Study the Word. Pray the Word.

Jesus said that in His name we would cast out devils, heal the sick, raise the dead, drink poisonous things but won’t be hurt and so much more. However, many believers struggle with small headache every other day.

You probably say faith confessions about how much you have received in Jesus because of His sacrifice and how blessed you are.

You might even post them on your social media handles so that your guys can see how spirikoko you are, yunno hashtag, ‘I boast in the Lord, gloryyyy,’ every Sunday morning.

You know all that the Bible has promised you as God’s child in church, all the ‘Pauline’ prayers and such and you get so excited and pumped up and over the roof…until you hook somewhere between debt and frustration.

But why has these promises of God not come to pass in your life? You probably even have one small beef with God because of how hard life is seeming for you.

Then there’s that small envy that’ll now pop up when you occasionally see pictures of people having fun and living life.

Chin in hand, you look all sad and worried like, “So, why am I suffering laidis laidis?”

If this is your state of mind reading this? You’ve come to the right place because I’m about to tell you why because you see, God likes to answer our questions when we ask Him.

That small fear that just came now like, “Aah, you’re questioning God?” Throw it away because that’s not going to take you anywhere. If you can ask your earthly parents questions when you’re confused about stuff and they’d answer you, how much more God?

Jesus said in Matthew 7:11 (NIV), “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

That’s to answer the religion in you, just in case, but I digress.

Let’s look at Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, who is our example. Jesus knew why He was on earth: to liberate men from their sins. He knew this because He read the prophecies that were written about how His life was supposed to go.

Luke 4:17-21 is proof of that. After He found a prophecy about Himself in the book of Isaiah, he says in verse 21, “…Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Now, what do we know about Jesus’ life after that? Did He just close the scripture and conclude that it’ll happen to Him as it was written of Him because like duh, isn’t He the messiah? Of course, His life was supposed to go like the scripture said it would.

But that’s not what Jesus did, if not, He would’ve failed woefully.

I know this because Jesus prayed like no one else ever prayed. He was always in constant communication with God, praying that God’s will for His life would come to pass.

Even what wasn’t written of Him, walking on water, He did it because He prayed.

In Matthew 14 from verse 22, it said that Jesus persuaded His disciples to enter a boat to cross to the other side. Let’s hold that word. After that, He sent the crowds away and went alone to pray.

Evening passed, He was still praying, the night covered, He was still praying. It wasn’t until it was the fourth watch, which is sometime around 3am to 4am in the morning, that He finished praying and started walking on water to meet His disciples on the water.

But He’s Jesus, God made flesh. He could’ve just walked on the water, right? But no, He didn’t. He couldn’t.

He intensely prayed until He knew it like He knew His name that He could walk on water. Because even Jesus knew that if He didn’t pray for the ability to walk on water, He wouldn’t have been able to.

Why? Because Jesus was very much human when He was on earth, with human emotions like fear and human desires like wanting to eat or drink water or be lazy.

Only a man energized by prayer could do all that Jesus did: speaking to crowds, healing the sick, raising the dead, working miracles as easily as laughing. Prayer produced all that.

So what did praying help Him with? It helped His mind believe all that God wanted Him to be. And getting your fearful and doubtful mind to believe in God’s word for you, there’s no going back.

It also helped His flesh to do all that God wanted Him to do because on its own, the flesh wants to relax and be taken care of. It’s weak and doesn’t like to do what God says.

Because we need to do what God says or have our lives following after God’s word, we pray. “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak.”

Lastly, prayer caused the water to recognize the authority that Jesus was using to walk on water. Prayer subjected the water to Jesus’ desire: though it is impossible to walk on top of you, today, I will walk on top of you until I get to my destination.

Everything around us responds to energy, physically or spiritually. And if you want to see God’s promises for you at work in your life, you have to pray until you see all that God promised you come to pass.

Prayer will make you become all that God wants you to be. The fact that you’re feeling off about how your life is seeming right now is God urging you to pray from within you, asking you to create the pathway for Him to do what He wants to do in your life.

That’s what prayer is, causing God’s will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven; subjecting the world around and within you to God’s word.

That’s how Jesus became all that God said He would become. If Jesus prayed to have His life follow after God’s word, you will too. Because we know how the story ends: we come out victorious.

Have you prayed for your life to follow after God’s promises and it seems like it’s not working? Continue praying.

Any time a believer opens up their mouth to pray, power is instantly made available and is fixing things and creating things you won’t be aware of until the full picture is complete (James 5:16).

Praying and stopping because you think you’re not seeing results is like going to the dentist because your teeth are crooked. He gives you braces to wear and after a week, you removed it and shouting, “Omo, braces na full scam.”

But you didn’t give it enough time to work because you were impatient.

Isaiah 28:16 says, “…he that believeth shall not make haste.” You don’t rush things. Rather, you wear those braces because you know that surely, at the end of the process, you’ll be rewarded with straight teeth and a beautiful smile.

There’s a process to seeing God’s word manifest in your life, and it’s nothing else but prayer. Then after praying, confessions will come from your Spirit that will help you stay praying until surely surely, you’ll see God’s word come to pass.

Talk to you soon. Stay praying xx