For When You Feel Like Your Prayers Are Bouncing Off The Ceiling

Hello fellow lovers of God’s Word!
Hope you have had an awesome week so far?
For me?
I’m just glad that we can have our study together again. I can’t explain just how much this space calms my heart and gives me so much revelation in God’s Word.
It is a privilege for the Word to be our pleasure and delight. So many people haven’t gotten the “rhema” yet. I pray that God will open more and more eyes and hearts to the truth in His Word.

 

And I guess that our title has already prepared you for today’s Bible Study yes? But sit tight still, the revelation on here will have you holding on tightly to your prayer time with God.

 

So I love writing Bible study on stuff that God is personally teaching me and I stumbled around for a bit before I found out that yes, this is it for this week.
Something happened on saturday that had me screaming in my head “Lord, if it takes you 14 years to bring my answer to physical manifestation, I will still pray”
Something that had been on my prayer and confession list since last year came to fruition.
Terrible news came in and in the midst of almost being agitated, peace came in and I thanked God (Peace was last week’s Bible study, see how Bible studies here help me? I almost always go through whatever I have written here)
Not too long afterwards, the great news flowed in and I was just simply overwhelmed with thanksgiving to our Daddy.
You see, so many of us are praying for ourselves and family members and it just seems like heaven is closed to our cries but is that the reality or just our feeling?

 

Hopefully today’s Bible study will open our eyes to the truth… The truth that no prayer from our lips ever fall to the ground empty.
How do I know this?
Yep! The Word to the rescue.
Revelation 8:3-4
“Then another angel with a gold incense burner came and stood at the altar. And a great amount of incense was given to him to mix with the prayers of God’s people as an offering on the gold altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, mixed with the prayers of God’s holy people, ascended up to God from the altar where the angel had poured them out.”

 
Now pause there…
I first saw this verse when I was in Law School last year and it was like a light bulb went off in my head. I wrote in my journal and was just screaming hallelujah!
Now, these proceedings happened in heaven and John was privileged to have been shown them.

 
Go to Revelation 1:1
“This is a revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the events that must soon take place. He sent an angel to present this revelation to his servant John”

 

And Revelation 1:10
“It was the Lord’s Day, and I was worshiping in the Spirit. (we can’t pause here to explore worshiping in the spirit can we? All we can just know is that great things happen when we worship in spirit and in truth)
Suddenly, I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet blast. It said, “Write in a book everything you see, and send it to the seven churches in the cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

 

So John was given this revelation by Christ Jesus and was shown events that will happen in heaven and the one in Revelation 8 is one event in heaven where the Lamb-Jesus had broken the 7th seal and when He did so, an angel came and mixed the prayers of God’s holy people and the prayers ascended to God from the altar where the angel poured them out(refer to above scripture again)
Now, before we deal with prayers as offerings, let’s deal with the first question this verse presents…

Who are God’s holy people?
1Peter 2:9-10
“But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, A HOLY NATION, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. “Once you had no identity as a people;now you are God’s people.Once you received no mercy;now you have received God’s mercy.”

 

Now again, stop at you are God’s people who have received God’s mercy…
What did God’s mercy do here?
Ephesians 2:4 to the rescue…
“But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)”

 

So from those verses, all who have accepted and walk in the salvation that God in His mercy have given to us, are God’s holy people.
So none of us who are born again should start feeling like our prayers are not from a holy person. We have to clarify this because satan works terribly with the thoughts in our mind.
So that said…
Let’s go back to our main discourse for today…
The prayers of God’s holy people was offered up as an incense to God in heaven.

 
Now, as Christians, we walk by faith and not by feelings. We walk in accordance with God’s Word.
So we may feel like our prayers are bouncing off the ceiling – that we are getting no response from God (emphasis on FEEL LIKE) but no, Revelation 5:8 is what actually happens in heaven when God’s holy people pray.
Their prayers are offered up to God as an offering.

 

I’m just thinking…
Aside from our getting an answer from God for what we ask for, our prayers work for more than that in the grand scheme of things.
They are offerings unto God.
Again, see Revelation 5:8
” And when he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they held gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.”

 

 

This is another event in heaven when Jesus took the scroll from God’s hands.
The 24 elders and the four living beings took the bowls filled with incense which are the prayers of God’s people and offered it to God.
Now, what is incense?
Dictionary says it’s a perfume often used in the rites of various religions.
Don’t perfumes give off a sweet smell?
So aside from God answering our prayers for what we ask for, our prayers are actually sweet smelling perfumes to Him.
So there we go, our prayers do not bounce off the ceiling, no matter what we may feel happens, they go up to God in heaven and actually go to Him as an offering.

 
So then 1John 5:13 says…
“And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.”

 

Note, we can be confident… why?
Because our prayers surely ascend to God in heaven.
If it’s a sweet smelling incense, then of course, God hears us when we pray.
Now, let’s come down from heaven and come down to earth for evidence that prayers ascend to where they should go – to God.

 

Acts 10:4
“Cornelius stared at him in terror. “What is it, sir?” he asked the angel.And the angel replied, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have been received by God as an offering!”

 

See it again?
Just like our verses in Revelation?
Cornelius prayers as an offering moved God to send an angel on Cornelius behalf.
So aside from what Cornelius prayed for, God received his prayers and sent Him a greater gift of salvation.
Oh, can we still say after all this that our prayers bounce off the ceiling?
Even if we don’t feel like God hears us, our feelings can never be the gauge of truth.
Let the Word be the truth in our lives like it should be.
The Word says that our prayers are incenses offered to God and so it is.
They smell sweetly to His nostrils and ascend to His throne.
What other proof do we need to tell us that God is working whether we see the manifestation or not?
1John 5:13 says we already have the confidence that He hears us when we ask for anything.

 
So what I am even learning now, is to not just pray for my needs to be met, but to pray just because I even know that God loves my prayers which smell sweetly to Him.
Oh, that should excite us.
That means that it gives our Father pleasure when we pray to Him.
What else do we need to set our prayer life on fire?
And I don’t mean just the “die, die, die” prayers, I mean communicating with God even as we go about our daily lives.
Romans 12:1 (msg version says)
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.”

 

So as we go about our daily lives, we should talk and smile with God knowing that He loves these offerings of ours.
That’s what prayer is – communicating with God.
Tell Him you love Him, tell Him about the guy you just met, ask for strength to do the task given to you at work, ask for Him to help you when you feel like you are loosing it.
God so loves our communication with Him.
Make prayers to God a part of your life – they ascend as sweet smelling offerings to God.

 
If we can understand this knowledge about prayer and let in sink in, our relationship with God won’t be boring.
Because we would know that our communication(prayers) gives pleasure to God and what thrills Him will also thrill us to no end.
Your prayers don’t bounce off the ceiling…
They ascend to God as sweet smelling offering… no less.

 

Prayer – Lord grant us grace to live our everyday life in you.
Help us to pray and communicate with you as we should.
And let what thrills you thrill us to no end also.
Thank you Father for this confidence that our prayers are heard by you.
Thank you Jesus….

 
As always blog family, I love hearing from you all on wednesdays.
Did you get any insight as you read? (I hope you did)…then please hit us with your thoughts at the comment section below.
Are there any other verses that have helped you out of the funk of a dry prayer life? Do share with us below, I will love to learn from you 🙂

 

Till our next Bible Study,
Much love,
Frances.

 

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