Life Principles-by Charles Stanley

Life Principles Bible by Charles Stanley at amazon.com
We Stand Strongest and Tallest on Our Knees
An older pastor got into the habit of challenging his congregation by quoting Jeremiah 33:3: "Call to Me, and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know." Leveling his eyes at those gathered before him, he would say, "Try it. It works!"

This is a very simple thought, but it carries a tremendous truth. God wants us to call to Him. Many times He allows disappointment to rake through our lives so that He might draw us closer to Himself. Prayer is the most powerful tool a believer has; nothing compares to it. In prayer we profess our need of Christ and His solution to our problems. In prayer we learn to worship Him and grow spiritually in His loving presence.

Don't worry about what to say; the Holy Spirit will show you. Tears are just as effective as words at times, and God is sensitive to every tear you cry. Just as He listens to the hurt you feel, so He knows how to deal with and guide you through any anger that has penetrated your life.

God is bigger than any problem you face. He knows the way before you, and only He can guide you through the difficulty. When a trial hits, always respond first by going to Him in prayer. As you pray, hope invades your life and fills you with the reassurance of His undergirding presence.

Several things are essential to establishing a powerful prayer life. One is to choose a definite time to spend in prayer. Setting a time, whether early in the morning or late in the evening, is not the issue. Consistent' is the key here. Ask God to show you the perfect time when you can be alone with Him, even for fifteen minutes. God honors the prayers of His people! If you come to him, He will provide all you need for your prayer life.

If possible, select a place where you can be alone with Him. You may need to consider obligations with younger children. When it comes to prayer, you will find that God is very creative; He will provide the perfect place for you to seek Him. Making the commitment to pray is an essential step. This alone tells God that your heart is open to His heart and that you want to learn more about Him and the life He has planned for you.

As we spend time with Him, God lovingly teaches us how to pray and how to listen for His still, small voice as He replies to our humble requests. Prayer is the doorway to blessing and freedom from bondage. As we pray, God teaches us more about Himself and the spiritual warfare needed to combat the enemy. Every day God calls us to put on the armor of God and to stand firm in our faith (Eph. 6:10-17). The only way to do this is through prayer and complete reliance on Jesus Christ, who is Lord Jesus over all.
I tell my congregation that the distance between success and failure and victory and defeat is about six to twelve inches, or whatever the distance is for you to drop to your knees and pray to your wondrous Lord and Savior. You never stand taller or stronger than while on your knees!

Over your lifetime, you will face many difficult situations. Some will feel very exciting and challenging. Whatever life sends your way, you can be sure that God cares. He enjoys seeing you excited over His blessings, and He mourns with you when tragedy strikes.

Over the years I have enjoyed keeping a journal that contains many prayers and God's insights for each request. You can do the same thing by writing out your need and the way God answers you] prayers. Pray that He will provide specific verses that apply to your situation. Look for His promises in His Word. Claim them, write them down, and trust Him. You will never be disappointed!

My challenge to you is simple: Whatever you're facing, trust God with it. Ask Him to take away the anxiety, fear, and feelings of frustration. When you trust the Lord, you rest in His care.

You probably could name at least one place where you feel safe and accepted. But there is no place where you will feel more accepted or secure than in the presence of God. All of this and much more waits for you as you come to Him.


Life Principle 27

PRAYER IS LIFE'S GREATEST TIME SAVER
When my family and I first moved to Atlanta, Georgia, we couldn't seem to find the right house. It took us more than a month before we found a house we felt good about. In the meantime, we had been living with friends. As you can imagine, we were ready for a place of our own.

We prayed and applied for a loan. We asked God every day to get the loan approved. We really believed He would; we thanked Him in advance.

One week later, the banker turned down our loan request. What a shock! I just couldn't imagine why. And we couldn't understand what God was up to. "Why didn't he answer our prayer?" we asked.

God answered our question the next day by sending a tremendous rainstorm. The assessment of the house we almost bought flooded with a foot of water. We had planned to use it for a study and for storage. But God was watching out for us. One week later we found the right house, and we enjoyed living there eight years.

