Prayer

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Us, Not They

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As I was praying this morning, I noticed I was praying as if I was somehow separate from the people I was praying for. I had built a mental fence between them and me. I was praying “they” when the Holy Spirit wanted me to pray “us.”

My thinking was wrong because I recognized them as generic believers in Christ Jesus. I understood a small part of their struggle, so I carried their need to our Father. And I was confident that the Holy Spirit had led me to pray for them in the name of Jesus. That was proper and good, but I saw their problem incorrectly; my thinking was wrong. Now I understand that “us” is an object pronoun while “they” is a generic third-person pronoun, so why was I praying for generic Christians?

God stopped me and corrected me. He does that for those He loves (Hebrews 12:5–7). Within the Body of Christ, we are all brothers and sisters. We are blood relatives by Jesus’ shed blood. Like our bodies, there are many members in Christ’s Body, and they aren’t all the same. We have many parts: eyes, ears, heart, liver, and so forth.

“The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 12:12

Shaquille O’Neal is 7’ 1″, so his nose is a long way from his toes, yet both are members of the same body. All believers in Christ Jesus are blood relatives; only distance separates us. When we consider Christ’s Body, it’s a long way from Indiana to Hunan Province in China, yet Christ’s Body is in that province and Indiana.

If I talk with someone about a family member, I say “we” or us,“ not ”them“ or ”they.“ If asked if there are other Christians on my dad’s side of the family, my answer would be, ”In my family, we have many believers in Christ. God has blessed us with many who are pastors or missionaries.“ Our hearts and minds need to say ”us,“ not ”they.”

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Who Did You Say Jesus Is?

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Years ago, I worked with a software architect that made a trip to the headquarters of Microsoft® in Redmond, Washington. While there, he emailed our development team, giving us a first-hand account of a fictitious encounter with Bill Gates at a local Wendy’s® restaurant. His story was entertaining but insightful and pointedly honed to speak to some bad thinking in our group. His email was masterfully written.

A Different Jesus

When we look at the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, we find a similar but far more adept message to those Christians and us. At one place in his letter, he wrote:

“You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed.”

2 Corinthians 11:4 NLT

The apostle Paul was writing to Christians. There are now, and always have been, people trying to lead believers away from the solid truth of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, the Son of God. Let’s not become weary or confused or abandon God’s work in us for the “next amazing thing.” Let’s cling to these words:

3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.
5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 one God and Father of all,
who is over all, in all, and living through all.

Ephesians 4:3-6

We shouldn’t search to find what God has already given us: our place, purpose, and life in the true Jesus. If someone is preaching a new “Jesus,” they have been tricked by the enemy. As firm believers in Jesus, our Savior, we must remain like military guards, keeping out enticements that misrepresent Jesus. You know Jesus; rest in Him. You can search the world and never find more than the Christ who found you where you were. Who did you say Jesus is? For those that are His, He is our Savior, Shepherd, Redeemer, Ransom, Resurrection, Brother, and Friend.

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1: “Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves. But beware! For you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues.” – Matthew 10:15-17 NLT

Steep Mountain Road

Practical Faith

By / 4 minutes of reading / , ,

In the opening paragraphs of 2nd Corinthians, the Apostle Paul tells us something surprising. Here’s what he wrote:

“8 We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. 9 In fact, we expected to die.” 

2 Corinthians 1:8–9a NLT

Practical Faith

We would have lost much of the New Testament if Paul had died. But God brought them through what appeared to Paul and his companions as certain death. We may be tempted to discount Paul’s statement since he is an Apostle, but we would miss God’s message for us. We find God’s intent in the following verses.

“9 But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. 10 And he did rescue us from mortal danger, and he will rescue us again.” 

11 “And you are helping us by praying for us.” 

2 Corinthians 1:9b–11 NLT

Paul found God to be reliable. This is practical faith. It’s easy for us to pray and trust God to help the orphans in Syria, but when it comes to our life-or-death situations, we quickly find out how well we’ve learned to trust God for immediate and practical matters. 

