2005-11-25
Good Morning Dear Ones,
I can refer to you with that kind of endearment, because of the wonderful supernaturally-forged bond that exists between all believers with other believers and God. That makes us His children and siblings in Christ. Having said that, it is understandable that the teaching in Christ's Sermon on the Mount is for each and every one of us. It is also a force that takes us away from our natural self-centered selves to a spiritual self that is pleasing and refreshing to our Creator. It also has that same effect on other believers. For example, a humble person is a lot more pleasant to be around than one who does things only for his self-aggrandizement. This example is quite appropriate to bring up at this time, because the Holy Spirit is leading me to discuss Christ's teaching on prayer.
Admittedly, my spiritual growth came in learning the Scriptures first, meaning that there was a time when I didn't have much of a prayer life. This first stage was a head trip, and certainly not God-pleasing as it stood. That's when God went into action using a lady in our church who had been the main Coordinator for the prayer chain. At that time, about 20 people were on phones, and the idea of having an e-mail chain was being born. For whatever reason, and I believe it was a God-generated one, this lady called me and asked me if I would get an e-mail prayer chain going. This call came out of the blue, and my first thought is while I know my way around using a computer, I'm wholly unqualified to Coordinate a prayer chain of any kind-shades of Moses in EX 4: 10 and Jeremiah in JER 1: 6. But God's will and my own adventurous spirit overtook that, and I agreed to do this task. I knew nothing about how to pray, much less how to establish a God-pleasing e-mail prayer chain. I also needed a lesson on how God can make things happen and have really gotten one since. More and more people were coming on-line at that time, and the demands on people's time to get work done, raise families, and still have a prayer life were increasing exponentially. I have often said God doesn't call a person to a task that He doesn't first equip him to do. Often, that's to the sharp surprise of the person involved. Along the way, 180 folks have come on-board with this e-mail prayer chain, leaving only 11 still on the phone. The even greater example of God's surprises is how God has patiently taught me how to pray using His words and words that He gives me. He has rewarded me with a bird's eye view of how he works in the lives of others and how generous He can be when we keep people's private business confidential. I can also now see how He has been at work in my life in a way I never could before.
Now, let's look at some of Christ's teaching from the Sermon on the Mount. Most of our praying is to be done in private without any secondary human agenda of drawing attention to ourselves. What I shared above is not to draw attention to myself, but rather to draw it to the amazing power that God has and His righteous use of it. MT 6: 5-6, "When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! They love to stand up and pray in the houses of worship and on the street corners, so that everyone will see them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full. But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, Who is unseen. And your Father, Who sees what you do in private , will reward you." We must remember that we are to be praying for people in need or for ourselves when we are in need, not to show others that we are praying. One of the huge lessons God has taught me is about the power of prayer. Praying to draw attention to ourselves interferes with being able to appreciate the power of prayer. JAS 5: 16 gives us an inkling of this power. "So then, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you will be healed. The prayer of a good person has a powerful effect." Note that people who genuinely are confessing are people who are acting in humility.
MT 6: 7-8, "When you pray, do not use a lot of meaningless words, as the pagans do, who think that God will hear them because their prayers are long. Do not be like them. Your Father already knows what you need before you ask Him." If that sounds like you need to ask, "why pray, since God already knows what we need?" then one has missed the point. God wants us to expose what is in our hearts and how caring we really are. That's why He wants us to pray. He also would like to know if we are capable of enough inner quietness that we can listen to Him when He speaks to us in response to our prayerful pleas. That's why I've always defined prayer as two-way communication between man and God, where the person allows God to speak first. Truthfully, before I took over the prayer chain, I had no understanding of these things. But, God is the greatest Teacher anyone, even this hard-headed Jewish lady, ever had. I must share an opinion of mine. I'm not a great believer in speaking in tongues, unless it is like it was in AC 2: 7-11 when Peter and the disciples emerged from the Upper Room, and Peter spoke about the Pentecost etc., with the audience hearing his words in their own dialects. Of course there are denominations of Christianity where people suddenly begin speaking what sounds like gibberish, and they claim to be speaking in tongues. Unless someone else can interpret what they are saying, I remain doubtful that this is more than meaningless words. But, that's my personal opinion, and I leave it up to you to decide how you feel. Jesus had more teaching for us on prayer in His Sermon on the Mount, and we'll tackle some of that in my next message.
PRAYER: O Lord, prayer is one of the two main ways that You reveal Yourself to us. That is reason on its own for us to consider prayer important enough to allow You to teach us how to pray. I can personally testify to the power of prayer and to the wonderful system You have showed us that exists to transmit our prayers to You. You first told us in RO 8: 26-27 how the Holy Spirit acts. "In the same way the Spirit also comes to help us, weak as we are. For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans what words cannot express. And God, Who sees into our hearts, knows what the thought of the Spirit is; because the Spirit pleads with God on behalf of His people and in accordance with His will." The Spirit, Dear Father, is not the only help we have. Your Son, Himself, the same Son Who gave His precious life for us on the cross for our salvation, at the same time opened the heavenly holy of holies to all who believe [HE 9: 12]. As our High Priest in heaven [HE 8: 1-2], He has taken on the job of being our Advocate and Intercessor with You. 1 JN 2:1-2, "I am writing this to you, my children, so that you will not sin; but if anyone does sin, we have Someone Who pleads with the Father on our behalf-Jesus Christ, the righteous One. And Christ himself is the means by which our sins are forgiven, and not our sins only, but also the sins of everyone." Dear Father, You showed us in the book of REV 8: 1-5, our prayers go up to You, You decide how to act on them, and in Your own perfect time, things happen. Your power is awesome, and Your use of it is just, compassionate, wise, loving, and patient. For these reasons and many more You deserve our worship, praise, and thanks. In Christ's holy name, we pray. Amen.
As mentioned above, next week's message will contain more of Christ's teaching from the Sermon on the Mount on prayer. He has been so open with us about God's will on this crucial part of our lives that as true believers there can be no question of how much it matters to Him. We can take that one step further and say how much we matter to Him. Repeatedly, He has stated and shown by His actions that His number one agenda is to have us purified and perfected to the point of being able to be glorified. Our loving Father wants us at his side for eternity. He wants us to have a life of blissful fellowship with Him forever. He doesn't want us to end up in conscious torment, which is the fate of all those who reject Him. We must place this vital information on the backdrop of His sacrifice of His only begotten Son on the cross so we could be saved in the first place [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25]. Think about this courageous and unselfish sacrifice our Abba has made for us! And once we are His children, think about the gift of the His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, that He so generously allows to dwell within us [JN 14: 16-18]. What greater love can there be? Even before we are glorified, He gives us His word and prayer as two main ways He reveals Himself to us. We are told that prayer goes right along with all the elements of God's armor [EPH 6: 10-18] to fend off the fiery arrows of Satan's evildoing. And, we are commanded in EPH 6: 18 to pray with persistence for all of God's children. God's love for us is real and can be felt. It is a true love, one that calls us to allow His Spirit to take over leadership of our lives for His righteous purpose.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn