For God, our Father to surprise us with His wonders and unlimited blessings, He requires our unwavering and intentional, radical consecration to Him, with a commitment to obeying Him with a willing and grateful heart. Doing so will then make us realize our desperate need for radical, fervent, bold and specific Biblical prayer, to infuse us with the necessary power to make our Good Father happier as we do His will, not ours.
What did Jesus Christ do when He experienced temptations, trials, abandonment and betrayal by others?
We find in Luke 22:44 that when He was in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then in verse 46, when He found the disciples sleeping, He told them to rise and pray, so they would not enter into temptation. He was repeating His command from verse 40 which the disciples had ignored. They were to follow His example. Jesus asked the Father to take away the cup He was facing, yet He also said He was willing to endure the suffering if it was His Father’s will. He was willing to endure the suffering and not skip the cross. We must be willing to endure the hardship and suffering God allows into our lives just as Jesus did. This is accomplished through radical prayer and by staying consecrated fully to our Father.
Radical, Biblical prayer is not just one thing we do. It is what we are to do all the time. It is who we are. It is our devotion, culture and lifestyle! It is our very life! We exist, so that in every breath we take seven days per week, 24 hours per day, we aim at being consecrated to our Father, so we can be true to our commitment to make our Father happier.
Jesus taught in Luke 11:2 that we should pray for the hallowing of God’s name.
When we pray in that fashion, big things happen. This is the prayer that drives every other prayer we pray. It is the prayer of priority. In order to hallow God’s name, we are required to be 100% consecrated to our Father as we value, cherish, adore, revere, esteem, exalt, worship, glorify, sanctify and lift up real high His holy name. It also requires that we bow our knees to Him with deeper humility, meekness, a gracious attitude and burning love. It is necessary that we be committed to obeying Him without delay.
If we are not consecrated to the Father, then we are consecrated to the devil. That is deadly!
Our Father is eager for us to get rid of all of our messes and all of our idols. He is zealous for us to ask Him to perform a deep power cleaning within our spirits, to hit all the corners and clean the entire house. He purchased this cleansing for us with the very expensive sinless blood of Jesus Christ. His command is for us to repent with godly sorrow. He will not approve our behavior that is not in line with His clear, specific commands.
We must not do the right thing in the wrong way like Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6.
God prescribed very specific guidelines for how the Ark of the Covenant was to be moved. Long poles were to be inserted through the rings on the Ark, and it was to be carried by the Levites. It was not to be touched. Instead of following God’s guidelines for moving the Ark, King David had it set on a new cart. The oxen pulling the Ark stumbled, and Uzzah took hold of the ark to steady it. God’s anger was aroused against Uzzah, and he died right there by the Ark of the Lord. He didn’t want the Ark to fall, yet he did not follow the precise guidelines of the Lord. An important lesson to be learned from Uzzah is that excitement and zeal for the Lord can never replace simple obedience. Our lack of consecration and our disobedience devalue the gospel. We must be convinced and believe that Yahweh means all He says, and then comply in obedience to all He commands.
What sin and idols in our relationship with Yahweh are preventing us from 100% consecration, so our Good Father will surprise us with His wonders and unlimited blessings? Let’s make King David’s prayer of confession and consecration in Psalm 51 our prayer as well.
