In Phil 4:6, we read, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to Yehovah.”
Here in Phil 4:6, the Bible shows us how we are to pray. We should never be anxious when we pray; instead, we should tell Yehovah what we need and thank Him for already giving it to us even if we do not see it yet. (Mark 11:24)
Is this how you pray?
If you are like most of us, you only resort to prayer when something happens in life that makes you anxious. Anxiety, stress, fear, or worry has become the driving force that motivates you to pray, and Yehovah has become your fire insurance keeping you out of hell, but He is not your God and Lord.
Most of us pray with anxiety because we do not have a close relationship with Yehovah. He has become more like a 911 operator we call in an emergency, but we dont want anything to do with him if there is no emergency.
So how do we pray as Phil 4:6 tells us to pray?
Step nr 1 to pray without anxiety is to build a relationship with Yehovah. As you have learned by now, Yehovah is very passionate about His Torah (the written law of Moses.) So if you reject the Torah, then there is no way for you to have a relationship with Him. This is why the first step to building a relationship with Yehovah is to learn His Torah and obey it. Show Him that you really love Him by choosing to obey His Torah (John 14:15)
The Torah is the key to praying without anxiety and to a close relationship with Yehovah, your God. Why the Torah? Because the Torah is righteousness, and our God is righteous. So He can only have a close personal relationship with those who are like Him, righteous.
The Bible says, in 1. John 3:7, the one who obeys the Torah, is righteous because the Torah is righteousness. In Prov 15:29, the Bible says Yehovah only listens to the prayers of the righteous. So if you want Him to listen to and respond to your prayers, you first have to make sure you obey Torah so that you can become righteous.
But what about those who reject the Torah?
There is, of course, a difference between knowing the Torah still applies and choosing to reject it. And those who out ignorance believe the Torah no longer applies and have therefore decided to reject it. If you know the Torah and the Mosaic covenant is still in effect, and you choose to reject it, you lose your righteousness.
If you believe the Torah and the Mosaic covenant no longer applies to you because you trust more in what your pastor says than what the Bible says, you are still righteous up to a point. Why? Because Yehovah knows you have made that choice out of ignorance, not out of a willful rejection of His Torah. But as I said, you are righteous up to a point because Yehovah will try to show you time and time again how the Mosaic covenant still applies to you. If you keep rejecting it, it can become hazardous for you to do so. (Matt 7:21-23)
What about justification and the cross?
The Torah can not justify us; only the cross can justify us. But the cross can not make you righteous; only the Torah can make you righteous. Without righteousness, you can not enter heaven (James 2.) Without justification, you can not enter heaven. Justification by faith in the cross is the same as obeying the Torah and becoming righteous. Therefore you can never separate the two.
How?
Obedience to the Torah involves obeying the sacrificial laws of the Torah. The Torah says we are to go to the temple in Jerusalem and sacrifice to atone for our sins. We can’t do that today; the temple no longer exists. Even though the temple no longer exists here on earth, the Bible says it still exists in the heavens. The book of Hebrews explains in great detail how Yeshua as our high priest, in the heavenly temple, right now obeys all the sacrificial laws and laws for the high priest. Now we meet the temple laws’ requirements by our faith in Yeshua and what He did for us at the cross. So we can obey all of Torah today, by faith in Yeshua as our high priest in the temple in the heavens and what He did for us at the cross.
Because our righteousness comes from what we do when we obey righteousness, we can not reject the cross and, at the same time, claim to be Torah obedient because you would then reject the sacrificial laws. So if we want to be righteous and justified, we have to believe in Yeshua, what He did for us, and His service for us in the heavenly temple obeying all the sacrificial laws and laws for the high priest and show we believe by following the Torah. So now we understand, when the Bible says He hears our prayers because of our Torah obedience, it automatically involves our faith in Yeshua and the cross because you can not separate the two.
So the first key to praying without anxiety is to be Torah obedient.
If you now know you are Torah obedient, you can pray with confidence knowing for sure He has heard you. After you have finished telling Him what you need, thank Him for listening to you and remind yourself He has heard you because of the Torah. Remind yourself of Matt 6:25-34, which says if you obey Torah, you deserve to have your prayers heard and answered. And remind yourself you already have what you asked of Him, and you deserve to have what you asked of Him because of Torah. (Mark 11:24)
Why do I say “remind yourself”?
In the last chapter, we learned about Yehovah’s armor and how the devil attacks us with burning arrows in our minds. One of the first things that happen after you have prayed is an attack by the devil. He knows that prayer got through because of your Torah obedience, and he knows what it takes for the answer to appear in your life – faith. If he can get you to doubt Mark 11:24 by making you question if Yehovah has heard you, and if He is going to answer, he can stop your prayer. By reminding yourself how your prayer has been heard because of the Torah and how you will get what you asked because of Torah, you are clothing yourself in the armor of God fighting the devil’s attacks.
So now you have prayed without anxiety just as Phil 4:6 said, what happens next?
Daniel prays, in the book of Daniel, Yehovah hears and dispatches an angel to answer Daniels prayer right away. This shows us you can know for sure, Yehovah heard you, and He has sent an angel to answer you immediately. But as we read in Daniel’s book, it took quite a while for the angel to get through to Daniel. And when the angel did get through, he tells Daniel the resistance was so strong he had to call for backup from an archangel to get to Daniel because of the demonic opposition. He also says he has to fight his way out again to get back to heaven.
This shows us one essential thing.
We must never lose sight of the fact that even though Yeshua died on a cross for us, we are still at war. (Eph 6, Rev 12:11, Rev 14) Even though Yeshua defeated the devil on the cross, the devil is still roaming the earth seeking whom he may devour. And we can not lose sight of the Bibles continued warning to resist the devil, stand firm in Torah, and he will flee from us.
