Eternal Prayer

On October 30, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Ephesians 6: 18

With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.

We, the church, need to become people of prayer. It seems that almost every day there is some tragic bit of news. People are struggling with flooding, mud slides, wildfires and every sort of disaster. I have noticed that when we hear bad news on the TV we are moved by compassion and feel sorrow for people going through rough times. The hearts of many people are truly compassionate and caring. The outpouring for Katrina victims was an example of the good heart in the American people.

And while we can be very generous and kind, there is one thing we can do that will really help all people. We can learn to pray. Now that may sound like drivel or may sound cliché but I find that we do not pray as we might. So many times we have built prayer up in our minds until it has become a Holy Ritual instead of an intimate communication. There is nothing wrong with reverence and holiness in prayer but we also need to have more routine communication with God. I think many times we tell people we will pray for them and we have the very best intentions but then we wait until we can get in our prayer closet or wait for our prayer time. By then we forget who we promised prayer.

As we are drawing close to God and becoming really intimate with him, he becomes not only our God but our best friend. During that process it becomes easier and easier to talk with Him all through the day. This is the kind of prayer that Paul encourages us to in this passage of scripture. We can become so attuned to living a prayer full life that when we see some catastrophe on the news, we immediately say a prayer for the people affected. When you talk with someone on the phone and tell them you will pray for them, you either pray for them right then and there while they are still on the phone with you or you pray as soon as you hang up. We need time alone with God when we are in a very prayerful state but we cannot wait until then for all the prayer that needs to be sent up to heaven. There is too much need. Begin training yourself to pray whenever you perceive a need. The body of Christ needs you and your prayers. The world really needs you.

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Let it be Me

On September 26, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Ezekiel 22: 30

“And I searched for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.”

Many times people ask, “Why did this bad thing happen” or “Why did God allow this bad thing to happen?” Now you have the answer. God didn’t allow it, we did. God saw the inevitability of seeds that were sown and looked around for someone to stand in the gap for that family, nation or person but when He looked He found no one. God would have intervened in the affairs of man many times but He couldn’t find anyone who would pray.

Psalm 115: 16 reads, “The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He has given to the sons of men.” You see God has given the earth to us. Recall that in Genesis 1: 28 God gave authority to rule the earth to mankind. While we know that God is sovereign we also should recognize that a sovereign has the right to give his authority to another. Once done, the sovereign must follow the rule of law that he has established. All of this is to say that god can no longer move freely in every context in the earth. He cannot make you accept Him as Lord because He gave you authority over your life and choices. We call that free will. This very principle bars God from intervening at times when He would like to. We have been given the authority in the earth so we must invite God to participate and we do so through our prayers. You can personally keep God out of your life or invite Him to participate with you. You really are the master.

In the same way, He cannot just step in any time He would like. Even when you see something like the tragedy of 9/11 you have to recognize that God wasn’t the one who was asleep at the wheel. He tells us in today’s verse that He looked around for a man to stand in the gap for the land but could find no one. Perhaps He tapped me on the shoulder that morning and asked me to pray for the land. Maybe He had been saying to many of us for months to pray for our nation but we were so full of our own lives that we never heard Him.  

There are two points I believe in this message. First, let us stop blaming God for our failures and secondly, we need to make our hearts and ears more sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit so that God can speak to us and in speaking to us, commission us to pray. He wants to spread salvation but He must have someone who will pray. Let it be me.

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The Essential Prayer

On August 5, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

2 Samuel 7: 18

Then David the king went in and sat before the Lord, and he said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that You have brought me this far?

I would like to continue some thoughts on prayer from yesterday’s devotional. Prayer is an interesting topic because everyone knows what prayer is and yet doesn’t seem completely comfortable with their knowledge. All across the country and the world ministers continue to teach on prayer, as did Jesus, because there is so much room for deeper insights.

I like this passage from David because David asks such a basic question, one that probably most people think about at some point in the relationship with God. Who am I, Lord? Another way to think of this is, who am I in relation to you? What is my standing with you, Lord and why do you even show me such kindness? When I wish to study this mystery of an interpersonal relationship with the Lord of Hosts I most often turn to David. He loved God and God actually called him “friend”. Yet, David pondered these same questions that we too stumble over.

When we say the prayer of salvation acceptance and confess Jesus as our Lord and savior a new creature and a new life is born. We are born anew and begin a journey of transformation with our Lord. Being born again is far from the end. It is supposed to be a beginning. We accept discipleship to the Lord Jesus and begin to allow ourselves to become unified with him. This is a fascinating process and not all together easy or comfortable at times, which brings me back to prayer. 

The most powerful prayer we can ever pray is a prayer of submission. In that prayer we can even daily ask the Lord this important question, “Who am I?” Perhaps the question we really want to ask, though, is, “Who am I becoming?” This can be a challenging question, but I know the answer. We are called to allow ourselves to manifest the beautiful creation that God first created. You were made in the very image of Christ himself but as we live in this world that perfect child begins to take on the corruption and taint of the world. That is not to say that you are corrupt but rather that the things of this world get on us and they can be difficult to shake off. Jesus, though, has come to our rescue. He has saved us out of the mire of this world and given us a beautiful new garment. That sounds great, and it is true but how many of you know that there is a transition period? That is why the scripture says, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3: 18).

