There is one moment in Jesus’ life that illustrates one of the key natures of prayer: the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was about to face the cross and the wrath of the Father upon sin, and in such emotional distress, He prayed with such great intensity that He sweated blood. He prayed three times for any other way to be taken. And I do like how The Chosen’s depiction of this scene gave Jesus a brief vision of Abraham and Isaac about to do the same thing, and at the last second, God provided a ram to replace Isaac. I think it’s plausible that Jesus thought about that moment as He prayed. But in the end, each time, He prayed this key thought I want to emphasize here: “Not My will but Your will be done.”
Because we live in an American culture that is obsessed with self and consumption, we treat church and prayer that way. What can the church give me? Our prayers are for our comforts, dreams, and desires. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with praying for our needs and dreams alone; however, God is not a genie whom we go to for our fulfillment. That is why God was so ticked at Israel for their idolatry. They went to the idols so they could have their comforts and desires met. They viewed God the same way: as a means to their ends.
I wrote about praying with importunity last week, and here is the other side of it. We don’t pray to get what we want; we pray to get what God wants. We pray to see God’s will done and in action here on earth. God’s chosen vehicle for accomplishing His will on earth is through praying men and women who will believe Him. Does that mean if we don’t do it, God won’t get what He wants done? No. God is sovereign, and He is going to get it done with or without us. But if we don’t do it, God will find someone who will, and it won’t be God’s loss. It will be our loss, and it will be those whom God wants to bless through us who miss out. Think about it. If you have a gift that is useful to the Church but don’t use that gift, not only do you lose out on seeing that talent grow and develop, but you rob others of being blessed by it, too.
Jesus came for one primary purpose: to do the will of the Father. He purposed to do nothing except what the Father told Him to do, nor say anything unless He heard the Father say it. How did He do that? Prayer. By His lifestyle of prayer, He was able to hear the voice of God and know what to say and do at every given moment. Jesus often paused to pray in ministry. One such example is the case of the demon-possessed boy, and the disciples could not drive out the demon. Jesus watched the boy writhe in pain while the demon convulsed him, asking the father how long this had been happening. Why didn’t Jesus do anything quicker? The answer was simple: He was praying. He wanted to have His orders before He took action. Jesus was a man of action, but He was a man under authority, as a certain centurion recognized, and Jesus took no action without the authority to do it. When Jesus cleansed the Temple, yes, it was a mixture of rage, wrath, sorrow, grief, and zeal, but He had the authority to do that. When Jesus went to the Pool of Bethsaida, He only had the authority to heal one person, not the whole lot.
Jesus made His mission that of His Father. So, His prayer was to seek the will of the Father and to have the strength, power, and authority to carry it out. That is the mindset we should have. God is not a means to our end. We are to pray for the means to accomplish God’s ends. The Christian life is not about how God can give us a life by which we can consume and enjoy, but about a life in which we are to spend it for His kingdom and His glory. I keep saying this, and I’ll say it again: “It’s not about you!” This life is not about you. It is about Christ. It is about God.
Jesus prayed, “Not my will but Your will be done.” Jesus was obedient to the cross. He literally gave up everything, including every drop of blood and life He had. There was nothing whatsoever that Jesus kept back for Himself. We can’t fathom what that looks like. We barely even know what suffering actually is, though I do believe most of you reading this, including myself, are going to experience that in a short time. The time is coming when the stuff I am writing and it gets posted on social media is going to get me jail time. And that’s the start of it. It’s already happening in the UK. And I have to be in a position to accept that. When the Apostles defied the authorities, they were not rebellious. They knew full well the consequences for preaching in the name of Jesus would mean imprisonment and torture. And so when they defied such orders and continued preaching the name of Jesus, they accepted the punishment and suffering. Richard Wurmbrand said that while he was in prison, preaching to the other prisoners would induce a beating. So he would preach, the guards would give him a beating, and both would be happy. And when he got done from the beating, he’d come right back and say, “Now, where was I?” It’s not about our will but about God’s will, and the secret is prayer.
Why do we have the job we have? Why do we live where we live? Why do we have the things we have? Is it because of our will or because of God’s will? I am a teacher because of God’s will. I wouldn’t even know what to do without that. I tried. I could not find anything that “I” wanted to do with my skill set. Teaching was not on my agenda until God put it on my radar, and I can’t think of doing anything else. God gave me the sport He gave me with fencing that I now coach, and it is something I can give back to God. There is nothing more fulfilling than being in the center of God’s will and doing His will and His purpose. The unbeliever will think that God is just some kind of dictator, but no, God designed us to do certain things, and when we walk in that way, there is nothing we’d want to do more.
