My friend Bev told me that about a week after her mother went to Heaven, she was thinking of how carefully God had orchestrated her mother’s death. I wonder if I can think of 100 things to thank God for regarding mother’s passing away, she thought.

Bev began writing and continued until she had listed over 130 ways she saw that God had arranged the details so perfectly for her and her family. After her time of thanksgiving, although she misses her mother, her deep grief was gone.

Our joy and our strength are determined in a large part by our habit of praise. Jesus implied this when He quoted a verse from the Old Testament but changed the word “strength” to “praise.”

Psalm 2:8 says, “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.”

But Jesus said, “Have you never read, 'Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise'?” (Matthew 21:16).

Jesus is saying that even the simple, the toddlers and babes, can stop the enemy with praise.

Although God is present everywhere, He is actively present where joyful praise exists. “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel” (Ps. 22:3 KJV.) “Judah (praise) was his sanctuary (dwelling place)” (Ps. 114:2).

Dear Lord, thank You for always being present when there is joyful praise.

“I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Ps. 34:1).

“We really don’t deeply desire very many things, do we?” a friend sighed as we thought on Mark 11:24: “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (KJV). 

Nothing is more important in prayer than to desire what the Spirit wants to give.
One afternoon I was praying for a missionary nurse in Papua New Guinea. “Help her win someone to You today in the clinic,” seemed to be a Spirit-implanted desire. The Spirit helped me pray until I was confident God had heard. I later received a letter from her that I realized was written the day I had prayed. She wrote, “Today two men came to the Lord in the clinic!”

Our goal in prayer is to learn what the Holy Spirit desires to do and then to allow the Spirit to express that longing through us.

When we have a listening spirit, God will direct us to pray correctly. If we don’t know what to pray, we are to be quiet before God and be sensitive to the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit will teach us how to be specific in our petitioning. Andrew Murray suggests, "Let your prayer be so definite that you can say as you leave the prayer closet, "I know what I have asked from the Father, and I expect an answer." 

The greater our intensity for a particular need, the longer we're willing to stay in God's presence until we know exactly what to ask and know that He's heard us. 

I thank You, Lord, that when the Holy Spirit implants a desire within me in prayer, I can pray with faith because You never give a desire to pray for anything You do not plan to answer.

“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” (I John 5:14, 15).

In Jesus' day Jews observed the Passover by singing or chanting six Psalms: 113 through 118.  So when Matthew mentions that after the Last Supper they sang a hymn, we can be sure they were singing these Psalms.

It is interesting to read Psalm 118 and to think of Jesus singing it on His way to the Garden of Gethsemane.
It is one thing to say verse 18, "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24) when all is well. But that is not the context for these words.

This is what Jesus sang just before this verse: "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes." Then He sings, "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."

What submission! He knew He was about to be the capstone the builders would reject. All His Father did was good in His eyes. He was going to the Garden of Gethsemane and could rejoice because it was His Father's plan. His Father had made this day and He was rejoicing.

Dear Jesus, You have taught us by example to rejoice always.

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thess. 5:16-18).

The early church knew the value of fasting. Twice fasting is mentioned in Acts 13:2-3: "While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.'

 "So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off."

This last verse says "they" sent them off. The next verse adds that the two were "sent on their way by the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit and the people were moving as one when fasting was combined with prayer.

Fasting is often a great element of success in intercession. It gains us no merit, but it is an act of obedience with which the Lord is well pleased.

In his book, The Coming Revival, Dr. Bill Bright tells of seeking guidance after sensing the Lord calling him to a 40-day fast. When he couldn't find information on how to conduct such an extended fast, he sought the Lord's wisdom. "Lord, I know you've called me to fast for forty days, but I can't find the help I need. I don't want to do anything foolish," he prayed. "Please help me!"

While he was seeking God's guidance, something extraordinary happened. He distinctly sensed a sobbing in his spirit, and he knew the Lord was weeping. He was startled at first. And although he didn't know why He was weeping, Dr. Bright began to sob, too.

