Stand

You know the older I get the less I like to travel on business. It is not the work; it is being away from family and friends. I know, that must sound too mushy, but it is true. I recently traveled to our headquarters for a quarterly review. When I do travel it does give me some time to concentrate on my reading. I started a new book called “Stand” edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor. In this book they recruited some great writers to capture their thoughts on enduring in ministry.

It is a wonderful book with some of my favorites; Piper joined by Jerry Bridges, Randy Alcorn, John MacArthur and Helen Roseveare all contributing chapters dealing with perseverance. It is inspiring to read the stories of these fine people and their lives in ministry; to pick up the wisdom each has gathered over the years.

If any of you are tired from your spiritual journey, I think this book will help you gain that second wind; to inspire endurance. You know our efforts are just that; a journey through life complete with ups and downs. It is one we are called to endure to move forward and by looking to the proper source for our strength will enable us to “finish the race”.

I am reminded of a passage in Isaiah 40;

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. 9 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Are you tired and weary? Stand Firm, endure, persevere; turn to our savior and fight the good fight, continue the journey, and consider the verses from Hebrews 12 used by Helen Roseveare to end her chapter;

1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

May we all soar on wings like eagles, may we run and not grow weary and may we fix our eyes on Jesus!

Grace and Peace!

Knowing God

You know much has been said about National Day of Prayer. For me it was an encouraging and hopeful day. It was a day where people across this nation stopped and lifted prayers to our glorious God. It has caused me to reflect upon this day and upon prayer. This year my home fellowship group is studying prayer, and it has been so helpful in my prayer life. With all these things converging, I asked myself; why pray?

You know there are a number of good answers, we are commanded to, we pray to praise God, request things, thank, confess, worship and all those are important, but something really exciting to me is that prayer provides a way of knowing God.

A.W. Tozier minister and author of Pursuit of God had this to say about prayer:
"So when we sing, draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, we are not thinking of the nearness of place, but of the nearness of relationship. It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray for a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence."

And Oswald Chambers minister and author of My Utmost for His Highness said this:
"Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means of getting something for ourselves; the biblical idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself."

Isn’t that an amazing thought; that through prayer we can truly know God. I think we can find it in scripture. In Jeremiah 24 we find this verse;

7 I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.

Can you see it? Can you see the call to know God and that prayer is our means to knowing our great and glorious God. Now just what does that mean and what can we learn from this one verse? I think we can peel back three things here.

First, through prayer we get to know God by having a relationship with Him. You can see it in this verse, our gracious God gives us a heart to know Him, to know that He is our God and we are His people and what a beautiful relationship it is. I just love the verse in Revelations 3 that gives us another picture;

20Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

Even though Revelations 3 is a warning of sorts, it shows us that to know God is relational and requires a means of not only talking to, but a means of connecting and that brings us to our second point.

That through prayer we get to know God by communicating with him. We can see it in Jeremiah where God tells us we will be a people that return to Him. However, we must return as a people who recognize their brokenness and as a people who can return to their God only by the sacrifice of Christ. And the way we return, the way we communicate is through prayer. We can find this communication throughout scripture and we can even see that God hears our communication; our prayer. Let’s quickly look at Isaiah 38;

'This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears

Brother Lawrence described it this way; "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God."

Isn’t that so comforting? We, through prayer can have a continual conversation with God. And as we do, as we have a relationship with Him and as we communicate with Him an amazing thing happens which brings us to our last point.

That through prayer we get to know God by loving Him. We see it in Jeremiah 24 as we are not only a people that return to our God, a people that establish a relationship, that communicate, but that we return to our God with all our hearts. It is so clear that as we get to know God we are to love Him. I just love Deuteronomy 6:4-5;

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [a] 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

So what has become clear to me is that through our prayers we come to truly know God. Through prayer the communication starts, the relationship begins and the love between God and His people grows. The great theologian, J. I. Packer had this to say about knowing God:

"Knowing God involves a personal relationship whereby you give yourself to God on the basis of his promise to give Himself to you. Knowing God means asking for His mercy and resting on His undertaking to forgive sinners for Jesus’ sake. Further it means becoming a disciple of Jesus, the living Savior who is there today, calling the needy to Himself as he did in Galilee. Knowing God, in other words, involves faith- assent, consent, commitment – and faith expresses itself in prayer.

Finally, we have been brought to the point where we both can and must get our life’s priorities straight. But it is tragic that so many in our day seem to have been distracted from what was, is and always will be the true priority for every human being – that is learning to know God in Christ".

Isn’t that our real challenge, the challenge for each of us is how are we getting to know God? How are we spending out time? If you have three minutes watch this video.

Isn’t that so true? Life seems so busy, but again what are our priorities? Phillip Yancey wrote a great book and study on Prayer and in it he says that he is so busy, but in all his busyness he still finds time for the important things – things like e-mail, favorite shows, and the list goes on. You know if we will admit it we do make time for the things we really want to do. Yancey goes on to point out that "if prayer stands as the place where God and human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer."

Let that be our encouragement; May we all learn more about prayer, may we all pray more, and may we all know God!

Grace and Peace!

National Day of Prayer

National Day of Prayer is fast approaching. For anyone that didn’t know; this day was established in 1952 by a joint resolution of congress and signed into law by Harry Truman. That kind of astonished me as I have only been aware of this day for a few years. That probably speaks much to my spiritual journey.

I have given this day much thought and as much as I wish we didn’t have to have a national day of prayer; as much as I wish everyday was national day of prayer; I believe this is a worthwhile endeavor. Setting aside the first Thursday in May for this nation to come together and pray to God is some how encouraging to me.

This has caused me to think more about prayer and what prayer really is; being in relationship with our amazing God. That can be an intimidating thought, but we are called to pray; just as our Savior showed us the way. The challenge for me and maybe all of us is that my prayers need to be more than mere words; more than simple requests.

To me prayer must come from the heart. So my prayer is for my prayers to be heartfelt. My prayer is for my prayers to be more than something I have to do. My prayer is for my prayers to be meaningful and loving communication with my Lord.

As National Day of Prayer approaches, that is my prayer for us all. That we lift up praise, that we confess our brokenness, that we give thanks and that we lift up petitions for our friends, families, nation, Christians around the world, missionaries, those less fortunate…and the list goes on and on and on.

Martin Luther once said; “Grant that I may not pray alone with the mouth; help me that I may pray from the depths of my heart”. Father, help us all to pray from the depths of our hearts!

Grace and Peace!