Pray. Pray for God’s will to be crystal clear and pray for the courage, strength, and power to go do it. For Jesus, that meant a cross, and He lived a full life at age 33. He could have done nothing more. For others, it may mean living to 80-90 years old and being a father, mother, and simply teaching and equipping the next generation. What is God having you do? Pray that it be not your will but His will being done.
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When Jesus described prayer, there was one word or term that He felt was so important to prayer that He gave two parables in describing it. That word is called “importunity.” Importunity is a relentless effort and refusal to quit until the job is done. In more modern Christianity, the term is called “praying through.” I wrote on this topic in my prayer series several years ago, but it’s something that is flat out not practiced among most Christians today. I am guilty of not having practiced prayer to learn this myself. But God is pressing on me to get back into the prayer closet, and as I am writing this post and as you are reading this post, I am in a transition period where I am able to restructure things so I can make prayer a priority once again. I have made Bible reading and study a priority, but I need to make sure prayer is there too.
Jesus gave two stories of praying with importunity: the first is a man who had a guest come at midnight, but he had no food to prepare for him. Hospitality was a huge thing, and it was considered shameful if food could not be offered. So the man goes to a friend who has bread and knocks at midnight, asking for bread. The friend finally gets up not because he was a friend but because of the friend’s importunity and refusal to quit knocking.
The other parable was a widow whose judge was unjust and kept putting her off on her case. She kept knocking and knocking, and finally, the judge granted what she wanted just to get her off him.
In both cases, Jesus gave people who did NOT want to help the person. If a person who does NOT want to help in such situations finally does, how much more so does God want to help when He does want to help us in our situation? The problem is that answers to prayer often take time to carry through. Answers to prayer rarely happen instantly, and the few times they really do are because of a lifestyle of prayer and having already “won the battle” before the moment is needed.
The Bible has many examples of importunistic prayer. The first example is Abraham’s pleading for Sodom. Abraham kept persisting and praying until he had gotten it down to ten people being righteous in the whole city. But then there is Jacob and his famous account of wrestling with God when he was 91 years old. Jacob refused to let go of God until he got what he wanted. God was pleased with this because that was an example of prayer – going with God nonstop until the answer comes. Elijah prayed seven times until rain came after winning the epic duel between prophets on Mt Carmel. The list goes on. But we are not to quit praying until the answer comes. That does not mean we neglect our duties, but it does mean we pray and pray and pray until victory comes.
There were times when Jesus prayed through the whole night, times Jesus simply wanted to “slip away” from his very busy ministry just to be with His Father, and other times where He had to do very intense business with God. Prayer was Jesus’ lifeline, and He did not quit praying until the job was done. I’ll reference this more next week with a different emphasis, but the clearest case of importunity and “praying through” that we are shown of Jesus was on the night He was betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus prayed like He had never prayed before with sorrow and emotion so intense that he sweated blood. He prayed until He won the battle that was waging on inside Him: to be obedient and go through the cross or for any other way to be provided. He prayed three times, and it was after the third time that Jesus finally won the battle and faced His “moment” head-on.
In this prayer, we see something else that goes with importunity: fervency. Fervency is an intense energy, particularly in prayer. If you go to an old house with wooden floors that was once occupied by a man of prayer, you may see two long grooves pressed into the wood. This was the kind of energy of a man of prayer, kneeling at his bedside and doing business with God. This wasn’t your casual 30-second prayer of thank-yous and blessings. This was where soldiers fought. It was said of David Brainerd that he woke up one morning to multiple feet of snow up in upper New York state or into Canada, and at dawn, he went to pray with the snow up to neck high or something like that. He knelt down in the snow, and when he left praying that evening, (yes, he prayed for the entire duration of the day), he had melted the snow all around his body from the intense heat of his body through prayer.
There is an intensity to fervent prayer that can only be described with Jacob wrestling with God: full-out combat. I am a fencer and an athlete, and I’ve seen some people do amazing things athletically. We’ve seen the action hero movies; we know soldiers and martial artists who are truly elite warriors. But none of them are able to fight like a prayer warrior. And I’m not even talking “War Room” material here. I am talking about a league that goes way above that. I am talking about a time of prayer that does two things at the same time: it completely wears you out because you have been in battle, but you’re also fully refreshed and able to take on anything. It’s a very strange paradox, and those who’ve been on the mission field, those who have been in ministry, those who did their battles on their knees, can testify of getting so tired of getting slapstick silly, yet having the energy to run a marathon. Prayer with fervency and importunity does this, and Jesus taught and showcased such unrelenting strength to get what was needed that no one had the courage to interrupt Him as He did so.
