Category: Prayer

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Advent Repentance: Burn Away Everything

 

He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross.

Mal. 3:3

My good friend and fellow parishioner of Lamb of God Church, Jay Ferguson, wrote this prayer as a meditation for this year’s Advent season. Jay’s prayer puts into words the cry of our hearts: “Lord, deal with us. Cleanse us from sin, purify our consciences, renew our spirits. We want to be prepared for Jesus’ second coming and ready to worship and praise the Lord for his first coming.”

Father, in Jesus’ name, burn away every dream, desire, attitude, thought, feeling, word and action that is not a result of Your Spirit reigning in my life.

Burn away everything that is more important to me than my revelation of You and my relationship with You.

Burn away everything that hinders me from loving You with all my heart and loving my neighbors as I love myself.

Burn away everything that hinders me from hearing and obeying Your voice.

Burn away everything I believe about who You are and what You are like that is not the Truth.

Burn away everything in my heart and mind that causes me to desire to harm or destroy those who desire or act to harm or destroy me.

Burn away the lust of my eyes, the lust of my flesh and the pride in my life.

Burn away everything that causes me to desire to own or possess anything that is not rightfully mine.

Burn away everything that causes me to desire to lie or exaggerate to get what I want or impress or harm others.

Father, in Jesus’ name, I ask that I will be deeply intimate with You, filled with your Holy Spirit, free of pride, lust and fear, loving, patient, kind, tender- hearted, forgiving, joyful, thankful, grateful, humble, considerate, healthy, successful, prosperous and very generous.

Dr. James H. Ferguson

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Causing God’s Heart to Beat Faster

Blessing God With a Thankful Heart

You have ravished my heart, My sister, my spouse;

You have ravished my heart, With one look of your eyes.

Songs 4:9 NKJV

When we look to Christ in faith and trust his goodness in the midst of our disappointing and perplexing circumstances, we bless God’s heart. When we are genuinely thankful “in” and “for” all things, we cause his heart to beat faster (1 Thess. 5:16-18, Eph. 5:20). When we see God’s appointment in the midst of our disappointments and say, “Thank you God, ” we bring joy to our heavenly Father.  A thankful heart trusts God’s goodness irrespective of whether we understand our on-going tribulations and persistent trials. A thankful heart knows that the Cross has conquered this fallen world and that our troubles are small compared to Christ’s great suffering on Calvary’s tree.

Jesus is moved to happiness every time He sees that you appreciate what He has done for you. Grip His pierced hand and say to Him, “I thank Thee, Saviour, because Thou has died for me.” Thank Him likewise for all the other blessings He has showered upon you from day to day. It brings joy to Jesus.

Ole Hallesby, Prayer (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994).

We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good, if bad, because it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.

C. S. Lewis cited in The Quotable Lewis, edited by Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1989), 579.

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Cynical Beyond Belief

Cynicism Is Not a Fruit of the Spirit

To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.

Titus 1:15

Cynicism is a jaded negativity which sees selfishness, ulterior motives, and evil intentions in everyone and everything. Cynicism is the opposite of a childlike spirit: a childlike spirit is an attitude of neediness, dependence, trust, and receptiveness to God’s great grace and his loving kindness (Matt. 18:1-1-5) Cynicism creates a dead spirit; a man or woman with no life in them.

Cynicism loses hope in God and anticipation in prayer, all joy in life is lost as we fail to believe that God can be good even in a wicked and fallen world. This ingrained negativity develops scar tissue which kills emotional engagement with people and God. The lack of life, joy, and emotion makes life wearisome depriving us of all energy. Cynicism never believes anything, trusts no one, avoids disappointment, evades intimacy, runs from commitment, and flees any cause (1 Sam. 17:29, Titus 1:15).

Prayer is an antidote to cynicism. Prayer believes in God, hopes in answers, asks of God boldly, trusts his ways, deepens spiritual understanding, and encourages intimacy.

Cynicism contrasts with hope for he who expects stands on God’s promises, believes God’s word, trusts the Holy Spirit, looks to Christ, leads to boldness, dares to take action, expects answered prayer, and exalts the goodness of God (Rom. 15:13).

Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It’s unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don’t have to try.

Peggy Noonan in Good Housekeeping, conservative writer and former speech writer to President Ronald Reagan

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“A Less Busy Heart”

Praying When Busy

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding . . . .

Col. 1:9

Prayer is an ongoing dialogue-a real and intimate conversation-between the Abba Father of Jesus and us, his beloved children. Since prayer is a conversation between us and God, we can expect to be heard by the Holy Spirit and to be spoken to by God. Our conversation with God involves sharing, asking questions, clarifying, and responding. Prayer opens our hearts to God’s presence, our ears to his direction, our minds to his will, and our spirit to his great love. Prayer makes us great receivers of God’s most gracious grace.

It is always tempting to pray later. So much needs to be done: work to finish, children to school, email to answer, phone calls to return, etc. We commit to pray after we accomplish the needed tasks of day. Then at the end of the day, we find that we never prayed at all. We fail to realize that our tasks leave us empty and drained because our activities have not been saturated in prayer. By not making time for prayer, we were not available to receive God’s most gracious grace.

The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self-absorbed, focused on my quiet time and me. If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy. Learning to pray does not offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer busyness we can develop an inner quiet. Because we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love . . . and thus to be busy, which in turn drives us even more into a life of prayer. By spending time with our Father in prayer, we integrate our lives with his, with what he is doing in us. Our lives become more coherent. They feel calmer, more ordered, even in the midst of confusion and pressure.

Paul C. Miller, Our Praying Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2009).

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Daily Drudgery

Abiding in God in the Monotony

As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?

