We receive because we obey and seek to please God, not ourselves

'John gives the reason for answered prayer in the passage previously quoted: "And whatsoever we ask we receive of Him because we keep His commandments and do those things which are pleasing in His sight." 1Jn_3:22

Seeing that the keeping of God's commandments is here set forth as the reason why He  answers prayer, it is to be reasonably assumed that we can keep God's commandments, can do those things which are pleasing to Him. Would God make the keeping of His commandments a condition of effectual prayer, think you, if He knew we could not keep His statutes? Surely, surely not!

Obedience can ask with boldness at the Throne of grace, and those who exercise it are the only ones who can ask, after that fashion. The disobedient folk are timid in their approach and hesitant in their supplication. They are halted by reason of their wrongdoing. The requesting yet obedient child comes into the presence of his father with confidence and boldness. His very consciousness of obedience gives him courage and frees him from the dread born of disobedience.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 52)

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Yet as I read the above I can't help but continue to think of my constant failure to keep God's commandments. They are SO much more than rigorous duties.  They are so much more than the mere keeping from thievery,  from the taking of another's life, from the letter of the law so to speak. Jesus came and revealed that the intents of hearts are the truth of God's commandments. Our thoughts, those we dwell upon and feed, are just as evil as the act committed. Refraining from physical adultery while indulging in mental adultery is evil. Fantasizing about murder is just as bad as murder. No sin should be entertained, not even in our thoughts.

Thoughts do creep in that we would rather not have and they must immediately be thrust out, not indulged! Even if they continue to come back over and over we have to fight against them, it is a spiritual war!

So when I read the above I really can't help but think on the constant fight I'm battling and oftentimes failing at. It's a FOREVER need of FORGIVENESS, something I don't think we can ever forget. To say we obey the commandments of God and therefore can come with confidence to Him in prayer, is truth. I didn't write this…

 "And whatsoever we ask we receive of Him because we keep His commandments and do those things which are pleasing in His sight." 1Jn_3:22

E.M. Bounds did not write that. GOD wrote that! Our actions matter! Our obedience matters! How can we divorce the two?  We kneel at the throne of grace and we seek to obey, we don't kneel at the throne of grace and then go our way and sin willfully! We struggle, we war, we fight against all that would keep us from obeying our God. And when I say we struggle, we war, we fight I mean we do so, spiritually we are at war! No, we aren't to physically war with others that would keep us from obeying, but spiritually war against all that would stop us from keeping God's commandments and doing that which is pleasing in HIS SIGHT.

We must obey and the commandments tell us to love and all that means! We are to love GOD, and love each other and when we disobey this and fail in our love towards God or our fellow man then we need to seek forgiveness and that is obeying. We need to repent- to give up doing that wrong, truly give it up even if that means giving it up every single day as we war. We cannot hold onto any sin - we cannot hold onto any failure to love God or our fellow man- we must seek forgiveness and find love and forgiveness through our Savior. Even if we must pray for forgiveness for loving- cherishing any sin- for loving sin, we need to repent and pray for it, pray to come to despise the sinful thing we love.

Satan has warped us in many, many ways and will not stop his work upon us. Thank God, Jesus Christ has the victory over him and that victory is ours!

Please, LORD, keep us in You. Forgive us, help us as we seek to keep Your commandments and do those things which are please in Your sight.

All in YOUR LOVE!

We have no excuse

'Obedience is love, fulfilling every command, love expressing itself. Obedience, therefore, is not a hard demand made upon us, any more than is the service a husband renders his wife, or a wife renders her husband. Love delights to obey, and please whom it loves. There are no hardships in love. There may be exactions, but no irk. There  are no impossible tasks for love.'

(My interjection- All too often today the 'obey' part of wedding vows is left out, why? What does that tell us? It tells us that more and more mankind has inched away from the belief they need to obey anyone.  Seriously. Children are more defiant than ever refusing to obey not only parents but teachers as well. People are more defiant to law enforcement as well. They defy so many and believe they have the right to do so, because they will not be treated what they call 'disrespectfully'. And if they are told to do something they believe it has to be in the proper manner, do not dare give an order but rather a request. Do you see what we've done? We've made the word 'obey' into something bad, something overbearing and too controlling. Telling someone you obey your spouse would garner some very strange reactions. And now we are left with being told we should obey God and right away Satan is there to tell us obeying is for those who cannot think for themselves. Satan tells us we shouldn't have to obey anyone, we should actually be the one obeyed, or at the very least able to live in obedience only to our own selves. )

'This is obedience, running ahead of all and every command. It is love, obeying by anticipation. They greatly err, and even sin, who declare that men are bound to commit iniquity, either because of environment, or heredity, or tendency. God's commands are not grievous. Their ways are ways of pleasantness, and their paths peace. The task which falls to obedience is not a hard one. "For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."  

