Life Capsule for Today 28/10/23
Theme: Basic Elements of Effective Prayer (7)
Topic: Growth in the organic life
Memory Verse: Matt 7:7-8
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened NKJV
Text: 2Pe 1:5-8
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Words of the Ministry
This week we have considered some of the basic elements needed to enjoy effective prayers and we did say that by effective prayers, we mean a situation where majority if not all our prayers are pleasing to God and receives a positive answer. We looked at several factors ranging from faith, avoiding lust, being persistent, understanding the proper ground of prayer etc. We also learnt that prayer has a goal beyond we are getting items from God, we learnt that ultimately prayer changes us. Today we would be looking at the last point in the list which is what I believe distinguishes babes from sons. As we consider the life of Jesus, we see him make a daring statement no man has ever made, he said he thanked God because God always hear him. As we consider that, it brings us to the point of we asking, how did Jesus in his humanity attain a 100 percent answer rating from the father. The reason is what we are discussing today which is our growth in the divine life.
Just like in our human society, within the family as our children grow from babies to adolescents, they realize that their rate of yes to request increases and it becomes much more as they become adults. We may also notice that the number of requests may even be fewer as they become adults but the request become more effective as they request only what their parents would most likely give. For children, everything on Tv is a request, they may even say they want to visit some of the cartoon characters but as they grow in their natural life, they realize most of those things are not real, so they also distinguish things that are dangerous, specific to certain jobs and purposes, they begin to know value and cost and all of those things shapes their requests.
The Christian life is also organic, we are in the family of God, as we grow in life based on our experiences, we begin to know God, not only would our faith in God grow but our endurance , long suffering, and patience, our love for the world would reduce and our unhealthy competition dies out, as this happens to us, our prayers would be refined, we begin to know why God would not do certain things because he loves us, why God expects us to go through certain challenges to be living epistles to other etc. From today’s reading, we see the apostle saying we are to add these things namely virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, and godliness, we see that we are to add them not as works but by cooperating with God as we go through some challenging situations. When we cooperate with God, we see that our mind is further renewed, and our request is not self-centered but for Gpd glory thereby yielding more positive answers. May the Lord grant us light. Shalom, please keep in mind our October Peniel encounter which comes up on Sunday the 29th, by 4pm.
Bible in One Year: Luke 17-18
For further fellowship send us an email on godmanvideos@gmail.com or visit our youtube channel: @godmanmedia. You can also interact with us by dropping your comments on our facebook page. Our physical meeting, Word feast comes up every Wednesday by 5pm and Prayer Gym every Saturday by 7am while PENIEL comes up once a month, every last Sunday of the month from 4pm to 6.30pm at Suite A10, Ahser Office Complex, beside Living Faith Church, Opposite Hassan Stores, Arab Road, Kubwa Abuja.