Brown's Daily Word 10-21-13

    The Lord blessed us an amazing and brilliant weekend of Prayer Conference.  Sunita and Andy, along with their friends, Rob, Jenn, Hannah, Ben, Hope, and Summer, came from Washington, DC.  They came as a prayer team for the conference.  Laureen and some friends from the Binghamton House of Prayer led in worship and prayer.  Father Nigel Mumford and his wife Lynn were a great blessing.  The Lord used Father Nigel and the whole team in bringing so many blessings to so many people. 

    The Lord anointed the services, the meetings, and the proclamation of His Word.  We felt and experienced the power of the Holy spirit afresh and anew.  So many came for prayer, both for healing and for restoration.  So many young people and children were prayed for.  During the morning worship services yesterday the where the community of believers joined in prayer for healing and restoration.  The Lord visited us with His power and love and with Holy Humor.  Our Lord is alive and well.  He is calling His people to rise up and move into the world with the good news of healing, forgiveness, love, restoration.  The Lord provided for all our needs and He blessed the whole weekend beyond belief.  

    Daniel 9 records one of the most powerful prayers in the Bible.  Enormous scriptural insight forms the foundation for everything in his prayer.  Although things looked humanly hopeless and it appeared impossible that the exile would end soon, he now had a firm word from the Lord.  On that basis he began his prayer to God.

    Daniel took prayer very seriously.  “So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:3). Prayer makes a difference with God when prayer makes a difference with us.  If we want your prayers to change things, let them first change us—our habits, our schedule, our priorities, our daily routine, and our inward focus.  In many ways verse 18 is the theme of the whole prayer: “We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.”  What a crucial insight that is.  So many times we pray because we secretly think that our good behavior has “earned” us the right to ask God to bless us.  Daniel chose the opposite tactic.  “Lord, we don’t deserve to be heard by you because we have sinned greatly against you.  The only reason we come to you is because you are a God of love and grace.”

    The last phrase of verse 23 tells us how God evaluated Daniel the man: “For you are highly esteemed.”  Some translations use the word “precious,” others say “greatly loved.”  This teaches us that God hears our prayers not because we are good or because we deserve to be heard, but simply because he loves us. Sometimes we may come with the wrong attitude, subconsciously thinking “God has to hear me because I’ve been good this week.”  Yet, no mere mortal can ever be good enough to earn a hearing before the great God of the universe.  If we are heard at all, it is because we have come in faith standing on the merits of Jesus Christ who loved us and gave himself for us.  When we enter in his name, we may then “come boldly to the throne of grace” to brings our needs before the Lord.

     It is not by works but only by grace that we are heard when we pray.  Daniel’s prayer ought to encourage all of us to pray boldly regarding whatever is on our hearts.  God loves it when his children bring their needs to him.  When we come in faith, he will not turn us away.  Daniel’s prayer was enormous.  He was asking for God to end the exile and allow an entire nation to return home.  While our prayers may not be as large as that (or they may be if we are praying for whole nations or people groups to come to Christ), if we have the same honesty and the same fervency, and if our prayers are in line with God’s will, we may ask the Lord for whatever is on our hearts, leaving the results with him.

    Daniel’s prayer reminds us that no matter how much we have sinned, there is always the possibility of mercy, grace, and forgiveness from the Lord.

  In Christ,

  Brown

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