Prayer

Nothing Is Too Small for God: How Focused Faith Unlocks Answered Prayer

/ Terrence Burton / Leave a comment

Have you ever hesitated to bring something before God because it felt too ordinary, too small, too trivial for the Creator of the universe? Maybe it was a problem at work, a frustration with your car, an issue with your internet or utilities. Something in you whispered, “God has bigger things to deal with.” But the truth of Scripture dismantles that thinking entirely. 1 Peter 5:7 does not say “cast your big spiritual cares” on Him. It says, “Cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” All. Every single one. Because prayer is not primarily about the object of the request — it is about the relationship between the person and their God.

God Cares About What Concerns You

One of the most freeing realizations in the Christian life is this: if something matters to you, it matters to God. Not because your concern is cosmically significant, but because you are significant to Him. He is not a God who responds only to grand, theological petitions. He is a Father who notices. Matthew 10:30 says He knows the very number of hairs on your head. That is not a metaphor for general awareness, that is the language of intimate attention. When we minimize our desires and tell ourselves they are not worth bringing to God, we are essentially rejecting the invitation He has already extended. Psalm 37:4 says He will give you the desires of your heart. He designed you with desires for a reason. Bring them. All of them. Stop filtering your prayer life based on what you think qualifies as a spiritual enough request.

The Issue Is Often Not Power, It Is Focus

God already possesses all power. That is not in question. But creation itself offers a powerful illustration: God had all power before the beginning, yet creation manifested when He focused and spoke. The distinction between sunlight and a laser is not the energy source, it is concentration. Sunlight warms; a laser cuts through steel. The same principle applies to prayer and faith. Desire alone is not enough. Repeated anxious petitions are not enough. James 1:6-8 warns that the double-minded person, believing one moment and doubting the next, should not expect to receive anything. What produces results is faith that is focused, stable, and aligned with what God has already said. Genesis 11:6 records God saying of unified, focused human imagination: “Nothing will be restrained from them.” Imagine what focused, Spirit-led faith can do. Prayer that is grounded in belief and directed with clarity becomes a laser, not scattered light.

Believe Before You See, Then Live Like You Believe

Mark 11:24 is direct: “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” Faith does not wait for evidence before it believes, faith is the evidence (Hebrews 11:1). This means that after you pray, the work is in aligning how you think, what you say, and how you live with what you have asked God for. This is not pretending. This is agreement. You raise your belief, you raise your imagination of what God can do, you bring your conversation into alignment with your prayer, and you live consistently with what you believe He has already done. Doubt contaminates faith the way a drop of food coloring changes a glass of water. Single-mindedness, consistency, and patience allow what you have asked for to fully form and manifest in your life.

Pray today with confidence and expectation. Nothing you are facing is outside the reach of a Father who cares. Focus your faith, align your life with your belief, and let God be God — in the big things and the small ones too.

-Terrence Burton

Prayer is Not Your Last Resort

/ Terrence Burton / Leave a comment

Prayer is not a last resort. It’s not what you turn to after you’ve tried everything else and run out of options. Prayer is the first move. It’s the foundation, not the fallback.

But somewhere along the way, a lot of us got it backwards.

We strategize first. We stress first. We call everybody we know first. And then when nothing is working and we’re exhausted and out of answers — we finally get on our knees.

What if we flipped that?

Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Every situation. Not some situations. Not the big emergencies. Every. Single. One.

God wants to be involved in your daily life — not just your crises. He wants to hear from you about the meeting you’re nervous about, the conversation you’ve been avoiding, the decision you can’t seem to make. Nothing is too small to bring to Him. Nothing is too complicated either.

Here’s what prayer does that nothing else can do — it shifts the atmosphere. It moves things in the spiritual realm that your natural hands can’t touch. It invites God into situations that are completely beyond your ability to fix.

Elijah prayed and it stopped raining. He prayed again and the rain came back. Not because Elijah was extraordinary — but because he served an extraordinary God and he knew how to talk to Him.

You have that same access.

So before you send that email, say a prayer. Before you make that call, say a prayer. Before you walk into that room, say a prayer.

Prayer doesn’t just change your circumstances. It changes you. And sometimes that’s exactly what God was after all along.

