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Read Introduction to Philippians

 

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God

 

“let your requests be made known to God” 

We are to present our requests to God as if He did not know all about them. A mother loves to listen to her crying child tell her about the problem. She shows sympathy and understanding. She wants to hear about both the hurts and the triumphs. A little child can be quite sure that whatever happens to him, it is of interest to his mother. We can take all of our cares, both past, and future, into the presence of God, with all of our shame and our needs and our fears.

Get your requisition in and leave it there. We will not worry about when God answers or how He will answer, or if He will ever answer. Once the requisition is in, we have done all that God requires of us. We dare not dictate to God how He must answer. Prayer is not twisting the arm of a reluctant God. God meets us in His own sovereign way. There are times when He meets us at the point of our desires. At other times He chooses not to answer our prayer with a “yes.”

After the trial passes away, we say, “Why did I worry about that? God worked it out according to His will. The next time I get into a hassle like that, I will not worry. I have learned my lesson.” Often we do not learn that lesson.

The proof of unbelief is worry. We feel we must help God work out the problem. Worry will help Him solve my difficulty. So we eat our hearts out with worry. Prayer is just the opposite. It places problems confidently in the hands of God. Trusting God does not imply that we should not do what we can about the problem, but we leave it with God once we have done our part. 

If we pray, it must be a prayer that the Savior can initial. We all are careful about the things we endorse. We do not put our signature on everything. Likewise, the Lord Jesus does not endorse every prayer. If He did, He would be capricious. He could not do that; it would imperil His name,

And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” (John 14:13-14)

The words “to God” mean in the presence of God. Prayer made with a conscious idea of the presence of God is true prayer. Many of our prayers are mechanical. We say words but do not personally talk to God.

Principle:

God wants to know about our requests.

Application:

Our responsibility is to make our requests known to God. This call to prayer is not a call to inaction. The believer is to take responsibility for the things for which God has given him capacity. Apathy is no attribute of Christianity.

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