Lord, May I Be Worthy of You

Jim Greer has a whole series on his blog called “400 Year Old Prayers.”  This one ran recently, and I’ve included his introduction, and also his link to the entire series which appears at the end.

The following prayer is from the largely forgotten deposit of the Puritan Movement of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It testifies to the richness and color of evangelical thought and language, as well as their devotion to the Savior. This prayer and others can be found in a book titled “The Valley of Vision”, by Arthur Bennet. I have included them in this blog so that others can use them in their own prayer life as a springboard to a more faithful walk with Jesus. These prayers are 300-400 years old! They were written in old English, but that should not get in the way if you don’t let it.

Need of Jesus

Lord Jesus,

I am blind, be my light,
ignorant, be my wisdom,
self-willed, be my mind

Open my ear to grasp quickly your Spirit’s voice,
and delightfully run after His beckoning hand;

Melt my conscience that no hardness remain,
make it alive to evil’s slightest touch;
When Satan approaches may I flee to your wounds,
and there cease to tremble at all alarms.

Be my good shepherd to lead me into green pastures of your Word,
and cause me to lie down beside the rivers of its comforts.

Fill me with peace, that no disquieting worldly gales may ruffle the calm surface of my soul.

Your cross was upraised to be my refuge,

Your blood streamed forth to wash me clean,

Your death occurred to give me a surety,

Your name is my property to save me,

By you all heaven is poured into my heart,
but it is too narrow to comprehend your love.

I was a stranger, an outcast, a slave, a rebel
but your cross has brought me near,
has softened my heart,
has made me your Father’s child,
has admitted me into your family,
has made me joint heir with yourself.

O that I may love you as you have loved me,
that I may walk worthy of you, my Lord,
that I may reflect the image of heaven’s first-born.

May I always see your beauty with the clear eye of faith,
and feel the power of your Spirit in my heart,
for unless he move mightily in me
no inward fire will be kindled.

For More of these old Prayers, visit our prayer page http://notforitchingears.com/prayer-of-the-week/400-year-old-prayers-1/

Anyone Out There Totally in Love with God?

Today’s piece is from Jim Thornber, whose blog is actually named “Thinking Out Loud.”  (Great minds think out loud alike.)  Jim’s own story begins, “How does an Assemblies of God minister from Southern California find himself a monk in a Catholic-based community in Eureka Springs, AR?”  You can read that here.  This particular item appeared at his blog under the title I’m Still Calling the Shots in a series titled Scriptures That Bother Me.

You are not your own; you were bought at a price. 1 Cor. 6:19-20.

Every Tuesday morning, I get together at a local coffee shop with a group of men from First Baptist Church. We spend about an hour and a half studying, praying for needs, challenging each other in our relationship with Christ and generally drinking too much coffee. It is one of the highlights of my week.

The other morning as we were studying Crazy Love by Francis Chan, someone asked if we knew anyone who was totally in love with God. You know, a completely sold-out, every fiber of their being doing little more than living, breathing, talking, thinking about and obeying Christ type of person.

We all got silent for a few moments as we racked our brains trying to think of someone we knew who was totally and completely sold out and in love with God. As the silence lingered, I thought it rather humorous that none of us at the meeting thought anyone at the table fit that description. Even the two pastors who were there, yours truly being one of them, weren’t named by anyone else in the group as being totally in love with Christ. Well, that was humbling!

The first person who came to my mind was Mark Buntain, who visited my Bible college in the early 80’s. A missionary to India, Mark founded Calcutta Mercy Ministries, which reaches the poorest in India through schools, a homeless shelter, massive feeding programs, orphanages and a large church. I remember hearing him teach in the chapel at college, and I was struck with his sincerity, complete humility, and absolute dedication to the work Christ called him to.

When he finished speaking, he didn’t come down front and meet the students like most every other every other speaker did, listening to their compliments and signing autographs. Instead, Mark turned around and dropped to his knees at the choir pew and engaged in prayer. That image is still burned in my mind.

I remember watching him walk alone through campus, oblivious to all the students and the beautiful scenery as he talked out loud to God, praying and praising the Lord as walked. He had one thing on his mind as he walked, and it wasn’t how he appeared to the students; it was how he appeared before the Lord God his Savior. And, if you stopped him and engaged him in conversation, he didn’t make you feel like you were interrupting him. However, you knew you were in the presence of one who spent his every waking hour walking with God.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul says, “You are not your own; you were bought at a price” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). If that is true, that we are not our own, then why can I only think of a few people who actually live that way? I know I don’t. Sure, I claim Jesus is my Lord, but too often I live with myself calling the shots. How often have I prayed for guidance in ministry, only to edit where I’ll go based on the geography or size of the church without even consulting God?

This idea that I am not my own, that I was purchased by God through the death and resurrection of Jesus, has been haunting me for a week, if only because I know the price that was paid and how I repay that price by leading my own life at my own convenience.

