Thoughts and Prayers...

First let me thank all of you for your prayers these past few days as I have been sick. Just a sinus infection but to me it was significant...enough to cause me to go to the dreaded DOCTOR!! - horrific scream-. Anway, I am feeling much better now as the doctor loaded me up with medications to take. And I am thankful that the Lord is using these medications to bring strength back to my body.

But that is not what this post is about. As many of you are probably aware, yesterday was a tragic day in our nation's history with the murders that took place at Virginia Tech. The worst shooting in American history as I'm sure you have heard based on the number of people killed - 33 or 34.

But what I find interesting in times of national tragedy is how often prayer is mentioned. I can't tell you how many times I have heard people say on these news programs to keep the Virginia Tech family in our thoughts and prayers or that someone being interviewed or speaking says that the VT family is in their thoughts and prayers. Now, I am certainly not against people saying that, but how come it is ok to pray in tragedies and difficulties, but not when things "seem" to be going fine. Or maybe "thoughts and prayers" is just a saying that shows we care. Whatever the case, it is rather ironic that it is demanded by some that public prayer be banned, thrown out, and not mentioned until we seem to be in a place of "real need". Truthfully we ALL need prayer ALL the time because we ALL need to be depending on God.

But as I think of all these people saying they are praying, two questions come to my mind: Are people really praying? Are the prayers of these people being heard?

The reason for that last statement is that there are conditions or requirements for prayer...ones that often are forgotten. I take these from a book called Basic Bible Doctrine by R.C. Barth - founder of Friends of Alcoholics, a friend of our families, and the man whom the Lord used to show me my need of salvation; a man I hold in high regard as a man of God's Word.

The first requirement for being on "praying ground" is having a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, a person has to be saved. If a person is not saved (an unbeliever) then God does not hear their prayer. Sure God knows what they are saying because He is omniscient and so in that case he knows or hears their prayer. But we can only come before God in prayer through our relationship with Jesus Christ who is the Mediator between God the Father and us. Therefore, no relationship with God through Christ = no access to the Father.

The second requirement for being on "praying ground" is having fellowship with God. This concerns believers - those who already have a relationship with God. We do not have fellowship with God if we have unconfessed sin in our lives. So we must confess (say the same thing about our sin that God says about it - calling sin, sin and acknowledging we are guilty) our sin and restore that fellowship before we can have this access to God in prayer.

So relationship and fellowship are the two requirements for being on praying ground. Sincerity is not a requirement. I am sure that there are many people sincerely praying for the VT family during this time whose prayers God will not hear because they are not on "praying ground". While that may not seem like the nicest thing to say, the truths we have mentioned are based in God's Word. That is where I will stand for the truth. For those of us who are on praying ground, we must be faithful to pray often. We have been called to do so.