Dependence Prayer: His Provision to Accomplish the Calling He Has for You

By Sang Sur

Born out of the pandemic, this book is a response to the people who may feel discouraged, are uncertain of what to do, and are seeking direction.

 

This is a comprehensive book on how to pray, especially when things seem dim around us. It is a reminder that God has a great calling for you, and the circumstances you see are only

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prayer Tents Media
• Release date: Nov 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781953167156

Sang Sur

Dr. Sang Sur is the founder of Prayer Tents, a Christian mission organization that seeks to enable people to find life by meeting Jesus through relationships with Christians near them. He is called to bi-vocational ministry, being a tentmaker as he works with other business leaders to bring many to Christ, while also giving support to the global Church. Sang is the chief executive officer of Sciturus Real Investment Group, along with its sister companies Hanmaum Realty and Techellence. He is an engineering and business executive who led technology M&A that resulted in $53 million in revenue growth of two major global-reaching companies within the first year. He also directed personnel across all functions of engineering in modernizing aeronautical radar and countermeasure systems that continue to prevent US C-130s and B-52s from being shot down in hostile territories. As an Air Force officer, he was part of the Air Force Special Operations Command, ensuring the best aerial equipment for the US military, particularly the Special Forces. He holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration and Management and two doctorates in fields of ministry (Th.D. and D.Min.). Sang is also an ordained Christian pastor and a Certified Executive Coach, and he works with Christian executives in the marketplace and with pastors to enable them to go beyond their perceived limits and fulfill their great callings from God. Sang is a member of the Christian Business Men's Connection (CBMC) and chairs the NYC group. Sang lives in New Jersey with his wife, son, and daughter. Find out more about him at www.sangsur.com.

Book preview

Effective Prayer

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

James 5:16

This is a book on how to pray.

I am writing this guide on prayer because due to the Covid-19 pandemic I have been asked to pray for more people lately. However, very few requests have been related to health concerns. Rather prayer requests were for their businesses that have not been doing well. As a result of the times, some people have even started new ventures disposing of their old, while some went about seeking to develop new employable skills for their family’s future. As much as I appreciate their trust in me to pray for them, my hope is that they are not dependent on my prayers, but are completely dependent on God with their own prayers.

Additionally, during this time of uncertainty, strong small groups shine brightly compared to the larger congregation of the local church. Generally, the bigger a church is, the congregation members do not know each other, and even if they do, it is often only at a shallow level. But people in small groups who have built up relationships over time know one another deeply, trust one another, and can speak to and pray for the needs of one another regardless of the restrictions set upon them.

My goal in this book is to enable you to pray with the right heart to the Lord, while also being able to pray for one another effectively. Many people hold the errant view that only pastors ought to pray blessings over others, perhaps especially in light of the verse above. However, I wish to remind you that you too are a righteous person whose prayer can have great power and produce wonderful results. Your righteousness is dependent on your faith in Jesus, and therefore, if you have the right heart and you pray for those you love, your prayers will yield miracles and supernatural results.

Before we go into details about prayer, I want to begin with the foundation. Prayer is placing our trust in God. To pray is to completely depend on God for the next steps in our lives and to depend on Him for everything we need to fulfill His purposes. Prayer is also to believe in the impossible, to hope when there seems to be no hope, and to recognize that God is good despite the circumstances we may see around us.

The opposite of this is self-reliance, or pride in oneself. This attitude trusts in our own experiences, abilities, and knowledge. This self-reliance may even be our confidence in our careers, the government, and other systems developed by man.

To pray effectively, one must be rooted in the Word of God. If one does not know the Bible, one cannot know God (John 1) and one will not be effective in prayer. The lack of knowledge of God is the reason why many so-called Christians have no power in their prayers.

Effective prayers flow from a deep relationship with God. God has given us His Holy Spirit to guide us in our understanding of His Word. Growing in knowledge and having a relationship with God begins with a desire to know Him, as led by the Holy Spirit. This desire would lead the believer into a yearning to read and understand the Scriptures while at the same time wanting to take part in fellowship with other believers in close-knit relationships.

