praying like you believe, get your hopes up!
Do you?
Have you ever heard someone say, “don’t get your hopes up?” Have you ever heard someone say that in reference to what you or they are praying about?
“Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
There is no point in praying if we don’t get our hopes up. I am not talking about a “name it and claim it” type of prayer or trying to make something happen. I am talking about something that you know is in agreement with God’s heart. If it is His Will we not only can, but we should get our hopes up. We have our “hopes up” about the sun coming up in the morning. We have our “hopes up” about rain coming when the weather man says 90% chance. We get our “hopes up” that the grocery store will still have our favorite brand of ice cream when it is on sale. And we definitely have our “hopes up” about that cup of coffee in the morning.
But when our family members act like sinners we say things like, “oh he is such a sinner he will never change.”
When our neighbor gets diagnosed with cancer we say, “he is dying”.
When our car breaks down we think, “well, I know it can’t be fixed, I will just have to go into debt and get a new one.”
Does prayer work or does it not? Is God real or is he not? Does He care about you? Is He the creator of the universe? Of course the answers to these questions are yes and He obviously can save our loved ones, and heal our neighbors and fix our car! But instead of acting like we believe we walk around mumbling and grumbling and complaining and whining and saying , “woe is me.”
Once again the same old problem and the same old answer. We need to take our eyes off of us and put them on Him. We need to admit that the problem is us and start believing in Him. If we can’t believe that He will hear our cries then we need to stop praying for other people. Honestly. If you are praying for someone to get saved that you don’t believe can be saved then you need to stop praying for them and start praying for yourself.
I am not a follower of the “Faith Movement” or the big, “Name it and Claim it” crowd. I think all to often we try to manipulate God (even using Hs own Word) and that is anything but faith. That is the biggest doubt there is because once again the focus is on ourselves and what we think we can make God do. Oh how He must shake His head at our juvenile behavior.
What I am talking about is real faith. The same kind that has you believing that the sun will rise every morning. Because He says so. He will freely give you more faith if you ask Him. But you will have to be prepared to get your hopes up.
