Sermon By: Pastor Sola Olowokere
Sermon Date: December 10, 2011
Sermon
One of God’s great gifts to us is the ability to pray. Hannah’s change may not have come but for prayer. If she was lazing, her solution may have been deferred or never materialized (1 Samuel 1).
I’m always stumped when some are in trouble and they resort to the “do nothing” approach. Do-nothing wasn’t Hannah’s recourse when she wanted a child bad, though her husband Elkanah didn’t seem concerned about her childlessness. Hannah understood Elkanah had Peninah who had bore him children so she took it upon herself to be better off with her own child. You should never be okay with mediocrity or inadequacies. Too many in church are okay when they shouldn’t be. They are okay throwing and attending all- night parties but not okay coming to church to pray. It’s foolhardy to be satisfied when God hasn’t answered you. So what did Hannah do? She prayed!
Another dimension of the dynamic of prayer is as it relates to your future. It’s a surprise many can’t understand there’s not that much to do with their past. Yes you may have failed, or have been abused but if it belongs in your past, it’s not going to do you much good to hold on to it. Apostle Paul states in Philippians 3:13 “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,” and 2 Corinthians 5:17 states “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Anyone who has a mandate with the future must learn how to move on from the past. Many would have been better off if they understood the ways of the future. For a child of God, there’s always a greater future ahead regardless of her present condition. That’s the reason 1 Corinthians 2:9 says “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” I don’t care what you have lost in the past what you are about to gain is way better because Ecclesiastes 7:8a states “ Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof:” Never let the devil tie you to your past. Be resolute to settle score with your past. There’s nothing too good about your past to hold on to. As 2011 is winding down, let it go! Remember you can’t come into a new morning if you’re holding on to yesterday.
Isaiah 43:18-19 says
18“18 Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. 19Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?”
As you may have noticed, God doesn’t do the new, until you remember not the things of old!
Another truth about the dynamic working of prayer is as it relates to your future. First, you must understand the future is the NOW to God.
Jeremiah 29:10-12 10For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. 11For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. 12Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.”
If you don’t do something about your future you gain nothing.
Third, the danger of the future is, since it can’t be seen it is spiritual. Everything invisible exists in the spiritual. You therefore need spiritual understanding and action to unravel it. The future is yours to do all you want with as one on whose side God is.
Finally, it’s important to understand every year carries a promise. The promise of God to us in the Year 2012 is the Year of the New. That is what you should ask Him for as you approach Him in prayer. Don’t rely on your ability but on His promise. The guarantee of a good future is in His promise not in the great plans you have.