It is time I seriously consider making God the True Lord of my entire life. Maybe then, the next time someone asks if they know anyone completely and truly in love with and sold out to God, I might just come to someone’s mind.

~Jim Thornber

There’s a Peace I’ve Come To Know

Our guest worship leader on Sunday shared this song.  Beautiful imagery.  Send the link for this* to someone you know who is hurting.

*http://wp.me/pSfhz-vF

There’s a peace I’ve come to know
Though my heart and flesh may fail
There’s an anchor for my soul
I can say “It is well”

Jesus has overcome
And the grave is overwhelmed
The victory is won
He is risen from the dead

And I will rise when He calls my name
No more sorrow, no more pain
I will rise on eagles’ wings
Before my God fall on my knees
And rise
I will rise

There’s a day that’s drawing near
When this darkness breaks to light
And the shadows disappear
And my faith shall be my eyes

Jesus has overcome
And the grave is overwhelmed
The victory is won
He is risen from the dead

And I will rise when He calls my name
No more sorrow, no more pain
I will rise on eagles’ wings
Before my God fall on my knees
And rise
I will rise

And I hear the voice of many angels sing,
“Worthy is the Lamb”
And I hear the cry of every longing heart,
“Worthy is the Lamb”
And I hear the voice of many angels sing,
“Worthy is the Lamb”
And I hear the cry of every longing heart,
“Worthy is the Lamb”

And I will rise when He calls my name
No more sorrow, no more pain
I will rise on eagles’ wings
Before my God fall on my knees
And rise
I will rise

A Celebration of Faithfulness

Found this on the blog of Youth Unlimited.  This is actually a different YU from the one that is an offshoot of Youth For Christ.  It tells of the history of what some call the “chain of grace” beginning in an earlier generation and bearing fruit some hundred years later; and also a much larger “domino effect” in history that is more familiar.  If you and I are living for Jesus Christ, we can enter into being part of such a chain and fulfill the purposes of God for our generation.

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Celebrating God’s Faithfulness: Past, Present and Future
Psalm 78:5–7

“He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands.”

To read the entire passage click one of the following:
NIV / Message / KJV / CEV

It was fascinating to watch YouTube footage of the November 9, 2009, 20-year anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin wall. Along the route marking the path the former wall once stood, one thousand ten foot plastic foam dominoes were carefully placed, perfectly positioned to tumble as dominoes do. Polish leader Lech Walesa, whose pro-democracy movement played a key role in freeing Europe from communist rule, tipped the first domino. For the next minute and a half, hundreds of thousands from around the world lined the mile long route watching the chain reaction as the first domino tipped the next, which in turn tipped the next, until finally the last domino, one mile away from the first, toppled to the ground to thunderous applause and fireworks.

The domino effect reminds me of the way God intended his truth to be passed down from one generation to the next. Psalm 78:5 tells us that God meant for the generation that came before us to teach us about the good news of Jesus. But, like the dominoes that toppled in Berlin, the passing of truth from one generation to the next was meant to start a chain reaction of truth passing. One hundred years ago a small but determined group of Dutch immigrants obeyed God’s call to start a Christian school that passed on the truth of God’s word in every subject area. Their vision was carried on by the next generation who in turn passed it to the next generation. Today, some ten decades and four generations later, we have been impacted by God’s faithfulness through that first generation. What a blessing! What a responsibility!

We now have to pass the truth we been given on to someone else. So here are some questions Psalm 78:6-7 forces us to reckon with: Who are you teaching to trust in God? When is the last time you told someone what God has done? Who are you mentoring in a life of living God’s way? By God’s design, they are depending on it.  As Paul urges in Romans 10:14-16, “How can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That’s why Scripture exclaims, ‘A sight to take you breath away! Grand processions of people telling all the good things of God!’” The dominoes are falling. Until He comes again with the applause of heaven, we best keep the chain reaction going.

Ben deRegt
Pastor

To See The King of Heaven Fall In Anguish To His Knees

A seven minute listening experience for you today with one of the UKs top worship composers, Stuart Townend; the song simply titled Gethsemane. 

Let Your Light So Shine

Another great post at Daily Encouragement, finding an interesting parallel between nature and our spiritual lives.  This appeared on their blog under the title, Shine Jesus Shine.

“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

We wish you could join us some evening during this time of year when we sit out on our porch swing at dusk and look out over our front lawn and then scan the huge cornfield across the country lane. Thousands of fireflies put on a great show and the scene over the corn appears as twinkling Christmas lights.  We also still like to ctach them and they have a distinct odor that’s reliably identifiable! It produces this chemical to repel predators.

Fireflies (also known in some regions, such as the midwest where we grew up, as “lightning bugs”) abound in our area. This bioluminescent insect, scientifically known as Pyractomena borealis, is sure an interesting creature and we marvel as we observe this special creation of God.

