Day 1 Daniel Fast Devotional - Meeting The Conditions For Answered Prayer- by Tim Johns

Today, we start our 21-Day Daniel Fast.  We will send you an inspirational devotional each day written by one of the leaders in the Rock Tribe.  May this season of prayer and fasting result in many wonderful breakthroughs in your life and the lives of those you serve.

Meeting The Conditions For Answered Prayer

God loves to answer prayer!  As a good and powerful Father, He has an abundance of grace ready to be poured out to those who meet the conditions.  What is God’s grace?  God’s grace is God Himself along with all His desires, abilities, gifts, blessings, and favor.  Do we work for God’s grace?  Absolutely not!  There is no way we could ever earn or deserve God and all His wonderful gifts.  However, we do have to properly position ourselves before God in order to receive His grace.  Notice how many times God’s word spells out the conditions for answered prayer: “IF my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chron. 7:14

Condition #1:  Humility - total submission and dependence on God for all of life’s issues and needs. “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”  Fasting is a spiritual discipline that acknowledges our total dependence on God.

Condition #2: Faith - actively trusting, obeying, and doing God’s will, God’s way, by God’s Spirit, for God’s glory.  Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.  If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Matt. 21:21-22

Condition #3: Asking According To His Will - when we ask God for His grace according to God’s will as revealed in His Word God, we can expect God to be faithful to His Word. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him.” 1 Jn. 5:14  “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Matt. 6:10

Condition #4: Urgency & Persistence - desperate, urgent, consistent, persistent prayer breaks through the walls of evil resistance. Be patient, God’s answers may seem delayed, but they are always on time.  Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.  He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men.  And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”  And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says, And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?  I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.  However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.  Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?  Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

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