Partnering in Prayer - A Lenten Devotion - Day 32 - Dead Lamb Walking

Day 32 – Saturday
Dead Lamb Walking

Matthew 9:5-6 (New International Version)5Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? 6But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home."
Romans 8:31-32 (New International Version)31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
How is it even conceivable that some praying people believe that God ha not heard or answered their prayers? Even if Jesus never said, “Get up and walk,” He had already said, “Your sins are forgiven.” Even if God never gave us anything we ever asked for, He has already given us salvation through His Son—a gift we neither asked for, nor are worthy of. If God never answered another prayer of mine for the rest of my life, I would be happy that Jesus has said, “Your sins are forgiven!” That would be enough. But thanks be to God, who gives more than we could ever ask or imagine!

Romans 8:35-39 (New International Version)
35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is with this kind of confidence that I can enter into prayer – knowing that (a) I am already dead, a lamb to be slaughtered (and dead sheep have no needs), and (b) that nothing can seprate me from God’s love. That’s because, since I am dead, I’m in Heaven already. My soul belongs to the Lord, and my spirit went to God the moment Jesus’ spirit replaced it in me, at my salvation. I am God’s—nothing can keep me from His love. So when I pray, I do so in the assurance that He is more than able to answer my prayers (“Rise up and walk,”) but regardless of whether I get my way or not, He’s already had His way by giving me His grace. That makes for the sweetest prayer time imaginable!