2. Come Acknowledging and Declaring God
The very first step in prayer is to Come to God. < Check out – Come to God >
For myself, when coming to God, I found the most efficient way of praying is to first acknowledge and declare Who God is, that is, every time come to God to pray.
Why?
I used to wonder why when some pray they always begin with a lot of great things about God. Many who are listening already know that so why do so every time? Is it to brag about what I know? Or to make my prayer sound great? I still don’t know about some others. But I’m quite sure some do for the same reason that I do now for a few years ago.
- Focus – on What or Who really Matter
Start praying by acknowledging and declaring about God to lead us to focus on God instead of ourselves or situation.
- Look to God, turn our eyes off things around such as :
- Negativity, tiredness, weariness
- Distraction – what is around, what I hear, see, or feel
- Worries and fear
- Past experiences, present situation, concerns of future and uncertainties
- So many more…
- Acknowledging God, turns our attention away from ourselves
- Our failure, mistakes
- What we are facing, feeling, experiencing
- Our incapabilities, what we can not do, our limitation, impossibilities
- Our capabilities, what I think I can do, what I did and what I can try. My own ideas and plans instead of asking God in prayer
- Past success may be worse than our past failures, because past success can deter us in the wrong direction, bring about a greater failure, or can lead us to disasters
- As we come to God, we need to decide if we want God’s way or our own way.
Afterall, do all these things really matter so much? What really matters? What or Who can change the things around? Even from death to life?
Who has the Power? Who is the One Who made all, Who also can destroy all, and even Rebuild all?
If we are not believing or at least hoping, we would not even think of praying. So since we pray believing, then let’s do so knowing, acknowledging, and declaring Who God is, more than our situation, or difficulties.
2 Chron 14:11 NKJV
And Asa cried out to the LORD his God, and said, “LORD, it is nothing for You to help, whether with many or with those who have no power; help us, O LORD our God, for we rest on You, and in Your name we go against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; do not let man prevail against You!”
1 Sam 14:6 NKJV
For nothing restrains the LORD from saving by many or by few
- Encourage us and lift our spirit to Believe and Trust God as we Pray
- Continue and Not give up
- Especially keep us to Continue to focus on God’s Faithfulness and sovereignty in times of difficulty or when situation / circumstance goes the other way….
- Lead me to Praise and Thank God rather than Complaints
- Recollecting all the good things that God has already done for us or given to us, no matter how small or insignificant it might be, not only lifts up our spirit but also leads us to have faith to believe for more and greater things.
- What is praise?
It is basically an expression or admiration of a good thing that the other person has done. It is not about ourselves, of how we feel, and it may not even be linked with anything of ourselves. It is all about the good things about the person.
As such, when we praise God, automatically we are concentrating and focusing on God. We are exalting and magnifying God and not the situation or our weakness, but God’s greatness which we need to recognise to thrust in to believe and have faith to continue praying knowing God is able.
Book of Psalms
Check out the book of Psalms and consider. We will notice that many of the Psalms starts with the writer (mostly David but others too like Asaph) starts with fear, frustration, and feeling down, but as they praise God and look to Who God is, we can find they slowly gets the strength, and end with rejoicing and full of hope and strength to fight. Why? Because they start to reflect and realize Who God is. God’s power, mercy, and goodness, that He never failed.
2 Chronicles 20:21
Right on time, as they began to sing and praise, the Lord ambushed[d] the Ammonites, Moabites, and the inhabitants of[e] Mount Seir[f] who had attacked Judah, and they were defeated.
- Pray efficiently and effectively
- Instead of wasting time feeling down, defeated and helpless, as we acknowledge God’s power and His love for us, we focus on God and lift up our prayer
- Leads us to rest in God’s love, and pray according to God’s will and God’s way
I am very certain that there is so much more we will find as we start with focusing and declaring Who God is.
Also for each of the above, there is so much deeper we can dive into, but we will leave that to next time. We bound to touch of those later on as we continue to Walk with the Lord
So How Do I Go About?
Write Down Who God is. What God’s Name is and reflect on What it Means
Start Declaring God. Speak out and confess. As we Speak and Hear it ourselves, we will feel the Peace, Joy, Strength, Positive Energy, and Start to See the Situations Differently for the start, and as we see the situation differently and gain strength from God, we will thing and act differently, which will cause the situations to change many times.
But not all things will change in such a way of course. However, there are countless testimonies that prove that as we press on praying and trusting in the Lord, God will see us through. God will “See To It” ( Jireh, in Hebrew. Jehovah Jireh, one of the well known Names of Godmeaning God will See To It or God has made Provision for it already, or simply God will Provide ), when we ask and look to God, and not give up, though at times it take a long time.
Also at times it will not be according to what we wanted or prayed for but the end result many times (at times only many years later we can understand) shows God’s way is better and the best.
God Is :
- Powerful
- Merciful
- Faithful
- Compassionate
- Gracious
- Just
- Defender, Protector
- ….
God’s Name is :
- Elohim – God Who is Great, One and only God, The Creator God which means owner of everything including ourselves
- El Shadai – God Almighty
- El Elyon – Most High God, and the possessor of all things
- El Roi – God Who Sees.
Each of these names of God has a whole lots of meaning that will speak to us in a very practical way as we discover what God is saying to us through His Name next time.
Start
- Coming to God
- Acknowledge, Declare, Praise God, telling God of Who God is