Jesse, about 8 years old, and his family attended a church in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania we served several years ago in an interim pastoral role. One evening he was out with his family on their porch watching their resident toad peeking through the flowers in the planter. He came up with the “bright” idea of feeding the toad a few bugs. Fireflies were abundant so he fed the toad some fireflies which were readily devoured. Then an amazing thing happened; the toad lit up from the inside! Jesse excitedly told me that he could see the lights flashing through the thin layer of the toad’s skin. His family all watched in amazement.

Jesse’s father, Scott, observed that the light of Christ shining through us is a result of feeding on the Word.  Today may we all truly let our light shine so that others may see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven! (See Matthew 5:16.)

The Scriptures acknowledge God’s work in Creation when He said, “Let there be light.”  These are the very first recorded words of God in the entire Bible. It’s God’s nature to display His light and dispel the darkness.

As believers we have His light shining in our hearts. The same God who initially created light has “made His light shine in our hearts.” The purpose is “to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

This is an interesting verse that I don’t recall examining closely. (Sometimes for preachers it takes an illustration in search of a text to dig deeper!)  Another version reads, “He is the One Who made His light shine in our hearts. This brings us the light of knowing God’s shining-greatness which is seen in Christ’s face.” 

May the Lord fill us all with the Light of His truth and may we shine brightly from within!

~Stephen & Brooksyne Weber

Narrow Truth Handled With Great Grace

The Christian blogosphere appears to stretch out into infinity.  Research a simple phrase on Google Blog Search and you’ll be taken places and introduced to people you would otherwise never get to meet.  I found this article on the site Ralph Howe Ministries.  Step one for me is to check out the individual or organization to determine that I’m not sending my readers to a site or a part of the doctrinal spectrum that is outside the realm of orthodoxy.  Step two is to write an introduction as I’m doing now. 

In this case, it was a seemingly insignificant blog post about reaching out to young people.  But then, toward the end, was the phrase,  “It is important for them to know that in spite of walking in what we believe to be truth, which tends to be very narrow, that we handle these truths with great grace.” 

I had to think about that for a minute.  We’re often seen as narrow because Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  That, we believe, is truth.  But Mr. Howe suggests we can handle this truth with great grace.  Those words, if you consider them, might change your whole approach in the future. 

Anyway, I liked this enough to include not only the original post I read, but also a second. (Which we don’t usually do here!)  Here’s the first one.

Young people are so important to God and He is moving in very special ways upon the youth of today around the world.

Here in my city I meet with young people every day. They are amazing, always interesting and filled with questions about Jesus and what is happening today in the world and how it all fits with what the Bible states. These are non-Christians. The same is true in every town and city that I travel to – no matter what part of the world I am visiting. These young people and young couples are hungry for reality and an authentic faith that works in the world. A faith that helps them to face a real world and deal with complex issues that they face and feel every day.

In every case these young men and women are simply looking for someone to listen and to understand them – not always agree with them, but willing to listen to their heartbeat. They know when they are being judged and rejected; they know when people are sincere and really caring; they want us to look past the outward appearance and see their hearts. They want to know that we walk in grace and so can accept them for who they are even if we can’t agree with their values, beliefs or lifestyle.

It is important for them to know that in spite of walking in what we believe to be truth, which tends to be very narrow, that we handle these truths with great grace. The narrower the truth the greater the grace needed. We believe that Jesus is the only way to Heaven – very narrow truth that tends not to sound inclusive. So, when talking to the young people who do not believe this we need to extend great grace – loving them, accepting them (who they are and what they believe) and not judging them.

Only after they have experienced great grace through you will they open their hearts and hear what you have to say and what you believe.

Here’s a second (bonus!) post from Ralph Howe which he titled Purpose and Passion:

Many people in life just live life. They exist. They live by putting one foot in front of the other and simply surviving. Jesus promised us life and life abundantly. Just surviving – just making it – plodding along through life and being glad when the day finally comes to an end is not how life is suppose to be lived. You are suppose to grab life by the tail and swing it for all that it is worth. After-all, today is not a dress rehearsal; you don’t get to live today twice. So, give it your full attention and live it with focus and passion.

I often observe how believers seem to be lacking passion for Jesus. I wonder, at times, if it is not simply lacking passion for life. But then passion for life would logically arise out of your passion for Jesus who is the Author of all life. And, believers – born again Christians – have a personal relationship with the Giver of Life and so should not only have tremendous passion for Him but also for His gift of life – daily life.

So,why do people who say they love Jesus apparently lack passion? Good question. A possible answer would be that they have yet to discover God’s true purpose for their life — for who they are as God created them to be — when followed and expressed, will bring passion. Maybe they have also yet to discover what God’s purpose is for them – for this unique individual who is not ‘normal’ but very unique and different than all others on the planet. I believe that when you find your true purpose in life, passion follows. You absolutely live to pursue it.