My Telephone Poll Story

Once, when I was a missionary in Eastern Europe, I was in the back seat of a very old Mercedes Benz full of people. The driver had little experience driving, but he decided to drive up a small mountain to get a telephone pole-sized log.

We strapped it to the roof of his car. As I sat down in the backseat, I had a bad feeling about this adventure. The Holy Spirit often prepares me for bad situations. Oh, I forgot to tell you the car had a manual shift (stick shift) transmission. Our driver started the car and immediately began going backward – he put the car in reverse – and he didn’t stop!

As the car sped faster and faster in reverse, we passengers began yelling instructions. Our frantic instructions accomplished one thing; the car stalled. This might have been good, but the driver held down the clutch while trying to start the vehicle.

So, as we free-wheeled down the side of a mountain, backward, with a telephone pole strapped to the roof and passengers screaming in multiple languages, my trust in God didn’t waiver; the driver was another matter!

We had picked up quite a bit of speed as we rapidly approached a jam-packed highway. Oh, the road was on the side of a high mountain. The lane we needed to end up in was the one that would take us down the mountain to a small village at the bottom. 

It was as if we were in a 1930s Laural and Hardy movie. Cars were whizzing down the highway while we bumped and bounced toward it. And just like in the film, a gap opened right when we sprung upon the pavement. Thankfully, the driver steered us, so the front of the car pointed down the mountain.

Praying for Others

Sitting in a dead car on a busy highway is not the time to learn how to pray. It’s time to pray. We made it to the village – that’s another story – and we all lived to tell our versions of what happened.

For me, the most important verse in today’s Scripture is verse eleven: “And you are helping us by praying for us.” Praying is very practical; it is based on practical faith. When we pray for the orphans in Syria, God hears us, and with the measure of faith we have, He measures out His help. You see, God answers our prayers, no matter how small or far away the need is. So when it comes to practical faith, remember this verse:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Philippians 4:6

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coffee cup sitting on coffee beans

The Story of the Coffee Droplets

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National Espresso Day!

Two national coffee days in November. Who knew!?

This morning, a small array of coffee droplets pooled on my desk, forming a rough outline of Lake Michigan. They had arrived when I sloshed coffee from my morning coffee cup. Of course, the droplets didn’t land someplace I could easily ignore, a place where I could clean them up later. Instead, they were positioned directly in front of my keyboard. I was thankful they had dodged my keyboard, but I was annoyed that I had to deal with them before getting down to business.

Looking around, I discovered I didn’t have a single napkin, paper towel, old rag, or even a shirttail to remove Lake Michigan from my desk. 😟 So I made my way back to my home; you see, my office is separate from my house and I don’t walk well. Retrieving a bit of paper towel, I hobbled back to my office.

Sitting down, paper towel in hand, I looked at the droplets and saw a life lesson. How amazed I was that four or five drops of coffee, in just the right place, stopped my work, sending me off on an errand and disrupting my morning plans. Every day Godless people make plans. Some own lots of stuff and have lots of people at their disposal. But you and I can be those few drops of coffee that change the trajectory of evil. 

The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit.

Psalms 16:1-2 ESV

Prayer: God guide us, I pray, so our prayers and actions disrupt the world’s plans of iniquity. Help us to be bold and allow You, our God, to use us like drops of coffee. In the Name of Your beloved Son, Father, we pray.

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woman's hands on a Bible

Ask For the Order

By / 4 minutes of reading / , ,

Throughout my life, I’ve owned several small companies and worked for large corporations – sadly, I’ve never owned a large corporation. 😉 One thing that was consistent within all these businesses was this: Always ask for the order. When you are doing a sales call, this idiom means enjoying your conversation with your existing client or a prospective client, but before the conversation wraps us, always ask for an order for whatever you are selling. Make the sale.

Vague prayers

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of Christians that pray ambiguous prayers. By ambiguous, I mean prayers that are “unclear or inexact.” Yes, God indeed knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10), and His will is unchanging, but He has made it abundantly clear that we are not to just toss a prayer to Him with little or no expectation as to His response. Consider for a moment the parable Jesus taught us about prayer.

