Supernatural Biblical Prayer 2
How & When to Pray the Prayer of
Commitment
by Pastor John Hamel
We have studied how
and when to pray the Prayer of Faith.
In this lesson we will study how and when to pray the Prayer of Commitment.
Many are acquainted with having prayed the
Prayer of Faith for healing, prosperity, salvation of a loved one, etc.,
and absolutely nothing seemed to happen.
In my own life I have prayed
the Prayer of Faith, according to the Word of God, only to have things
temporarily take a turn for the worse.
Those are the times when one
must pray the Prayer of Commitment.
The
Prayer of Commitment Is a Commanded Prayer
“Casting the whole of your care [all your
anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him,
for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.”
(1Peter 5:17 Amplified Bible)
The Apostle Peter is not offering a good
Sunday School suggestion in this verse of Scripture. He is passing on
a New Testament command from God our Father.
We would do well to obey His instruction.
Whenever God tells us to do
“one something,” it is because He wants to do “two somethings” for
us. He wants to provide for us and He wants to protect us. He is not trying to spoil
our fun. He is not a “killjoy.” He is a “fill-joy.” He
wants to bless us and fill us with joy.
Some Believers find Scriptural promises of
God’s help. They meditate on those promises for a short period and
then they ask God for a manifestation of the promise through the Prayer of
Faith.
When thoughts of doubt enter their mind, they do not rebuke Satan and continue to praise the Lord.
They receive Satan’s lies. They watch his videos of failure pass
through their minds and they do not hit the stop button. They listen to
his words of defeat and failure. They become anxious, worrisome and
concerned. They bite their nails and wring their hands, saying things
like, “Oh, my God, He should have answered me by now. I’m not going
to make it. I’m going under for sure. This faith stuff is over the edge.”
Others actually feel they have a moral
obligation to spend at least some time every day worrying. I have
actually had people tell me that it is irresponsible to not worry.
They think worrying is an expression of concern and care. I, in turn,
showed them from the written Word of God how irresponsible and sinful it
actually is to worry. Still, some insist on worrying.
Well, that is not the way to pray and get
results. The way to pray and get results is to purposely cast the
care of all your mess upon the Lord, trusting that He is in the process of
fixing it for you because you prayed the Prayer of Faith.
Once you
cast the care of your situation upon the Lord, it is vitally important that
you do not take it back from Him. You were not built to carry your
cares or anyone else’s for that matter. It is not possible to walk in
obedience to the Almighty unless you are willing to let Him carry the cares
and anxieties of your burdens. He tells you to do this because He
cares for you affectionately. He knows what will become of you if you
continue to labor under the stress and strain of your cares, anxieties,
worries and concerns.
So here is what you do.
You pray, “Father, I have found Scripture
where You promise to meet my need. I have prayed the Prayer of Faith
and quite frankly, I don’t see much happening in the natural. But one
thing I know for sure is this. I am a Believer. That means my
job in this matter is to believe. You are my Provider. That
means Your job in this matter is to provide for me when I believe.
So, I cast the care of this entire situation upon You and I will not take
it back. I will not start doubting, worrying, yielding to anxiety or
fretting. You are well able to sustain me and to meet my needs.
Now, I’m going to let You do that by staying out of Your way, refusing to
worry and praising You whether I feel like it or
not, in Jesus’ Name.”
That is the Prayer of Commitment. Now
you just leave it with Him. While you are waiting for your answer,
encourage yourself with these verses.
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he
shall sustain thee: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”
(Psalm 55:22)
“Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also
in him; and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy
righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in
the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth
in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.
Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself
in any wise to do evil. For evildoers shall be cut off: but those
that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.” (Psalm 37:5-9)
We can see clearly from all of these
Scriptures that it is not God’s will for us to work ourselves into such an
anxious frenzy that we end up angry, falling out of faith and back into
sin. Nowhere in the entirety of Scripture is greatness ever
associated with worry and anxiety.
Worry and anxiety are like running on a
treadmill. It keeps you busy for a while; you might even lose a few
pounds. But when it is over, you are standing in the same place you
were when you started. Really, no ground was gained.
Jesus
Commands His Disciples to Be Worry Free
Let’s look at something Jesus said about
the sin of worry and anxiety.
“And he [Jesus] said unto his disciples,
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat;
neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is more than
meat, and the body is more than raiment. Consider the ravens: for
they neither sow nor reap; which neither have
storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than
the fowls? And which of you with taking thought can add to his
stature one cubit? If ye then be not able to do that thing which is
least, why take ye thought for the rest?” (Luke 12:22-26)
When Jesus said to take no “thought” for
your life, He used a word that means “anxiety.”
He is not saying here
to be air-headed and irresponsible about life. He is saying to not
receive anxiety when it comes to you concerning your life.
When He
said, “Take no thought” or “Take no anxiety,” He literally meant to NOT
take it from the devil. Do not put up with it. Do not receive
it when it comes. Rebuke it. Cast it down in His powerful Name. (2Corinthians
10:4,5)
Say, “Worry, be gone, in Jesus’ strong Name!”