So, passion for Jesus and for life comes from knowing who you are – the unique ‘you’ God created – and while being ‘you’ finding God’s purpose for ‘you’ and chasing after it with every fiber of your being and giving it your better than best shot. This will be seen as passion and the world is looking for passionate people and will follow those who truly know where they are going and why and are going there with passion and excitement.

~Ralph Howe

Learning The Father’s Love

This is an excerpt from a recent Elisabeth Elliot newsletter, which was in turn taken from a chapter titled “Learning the Father’s Love” from the book A Lamp For My Feet:

When my brother Dave was very small, we spent a week at the seaside in Belmar, New Jersey. In vain my father tried to persuade the little boy to come into the waves with him and jump, promising to hold him safely and not allow the waves to sweep over his head. He took me (only a year older) into the ocean and showed Dave how much fun it would be. Nothing doing. The ocean was terrifying. Dave was sure it would mean certain disaster, and he could not trust his father. On the last day of our vacation he gave in. He was not swept away, his father held him as promised, and he had far more fun than he could have imagined, whereupon he burst into tears and wailed, “Why didn’t you make me go in?”

An early lesson in prayer often comes through an ordeal of fear. We face impending adversity and we doubt the love, wisdom and power of our Father in heaven. We’ve tried everything else and in our desperation we turn to prayer–of the primitive sort: here’s Somebody who’s reputed to be able to do anything. The great question is, can I get Him to do what I want? How do I twist His arm, how persuade a remote and reluctant deity to change His mind?

Poor Dave! His father could have forced him to come into the water, but he could not have forced him to relax and enjoy it. As long as the child insisted on protecting himself, saving the life he was sure he would lose, he could not trust the strong love of his father. He refused to surrender. In this simple story we hear echoes of the most ancient story, of the two who, mistrusting the word of their Father, fearing that obedience to Him would ultimately bar them from happiness, chose to repudiate their dependence on Him. Sin, death, destruction for the whole race were the result.

Learning to pray is learning to trust the wisdom, the power, and the love of our Heavenly Father, always so far beyond our dreams. He knows our need and knows ways to meet it that have never entered our heads. Things we feel sure we need for happiness may often lead to our ruin. Things we think will ruin us … if we believe what the Father tells us and surrender ourselves into His strong arms, bring us deliverance and joy.

The only escape from self-love is self-surrender. “Whoever loses his life for Me will find it” (Matthew 16:25, NIV). “Dwell in my love. If you heed my commands, you will dwell in my love, as I have heeded my Father’s commands and dwell in His love. I have spoken thus to you, so that my joy may be in you, and your joy complete” (John 15:9-11, NEB). My father knew far better than his small, fearful, stubborn son what would give him joy. So does our Heavenly Father. Whenever I have resisted Him, I have cheated myself, as my little brother did. Whenever I have yielded, I have found joy.

 

HT: Barbara at Stray Thoughts blog

Henri Nouwen Quotations

It’s pronounced ‘NOW-in.’  I don’t need to tell most of you that.  But many people don’t know his story, so you might want to take a minute to read about him before continuing, though his Wikipedia article is far too brief. In short: A theology academic who gave it up to live a life of service that most people reading this would consider far too menial.  Therefore, posting his words here is almost secondary to remembering his actions.

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“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”

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“Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.”

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“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing… that is a friend who cares.”

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“We are called to give ourselves, not only in life, but in death as well. I am called to trust that life is a preparation for death as a final act of giving. Not only are we called to live for others, but also to die for others. We have to choose between clinging to life in such a way that death becomes nothing but a failure, or letting go of life in freedom so that we can be given to others as a source of hope.”

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“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.”

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“The world is waiting … for new saints, ecstatic men and women who are so deeply rooted in the love of God that they are free to imagine a new international order.”

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“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, “Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody.” … [My dark side says,] I am no good… I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.” Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”

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“The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it”

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“Our life is a short time in expectation, a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment. There is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our lives. It seems that there is no such thing as a clear-cut pure joy, but that even in the most happy moments of our existence we sense a tinge of sadness. In every satisfaction, there is an awareness of limitations. In every success, there is the fear of jealousy. Behind every smile, there is a tear. In every embrace, there is loneliness. In every friendship, distance. And in all forms of light, there is the knowledge of surrounding darkness … But this intimate experience in which every bit of life is touched by a bit of death can point us beyond the limits of our existence. It can do so by making us look forward in expectation to the day when our hearts will be filled with perfect joy, a joy that no one shall take away from us.”

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“One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there.”

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“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.
And what you want to give me is love,
unconditional, everlasting love.
Amen.”

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“Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action.”