One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’”

Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”

Luke 18:1-8 NLT

Clear, Consistent, and Correct

Jesus told us to persist in prayer. We must make our request clear, consistent, and correct! How can we know when God answers our prayers if we never made an explicit request to Him?

We see in Christ’s parable of the unjust judge that Jesus expects us to pray with consistency. The widow didn’t change her request every time she came to the judge (waffle). No, it was the same request. Our prayer requests should be consistent. We are warned in James 1:6, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.”

We are to pray correctly. Jesus warned us directly not to prattle on in our prayers. Jesus said, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matthew 6:7) And, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” (James 4:3)

Jesus mediates, and the Holy Spirit intercedes

We are to come before the Father, through Jesus, our mediator (1 Timothy 2:5-6), with clear, consistent prayers that align with the will of God. You may ask, “How can I pray within God’s will?” Well, we need to understand that, as Christians, the Holy Spirit helps us in our prayers.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. – Romans 8:26-27

So, when we pray, we typically should “ask for the order,” for Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7) However, there are times when we just need to pour our hearts out to God. That’s a good thing. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us. We can continually pray, even when we run out of words or don’t know what to pray (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

That’s the 411 on prayer. Let’s pause for a moment and consider how loving God is to us. He is so interested in us that He wants us to continually stay connected to Him through prayer!

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blue and white planet display

God Changes Things When We Pray

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Christian theology teaches that there is a separation between the work of God and work performed by things, people, and events. God’s work is called the Primary Cause – He made all things, seen and unseen, and maintains all things (Colossians 1:16-18).

The actions of things, people, and events are called the Secondary Cause – these activities can only occur within the provisions and constraints of God’s Primary Cause. My definition is limited to addressing a concern I have. I am not attempting to redefine any established Christian catechism (e.g, Westminster Confession of Faith).

An easily understood example of a Secondary Cause is prayer. God, as all-knowing, all-powerful, in all places, and all-sufficient, could easily anticipate and provide all things without a person’s prayers. God does directly intervene more times than we know. His action is a Primary Cause. (Shush, you lovers of Causation. I’m trying to make a point. 😉)

Here’s my concern: Jesus told us to ask, to seek, and to knock (Matthew 7:7–8). Jesus taught us how to pray (Matthew 6:9-13). He taught us to be persistent in prayer (Luke 18:1-8). He taught us to pray with faith (John 15:7). Therefore, God’s will is for us to pray and for Him to answer prayers. Why? Within God’s sovereign will, there are actions that He will only do if a person or a people asks it of Him. Really?

 “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

2 Chronicles 7:14

Notice the “If my people.” The worldly religion of “fatalism” – the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable – has crept into the Body of Christ. If everything is inevitable, why would Jesus teach us how to pray the way He did?

Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from evil.

Matthew 6:9-13

Why would Jesus tell us to ask for our material needs, and forgiveness, and protection from evil, if all of these things were going to happen even if we didn’t pray? Of course, we can go back to Daniel’s prayer and God’s answer (Daniel 9:1-19) as well as many other examples. Please know that I am not addressing the theology of election or the truth that “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” (Psalm 115:3) Nevertheless, it is imperative that the children of God pray. Prayer is within God’s will. So, we are to ask, believing that prayer matters and that God changes times and circumstances.

praying for others

Praying for Others

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Welcome,

I don’t know how you pray, but I always add, “according to your will (1 John 5:14),” just to be on the safe side. Likely, in all of our thoughts as we pray, we remember the Apostle Jame’s warning, “And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.” James 4:3 NLT

We are all very skilled at “couching” our prayers. This is especially true when praying for God to heal someone. We pray cautiously, and we also give God lots of “loopholes.” We justify this, so the person prayed for will not have to reason to think God failed them – or we failed them. I know these thoughts all too well. But please allow me to give you something to help your faith.

