My throat has been hurting for a few days. It felt like a mini-fire this morning. I may have strep so I’m running by the doctor before I go to speak to some students on a retreat this weekend.
This summer and fall have been quite an experience for me. I have had ongoing fatigue and some reoccurring sicknesses for about 4 months now that I just can’t kick. The doctors have done a battery of tests and we’ll keep on trying to what the true source is.
As I was driving today, I was reflecting on what I am currently doing in a fatigued state. I then wondered what I could do if my energy and health returned. It is important to note that it is easy to fall into the subtle trap of “doing” more stuff and thinking that makes us more spiritual or more acceptable before God. So when I talk about “doing”, I am always trying to remind myself and others that our “doing” must flow from our “being”. So, back to my main idea.
What would flow from my life if I did have more energy? I didn’t really know how to answer this question. I was pondering what would happen if I really saw my neighbors on my block as family and starting treating them as such. We already reach out, but I still believe it would look a lot different if I really started believing this. I wondered if I would record another C.D. and play out again. This wouldn’t be for the sake of seeking to “make it” but simply to build relationships to share my life and the gospel with others.
It seems that, even though I am fatigued, that I am doing more than ever before. I have more relationships than ever, people probing into my life, new initiatives to equip the body, and the list goes on, but even so, I sense that my heart wants to hold back some things for myself. I am tentative to give away my time to others and continually put myself on the line and surrender all to God today. I’m on this journey and I know that God is at work. I long to continue to put myself in the place where God is bringing to light the things that I cannot see. I long to be used by God to do what He desires for me to do. This is not to earn His approval or to live a life that will be remembered. I long (and want to long) to live on mission because God has captured my heart and made me new. I want to do this because my Abba knows best and I do want to hear, “Well done My good and faithful servant.”
The reality may be that I will be more useful as a weary and scik man than as one who can play basketball all day or go about everyday with massive amounts of energy. I know Paul found this to be true for him (2 Corinthians 12). So whether this is a lifelong thorn or I get my energy back tomorrow, I will seek to trust in the One who gave Himself for me.
As our body gathered again for our monthly prayer service, our focus this morning was on the section of the Lord’s Prayer, “give us today our daily bread.” One of my fellow pastors, Robert Cheong, led us with the following thoughts this morning.
First, Robert reminded us that we depend on God for physical provisions. He said, “We take for granted so many aspects of our daily routine – the air we breathe, going to bed and waking up in the morning, walking, eating, and as a result, we forget to ask the Lord for the most basic physical provisions.” Even though God knows what we need before we ask Him, He delights in us realizing our need and bringing it before Him. This is another act of daily dependence upon Him and it reminds us that we are not only dependent in physical matter but also spiritual matters. As Jesus said in John 15, ” “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Do we really believe this truth? Our lives will show it if we do.
Secondly, Robert reminded all of us this morning that we need to depend on God for all of life. He said, “So we must not only ask the Lord for our daily physical bread, but we must also ask, ‘Give us today Christ and His gospel!’”
To close, Robert gave us the following to meditate on. It is a way to use “give us today our daily bread” within the entire Lord’s prayer. Let this be your prayer today.
**Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your Name-Lord, give us this day the grace to believe You are good, great, gracious, and glorious.
**Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven-Lord, give us this day the grace to seek Your kingdom and righteousness, as we believe that our basic needs will be given to us as well.
**Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors-Lord, give us this day the grace to forgive and love others as Christ has forgiven and loved us.
**And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one-Lord, give us this day the grace of your presence and power to fight this fight of faith as we battle unbelief.
As I continue to meditate on the Lord’s Prayer and use it as a structure for my prayer life, my heart continues to be awakened to the awesome privilege it is to have the God of the Universe capture my heart and give me nourishment for each day to live.
“Your kingdom come,
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven”
We long for the day when we will be able to live in the fullest expression of God’s kingdom when Jesus comes again, but what do we do in the mean time? Many helpful books have been written on this subject. If you are a reader, Russell Moore’s book The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective might be one that you want to pick up. But what can you pick up from God’s Word yourself?
A few of our pastors and staff were able to hang out with Harold Best this week. He defined prayer as “getting in God’s face with His Word.” We all thought this was a beautiful definition.
Do you think Paul prayed for things that were within God’s will? That would be a definite “yes.” If you look at Colossians 1:9-14, we see Paul praying for the following things for the Christians at Colossae.
–That God would give them complete knowledge of His will
–And to give them spiritual wisdom and understanding.
–The result would be that they would live in a way that would always honor and please the Lord
–Producing every kind of good fruit
–All the while, that they would grow as they learned to know God better and better.
–That they would be strengthened with all God’s glorious power (so that…)
–They would have all the endurance and patience they need.
–That they would be filled with joy…
–Always thanking the Father.
The remaining part of the passage reminds them what they have to be thankful for.
So if you are having problems praying God’s will for yourself and others, just pull out one of Paul’s prayers and maybe focus on one or two thoughts. In doing this, you will know that you are praying God’s will for yourself and others.
