Getting it Right with God - Part 3: Pray, Seek and Turn | Pastor Boniface
Getting it Right with God - Part 3: Pray, Seek and Turn | Pastor Boniface Mgonja
Sunday, March 26, 2023 - Bethel Pentecostal Church, Barrhead, AB, Canada
Key Verse: 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV)
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, and PRAY,
AND SEEK MY FACE, AND TURN FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS;
then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Scripture: Luke 18: 1-8 (NIV)
1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always
pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who
neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in
that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my
adversary.’
4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t
fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering
me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack
me!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God
bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will
he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you; he will see that they get justice, and
quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
DEFINITIONS:
Pray: To commune with God.
In Hebrews Bible: Is an evolving means of interacting with God, most
frequently through spontaneous, individual, unorganized form of
petitioning and/or thanksgiving.
It is a means to offer supplication to God or humble praise to God
Seek My face: put aside destructions and other priorities and just focus on Him.
Turn from their wicked ways:
Rebellion i.e., playing around some other things and not God.
Turn from your other ways and make deal with God.
KEY POINTS:
Prayer can make things happen both in spiritual and physical realm.
Prayer can transform your life and ministry.
Our lives depend on prayer = “A Christian without prayer, is a fish out of
the water”
HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYER:
1. Sin and inequities:
Isa. 59:1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; Nor His
ear heavy, that it cannot hear.2 But your iniquities have separated you from
your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not
hear.
Unbroken relationship with God.
2. Giving up/Lack of faith:
Matth 21:22 "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
Luke 18:1…they should always pray and not give up…5 yet because this widow
keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice."
1 Thes 5:17 pray without ceasing.
Regardless of circumstances – e.g. Hannah.
3. Wrong motive:
James 4:3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong
motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
Our motives should be “God receive glory, honor and adoration”.
4. Unforgiving spirit:
Mark 11:25 But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a
grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.
One of the greatest joys in the world is “be at peace with God and your
fellow.”
o Rom 12:18 Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.
o Heb 12:14 Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be
holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
Causes of Unforgiveness:
o Past hurt, rejection, abandonment and offenses from friends, parents,
siblings, pastors, fellow workers, fellow church members etc…
YOU JUST NEED TO LET IT GO- resentment, bitterness etc. = Obstacles to your
spiritual and physical breakthrough **Mfano**
o Extend a hand of forgiveness.
o Accept a hand of forgiveness.
[Isaiah 43:18] “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19 See, I
am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am
making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
“THEN I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”