3 Jesus said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.” 4 Then he turned to his critics and asked, “Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?” But they wouldn’t answer him.

Mark 3:3–4

Notice that Jesus equated healing the man with doing good deeds. Also, notice that Jesus is the one doing the healing. Unless we know that God doesn’t intend to heal someone, we can be sure that our prayer is a request for Jesus to do a good deed and for Jesus – not us – to heal that person. Let’s not put our faith in our faith; instead, let’s put our faith in Jesus. He’s the one doing the healing. And then let’s keep on asking, as the widow did to the judge (Luke 18:1–8).

Glorify God and enjoy Him forever,
Gary

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Fear

Worry and Fear

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A Fish Story

I once was fishing with another guy when his hook snagged me while casting. It stuck right in me, and pain exploded when he dropped his pole to “help” me. As I face today, I have some needs and many desires. All of these have snagged me like fishing hooks.

Worry About Worry and Fear about Fear

When I pray, do I allow thoughts and feelings that deny God’s provisions? Fear that our government will fail. Fear that my income will become worth-less due to inflation. Worry about a church that God laid on my heart. Worry about a former pastor that fell into sin. Worry about how much longer my car will last. Worry about worry, and fear about fear. How can I be this way!?

You see, in a much less important way, I am acting like the Apostle Peter when he got out of the boat and walked on water. But, seeing the storm, he began to sink. My condition is not life or death, but my concerns are: Can I just rest in Jesus? Can I write more? Am I being redundant? Am I a good teacher:

He [Jesus] said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”

Matthew 13:52

Good News

Jesus is my friend that sticks closer than a brother. He mediates for me to Father God. And my Father gave me the Spirit of God to live in me. Jesus has made sure that I am fully equipped and have an open line to Almighty God. I have access to anything I need to do the will of God. It’s all at my disposal. And by faith, I can receive it. Therefore, I lack nothing.

I know my concerns are foolish. My good news is that the Spirit of God is helping me. He adds to my groanings and delivers to God articulate, faith-filled prayers from me. I know because my mind is being transformed and less cluttered, and my faith is being rejuvenated. This old man is still strong in my spirit; my faith in God has not wavered. And, guess what, the same is available to you!

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Pray Like It Matters

By / 5 minutes of reading / , , , , ,

“6 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

Romans 8:26-27

Blubbering Prayers

Please allow me to throw off the uniform of ecumenical propriety, and speak plainly to you about this watershed moment in which we live. As God’s people, we must stop praying “tidy” prayers. We need to pray blubbering prayers, prayers where we cry our eyes out as we call upon our Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus, our Master, and Savior.

This is a crude analogy, but in a tiny way, Jesus is like the Internet. People around the world log on to the Internet to connect to a resource; it might be a search engine, it might be a Bible site, it might be WebMD, but it’s a resource they seek. Jesus is the great connection between us and the Father. Jesus is called our mediator.

A mediator is like an attorney that bridges communication between their client and the judge and prosecutor. Our prayers connect to God through the second person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

The Holy Spirit Helps Us Pray

Our Father hears us, but what we say is helped, improved, and corrected by the Holy Spirit. If we were invited to meet the Queen of England, we would first be prepared for the meeting to make sure that we said the right things, responded in the right way, and understood that we weren’t following our plans but, instead, we were to follow the lead and direction of the Queen. Even more so are we to be before the Father. The Holy Spirit helps us like this, and He does more.

We need to pray. When we do so we are wearing Christ’s suit of righteousness. God won’t look upon sin; we all have sins. So when God looks at us He sees us dressed in the sinlessness of His Beloved Son.

With the help of Jesus, our Master, and the Spirit of God, our prayers are proper and presented to the Father. This is why we can have absolute confidence in God’s answer. We may have blubbered some half-intelligible prayer birthed from our anger or pain or disgust, but that prayer comes before the Father as a sweet-smelling aroma that is pleasing to Him.

