Luke 12:48 (ESV)
“Everyone to whom much was
given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much,
they will demand the more.”We pray because we want God to answer our prayers. We ask Him for help and to "give us our daily bread," as well as to heal our illness and to comfort us in difficulty. We may also ask Him to save our families or change our communities for His glory. These are all things worthy of our prayer, but do we realize they come at a cost?
Jesus tells us that great
responsibility comes with great blessing. The more we receive from God, the
more He expects from us. We cannot ask God to meet our needs and then just walk
away.
Answered prayer teaches us, as
Hebrews 11 says, that "God is and that He is a rewarder of those that seek
Him." When God responds to our prayers it means that He is real, that He
is aware of what we are doing, and that He is able to act. That knowledge
should change the way we live.
If God is real, then we can no
longer play games with our faith. We have to take seriously everything that
Jesus said. We can no longer live, think, and act the way way we did before. We
are called to be a new creation and to be conformed to the image of God’s own
Son (Romans 8:29), and that is exactly how we must live.
Answered prayer should also
change the way we pray.
If we know that prayer works,
we should “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may
receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
When we see God answer prayers,
we should pray more and more (I Thessalonians 5:17; Colossians 4:2). When we
see that prayer changes people, we should pray earnestly for God’s truth to be
proclaimed (Ephesians 6:19-20; Romans
10:1). When we see God provide in response to our prayers, we should “cast all
our anxieties on Him” (I Peter 1:8). When we see God answering our prayers to
help us walk in love, light, and wisdom, we should ask Him to do even greater
things in us (Luke 11:13).
Once we see God answer our
prayers, we can never be the same.
Reminds me of Micah 6:8 - "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
ReplyDeleteGreat thoughts! I was reminded of Moses' request in Exodus 33:13, "...please show me your ways, that I may find favor in your sight." When God reveals Himself to us, it is for the blessing of pleasing Him and finding favor in His sight.
ReplyDeleteI also thought about James 1:5, "if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given." If God gives us wisdom, don't we have the responsibility to yield to the Spirit that blessing for His glory? Shouldn't we also die to self and live by the spirit in action and understanding that we may glorify God? Oh that the Spirit may teach us the responsibility of answered prayer!