NO PERSONAL AGENDAS
“You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3 ESV).
“…petitions asked in ignorance may be most truly answered when they are not granted” Charles John Ellicott (ref#304).
“They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds…”(Hos 7:14 ESV). “…when the pressure of sore trial comes upon us, we are concerned only with deliverance from it, and not that God may be glorified or that the trial may be sanctified to our souls. Left for himself, man asks God for what would be curses rather than blessings, for what would prove to be snares rather than helps to him spiritually” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p146).
“…how often we attempt to make God the Servant of our carnal desires. Shall we ask our heavenly Father for worldly success! Shall we come to Him who was born in a stable and ask Him for temporal luxuries or even comforts” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p147)!
“It is quite useless knocking at the door of heaven for earthly comfort; it’s not the sort of comfort they supply there” C.S. Lewis (ref#31, p62).
“The desire that He writes on our hearts will move His heart and bring down a blessing; but the desires of the flesh have no power with Him….The true suppliant gathers force as he proceeds, and grows more fervent when God delays to answer….The longer…the more resolved he is that he will not let…go without receiving the blessing” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, Oct 8th PM).
“’Ask’ means beg. Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are like that spiritually. We will never receive if we ask with an end in view; if we ask, not out of our poverty but out of our lust. A pauper does not ask from any other reason than the abject panging condition of his poverty, he is not ashamed to beg.— Blessed are the paupers in spirit” Oswald Chambers (ref#7, June 9th).
FATHER, if my prayer requests are within Your will, I’ll have to beg, for I can obtain them no other way but by Your grace. Everything spiritual comes from You. And spiritual welfare is Your will and what I want for the people I pray for.
Bonnie's Prayer Affair 