There is a period of time wherein we allow the transformation to take place within us so that we become the version of ourselves that God saw in the beginning. You will not be changed into someone else. You are just expected to allow the Holy Spirit to work out the transformation within you that reveals the glorious you. We are transformed from glory to glory, from one little success to another. It is a process. It would be great if the Holy Spirit just swept into our hearts and recreated us into that perfect manifestation of Jesus but that is not how it works. None of the three persons of the trinity are ever going to do anything within you without your permission and your participation. Furthermore, transformation does not come from God waving a spiritual wand. As I said, transformation is a process. A caterpillar does not transform into a butterfly in an instant. Now, here is the key piece of information. We are in charge of this personal metamorphosis. We are the captains of this ship. God is not going to change you while you sleep. I wish it worked that way. Instead this is a process of conscious surrender and determined purpose. We have to be dedicated to this process and we must put the car in gear. Having so done, God always supplies the power. This is where prayer at its most basic and perhaps most powerful level is engaged. We must go to the Father in our prayer time and ask for Him to change us. We must prayerfully surrender all of our idols, whether they be our ego, previous injuries and the subsequent scars, our protective walls, our schedules and everything else that would interfere with the transformation process.

This is essential Christianity. It is so easy to get caught up in all of the business of modern life and fail to recognize that Christianity is far more than a one-time prayer. It is not about receiving salvation and accepting the Lordship of Christ in a singular prayer and then never allowing that lordship to impact our lives. Our prayer lives could be much better spent if, instead of praying for our needs, we humbled ourselves before the Almighty and asked Him, “Who am I? Who have you created me to be? Father, I beseech thee, transform me into the image of that vision you have had for me since the dawn of time.” Then we must stop, listen and be honest with ourselves. God will meet you on this sacred ground. He does want to change you and although that sounds very uncomfortable, the truth of it is healing. God will restore you to that healed and perfect you.

As you think about prayer today or when you enter your prayer time think of what significant and important conversation you can have with the Lord. You have the ear of the Almighty; do you really want to talk about trivialities? Look into the heart of God and your own heart and begin to pray this most powerful prayer, “Help me, Lord, to be changed. Help me to embrace this transformation process so that I can be a disciple of yours and follow you wherever you lead.”

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Praying the Will of God

On August 4, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

2 Chronicles 30: 18          NIV

Although most of the many people who came from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun had not purified themselves, yet they at the Passover, contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “May the Lord, who is good, pardon everyone who sets his heart on seeking God – the Lord, the God of his fathers – even if he is not clean according to the rules of the sanctuary.” And the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people.

At first glance it appears that Hezekiah convinced God to do something for the people that He was otherwise either not thinking of Himself or had no intention to do. Let us look at this story through different eyes today and I believe we will see the dynamic of working with God open up before us.

God has always wanted to and offered to lead His people both individually and collectively. This passage reveals the prayers of Hezekiah who was, in fact, the king and a man of God. He called the people back to God, called them back to worshipping Him but the people had wandered so far that there were not even enough ceremonially clean priests to perform the rites. Hezekiah witnessed the people partaking of the feast without being clean. For the moment let us leave aside the prophetic nuances here that reflect forward thousands of years to us being unclean and partaking of the lamb and just look at this event on its surface.

God saw the people’s actions just as clearly as did Hezekiah. God didn’t judge them, though, and rain fire down from heaven. What did He do? He spoke to Hezekiah’s heart and led Him to pray for the people so that He could rain forgiveness down upon them. So many people have an image of a vengeful and angry Old Testament God and because of this preset in the minds of people they miss the gentle kindness that was actually present. God knew how to handle the situation so He spoke to His anointed one and just had Him pray. It was that simple. The problem was taken care of in an instant.

This story is significant because it reveals the true heart of God which is and always has been to help His people but also because it is a pattern for today. God is still working the same way. He sees the problems and He knows the solution. He wants to send soothing comfort to His people but He so often cannot find anyone who will pray. You see, the earth and the heavens were created by God and He owned it all but He gave the earth to humans and He gave us the authority for its administration. Although God is sovereign that does not mean that He is without restraint. He is Holy and because He is Holy and cannot lie He must abide by the rules that He has set out. That means that He cannot intervene where He has delegated His authority. That shouldn’t be a big problem for Him, though, because He has thousands of us to pray, inviting Him into situations, right? Well, there you see the problem we have faced. This is not a new problem but is a persistent one. In the second verse of Isaiah 50 we find this lament from God, “Why was there no man when I came? When I called, why was there none to answer? Is my hand so short that it cannot ransom? Or have I no power to deliver?” God, through the prophet Isaiah, is lamenting the times that He could not find someone like Hezekiah who would be His earthly partner and follow His leading. 

There is a really large lesson in here for modern day believers. We can see through this example that there is a role that we are to play in the administration of the earth. We are God’s partners in the earth. We pray and He the answers. How is He send prayer answer if someone does not first pray? As the Apostle Paul taught, helping us to pray is one of the significant roles of the Holy Spirit. “For we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;” (Romans 8: 26). Another translation reads, “… But the Spirit intercedes along with our groans that cannot be expressed in words, (God’s Word Translation). God sent an intermediary to help us with our part of the equation. When we put all of these pieces together we begin to see the picture emerge of how we are supposed to function in the earth and what our role is. Our prayer time, so often, has become nothing more than a “bless me” session but that is not as it should be. We are each powerful warriors in the elite forces of God’s army. We are each strategically placed. As we understand this dynamic and open up our hearts and ears God will, through the Holy Spirit, lead us into what to pray even as He did Hezekiah in today’s passage. From there an avenue of God’s power and mercy is opened up in the earth.

God wants to send healing, forgiveness and blessing into the earth and into the lives of people that we each know. Each of us provides that portal when we hearken to the voice of our Lord and pray as He leads. Get a revelation of what a prayer life can and should be. See yourself as a key logistical asset in the Kingdom of God. You may not have been able to imagine how significant you are but hopefully as you meditate on the effect of Hezekiah’s obedience and on his partnership with God you will begin to see the great influence you can extend in the earth. God is just looking for a few folks who will pray His prayers.

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