Pray with a Forgiving Spirit
1 John 5:14-15
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes, Pastor
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Greeley, Colorado
August 8, 2021
True prayer is a way of life, not just for use in cases of emergency. It is important that we make prayer a habit, and when the need arises, we will be in practice.
Author and pastor T.D. Jakes observed, "My mother became a warrior far superior to any epic hero. She became a giant on her knees. With a sword in one hand, she battled the enemies of death and disease, and with her other hand stretched toward heaven she kept beseeching God’s help and His mercy.”
My friends, we’re reminded in Scripture, “Pray without ceasing.” Please do not give up on prayer. A humble servant of God stated, "I firmly believe God continues to answer the prayers of His people even after He has taken them to heaven. Never forget that God isn’t bound by time the way we are. We see only the present moment; God sees everything. We see only part of what He is doing; He sees it all."
Last week we were reminded that our prayers are directed to the Father in the name of Jesus. Today, I want to invite you to join me in exploring the role of forgiveness, faith and God’s will in prayer.
(3) PRAY WITH A FORGIVING SPIRIT. If you are harboring bitterness and resentment toward someone, you might feel like your prayers aren’t getting past the ceiling. And there’s a reason for that.
Jesus taught that we must be willing to forgive others. When He taught the model prayer He said, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”
Jesus made it even more clear in Mark 11:25 when He said, “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your wrongdoing.”
In Matthew 5:24 Jesus said it this way. I’ll paraphrase it. “If you’re in church and you’re about to make an offering. And in that moment, you suddenly remember that there is someone who has something against you. Leave your offering right there and go at once to that person and make things right. Then come back and make your offering.”
One of the reasons people don’t have their prayers answered is because they have allowed bitterness to spring up in their hearts. The Bible says in Hebrews 12:15 “Make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up.”
Bitterness is like an acid that burns the bottle that contains it. Bitterness will destroy you. Bitterness is rooted in your heart, but it usually doesn’t stay there – it eventually manifests itself as anger toward the person against whom you hold a grudge.
There are a lot of mean, bitter people in the world. Aesop tells the fable of a man who had been wronged by his neighbor. He was angry and bitter at his neighbor. The angry man was visited by Zeus who said, “I will grant you any wish that you want. The only stipulation is that I will grant to your neighbor, whom you hate, twice as much of whatever you ask. If you ask for 500 diamonds, your neighbor will receive 1,000.”
The bitter man agonized over the wish he should request of Zeus. So intense was his hatred for his neighbor that finally he said, “I know what wish I want and you can double it for my neighbor. I wish you to make me blind in one eye.” That’s a sad example of bitterness.
Your heart of forgiveness may start in your own family. You may be surprised by this, but Peter writes that the state of your marriage can affect your prayer life. Peter has just admonished wives to respect their husbands, then he writes in 1 Peter 3:7, “Husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker partner, showing them honor as coheirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.” The word “your prayers” is plural, so that includes husbands and wives. Let me ask you couples, what is the state of your prayer life? Husbands are you fulfilling God’s role as the spiritual leader of your family? If not, your prayers will be hindered.
(4) PRAY IN FAITH. Another important condition for answered prayer is praying in faith. Jesus said, “when you pray, believe that you will receive it, and it will happen.” He said, “If you have enough faith, you can say to this mountain, be moved into the sea, and it will take a dive in the ocean.” That’s mountain-moving faith.
One of the things I’ve prayed numerous times is for God to give me wisdom. Because that’s not a prayer that God answers once-for-all.
We need wisdom for every new situation we face. I know that this is a prayer that God loves to answer. We read this great promise in James 1:5-8: “Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and Ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in all his ways.”
Have you experienced as you’re driving you see a plastic cup that someone had thrown out? Every time a car passed it, the cup would be blown to one side. Then it gets blown right into the center of your lane and you drive over it. In your rearview mirror, you watched as the cup twirled up in the air and settled back down on the highway. Then when a car trailing you passed it, it blew it off the road.
