Our Amazing God and Prayer

I had the recent privilege of sharing a devotional on prayer at our ladies bible study. I struggled with what to say, since I still want to see my own prayer life grow deeper. What the Lord showed me was to go back and see God’s heart towards me and who He is and the focus on Him will change how I pray and my conversations with Him into something more intimate, personal and meaningful rather than just another thing I need to do more and improve my skills upon.
 
And we all want to believe and have real faith that what we pray about with the Lord is heard, considered and that the Lord is taking some action towards answering. We need that confidence in Him so we can have faith while we wait for Him to move.
 
“And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me. 
 
Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul.’
 
“For thus says the Lord: ‘Just as I have brought all this great calamity on this people,
so I will bring on them all the good that I have promised them.“              Jeremiah 32:40-42
 
 
And I will make an everlasting covenant with them - An everlasting covenant with us. He's committed for the long term. He's not going anywhere. This God we are talking to, this God we are asking for help, this God we are pouring out our hearts in vulnerability and honesty to has given commitment to us first. So whatever we have done, or will do, or say to Him, we know that nothing that is revealed to Him will cause Him to leave us or abandon us.
 
We need that as women. We wear enough masks in this life and when we find someone we can trust, we need to know that there is commitment to stay and work things out. God Himself says He makes an everlasting commitment with us.  
 
And this everlasting covenant, the one that that lasts our entire life and our entire eternity was made with the blood of Jesus Christ. Nothing can break this covenant. It is permanent beyond permanent. It's greater than a marriage vow.  It's greater than an oath sworn.  It's greater than a parent to a child because even the blood shared between families is not more powerful than the blood of Jesus Christ.
 
And God chose to make this binding contract with us. Nobody forced Him to do it. It was done willingly. The Father sent Jesus willingly, Jesus lived and died willingly and the Holy Spirit is given willingly when we ask.  

And God chose to make this binding contract with us. Nobody forced Him to do it. It was done willingly. The Father sent Jesus willingly, Jesus lived and died willingly and the Holy Spirit is given willingly when we ask.  
 
That I will not turn away from doing them good - It would be enough if God had just said, “I will not harm them” or “I will not punish them for the sins they’ve committed today.” But our God we pray to says He will not turn away from doing us good. He plans it out. He comes up with ideas and thinks of ways to bless us.
 
I don't know why that's so important to me personally, but I think its because it takes away the doubt of any ulterior motive's about God's heart towards me. He’s not out to manipulate me or use me or I’m not simply a soldier in His army that’s expendable for His plans.  But His motive of doing me good, of doing you good inspires trust – belief.  
 
When I am sharing with God what's on my heart or the things that hurt me or doubts I’m still wrestling with, God’s heart towards me allows me to trust Him, that He will not betray my heart. It’s precious to Him and He will go to great lengths to protect my heart.  He will bind up any wounds. He will encourage us when weak, He will be kind or correct us when we are off because sin hurts us. He says He will do you good by providing for you, taking care of you and giving you the desires of your heart.
 
And when we have a very close friend or spouse that we trust because we’ve seen those same qualities of love and kindness, it opens us up to have more intimacy. And that’s the beautiful thing God does and desires in our prayer lives. Not just a list of people or things that we need help with, but I want to share me with you God and I want You Lord to share yourself with me. We want to really be known, all the different layers and we really want to know God better than a best friend.
 
“But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.”   -                                                                                           Jeremiah 9:24
 
But I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me.  - As we pray for God to help us in our walk as Christians, to be better believers, to have more faith, to show more fruit of the Spirit, to witness to people, to love as Christ loved, to pray more, to read our Bibles, or to love God more, we can start to feel really burdened about how much there is to do or be.
 
But this is what's amazing, God says He will put the fear in our hearts to love and to obey Him … so that we won't leave Him. Because the unfortunate fact is our hearts are prone to do that, to leave Him, or to forget Him.
 
So when we pray for those things we need to remember “God you said you would do this for me. Lord you said you would empower me to love you and obey you. I’m resting in and counting on you to do in me what I cannot do on my own.” This is the New Covenant promise, that God has put a new heart in us and has given us the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life in us, through us and for us. No glory in the flesh, but we come in faith to believe that God is making us into the image of His Son each and every day.
 
We pray and ask the Lord to give us the desires and the ability to obey His Spirit in all things. And where we are still failing, we turn it afresh to the Lord, not to our own efforts, but back to His power and grace. It’s a place not of more activity, but of surrender, trust and rest for our souls. Prayer is our time to do that over and over again throughout the day, to remind ourselves of the utter dependence we must live moment by moment on Jesus’ power and strength to do all in us.

Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land. - I love how the Lord says He rejoices over doing us good. It’s not just a task He checks off, but He gets excited about blessing us. He is really happy about it. God rejoices over answering our prayers. This is our God that wants to hear our rejoicing shouts or share in our tears.  
 
This is His heart towards us and because He shows that kind of attitude towards me, I want to come to Him with my burdens or sometimes the harder one to bring, our dreams and desires. Because that means hope gets awakened again and that can hurt sometimes.  
 
With all my heart and with all my soul - Now we know the verse about how we are to love the Lord with all our heart with all our soul.  God never asks from us, what He hasn’t already given first. We love Him because He first loved us. We take up our cross, because Jesus took up His first.
 
God is fully invested in us. He's not a user. He's a giver. There's no halfhearted love here or halfhearted paying attention to us. He's all in. He chooses to make Himself vulnerable to us with all his heart and with all his soul. All His emotions, all His time, all His energy, and all His resources.
 
Why does He give that? That seems too much. I can’t be entrusted with the heart of God. I will hurt Him just like I hurt other people. But God has committed to give all His heart and all His soul anyway.
 
Because He knows if He’s vulnerable, it will provide the foundation for us to be vulnerable and trust Him in prayer. Almighty God bends down His ear to hear you and me whenever we lift our voices and our hearts to talk to Him about the real things going on in our lives and He rejoices to answer.
 
You are safe to talk to God. You are safe to be so real and intimate with Him because he is listening with all His heart and all His soul.
 
“For thus says the Lord: ‘Just as I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will bring on them all the good that I have promised them.” 
 
I think of heaven and rewards first. That God has promised many good things there and we die to a lot of things here because we have hope that in heaven God will do good to us and such good that it overshadows all the bad. And we believe that because He said it and wrote it in a book.
 
And then I think of all the good we pray about here, our family, finances, health, spouse, kids, ministry, purpose, love, intimacy with the Lord, specific promises God has made to each of us. It's ok to remind God in prayer of those things and for Him to remember to keep His word spoken and written here for us. So many others in the Bible did exactly that, reminding God of who He is and what He has said.  
 
God wants us to remind Him of His promises, He wants us to be confident in saying His word back to Him and expecting Him to answer. That’s why He gave promises – to create faith.
 
So when you pray today, remember the God who is listening is eternally committed with an everlasting covenant bought with the blood of Jesus, who will not depart in doing good to you. He rejoices in answering you. The Lord who listens with all His heart and all His soul so you can give Him all of you and who has empowered you to be and do all that He commands. He will bring all the good He promised to you. These are some amazing things just to ponder and praise Him about and then give Him your intimacy.

Christy Cox
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