Then he sensed the Spirit saying, "My people have forgotten one of the most important disciplines of the Christian life, the major key to revival." He knew the Lord meant prayer with fasting.

Fasting is a secret discipline. Jesus promised that those who engage in secret fasting would be openly rewarded (Matt. 6:18). Our fasting is to be totally to Him--for His pleasure and done out of a desire for more of Him.

Results will come but they are not always immediate or predictable. God may not respond to our fasts in the way we anticipate, but He will keep His promise to openly reward us.

Thank You, Lord, that when we humble ourselves with fasting, revival begins in us.

"But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who [is] in the secret [place]; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly" (Matthew 6:17-18 NKJV).

When the people in Nazareth drove Jesus out of their town to a hill intending to push him off a cliff, Jesus allowed them to drive him to the edge. Then He simply slipped through the crowd and left. Jesus never lost control of the situation. He was always the One who chose the final outcome.

What a good word for us! It may seem that Satan has gained control of situations in our lives, but "The Lord sits enthroned over the flood" (Ps. 29:10).

The Psalmist said, "All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me" (Ps. 42:7 KJV), but he acknowledged that they were God’s waves and billows! He acknowledged God, and so was not overcome by the circumstances.

To acknowledge God in all our ways is to believe that He is there, not in a passive way but actively controlling every situation. We see Him as allowing our our disappointments because He has a higher purpose. We call all the waves and billows His!

Because God is sovereign, we can trust Him no matter what happens.

Jesus, I acknowledge that You are actively controlling every situation in my life.

"You are the ruler of all things" (1 Chronicles 29:12).

Gail MacDonald in her book, High Calling, High Privilege tells of preparing to visit a hospitalized friend who would be undergoing cancer surgery. Gail sat at her kitchen table and reminded the Lord of Jacob's words: "I will not let you go, unless you bless me" (Genesis 32:26). She knew she could not be a blessing unless God blessed her.

Two hours later she was ready to go. The thought came to her to take a hymnal and choose songs of worship and comfort. She herself was spiritually prepared as she worshiped through those hymns.

The time she and her friend shared in the hospital deeply affected both of them. "No amount of human caring or charisma alone could have made those moments so special," she said. "It was the time that I'd spent earlier in the presence of Christ that made the difference. She knew it and I knew it."

Ringing in Gail’s ears as she drove home from the hospital were Christ’s words, “Without me you can do nothing” and “with me all things are possible.”

“Until the Spirit descended upon Him at His baptism, Jesus created no stir in Nazareth, but then events of world shaking importance began to happen” noted J. Oswald Sanders.

Dear Jesus, help me to remember that when I think I am too busy, something in my schedule should be sacrificed--not my time with You--if I am to be used by You.
“My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8).

In Scripture, two things--costliness and extravagance, marked worship that brought the presence of God. King Solomon offered 1,000 sacrifices to the Lord. (I Kings 3:4,5) That night God appeared to him and offered him whatever he wanted.

In another time of costly worship, the people brought so many sheep and oxen to be sacrificed that their numbers couldn't be recorded or counted. (Two chapters later in 2 Chronicles 7, their counted and recorded offerings totaled 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. Too many to count would have been extravagant!)

What was God's response to such lavish adoration? The glory of the Lord so filled the house that the priests could not perform their services.

Mary of Bethany expressed her love for Jesus by pouring out a year's worth of ointment on Jesus. That was sacrificial giving that did not count the cost. Her profuse worship affected all those around her. The fragrance willed the house and Jesus promised that the memory of her lovely deed would last forever.

What would be a costly praise for us to offer? Perhaps it could be one referred to in Hebrews 13:15: "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise." A sacrifice calls for death, and to praise continually often calls us to give up our own opinions of what God should do in our situation. When we honor Him by offering praise for all He allows, He considers it a costly praise. Such extravagant worship is precious to Him.

I praise You, Father, by accepting everything in this present moment as coming from Your good hand.

"My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise" (Ps. 57:7). "I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth" (Ps. 34:1).