That plastic cup can be a reminder of the verse from James. That cup is like a lot people who pray, but don’t pray in faith. They are tossed by the wind. “Should I pray for this? I’m not sure. Maybe I should, or maybe I shouldn’t.” They vacillate between faith and doubt; belief and unbelief. Their prayers are as erratic as that cup. We must pray in faith.
A story is told about a little town in the South that didn’t have any liquor stores or nightclubs. A merchant bought some property and built a nightclub just outside the city limits. The members of one of the churches were concerned about this den of iniquity, so they had several prayer meetings in which they prayed for God to burn the nightclub to the ground. They wrote letters to the owner asking him to close it down or they were praying for God to burn it down.
Not long afterwards, lightning struck the nightclub and it was completely destroyed by the fire. The owner of the club sued the church for destruction of his property. The church hired a lawyer to fight the charges.
Both sides made their arguments before a judge. The owner said, “These people prayed for my club to be burned down and it happened.” The lawyer for the church said, “Their prayers had nothing to do with the lightning strike.” Finally the judge made his ruling. He said, “I can’t rule on where the guilt lies in this lawsuit. However, I am convinced that the nightclub owner is the one who really believes in the power of prayer, and the church members do not!”
Somebody has said, “When you pray for rain, you’d better take your umbrella, or you’re not praying in faith!”
(5) PRAY ACCORDING TO GOD’S WILL. You can ask God for anything, but as you ask, you must always ask God to bend your will to match His will, not the other way around. You can have faith to move mountains, but if it isn’t God’s Will, it won’t happen. John wrote in 1 John 5:14, “If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”
Frank was on fire for God. He got a little sidetracked into the name-it-and-claim-it faith movement. This heresy demotes God to vending machine that teaches if you plug enough faith into it, whatever you ask for will pop out.
Frank focused on Psalm 34:7 which says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Frank would say, “The desire of my heart is to have a Corvette. And I’m delighting myself in the Lord, so I’m claiming that I’ll have a Corvette.” He was serious.
And his friends said, “Go for it.” He kept delighting himself all semester. After the Thanksgiving holidays, he came back driving a used Toyota. People asked him, “What happened to the Corvette?” He smiled and said, “God showed me that the Corvette was my desire not His desire.” Frank got it.
When we pray, we can ask God for anything we desire, but we need to always be wiling for God to change our desires to His desires.
CONCLUSION: One of the greatest Christians of the 19th century was George Mueller of Bristol, England. He became concerned for the orphans of Britain, so he started an orphanage with only two pence in his pocket. For over 60 years his orphanage cared for over ten thousand orphans. He kept a prayer journal and recorded over 4,000 pages of answered prayers.
Once, he was sailing from England to Boston to speak at a Christian conference. The ship stopped in the North Atlantic because of thick fog.
The captain announced the ship would be late reaching Boston so Mueller spoke to the captain. He told him he believed it was God’s will for him to speak at the conference and he couldn’t be late. The captain was a Christian who knew George Mueller, and he respectfully told him he didn’t understand the operation or navigation of the ship and it was impossible for them to proceed in such thick fog.
Mueller asked the captain to join in prayer for God to lift the fog. The captain explained all reports indicated the fog would last for several days, but he would be willing to pray with Mueller. They went below deck and Mueller prayed a simple prayer asking God to remove the fog so he could make his speaking engagement. After his prayer, the captain asked him if he would like for him to pray as well.
Mueller said, “No captain, you don’t need to pray for two reasons. First, I don’t think you really believe God will lift the fog, and second, I believe that He already has!” Sure enough, when the captain returned to the bridge, the fog was lifting and they arrived in Boston in time for Mueller’s conference.
God answers prayer. So pray to the Father in the name of Jesus, with a forgiving heart. Pray in faith according to God’s will and you can have CONFIDENCE that God will answer your prayers.