Today I want to share some personal things about my faith and about my relationship with Jesus. I do this only because I feel that you are many out there that are in the same boat as me with a hunger for more of God. This summer God have been speaking to me in a different way than before and now many things that I have been thinking of are confirmed by other Christians and by His word, the Holy Bible.
You might know where I come from and about my background as an alcoholist and drug addict that faced death beacause of so many injuries in my body due to alcohol and drugs. It IS a miracle that I am here today and it is about miracles and prayer answers I would like to write today.
Last weekend was the anual "Mangs week" at Frank Mangs Center in Närpes. For you who dont know I can tell you that I work out of Frank Mangs Center that is a foundation and the heritage of evangelist Frank Mangs. This years main speaker was Carl-Erik Sahlberg, a lutheran priest from St. Clara church in central Stockholm, Sweden. Sahlberg got a medal from the swedish king not so long ago because of his awesome work and love for the homeless, prostitutes and addicts on the streets of Stockholm. In his church people have met Jesus in a wonderful way for many years now so I am not lying when I am saying that there has been and there is an ongoing revival going on.
This weekend I got to spend some time with Carl-Erik and listen to him preach. This is a humble and lovely man of God and these kind of them are too few. If we were more like Carl-Erik Sahlberg I think that we would have more real revivals here and there and we would see people being saved, set free, healed and delivered.
What I have been thinking about lately is my own prayer life and what Sahlberg were speaking about this weekend was also how to pray. Imagine that my own pastor Mats Björkman (Kvevlax Missionskyrka) also preached about our prayer life at the wednesday service last week. I take it as a sign and a confirmation from God Himself to me and to many other that need renewal in their prayer life, heart and sould.
Our prayers are our hearts conversation with God. I can just tell you how I have done most of the time and I think I am not alone. I have my thoughts and I pray in Jesus name about what I need and what I want God to do for me. I end the prayer saying; "in your name Jesus. Amen!" and then I continue doing what I was doing before I started to pray.
If the prayer is our conversation with God it feels like God doesn´t get a chance to talk to us if we just end the prayer, say amen and continue with something else. At so many places in the Bible God is telling His people to wait or stay silent with Him until HE says something. How about you? Do you really wait until God tells you to continue or do you just say amen and continue doing what you did before you started to pray? I think many of us are like me, running fast forward trying to do so much as possible instead of listening to God. Yes, I am confessing right here right now that I do stuff without listening to God but I found out that when I do things that HE have told me nothing can go wrong if I do exactly as HE says. We can also manage to screw up things God have told us by mixing our own ideas with His command.
One key to a better prayer life, a better relation with God and more prayer answers is of course listening more to what GOD has to say!
Another thing that Carl-Erik tould us about during the morning prayer on saturday august 14th was about how they revival started in their church. He told us that before they did not really have much time over for prayer and they got a visitor from outside who had new ideas to structure up the work in the church. They started to pray two hours per day and since they started that they managed to climb up a level and the revival started.
They pray one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon and they have done that for 16 years now and if you visit their church you can feel it. He also told us saturday night about some of the hindrances to get our prayer answers and usually we claim ourselves being worthless or we dont want to pray because of the situation we are in right then. It is all crap, before God we are sons and daughters and we have GOD himself in our back and we can ask HIM about what ever we want. We can climb any mountain with HIM in our back, not with HIM as a GOD far away somewhere up in the sky. Also we can be specific when we pray as nothing is impossible for God and as more we pray and as more we specify in our prayers the more prayer answers we will get. It is way easier to hear what GOD has to answer if we are specific and of course we have to be honest before GOD as we can never fool HIM.
These are things that have spoken deep into me and been confirmations for things I have been thinking about. I dont care how much you pray or how much you fast, try to give even a little bit more of yourself to God and you will see the difference. We will never be ready on this earth and those who keep claiming that they dont already heard everything told in church need to take their Bibles and repent from their pride.
God is not a God who comes with explosives and fireworks, not a God that comes with confusion or manifestations. YOU have to listen to what HE has to say to you and if you look for feelings, manifestations or at any man you will most likely NOT hear what GOD has to say to you. Usually HE comes wispering in your heart and you dont have to scream to Him. He knows and He hear you when you wisper to Him. Keep it queit, so did Jesus when He went up on the mountain to pray the Father and remember to get filled with the Holy Spirit every day! You can never get too much!
Hope you got something out from my thoughts this wonderful monday!
Stay Blessed!
Pontus