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“The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation…”

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“To pray, I think, does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God. As soon as we begin to divide our thoughts about God and thoughts about people and events, we remove God from our daily life and put him into a pious little niche where we can think pious thoughts and experience pious feelings. … Although it is important and even indispensable for the spiritual life to set apart time for God and God alone, prayer can only become unceasing prayer when all our thoughts — beautiful or ugly, high or low, proud or shameful, sorrowful or joyful — can be thought in the presence of God. … Thus, converting our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer moves us from a self-centred monologue to a God-centred dialogue.”

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” Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared. “

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Sources: Think Exist, Good Reads, Quoteland, Wisdom Quotes, Quote Mountain, Sammy Williams Blog, iWise.

Here’s a final quote from Nouwen on prayer which I found at Thinking Out Loud from May, 2009

For many of us, prayer means nothing more than speaking with God. And since it usually seems to be a quite one-sided affair, prayer simply means talking to God. This idea is enough to create great frustrations. If I present a problem, I expect a solution; if I formulate a question, I expect an answer; if I ask for guidance, I expect a response. And when it seems, increasingly, that I am talking into the dark, it is not so strange that I soon begin to suspect that my dialogue with God is in fact a monologue. Then I may begin to ask myself: To whom am I really speaking, God or myself?

Sometimes the absence of an answer makes us wonder if we might have said the wrong kind of prayers, but mostly we feel taken, cheated, and quickly stop “this whole silly thing.” It is quite understandable that we should experience speaking with real people, who need a word and who offer a response, as much more meaningful than speaking with a God who seems to be an expert at hide and seek.

Thought Monitoring

Recovering alcoholics use the phrase “one day a time” as a reminder that progress, to be successful, has to take place on a daily level; and resultant sobriety is measured in weeks, months and finally annual celebrations.

When it comes to controlling our thought life however, our progress can rise or fall in minutes, or even within the seconds of a single minute.  However, as long as we understand that, we won’t be defeated when unwanted thoughts creep into our heads.  We can say, “Okay, my mind may have been going down the wrong path that past few seconds, but I can now get back track for the next few seconds.”

Falling asleep and waking up are probably the toughest times for me.  As in any professional sports match, I can be more effective when I run a good defense.  For myself, I find in those minutes I can slam dunk some of those thoughts simply by reciting the phrases of the Lord’s Prayer. 

Of course, in the morning, simply getting up and starting the day a few minutes earlier also solves the problem.  I remember Larry Tomczak saying years ago that “most Christians are defeated between the bed and the breakfast table.” 

So if the AA program can claim the phrase, “one day a time;” I propose that we appropriate the phrase, “minute by minute.” 

II Cor 10:5 in the KJV contains the phrase, “Bringing every thought into captivity.”  Here’s how the NLT renders that passage:

 ³ We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. ⁴ We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. ⁵ We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. ⁶ And after you have become fully obedient, we will punish everyone who remains disobedient.

In verse 5 Paul personifies our thoughts and writes that we teach our thoughts to obey Christ. In The Message read how Eugene Peterson looks at this:

^3-6The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.

Note the phrase, “fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.”  Yes, there are going to be “loose thoughts,” but we redirect them. 

Last year I wrote on this subject for three consecutive days, and if you want to continue reading here are the links on this vital topic:

• Wandering Thoughts: “Partial Depravity”
• Detoxifying our Minds: “Think on These Things”
• A Defensive Posture “Capturing Every Thought”

We can also help each other by praying for specific people God brings to mind and asking for His help for them to keep their thought life focused on things that are pure, lovely, praiseworthy, containing good news and virtuous.  You pray for me, and I will pray for you.

~Paul Wilkinson

Faithful Devotion and Prayer

Found this EM Bounds classic piece today at the blog of N.R. Johnson, which I suspect I will be visiting many times again…

“St. Teresa rose off her deathbed to finish her work. She inspected, with all her quickness of eye and love of order the whole of the house in which she had been carried to die. She saw everything put into its proper place, and every one answering to their proper order, after which she attended the divine offices of the day. She then went back to her bed, summoned her daughters around her . . . and, with the most penitential of David’s penitential prayers upon her tongue, Teresa of Jesus went forth to meet her Bridegroom.” — ALEXANDER WHYTE.

PRAYER, without fervor, stakes nothing on the issue, because it has nothing to stake. It comes with empty hands. Hands, too, which are listless, as well as empty, which have never learned the lesson of clinging to the Cross.

Fervorless prayer has no heart in it; it is an empty thing, an unfit vessel. Heart, soul, and life, must find place in all real praying. Heaven must be made to feel the force of this crying unto God.

Paul was a notable example of the man who possessed a fervent spirit of prayer. His petitioning was all-consuming, centered immovably upon the object of his desire, and the God who was able to meet it.

