HOUSE OF PRAYER 

House of Prayer that God Desire

You may have read that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. In other words we as Christians are the house that God chooses to dwell in. ( 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ) Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; You bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

I was reading this story and I thought I would share it with you and maybe you heard it before. An atheist lived in a certain village. He was not a terrible person, he just had no interest in going to the boring church that was only one in the village. One day the church building caught on fire, and the whole town ran toward it to help extinguish the flames, including the village atheist. Someone called out; " hey, this is something new for you, it is the first time we've ever seen you running to the church!" He replied " It's the first time I ever run to the church because it is the first time I've ever seen the church on fire. As humorous as this is, it has some truth to it.

We as a church should be a place where peole see Jesus. There should be something different about us that others see and experience. If we are going to walk in the power and presence of God, we as a church and a people must have a emphasis on prayer. ( 1 Peter 2:9> But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a Holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into  His wonderful light.)

So what is prayer ? Prayer is communicating with God, talking to Him and listening to Him. Prayer brings us into God's presence. He wants to have unbroken fellowship with us. In prayer is where things changes, some prayers are answer quickly and some prayers are a process that God will work out for the good of all that is in involved. That why He tells us in His word to pray continually ( 1 Thessalonians 5:17 ) We can pray on the run through out our day, but we need to spend quiet and quality time in His presence to hear His voice.We need to set apart a specfic time, daily to spend alone with our loving heavenly Father. If not sure how ,Just begin with ten minutes,Start with worshipping Him, thanking Him and telling Him how much you love Him and how grateful that He love you. I guarantee you once you begin this way, thirty minutes will seem like ten minutes.Prayer will keep us close to God. We draw near to Him through prayer.He promised that He will draw near to us when we draw near to Him ( James 4:8 ) We can live in a attitude of prayer, constantly being in communion and fellowship with our heavenly Father every hour of the day.

In Mark 11:24 it say, Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. So I was thinking about this verse and asking the Lord, why does it seem like our prayers are sometimes not answer. Is there any hindrance to our prayers not being answer and I believe the Lord show me four things. One, unforgiveness, two ,the lack of love for God and others, three, disobedience and four, doubt.

1. Unforgiveness.

In the gospels we have teachings on what happens when we have unforgiveness in our hearts( In Matthew 18:21-35, Then Peter came to Jesus and asked " Lord how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times ? Jesus answered "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything. The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. Pay back what you owe me! he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, Be patient with me, and I will pay you back. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servant saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. You wicked servant, he said, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you ? In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owes. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your HEART. ) Jesus make it clear about forgiveness, its not optional, it is a command. ( Matthew 6:14-15 says, For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins,your Father will not forgive your sins. )

 The choice is ours to forgive, we can choose to ingore God's word about forgiveness and make excuses about what this person did to me. And walk around in bitterness or we can ask God in prayer to help us forgive the offense against us and sometime it a process to overcoming the wrong or hurts done to us. Regardless of how the offense comes, whether it's through no fault of our own. Our decision which is beneficial to us and our well being is  also very critical to where we spend eternity.

Do not allow unforgiveness to be your master. You can be sure of this one thing. Offenses are coming, some come so quickly we do not have time to react. Some are so hurtful they cut like a sharp knife, and we find ourselves asking the question " how did this happen" and why did this happen to me. I did nothing wrong, Then the next question we begin to ask ourselves is why Lord ? I am your child, Why didn't I see this coming? Well Peter ask basically the same question, how many times must I forgive my bother. So the only answer we have to the question is not why did this offense come to us. But how are we going to respond to the offense, in bitterness or forgiveness.

You may heard this expression, ( I will forgive that person, but I can never forget the wrong done to me ) And I would say to that expression of words is, Yes we are very good at remembering the wrongs done to us, but how forgetful we become at the good things done to us. Let us make sure we are forgiving from our Hearts and not expressing empty words. Let us allow the Lord Jesus to work througt us to forgive every offense and hurt done to us. If not sure how, go to Him in prayer and I guarantee He will meet your need. Remember whatever is leading you or is your focus, Is in control of you, It becomes your master. Do not let offenses or unforgiveness be your master.

