BSN Glossary: Things

Notable Intercessors and Acts of Intercession:

• – Moses and Samuel – Jer 15:1
• – Noah, Daniel, and Job – Ezek 14:14, 20
• – Others – Heb 7:25; Job 1:5; 42:7-10; Ps 99:6; 106:23, 30

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Notes on Prayer

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Lord, Show a Man What He May Let Go Of!

Sometimes we are unable to receive what we are asking God to give us because we are clinging too tightly to something He has given us in the past that has since become obsolete. Think of the Pharisees in the Gospels who could not receive the word of God from Jesus because they would not let go of the animal sacrifices that Moses had instituted. Or of the believing Jews in the book of Acts who clung so tightly to the practice of circumcision that they could not receive believing but uncircumcised Gentiles into their fellowship. Think also of those believers would not leave Jerusalem and so perished there in 70 AD because they could accept Jesus’ promise to be our temple. And do not forget Lot’s wife who could not enter her future because she was thinking too much about her past.

What do you have in your hands that so fills them that you are unable to grasp what God wants to give you?

Lord, show a man what he may let go of
in order that
he may grasp the things that You are offering.

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Effective prayer is more about listening than speaking.

_{See Prov 28:9; Eccl 5:1}

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Ingratitude toward God dulls our spiritual senses – our “eyes to see and ears to hear.”

Gratitude sharpens those senses.

If we’re not regularly thanking God in our prayers, we’re getting duller.

_{See Col 4:2}

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Quote

As we pray for our loved ones far from home—as we pray for our men and women in Korea, and all our service men and women wherever they are—let us also pray for our enemies. Let us pray that the spirit of God shall enter their lives and prevail in their lands. Let us pray for a fulfillment of the brotherhood of man.

Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), 33rd president of the United States. Source: Truman Library Institute, “Remarks Upon Lighting the National Community Christmas Tree,” broadcast 5:15 pm, December 24, 1952 (full text).