Prayers must be red hot. It is the fervent prayer that is effectual and that availeth. Coldness of spirit hinders praying; prayer cannot live in a wintry atmosphere. Chilly surroundings freeze out petitioning; and dry up the springs of supplication. It takes fire to make prayers go. Warmth of soul creates an atmosphere favorable to prayer, because it is favorable to fervency. By flame, prayer ascends to heaven. Yet fire is not fuss, nor heat, noise. Heat is intensity — something that glows and burns. Heaven is a mighty poor market for ice.

God wants warmhearted servants. The Holy Spirit comes as a fire, to dwell in us; we are to be baptized, with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Fervency is warmth of soul. A phlegmatic temperament is abhorrent to vital experience. If our religion does not set us on fire, it is because we have frozen hearts. God dwells in a flame; the Holy Ghost descends in fire. To be absorbed in God’s will, to be so greatly in earnest about doing it that our whole being takes fire, is the qualifying condition of the man who would engage in effectual prayer.

Our Lord warns us against feeble praying. “Men ought always to pray,” He declares, “and not to faint.” That means, that we are to possess sufficient fervency to carry us through the severe and long periods of pleading prayer. Fire makes one alert and vigilant, and brings him off, more than conqueror. The atmosphere about us is too heavily charged with resisting forces for limp or languid prayers to make headway. It takes heat, and fervency and meteoric fire, to push through, to the upper heavens, where God dwells with His saints, in light.

Many of the great Bible characters were notable examples of fervency of spirit when seeking God. The Psalmist declares with great earnestness:

“My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto Thy judgments at all times.”

What strong desires of heart are here! What earnest soul longings for the Word of the living God!

An even greater fervency is expressed by him in another place:

“As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?”

That is the word of a man who lived in a state of grace, which had been deeply and supernaturally wrought in his soul.

Fervency before God counts in the hour of prayer, and finds a speedy and rich reward at His hands. The Psalmist gives us this statement of what God had done for the king, as his heart turned toward his Lord:

“Thou hast given him his heart’s desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips.”

At another time, he thus expresses himself directly to God in preferring his request:

“Lord, all my desire is before Thee; and my groaning is not hid from Thee.”

What a cheering thought! Our inward groanings, our secret desires, our heart-longings, are not hidden from the eyes of Him with whom we have to deal in prayer.

The incentive to fervency of spirit before God, is precisely the same as it is for continued and earnest prayer. While fervency is not prayer, yet it derives from an earnest soul, and is precious in the sight of God. Fervency in prayer is the precursor of what God will do by way of answer. God stands pledged to give us the desire of our hearts in proportion to the fervency of spirit we exhibit, when seeking His face in prayer.

Fervency has its seat in the heart, not in the brain, nor in the intellectual faculties of the mind. Fervency therefore, is not an expression of the intellect. Fervency of spirit is something far transcending poetical fancy or sentimental imagery. It is something else besides mere preference, the contrasting of like with dislike. Fervency is the throb and gesture of the emotional nature.

It is not in our power, perhaps, to create fervency of spirit at will, but we can pray God to implant it. It is ours, then, to nourish and cherish it, to guard it against extinction, to prevent its abatement or decline. The process of personal salvation is not only to pray, to express our desires to God, but to acquire a fervent spirit and seek, by all proper means, to cultivate it. It is never out of place to pray God to beget within us, and to keep alive the spirit of fervent prayer.

Fervency has to do with God, just as prayer has to do with Him. Desire has always an objective. If we desire at all, we desire something. The degree of fervency with which we fashion our spiritual desires, will always serve to determine the earnestness of our praying. In this relation, Adoniram Judson says:

“A travailing spirit, the throes of a great burdened desire, belongs to prayer. A fervency strong enough to drive away sleep, which devotes and inflames the spirit, and which retires all earthly ties, all this belongs to wrestling, prevailing prayer. The Spirit, the power, the air, and food of prayer is in such a spirit.”

Prayer must be clothed with fervency, strength and power. It is the force which, centered on God, determines the outlay of Himself for earthly good. Men who are fervent in spirit are bent on attaining to righteousness, truth, grace, and all other sublime and powerful graces which adorn the character of the authentic, unquestioned child of God.

God once declared, by the mouth of a brave prophet, to a king who, at one time, had been true to God, but, by the incoming of success and material prosperity, had lost his faith, the following message:

“The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. Herein hast thou done foolishly; therefore, from henceforth thou shalt have wars.”

God had heard Asa’s prayer in early life, but disaster came and trouble was sent, because he had given up the life of prayer and simple faith.

In Romans 15:30, we have the word, “strive,” occurring, in the request which Paul made for prayerful cooperation.

In Colossians 4:12, we have the same word, but translated differently: “Epaphras always laboring fervently for you in prayer.” Paul charged the Romans to “strive together with him in prayer,” that is, to help him in his struggle of prayer. The word means to enter into a contest, to fight against adversaries. It means, moreover, to engage with fervent zeal to endeavor to obtain.

