Adam

God helps

Here are two scripture verses I started out praying today for those who need God’s help.

This is the list of the descendants of Adam. (When God created human beings, he made them like himself.  He spent his life in fellowship with God, and then he disappeared, because God took him away. – Genesis 5:5,24 GNT

Genesis 5:1    May ______ know that he/she is made in the likeness of You, God.

Genesis 5:24    May ______ walk with You, God, just as Enoch did

When we spend our lives talking with God and spending time with Him, it means that we really are not doing all of that while kneeling or standing or even with our eyes closed. We are working, eating, exercising, and even relaxing.

I have met Christians who, after reading the Bible, go out and walk around their neighbourhood. They note anything they sense the Holy Spirit is saying as they pray. It is like – talk as you walk.

Then there are times when we need God’s help with a very specific desire to be more like Him. One for me was loving my enemies.

But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. – Matthew 5:44 GNT

Praying for my enemies has to be one of the deepest forms of love because it means that I really want something good to happen to them.

It may be for their conversion. It may be for their repentance. It may be that they would be awakened to the enmity in their hearts. It may be that they will be stopped in their downward spiral of sin, even if it takes disease or calamity to do it. But the prayer Jesus has in mind here is always for their good.

Ezra confirms how God steps in when He has to. He sends prophets to move the work again.

At that time two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo, began to speak in the name of the God of Israel to the Jews who lived in Judah and Jerusalem. 2 When Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Joshua son of Jehozadak heard their messages, they began to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, and the two prophets helped them. – Ezra 5:1-2 GNT

When God needs work to be done, it is supported by prayer. At the end of the day I need to make a choice. I pray that my choice will be to obey God regardless of what others may have to say. 

The simple thing is the greatest thing… As for the will of the “Father in heaven”, it is always clear and transparent, simple and intelligible to the simple heart… It is the will of all those in heaven who share his will, all who, together, enter into the Father’s loving will in all its concrete dimensions… People are only rarely aware of this when they pray. Unless they are rare mystics who actually encounter heaven’s inhabitants – angels, saints, the Mother of the Lord, or the Son himself – they are inclined to act as if they were encountering God in a solitude which is total on both sides, God’s and theirs; as if they were alone in approaching God, alone in trying to come to grips with his word and law. This is wrong in both respects. – Hans Urs von Balthasar

What does prayer look like?

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The first prayer in the Bible was between Adam, Eve and God. There were words spoken by God to Adam earlier but when we think of prayer we think of a dialogue.

Prayer is essentially a simple conversation with God. We may talk about the different kinds of prayer – intercession, thanksgiving, petitions etc., but the fundamental component of them all – there is a conversation, a dialogue between an individual and God.

That evening they heard the Lord God walking in the garden, and they hid from him among the trees.  But the Lord God called out to the man, “Where are you?”

 He answered, “I heard you in the garden; I was afraid and hid from you, because I was naked.”

 “Who told you that you were naked?” God asked. “Did you eat the fruit that I told you not to eat?”

 The man answered, “The woman you put here with me gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”

 The Lord God asked the woman, “Why did you do this?”

She replied, “The snake tricked me into eating it.” – Genesis 3:8-13 GNT

I hear of many who find their life not quite so exciting as Adam and Eve. They are dry and heavy and feel no joy. I wonder how many have prayed for the baptism of the Holy Spirit? I know it is not as simple as that but I do know that when I am engaging in my morning of devotions and prayer, I do ask the Holy Spirit to join me – He makes a difference.

I baptize you with water to show that you have repented, but the one who will come after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. He is much greater than I am; and I am not good enough even to carry his sandals. – Matthew 3:11 GNT

Ezra kind of makes us all look bad when it comes to being excited about what God is doing. I pray that we can all find a time to express this kind of worship to God in our lifetime.

“The Lord is good, and his love for Israel is eternal.” Everyone shouted with all their might, praising the Lord, because the work on the foundation of the Temple had been started.  Many of the older priests, Levites, and heads of clans had seen the first Temple, and as they watched the foundation of this Temple being laid, they cried and wailed. But the others who were there shouted for joy.

No one could distinguish between the joyful shouts and the crying, because the noise they made was so loud that it could be heard for miles. – Ezra 3:11-13 GNT

I love the model that John and Peter gives us when it comes to prayer. They maintain the hour of prayer and make sure they are in attendance. The Jewish custom was to pray three times each day – morning, noon and mid-afternoon.

One day Peter and John went to the Temple at three o’clock in the afternoon, the hour for prayer.  – Acts 3:1 GNT

These are some great models for us to consider in our discovery of what prayer looks like.

The key to prayer is “not our action in preparing ourselves, but God’s action in revealing himself,” writes Dr. Donald G. Bloesch of Dubuque Theological Seminary. True prayer is not humanity rising to God in order to become one with him (the mystical ideal), but God reaching out to humanity and calling for a response of obedience. It is the constant struggle to take hold of the outstretched hand of God. This striving with a personal God is foundational to biblical prayer, stresses Dr. Bloesch. In “The Struggle of Prayer,” he outlines an evangelical spirituality that has at its heart the “outpouring of the soul before a living God.”