-Terrence Burton

INTERCESSION: THE ART OF PRAYING FOR OTHERS (PART 1)

/ Terrence Burton / Leave a comment

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

James 5:16

INTRODUCTION:

As we discuss the matter of praying for others, let’s look into our own hearts and seek to correct attitudes and beliefs that interfere with our ability to reach heaven and serve others with our prayers. As we evaluate our own hearts, not in judgement or evil criticisms, but to simply wash our hearts with God’s word, we will find ourselves in deep places whereby we are increasingly sensitive to God’s Spirit and prevail in prayer.

CONFESSION, PRAYER AND HEALING

As we explore the art of praying for others, we will lay some ground work here in focusing on 3 points of contemplation to start…confession, prayer and healing. Now, there tends to be a natural desire to pursue healing, which is the alleviation of pain or particular problems. That’s fine, but we will look at a pathway here that will lead us into the healing that we desire.

CONFESSION:

The first point that we will address is confession. Well what is a confession? Basically, a confession is an admission. It is a statement of truth. In this verse, James tells us to confess our faults one to another. Why would we do that? For what benefit will this confession serve? Here, we are instructed to confess our faults in particular. Have you ever been keeping something secret and you felt like you couldn’t share it with anyone else? Do you remember the pressure you felt inside holding it in? Do you remember the feeling of relief that you felt once you released it and shared the secret with someone you trusted? This is the reason for the confession.

In order for you to be healed, you must be relieved of the pressure that you are carrying inside. This pressure can contribute to stress, which can cause serious health problems for you. So here, God is wanted us to relieve ourselves of the pressure by releasing it. I don’t want to sound crude, but you can think of it this way. Imagine you had eaten a lot of enjoyable food. Of course you know that food was never intended to stay in your body. We eat the food, digest it and then it exits our body. So you at some point begin to feel pressure within that signals to you that you need to make it to the restroom soon or there will be problems. So you go to the restroom to eliminate the waste from your system.

Now if your body is not regularly eliminating waste, there are health problems that will develop. Likewise, If we keep things bottled up inside that we really should talk about, the result will be similar. There are physical and or emotional problems that may develop due to us holding things in. So we have to decide with whom we can open up to and when we should open up to them about our faults.

Here’s another reason why confession of faults is necessary. In context, this is a group of people confessing to one another their faults. One particular benefit this serves is that you understand that you are not alone. Oftentimes we are defeated by life because we feel isolated. We believe that we’re alone and as a consequence we suffer defeat because we thought something was wrong with us and we were an anomaly. In this group of friends, that lie is destroyed, shame is lifted and you are healed.

PRAYER

The next point is prayer. To piggy back off of the first point of confession, the aim of which is to take us into the point of prayer. So the purpose of confession is not for gossip, but it is for the purpose of prayer. You see we can prayer more effectively as we talk to one another. This is because, in conversation, we learn things that we may never have learned without it. So in this phase, we are to use what we learned in the confession phase as a point of reference in the prayer phase.

As an aside, you can use this principle when praying alone, as well as in groups. You can begin this type of prayer by confessing your faults and or sin to the Father.

So at this point when the group enters the prayer phase, you can take turns praying as you are lead based upon the confessions made in phase one. It is not necessary that all persons pray. Each setting may be different. The leader may pray for the group or each person in the group may provide prayers as they are lead to do so.

I want to point out something here that may not be obvious. We are told to pray “for one another.” In order to pray for one another, we need to care about one another. We need to love each other and care about each other’s highest good. Without loving one another and caring about the well-being of each other, praying for one another will be a daunting task.

HEALING

What does it mean to be healed? When I think of healing I think of a problem being resolved. For example, if someone had cancer, healing would be the cancer is no longer in their body. If they cut their finger, the wound closes up and there’s no more pain. Healing is the putting back of things as they should be or as God intended. So the aim of the first 2 phases is to carry those in the group into phase 3.

This, you should have in mind as your target or goal. But not only that, you are fully believing for those in your group to be healed. You are believing for things to be set right in your lives as a result of your confessions and prayers.

COMPONENTS OF PRAYER

/ Terrence Burton / Leave a comment

Suppose you want to bake a cake. First, you will decide what kind of cake that you want to bake. You will find a recipe that matches the cake you desire to have. Then you will get the ingredients together. You will then follow the steps in the recipe in order so that you can properly bake whatever the given cake may be.