But there is another part of this type of praying that is absolutely vital: prayer is the practice of dependence upon God and denial of self. That will be for next week.
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Prayer was vital to Jesus’ life and ministry, and prayer was the one thing we have recorded that Jesus’ disciples asked Him how to do. They did not ask Him how to preach or how to perform miracles, but they asked how to pray. In Matthew 6, we see Jesus teaching a standard prayer model in His Sermon on the Mount. In Luke 11, Jesus gave the same model directly to His disciples. It does not matter which one happened first, but the “Lord’s Prayer” is the formal standard structure Jesus gave for how to pray. If you want a really in-depth study on this, look at Katie Erickson’s series on this topic, and I’ll focus on the highlights and emphasize what Jesus was targeting with each key statement, rather than just what it says and how we should apply it.
Jesus opened up with a plea to the Father who is in Heaven. It is an appeal to the intimate relationship within family bounds, but also an appeal to divine authority. As adopted children, we are called children of God, and God is not just Creator, but now our heavenly Father. We appeal to the Father as children coming to the loving arms of our daddy. But we ALSO come to Him in fear and awe and deep respect because He is in Heaven and He is the Creator and Judge and King over all things. We must learn that as children, God loves to love on us and give us everything we need, but we also must learn that God is sovereign and, as King and as Father, He will not give us just anything we want. Prayer is to begin in recognition that, as adopted children, we have a right to access the throne of God, but we must also acknowledge the solemnness of the throne.
“Hallowed be Thy name.” Jesus then calls for us to acknowledge the holiness of God. As I explained above, Jesus is saying that the Father is not a “sugar daddy” who spoils their kids with whatever they want, but that He is a Holy God and He is not like the rest of us. He does not think as we do and does not operate as we do. He is so far above and beyond us that we need to respect that.
“Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.” In the first three statements of prayer, there is recognition of God’s high rule and authority and a reminder that He answers to no one. While He loves His children and will drop everything for them, He does everything with His kingdom in mind. This statement takes many forms, but the essence is this: God’s will is supreme, and our will is not even worthy of being called secondary to His. When we pray, our first priority is to seek the will of God, and that means one key thing: denial of self. We are not to go to God to try to get our will, our wishes, and our dreams. Our going to God is to seek His Kingdom and His glory and to bring that glory down here on earth.
“Give us our daily bread.” Jesus is reminding us that our sustenance is from the Lord and is sufficient for the day. We do not need to worry about tomorrow. God will make what we are given sustain us, and He will provide what we need. Yes, there are times He allows us to have above what we need, but there are also times He makes us go without. But we are not to be concerned about tomorrow, only now. An unexpected but appropriate application of this is how Richard Wurmbrand teaches those in prison not to try to endure 14 years of torture, but to only endure the minutes of torture we are going through and deal with tomorrow’s torture tomorrow. While at it, forget yesterday’s torture because it already happened. This was calling upon our daily bread… daily.
“Forgive our sins.” We all have sins to confess, but this also calls for us to forgive others. The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant is consistent with this. If we can’t forgive those who come to us in repentance, why should God forgive us? Do we not owe God so much more than anyone else does us? In this prayer, Jesus is telling us to ask God for what we will give others, and that’s a dangerous prayer for us to take seriously. A man will reap what he sows, and God will give us what we dish out. This prayer is to make us humble enough to realize and recognize that God is so far above and beyond us that we should never take His grace and mercy for granted, but instead, we should ask for the empowering grace to do what needs to be done.
“Lead us not into temptation.” God does not tempt anyone or give them the desire to sin against Him. The prayer that God would not lead us into temptation is so that God would give us the wisdom and the discernment to make good choices that will keep us from temptation. This is not a call for God to keep us away from any sort of trial or temptation, but that God would give us a path to walk that would protect us from such temptations. That said, evil will still find us. The point of this prayer is that anytime temptation does come our way, God will give us an escape route. Jesus wants us to pray to live a life that keeps us away from sin, and also that God would give us a way out. But that also requires the other prayers to be in practice, namely that God’s kingdom is priority and not our own. To see the escape and to avoid sin requires the active denial of self.
