God is very confident that He can finish the work He started in You. Philippians 1:6 being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ: God does not get discouraged when He looks at us and observes us. He knows the purpose He created each of us for and never gives up on us. We get depressed, but God is never depressed. We get low, but God is not low. We get worried, but God is not worried. Our anxiety and concern level gets high, but God is not worried.
Author Archives: Drew Haninger
The Spirit Helps Us Pray
In Romans chapter 8 it says the Spirit helps us pray — Romans 8:26 the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Abiding in Him – How to Pray
This blog taken from a video at Drew’s YouTube channel. The video is also posted on Vimeo
John 15:7 says, “If you abide in Me”, that is, if you are following the Lord, remaining in the Lord, doing what God wants you to do, and you are up to date with your obedience to God, and, “My words abide in you”, then you can ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. What does this mean? If we are abiding in Christ, and His words are abiding in us just like Paul says in the book of Colossians, this means we are one with the Lord. When these things are true, you can say God is asking in our asking, or God is praying in our prayer. Another way to say it is we are praying or asking the prayer of God. If you are one with the Lord, you are obeying the Lord, you are abiding in the Lord, and His Word is dwelling in you, then you are one with the Lord, and what the Lord wants to pray, you want to pray, what the Lord wants to ask the Father through your prayer, you want to ask the Father. So who is really praying here? Is it us praying or is it God praying? It is kind of hard to understand. When we abide in the Lord and just stay with Him, this is the best way to pray.
The video this text is taken from is on Drew’s YouTube channel. This portion is at YouTube.
Prayer – Let The Word of Christ Dwell In Us
We have a passage in the book of Colossians. Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell (or remain) in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs , singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Just the first part of that verse says, “Let the word of Christ remain or dwell in you richly”. I believe that this is talking about the Word of God referred to, here, and the word that God speaks to us personally. By the way, the word God speaks to us personally should always correspond to this Bible. It should never contradict it. That is a good test.
Gideon Asks God to Prove Himself
Gideon Asks God to Prove Himself
There is an Old Testament story of a man named Gideon. We don’t have time to get into much detail, but God was speaking to him about raising an army to defeat the enemy of the Lord. God spoke in a definite way to him. Gideon heard it but I believe Gideon was afraid because he said, “Well, God, I am not sure if I’m really supposed to this, or not supposed to do this.” He, then, put out the fleece for God. He said, “If You really spoke to me, then please make the fleece wet by the morning.” Some people read that story and conclude that when you think God is speaking to you, you should put out a fleece to make the Lord prove Himself to you—-that yes, that was really the Lord speaking. The point of that story was not an encouragement to do that sort of thing, because when God speaks, God speaks. Gideon definitely heard the voice of the Lord, but because of his fear, and because of his slowness to hear what God was asking him to do, and his slowness to do what God wanted him to do, he was asking God for some kind of sign. In the book of Matthew, we read that some of the religious people were asking Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for some kind of sign from heaven that He was really the Messiah. Matthew 12:39, “But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign…” In other words, it is evil if you are not willing to listen to what He says or what He speaks to you. That is kind of a strong word, there. Anyway, that is the story of Gideon. Gideon, not really wanting to obey God, was asking God for some kind of a sign to prove to him that it was really Him speaking, and yet all the time, Gideon knew in his heart that it was God speaking to him. Eventually Gideon followed through with what God wanted to do.
This blog was taken from a video on Drew’s YouTube channel.
Praying With God
We are praying and asking the prayer of God. If you are one with the Lord, you are obeying the Lord, you are abiding in the Lord, and His Word is dwelling in you, then you are one with the Lord, and what the Lord wants to pray, you want to pray, what the Lord wants to ask the Father through your prayer, you want to ask the Father. So who is really praying here? Is it us praying or is it God praying? It is kind of hard to understand.
The Example of Elijah in James
In fact, James 5 talks about a similar principle. The last part of verse 16 says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Then James goes on to talk about Elijah. Verse 17, “Elijah was a man subject to like passions…” He was a man, just like we are. He had feelings just like you and I have. Then it says, “And he prayed earnestly” or the literal Greek is, “He prayed in prayer” or, “He prayed in his prayer”. It is kind of a strange construction in the English. “He was a man of like passions as we are, and he prayed in prayer that it might not rain”. In other words, Elijah had an experience, here, of not praying his own prayer, but praying the prayer of God. You could say he prayed the prayer that God put on his heart, or prayed the prayer that God burdened him with. Here Elijah was praying the prayer of God.