Far be it from our heavenly Father, to demand impossibilities of His children. It is possible to please Him in all things, for He is not hard to please. He is neither a hard master, nor an austere lord, "taking up that which he lays not down, and reaping that which he did not sow." Thank God, it is possible for every child of God, to please his heavenly Father! It is really much easier to please Him than to please men. Moreover, we may know when we please Him. This is the witness of the Spirit -- the inward Divine assurance, given to all the children of God that they are doing their Father's will, and that their ways are well-pleasing in His sight.

(My interjection-  This is truth- it is MUCH easier to please God than to please men! This is so true!)

'God's commandments are righteous and founded in justice and wisdom. "Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good." Rom_7:12 "Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints." Rev_15:3 God's commandments, then, can be obeyed by all who seek supplies of grace which enable them to obey. These commandments must be obeyed. God's government is at stake. God's children are under obligation to obey Him; disobedience cannot be permitted. The spirit of rebellion is the very essence of sin. It is repudiation of God's authority, which God cannot tolerate. He never has done so, and a declaration of His attitude was part of the reason the Son of the Highest was made manifest among men: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

If any should complain that humanity, under the fall, is too weak and helpless to obey these high commands of God, the reply is in order that, through the atonement of Christ, man is enabled to obey. The Atonement is God's Enabling Act. That which God works in us, in regeneration and through the agency of the Holy Spirit, bestows enabling grace sufficient for all that is required of us, under the Atonement. This grace is furnished without measure, in answer to prayer. So that, while God commands, He, at the same time, stands pledged to give us all necessary strength of will and grace of soul to meet His demands. This being true, man is without excuse for his disobedience
and eminently censurable for refusing, or failing, to secure requisite grace, whereby he may serve the Lord with reverence, and with godly fear.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 51)

(My interjections continued…

'The Atonement is God's enable act' !  TRUTH! We are without excuse!  We cannot willfully disobey and claim the commandments are too hard, they are too unjust for us. Our GOD divested Himself of divinity and relied solely upon the power of the Father God to keep the commandments and because He did that we too are able to keep the commandments, and we do it by the GRACE our Savior gives to us.  More on all of this tomorrow, by the grace of God!

We cannot excuse away our sinning, it doesn't work.

In HIS amazing love!

Bless us Lord! Keep us Lord!

Would God ask us to keep His commandments if it were impossible?

'Does God give commandments which men cannot obey? Is He so arbitrary, so severe, so unloving, as to issue commandments which cannot be obeyed? The answer is that in all the annals of Holy Scripture, not a single instance is recorded of God having commanded any man to do a thing, which was beyond his power. Is God so unjust and so inconsiderate as to require of man that which he is unable to render? Surely not. To infer it, is to slander the character of God.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 50)


God will never ask us to do the impossible, yet so many believe what He asks is impossible. Why? Because we don't want to obey. Our carnal nature wants to rule and that carnal nature is in opposition to God.

Our natural selves do not want to obey, yet when we CHOOSE to serve God we are choosing to obey God. When we choose to obey God we submit to Him and HE HELPS US to obey Him. He doesn't leave us alone to do this on our own He offers us help.

Joh 14:15  If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Joh 14:16  And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
Joh 14:17  Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
Joh 14:18  I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

If you love Jesus- OBEY His commandments.
If we obey His commandments the FATHER will give us a Comforter that will live with us forever.

The OBEYING we do is SUBMITTING to the truth that God's commandments are JUST, they are GOOD, they are RIGHTEOUS. They are NOT impossible if we CHOOSE to OBEY.

What point is there in asking someone to obey the impossible?

There is NO POINT at all.

We have to STOP thinking it is impossible to choose to obey. We make choices, hard choices, choices that have us uncomfortable as we fight against our SELFISH desires, our very, very SELF SERVING desires.

If you are asked to choose between self and God, who would you choose?

We almost always choose self first because we have this belief that we are everything, that everything revolves around us and our existence- even God. We believe God only exists because we allow Him to exist and if we choose not to believe He will no longer exist. We are fools!

