Fighting on Your Knees, Pt. 5

Today, I am going to share with you some very helpful and practical ways that you can fight and win your battles on your knees.

Fighting on Your Knees, Pt. 5

"Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know."

(Jeremiah 33:3)

How do we do this? Today, I am going to share with you some very helpful and practical ways, according to Dr. Charles Stanley, that you can fight and win your battles on your knees.

First, set aside time alone with God. This is vitally important. Get a consistent time and place when you can be alone and talk to God. Billy Graham had a meeting with one of our US presidents, and Graham showed up late. The president said he was not used to people showing up late when they had an appointment with him. Graham replied that he was in prayer and needed to talk to God before talking to him. Graham was a man of God who prayed. In his autobiography, he wrote, "I would pray, and pray, and pray, believing deep in my soul that God would bless and honor His Word if I preached it faithfully." (Just as I Am, p. 213)

Second, listen quietly. Expect God to speak to you. Prayer is listening and talking. God wants to speak to us. He loves us. He wants this intimate relationship. Like in good communication in marriage, the husband and wife should both speak AND listen. Stanley said to find your place and get quiet, even if the only quiet place you can find is the bathroom; you will not be bothered there! Go to your place where you do not have to get ready to pray. Go there and pray, both speaking to and listening to God.

Third, when God brings up something in your life, you may not want to deal with it, but you need to deal with it. God must get through our layers of junk that we allow to pile up. When He brings up something, He wants to deal with it, and He is not going deeper until you deal with it. We must confess our sins to God and repent. Confessing is to agree, but repenting means you change. Surrender it to God. Be willing to deal with what He brings up. Surrender is the key. He is waiting for us to get our blinders off so we can see. He loves us too much to get us on the wrong road and miss His best blessings. This is such strong teaching by Stanley. I am not sure who all needs to hear this, but I know I need to hear it. The times we do not feel like praying are the times we need to pray the most.

We want to tell God what we ought to do. But we have to say, "Lord, I want to hear from You." In the prayer room, God showed Stanley that his fight was on his knees, and he must see everything happening to him as coming from God. Why is that? You can't lose. When you see it from God instead of another person, then you accept it from the Lord. You may cry out how that hurt you or how you felt rejected, but if you see it as coming from God, then it prevents you from being bitter. You can never lose by obeying God, no matter what is going on, here is a promise: Jesus Christ causes all things to work together for the good.

I had to push pause and ponder what he said about seeing everything as coming from God. He is sovereign, and He allows things to happen, and He simply knows far more than we know. He turns it for our good. I think about Job and his struggles and eventual triumph. You may be broken over all that has happened: the demise, the heartache, the lack of people or resources, the ill health, etc. There must be a reason, and there is, you just cannot see it yet. He gives us glimpses of what will be, so we move ahead on our knees, taking the blessings and hurts all stemming from the good, good hand of God.

I will close our devotions this week on prayer with one last teaching from Dr. Stanley on the power of prayer. He said, "When will you start getting on your knees once a day reverencing God for the holy God that He is? Claim His mercy, surrender to Him to use you anyway He sees fit. If you want God's best, it begins with Him and that relationship."

Amen.