The Example of Young Samuel
We have another example of Samuel in the Old Testament. This is the story of Samuel as a young boy. He was learning how to serve God and how to do the things of God. He was just beginning, or barely beginning to hear the voice of God. At one point, he thought Eli, the priest, was calling him, but he eventually learned that it was the Lord who was speaking to him. The phrase that Samuel repeated back to the Lord at this point was, “Speak Lord, for your servant hears.” In other words, Samuel had the attitude that whatever God would speak, he would hear, and whatever God asked him to do, he would do.
This blog was taken from a video on Drew’s YouTube channel.
Jesus Teaches Prayer in John 15
Jesus’ Instructions on Prayer in John 15
We come to the New Testament and we want to look at a verse in John 15. John is one of four gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Chapter 15 is actually part of a sequence of chapters. Chapter 15 is a kind of a conclusion to chapter 13ff. In chapter 13, Jesus was telling His disciples some troubling things. He was telling them how He was going to die on the cross. He was talking about how one of His disciples was going to betray Him, and He was telling them how one of His disciples was going to deny Him three times.
Then you come to chapters 14, 15, 16, and 17. In those four chapters, Jesus was trying to comfort His disciples. Right in the middle of that, in chapter 15, Jesus was talking about abiding. He was talking about how we need to be like branches on a vine. He was the true vine. Some people say this describes kind of an organic relationship between Jesus and us, or between us and the Father. Without getting into the rest of the context, there, John 15:7 says, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” That seems kind of like a blank check where you can expect God to do anything you ask of Him. Some people look at that verse and they wonder why God doesn’t answer when they pray for something. There is a condition in this verse, though. It says, “If you abide in Me and My words aide in you”. Being a computer programmer, I am familiar with logic. There is a “condition and statement” in that verse. It requires the first condition or statement to be true and it requires a second condition to be true before the result can be true.
The first condition, there, is, “If you abide in Me… “ Without getting into the context, there, one way to abide is to stay in the Lord, to rest in the Lord, or to remain in the Lord. I would even say it means to do the things God wants you to do, to obey the Lord. He says, “If you abide in Me”. Then He says, “And if My words abide in you”. This passage in the book of John says, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you”, you can ask whatever you will and I will do it. What words is He talking about when Jesus says, “And My words abide in you”? I believe He is specifically talking about the word He is speaking. I believe it also has to include the words of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
The video this text is taken from is on Drew’s YouTube channel. This portion is at YouTube.
God Cares What We Do
The Children of Israel Disobey God and Suffer Discipline
Now, we want to look at the example of the children of Israel in the Old Testament. God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and brought them into their own land, the land of Canaan. God told them that as long as they served Him, the true God, and kept the sacrifices, and did the things He commanded them to do, He would preserve them in that land. The people obeyed for a while, but eventually they decided to do their own thing. They began to worship other gods and do things God wasn’t happy with. God sent several prophets to them during that time. One of the big prophets was Jeremiah. Another one was Ezekiel. God kept speaking to His people and warning them. He basically said to them, “If you continue in this unrighteous way and continue to disobey Me, I will allow an enemy to come in and capture you.” Sure enough, that is what happened. God allowed the enemy to come in and devastate His people. Did God send this enemy or allow it? God had warned His people over and over again through prophet after prophet, “If you don’t obey Me, and if you don’t do the things I proscribed for you to do through Moses, then I will allow the enemy to come in, and that enemy will devastate you. “ The people absolutely ignored the prophets. They ignored Jeremiah. They ignored Ezekiel and other prophets. God allowed Assyria to come in, the Egyptians and eventually the Babylonians to come in. They burned a lot of the cities and did a lot of damage, and took many Israelites captive back to Babylon. Why did God allow that to happen? Number one, His people were not doing the things He told them to do. Just like Jonah got himself into a lot of trouble because he didn’t go where God told him to go, so the children of Israel had problems with their enemies because they did not obey the voice of the Lord and do the things that He wanted them to do.
But check the end of the Bible, God does not give up on His people. He still wanted Israel to fulfill the original intention, purpose, and burden that He had for Israel. God eventually gets His way for all of us.