2. Lack of Love for God and Others.  

It begin with the two greatest commands the Lord Jesus gave to us ( Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.) In the times we live today it is diffcult to find love for God, let alone for others. So why is this the case? Why is there such a lack of Love for the one true God? The God of the Bible, The two main reason are found in scripture, the first is in ( 2 Timothy 3:1-7 But Mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud,abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal. not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God- having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learing but never able to acknowledge the truth. It will be hard for anyone in this postion,controlled by the antichrist spirit. To Love God and others,We can not pretend to be godly in front of our family, freinds, and other people around us, our character will reveal if we are in Christ or not. If love is not your motivation. Ask the Lord Jesus for a change of heart and He will fill you with His Love.If these character from 2nd Timoyhy ch.3 our in us, than we have the antichrist spirit in us and we need to repent! and turn to the Living God for forgiviness of sins, and ask Him to cleanse us from all unrightousness in Jesus Name.

 The second is found in ( Zechariah 7:4-13 Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: Ask all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted ? And when you were eating and drinking , were you not just feasting for yourselves ? Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the eariler prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled ? And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: This is what the Lord Almighty says: Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.

But they refused to pay attention, stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry. When I called, they did not listen, so when they called, I would not listen, says the Lord Almighty.

 Some may think that the two commands the Lord Jesus gave too us, might be limited to the new testament, but we can clearly see in Zechariah, that God was very concern about these commands in the old testament as well as the new testament . Sometimes when God bless us with peace or prosperous us and when that peace or prosperity last over a period of many years. We many forget where we have come from. The human nature is to forget what God has done for us or make excuses for the way we live our lives ( Psalms 103:2 Praise the Lord, O my soul, and FORGET not all his benefits ) In Zech. they forget the benefits of the Lord, which is very easy to do. But the best news is the Lord will never give up on us he will send us reminders or do something to get our attention. Sometimes he work through circumstance that are not very pleasing to us. But it is for our benefit  that we yield to His will and follow His commands. rebelling against His commands only brings pain and suffering and how do we contiune to follow His commands. By staying close to Jesus through prayer. Thank God he give us his Holy Spirit  to enable us to love God and others. May our God help us to express our love not just in word but also through deeds. Let us show our love by what we do and then we can teach others.

3.Disobedience.

So the question someone might ask is, what is disobedience and what could we be disobedient to. Well we all know what disobedience is, it's the failure to obey God's word. Jesus said after his resurrection in ( Matthew 28: 18 20 All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. )  This comand was not only for the disciples, but for all who would follow Jesus from generation to generation until the very end. So what command or commands our we to be obedient too. Well first Jesus came to earth, not only to die and be resurrected on the third day,and give eternal life to all who believe in him. He also came to earth to show us how to live and love one another. Loving one another is not optional, as might be the popular belief.

It is a command ( 1 John 4:7 - 4:21  Dear friends let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he i God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love, Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives ouy fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen .And he has given us this command; Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

From these verses we can see loving our brothers and sisters in Christ, and not only in Christ, but also loving others is a command. We can not pick and choose who we love just because they disagree with our point of view. We who call ourseleve Born Again Christians our love must be pure and holy. So as we see from these verses, if we say we love God, who we have not seen and do not love others, our religion is worth nothing and our confession  Jesus is our savior and Lord is useless in the eyes of the Lord Jesus. This verse is very clear on what kind of religion we should have, if we are born again Christian. Let us practice this scripture (1 John 3:18  Dear Children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

4. Doubt.

So what is doubt ? Well from scripture point of view, it's not believing in God. For the scripture says :( Hebrews 11:1 says Now Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see ) ( Herbrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, Because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him ) So we can see faith is the opposite of doubt. So when God said I will not be please with us. What does he mean, well we all go through time of doubt and questionable times in our lives. Because the enemy will do anything he can to get our focus off of Jesus Christ. But the problem still lie with us. If we contiune to feed this doubt, it will become a huge hinderance to our walk with Jesus Christ and soon you will see yourself not believing any of God promises. We as Christian have to believe we can overcome any problem that come against us in Jesus name. Maybe the answer will come instantly or maybe tomorrow or maybe next month or 5 years from now. But no matter how long the answer takes. We are to keep on believing and I will guarantee our God will here and answer your prayer according to his will. His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. May we contiune to trust Him in all circumstances.Do not allow the enemy the ability to keep feeding us the seed of doubt. ( 2 Cor 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, And we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ ) We do this through prayer, Becoming a house of prayer, where Jesus is gloryified.