In James 5:14, it says that when a person is sick, s/he should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over her/him. The elders here represent the people who have a deep relationship with God, or those who are able to pray effectively as a result of that relationship. The sick person may be referring to a person who is not in a physically healthy state, but it can also refer to sicknesses in our circumstances, problems in the direction of our lives, or in our emotional or spiritual states. A person of faith can overcome anything as nothing is impossible for them (Matthew 17:20). A person of faith is someone who can see what God is doing and bring about miracles, including healing, restoring of circumstances, and redirecting the life of the person who is lost.

Are you an elder, someone to whom people come to for prayer; or are you the sick, a person who may be lacking faith and knowledge of God?

We may get sick at times, and it is for that reason we need fellowship with other believers in discipleship to grow together. During this life-sharing journey that occurs over time, we can seek the help of the elders when we need, while we can help others in need when we are well.

Therefore, to be a person of effective prayer, we need to read the Scriptures and reflect on them. At the same time, we must grow in our relationships with one another so that our relationship with God may be developed. We cannot love God without loving others, nor can we love others without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. This is why we must be in a small group to grow as a disciple of Jesus. Our communication and depth of trust among one another will reflect on our relationship with God.¹

So that is the foundation. One cannot fulfill the great destiny that God has given them when they are unable to pray effectively. In other words, without the supernatural provision and guidance from God, one cannot accomplish their God-sized, God-given calling. Many people attempt to do so on their own strength only to realize they may have accomplished a trending business goal that does not last. Often, God’s destiny for all of us is much greater than we can imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9).

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Ephesians 2:10

Brothers and sisters, we need to continue to grow in Him, in relationship and knowledge of Him, so that we may pray effectively and accomplish the great calling God has given to each of us. We will not accomplish it in any other way.

This book is for all my brothers and sisters who have asked me for prayer so that they may succeed in various things including starting their business. It is also for those who are seeking a change in their lives, especially during this shifting and uncertain time.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take

Proverbs 3:5–6

God will take care of all of your needs as long as you are seeking His kingdom and His righteousness. With that heart, begin your journey of prayer and be fully dependent on God. Rest in His providence as God redirects you to where He wants you to go. All the people who accomplished great things in Scripture could not visualize the huge impact they would make as they followed God’s direction. As they did, they had to overcome the internal urge to meet the expected trends of their days. They had to turn them down and rather walk in faith to where God directed them.

My hope is that each of us become people who are effective in prayer so that many people will come to know God because of our relationship with Jesus. This also means we need to be people who are influential or recognizable to others, and that hinges on God’s supernatural providence for our lives. So, let us go to God together and ask Him to supply all our needs.

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

Philippians 4:6

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

Matthew 6:33

Chapter One

Prayer Tents Logo Small

How to Pray

The Proper Mindset

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

Philippians 1:6

It is not dependent on us. If it were, we would have failed long ago. God who began a good work in us will finish what He started. It is dependent on Him.

Prayer is a dialogue with God.

Many people have a difficult time praying because they incorrectly learned that prayer requires the use of some holy tone, special methodology, or devout wording. In its most basic form, prayer is a conversation between a parent and child, or among friends. Those who genuinely know God at a personal level recognize that God is their Father, the One who provides for all their needs and guides them (1 John 3:1). Yet, Jesus also calls us friends (John 15:14–15), and that allows us to speak to Him as friends do.

If prayer is speaking to a parent or a friend, it should be easy. However, the real problem that people have when it comes to prayer is that they have forgotten how to be a child who is dependent on their parent. This dependence is what we call faith or trust in God who is our Father. Additionally, because of trends of individualism and the proliferation of social media, many people have forgotten what it is to have true friendships. In other words, we may no longer know how to relate with others. If we cannot relate with others whom we can see, how can we relate with God whom we cannot see (1 John 4:20–21)?

Therefore, to pray effectively, we must treasure relationships here on earth, which also translates to our relationship with God. The depth of relationships we can have with one another will be shown in our relationship with God. This is the call to discipleship.

In this chapter, let us focus on becoming a child of God in our hearts so that we may pray effectively. We are given the right to become a child of God when we receive Jesus and believe in His name (John 1:12).