These recorded instances of the exercise and reward of faith, give us easily to see that, in almost every instance, faith was blended with trust until it is not too much to say that the former was swallowed up in the latter. It is hard to properly distinguish the specific activities of these two qualities, faith and trust. But there is a point, beyond all peradventure, at which faith is relieved of its burden, so to speak; where trust comes along and says: “You have done your part, the rest is mine!”

In the incident of the barren fig tree, our Lord transfers the marvelous power of faith to His disciples. To their exclamation, “How soon is the fig tree withered alway!” He said:

“If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

When a Christian believer attains to faith of such magnificent proportions as these, he steps into the realm of implicit trust. He stands without a tremor of the apex of his spiritual outreaching. He has attained faith’s veritable top stone which is unswerving, unalterable, unalienable trust in the power of the living God.

– by EM Bounds (from “The Necessity of Prayer”)

Adding to “Male nor female, slave nor free…”

You know the verse.  In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female…  The ground is level at the foot of the cross.  But when it comes to serving God, sometimes I wish the verse also said, “…neither young nor old, academic nor uneducated, rich nor poor.”  The call to active service in ministry is open to all who have surrendered their lives to Christ, regardless of their station in life. Rick Apperson captured the heart of that this weekend at his blog, Just a Thought, with this post he titled, Age is Relative…

You are never too young, too old, too uneducated, too poor, or too busy to serve the Lord!

I wasn’t much older than 20 when I was asked to be a youth pastor. I was the missions director of my church at 15. When I was 21, I traveled with an itinerant evangelist in his late 70’s. I could not keep up with his energy!

It is a sad, but true fact, that over the years, the church has relegated the young and the aged to the pews and youth groups. I have heard numerous stories of people who were told that they needed to be older in order to serve God. I have also seen the elderly members of a church ignored when it came to ministry opportunities.

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Galatians 6:9-10)

 How can we do good? By serving others, by loving others and by sharing the truth of Jesus Christ. For that job description, age doesn’t matter.

You may be familiar with this Scripture:

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;” (Acts 2:17)

I like the following passage found in Joshua 14. Caleb is telling part of his story to Joshua and the Israelites and he says this:

And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the LORD spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the LORD spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the LORD said.” (Joshua 14:10-12)

He was 85 years old and still ready to go for God! However, even the youth can be mightily used by God! Remember, Samuel the prophet was called by God as a youth.

The Bible talks of two kings: Joash who assumed the throne at the age of seven; and Josiah who became king at the age of eight. The Bible says that both of them obeyed the Lord. (2 Kings 12:2, 2 Kings 22:2)

Nor do you need to be educated to serve God. True Biblical education happens when you leave the Bible College, the missionary training school, etc… . It happens just like it did for the apostles…when you rub up against the world. Remember that Peter and a few of the others were just plain old, uneducated fishermen. Yet God used these uneducated men to change the world!

I am not knocking education; however, any education or lack thereof, is not an excuse to sit idly by on the sidelines and hope others will share the love of Jesus Christ. Any one at any age can and should do that. The Great Commission is for all of us!

~Rick Apperson

From the Mind of Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias is one of the leading voices in the field of Christian apologetics, and an author of many significant books on the subject.  RZIM, his organization is based in Atlanta, Georgia; and he has a daily radio program heard throughout Canada and the United States.  These are in somewhat random order; so take a minute to pause between them; feel free to comment if one especially strikes you.

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“We experience emptiness not when we are wearied by our trials, but when we are wearied by our happiness.”

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“A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God.”

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“One of the most staggering truths of the Scriptures is to understand that we do not earn our way to heaven. …works have a place–but as a demonstration of having received God’s forgiveness, not as a badge of merit of having earned it.”

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“I do not believe that one can earnestly seek and find the priceless treasure of God’s call without a devout prayer life. That is where God speaks. The purpose of prayer and of God’s call in your life is not to make you number one in the world’s eyes, but to make him number one in your life. We must be willing to be outshone while shining for God. We hear very little about being smaller in our own self-estimate.”

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“Philosophically, you can believe anything, so long as you do not claim it to be true.
Morally you can practice anything, so long as you do not claim that it is a ‘better’ way.
Religiously, you can hold to anything, so long as you do not bring Jesus Christ in to it.”

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“There is no greater discovery than seeing God as the author of your destiny.”

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“These days its not just that the line between right and wrong has been made unclear, today Christians are being asked by our culture today to erase the lines and move the fences, and if that were not bad enough, we are being asked to join in the celebration cry by those who have thrown off the restraints religion had imposed upon them. It is not just that they ask we accept, but they now demand of us to celebrate it too.”

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“I think the reason we sometimes have the false sense that God is so far away is because that is where we have put him. We have kept him at a distance, and then when we are in need and call on him in prayer, we wonder where he is. He is exactly where we left him.”