Pray Like it Matters

In the times in which we live, we must pray like it matters because it does. Never in our lifetime have we seen such evil paraded and called “good.” The world will go headlong over the cliff, like the pigs when Jesus cast out the legion of demons, but the body of Christ will not. We must pray and we must have confidence that God hears our prayers and intercedes for us.

Satan accuses us day and night before God. He is like a wicked prosecutor that enjoys hurting people and using his power to mess with people’s lives. He harms people because God loves us. We are like children in a dysfunctional home where a drunken, violent, evil dad hurts his kids as a way to hurt his ex-wife. This is why we see the violence and murder reported to us in the news each night. God doesn’t cause evil, satan does.

God hears our prayers and He is not constrained by anything including time or circumstances. He hears our polished, buttoned-up prayers and He looks at His Beloved Son, who suffered and died for us, and then God acts.

“21 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, 22 and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”

2 Corinthians 1:21-22

God Answers in Shocking Ways

God may say “yes”, “no”, or “wait” but He may also step into our prayers and make a way where there is no way, He may do more than we ever imagined, He may break barriers that constrain us, toss roadblocks aside, and cause all manner of miracles because He desires freedom for us and in Him we find that freedom.

The truth is, we can’t imagine how God will answer our prayers, but we should pray like it matters, praying in faith, and in our knowledge that God is reliable. God really does change things. Jesus asked the Father and our Father has given us the Holy Spirit. He is in every true Christian and He will come upon all who ask.

We do need to understand that we will be tested, we will be persecuted, some will be imprisoned, and some with be killed. As Christians, we expect suffering, just as our Savior suffered.

Be of Good Cheer

The times in which we live are unlike those when we were children. We must pray like never before, for it is our time of communing with God that we will gain the endurance, wisdom, and guidance to be the peacemakers, the merciful, the pure in heart.

Be of good cheer. Jesus wins in the end and He will lose no one that the Father has given Him. Let us all pray, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.“

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Pray in Faith

By / 3 minutes of reading / , , , ,

As Christians, we have faith for salvation, and we often pray in faith for the needs of others and for our welfare. Our prayers are sincere and grounded in our faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Yet, it has been my observation that many use “according to God’s will” as an excuse for God not answering their prayers, instead of recognizing God’s will as a way of bolstering our faith in God for our request.

Jesus gave us His name to use when we bring our requests to the Father. “In that day you will ask nothing of me [Jesus]. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.” John 16:23 This is not a “name it and claim it” promise. Jesus is giving His believers a new way to pray to deal with the new relationship believers now have with God and to deal with the new challenges that came with the birth and growth of the Church. Still, Jesus gave us a more intimate relationship with the Father.

God is Reliable

“God… calleth those things which be not as though they were. (Romans 4:17) When we pray, we should not confine our prayers within boxes of existing facts and conditions. No matter the size of our problem, God’s power to deal with it is greater. And God never forgets anything, including our prayers. We may forget that which we cried out to God, but He hasn’t.

Our God is reliable. Consider these two verses:

  • “…the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.” Revelation 13:8
  • And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. Mark 15:24

The word “slain” means “kill (a person or animal) in a violent way.” No matter what you believe about how long creation has existed before that Jesus was already the Lamb of God that was violently killed. Since God calls things that are not before were, Jesus was called “slain” eons (the longest portions of geologic time) before the physical act of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Good News

Just as God had said, so God’s declaration was fulfilled. My hope is that in this brief Bible study, we see that we are to pray, trusting in the reliability of God’s relationship with us. That God is not constrained and what God declares will be accomplished. Our Savior deeply desires for us to use our faith. When Jesus spoke about His return from heaven back to earth, He said, “…Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 18:8

The good news that we see in these verses is that we need to pray in faith. God doesn’t need or want us to tell Him how to answer our request. We should not doubt when we use the name of Jesus in our requests to the Father. Jesus wants us to live by faith. And we shouldn’t use “God’s will” as an excuse for lack of faith. God answers in His time and in His way. We need not apologize for God or doubt God. We simply need to make our requests known to the Father, pray in faith by the Name of Jesus, and rest in God, who calls things that are not as though they were.

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