Daily Devotional - 9/7/15 (11/7/09)

Prayer Focus - Gratitude


Day 2
Pray for:
One thing you are grateful for about the country that you live in
One thing you are grateful for about the state/region that you live in
One thing you are grateful for about the city that you live in



Thank God for the effect that what you are grateful for has on:
your spiritual life
your physical life
your emotional life
your mental life



Dear Lord - Please open my ears to hear and grant me the strength to obey.



Psalms 67



"May the peoples praise You, O God; may all the peoples praise You. Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear Him." ( vs. 5-7)



These three verses hold a key to the enrichment of our lives. I was so excited the first time I realized what they were saying. We all would like to see blessings in our lives and would like to see our activities and undertakings be successful. Often we go about trying to get the blessing by praying and begging God for it. We ask for help and we ask for guidance, and sometimes we whine and complain about it not happening soon enough and the like. We work harder and we pour ourselves into whatever it is that has captured our attention at the moment. Often we become very self focused and unhappy. We do not receive the blessing, however, or reap the harvest because we are going about it all wrong. These verses begin by saying that we are to praise God and then the land will yield the harvest. We are to praise God first, before anything has happened. What a revolutionary thought.  We do just the opposite.  We try to harvest and then praise God.  God says praise me first and then I will give the harvest and blessings. Once again, God's ways are completely opposite to ours.

This is because God wants us to have faith. To praise God first is truly faith. Hebrews states that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1). When we praise before we see something occurring, we are expressing our faith in God; communicating that He is able and willing to take care of us and meet our needs. This is what He loves to see; people who are willing to place it all in His care. People willing to be bold in their belief that God exists and rewards those who earnestly seek Him. I have begun praying this way.  Instead of asking for God's help with something or asking God's help for someone, I praise God for what I have already seen happen in my life and the lives of others, and I praise God for what I desire to see happen as well.  For example, I will pray - "I praise You, God, for what I will accomplish today or I praise You for taking care of my children."  It is so different to pray in this way and sometimes I have to admit I feel silly doing this but then I remember the passage above.  Since I have started praying in this manner, I have seen encouraging results as well, and I feel better praising God instead of just asking Him for things.  I feel more confident and faithful too.   The bottom line is this, God wants us to believe in Him.  He wants to bless us.  Praising Him paves the road somehow for Him to be able to do this.  So, let us praise God today and wait and see what happens tomorrow!



Prayer for the Day



Dear Lord,


We are praising You first. We are grateful for the ways that You will meet our needs and for the ways that You will guide us. You know what we need and You know what is best for us. We are so grateful for Your care and praise You for allowing us the opportunity to exist. We praise You for all the exciting things that will happen tomorrow and we praise You for the ways that You will bring us victories over our enemies. We look forward to Your blessings and to the harvest that we will receive from You when we are faithful. We know that it is impossible to please You without faith. We want to have faith. Increase our faith today.


In Jesus' Name,
Amen




QFT



1. How important do I feel praising God is? Do I realize that my praise of God can ultimately lead to others learning to fear God?

2. Do I praise God before I receive something or only after? Why?  How can I practice praising God before anything I desire happens?  Why is God worthy of praise regardless of what I have or receive in my life?  Do I deeply understand this?

3. What areas of my life do I have strong faith in God to take care of? What areas do I have a weak faith about? Why?  How can I grow in faith for these weak areas?

4. What harvests am I waiting for? What blessings do I want to receive? In what ways has God already blessed me and brought me a harvest?  How can I become more grateful for what I already have?

5. Do I have faith in God's ability and desire to take care of me? What makes it difficult to believe that God will bless me if I praise Him first? How can I have more faith so that I can do this?