This is the second prayer in the prayer acrostic, P.O.W.E.R.
The left navigation arrow (<) and right navigation arrow (>) above will take you through all of the prayers in POWER.
O: Do Obedience in us!
- "Now I pray to God that you do no evil" (2 Corinthians 13:7).
Prayerful Observations:
These are the words of Paul the apostle to the Church at Corinth. Obedience is something that is granted by God to His children through prayers of faith. If we believe that God will grant obedience through our prayer, He will. If we don't, He won't. We shouldn't expect anything from prayers prayed with doubt (James 1:5-7).
It is a matter of "who" do we trust for our obedience. In John 15:5 Jesus said, "apart from me, you can do nothing." My spiritual life is being transformed as I give up on my ability to obey God and trust fully on Him to do obedience in me. I didn't say that I gave up on obedience. I gave up on trying harder. We do make a choice. The choice is to ask God to do obedience in me.
If our spiritual progress is two steps forward and two steps back, then we must change the object of our faith. Paul would not have prayed this prayer if it was not necessary. Obedience is something that God does in us.
God chooses how and when to answer prayer. This is explained in the section titled "The Progressive Nature of Answered Prayer" in the subchapter titled "Conditions for Answered Prayer" (subchapter 4.11). He may use suffering over time to perfect obedience in us.
In 1 Peter 4:1-2 it is written, "Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God".
Yes, sin can cease. Cessation from sin can come about through pain... lots of physical pain. And, yes, it is worth it. Just how complete this cessation from sin is, I do not know. The apostle Paul didn't know. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 4:3-4 "I don't judge my own self. 4 For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by this, but he who judges me is the Lord." Notice that the passage from 1 Peter says, "arm yourselves also with the same mind". We should arm ourselves with the mindset that Christ had. He was willing to suffer to do God's will. That willingness is armor. It is hard for Satan to intimidate a saint into sin, when the saint is willing to suffer for His Lord.
We know that this cessation of sin takes place in this life since the passage states: "that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God".
Possibly, this is one reason for fasting in prayer. The practice of fasting is a choice to suffer for a spiritual purpose. Fasting helps break the habit of automatically avoiding suffering. Acts 13:2-3 and Acts 14:23 provide examples of fasting in the New Covenant. Of course, fasting is something that is done in conjunction with prayer.
As we suffer pain, we should fix our spiritual eyes on God within. In intense pain, I have spent long periods meditating, seeing Jesus on the cross in my mind's eye. We should make good use of all of our pain. Instead of focusing on the pain, we should dwell on Him. By prayer, we can do this. We turn, turn, turn and behold the Lord.
To see all five prayers in the prayer acronym, POWER, click here.
To see nine different prayer acronyms, click here.