Ian Flores

Q2. What aspects of Moses' prayer of intercession should we emulate in our own prayers? We should emulate Moses' boldness in speaking to God. Prayer is communication to God. God speak and we listen. We can react or respond to what he is saying. We can reason to God and have a dialogue with Him. Only by being close to HIM that we can attain boldness in communication with God. Upon what logical grounds does Moses offer this bold appeal to God? Moses' boldness with God was because of his close relationship with God and his knowledge of God's plan. What do you think it means to "pray the promises of God"? To pray the promise of God means that you know and believe His word and His promises. It means that you believe God is faithful to fulfill His promises which is that's why you pray His promises. How does knowing the Bible help you get your prayers answered? The bible is the word of God which reveals God's will fo us. God answerds prayer according to His will. How does this help our prayers be within God's will? In John 15:7 Jesus says, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever we wish ... " Jesus allows us to ask God the Father according to our wish and that the Father will do it. However, this comes with a condition. The beginning part of John 15:7 starts with conditional "IF". That is If we abide to His word and until His word which reveals God's will have abided in our hearts, then Jesus knows that our prayer is aligned to God's will.

What had the people done that was so bad? The people created a molten claf and declared this god who brought them out of the land of Egypt. How can a loving God be angry? God has the very right to be angry because Israel substitued Him with another god and credit His work to this false god. Our God is a True God and will not allow lies to rule His creation. Is God's sentence to destroy Israel and raise up a new nation through Moses justified? Yes, God's sentence is justified. He created the heaven and the earth. God created the man to have dominion on earth and tend it. God will not allow sinful man believing in false god to populate and have dominion on earth. God has destroyed and raise new nations during Noah's time and has all the right to do this every time He sees the righteous men are becoming less and less in the face of the earth. God is a loving God and eternal. He won't allow the next generation men to populate the earth believing in lies and a false god. God is the creator of the Heaven and the Earth. He alone decides what is justified or not. He decides what is good and what is evil which is why He forbid man to take fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil from the very beginning.

Why should we continually ask forgiveness? We continually seek forgiveness because we acknowledge that we continually fall short in our Christian walk here on Earth. We continually seek forgiveness also because we know that our Heavenly Father is just to forgive us our sins and this reminds us of God's love for us. God sends his son Jesus to shed Blood for the forgiveness of the sin. Jesus first coming to earth is about forgiveness of sin. How can unforgiveness on our part block God's blessing? How can unforgiveness block God's forgiveness? Forgiveness is all about the removal or set aside of Sin. God has made its stand against Sin. Sin cannot mix with God's holiness. Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. It cause God's beloved son to shed blood for the forgiveness of sin. So, unless SIN is retain and unforgiven, God's promise of blessing cannot come upon us. John 20:23 "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. If someone sin against you and he/she repented to God, God is just to forgive his sin. And if he/she seek your forgiveness and if we don't forgive, the sin is now retained on us and unforgiven sin block God's blessing on us.

Why should we continually ask forgiveness? We continually seek forgiveness because we acknowledge that we continually fall short in our Christian walk here on Earth. We continually seek forgiveness also because we know that our Heavenly Father is just to forgive us our sins and this reminds us of God's love for us. God sends his son Jesus to shed Blood for the forgiveness of the sin. Jesus first coming to earth is about forgiveness of sin. How can unforgiveness on our part block God's blessing? How can unforgiveness block God's forgiveness? Forgiveness is all about the removal or set aside of Sin. God has made its stand against Sin. Sin cannot mix with God's holiness. Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. It cause God's beloved son to shed blood for the forgiveness of sin. So, unless SIN is retain and unforgiven, God's promise of blessing cannot come upon us. John 20:23 "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. If someone sin against you and he/she repented to God, God is just to forgive his sin. And if he/she seek your forgiveness and if we don't forgive, the sin is now retained on us and unforgiven sin block God's blessing on us.

Why do we seek to be independent of asking anyone for help? - There are number of reasons. One is because we believe there's no need of asking anyone for help. Some also refuse to seek other's help because of pride. Others also may want to give first all their best shot before resort to seek anyone for help. Why do we seek to be independent of God? - Some seek to be independent of God because they believe some desires or plan doesn't need to bother God. - Some (I can say) baby Christians believes that God gave us mind and talent and therefore we do our way as long as it doesn't have negative impact to others. Why should we ask God to "give" us daily bread so long as we can earn a living for ourselves? - I believe the "Bread" here speak more than food intake for our physical body. It represent all that we need everyday including shelter, clothing, air that we breath, the light from the sun, the wind that cools our body etc. "Daily" means continual seeking from our Creator. We cannot earn everything by ourselves for our living. Can we earn the air that we breath, the sun that shines on us and gives us light? What about the plants that generates oxygen? These are equally important needs of our body to sustain life aside from food intake. Therefore, daily asking from God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth is needed.

Many times when Jesus spoke in parables, he open the parable by saying "The Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven is like". The parables talks a lot of different life application topics and most revelations are in secret. The Kingdom of Heaven is a way how God operates. The Kingdom of God is a principle that our Heavenly Father wants to come into hearts while still on earth. Our Father wants us to seek and pray so that the revelation may come upon us. Our Heavenly Father wants our mind renewed and transformed here on earth according on the heavenly Kingdom principle for He prepare us for eternity while we're still on earth. We ask God's will be done in our life because we acknowledge that HE created us and He created us according to His good pleasure. And we trust that His good pleasure is the best for us. This prayer affect our living because we learn to submit and be obedient to Him. As we develop our minds and hearts to accept His perfect for us, we grow in patience and trusting that His plan for us will prevail in the end.

We desecrate or besmirch God's holiness by our lack of knowledge of who He really is. We desecrate His Holiness when we come to Him out of ritual or religious act or when we recite a prayer which we don't really mean in our hearts. We definitely need the Holy Spirit to help us in our prayer and when coming to God's presence. The Holy Spirit will lead and guide us into a deeper understanding of His Holiness.