Prayer not only spared us a lot of trouble, it saved us a lot of time. God's answer seemed like a delay to us, but in fact it kept us from wasting countless hours trying to fix a defective house. Prayer really is life's greatest time saver.

Jesus spoke of this relationship between an apparent delay in God's answers to our prayers, and the fact of how it actually saves us time. In Luke 18 He told a parable to teach us "that men always ought to pray and not lose heart." That doesn't sound like a passage on how prayer saves time, does it? Yet by the end of His story, Jesus explained His point like this: "And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out a day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily" (Luke 18:7, 8).

Did you catch it? God may "bear long" with us in our prayers, and yet He is committed to acting on our behalf "speedily." that means that prayer really is life's greatest time saver, for God will answer our prayers as soon as it is best for us - not one moment sooner, not one second later. What may feel like a delay is actually God sparing us tremendous amounts of wasted time.

In 1971, our church's television broadcast was taken off the air because of conflict within the church. After we resolved the conflict, we resolved the conflict; we asked the same station if we could be rescheduled at our prior broadcast time. It refused. We offered to buy time on that station, but it refused that request as well.

We believed God wanted us to be on television, so we prayed he would once again allow us to being a television ministry. When we started praying, we thought something would open up soon. But it took a year before anything happened.

Eventually two stations offer us a spot in their weekly programming. One opportunity led to another, till today our service is broadcast by In Touch Ministries throughout the world. God didn't answer our prayer to be put right back on the air for a reason. He waited and provided us with something much better than we asked for.

Many young people pray and pray that the Lord will send a marriage partner. As they enter their late twenties, many question God's interest. They wonder "What is God waiting for?" He may be waiting till he knows they are ready. What seems like a delay to them is actually sparing them countless hours, days, months, even years of heartache.

As I reflect on my life, I realize that if God had answered certain prayers according to my timing, I would have missed in every case.

Imagine for a moment a five-year-old who wants a pocketknife and a flashlight. A good father might not mind giving the knife to hi, but the boy needs to grow up a little before he can be trusted with it. In the same way, God waits for us to grow spiritually in some areas before He gives us all the spiritual and material blessing he has in store (Eph. 1:3).

God will answer our prayers as soon as it is best, not one moment sooner or one second later. This is why prayer is life's greatest time saver.

How I can learn to pray effectively?
Daniel demonstrates how to pray with both power and confidence. When he discovered in the Book of Jeremiah that the Babylonian captivity would last seventy years (Dan. 9:2), he fell to his knees and began interceding or his people (Dan. 9:4-19).

In Daniel 9, we see a great example of what prayer should be. Its focus is on almighty God and His character. It includes sincere confession, unselfishness, and dependence on the Word of God. Such prayer has great power. In Daniel's case, God sent the angel Gabriel with His answer even before the prophet had completed is supplication.

To find God during your own hardship, go to the portal Daniel knew best. Go to your knees. Model your prayer after Daniel's and model your life after Daniel 11:32: "The people who know their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits."

The Bible tells us, "The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much" (James. 5:16). Effective-that is exactly what we want our prayers to be, especially in a crisis. When we meet God's requirement, we can feel confident that He will act in the situations a result of our earnest prayers. What are those requirements?

Requirement 1: Fervent prayer.
Fervent prayers are filled with passion and a strong sense of personal helplessness. They also have a narrow focus on some specific difficulty. Scripture calls this type of prayer "laboring fervently." (Col 4:12).

Requirement 2: Righteousness
At salvation we become rightly related to God as His children. He permanently seals us with the Holy Spirit and declares us righteous forever because of our position in Jesus Christ. But the Bible also uses the word righteous to describe a believer's conduct. This means that to be called a "righteous person," we must be found in Christ (Phil 3:9) and make it a habit to obey God (Eph 4:1; Col 1:10). If we willingly and knowingly engage in sin, then we do not live righteously and our prayers will lack power.

When the Lord hears the impassioned prayer of a righteous person whose life reflects God's ways, Scripture promises that the Holy Spirit will begin His divine work. God responds with great power to the prayer of even one righteous person. Friend, that person can be you.