Full Trust and Dependence

A child, without their parents’ care, is unable to do anything, yet alone survive. This is true for children even into their teenage years.

Children usually do what their parents ask. When they don’t, it is likely because they are growing in independence. They are beginning to think that their decisions are better than their parents’. Even though children may not have the wisdom that parents have, as children grow older, they will begin to operate on their own and become self-sufficient adults, no longer requiring their parents’ permission.

Jesus spoke to the people who desired such adults to be blessed. Consider the following passage:

One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it. Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them.

Mark 10:13–16

Jesus is seeking people whose hearts are like children. They are people who recognize their need of God (Mark 2:17). They are people who, even though they may have the ability to be independent, choose to depend on God.

This is shown in the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32). The younger child wanted to be independent. He figured that if he had the money that was owed to him, he would be better off. But his plan did not end well for him, and the story ends with him returning to his loving Father empty-handed. This is a picture of what happens to those who trust the world and the apparent benefits that it provides.

To be practical, consider what life was like a few centuries ago. Generations of families lived together, often raising crops in their lands. The industrial revolution, the advent of the assembly line, and the increased availability of transportation drastically changed what seemed to be stable in the world back then.

Recall that the people recognized for their great minds such as Leonardo Da Vinci were known for their multi-faceted talents in various fields such as the arts, sciences, and philosophy. Yet, now, the education system teaches us it is better to excel in one talent. Many people seek specialized careers such as a tax accountant, criminal attorney, or a structural engineer.

Just a few decades ago, the dream of parents was for their children to do well in school so that they might work in a large corporation where they would be set for life. The thinking behind this idea was that a secure job would provide a regular salary and a dependable pension. Today, the system does not work in quite the same way. What we know about the world or what we learn from the education system today is not trustworthy as times change. Yet, there is one source who is firm, and that is our loving Father (Numbers 23:19; Hebrews 13:8).

Today, we may put our trust in technology while others may place their trust in government welfare, and others, still, cling to employment as their source of sustenance. But these things will all change and fade away. However, our Heavenly Father does not change. His purposes are firm and has His mind on carrying them out through His children—you and me.

We are just like the growing children. We may have an illusion that we have what we need, and that we do not need God, however, the truth is that God is in control and we need Him. The willing choice to be dependent on God is the basis of being a child where we can now go to Him as a Father and speak with Him.

The people of Israel made the same mistake of being self-confident. When things were well, they stopped relying on God. They went their own way, even imitating the culture around them. Then as things went bad, and they sought after God.² We too are not immune to this, and if any of us are relying on trends, even those that seem as if they will stay around for years, we may be turning away from God. Just as the people of Israel did, we too may stop seeking God for guidance and help. We will become self-reliant and no longer be a child who depends on their Father.

We may also think that this cycle of sin-repentance-restoration is a good thing, but it is far from the truth. Yes, God may certainly use our circumstances to draw us back to Him, just as He has for the people of Israel, but they were an example of people who did not persevere in their faith in God. They were people who turned away from God and were eventually led to ruin.³ They did not make it. It is not something to which we should aspire.

The people who are shown to be different, such as Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and David, walked with God throughout their lives. They were certainly not perfect and made many mistakes during their lives, but they began to trust God so firmly over time that their faith did not shake when hard situations arose.

God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Most people would cringe at the request to kill their son, but Abraham believed in his Father and was able to go forward with the sacrifice. He figured that God had something in mind that he did not know or understand. He reasoned that whatever God had in mind must be for good, because Abraham recognized over time that God was always good. Even when it did not make sense to him, Abraham still believed what God directed him to do was for good. To convince himself, Abraham had to imagine himself a scenario, that perhaps even when Isaac was killed that God may raise him from the dead (see Hebrews 11:19).

A person who can pray effectively is someone who believes that God is good and trusts Him without wavering. Building up this kind of faith is also the reason why we must grow together as the Church, as opposed to following the faulty individualistic trends of the world and seeking to be perfect on our own abilities (Romans 5:20–21).

