Have you been shying from praying and having a personal time with God? Sometimes prayer can be a struggle. Distractions, sleepiness or pure laziness can come in the way of our prayer life. But we need to do something about it since the cost of not praying can be very high. Depending on others for prayer would have tided us through some emergencies and difficult situations but it will not help beyond a point since the Lord is looking at our heart.
God has no favorites
The truth is that our God wants to have a personal relationship with each of us His children. In Acts 10:34-35 Peter says, “Most certainly and thoroughly I now perceive and understand that God shows no partiality and is no respecter of persons, But in every nation he who venerates and has a reverential fear for God, treating Him with worshipful obedience and living uprightly, is acceptable to Him and sure of being received and welcomed [by Him].”
In Deuteronomy 30:19 God placed a choice before the human race. He said, “I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.” He asked us to choose to follow His instructions for life and promised that all will go well with us when we do so.
God honors those who obey Him
When people choose to do the opposite of all that God said, since He is the Judge too, He has to deal with them. But when judgment comes upon a land God saves those who obey Him and uphold His standards. Ezekiel 14:12-20 reveals this. “The word of the Lord came [again] to me, saying, Son of man, when a land sins against Me by committing a trespass, and I stretch out My hand against it and break its staff of bread and send famine upon it and cut off from it man and beast, Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they would save but their own lives by their righteousness (their uprightness and right standing with Me), says the Lord God.
If I cause ferocious and evil wild animals to pass through the land and they ravage and bereave it, and it becomes desolate so that no man may pass through because of the beasts; Though these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters; they themselves alone would be delivered but the land would be desolate (laid waste and deserted).
Or if I bring a sword upon that land and say, Sword, go through the land, so that I cut off man and beast from it, Though these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they themselves alone would be delivered. Or if I send a pestilence into that land and pour out My wrath upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast, Though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter; they would but deliver their own lives by their righteousness (their moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relation).“
Family members cannot survive on our prayer
There are many people who turn to God in times of calamity and seek prayer from loved ones. But when the calamity is over and God has saved them, they return to their old ways and forget that God helped them. They are God’s fair weather friends who love the world more than Him. Jeremiah 2:27 speaks about someone like this, “[Inasmuch as] they say to a tree, You are my father, and to a stone, You gave me birth. For they have turned their backs to Me and not their faces; but in the time of their trouble, they say, Arise [O Lord] and save us!“
God gives them a lot of chances to turn back to Him earnestly. However, there comes a time when He too draws a line and decides not to tolerate this any more. Jeremiah 14:10-12 says, “[And the Lord replied to Jeremiah] Thus says the Lord to this people [Judah]: In the manner and to the degree already pointed out have they loved to wander; they have not restrained their feet. Therefore the Lord does not accept them; He will now [seriously] remember their iniquity and punish them for their sins. The Lord said to me, Do not pray for this people for their good. Though they fast, I will not hear their cry; and though they offer burnt offering and cereal offering [without heartfelt surrender to Me, or by offering it too late], I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”
Even in Jeremiah 11:14 God says, “Therefore do not pray for this people or lift up a cry or prayer for them, for I will not listen when they cry out to Me in the time of their evil trouble.”
God honors relationships
Our God is a covenant keeping God. He has honored His promises to Abraham and to David. He has kept all His promises to several generations and upheld the prophecies shared by His prophets. In Exodus 19:5, God promised His people, “Now therefore, if you will obey My voice in truth and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own peculiar possession and treasure from among and above all peoples; for all the earth is Mine.”
In Leviticus 26:15-16 He reveals what would happen if His children went against Him too. “And if you spurn and despise My statutes, and if your soul despises and rejects My ordinances, so that you will not do all My commandments, but break My covenant, I will do this: I will appoint over you [sudden] terror (trembling, trouble), even consumption and fever that consume and waste the eyes and make the [physical] life pine away. You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.“
Have you turned away from God?
No matter how your life before has been, you can still turn to God and seek His forgiveness. Psalm 51:17 tells us that the “sacrifice [the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent], such, O God, You will not despise.”
Repent and get right with God before it is too late. Seek Him while you can still find Him. Each of us will have to give an account of our lives someday before God who will Judge us. Where we spend eternity depends on His verdict. He who hears every thought, sees our heart and witnesses our every act will judge righteously. No one can bribe Him to change His mind.
If we learn to live a life that honors Him, He is a God who will do anything for us. Job 22:26-28 says, “Then you will have delight in the Almighty, and you will lift up your face to God. You will make your prayer to Him, and He will hear you, and you will pay your vows. You shall also decide and decree a thing, and it shall be established for you; and the light [of God’s favor] shall shine upon your ways.”
Henrietta Decruz
Henrietta is a writer, singer-songwriter, blogger and social worker based in Kerala, India. Having encountered God closely through life's many ups and downs, she has a passion to use her God-given talents for His glory and to see lives transformed across the nations.
