Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 407 - The Power of Heartfelt Prayer (Please click here for English podcast)

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

OT DAY 407 - The Power of Heartfelt Prayer (Please click here for English podcast)

Please click the link below to my new 40 days Break.Build site any time you like to having a 40 days "Break.Build" daily devotion with one to two people as a discipler to help those Jesus prepares for you to disciple. You need to know that the call and purpose of my Break.Build and this Discipler123 blog/podcast is for you to become a discipler to help more people to have a daily intimate relationship with Jesus and then they can become disciplers too:
http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Please click these links to the app. Andy Ng wrote if you have an Android cel.:

Discipler123: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideal.rec.app

Break.Build: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideal.bb.app

Silence

1. Put on your “brakes” and stop for a moment of silence

2. Wait for God. Breathe deep for God's peace and feel His presence. Exhale your worries.

Praise and Thanksgiving

1. Think through your day, all the times that made you smile

2. Thank God for all those moments, and for all those people

3. Open your heart to praise the Lord

Every day I will bless you
and praise your name forever and ever.

Psalm 145:2

Confession and Repentance (Subjective Shifting Devotion Method http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html)

1. Pray for the Holy Spirit to work in you:

“Dear Holy Spirit, shine your light into the places of darkness in my life. Show me my sins, everything that blocks me from encountering God. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”

2. Through the Holy Spirit, examine yourself for a short silence and then pray:

"Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for our sins and being victorious over death and sin. I confess my sin to you(pause, to tell Jesus what the Holy Spirit has shown you). Forgive my sins by your blood and help me follow you. Holy Spirit, fill me that I may be able to receive your gift to love God and His people. In Jesus Name I pray, Amen."

The Word (1 Samuel 1:9-11)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Samuel 1&version=ESV

9 After they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. 10 She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. 11 And she vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.”

1 Samuel 1:9-11

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage we have just read. Offer this time up to Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmax47l2hLU

My Listening

Hannah's short prayer here today is one of the most powerful prayers in the Bible. Do you know why? Do you know how you can learn from her prayer so that you can also pray like that?

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :

Hannah comes there to the sanctuary bitter in spirit. In other words, she is in a similar state to that of Naomi, just a few pages ago in the Bible. God let Naomi go through a series of tough experiences that she describes as "bitter"; God has let Hannah's lot be a tough one, and the storyteller knows that the bitterness has entered her own spirit. One might have thought that this would make her hesitant about praying. Maybe she would feel she had no wish to speak to the God who had closed her womb. Or maybe she would feel she needed to get her attitude together before she did so…There is an old book title Prayer by Ole Hallesby that talks about the way we can regard doubt or anger or bitterness as obstacles to prayer, when actually they are our way into prayer - they are the things we come to talk to God about. Hannah instinctively knew this was so.

John Goldingay. 1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.10.

There are so many things in her prayer that we need to learn. Her way to address Yahweh Armies. She urges God to remember her and not to put her away. She appeals to God as a servant. She makes a big promise to God. All those things lead to the effectiveness of her prayer.

But, first thing first, if she did not have that kind of sour, bitter and heartfelt feeling and relationship with God, I think nothing would happen.

When was your last heartfelt prayer to God?

My mother told us that she had a heartfelt prayer to God when she was sent by my grandmother to a Bible School to prepare herself to be a woman pastor in the 40's. She was so painful and bitter in the first six months because she knew she could not do it. She prayed to God when she was deep in sorrow promising God that she would dedicate her elder son if she had one to become a pastor. After that prayer, she got accepted miraculously by a nursing school and then became a nurse for forty years. She told us only 30 women were being accepted out of more than 300. Her prayer is being answered miraculously just as Hannah's because all three of her children graduated from seminaries. My younger sister Ada got her Advance Diploma in Theology and has been a high school principle for the past twenty-one years. My younger brother Dennis got his M.A. in Theology and Doctor of Theology and now the overseer of his own series of churches in Hong Kong. Then, our elder son Ignatius got his M.Div. from Regent College last year and has been the Family Pastor of Richmond Emmanuel Church since last October.

I can tell you more about how my grandmother prayed, how my mother prayed and more. I am a "man of prayers" because I have been surrounded by numerous "men and women of prayers" so that I have experienced numerous heartfelt prayers and the power of heartfelt prayers.

What was your last heartfelt prayer?

How can you have more heartfelt prayers to God?

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to know the importance of heartfelt prayer and have more heartfelt prayers to you each day. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. What was your last heartfelt prayer? What have your learned about heartfelt prayer today?

2. How can you have more heartfelt prayers daily?

3. What have you got from Jesus today?

Today's Time with Abba daily reading:

Psalm 145:1-7

Zechariah 2:1-3:10

Revelation 13:2-18

Proverbs 30:18-20

Photos of my copying the Bible today using Time with Abba passages