Sadness is a major impediment to an individual’s pursuit of their purpose in the Plan and Will of God. It is no secret that the world is filled with unhappy people. If you were to ask each of them why they are unhappy, their answers would be as varied and unique as they are. God has given every believer the responsibility to invest in the lives of others. His plan is perfect. In this plan, we are commanded to invest His love in others. This creates a cycle of love and prayer in which we give out the positive stuff that we have received. This is also where faith gets it marching orders and produces results. But when at the very core of your being, you doubt your ability to participate in this cycle of God’s love, your investment in others is not going to be what it could have been. This is why God wants us to change our hearts, so that they will be filled with His love. When they are, it will change the way we pray.
It is very plain to see why God is committed to bless His children to live happy and peaceful lives. He wants us to have the best because this is who He is. He gave His Son as a sacrifice so we can live more than abundant lives. This love that He has for us should fill our cups and cause us to be overflowing with love and confidence, and when it doesn’t, we need to ask Him why and have the courage to accept His answer.
Through Jesus Christ, God has redeemed us! This redemption should be the cause of our continual delight. For some of us it isn’t, and mainly this is because many people don’t understand what God has done for them. They don’t know the conditions from which He rescued us through Jesus Christ. When God created the first man, Adam, and then made Eve, He plopped them in the middle of paradise and communed with them continually. They had a wonderful relationship, but Adam rebelled against God. Adam decided that he would take the devil’s word over God’s Word, and this is the most destructive and detrimental error any human being can make. The consequences are always terrible.
When this happened, Adam and Eve left the territory of God’s goodness in every way, spiritually and physically. They died a spiritual death and were no longer connected to God, the Source of all good things. They also had to leave paradise, the Garden of Eden, which was the most extraordinary and divine place on earth. Before his disobedience, Adam was brilliant, with no knowledge of sin, and he was created in such a way that he had the agency of free-will choice. God has given this to every human. We are all made in God’s image, and we can choose for ourselves, just like our Father. Adam chose to disobey God and sealed our fate. Romans 5:16(NLT) says, “And the result of God's gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man's sin. For Adam's sin led to condemnation, but God's free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins.”
Adam’s colossal mistake demonstrates that a middle ground is non-existent. Bad things happen when you don’t take a stand and be unmovable when it comes to God’s Word. His Word is the truth, and every human must decide whether they will live according to the truth or a lie. Adam chose to believe a lie from the devil. This lie from the devil that Adam believed led to condemnation, and this condemnation led to a life of always being in darkness, with no real access to light. Before the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, people were always using self-effort to try to make themselves half-way righteous. It was an exhaustive effort that placed them on a vicious and never-ending cycle. They had to offer continual sacrifices to God in order to cover their sinful deeds and behaviors. This wouldn’t last, because God always had another plan for us through Jesus Christ.
Romans 8:1(NLT) states, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” When something is condemned, it is no longer useful for the purpose it was created to serve. Because of Christ, this is no longer our fate. Nothing about what God has redeemed can be considered condemned. 2Corinthians 5:17(NIV) tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” All who have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior have become new creations in him. We are now a part of his body and a part of God’s family. This means that we can pray from the true and real position of sons and daughters of the One True and Almighty God.
If we pull back all the layers of sadness, and lay bare before Heavenly Father, we will come face to face with the reality that we have underestimated God’s love for us. When we underestimate His love for us, we begin to operate from that place of doubt. We don’t love ourselves fully, and tragically, we are not able to love others with the robust, unfailing, and overflowing love that comes from God. Heavenly Father wants us to live from a place of wholeness in Christ, so we can pray from this place and share from it as well.
Romans 8:34(NLT) asks, “Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.” Again, that which God deems worthy cannot be condemned, and He values our worth to such a degree that He gave His only begotten Son to rescue us from sin and darkness. Romans 8:35 tells us that nothing can separate us from Christ’s love, and when we build our confidence on this standing in Christ, we can come before our Heavenly Father’s throne with no sense of guilt, sin, or condemnation. We can be confident that He hears our prayers, and delights in them because we come to Him with the boldness of knowing we are indeed His beloved children and He loves us with an everlasting love. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
"Praying Effectively: Part 5 – Praying with Confidence”, written for victoryinjesuschrist.life. Copyright© 2020. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
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