God is EVERYTHING, without HIM we are NOTHING! So when we choose self over God we are choosing nothing over everything, yet Satan would have us blind to this truth.  We must choose GOD this is choosing self really. When we obey God we are obeying truth and serving ourselves through serving God, this is truth!

Please LORD help us to choose to obey we would choose YOU always YOU.

By YOUR grace!  YOUR love!

Obedience- Pray!

'UNDER the Mosaic law, obedience was looked upon as being "better than sacrifice, and to harken, than the fat of lambs." In Deuteronomy 5:29, Moses represents Almighty God declaring Himself as to this very quality in a manner which left no doubt as to the importance He laid upon its exercise. Referring to the waywardness of His people He cries:

"O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children after them." Deu_5:29

(Truth! Oh that there was such a heart in me so that I would Fear God and keep all His commandments ALWAYS.  We need this HEART! We need a heart cleansed!

Psa_51:10  Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

God then, and God now would have us love Him and in loving Him, obey Him. His commands are commands of LOVE and nothing more.)

Unquestionably obedience is a high virtue, a soldier quality. To obey belongs, preeminently, to the soldier. It is his first and last lesson, and he must learn how to practice it all the time, without question, uncomplainingly. Obedience, moreover, is faith in action, and is the outflow as it is the very test of love. "He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me." Joh_14:21

(When I read about a soldiers's first and last lesson is obedience it rings incredibly true.  The first thing the army does is strip the young men and women of their individuality and make them obey their commands. They do this for sadistic purposes? Not unless you get a cruel leader. The leaders do this not out of pleasure but to assure that the young man and woman will obey in order to save their lives. Our Heavenly Father wants no less than our lives spared. Obeying without question is not a sign of weakness, it is not a sign of inferiority, it is not a sign of stupidity, it is a sign of the greatest intelligence, the greatest strength, the greatest superiority in comprehending that our Creator, our Savior wants us to obey Him out of LOVE.  Obedience, we can comprehend it as human soldiers in a human army so we HAVE to comprehend obedience in spiritual soldiers in God's army.)

Furthermore: obedience is the conserver and the life of love.

"If ye keep My commandments," says Jesus, "ye shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love."

What a marvelous statement of the relationship created and maintained by obedience!

The Son of God is held in the bosom of the Father's love, by virtue of His obedience! And the factor which enables the Son of God to ever abide in His Father's love is revealed in His own statement, "For I do, always, those things that please Him."

(This is TRUTH! People don't want to talk about Jesus' obedience.  They want to talk about His love as if it is separate from His obedience and it is not! Why can't we comprehend this? Why can't we see? Jesus KEPT his Father's commandments. Jesus OBEYED His Father, and this is LOVE. We make love something else, something mushy and something more about getting things.  We talk about love but we leave out obeying, when love is obeying. )

The gift of the Holy Spirit in full measure and in richer experience, depends upon loving obedience:

"If ye love Me, keep My commandments," is the Master's word. "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever."

Obedience to God is a condition of spiritual thrift, inward satisfaction, stability of heart. "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the fruit of the land."

 Obedience opens the gates of the Holy City, and gives access to the tree of life.    Isa_1:19

"Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates, into the city."    Rev_22:14

(TRUTH! So much truth! We need to pray for a cleansed heart. We need to pray for the will to obey. We need to pray and NEVER stop praying, all by the GRACE, the LOVE, the MERCY of GOD!)

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 49)

Prayer and Obedience

'UNDER the Mosaic law, obedience was looked upon as being "better than sacrifice, and to harken, than the fat of lambs." In Deuteronomy 5:29, Moses represents Almighty God declaring Himself as to this very quality in a manner which left no doubt as to the importance He laid upon its exercise. Referring to the waywardness of His people He cries:

"O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children after them." Deu_5:29

Unquestionably obedience is a high virtue, a soldier quality. To obey belongs, preeminently, to the soldier. It is his first and last lesson, and he must learn how to practice it all the time, without question, uncomplainingly. Obedience, moreover, is faith in action, and is the outflow as it is the very test of love. "He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me." Joh_14:21

Furthermore: obedience is the conserver and the life of love.

"If ye keep My commandments," says Jesus, "ye shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love."

What a marvellous statement of the relationship created and maintained by obedience!