As I continue to reflect on the Lord’s Prayer, I would like to take a look at the second phrase of the prayer, “Hallowed Be Your Name.”
Before we ever ask for anything from God, it is a helpful practice to remember who we are talking to. We must remember that this is our Father who adopted us. He rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us into His family.
Then we set His Name apart and remember Who He is and this brings about worship. This also brings about confidence. Names were a big deal back in Bible times. God often changed people’s names when He was doing a new work in their lives. Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Cephas to Peter. When you know someone’s Name, you know something about them. When we look at the Names of God, we know more about Who He is and what He does.
Knowing who God is informs our prayers. Knowing Who God is gives us greater confidence and faith in our asking and it sets our hearts to make much of God.
I imagine it is like we have our requests in our hands directly in front of our eyes. If we begin our prayers in this posture, our requests seem huge and overwhelming because they are all that we see. But, if we spend some time remembering Who God is and what He has done and what He promises to do, we have a better perspective on reality.
If you hold a coin up to your eye, it will look huge. But if you set it on the ground, you will see how big it really is in relation to other things. Our concerns, though they may be overwhelming, are nothing compared to the size and strength of our God.
So what are some Names of God that you need to meditate on today? Provider, Healer, Savior, Emanuel “God is with us”, Shalom “God our peace”, Creator, Savior, and the list goes on and on.
So, after we remember God is our Father, and after we adore Him for aspects of Who He is, we can seek to center ourselves on His Kingdom and His will and pray for that to come. All the while, remembering Who He is. Then we come with boldness and confidence asking for our needs to be taken care of and we pray for others in need. After all of this, we remember how we have wronged God and remember that we must forgive. Then we pray to be kept safe from temptation and the evil one.
I will seek to go deeper into the other aspects of this prayer in the weeks ahead. Spend some time today remembering, “He is the Lord. He is to be honored, obeyed and worshiped before all and in all we do. Ponder who He is and adore His majesty, holiness, sovereignty, goodness and beauty.”
I look forward to writing more on the Lord’s Prayer in the weeks to come, but I felt led to throw up the above sermon that I preached at Sojourn a few weeks ago. Tons of confusion exists about baptism. In this sermon, I attempted to answer 2 questions. What does the Bible teach about baptism? What does this mean for us as individuals and as a community? This sermon focuses mainly on what baptism symbolizes. If we are Christians, we have passed through the waters of judgment, we have died and been raised with Christ, our sins have been washed away, and we have been baptized into one body. If you would like to download the sermon so you can listen on the go, you can go to this link, scroll down to “Baptism: A Sacred Symbol” and click download. I pray that you will be blessed as you remember these amazing truths of what God has done. This is the good news of the gospel!
As we gathered last week in the early hours to pray as a family of believers, we heard one of our pastors teach for 10 minutes on the Lord’s Prayer. As pastors, we took between 10 and 15 people each and led our groups through the movements of the Lord’s prayer.
As I led my group, my heart was moved by the beauty of how this prayer proceeds and how Jesus in His graciousness gave it as an example. The thing is, I’ve used this model many times before, but something new was impressed on my heart. I would like to spend the next several weeks walking through the progression of the prayer in this blog.
The first statement in the prayer is, “Our Father in heaven…” What struck me anew was the thought that we are to remember before we ever come to God with our needs. God does command that we bring our concerns before Him, but before we do that, isn’t it needed that we remember who we are praying to?
So we say, “Our Father” and we remember who it is that we are praying to. We remember that we once were not a people and now we are a people of God’s own possession (1 Peter 2:9). We once were members of the domain of darkness and now God has not only rescued us, He has made us beloved children! He is our Father and He cares for us more than we could ever dream or imagine. He has plans for His children and He is always good and He always knows what is best.
As we enter our times of prayer, we need to remember who God is and what He has done. He is the caring Father and He calls us to boldly come into His presence (Hebrews 4:14-16). The rest of our prayer will flow from the realization that God is our Father and that He hears our prayers.
Suffering with a 103.1 fever, I contemplated the brevity of life this week. Though the fever has passed and I am recovering, it is easy to be reminded how short life is and how weak we truly are. One of my spiritual heroes is Oswald Chambers. Though I differ with a few of his theological views, his writings and life have been an inspiration to me. Oswald lived a full life and died suddenly in his early 40’s from a ruptured appendix.
As I laid in bed, I thought about my life. What if I only lived until I was 40. The reality is, I am not guaranteed my next breath. James 4:13-16 says that we are a mist that appears for a little while and vanishes.
But, if I had but five and a half years to live, I wonder what I would do differently today? It doesn’t matter what I would do tomorrow, because my gift of procrastination allows me to always see tomorrow as a day away. So what would I do today?
Some things I wouldn’t change. I would still hug Ginger and Thomas everyday after work. I would still help out with the house chores and work on my house. I would still seek to know people and do my job well.
But some things would change. Slight as they might be, some things would change and I’m seeking to change them today.
