Praying With Results

By Gary Shotton

             Hello, I’m Gary Shotton, and I’m here as part of inspiring better business, and today I’m going to talk about the subject of praying with results. And I just going to tell some stories about my personal experience in the area of prayer, and then tie that together with praying for your businesses and praying for your finances and praying for. Maybe the situation you’re in. So, you’ve got to recognize that my wife and I were born again, after we were already married one year. And so we had been taught of Bible, Bible in a way that maybe wasn’t exactly the way I would now believe it. People were were intending Well, we were church attenders, but I hadn’t really understand salvation by grace through faith, as the path to be a part of the family of God. So, when we came to the truth it just turned on like a light bulb we were on a bit of the wrong path. And now we’re on the right path. And this caused me to think maybe some of the other things that we have been taught, we’re not intentionally taught wrong, but maybe we had learned them wrong. And one of those subjects was prayer. And I will tell you that in my previous religious life my church wife. We were praying prayers that were like pleading for God, oh God, God can you help me here, and we took an approach that we were like, at one time. The songs we sang were also kind of in tune with the prayers we would prayer. Pray and with words like I’m such a worm down here, and as I’m so humble before you and that there’s no way I could approach you and talk to you because I’m such a low person compared to you but if you chose to help me. Maybe I could wake you up by having a bunch of people pray for this situation, and maybe I could nudge you into some action like if I do enough things here that you’re going to hear my prayers but that’s not what the Bible says, Let’s go where the Bible says and don’t go, what I say. But let’s hear what the Bible says, first of all, in, in James chapter five it says, The effectual fervent prayer, as James chapter five, verse, 16 the latter part, The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availed much.

Well, maybe I wasn’t getting much out of my prayers because I wasn’t getting many prayers answered, and then the verse that I really have used for many years is First John, chapter five verse 14 and 16 It says, this is the confidence that we have in Him meaning God, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us and if we know that He hears us, we know that the thing that we have petitioned him, that he will we will have that let me get it more exact. And if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. Well, that tells me that my prayers should be answered. Not because of what I’ve done, not because of what I’m trying to, like I say, awaken God and nudge him into some kind of action like he’s being picky or waiting for me to fix my fix something and no finally answer my prayers. No, the responsibility is on me to pray according to His Word, according to His will. I was missing it. I was praying according to my need, and I want to learn now and talk about praying according to God’s will and how we can open this up and what happened in my life. So I was just being a very obedient in my church and a VA obedient to try to learn God’s way, I wasn’t perfect, I, I had situations that I had needed to fix just like anybody else, but then it was enlightened to me that the book of Ephesians, was a book that was Paul writing to the church of Ephesus, and he wrote some specific instructions about prayer to that church. Well, it seemed logical that if he wrote about prayer to that church. He’s actually writing that that like all of the Bible. He is like writing to me. I’m going to read this as if it’s read as he’s praying for me. And this is all going to tie together, and it says in verse, chapter one verse 15 Therefore I also heard after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus so they were being faithful, and your love and to all the saints, they were doing good things. I cease not to give thanks to you for making mention of you in my prayers. There it is. This is the prayer that Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus, and that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory. May given to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Oh there it is. I should be praying that you, that God gives me the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, and that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling. I should start knowing what God wants me to do in his life, the hope of what I’m called to do, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance, are in the saints, boy, that’s not not necessarily talking about money, there’s a lot of things money can’t buy. But there’s our glory of the inheritance the riches of the glory of it here inheritance. And what is the exceeding greatness of His power. He has exceeding greatness, on our behalf at two upwards who believe according to the work of his mighty power. Wow, I wasn’t praying that way, I was kind of inclined to get on a prayer chain or I’m getting out. Today we get on Facebook and we get 100 people praying for this city, maybe we get 1000 people praying for something, maybe we need to get 10,000 people, well I’m not knocking that I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have people pray for us, but I want prayers of people that know the Word of God, that will pray and according to the Word of God and the Word of God doesn’t say that seem to say that word God’s got to respond to my need, he’s responding to my faith.

So I was encouraged to look at this a bit different and this is what I’m encouraging you to do and things started to happen in my life, I’m telling you things happen that I started praying and things became real to me more real than ever before, even though I had read the scriptures before, and I studied them before now it’s real. And so, this is what I’m encouraging you to substitute your name in the middle of this verse, and it would go like this, Lord Jesus I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, and that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may given to Gary That’s my name. The Spirit of wisdom. Oh Lord, give me the spirit of wisdom and the revelation of knowledge in you. That’s what I want, if I can get that, then I know how to pray, and it’ll be according to your will, and I know if you hear it you have that your petition a petition to view and so that the month that my eyes may have understanding being lined, that I may know what is the hope of His calling and what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in me, that’s what it’s talking about, and that this exceeding greatness of His power to our to me, who have come because I believe according to this mighty power you’re going to bless and guide me. So let’s talk about that in business. See, there’s a lot of things that we need to understand about the Word of God in finances, about how God is blessing us how he wants to bless us, I’ve talked over and over again, that God is a God of provision. There’s many lessons that talk about provision, every time that Jesus was in any kind of a miracle. He was the provider of the things that was needed. Here was the one that provided food when, when there was no food to eat and the multitude. He provided the fish when the disciples were, were discouraged and they were not going to have didn’t have a catch that one night he provided many things that were fine if financial at one point they asked Jesus, if they should pay Caesar taxes, and he said Give unto Caesar what Caesar’s, but give under God’s what’s God’s, and they went and caught a fish, and in the mouth of the fish was a very valuable coin to pay for everybody’s taxes, God is a God of provision, and you’ve got to say that God is a loving God. God wants the best for you.

God is able to do exceedingly abundantly in your life, but we’ve got to learn to pray according to His Word and His will, and that’s not going to be a prayer that’s begging him and pleading for him to provide no it’s got to be that prayer, that’s a focused on me, my actions, what am I going to do, I’m going to pray that my eyes being enlightened to know what to do and starting a business. Oh, we’re not going to be able to pray for, oh I want a million dollars or a million shillings or something. Well, if that’s according to His will, but you’ve got to prove yourself capable of handling that, so God will provide to you, but not instantly like that because you’re not able to handle it. So it’s a process of us growing up spiritually, so that we can be entrusted with God’s Word and God’s will and God’s way. Now, you know, things not don’t always happen instantly because anybody that has children and they’ve asked for something way beyond their ability. We all know that we need to prepare that child that eventually they may be able to acquire that bigger desire in their life. So we have to learn to start with what we had. Grow step by step, honor God, in simple thing this is something that’s dear to me because it made such a difference in my life and I started understanding how the Word of God worked, and I started the Word of God started becoming revealed to me in a way that I had never had it before. Thanks for being a part of Inspiring Better Business.