The Son of God is held in the bosom of the Father's love, by virtue of His obedience! And the factor which enables the Son of God to ever abide in His Father's love is revealed in His own statement, "For I do, always, those things that please Him."

The gift of the Holy Spirit in full measure and in richer experience, depends upon loving obedience:

"If ye love Me, keep My commandments," is the Master's word. "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever."

Obedience to God is a condition of spiritual thrift, inward satisfaction, stability of heart. "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the fruit of the land."

 Obedience opens the gates of the Holy City, and gives access to the tree of life.    Isa_1:19

"Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates, into the city."    Rev_22:14

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 48)

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By YOUR grace LORD, may we OBEY.  More tomorrow!

In His love!

Repentance means change

'The best-prepared, most eloquent sermon can be marred and rendered ineffective, by questionable practices in the preacher. The most active church worker can have the labour of his hands vitiated by worldliness of spirit and inconsistency of life. Men preach by their lives, not by their words, and sermons are delivered, not so much in, and from a pulpit, as in tempers, actions, and the thousand and one incidents which crowd the pathway of daily life.

Of course, the prayer of repentance is acceptable to God. He delights in hearing the cries of penitent sinners. But repentance involves not only sorrow for sin, but the turning away from wrong-doing, and the learning to do well. A repentance which does not produce a change in character and conduct, is a mere sham, which should deceive nobody. Old things must pass away, all things must become new.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 46)

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2Co 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Truth! Men preach by their lives, not their words.
Our actions, and as E.M. Bounds writes- '...and the thousand and one incidents which crowd the pathway of daily life.'  This is how we preach. Yes, there are those called to be preachers, and if they are called to preach they are called to live a life acceptable to God, with Godly conduct, not a life of unending self-indulgence.

Too often we use the excuse, we are only human. Too often we may excuses for our self-indulgent ways. Too often no one sees the agony of spirit over giving into the carnal nature. Instead they see us indulging our passions whether it's the passion of a bad temper, the passion of a self-righteous attitude, the passion of derision, the passion of impatience, the passion of self-protectiveness at the cost of another, there are an untold number of passions we get caught up in and we label them- 'just us' saying… "That's just the way I am. I was born with a bad temper and that's it, end of story."  Instead of lamenting that temper, instead of crying out for forgiveness for that temper, we indulge it and accept it, we accept the bad conduct until we can no longer even view it as bad conduct, instead it's just the way it is and oh well, who cares.  We should care! We need to care! Every bit of bad temper, every bit of self-indulgence, every tiny bit of self serving should be despised!  Satan however would have us deemed crazy for such talk. Satan would have us believe it is impossible for us to change our bad conduct.  Satan wants us to make excuses for it, not repent of it, seeking to have it no longer a part of us.

Yes, I'll be the first to admit that it does seem like an impossibility, us being able to rid ourselves of all our bad conduct. We are wretched, we are miserable, we are poor, blind, and naked and this is why we have to look constantly to CHRIST JESUS our SAVIOR and away from ourselves. We have to constantly live dependent upon our God for any good conduct that comes from us. We can't take credit for any of our good conduct. It is by God's grace we can do the least little bit of goodness.

This is truth-

'But repentance involves not only sorrow for sin, but the turning away from wrong-doing, and the learning to do well. A repentance which does not produce a change in character and conduct, is a mere sham, which should deceive nobody. Old things must pass away, all things must become new'

Sorrow for sin.
Turning away from wrong-doing.
Learning to do well.

Jesus said this-

Joh_5:14  Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.

Joh_8:11  She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

Sin no more.
Jesus' words.
Sin no more.

No longer commit the sin. No longer indulge in that carnal act.

We don't know what the man did that caused his agony for 38 years, but we do know that if he continued on in sin, it would be worse!

Sin no more.

Our conduct matters, our repentance matters.

Truly a repentance that does NOT include change isn't really repentance at all.

We sin and we repent! We desire to KNOW longer sin. We hate that we might enjoy the sin, hate that we might get pleasure from sin, we don't WANT to want to sin!  It's not easy and it will never be easy.  It's not about being easy, it's about eternal life with Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior! It's about truth, not ease. It's about suffering for truth if need be. Please, Lord, help us to repent as we need to repent as we pray to You, longing to be Yours!

In Your love!

How dare we believe God will listen to us when we don't truly repent.

'Here, it is plainly stated, that unholy conduct is a bar to successful praying, just as it is clearly intimated that, in order to have full access to God in prayer, there must be a total abandonment of conscious and premeditated sin.