I would pray a little more. I would print out some prayer requests and at down times, I would pray instead of catching a witty video on youtube. I would be more missionally minded concerning my neighborhood and what that will look like as we begin a missional community at our home next week. I would be more mindful of the brevity of life and seek God’s face with more fervency knowing that anything of eternal significance must come from His hand. I would be sad to leave my family, but I would begin longing for home a little more each day – my eternal home with my Savior and King.
All of these things have been slight changes for me today. I’m hoping to stay disciplined, by God’s grace, and see some of these stick with me for the long haul. What would change for you?
Woven throughout the New Testament is the beautiful reality that those who are in Christ now have a new identity. We don’t “do” things to earn anything or to make us anything. Who we are drives what we do and this is the amazing reality of the Gospel.
One of our new identities is that we have been adopted into a family. You might read that statement and say, “Yeah, I’ve known that since I was a kid.” But knowing something and living in the reality of it are two different things.
An Acts 29 pastor, Jeff Vanderstelt, writes, “We are God’s family and this means that we are His children who are adopted and fully accepted and loved. We don’t do good works to be justified. We do them because we ARE justified.”
So what does this mean for your life? As you enter this week, how might you love better if you began to view the Christians in your midst as your family?
I know for me, I gladly sacrifice with joy for my wife and son, but it is a different story when I step out of the context of my “immediate” family. When we begin to live in the reality that our family is much larger than we can imagine and that our family is for eternity, we might have a shift in focus.
Families eat together, play together, share financial burdens, surround each other with love, and the list goes on and on. As we do this, the world will see our love for one another. Francis Schaeffer writes, “…without true Christians loving one another, Christ says the world cannot be expected to listen, even when we give proper answers.” He goes on to write that we should work hard to give honest and helpful answers, but he concludes this thought by saying, “But after we have done our best to communicate to a lost world, still we must never forget that the final apologetic which Jesus gives is the observable love of true Christians for true Christians.”
Read John 1:12-13 and Ephesians 4:11-32 and ask God to reveal to you how you have neglected building up your family in love and what you need to do in order to better love and sacrifice for your family.
“The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.”
A.W. Tozer wrote this in the preface of The Pursuit of God. As I reflect this afternoon, I am convicted of my inability to stay centered on the fact that the main goal of my life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I can only enjoy God if I know Him. How do we get to know Him? God reveals Himself to us in His Word. How often do I approach the Scriptures as something to be understood so I can teach them to others instead of seeking to grow in intimacy with the Father? How often do I open the Bible in order to check off the list of “to dos” for the day? Sadly enough, this is how I can easily operate.
After such realizations in the past, I would beat myself up and just try harder, but I don’t feel like this is the proper route to go. My motivation to seek God must come from something greater than some mustered up self-will. I need to repent and confess my sin before God and others. I need to ask God to help me because I am in desperate need. Then I need to preach the Gospel to myself.
How can preaching the Gospel to myself help me seek God? I must remember who God is, what He’s done, and who I am. God is holy. He is good, perfect and always right. I am a sinner and I am deserving of Hell because of my rebellion against God. God has brought me from the domain of darkness and death and adopted me to be part of His family. With such great love that I cannot imagine, God has wiped my slate clean and given me a new heart. I no longer try to earn anything because, plain and simple, I can earn nothing but death. He lavishes His grace on me and calls me to seek Him. Even typing this is an awesome reminder to me of what Rich Mullins writes, “the reckless, raging fury that we call the love of God”. My motivation is delight and not duty.
Times do exist when we will walk through the valley where we will have to continue the disciplines, but our goal in all of this time is to brought near to God and know Him more. May we be like Moses and plead with God that we might see His glory and not settle for the things of this world that are mere dung in comparison to knowing our Amazing God!
My thoughts are going 90 to nothing this morning so I opened up one of my prayer books to meditate on other people’s prayers. I will often turn to Valley of Vision and meditate on some Puritan prayers, but today, I opened another prayer book.
I came upon a prayer from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He wrote the following prayer while awaiting execution in a Nazi prison. Bonhoeffer’s life is worth investigating if you like a good biography, but know that he wrote this prayer not knowing if he would be released or executed. In the end, he was put to death not long before WWII ended. Here is his prayer.
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you:
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me…
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me so to live now
That I may answer before you and before me.
Lord, whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.
Wherever we are today and whatever our state, we must realize and believe that God hears our prayers. He knows that we are feeble and weak. He knows we are made of dust. He knows that our days are numbered here on this earth.
What does God want from us? What does He demand? He asks us to believe. He asks us to trust that He is good, right and perfect and that His ways are always best. He asks us to cast our anxieties upon Him because He cares for us.
So where do you start? Begin with honesty. I have often prayed, “Lord, I don’t desire You right now. But I do desire to desire You. Please help me!” This might be the place you start today.
My throat has been hurting for a few days. It felt like a mini-fire this morning. I may have strep so I’m running by the doctor before I go to speak to some students on a retreat this weekend.
