Topic: Confidence in God
Text: Acts 19:11-20

Prayer is such a crucial issue that must not be handled haphazardly. Unfortunately, a lot of people have reduced prayer to a sort of hit or miss venture. If you ask some believers to give you specific instances of answered prayers in their lives, they might go blank for several minutes. Such people pray without thinking about how to get tangible results. Are your prayers always answered? Do you have testimonies to back up your prayer efforts? Some people always receive answers to their prayers without fail because they are familiar with the kind of prayers that God cannot refuse to answer. The secret of these types of prayers is found in Revelation 4:9-11, “And then those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever. The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before, before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power… for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” Why were the Heaven and the Earth created? They were created for God’s pleasure. Everything that was created or will ever be created must satisfy one purpose only. This purpose is to give pleasure to our God. The moment you understand this, you will then know the kind of prayer you should say. If your prayer is not going to bring pleasure to God, you can forget about the answer. If your prayer will bring pleasure to the Almighty God the answer is guaranteed. The book of I John 3:20-22 tells us that, “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemns us not, then we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” How wonderful it is to be assured of answered prayer even before you are through with it. Learn to give your prayer efforts a sharp focus. Manifest confidence in God and become thoroughly familiar with his “pleasure” and you will begin to swim in the ocean of answered prayers.

Memory Verse: I John 3:21 - ”Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.”