“Make Your Request Known”

Philippians 4:4-7

4) Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.

5) Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.

6) Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

7) And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

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his may seem like an unnecessary command, but we find it vitally important to our understanding. We often desire the Lord to do something for us, yet exercise a way of talking that gets us nowhere. Meaning what? Some of us are intentionally vague, figuring the least we say, the least to which we are committed. Others are conscious lest their words come back to haunt them.

What we must understand is that God uses what is available to Him. Though He needs “information” with which to work (so to speak), we limit what He can do until we put all into His hands and trust Him to do His best for us.

Why is it even after making our requests known, we do not receive? Often, because of the “orientation of our expectation.” All too frequently, our expectation is for the natural, rather than the spiritual. Therefore, we miss the Lord in our solution, completely. It is sad to say, but when Man is desiring a physical blessing, he is most often not ever interested in hearing of the spiritual.

It is important for us to remember that if we “limit” God concerning the blessings we request of Him, we must be prepared to accept that it might take awhile to get them. After all, what we have done is tell Him that we will allow Him to do what’s best. So, if what we want takes longer, then that’s what the Lord has to do.

Another thing that interferes with our getting what we ask of the Lord is our willingness to commit. That is, we tell Him what we want but it is presented as a “wish list” rather than requests believed and accepted as done.

Inhibiting us from allowing ourselves to believe God is that fact that we suffer frequent guilt feelings because of what we don’t do for the Lord. Though we often know we need to change, we wait. Then, once we decide to do something, we expect that decision to be the miracle which will “make” us be saved. What we really need to do is to learn to be content in whatever state we find ourselves. We will be able to accomplish this only by learning to praise Him in all situations. How else will a very disillusioned world come to know that it is the Lord who cares for us? It is He who takes care of us?

Have you ever noticed that when you are already unhappy, it seems that everything goes wrong? For our own good, we must not get into a state of complaining and unhappiness. If we desire joy then, we must learn to praise God. Even this is a request unto God. By praising Him, we are showing that we are looking for joy. How can He not bless when we approach Him with confidence?

Now what are some of the Lord’s request of us? For one thing, to please Him we need to learn to practice self-restraint. That is, we need to be on an “even keel,” neither easily made happy in the flesh, nor discouraged in the spirit. We cannot be like the pendulum, which swings from one extreme to other. After all, if one is so easily made happy in the flesh, he can as easily be moved by the negative. In a word, “stability” must become our goal.

Of what must we convince God? That our faith and confidence is in Him and His constancy, not in things. When we learn where to properly place our trust, we will be over concerned about nothing. Achieving this is as simply as asserting “I accept my blessing, I accept my deliverance, I accept all things to be already done.”

It is time for us to pray for the Lord to open our eyes that we may see into the Spirit. It makes no sense for us to be cast down from “seeing” things in the natural world. In that we know that whether we can see them or not, victories are being won in the spiritual world, we need to begin to praise Him for those victories. Perhaps then we will stop being bound by natural events.