the attacks come, we are ready!

The fiery darts are not primarily going to be attacks on your physical person, attacks of sickness or disease. The majority of the “fiery darts” will be attacks of temptation, lust, greed, disappointment, discouragement, jealousy. The attacks will be against your faith, your mind or your emotions.

The fiery darts of Roman warfare did not look all that lethal, all that menacing. If launched in daylight, you could hardly see the long, thin projectiles coming. While looking innocent in flight, when they impacted and shattered, pain and death was released. How many times have I heard people say that they didn’t understand how dangerous and hurtful the problem would become until it was too late? Thousands and thousands of men and women in the church today are hooked and devastated under the control of pornography because they thought it would be no problem to spend a few minutes of personal time looking at porn. That quick looking was the launching of what seemed like a harmless projectile that exploded in their mind with devastating consequences. Current polls indicate that up to 50% of church-going men and 20% of women are addicted to pornography.

When the enemy attacks and attempts to cripple your spirit and control your mind and emotions, it is time to take your stand in faith—it’s time to raise the shield. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand…” (Romans 5:1-2).

If the embracing of sinful thoughts or sinful behavior opened the door to the attack, then confess that sin according to 1 John 1:9, know that God will forgive you, and take a stand in the freedom of grace that Jesus Christ has provided for you. Declare that you are God’s child, brought into relationship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Declare that “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world” and that the power of the enemy is broken in your life! Declare that you are raising the shield of faith on the authority of the Word and in the Name of Jesus! Declare that by the shed blood of Jesus, “I am free!” And declare that the fiery darts of the enemy are extinguished by your faith in God, because God’s Word says so!