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“You cannot really have the world and hold on to it. It is all too temporary and the more you try to hold on to it, the more it actually holds you. By contrast, the more you hold on to the true and the good, the more you are free to really live.”

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“Where the eye is focused, there the imagination finds its raw material. The right focus must be won at immense cost and discipline. Train the eye to see the good, and the imagination will follow suit.”

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“It is theoretically and practically impossible to build any community apart from love and justice. If only one of these two is focused upon, an inevitable extremism and perversion follow.”

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“It is a mindless philosophy that assumes that one’s private beliefs have nothing to do with public office. Does it make sense to entrust those who are immoral in private with the power to determine the nation’s moral issues and, indeed, its destiny? …. The duplicitous soul of a leader can only make a nation more sophisticated in evil.”

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“Anyone who claims that all religions are the same betrays not only an ignorance of all religions but also a caricatured view of even the best-known ones. Every religion at its core is exclusive.”

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“God is the shaper of your heart. God does not display his work in abstract terms. He prefers the concrete, and this means that at the end of your life one of three things will happen to your heart: it will grow hard, it will be broken, or it will be tender. Nobody escapes.”

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“The tragedy is that just when we need to remember the most because we have climbed some pinnacle of blessing and success- that’s when the tendency is to turn our back upon God.

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Sources:

Good Quotes,  Quotation Collection, Christian Quotes,  Liberty Tree, Christian Apologetics Forum, Just My Thoughts, Simply Quotastic

This is an awesome exercise to do.  If there are any authors or speakers you’d like me to research, let me know, but I encourage you to do this sort of thing yourselves as well.

Dream Dashed or Dream Deferred?

What do you do when the plan isn’t coming together?  Steven Furtick talks about this in a piece I called Dream Dashed or Dream Deferred; which he called Not Ever vs. Not Now.

Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia.
Acts 16:6

The Holy Spirit prevented them from preaching the Word.

This doesn’t seem to go together. The Holy Spirit is the one who inspired the Word. He’s the one giving them the power to preach the Word. But now He is keeping them from preaching the Word?

The key here is that little phrase, “in the province of Asia.” Paul wanted to go to Asia to preach the Word. It was one of his goals, his dreams. And in a few chapters, he would. But not now. Instead the Holy Spirit stopped him and led him to other cities to preach first. And the response was incredible.

Sometimes God will prevent us from a certain goal at a time that does not coincide with His will. It’s not that we’re not doing what’s right. It’s just that we’re not doing it with the right timing.

He’s not saying not ever. He’s just saying not now.

Maybe it’s because we’re not yet equipped for it.
Maybe it’s because the eventual environment God is going to have us in isn’t fully developed yet.

Whatever the reason, you’re not ready for it. Or it’s not ready for you.  You always have to remember: what you think is good timing is not always God’s timing.

If you feel like your dreams are stalling or your goals are in a holding pattern, don’t assume you’ve made a mistake and it’s not going to happen. Paul eventually went to Asia. You’ll eventually get to your goal or dream too.

In the meantime, you’ll just have to trust that if God is preventing you from getting somewhere, it’s because you’re exactly where you need to be. For now.

Pastor Steven Furtick; Elevation Church, Charlotte, NC

Digging a little deeper

What’s in a word? Plenty, it turns out when that word is “anthropos;” the Greek word meaning “person” referring to humankind in general, from which we get the word “anthropology.”  A major Christian denomination is removing its support from the new revision to the New International Version of the Bible (NIV) because of what it calls “gender neutral” language.  But were certain passages written just to men, or were they written to everyone?  Do we sometimes let our preferences get in the way of hearing what scripture is truly saying?  Is the genderless language in the 2011 NIV a bad translation, or is it the correct translation?  Read more at Thinking Out Loud.

Information is not Transformation

Pete Wilson, yesterday:

One Of The Greatest Challenges In Contemporary Christianity

I believe one of the most obvious challenges in contemporary Christianity is we mistakenly assume that information automatically translates into transformation. However, knowing something is true does not in and of itself ensure that the truth will make a significant difference in our lives.

James 1:22-25   Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

We have more access to great information than ever before.

• Unbelievable Bible study tools available on the internet for stinkin’ free.

• Phenomenal messages from the world’s best pastors one click away, thanks to podcasts.

• In-depth and engaging bible studies adorning the shelves of bookstores all across America.

So what’s the problem?

We have to find a way to transfer all this incredible information that we know in our minds to our hearts so it can be lived out. We have to find a way to, as James puts it, “look intently into.” The word for “looks intently into” (parakypsas) literally means “to stoop down” in order to have a good close look.

Here’s my two cents. In order to “stoop down” you have to “slow down.” There’s not a crisis of information, but of transformation. And the greatest enemy of transformation, in a word, is hurry.

So slow down, stoop into God’s Word, actually do what it says, and see if the transformation doesn’t follow.