Hebrews 12:7 NLT

Drudgery is our ordinary, mundane, prosaic, day-to-day existence. Learning to live a supernatural life of abiding in Christ in the midst of the daily grind is a mark of spiritual maturity. The daily grind is an enemy to our spiritual lives only when we allow it to prevent us from experiencing God’s presence in the mundane routines and activities of life. We must understand that the ordinary, sometimes boring, activities of everyday living are a form of spiritual training used by our Heavenly Father to draw us into the presence of Christ.

As we look in faith, God can be found and experienced in the dishwashing, the lawn mowing, the vacuuming, and the driving commute. We must not forget that God’s presence is available to us in the boring, mundane, ordinary, routine tasks of life (John 15:1-5). As Brother Lawrence advised, God’s presence can be practiced, cultivated, and enjoyed in the daily tasks of cooking, cleaning, shopping, and work. “The time of business,” said he, “does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clutter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess GOD in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament” [Practicing the Presence of God].

We do not need the grace of God to stand crises, human nature and pride are sufficient, we can face the strain magnificently; but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God; but we have not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, and this is not learned in five minutes.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 1989), October 21.

We cannot escape from our daily routine, because it will go with us wherever we go . . . . God must be sought and found in the things of our world. By regarding our daily duties as something performed for the honour and glory of God, we can convert what was hitherto soul-killing monotony, to a living worship of God in all our actions. Everyday life must become itself our prayer.

Karl Rahner, “God of My Daily Routine,” in Encounters with Silence (Chicago, IL: St. Augustines Press, 1999).

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Great Receivers Pray

The Need to Pray

Prayer is an ongoing dialogue-a real and intimate conversation-between the Abba Father of Jesus and us, his beloved children. Since prayer is a conversation between us and God, we can expect to be heard by the Holy Spirit and to be spoken to by God. Our conversation with God involves sharing, asking questions, clarifying, and responding. Prayer opens our hearts to God’s presence, our ears to his direction, our minds to his will, and our spirit to his great love. Prayer makes us great receivers of God’s most gracious grace.

Prayer is standing before God transparent and open in a real on-going conversation. In that conversation, we share our hopes, fears, needs, and desires knowing that our Abba Father who cares for us will respond. He will hear our cry and answer: he will move on our behalf and provide what is best for us.

Many believers complain that they do not feel God’s anointing, they do not hear God speak, and they do not sense his direction, yet they spend little, if any, time in personal prayer. The lack of prayer weakens our faith, exposes our souls to Satan, and hinders our resolve to fight the enemy in spiritual warfare. Over time, our relationship with the Lord becomes weakened with little, if anything, to offer others in ministry.

The sweetest experiences of God’s saints are when they are alone with him. Without seeking God often, the vitality of the soul is lost. We may as well expect a crop and harvest without sowing, as living grace without seeking of God. God is first cast out of the closet, and then out of the family, and within a little while, out of the congregation. Omit secret prayer, and some great sin will follow. A man who is often with God, does not dare to offend him so freely as others do. Religion, as it were, dies by degrees.

Whatever else is forgotten, God must not be forgotten. Make God a good allowance. Make a prudent choice yourselves, and consecrate such a part of time as will suit with your occasions, your course of life, and according to your abilities and opportunities.

Thomas Manton, Works, i:13-20 cited in Voices from the Past:Puritan Devotional Readings, ed., Richard Rushing (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2009), 2.

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A Prayer on My 52nd Birthday

Christ Be My All

O’ Lord your love is found in the birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of your Son. Your victory is my victory. Therefore, I renounce Satan and all his wiles and temptations. I pray for personal, experiential knowledge of you as my love, my companion, and my friend. Your holiness compared to my sinfulness is great, yet your grace is greater. Transform me into the likeness of your Son. Your love for me is unceasing, may my love for you be as relentless and continuous. On Golgotha, you demonstrated your love for me: you bore the judgment for all my sin and shame. May my every second of living, every thought in my brain, and every beat of my heart be dedicated to loving you. I reject the world’s values and false promises. Please Lord, walk by my side, speak to my heart, that my life might be a reflection of the righteous beauty of your Son; through Jesus Christ my Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Christ is All

O Lover to the uttermost,

May I read the meltings of Thy heart to me

in the manger of Thy birth,

in the garden of Thy agony,

in the cross of Thy suffering,

in the tomb of Thy resurrection,

in the heaven of Thy intercession.

Bold in this thought I defy my adversary,

tread down his temptations,

resist his schemings,

renounce the world,

am valiant for truth.

Deepen in me a sense of my holy relationship to Thee,

as spiritual bridegroom,

as Jehovah’s fellow,

as sinners’ friend.

I think of Thy glory and my vileness,

Thy majesty and my meanness,

Thy beauty and my deformity,

Thy purity and my filth,

Thy righteouness and my iniquity.

Thou has loved me everlastingly, unchangeably,

may I love Thee as I am loved;

Thou hast given Thyself for me,

may I give myself to Thee.

Thou hast died for me,

may I live to Thee

in every moment of time,

in every movement of my mind,

in every pulse of my heart.

May I never dally with the world and its allurements,

but walk by Thy side,

listen to Thy voice,

be clothed with Thy grace,

and adorned with Thy righteousness.

Arthur Bennett, ed. Valley of Vision (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), 18.


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Preaching Is Not Performance

embounds

Preaching is the Outflow of Life


For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe (1 Cor 1:21-22 ESV).

Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to make a sermon, because it takes twenty years to make the man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows. The sermon is forceful because the man is forceful. The sermon is holy because the man is holy. The sermon is full of the divine unction because the man is full of the divine unction.

E. M. Bounds, Preaching and Prayer

HT: Adrian Warnock