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Are we a doubting Thomas
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Chapter 1 of "Do You Know How To Pray As You Should": Call upon Me
It is through faith, that, All who call upon the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. All who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are brought into a right relationship with God. The one professing Jesus is Lord, and that they are forgiven, they are brought into a right relationship with God. The faith that is exercised brings the soul into union with God through Jesus. It inevitably produces righteousness, that is, conformity to the will of God. Another way of saying this is, because you have asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, He has forgiven you, covered you with His blood, and put you in right standing with His Father God.
What this means is that when you ask Jesus to forgive of your sins, and to come into your heart you have been Justified. Justification is an acquittal of sin. It is being judged righteous. God justifies the believing sinner on the grounds of Jesus death on the cross. It is a free gift unto salvation. What God has declared to be right, referring to His decree of judgment, God has set a judgment of acquittal. God acquits men of their guilt, on the condition of His grace through Jesus.
The man who puts his trust in Jesus becomes forgiven of God through Him. That means that you are no longer judged a sinner, but judged to be in right standing with God Forgiven of all sins. Characterized by bring morally right or justified by faith. It is through the name of Jesus, that we get access to God. You cannot get to God any other way. One can be a good person, doing good things for people. One can obey the laws of the land, but according to God:
We cannot become good enough by works, we are still sinners. According to scripture we are but filthy rags.
Every man, woman, boy, and girl are sinners. From the moment of birth, we are born into sin. We may feel self-righteous, that is righteous in ones own eyes. Some may feel that they live a good life, they are good people, they help those who need help. They may go to Church on Sunday, some may even teach Sunday school class. If they have not accepted Jesus as their Savior, they cannot enter into God’s heaven without being righteous. One can only become righteous through Jesus. Christ died for the ungodly, you the sinner. That’s right you are a sinner, and you must ask Jesus to forgive you of your sin and accept Him as your Lord and Savior. Then, and only then are you made in right standing with God. You become the righteousness of Christ.
God loved us so much, that He sent His only Son, A king, King Jesus to take our place, and to suffer and die for the ungodly. Jesus was tried illegally, tortured, Beat with a whip, and nailed to a cross, and left to die for us.
Jesus was tortured, and murdered for you. If you do not accept Him as your Lord and Savior, you cannot be saved. His death for you, would have been in vain.
When you call upon the name of the Lord, and you ask forgiveness of your sins, you will be forgiven of all of your sins, no matter what they are, or how bad you have been, you will be saved. When you do ask God for forgiveness, you must believe that He has forgiven you. That is faith.
When we confess that we are sinners, and confess our sins, He cleans us up from ALL unrighteousness, All sins, whatever they may be. A lie, adultery, rape, incest, child abuse, murder, it will be forgiven when you call upon Him. Receive His forgiveness by faith.
Propitiation means: conciliatory offering to God, an appeasement of sins. It is God who propitiated by vindication of His holy and righteous character, whereby, through the provisions He has made in the atonement sacrifice of His Son, He has so dealt with sin that He can show mercy to the believing sinner in the removal of his guilt and the remissions of his sins. (1)
Jesus became our sin offering. By the giving up of His sinless life sacrificially, Christ annuls the power of sin to separate between God and the believer. Jesus was that appeasement of sin, through His blood sacrifice. Through the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, he who believes upon Him is by God’s own act of love delivered from justly deserved wrath, and comes under the covenant of grace. God has made you in right standing with Him through Jesus. God loves you and has provided a way for you to go to Him about anything. He has provided salvation and many blessings for the righteous.
Put your complete trust in the Lord, do not go by what you understand in the physical mind, or what you might see with your eyes, acknowledge that God in on top of things. God is in control. To trust in the Lord, is to have faith in God. Cultivate your faith and you can be confident that He can handle anything that you bring to Him. Has God ever made a mistake? No! If He had, He wouldn’t be God. Seek the Lord, call upon Him.
God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Call upon me and I will show you great and mighty things which you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3. God wants us to call upon Him, He wants us to learn to trust Him. We may not understand things in our minds, things may be confusing to us, but we are to trust in the Lord our God. Lean not on our own understanding, trust Him completely. Don’t try to figure God out. Trust in Him with all your heart, then when you call upon Him, He will show you things that you do not understand.
Our help comes from God. But if you have not yet made Jesus Lord of your life, If you have not asked for forgiveness of your sins. Your prayers are not heard. You can ask God for all kinds of favors, but if you have not asked for forgiveness of sins, God will not answer you. God only hears the prayers of the righteous. Who are the righteous? All who have asked for forgiveness, and have asked Jesus to come into their hearts.
You have been made righteous through Christ, therefore your prayers are effective. When you call on Him, in faith, God is able to answer you.
When you accept Jesus as your Lord and savior, you are forgiven and you are in right standing with God the Father. You can now go before God in earnest prayer. The scripture says that the effective pray of a righteous man can accomplish a lot. But what does it take for a prayer to be effective? Faith!
Many people “pray” the “23rd Psalm” That is not prayer. It is a Psalm of David. A psalm is a religious poem used in public worship of the God of Israel, and in the book of
Hebrews it is called a book of praises. Many “pray” what we call “The Lords prayer.” (Matthew 6:9-13) This again is not a prayer from the heart. It is an outline of how to pray. Jesus said to “pray this way,” He was giving instruction on how to pray. We are to start off praising God the Father. Then we ask for the things we need or desire. We are to ask for forgiveness of our sins and shortcomings, then we end with praising God and thanking Him for what we have already received, and for what we have asked for and are about to receive.
Repeating a prayer written by someone else is not a prayer from the heart. It is vain repetition. We are not to use meaningless repetitions. We are not to beat around the bush
about things, we are to be specific. We are to ask for what we need, even though The Father knows what we need, we still must ask in faith in order to receive.
We will see that there are many aspects to prayer. We will go into some aspects of prayer, but for all prayers to be effective, it must absolutely be a prayer in faith. You can say a lot of words, and call that prayer. But unless it is in faith, it means nothing. You just as well throw water into the air, and call that rain. The Lord hears the man who prays in faith. Faith is a seed, water it, cultivate it, and watch it grow. The prayer of faith is a prayer with absolute trust in God. Faith is our confidence that God will hear and answer our prayers. Faith is our receiver.
Faith is the catalysis, to answered payer. Faith is your confidence, it is your assurance, it is your guarantee of receiving what you requested of God in your prayers.
It does not take faith after you receive, it takes faith to receive. Faith is your assurance, that, what you ask of God, you will indeed receive. Take healing for an example. When we pray for healing, we ask in faith for God to heal us. We may not feel any better, but we begin to confess that by His stripes we are healed. We do not change our minds because we may not start to feel better right away. We stand in faith believing that we are healed. We continue to confess that we are healed. We confess God’s word over our situation, and we will receive. Faith is your assurance of receiving.