In all these statements, we see a pattern that God is to be the priority in all things and all areas of life. We are to pursue God first above any desire we have, and we are to desire God to the point where we want our desires to be His desires, and that God would even share His desires with us, knowing we would seek to fulfill them.
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Jesus said a lot about prayer. While many of the Gospel writers spoke about prayer, much of it was somewhat in passing. But I noted something Paul Washer said in one of his sermons: the one thing Jesus’ disciples asked about how to do was how to pray. They didn’t ask how to perform miracles or how to drive out demons. They didn’t ask how to preach. They asked how to pray. I have noticed in my own studies that Jesus could be interrupted on all sorts of occasions, but He could never be interrupted from prayer. Many times, when the disciples searched for Jesus and they found Him, they waited until He finished praying before approaching Him. It was said of John “Praying” Hyde that when he was in his prayer mode, he prayed with the intensity and fervency that no one dared to interrupt him. Prayer was vital to Jesus and His ministry, and He made sure His disciples learned the importance of prayer. This is going to take a few posts, so let’s get into it.
Prayer was something Jesus was noted for doing from the very start. While we only get a few small glimpses of Jesus’ childhood, the first time we see Him as an adult, He comes to get baptized and then is driven into the wilderness to be tempted. It was in that desert of praying and fasting that Jesus demonstrated He would pursue no physical need on His own and would completely and wholly rely on His Father to provide everything He needed in the time needed. How did Jesus overcome the devil in that wilderness? It wasn’t a mere knowing of Scripture, though He absolutely needed that. It was a lifestyle of praying. There is no one, even Jesus in His physical body, who could have prayed and fasted for 40 days without training and practice beforehand. Jesus, while being fully God, did not cheat the system in His humanity in any way. He lived it as a man, and His power came through the power of a lifestyle of prayer and fasting.
Jesus prayed in many fashions and formats. He prayed for needs. He prayed for wisdom. He prayed to glorify God. He prayed for protection. He prayed for His friends. He prayed for those He ministered to. He prayed to deny self. He prayed for submission to the will of His Father. He prayed to forgive others and for the power to heal. Everything He did and said and came out of His life of prayer. But there was one thing Jesus never prayed for: Jesus never prayed for the forgiveness of His sin or for grace that would cover any sin, because He had no sin to repent of. That is the only area in which Jesus’ prayer life was not as necessary as ours. But Jesus had to pray to overcome sin, and so do we.
The tricky thing about prayer is that it cannot be easily defined. The Bible only gives us a few glimpses of what it looks like, but one of the easiest one-word descriptors I can give is “fellowship.” Prayer is with God what fellowship is with each other. Prayer is not treating God like a genie by which we ask God to give us what we wish and what we desire. While we are to present our requests to God, that is not what prayer is first and foremost. Prayer is also not a magical formula to help people through sickness or other needs, though we should pray for them. Prayer is, first and foremost, the process of going to God to be with Him. It is being with God and seeking His face and seeking His glory. It is praising God and glorifying God. It is thanking God. It is confessing our sins before Him and pleading for mercy. It is coming before God with our needs and requesting the aid of the Almighty. It is showing our trust and dependence upon Him. And with that is the submission of our will to His will.
Jesus knew the Scriptures. He knew and understood their point and purpose, but He got there through prayer and seeking what God meant and said in them. Jesus was able to debate the Pharisees not because of a superior intellect, though He was no academic fool, but because He was a man of prayer. When we have spent our time in prayer before we go to battle, God will prepare all the answers we will need in that time. I can give many examples of this in both Scripture and through the biographies and testimonies of preachers and missionaries. But I can also point out times when people have NOT prayed and are relying just on their intellect. They may be able to refute arguments, but they won’t be able to silence the opposition and the spirit driving them. Jesus was able to silence His critics, and it was because He was a man of prayer.
Being a man of prayer, Jesus was able to be interrupted and be at peace. He also knew when to move and when to confront counterfeits. Jesus knew the hearts and intentions of those He dealt with. Yes, He was God, but He did it as a man. Those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and listen to Him are able to hear the Spirit’s warnings of something being wrong with a person or to trust this person. If Joseph and Daniel could “interpret” dreams by the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit is able to reveal what is going on to us if only we’d listen. And no, I am not talking about some mystical clairvoyance.
Jesus was a man of prayer, and that was how He got through all He went through and did all He did. That is a model of how we are to live our lives, too. Through prayer, we’ll have the power to do what we are called to do. Over the next few weeks, I’ll explore more of Jesus’ prayer life and His teaching on prayer before I look at Lazarus and Passion Week.
