Pray for me

should-my-husband-pray-with-me-more-jcpozphj-27985082ad5bdb25bb773c4d5be58a9d

With the arrival of frogs, fear caused Pharaoh to let Moses take the Israelites and sacrifice to God as long as they did not leave the country. This was the first time he pleaded with Moses to pray on his behalf.

The king called for Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord to take away these frogs, and I will let your people go, so that they can offer sacrifices to the Lord.” – Exodus 8:8 GNT

The plague of gnats did not move Pharaoh particularly as it affected the animals more even though it was made aware that none of the livestock belonging to the Israelites died. There was no promise of release and no desire to have Moses pray.

The flies did move him once again.

The king said, “I will let you go to sacrifice to the Lord, your God, in the desert, if you do not go very far. Pray for me.” – Exodus 8:28 GNT

Pharaoh knew that Moses knew God and therefore knew that the relationship between them was evident through the power of prayer. Jesus’ disciples saw the same thing. The disciples same Him get away to pray often and they were wise enough to come to a place where they asked Him to teach them to pray.

 Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say this:

‘Father:
    May your holy name be honored;
    may your Kingdom come.
Give us day by day the food we need.[a]
Forgive us our sins,
    for we forgive everyone who does us wrong.
    And do not bring us to hard testing.’” – Luke 11:2-4 GNT

I like the word Jesus used to start this discussion – “when” as opposed to “if.” What follows is what is known as The Lord’s Prayer.

There is not another passage where the disciples come to Jesus and ask Him to teach them anything else. They do not ask Him how to witness, teach, perform miracles but when it came to prayer, they sought teaching.

With Jesus, He taught them so much yet there is not a passage anywhere that suggested Jesus took time to teach on prayer. If the disciples had not asked, the subject may never have come up. That is definitely not to say that prayer is not vital but rather Jesus was willing and able once they indicated they were ready to learn.

The gospels did not portray the disciples as men of prayer and when compared to Jesus, it was even more obvious. They knew if they were to be followers of Jesus this shortcoming of theirs needed to be addressed.

I am not sure who the disciple was that asked and there is no indication as to what John the Baptist taught on prayer. I believe the time that they could not drive the demon out of the young boy mattered. Jesus said this could only happen through prayer. I believe the transfiguration on the mountain mattered.

The word Father was very transformative. The prayers of the day addressed God as ‘God Almighty’ or ‘my Lord.’ This personal address was given to teach them about what kind of relationship we can have and should have with God. He is our Father and we are His sons and daughters.  There is a very close and intimate connection when addressing God as ‘Father.’ I feel His arms of love around me and I know He is listening to me. He knows my needs even before I address Him and He knows what I am going through. I can come and pour out my heart to Him because I know He wants me to come to Him.

The phrase, may Your holy name be honoured, indicates worship addressing God as holy – sanctified, set apart, to revere. Not only is God holy but His name is holy too. Honouring and glorifying God at the beginning of our prayers could actually consume all of our prayer time. Some of the longest prayers recorded in the Bible actually do not have a single request being made in them.

The first request made – may Your Kingdom come. Come and smash into this world ruled by Satan, bring healing and restore those who have suffered and are tormented. I am called by this request to seek His kingdom in practical ways in my life. This prayer expects God’s Kingdom to come into the world and be a driving factor. This is invitation as to why I can pray for others.

The implications of the Triunity of God for prayer are many. It means, to begin with, that God has always had within himself a perfect friendship. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are adoring one another, giving glorifying love to one another, and delighting in one another. We know of no joy higher than being loved and loving in return, but a triune God would know that love and joy in unimaginable, infinite dimensions. God is, therefore, infinitely, profoundly happy, filled with perfect joy—not some abstract tranquility but the fierce happiness of dynamic loving relationships. Knowing this God is not to get beyond emotions or thoughts but to be filled with glorious love and joy. – Timothy Keller

 

 

 

 

 

Pray like it matters

Pray-Like-It-Matters

Learning about prayer from Mary and Martha as they hosted a dinner gathering is rather a unique setting. Jesus is the guest of honour and there are challenges as there are at such a time as this.  House needs to be cleaned, getting the dishes out and set etc.

The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha! You are worried and troubled over so many things, but just one is needed. Mary has chosen the right thing, and it will not be taken away from her.” – Luke 11:41-42 GNT

Having a conversation with Jesus is more important, matters more, than a dinner party. How do I work that out in my head?

