Lord, Teach Us To Pray! Part 79

Answered Prayers continued...

How can I speak the name of Jesus and not have a walk worthy of Him? How can I pray in the name of Jesus, and not have Him as King of my life, and Lord of my heart? How can I dishonor the One who hung and died upon a cross for my sins by continuing in the selfsame sins for which He died, and from which He freed me?

2 Timothy 2:19, “Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are His,’ and, ‘let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.’”

What is the first seal of the solid foundation of God? The Lord knows those who are His! It’s not the other way around, and this is something very few want to contend with. There is no ‘I think therefore I am’ in this scenario. Either God knows you as one of His own, or you are not one of His own.

We cannot do what is right in our own eyes, we cannot follow after our flesh, we cannot dishonor He who is eternal, we cannot trample the blood of His sacrifice, and still beat our chests proudly and say ‘we are of the Lord, we belong to Him!’.

The Lord knows those who are His, not because they say they are, not because they pretend to be, not because they belong to a certain denomination, but because their hearts have been transformed by the power of the word of God, because they have presented their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to Him, and because they have picked up their crosses and followed after Jesus.

The second seal of the solid foundation of God is that everyone who names the name of Christ departs from iniquity.

To depart is to deviate from a previous course of action, to leave, or to move away from a place into another direction. What is it we are to depart, deviate, or move away from as children of God? Iniquity! Sin - the practices and conduct of our old life, when we were ignorant of Christ, and lived for the flesh.

Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. Everyone means everyone. Not just the leadership, not just the deacons, not just the bishops or the pastors or the preachers, but everyone who names the name of Christ must depart from iniquity. It’s non-negotiable, there is no special dispensation, and you can’t ‘give’ your way out of this requirement.

Some individuals are incensed that God has not answered their prayers, they grow annoyed, irate, and often times furious with God for being silent, but never once do they look in the mirror of the word to see if they’ve departed from iniquity.

The Lord knows those who are His, and you will know you are the Lord’s if you have departed from iniquity. This constant attempt to straddle the fence, to have one foot in the world and one foot in the church must cease, and it must cease forthwith. Time has run out, the clock is striking midnight, and those found to be living lives of hypocrisy and duplicity, those found in a lukewarm state, will be spewed out of God’s mouth like so much phlegm.

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, “Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The name of our Lord Jesus Christ must be glorified in us. When men behold us, when they see our conduct, when they see our character, when they see our devotion and our faithfulness, they must see the nature of Jesus in us, that His name might be glorified in us.

If rather than being glorified in us the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is denigrated because of us, because of our conduct and our character, how can we then have boldness and courage and assurance to go before the Father in His Son’s holy name?

Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”

We tend to gloss over such scriptures. We tend to pretend as though such scriptures do not exist, or as though Jesus never spoke the words He spoke. It’s one thing to speak the name of Jesus, and even pray in the name of Jesus, it’s quite another to have a walk worthy of the name Jesus, to depart from iniquity, have the Lord be glorified in you, and you in Him.

We cannot continue to practice lawlessness believing we are walking in the will of God, and living with the expectation of being welcomed into His kingdom. We cannot discount the words of Jesus, and His disciples, we cannot discount the words of scripture, when they continually exhort us to repent, and depart from iniquity.

I realize you might be wondering what this has to do with having our prayers answered, and the short answer would be everything. Living in the will of God, in obedience to His word, having repented and departed from iniquity, assures us that when we pray to the Father in the name of Jesus, our prayers will be heard and answered.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.