Prayer alone is not enough (First part)
Verse of the day: Hebrews 13: 16 "But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased"
In this teaching, I compare prayer to food and if food needs salt before being eaten, prayer also needs to be pleasing to God. The salt of prayer is everything we often forget while God needs them in our prayers. We will discover through the scriptures that if many prayers are not answered, the fault is not of God but of our own camp because they lack salt.
We will discover how prayer alone is not necessarily the solution to our problems. Sometimes we fervently pray and fast, but instead of having the solution to our problems, the situation is only getting worse. I'm going to talk about the obstacles that we ignore or neglect but often block most of our prayers.
The verse of the day (Hebrews 13: 16) begins with "remember" because in the previous verse (Heb 13: 15), the author urged the Hebrews to offer continually to God a sacrifice of praise (in prayer) but in the verse of the day he insists not to forget to do good and to share as it is with such sacrifices God is well pleased. If he says that God is pleased with such sacrifices, it means that the sacrifices without charity and liberality do not please Him. If we replace the word "sacrifice" by "prayer", one can say that prayers without sharing do not please God and if they do not please Him, it is clear that the answer is not always obvious.
Jesus was the perfect example to follow in all areas. Although he was the son of God and that he had never sinned, he spent most of his time in prayer to commune with his Father and draw more spiritual strength. I just wanted to clarify that his prayers were not only answered because of his righteousness but also because of his good deeds for the bible says that he went about doing good (Acts 10: 38). Prayer is fundamental to approach God but it’s by doing good that we attract God’s attention. It is charity that makes the prayer effective.
In the second part we will see how prayer alone may fail to solve our financial problems.
Chris Ndikumana
