A Declaration Notice Concerning Prayer
We commence this offering by listening again to the declaration notice.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God: and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 6 - 7
I am quite aware that most of us, if not all of us, know this verse of Scripture well, but in these offerings, may it come to you all new. May it be, new in your heart and mind; new in your eyes and ears; new in your believing and living and definitely new in your receiving and doing. May you and I, in this receiving, be like the Athenians and those who resided with them. For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. Acts 17: 21. Their ambition, their attention, their delight, was to tell of something new, or hear of something new.
May God the Holy Spirit, grant each of us the heart, mind, spirit and faith to count all that we know as nothing, to be able to hear this word as new. When we hear it as new, receive it as new and live it as new - all new in us - then we will be able to give it as new, to others.
Three points have been lifted high for us in this declaration notice.
You are not to be anxious about anything.
You are to tell God your every request by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving.
You are to know your hearts and minds, through Christ Jesus, guarded by the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.
How true is this declaration notice about prayer? It is much truer than we think, speak or begin to understand and know. This declaration notice is now given practical strength, visibility and earthly grounding in Moses, the servant of God.
Before anyone of us begins to protest that Moses was leader of God’s people, a liberator and more, remember this. The apostle Paul made this declaration to the Church, to all who belonged to the Philippian Congregation, not just to her leaders and elders. It was given to those in the pulpit and those in the pews, with the same force and intensity of heart.
And besides, who was Moses? He was a human being with limitations and fears as you and I have. He was the person who put his impediment of speech before God, when God wanted to use him to speak to God’s people. This is what Moses said to God. O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. Exodus 4: 10b. Moses had human deficiencies, just as you and I have.
He therefore, is the person we are looking at, as giving practical, convincing and undeniable proof of Paul’s declaration notice, concerning God and prayer.
Moses, as was indicated and as most of you know, is the liberator and leader of God’s beloved Hebrew people. He has been through some extremely troubling times, this man Moses, but this one is indeed severely dire.
Tomorrow, we will give light to the particular and peculiar troubling situation.
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