Benefits of Prayer

What are the benefits of Prayer?

• Divine Guidance
• Divine Help
• Inner joy
• Inner peace
• Trust
• Reinforced Hope
• Reinforced Belief

Be Thankful Always

Being Thankful means changing your attitude, mindset and heart towards life.

• Seeing the good
• Looking for the good
• Mentioning the good
• Glorifying the good
• Meditating on the good
• Living in the good

Why being thankful?

Being thankful changes your personality, it makes you a mentally powerful person who can manage every challenge life throws at them.

Being thankful is likely to change the people around you and your surroundings also since its positive energy is infectious and can enlighten the darkness.

Besides, being thankful is the greatest form of worship because it will fill your heart with peace.

In addition, based on the law of attraction, more goodness, better solutions, blessing and positive energy will be attracted to your life since goodness becomes your meditation and focus.

So let thankfulness be your constant meditation.

How?

Say and show the thank yous, appreciations, gratefulness wholeheartedly and sincerely

When to be thankful?

Everyday, every moment - let thankfulness be your mental meditation, attitude and worship

What for Being Thankful?

Make it personal and real, look at your own life!

• For who God is, for what God has already done for us (blessings) and for what He will do for us
• For people in our lives, for who they are and for what they will do for us, for what we will do for them
• For events in our lives, for what they are and the blessings they will bring for us
• For nature and its blessings
• For our-self, our willingness to change, our desire to help and grow, etc
• Everything...

What about the Bads in life?

Bads are what cause the hurts, the imperfections, negatives, disrespects, betrayals, losses, defeats, thefts, offenses, failures, shortcomings, mistakes, regrets, crimes, penalties, accidents, sicknesses, etc. Anything that's not good.

Do not let the slaps and the pains of life break down your soul!

How to deal with Bads in life?

Review the experience, humbly identify the lessons in those experiences and be thankful that you're now wiser and more mature which helps you make better decisions in the future so

Be thankful excitedly for the lessons learnt and the wiser you

Identify the positive actions you can take now, the changes you can make that are likely to reduce or remove the Bads, the skills and strength which can be developed now and to create better future experiences so 

Be thankful excitedly for the positive actions that you can take now and the changes that you can make now to create better results

So that you're empowered with the right mental attitude to address and turn those challenges into goodness.

The most powerful is the changes you will identify and feel determined to make as a result of those lessons and experiences

Verses

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." (Phil. 4:6)

"People were rebuked for not thanking God for their harvest." (Jeremiah 5:24-25)

"Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!"

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."

https://www.countryliving.com/life/g32348015/bible-verses-about-being-thankful/

http://www.believers.org/believe/bel118.htm

Thankful Quotes: http://www.great-inspirational-quotes.com/thankful-quotes.html

The Wisest Man That Ever Lived

Prayer for wisdom.

Learn from the wise, truely skilled and experienced.

Solomon, the wisest man who have ever lived on earth,: http://www.stpaulshalifax.org/sermon030914.pdf

Wisdom is a divine gift that God gives to people and you can ask for it.

If we seek wisdom, then we need to ask for the Holy Spirit to take hold of our minds and inhabit our hearts.

Everyone needs a mentor and Jesus is the best mentor ever; walk with Him.

Converse With God Every Day

Build up your personal relationship with God by conversing with Him every single day at least 2 times.

Blessed are those who realize their need for God and converse with Him.

Fear No One and Nothing But God!

...

What is God's Will For Your Life?

Why Would You Bother about God's Will?

What is your motivation to know God's Will? Why would you bother?

1)

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him (1 JOHN 5:14-15)."

Who doesn't want to get whatever he asks? So, when you know what God's Will is, you will have whatever you ask; it's a good motivation, isn't it?!

For me this is enough to decide living according to the Will of God.

2)

"The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever (1 John 2:17)."

While knowing everything passes away, the only way to have eternal life is to do God's Will . How can you do God's Will if you don't know it?

Eternal life has no meaning without knowing everything else perishes and passes away.

3)

Jesus said: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21)."

When you know what Will of God is and you do it; you do enter the Kingdom of Heaven according to this verse. I am not sure what Christ meant by Kingdom of Heaven though. Understanding would make this a motivation.

4)

Jesus said: "For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother (Matthew 12:50)."

People who love Jesus, would love to be considered Jesus's brother and family indeed. So this would be another potential motivation.

5)

"You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised (Hebrews 10:36)."

Another motivation to know and do God's will is that you would receive what God has promised to you. What are God's promises to you anyway?...

What is God's Will for Your Life Anyway?

If you say "I don't know what is God's Will", you are probably right because you might not know but Bible knows!

Let's see how much we can understand God's Will for our lives from Bible...

1)

"Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen (Galatians 1:3-5)".

God's will for our life is that we are rescued! We are rescued from evil of the present age and sins of this world. That has been prepared by God sending Jesus to this world to save the world from sins. Why? What is the problem with sins and evil anyway? ...

2)

"For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:40)."

So, another aspect of God's Will for us is to have eternal life through believing in Christ Jesus.

Everything in this world will passes away and only those who believe in Christ will have eternal life according to Bible. What does this belief mean? What does it want from us? ...

3)

"It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4).

So God's Will for you is that you

• Should be sanctified
• Should learn to control your body in a way that is holy and honorable
• Should avoid sexual immorality

4)

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)."

• Be joyful always
• Pray continually
• Give thanks in all circumstances

5)

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2).

This verse says that in order to test and approve God's Will, we should be renewing our mind. God's Will is different from pattern of this world! I am not sure what this means. Renewing our mind from what to what?

Does this mean that God's Will is always good, pleasing and perfect or only when we renew our mind we will approve God's Will as good, ...?

6)

"For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men (1 Peter 2:15 )."

So doing good is another God's Will. What is Good anyway? Good in our eyes or in the eyes of God, as they might differ sometimes?

Who are foolish men that talk ignorant? They should be silenced not by sword but by good doing.

Good thoughts, Good words and good deeds.

"It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit (1 Peter 3:17-18)."

Peter says that sometimes you might suffer for doing good as long as you are sure what you're doing is God's Will. This suffer is better than doing evil.

Well, this seems to be very challenging and hard to practice. Doing what is good in the eyes of God even if we suffer? sounds weird, hmm...

For instance, Jesus suffered and got crucified so that whoever believes in him is saved (God's Will). What about in our lives?

How can God's Will be good if it hurts you and you suffer by doing it? Is it like No Pain No Gain?

I Gave You a Cup (of Wine) But You

Since I have decided to be more serious about some of my dreams I would like to share this story too.

About 5 years ago and few months after that event, one night I saw a dream. I saw Jesus coming to me in a room with 2 other men behind him. I don't know who the other 2 were but I recognized Jesus.

He was dressed very normally and there was nothing very special about his appearance to be honest. He wasn't angry but he wasn't happy either.

He told me this and left the room after a while:

"I gave you a cup (of wine) and you drank half of it but you throw away the other half and broke the cup."

I thought with myself that if I drank half of your cup (of wine), that was my decision and that was right and I have no regret. I am sure God has many more cups to give me if needed. I was rebellion in other words.

At the time I saw the dream, I hadn't read the bible, didn't know much about Jesus and didn't know anything about the story of Jesus giving wine to his disciplines at the Last Supper.

At the time, I ignored this and didn't think about it much. I am not sure what He meant by this.

I will write about the meaning of "Jesus Giving Cup of Wine" from Bible when I find some time.