Tag: prayer

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Worship

Learning to Pray in God’s Will

Do you ever wonder if we have been taught to pray incorrectly?

Have we tried to use God as our genie? Or maybe we’ve thought of Him more like Santa Claus – hoping that if we are “good enough” that He will give us the things on our wishlist.

Our prayers often seem to lean in that direction. But God is not a genie we can manipulate when we feel like it, nor is He a jolly spy in a red suit who is “always watching” so as to put you on the gift-getting list when you meet his “good enough” standard. (Which is kinda creepy when you think about it!)

But God IS always at work and wants us to be working with Him. He wants us to talk to Him about things that He cares about. And what He most cares about is the spiritual condition of people. That’s why Jesus went to the cross. He didn’t go to the cross to fulfill my my desires of more stuff, and though He cares about my physical condition, that’s not why He went to the cross, either. No, He went for my spiritual situation to be changed from death… to life! So if God is most concerned with spiritual matters, then what should we focus our prayers on?

However, we do not spend time praying about spiritual things near as much as we do for physical things. In the Bible, we see prayers about confession of sins for individuals and the nations, we see prayers that go on and on about adoring and worshiping God’s characteristics and His laws, we see prayers about bringing glory to God, we see prayers about revival and turning people’s hearts back to Him, we see prayers about lost people coming into His kingdom.

In the Bible we see prayers that are focused on God’s will, and yet we often do not pray that way. We spend more time praying for the increased comfort of those who are already saved (us and our family and friends) than we do praying for the eternal destination of those who have no relationship with Jesus.

Perhaps we need a change. Perhaps we need to use the model of the Bible more than whatever model taught us to pray about the physical.

If we want to receive God’s blessings and have our prayers answered, I believe that we must ask, seek, and knock with prayers that are in-line with God’s will. He is not going to give us every one of our heart’s desires until every one of our heart’s desires are exactly in line with His will. But if we ask where He is at work and how we should pray, He will show us and we will be more blessed than ever before.

What do you think are some of the things He most cares about that we need to include in our prayers for today?

Categories
Worship

I Have Missed You! (And Our Interaction)

What happens when I take a short hiatus from writing? Mainly I miss the interaction I have with you!

A few people have wondered something along the lines of “where did Brian’s devotionals disappear to? Did I get dropped off the email list? Has he stopped writing?” And in the absence of the devotionals, several of you told me that you missed them. Thank you for encouraging me to get back to writing. The truth is that I simply got too busy and my writing had to be “dropped” for a time (it has been almost a month. ouch! that’s way too long).

The situation is that each morning I start my day off with my own Bible reading and prayer. When I get into a situation when I am in a time crunch, it would be quite easy to let my devotional time go, so that I could write something for my blog. Most of the time crunch has come during these last three weeks in the form of our cross-country drive to California and the activities I have been part of in-between the driving (2200 miles there and another 2200 miles back!). It is true that I could have kept up the blog, by letting some of my devotional time go, but I have made a commitment to God that my time with Him will remain a top priority. Not for His sake, but for mine. The more time I spend with Him, the healthier I find that I am – mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

I hope you have made that same commitment to Him. That you will spend time with Him each day in Bible reading and prayer. That your commitment to time with Him will take precedent over the morning newspaper, Good Morning America, and Sportscenter. Or if you use the evening as time to connect with Him, that you won’t allow Duck Dynasty, Fox News, or catching up on all the Facebook status updates to become a higher priority than your daily fellowship with Him. If we are not careful… if we are not intentional in our time with him… then without even realizing it, our time is consumed with all the busyness of each day. To grow in Christ, we have to make a solid commitment to carve out time with Him. And Satan isn’t going to make it easy. The question is whether we will develop the discipline to be the disciples we told Him we would be when we started our journeys with Him. Let’s keep encouraging each other onto deeper discipleship and spiritual maturity!

Let’s go “further up and further in!”

(bonus points if you know where the last quote is from without looking it up!)

Categories
Christian Living

Problematic Worry

What’s got you worried today? Anxiety is such a problem for so many of us, and it is a bigger problem than we realize. Certainly Corrie Ten Boom was right when she said: “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.”

