The Good Man's Prayer
1 Pet 3:10-12 (TEB) As the Scripture says, "Whoever wants to enjoy life and wishes to see good times, must keep from speaking evil and stop telling lies. He must turn away from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the Lord keeps his eyes on the righteous and always listens to their prayers; but he turns against those who do evil."
1 Pet 3:12 (NIV) "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."
John 11:41-42 (NIV) ...Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they might believe that you sent me."
John 9:31 (NIV) [The just healed blind man] "We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will."
Ps 66:16-20 (NIV) Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer. Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!
James 5:13-16 (Phi) If any of you is in trouble let him pray. If anyone is flourishing let him sing praises to God. If anyone is ill he should send for the church elders. They should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord's name. Believing prayer will save the sick man; the Lord will restore him and any sins that he has committed will be forgiven. You should get into the habit of admitting your sins to each other, and praying for each other, so that you may be healed. Tremendous power is available through a good man's earnest prayer.
James 5:16-18 (NEB) ...A good man's prayer is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man with human frailties like our own; and when he prayed in earnest that there should be no rain, not a drop fell on the land for three years and a half; then he prayed again, and down came the rain and the land bore crops once more.
1 Jn 3:21-22 (Phi) And if, dear friends of mine, our conscience no longer accuses us, we may have the utmost confidence in God's presence. We receive whatever we ask for, because we are obeying his orders and following his wishes.
2 Cor 3:5(NAS) Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.
Php 3:9 (TCN) Any righteousness that I have being, not the righteousness that results from Law, but the righteousness which comes through faith in Christ--the righteousness which is derived from God and is founded on faith. (Rom 10:3)
Gal 2:15-16 (TCN) ...Know that no one is pronounced righteous [good] as the result of obedience to Law, but only through faith in Christ Jesus. So we place our faith in Christ Jesus, in order that we might be pronounced righteous, as the result of faith in Christ, and not of obedience to Law...
Humble Prayer
Luke 18:9-14 (Phi) Then he [Jesus] gave this illustration to certain people who were confident of their own goodness and looked down on others. "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one was a Pharisee, the other was a tax-collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed like this with himself, 'O God, I do thank thee that I am not like the rest of mankind, greedy, dishonest, impure, or even like that tax-collector over there. I fast twice every week; I give away a tenth-part of all my income.' But the tax-collector stood in a distant corner, scarcely daring to look up to Heaven, and with a gesture of despair, said, "God, have mercy on a sinner like me.' I assure you that he was the man who went home justified in God's sight, rather than the other one. For everyone who sets himself up as somebody will become a nobody, and the man who makes himself nobody will become somebody.
Ezra 9:5-6 (NRS) At the evening sacrifice I got up from my fasting, with my garments and my mantle torn, and fell on my knees, spread out my hands to the Lord my God, and said, "O my God, I am too ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens."
2 Chr 7:13-14 (NIV) "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locust to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
James 4:2-5,7-10 (Phi) ...You don't get what you want because you don't ask God for it. And when you do ask he doesn't give it to you, for you ask in quite the wrong spirit--you only want to satisfy your own desires. You are like unfaithful wives, never realizing that to be the world's lover means becoming the enemy of God! Anyone who chooses to be the world's friend is thereby making himself God's enemy. Or do you think what the Scriptures have to say about this is a mere formality? ...Be humble then before God... You are sinners: get your hands clean again. Your loyalty is divided: get your hearts made true once more. You should be deeply sorry, you should be grieved, you should even be in tears. Your laughter will have to become mourning, your high spirits will have to become dejection. You must humble yourself in the sight of the Lord before he will lift you up.
On Posture...
Ps 95:6 (NIV) Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
Rom 14:11 (NIV) ..."Every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God."
Acts 21:5 (NIV) ...and there on the beach we knelt to pray.
Ps 123:1 (NIV) I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven.
John 11:41 (NAS) ...Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me."
John 17:1 (NRS) After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, "Father..."
Ps 134:2 (NIV) Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord.
Ps 63:4 (NIV) I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
1 Tim 2:1,8 (NIV) I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone... I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer...