Ask God How to Pray

When I gather in a prayer meeting, one of the first things I often pray is for God to teach us how to pray. This is because at the time I begin to pray, my mind may be cluttered with the things of the day and that may get me off track from praying. Perhaps to avoid being distracted, I may end up just going down a concrete list of prayer topics. However, neither of those approaches allow God to interject and direct the way that we pray. This is why I cling to the verse in Luke 11:1, where a disciple asked Jesus how to pray.

Before any prayer, whether it be your daily prayers alone with God, or in a group prayer meeting, ask God to help you to pray by enabling you to focus on the things He desires you to focus on (see Romans 8:26). Let Him lead the topics of prayer. Allow God to take you off on tangents and pray for the things you did not have in mind. Ask Him to remind you of your brothers and sisters for whom you ought to pray.

You may also note that the disciple asked Jesus to teach him how to pray just as Jesus completed praying (Luke 11:1). Jesus probably prayed out loud in public or in a small group and the disciple was touched by how Jesus prayed compared to the way he had seen others pray. This may be because many people were used to praying systematic and routine prayers (Matthew 15:8–9) while Jesus wants us to pray to God relationally.

Relational prayers, or a conversation with God, is not something written and it is not said in a perfect way to win the audience of others. It is a heart-felt, honest dialogue with our heavenly Father. This is how Jesus prayed, and how He teaches us to pray as well.

The Prayer that Jesus Taught

Our Father in heaven may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Matthew 6:9–13

The Lord’s Prayer that many Christians know may feel like a ritual for some people because it has been recited over the years without considering its contents. The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer that Jesus taught when His disciples asked Him how to pray (Luke 11:1). This prayer is a prayer of dependence, one that only a child can say with her/his heart. This prayer teaches us the heart we should have when we pray.

It begins with Our Father in heaven. This statement is like when children begin their sentence with dad or mom. It recognizes the person to whom we are speaking. It also reminds us that even though God is holy and beyond us, God is a Father who is close to us and listens to us when we speak. He considers us His children.

The next words are may Your Name be kept holy. This refers to the lifestyle we ought to live that demonstrates our Father to the world. It teaches us to keep living a life of holiness, or one that is distinguished from the rest of the world, so that we may show that our Father is different.

The word holy means different. In this context, it means to keep God distinguished in our hearts from the world. This statement means that we should ask God to help us place Him as our highest priority, one that does not even get close to any priorities of this world. It is to ask with sincerity to help us to ensure nothing ever competes with God. There are all the other priorities in the world, and then there is God who is completely separate and not even comparable to anything else in our hearts. This is our pleading asking Him to enable us to put down any potential competing priorities and surrender our hearts to His leadership.

May Your Kingdom Come Soon says that we look forward to our Father’s providence. It is a request similar to when a parent says, We’ll go later, then the child begs, Can we go now ... please? It is a dependent heart that says, Father, you are the only one that can do this, and my heart relies on nothing else. Please handle my situation, and please do it soon. As children, we want to see the best happen, and we are asking God, who knows the best, to fulfill it soon.

May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven says that we are aligned with the Father’s will and purposes. We are saying that we want what our Father desires to be done. It is like a young child who blindly tries to up their friends by saying my father can do something better than yours. The child probably does not know what s/he is talking about and is probably not correct in what s/he is saying, but the child boasts this way because s/he believes her father is extraordinary and can do anything really well.

Fortunately, God is truly almighty, and He indeed provides far better than what any human father can. This statement is to say that we align with the Father in the things He is doing. We want our Father’s purposes to be done. The opposite of this statement would be the independence or belief that our own ways are better.

This is also how God’s call for our lives works. By aligning to His will, our calling gets done through His supernatural provisions. By not aligning to His will, we go our own ways and accomplish what we think would be the best. When you feel stuck on wondering what God wants you to do or focus on, ask God to enable you to believe and say, may Your will be done.

The next statement is Give us today the food we need. There is much to this passage, similar to Matthew 6:34 or Proverbs 30:7, where we do not want to ask for more than what we need.⁴ This is another statement that shows complete dependence on God to provide for our needs, and to provide just to the right amount. It also implies that God will provide for the things that we need. Jesus says the following in the same chapter where He teaches His disciples to pray:

Then, turning to his disciples, Jesus said, "That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear. For life is more than food, and your body more than clothing. Look at the