Have you considered that there are ingredients or components to prayer. Now as with a cake, there are some ingredients that you add in or take out based upon the type of cake you are making, likewise with prayer. There are some basic ingredients or components that should be a part of every prayer. Also, there are some components that are not necessary for every “kind” of prayer.

Below I’m going to list 3 basic ingredients of prayer.
1) Desire
2) Faith
3) Prayer

DESIRE
Now each of these ingredients serve a particular role. Let’s begin with “desire.” Desire is the thing that you want. It is the thing that you want to come to pass. If you are praying for a relationship, then the desire is the mate. If you are praying for a job, then the job is the desire. That ingredient is rather simple to understand. You have to first want the thing that you are praying for.

FAITH
The second listed ingredient is “faith.” This ingredient may be a little more complicated to grasp, but you can get this. Belief has to do with what you think to be true regarding your current relationship with your desire. Using our previous example of the desire being a relationship, do you think that you have the relationship? Do you think you will have the relationship some time in the future? Do you think you will never have the relationship?

Let’s evaluate each of these questions and eliminate the incorrect answers one by one.

Do you believe you will never have the relationship?
Does this question match faith? I think we can easily answer this one “no.” It is obviously not an example of faith.

Do you believe you will have the relationship some time in the future?
This question appears to be a match for faith. However, this is not an example of faith either. This is not bad, but it is an example of hope, not faith. The reason this thought is not an example of faith is because it puts the desired thing into the future. Future is always tied to hope. However, faith is always tied to the present. Allow me to explain.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
Mark 11:24

In this verse, notice what Jesus said must be believed. He said “that ye receive them.” He didn’t say believe that you are going to received them. You have to believe that you receive it at the point of your prayer. The mistake that is often made is postponing belief until after the thing has happened or believing that God will do the thing at some unknown time in the future. However, the promise is tied to believing you are receiving it now.

Do you believe that you have the relationship?
Therefore, of the 3 questions, this is the one that matches faith. Biblical faith is accepting as true the desired thing as yours prior to your senses indicating it is so. Otherwise, you are not in faith. So in order to be in faith for your relationship, you have to accept as true in your heart that you have the mate even without that person physically in your life. Belief that the thing is so precedes manifestation in order for it to be faith.

PRAYER
Following our cake baking analogy, where does prayer fit in? Prayer is the bowl that you use. Prayer is the container in which you mix desire and belief. Prayer basically means to ask. We have come to understand that prayer is communication with God, or fellowship. So when we look at it from the standpoint of asking. We simply ask for what we want and believe it is already done while we are praying.

IN CONCLUSION
Make this lesson apply to you. Think of something that you would like to happen in your life. Mix your desire and faith in your heart and ask the Father for it. You will be amazed with the results that will follow.

PRAYER: RELATIONSHIP MATTERS (PART 4)

/ Terrence Burton / Leave a comment

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

John 1:12

John 1:12 – Understanding Our Relationship with God Through Jesus

In previous discussions, we explored the nature of God the Father. This time, we’ll delve into our identity and relationship with God through Jesus, examining the impact of this relationship on our contributions to the world.

Defining ‘Sonship’ and ‘Father’

To fully appreciate this lesson, let’s define ‘son’ or ‘sonship’ and ‘Father.’ ‘Sonship’ implies being a ‘builder,’ while ‘Father’ signifies a ‘Source.’ These definitions reveal God’s role as our Provider and our duty as builders, utilizing what we receive from the Father.

The Crisis in America: A Severed Bond

The weakening bond between father and son in America presents a significant issue. This severed connection leaves sons without guidance, hindering their ability to contribute effectively to society. This concept is mirrored in nature, where a fruit or a tree disconnected from its source soon perishes, losing its ability to thrive or reproduce.

The Role of Faith

Our connection to God is forged through faith, particularly faith in Jesus Christ. This faith is the cornerstone of our walk with God.

Habakkuk 2:4 and Galatians 3:11 emphasize two key points: living by faith and the impossibility of justification by law alone in God’s sight.

Faith emerges as a crucial theme in the Bible, further underscored by Hebrews 11:6. Without faith, pleasing God is impossible, regardless of moral conduct. Faith is integral to every aspect of our relationship with God, with its absence marking a deviation from His path.

Conclusion: Our Contribution to the World

Returning to our analogy of the apple tree: Just as an apple tree nourishes others with its fruit, believers, rooted in faith, produce qualities that nourish the world. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) are fruits we offer to those around us.