Worry is sin in that it is a lack of faith – it is the sin of pride turned sideways. It indicates that we believe our situation is somehow more special than anyone else’s and that God isn’t big enough to handle our special situation. We don’t have faith that He is able, so it is lack of faith and pride that leads us into the sin of anxiety and worry.

“Faith ends where worry begins, and worry ends where faith begins.” –George Muellerman seated on a bench in deep prayer or worry or both

With so many of us worried about today – worried about something at work, worried about a relationship problem at home, worried about a decision we made in the past, worried about the future, what can we do?

We can give it to God. We want to give something to God that blesses Him, but “Paul warns against any view of God which makes Him the beneficiary of our beneficence. He informs us that God cannot be served in any way that implies we are meeting His needs…. But isn’t there something we can give to God that won’t belittle Him to the status of beneficiary? Yes. Our anxieties…. God will gladly receive anything from us that shows our dependence and His all-sufficiency” (John Piper).

When we lose all our anxiety by trusting Him fully, then we become fully dependent on Him! Give your anxiety to Him today and trust His promise to take care of you.

Remember – “God’s answers are wiser than our prayers.” Therefore we should certainly pray, but when the answer comes and it is not what we expect, remember that God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom, so trust His answer even more than your request.

With so many struggling with this issue, what advice would you give on how you keep your anxiety level down and your faith in God up?

“You can no more outgrow your need for God than you can outgrow your need for oxygen.” (unknown)

Categories
Worship

Bored in Church

Church is boring. At least that’s what a lot of people think.

the word "bored" written over and over again repeticiously

Have you ever been bored in church? (If you are thinking “Yes, it was while you were preaching,” then just keep those nasty comments to yourself!). Certainly we have all had moments when we were bored in church and found ourselves counting the number of lights in the sanctuary or daydreaming or making a “to do” list or snoring in our sermon-induced sleep. Plenty of people probably have wanted to say something along these next lines but just weren’t willing to be this honest:

Parent: “Well, how did you like Sunday School?”
Child: “I didn’t like it a bit. It was horrid. …Mr. Bell made an awfully long prayer. I would have been dreadfully tired before he got through if I hadn’t been sitting by that window. But it looked right out on the Lake… so I just gazed at that and imagined all sorts of splendid things.”
P: “You shouldn’t have done anything of the sort. You should have listened to Mr. Bell.”
C: “But he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to God and he didn’t seem to be very much interested in it, either. I think he thought God was too far off to make it worthwhile.”

Ha! Out of the mouths of babes! I’ve had those same feelings before, too! But also I wonder how often do my prayers seem contrived and disinterested like Mr. Bell’s? I want a powerful prayer life that is focused on a relationship with God, rather than just using Him as an impersonal wishlist provider.

The child ends with – “I said a little prayer myself, though. There was a long row of white birches hanging over the lake and the sunshine fell down through them, ‘way, ‘way down, deep into the water. …It gave me a thrill and I just said, ‘Thank you for it, God,’ two or three times.”

God, may my prayers be like that – may they flow out of me as naturally as I breathe this air, and may it all be due to me seeing how You are working around me! Help me to never be disinterested in you or feel that you are too far away to be worthwhile.

(Quoted dialogue written about 100 years ago in the book “Anne of Green Gables.” Guess church has had the potential for being boring for a very long time.)

Categories
Prayer

doin’ nuthin’

I’m thinking that maybe I should plan on doing nothing today. How much nothing are you planning on doing this week?

great dane sleeping and doing nothing with her paw over her face“We need to wake up to how much “nothing” we spend our time doing. Apart from prayer, all our scurrying about, all our talking, all our study amounts to “nothing.” For most of us the voice of self-reliance is ten times louder than the bell that tolls for the hours of prayer… Both our flesh and our culture scream against spending an hour on our knees.” (John Piper – Brothers, We are not Professionals)

We feel that there is so much else we “need” to do. But what could be time better spent than conversing with the King of the Universe? I hope you will carve out some time this morning to slow down, stop doing “nothing,” and talk with your Creator before you begin your busy day.

— brian rushing