PRAY AUDACIOUS PRAYER

PRAY AUDACIOUS PRAYERS  by Max Lucado Encouraging Words Podcast
Joshua 10

There is a remarkable story in Joshua chapter 10.  While in battle the Hebrews needed more daylight. Joshua asks God to stop the sun from setting and God does.

Verse 14 says God took orders from a human voice.  How is that for a reminder that God listens when we pray?

When Martin Luther's co worker became ill,the reformer prayed boldly for this healing.

He wrote: I besought the Almighty with great vigor, I attacked him with his own weapons, quoting from Scripture all the promises I could remember that my prayers should be granted, that God must grant my prayer if I was hanceforth to put faith in his promises.

One another occasion his good friend Frederick Myconeous was sick.  Luther wrote to him, I command you in the name of God to live, because I still have need of thee in the reforming work of the Church.

The Lord will never let me hear that thou art dead, but will permit thee to survive me;

For this I am praying.  This is my will, and may my will be done, because I seek only to grorify the name of God.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was crossing the Atlantinc Ocean by ship when a great storm came upon the sea.  Wesley was reading in his cabin when he became aware of some confusion on boad.

When he learned that the storm was knocking the ship off course, he responded by falling to his knees in his cabin in prayer.

And since his coworker and colleague Adam Clark was there, we know the prayer. Clark recorded it.

Wesley prayed:

Almighty and Everlasting God, you have sway everywhere, and all things serve the purpose of your will.

You hold the winds in your fists and sit upon the water.  Floods and rain is king forever.

Command these winds in these waves that they obey you.  Take us speedly and safely to the harbor where we should go.  Wesley then stood up, took up his book and began to read again.

Doctor Clark immediately went up on deck, and he found the winds were calm and the ship was back on course.

He went back to report to Mr Wesley in the cabin, and when Mr Wesley heard that the storm had passed, he made no remark.

Clark wrote.  So fully he expected to be heard that he took it for granted that he had been heard.

- THE DANGER OF NOT CONSULTING GOD FIRST.

How bold are your prayers?

We talk a lot about prayer, but usually in the context of a little talk with God. We will chat with Jesus tumbling humbly into the presence of God.

But what about agonizing before God, or pounding on the door of heaven or wrestling with God?

Isn't such prayer irreverent?  Is it presumptuous?

It might be, had we not been told to pray in this fashion.

So, let us come boldly, Scripture says boldly, to the very throne of God, and stay there to receive His mercy and to find grace to help us in our time of need.

We're studying the story of Joshua because Joshua led the children of Israel into the Promised land where they enjoyed seven years of umbridled success.

We believe that the book of Joshua's in the Bible to teach us how we too can enter our Promised Land and experience victory after victory.

Embedded in the story of Joshua is a lesson or two on prayer back to back chapters, and 1 chapter telling us how Joshua did pray.

And if you want to learn a lesson about the power of prayer in the Promised Land, then Joshua 9 and Joshua 10 is the place to turn.

We begin by looking at when Joshua did not pray. Joshua did not pray.

In the days immediately after the Sheshem Declaration, a group of strangers came into Joshua's camp at Gilgal

Here is what they said: Your servants have come from a far country.  They presented themselves as hapless pilgrims.

Their clothing was ragged and worn out.  They had the appearance of people who had travelled a far away.  Even their bread was dry and moldy.

They praised for his victories, and they praised God for giving the victories to Joshua.

And then they asked Joshua if would protect them, they can make an alliance in wich Joshua would take care of them.

Three days passed during wich Joshua and his elders consulted one another and finally made their decision.

They made this alliance with the people.

After three days they realized that they had been tricked. They had been hoodwinked.

It turns out that these people were not from a far off land, they were from just up the road.

They were Gibeonites, living as close as 10, at the most 20 miles away.  And they had disguised themselves as pilgrims.  Hapless pilgrims, impoverished pilgrims.

Why?

Well. they saw what God did to Jericho and to the village of I, and they thought the same was about to happen with their village, so they disguise themselves.

Then there is also the command in the book of Deuteronomy for those living outside of the Promise Land to receive the protection of God.

So for whatever reason, they lied, they deceived, they were afraid, and so they resorted to deceit and they deceived Joshua.

How was it that Joshua fell for this?  How was it that Joshua could not pick out the fact that these men were masquarading as people?

One Version Bible daily devotional

Transcrited by Claudia Nascimento, a preacher and translator student and the author of this blogger.