For my hip hop aficionados (over 30) you may remember No Limit Records, the record label founded by Master P (Percy Miller) whose artists experienced tremendous success from 1991 – 2001 selling more than 50 million rap albums combined. I was a self-proclaimed “No Limit Soldier” myself. During a recent conversation catching up with a dear friend, God reminded us to take the limits off Him when we pray, amongst other things. My friend suggested that I post a devotional about the topic, so here we are.
Psalm 78: 41-42 (NIV) “Yes, again and again they tempted God, And limited the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember His power …” – Psalm 78: 41-42 (NIV)
There is No Limit to what God can do in our lives when trust Him completely. The Israelites had a habit of limiting God throughout the Old Testament. Just like the Israelites, we limit God often through our prayers and forget His power. What we pray reflects what we believe about God. Our response to answered prayers, or the lack thereof, reveals our true trust in God. The way we pray can limit God’s ability to move fully in and through our lives. Many of us have been taught to be as specific as we can when we pray. However, in our extreme specificity, we insist upon a definite blessing being given, which places God in a box and attempts to subject His sovereignty to our control.
You have no control over the timing, manner, or method God uses to answer your prayers or bless you. Attempts to control those things limit what God is able to do in your life. Prayers for an opportunity to present itself by a specific date is wrought with the false assumption that we control when God blesses us. Some are bold enough to tell God the precise method He should use to bless them. Others pray what I call “leading prayers,” prayers that prompts or encourages the desired answer. A leading prayer goes a little something like this: Lord, give me guidance on whether I should buy a new house in June or July. What if God wanted to bless you with a new home in January? What if God wants you to remain in your current residence and not buy anything? Despite our limiting prayers, we have the audacity to get upset when God doesn’t answer our prayers the way we want Him to, or when it seems as if He is taking too long to answer. Through it all, God still loves us.
As Pastor Dharius Daniels so eloquently states, “sometimes when we pray for things we don’t need, God will give us what we ask for, not because we need it, but because if God can’t teach us through instruction, He will teach us through experience.” Did you catch that? God loves you so much that He will give you what you ask for solely to teach you through experience. God wanted a better relationship for you, but you ignored God’s instructions and asked for the one you have, so He gave it to so you can see it was not what you needed and learn to trust Him. Despite God leading you to wait, you prayed to have your house sold by June and God gave that to you, but the value of that home doubled in August. Experiences like this teach us to obey God when He tells us to wait. God’s way is ALWAYS the best way. God only wants the best for you. He wants you to experience Him without limits, but we have to relinquish our desire for control.
In the words of the late great Victorian English Baptist minister Charles Spurgeon, we limit God by dictation to Him and distrust of Him. Dictation in this sense means the action of giving orders authoritatively or categorically. We limit God when we give God orders or assume authority over God in prayer. Spurgeon’s 1859 sermon “Limiting God” prescribes that we dictate to God (1) with regard to the particular type of blessings, (2) with regard to the measure of our blessings, and (3) with regard to time.
Prayer was not created for us to usurp the sovereignty of God. God provides us with the ability to ask for a blessing, but not to define what the blessing should be. Yet, we still have a tendency to pray that God provides us with a specific type of blessings. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays, “[m]y Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39 NASB). Notice that Jesus’ prayer begins and ends with “if it is possible” and “not as I will, but as you will,” acknowledging both the limits of His humanness and the sovereignty of God. Jesus’ prayer leaves the possibilities totally open to God. God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows what we need more than we do. Trust that God knows the exact answer and type of blessing you need to walk in the fullness of your purpose.
God’s blessings may not come to us the way we expect. You pray for peace and instead experience adversity, but God uses that adversity to teach you how to have peace in all circumstances. You pray for a closer relationship with God, and instead, He reveals the hardness of your heart so those internal issues can be addressed, creating in you a clean heart and allowing you to draw closer to Him. It’s imperative to develop a personal relationship with God so you’re able to spiritually discern where God is at work or you may miss your blessings or make the mistake of cursing your blessing because it doesn’t look like what you expected. God wants you to pray with a spirit of expectation but wants you to trust in His power, sovereignty, and omniscience more than the outcome.
Sometimes when we pray, we set a date and time in our hearts for God to answer. We pray for healing, but lose hope and stop praying if we feel God is taking too long. When that promotion is taking longer than expected we start to doubt if God hears our prayers. Yes, God hears ALL your prayers, but He moves on HIS time, not yours. Habakkuk 2:3 states “for the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.” (NKJV). Tarry means to delay. God’s word will not return to Him empty but will accomplish what He desires and achieve the purpose for which He sent it (Isiah 55:11). When God gives you a promise that something will happen, you can count on His word 100%. It may seem like it’s taking longer than you expect, but it will manifest in its due season, in God’s time, not yours.
In discussing God’s timing, it’s imperative to understand the difference between chronos (meaning chronology or sequential time) and kairos (meaning the right, opportune, or appointed moment). Both chronos and kairos mean “time” in Greek. Chronos is determined by man and is any measurable amount of time (i.e. one month, three minutes, five years, etc.). However, kairos is solely determined by God and is incalculable (i.e in due season, appointed time, proper time, etc.). With God, a single day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a single day (2 Peter 3:8). You can’t measure God’s timing using man’s time. God is clear that His plans are not our plans, nor are our ways His ways (Isaiah 55: 8-9). God’s timing is ALWAYS on time.
We limit God when we distrust Him. When whatever we've been praying for, or about, gets worse instead of better our natural inclination is to doubt God and His authority. In doing that, we essentially declare that our troubles are greater than God’s power, which is the furthest from the truth. There is NOTHING too hard for God. No matter how far in sin you are, God’s grace can save you. You are not so lost that God cannot find you. You are not so sick that God cannot heal you. You are not so broken that God cannot mend you. You are not so far away from God that he cannot restore you. No matter what you’ve done or who you are, God loves you. Your sin is not above God’s grace. Your situation, problem, struggle, or circumstance is NOT too hard for God to handle. Don’t limit how God can heal you, deliver you, restore you, bless you, elevate you, provide for you, comfort you, speak to you, or answer your prayers. There is no limit to what God can do.
Trusting God without limits means acknowledging that God can do it, while still being committed to serving God if He doesn’t do it. How do you respond when the outcome is not what you expect? Do you still trust God? In Daniel 3:16-18, three Hebrew boys (Shadrach, Meschach, and Abed-Nego) were literally thrown into a fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar and worship his golden image. Prior to being thrown in the furnace, they tell Nebuchadnezzar that God is able to deliver them from the burning furnace, but even if God doesn’t, they will not serve his gods or worship the gold image. Trusting God without limits means not being tied to the outcome because you trust in the God of the outcome. In the case of the three Hebrew boys, God delivers them from the fiery furnace completely unharmed. That same God can deliver you. As Spurgeon states, if God said it, He can find ways and means to do it. There is no limit to what God can do when we take the limits off.
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