Encouraging prayer God offers an open invitation for his people to talk with him at any time about anything. On encouraging prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the best-selling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer, provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray. And now, here's James.
Well so today on encouraging prayer, um another wonderful challenge for us. is asking God for purity, but not purity from a standpoint of just to be pure, but Through that, being able to see things we haven't been able to see before, get a better look at the God that we adore that we're not able to see because we got stuff in our way, right, James? Yeah, that's exactly right, Robbie. And the key verse here is Matthew 5, 8. Blessed are the pure in heart.
for they will see God. And so You know, the the whole point is if we want to see God's things, if we want to see his kingdom, Coming, if we want to see, you know, the matters of the Spirit unfolding before us, you know, in our lives. Then then we need to ask God to help us. us with this. And of course when when Jesus says You know, the pure in heart, he's talking about.
and undivided loyalty You know, he he he's talking about Um, you know, the same thing that Paul is looking at when in Philippians 3:14 he says, press on. You know to the goal to win the prize for for which God has called us. But I think the challenge, and you and I were talking about this right before we went live, but Um the challenge is Not to make it all about us. Mm. You know?
Yeah, that is the challenge. That's so beautiful. It's almost beyond thinking that. Clearly Prayer is an opportunity for a relationship, and if I went into that relationship with my wife where it's all about me. She would point it out rather Yeah.
And you have this wonderful li you know, wife and and you know, the the life that you could have together is as you enjoy each other selflessly. You know, it it's I mean yeah.
So you're talking about dying to self again. I can see it. Yeah.
Well, you know, it's this whole concept of, okay, yes, we want to press on to. to win the prize. But we We can't do this in our own strength. Again, this is where prayer comes in. We have to ask God to help us and to And to grow us in this.
And in so doing, I think the key to it lies in taking our eyes off of ourselves. You know? Because if our eyes are on ourselves, then really what are we seeing? We're not seeing the kingdom. We're not seeing the things of the Spirit.
And someone who opened my eyes to this recently was, again, someone we've talked about a lot recently, is George MacDonald. And um I've been reading uh a number of books By McDonald and He he has this theme, whether it's in his A book fantasies or At the back of the north wind or Uh the princess and the goblin. Um There's this theme. And and all of them Because McDonald is a devout Christian. About seeing more of what God has.
in store. And Mm. The point is you want to live like that. You want to see that. There's nothing like the Yeah.
I love what you said before when we were talking about this, just you and I, that There's a whole land out there that we want to experience. It's a godland. It's actually the kingdom. But. And but that was the way the characters In those books went about it is they were on the adventure to discover the kingdom.
and realizing That They needed to to go at this in a certain way is to be able to see it. to experience it required a change in their behavior and in their thought processes. Right. Right. And and yes, they they had to focus You know, they they they they they had to kind of, you know, bring things down to what mattered most.
But They also have, as you were saying, they had to live a certain way. They had to live with faith. where they they couldn't see the circumstances. You know, they They had an keep going because their hearts We're after it. You know, more than anything else, after this goal of seeing the things that they needed to see.
And Isn't that what God wants for us as well? Yeah, and uh as I think about what you're saying, it's really Wholehearted. Right? They went after it. without any pretence, this is was their heart's desire.
And when God became their heart's desire, right, then he, like, you know, it says in the Psalms, right? Yeah.
That He will give you the desires of your heart when that's what your heart desires.
Well and And that's the whole point of this, is that when we press on to win the goal for the prize for which God has called us, it yes, we're disciplining ourselves, we're running the race, that's one analogy, that's one way of looking at it. But You look at how Jesus described looking forward to the kingdom of God. and being alert. And he basically said, You know, don't be weighed down in Luke 21, 34. you know, by by dissipation and and you know the desires for for this world.
And so the point is... That We're happier. We're lighter. We're better able to run. if if we're looking forward, if we're pure in heart and And we need him.
We need him to show us how to do that. Yeah, which Once again, it seems like a good time to pray.
Well, let's let l let's pray. Father, help us in this. Thank you, Lord, that the things you have to show us are beyond compare. And we want to see them, Lord. Help us not to miss them for lesser things.
Help us to have happier, lighter souls. that are just following after you because, oh, there's no place we would rather be. than with you. In Jesus' name. Come.
Amen. May it be. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website. JamesBanks.org or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray.