“Therefore to encounter the words of Scripture is to encounter God in action”  – Timothy Ward

Return in prayer

night_prayer-1024x585

Moses found that he had no choice but to return to God in prayer. God was the source of his direction and promises and when they both seemed not to be in sync, Moses had to find his way back to God for clarification.

Then Moses turned to the Lord again and said, “Lord, why do you mistreat your people? Why did you send me here? 23 Ever since I went to the king to speak for you, he has treated them cruelly. And you have done nothing to help them!” – Exodus 5:22-23 GNT

He wanted to be reacquainted with his call and to present the facts as he saw and felt them. He knew the blame that was being put on him belonged to God and so he spread the words that were directed to him and laid them out before God so He could address them. I find myself doing this and love the biblical example of not only Moses but Hezekiah as well and find myself laying my case before God in faithful and fervent prayer. If I retreat, I retreat to Him and no further.

Is there another way to reconcile the promise with the directions? When I am to be a blessing and somehow it is coming out that I am a curse, what am I supposed to do? Where is the help that God committed? I find that God does not necessarily do things directly. Moses could have crossed the desert to the promised land in days, not forty years. God takes us through methods where it may look like trouble and distress. Sometimes the instant deliverance hinder and become traps. God wants to eliminate the entire need to look to someone and depend on them to be rescued. God wants to be the one to bring us to wholeness and not just deliver us. In His time all things are made beautiful and it starts with me returning to Him in prayer whenever I find myself in such circumstances.

I read this powerful insight from Job this morning and it sounded a lot like Joshua 1:8 and Psalm 1:1-3, changing the words from study to prayer.

Let Almighty God be your gold,
and let him be silver, piled high for you.
Then you will always trust in God
and find that he is the source of your joy.
When you pray, he will answer you,
and you will keep the vows you made.
You will succeed in all you do,
and light will shine on your path. – Job 22:25-28 GNT

It cannot be made any clearer. Dump all my earthly possessions (not literally) and trust in Me and when I pray, He will be my light and I will succeed with Him by my side as He walks with me. I need to find myself returning to God in prayer. It is He that sits on the throne of grace, it is in Him that I find grace and mercy in my time of need and it is with Him that I find success.

The promise is that He will answer me. He is a God who hears and in His time gives and fulfills my wants, needs and desires as I return to Him in prayer.

If we leave the Bible out, we may plumb our impressions and feelings and imagine God saying various things to us, but how can we be sure we are not self-deceived? The eighteenth-century Anglican clergyman George Whitefield was one of the spearheads of the Great Awakening, a period of massive renewal of interest in Christianity across Western societies and a time of significant church growth. Whitefield was a riveting orator and is considered one of the greatest preachers in church history. In late 1743 his first child, a son, was born to he and his wife, Elizabeth. Whitefield had a strong impression that God was telling him the child would grow up to also be a “preacher of the everlasting Gospel.” In view of this divine assurance, he gave his son the name John, after John the Baptist, whose mother was also named Elizabeth. When John Whitefield was born, George baptized his son before a large crowd and preached a sermon on the great works that God would do through his son. He knew that cynics were sneering at his prophecies, but he ignored them.

Then, at just four months old, his son died suddenly of a seizure. The Whitefields were of course grief-stricken, but George was particularly convicted about how wrong he had been to count his inward impulses and intuitions as being essentially equal to God’s Word. He realized he had led his congregation into the same disillusioning mistake. Whitefield had interpreted his own feelings—his understandable and powerful fatherly pride and joy in his son, and his hopes for him—as God speaking to his heart. Not long afterward, he wrote a wrenching prayer for himself, that God would “render this mistaken parent more cautious, more sober-minded, more experienced in Satan’s devices, and consequently more useful in his future labors to the church of God.” – Timothy Keller

 

 

 

 

 

Unbelief

battling-the-unbelief-of-envy-psrgvu01-1cc32d5342aa4f59e3c74d699c336718

Moses’ conversation with God showed something that I find disturbing in my own walk with God. I love that God has walked with me my whole life and has never left my side. However, there is something stopping me from fully engaging with Him.

But Moses answered, “No, Lord, please send someone else.” – Exodus 4:13 GNT

Let someone else do it is a common response from me when God has asked me to do something. No excuses, simply a refusal to accept the call. Why? I know that God wants to bless me, deliver people, and reveal His power so great that absolutely no obstacle could hinder the accomplishment of what He has called me to do. The answer seems so simple right now, but devastating. Like Moses, I do not trust Him.