There is nothing wrong with planning for
tomorrow. There is nothing wrong with preparing for tomorrow.
But Jesus forbids us to worry about what might come tomorrow. He
makes it perfectly clear that worrying about tomorrow is not going to make
tomorrow any better.
As a matter of fact, throughout the Scripture it
is revealed that worry blocks the spout where God’s help comes out.
Therefore, worrying about tomorrow is just going to insure problems coming
that would not have come had you refused to worry!
Worry is sin. Worry says, “I don’t
believe God’s big enough to put me over, but I certainly believe that
Satan’s big enough to put me under.”
You may not mean to say that
when you worry, but, in essence, that is what you are saying. You are
afraid God might not meet your need. You are trying to operate in
faith but you are operating in fear.
Worry is fear. Fear is
faith in reverse. Fear is faith in Satan’s ability to keep the will
of God from coming to pass in your life. This is why worry is to be
cast down and avoided like the plague.
As a matter of fact, worry and fear are
plagues that have dogged the tracks of God’s people since Man’s Fall in the
Garden.
However, since Christ’s victory at Calvary, God’s children
now have power over the sin of worry and the spirit of fear.
“For God hath not given us the spirit of
fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2Timothy 1:7)
Christ’s love work at
Calvary has literally kicked the fire out of Satan’s hate work in the
Garden. (Deuteronomy 28:1-68; Galatians 3:13,14,29)
Some people pray all night in fear and
unbelief when they should just trust God’s love and go to bed. Jesus said it is senseless to stay up all
night worrying about tomorrow. It is senseless and destructive to the
Prayer of Faith
.
Again, worry is the opposite of
faith. Without faith it is
impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6) God knows that worry throws
up a barrier to His help. He so longs to help us that He becomes
displeased only when we block Him with sins such as worry, fear, etc.
It
Takes Faith to Not Stay Up All Night Worrying
“My help cometh from the Lord, which made
heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that
keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither
slumber nor sleep.” (Psalm 121:2-4)
Here the Psalmist reveals that Almighty God
guarantees that He’ll never fall asleep on the job. He does not
slumber, He does not daydream and He does not sleep.
Because God is
staying up all night working on answering your prayers, then it makes no
sense for you to stay up all night worrying. One of you better get
some sleep and it is not going to be Him. He does not need it.
You do.
It takes faith to cast your cares upon Him, cast yourself
upon your bed and go to sleep on purpose. Show God you trust His love
and just go to sleep. While you are lying there, do not count sheep;
count all the sweet things He has already done for you. While you are
counting, count your Prayer of Faith as answered.
“I will both lay me down in peace, and
sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.” (Psalm 4:8)
One time I heard the Holy Spirit say to me, as
clear as a new bell on a cold day, “John, have you ever noticed that when
you worry about money it stops coming in? And when you stop worrying
about money it starts coming in again?”
I thought on that for about
two minutes and it struck my spirit how true it was. I could think
back on so many times when I had gotten into fear about financial needs and
those needs were not met. I could recall other times when I just blew
off all anxiety and worry, casting every care to the wind, trusting God’s
faithfulness and the money would come in.
This is how faith
works. Worry and anxiety are rooted in fear and fear is the opposite
of faith. Fear blocks the
spout where the benefits come out.
Once you have prayed the Prayer of Faith
make a decision as a deliberate act of your God-given free will that you
are not going to submit to worry.
Continue to say out loud, “Father,
I will not fear. I am a Believer and I will believe. I will not
fret. I will not worry because You affectionately care about
me. You’re answering my Prayer of Faith behind the scenes now, in
Jesus’ Name. I don’t have to see it to believe it, either. I’ll
see it because I believe it. I am determined to come through this
doing You proud.”
This is how and when you pray the Prayer of
Commitment. This is how you live the life of faith. You may as well
lick the worry thing now because you are going to be living your whole life
by faith. You can do this.
When you first make the decision to no
longer commit the sin of worry, it seems that you are constantly plagued
with it and that you will never be successful. But the longer you
work at it, the better you will get at it. Soon you will discover
that you have gone from a “worry wart” to a “worry not.” Just takes a
little practice, that’s all!
“Be careful [anxious] for nothing; but in
every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests
be made known unto God.” (Philippians 4:6)
“And this is the confidence that we have in
him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if
we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the
petitions that we desired of him.” (1John 5:14,15)
He heard you when you prayed the Prayer of
Faith. You know He did. You know He loves you, too.
Therefore, you know the answer is on the way. It’s a done deal.
Now show Him you believe Him by leaving it with Him and getting some
sleep. You don’t have to be awake for your prayer to be answered.
The Prayer of Faith and the Prayer of
Commitment combined are like slugging Satan with a hard left and a strong
right. It causes him to see stars and you to see victories.
Eventually,
he will learn to stay out of the ring with you
In the meantime, show him no mercy. Back him into the ropes and pound
him by giving God praises!
Be Blessed ...
John and Barbara Hamel
How
to Be Born Again (Receive Christ as Your Savior)
How
to Receive The Holy Spirit & Power
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