Draw Near to God in Prayer (Daniel 9:1-4)

by Pastor Cesar Crisostomo |  March 4, 2018

Draw Near to God in Prayer
Daniel 9:1-4
 
This prayer of Daniel is one of the great prayer in the Bible. Not only it is a great example of how to pray but also a great illustration of how you and I can prepare ourselves to draw near to God in prayer. But when it comes to drawing near to God the question is: why should I seek God’s face, why should I turn and call upon Him? What causes people to really run to God? In the last several weeks, you have heard a lot about prayer, but what causes people to draw near to the Lord in prayer?

• There was a project on hand and the people of God needed to seek Him and draw near to Him.
  • 1 Chronicles 22:19 “Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God; arise, therefore, and build the sanctuary of the Lord God, so that you may bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the holy vessels of God into the house that is to be built for the name of the Lord.” (NASB)
• There is a need to and desire to seek God during national troubles or hardships.
  • Daniel 9:3 “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.” (NASB)
• The need to seek God’s face during great adversity.
  • 2 Chronicles 20:3 “Jehoshaphat was afraid and turned his attention to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.”
• David tells us that he ran to God time after time for safety. One thing that he desired most is to seek God.
  • Psalm 27:4 “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:
    That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
    To behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.” (NASB)

 
When it comes to drawing near and seeking God in prayer, how should I come to approach Him? Daniel illustrates for us how.

1. Come to God worshipfully.
   • Psalm 100:4-5 “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.” (NASB)
   • When I come to Him, the first thing that I should immediately do is to have thanksgiving and praise in my heart for all that He has done.
     • Ephesians 5:20 “Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.” (NASB)
     • 1 Thessalonians 5:18 “In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (NASB)
   • While we may not thank God for evil deeds or for things such as sickness, death, and natural disasters, which are the result of the fall, we can thank Him in the midst of these trials as we look to His promises and the hope of heaven. It means giving praise to God over all those things. 
   • There is the ability on our part to begin to smother the works of darkness that come to begin to challenge and threaten our lives and I believe it is through those times of giving thanks over everything. I also believe that praise and thanksgiving reminds me that God is sovereign and is in charge and there isn’t anything that effects my life that He will not bring deliverance and hope to you and me. Familia He will bring deliverance and hope and when you and I give praise and thanks to God we let victory be seen in our life.

 

2. Come to God earnestly (sincerely, seriously).
   • Deuteronomy 4:29-31 “But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice. For the Lord your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.” (NASB)
   • You will find Him when you decide with all your heart that He is everything to you.
   • We need to come earnestly because God has all the answers and knows just what we need. Whatever “giants” we are facing, He already knows what the remedy is.

 

3. Come to God wholeheartedly.
   • 2 Chronicles 16:9 “For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.” (NASB)
   • 2 Corinthians 11:3 “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.” (NASB)
   • God is searching for people, individuals, for churches whose heart is completely devoted to Him. It does not mean we are perfect nor we never made a mistake, it doesn’t mean we don’t have faults in our lives, it means God is searching for people who are pure in their goals, not weak in their focus, undiluted in their purpose. It doesn’t mean that life is without problems, but it means our life is not cluttered with secondary issues. God is looking for people that He is first and that He is everything. He is looking for people that He can bless and show His glory and His grace. He is looking for people who are perfect, not perfect that we haven’t done anything wrong, but perfect in our heart that He is the only answer to our life, to our home, to our family, our island and our nation.
   • Is God first above all else? We look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart, the inside.

 

4. Come to God confidently.
   • Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” (NASB)
   • Drawing near to God often always comes during great trouble. But when you come to God you have to believe that He is a rewarder. In other words, even though you come to Him you may not immediately and automatically get everything you want, when you want it, but He is the rewarder. He is going to do something. He is going to bring about a sense of fulfillment of your desire and the thing you pray for most. Don’t give up and in your not giving up, it gives God the opportunity to do something.
   • Why people give up? What happens when you quit on God is that you will miss the blessing of God. We miss what God is about to do around the corner in our life. We limit God’s use in our lives when we give up. I have discovered that God is bigger than me, that God is greater than you and me and I need to come confidently because I know God is committed to doing something just around the corner that is mighty and great that only He can do.

 

5. Come to God purely.
   • Psalm 24:3-5 “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood And has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord And righteousness from the God of his salvation.” (NASB)
   • We should come purely with a change of heart. It has something to do with forgiveness because guilt eats away from our confidence. I know it does with me. When there is unresolved sin or things in your life that hasn’t been dealt with then we lose sense of confidence before God.
   • Repent and come to God with clean hands.

 
Why should I seek God? Why should I turn to Him? Why should I draw near to Him?

• Exodus 14:8-14 “⁸The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. ⁹ The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon. ¹⁰ As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. ¹¹ They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? ¹² Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” ¹³ Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. ¹⁴ The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (NIV)
• When you have come to a place where there is no place to go, there is no place to turn, there is no hope, facing the impossible, and certainly we face situations and times like these as a people, an island community, a nation. In this place, I believe that God in His mighty grace would say, “no matter where you are, no matter what you are about to see and experience or feel, the challenges to your life, I AM going to show you something in the treasury of my goodness, that I am going to open a door and I will make a way. There is a dead end for you, but it is not for me.” God always has a remedy and always makes a way.
• Don’t be afraid, be determined to draw near to God in prayer, stand still and experience the deliverance of the Lord in your life.