The fact that we are at war will affect our prayers and Yehovah’s response to it. This is why we need to learn how to pray Biblically so we can fight the good fight of faith and be overcomers.
When you pray with trust in the Torah, Yehovah hears your prayers and answers right away. But you have a genuine enemy who will do his best to stop that answer from getting through to you, just as he did with Daniel. You have to do what the Bible says, resist the devil, never back down from obeying the Torah, trust in the Torah, and never stop praying. Then you will, in the end, see how the answer will get through to you just as Daniel did.
Now we know what it means to pray without anxiety, and how important it is to remember Yehovah is not our 911 operator. He is our God, He is one, and we owe it to Him to love Him with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind by obeying His Torah. If we do, we can trust He will bless us in return. As He promised, hear our prayers and answer us.
Now we know we as Christians are responsible for fighting the good fight of faith. So even though nothing happens when you pray, you must never stop praying, never stop obeying the Torah, never stop trusting in the Torah as the key to your answered prayer. For sure, Yehovah has heard you; help is on the way, but the resistance is great, and the battle is intense in the heavenly realms. Make sure you do your part in the battle by resisting the devil, continually obeying the Torah, so the angels who have been dispatched to you can break through the enemy lines.
So how do we apply all of this to our lives? How do I use this in my life?
Right now, I am in a season with many things that give me a good reason to worry and be anxious. I dont know how I am going to be able to fix my car, and there are other things as well, circumstances beyond my control.
I have chosen to believe the Torah when it says, in Joshua 1, Psalm 119, Deut 6, if I meditate on the Torah, all will be well, and I will succeed in everything I do. This is a choice I have to make because my mind sometimes seems to be stuck in a default position where it always resorts to anxiety and fear over the situation I am in right now. But I know, from experience, I am well able to make that choice and override my mind’s default position whenever I obey the Bible. Why am I able to do this? Because of the Holy Spirit in me who gives me the power to do it.
If you have the Holy Spirit, you have the same power as me to override your mind’s default position.
The Torah has 613 commandments; nobody can meditate on 100 or more commandments all the time. So when I meditate on the Torah, I choose the one commandment Yeshua said is the most important one:
- Hear o Israel, Yehovah is our God.
- Yehovah is one.
- You shall love Yehovah, your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.
(Mark 11:29-30)
Time and time again, I see how meditating on the Torah protects my mind from the evil one’s fiery arrows. So instead of my mind being all stressed out and anxious, I am at peace in the storm.
Because I am at peace, I can pray without anxiety. I pray with faith, trusting Yehovah hears me, and the answer is on its way because I keep Torah and meditate on the Torah. So when I pray, I tell Yehovah what I need, and then I thank Him for having heard me and having already given me what I need because I keep Torah. As always, when I finished praying, the attacks start.
When the attacks come, I choose to clothe myself in Yehovah’s armor by reminding myself, “I keep Torah, so I deserve to have my prayer answered.” If the attacks get intense and sometimes do, I remind myself of James 2:19, “Yehovah is my God, Yehovah is one.” James 2:19 says the demons tremble in fear over the fact that Yehovah is one. So using James 2:19 to fight them of always works.
I have to keep praying, the Bible says so in 1.Thess 5:17. So I choose to continue praying without anxiety, telling Yehovah what I need, thanking Him for having heard My prayers and for already giving me what I asked of Him. I choose to continue to remind myself Yehovah is my God, Yehovah is one, and I deserve an answer to my prayers because I keep Torah.
It might seem strange and almost presumptuous to say, “I deserve an answer to my prayers because I keep Torah.” The Bible says, in Deut 28:1.-13, Prov 15:29, if we keep Torah, He will hear us and answer. So simple logic says, if you keep Torah, you deserve to be heard by Yehovah and have your prayers answered.
Yehovah knows this, so we do not have to remind Him. So when we say, “I deserve an answer to my prayers because I keep Torah / I deserve to be healed/helped financially / provided for because I keep Torah,” we are not talking to Yehovah. We are first and foremost reminding ourselves and protecting our minds with the helmet of salvation (Heb 5:9) by telling ourselves, “we deserve salvation from this situation because we keep Torah.” Second of all, we are fighting the devil’s attacks with truth, reminding him he can’t stop us from getting our prayers answered because we keep Torah. A part of keeping the Torah is to meditate on the Torah continually. And in my experience, the best way to do is Mark 11:29-30, to remind yourself, “Yehovah is my God, Yehovah is one, I will love Yehovah my God with all my heart, soul and strength.”
Am I saying that if we pray, as the Bible says in Phil 4:6, meditating on the Torah and doing all these things, we will see an immediate response and incredible miracles? If you had asked Daniel, from the book of Daniel, this question, his answer would be no. If you had asked Elijah, he to would have said no (James 5:17) But that does not mean we should stop praying even if we do not see an immediate response. Both Elijah and Daniel got their miracles because they never stopped praying, and they were both normal human beings.
I am a regular normal human being, and I still do not know how to fix my car, and I have no solution to the other issues outside my control. But I am not worried about them, I am not stressed out, and I sleep at night knowing something good is about to happen because I keep Torah. What and when it will happen, I have no idea. But I know the Bible does not lie, and I know from experience, if we pray like this keeping Torah without anxiety, Yehovah is on our side, and He is going to help us. We fight the good fight of faith by keeping Torah each day, and if we do, we are promised He will fight for us and with us against our enemies, and we will see victory in the end. (Rev 12:11, 14)
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