We are enjoined to pray, "lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting," and must pass the time of our sojourning here, in a rigorous abstaining from evil if we are to retain our privilege of calling upon the Father. We cannot, by any process, divorce praying from conduct.

(1Ti 2:8  I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.)

"Whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things which are pleasing in His sight." (1Jn_3:22)

And James declares roundly that men ask and receive not, because they ask amiss, and seek only the gratification of selfish desires.

(Jas_4:3  Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. )

Our Lord's injunction, "Watch ye, and pray always," is to cover and guard all our conduct, so that we may come to our inner chamber with all its force secured by a vigilant guard kept over our lives.

"And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares."

Quite often, Christian experience founders on the rock of conduct. Beautiful theories are marred by ugly lives. The most difficult thing about piety, as it is the most impressive, is to be able to live it. It is the life which counts, and our praying suffers, as do other phases of our religious experience, from bad living.'


Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 45)

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Is this truth?

Are we to take heed to ourselves?

Are we to guard against our own natural desires, our natural tendencies?

Yes, yes, yes. The answer is yes to all of those questions.

To not stand guard over ourselves is to allow ourselves to give into the basest nature inside of us.  Truly we might stand up and say that our basest nature isn't all that bad. We aren't bad people. Our natural tendencies don't hurt anyone. We point our fingers at the worst of the worst society has to offer and say that those people, those are the ones who are who have to take heed, they have to look at their awful behavior and stop.  Tell me, why don't they stop? Why are people evil and happy in their evil ways? What makes a sadistic murderer keep murdering? What makes a thief keep stealing? What makes a horrific torturer capable of committing his horrendous acts? Why don't they see their own horrors and stop themselves? Why do people continue in evil when they know it's wrong? I'm not talking about any that have medical conditions that cause them to do these things, I'm talking about the ones who enjoy doing what they're doing and know fully well what they are doing.  Part of me would LOVE to believe that only those who have medical conditions can be this way, but that's not true at all.

Cain and Abel.  The first sons. They had nothing medically twisted in their brains. And Cain turned on Abel, and did not seek repentance after being warned of God that something could happen if he didn't. Instead of doing the 'right' thing for himself and all, Cain murdered Abel. Why?

Is there something inside of people that makes them believe they truly are unaccountable for their actions, some deep down deceptive belief that they only live for here and now and whatever their basest desire is that it is okay to give in to it?

Why did 1/3 of the angels decide that they needed to give in to their basest nature? They lived in view of GOD and they still made that choice!

So why do we believe that we do NOT have to really and truly be concerned with our conduct? Why do we believe that we do NOT have to take heed to ourselves? Why?! In the light of history, why do we ever entertain the idea that our conduct is irrelevant?

Yes, we know just as Paul the apostle knew, that we are wretched beings! That we do things we DON'T want to do. Our carnal nature overwhelms our spirit nature, but with our spirit, with the part of us that makes the choice to serve God or ourselves, we recognize this! We see it in our lives! We repent of our deeds, we lament our bad conduct, we are horrified by our own actions and we seek true forgiveness from God, we seek His help in overcoming that bad conduct. We don't stop and believe that we are the end all. We realize  that we are CREATURES with a CREATOR and we answer to that CREATOR for our conduct.   Our Creator tells us to take heed to ourselves, to watch out because left unheeded out carnal nature will rear up and control us. We will succumb to over indulgence with food, drink, and let all the cares, all the many, many worries of this life overwhelm us so much so that the things of Christ won't matter at all.  Our bad conduct will cloud our minds, consuming us if we let it, if we do not TAKE HEED.

Truly how can we expect our prayers to be prayed in truth, in sincerity, when we don't care how we live? When we aren't at all concerned by bad tendencies? When our carnal nature is encouraged rather than discouraged or lamented over? How dare we believe God will listen to us.

John the Baptist told His followers to REPENT and be BAPTISED.

But people want to forget the repenting part, and the fact they are in need of constant repenting.

Please, Lord, help us to repent of our wrongdoings. Help us to recognize our wrongdoings. Please, Father in Heaven, please keep us from evil.  We come before You now repenting and asking forgiveness for all the wrong conduct within us! We would be YOURS, Lord. We don't want to be overcharged with surfeiting, drunkenness, or cares of this life.  We want to be Yours, ready for You when You return!

All glory, honor, and praise unto You God!

In YOUR LOVE!