At this the Lord became angry with Moses and said, “What about your brother Aaron, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. In fact, he is now coming to meet you and will be glad to see you. – Exodus 4:14 GNT

I am actually telling God I cannot count on You. No wonder He became angry.

I am thankful that I communicate with God everyday and have not lost my time each morning to spend with Him. However, I know too many who have walked away and have stopped praying. What happens when I do not pray?

The wicked tell God to leave them alone;
    they don’t want to know his will for their lives.
They think there is no need to serve God
    nor any advantage in praying to him. – Job 21:14-15 GNT

I think I would lose my fear of God, severing my relationship with my Father. Dangerous territory with the possibility of disastrous results. I begin to do things as I see fit and I actually find myself weak and end up making all the wrong decisions in my life.

Was a wicked person’s light ever put out?
    Did one of them ever meet with disaster?
Did God ever punish the wicked in anger
    and blow them away like straw in the wind,
    or like dust carried away in a storm? – Job 21:17 GNT

Thankfully God stands with me. My decision to leave Him will cause me to suffer spiritually, emotionally, physically and that does not include what happens to my family, my future and my community of support. The enemy becomes stronger and I finally realize that I am back in the same prison as I was – back in bondage. Unbelief can destroy.

I remember the power of believing when I read testimonies of others who believed so much that they gave everything.

A Pharisee invited Jesus to have dinner with him, and Jesus went to his house and sat down to eat. In that town was a woman who lived a sinful life. She heard that Jesus was eating in the Pharisee’s house, so she brought an alabaster jar full of perfume and stood behind Jesus, by his feet, crying and wetting his feet with her tears. Then she dried his feet with her hair, kissed them, and poured the perfume on them. – Luke 7:36-38 GNT

 

“Her service to Jesus was personal. She did it all herself, and all to him. Do you notice how many times the pronoun occurs in our text? [she, three times and her twice in Luke 7:37-38] … She served Christ himself. It was neither service to Peter, nor James, nor John, nor yet to the poor or sick of the city, but to the Master himself; and, depend upon it, when our love is in active exercise, our piety will be immediately towards Christ — we shall sing to him, pray to him, teach for him, preach for him, live to him. O for more of this love! If I might only pray one prayer this morning, I think it should be that the flaming torch of the love of Jesus should be brought into every one of our hearts, and that all our passions should be set ablaze with love to him.” – Spurgeon

 

“Left to ourselves, we will pray to some god who speaks what we like hearing, or to the part of God we manage to understand. But what is critical is that we speak to the God who speaks to us, and to everything that he speaks to us. There is a difference between praying to an unknown God whom we hope to discover in our praying, and praying to a known God, revealed through Israel and Jesus Christ, who speaks our language. In the first, we indulge our appetite for religious fulfillment; in the second we practice obedient faith. The first is a lot more fun, the second is a lot more important. What is essential in prayer is not that we learn to express ourselves, but that we learn to answer God.” – Eugene Peterson

 

 

Revelation of God

Knowing-God-Through-Revelation

For me, it started with God’s name, I AM. With all the names of God and trying to remember the meaning of all His Hebrew names, at the end of the day when someone asks me, “What is God’s name?,” I say, “I AM.”

But Moses replied, “When I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ So what can I tell them?”

God said, “I am who I am. You must tell them: ‘The one who is called I Am[a] has sent me to you.’ Tell the Israelites that I, the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have sent you to them. This is my name forever; this is what all future generations are to call me. – Exodus 3:13-15 GNT

How can I come to know His voice? He calls me and invites me to know Him and to join Him on the road that will lead me to freedom.

Jesus prayed regularly for that reason.

At that time Jesus went up a hill to pray and spent the whole night there praying to God. – Luke 6:12 GNT

All night praying or having devoted time for praying is my call today.

Do not deny yourselves to each other, unless you first agree to do so for a while in order to spend your time in prayer; but then resume normal marital relations. In this way you will be kept from giving in to Satan’s temptation because of your lack of self-control. – 1 Corinthians 7:5 GNT

I know I pray but here I am called to set aside my life, even my relationship with my wife, in order to spend quality time with God. It is preparing myself to meet with God I require leaving off everything to pray. It is in these moments I feel called to set apart a time to meet with Him so that He can reveal Himself to me.

 “We should not decide how to pray based on the experiences and feeling we want. Instead, we should do everything possible to behold our God as he is, and prayer will follow. The more clearly we grasp who God is, the more our prayer is shaped and determined accordingly.” – Timothy Keller