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This will likely be my last post on this short series on spiritual warfare. I have exposed several tactics of the enemy and told of the battle we have before us, but how can we actually engage in this battle? The easy answer (and the only answer) is prayer, but in prayer, we can engage tactfully. One of the most inspirational biographies I have read is that of Rees Howells. During World War II, he turned his Bible college into a “war room.” With maps and figures representing army positions, he would pray like a soldier on the battlefield. He would pray over battles and tactics, and he was very specific about what he was aiming at in his prayer life. In this post, I want to hit several tactics we can use in our prayer life to engage in the battle over souls and against the principalities, teachings, and even demonic forces that we face.
Charles Spurgeon described the prayer life as shooting the enemy in battle. He described that many people’s prayer lives take a “shotgun” approach. The whole idea is to get a broad scope in prayer and just pray in generalities, but that’s like shooting with a shotgun. While a few parts of the bullets may hit, most of it will not. Instead, prayer needs to be more like a sniper where you are dealing with accuracy and precision. You know precisely what you want to pray for, and you target that thing specifically. Again, we aren’t talking about praying for desires or wishes here to fulfill dreams. We are talking about tactics here. We are talking about military strategy. We are talking about praying specifically against enemy moves and praying specifically to uplift and support specific allies in the battle. In fencing, Epee is a very precise, finesse weapon. Point control is everything. While the entire body is a target, the better you get, the more precise targets you want to practice hitting. If your point is everywhere and chasing the opponent’s blade, you will more likely miss the target than hit. You will give your opponent a free chance to get the point in a sport where millimeters and milliseconds make the difference between a touch for, a double touch, or a touch against.
One of Howell’s tactics was to pray for confusion in enemy ranks. He would pray that Hitler would make blunders in his decision-making that he would normally not make, and that is precisely what happened. The normal brilliant tactics Hitler used suddenly became really stupid, like not having his panzers in position to aid at Normandy. When we are dealing with plots to overthrow Christianity, we can pray for enemy confusion that their organization will not be well set up, that they will have infighting among their ranks, so that their efforts to stop the church will be thwarted.
Did you know that the Bible has such an account of this as well? When Absalom’s coup began, David fled, and one of his very wise advisors, Ahithophel, defected to Absalom. David sent Hushai to confound Absalom, and Hushai’s advice saved David’s life because it bought David time to regroup. Perhaps Howells got his idea to pray for enemy confusion from this passage. We need to pray that the enemy will not be able to read us or see what our tactics are. Sometimes, to answer that prayer, God may need to put us into a fog where we cannot see what is going on; if you cannot see through a fog, often, the enemy cannot see you either.
We need to pray for the enemy to be blind, for God to not let them see our movements, and to not connect the dots with what they are seeing. I grew up on the mission field, crossing the border into Mexico regularly. We would regularly pray that the guards would not see all the things we were carrying on the bus. We are talking about things like boxes of apples, water, clothing, Bibles, and even wheelchairs and insulation. We spread them out on the bus so they would not be concentrated in one place and be obvious, but it was truly backed by prayer that a guard on a bad day would see the food and kick us back. Another missionary, Brother Andrew, would smuggle Bibles through the Iron Curtain of the Communist East. He would frequently pray that the guards would be blind to all the Bibles that were being carried through, which would certainly get him arrested and killed if caught. What about today? Can we pray for blindness and deafness to eyes and ears that hate the Gospel in our workplace so we can share the Gospel?
What about support for our allies? Paul asked for specific prayers from his church support, and in one case, to the Ephesians, he prayed for utterance. Did you know that Paul was terrified of speaking in public? After all, what did that get him? Jail time, the whip 5 times, stoned twice, shipwrecked, thrown into the cold, and he very likely had some severe physical limps and ailments from such treatment. Yet he prayed for the courage to speak, that he may proclaim boldly the message he had been given. So when we ask for prayer, let’s be specific so our allies know how to pray for us, and when we pray for others, let’s also be specific. Jesus asked his people, “What do you want me to do?” When we present our needs to God, let us be specific about them.
But when we are praying for those out there, let’s also be more specific. Sometimes, we may not know what to pray for, and in that case, a general cover may work, but let’s not use that as an excuse for lazy generic prayers. We have allies in the battle, and they need our support for wisdom, protection, and especially for those who are out there and their loved ones at home. Remember, the enemy plays dirty, and he loves going after the wives and children of pastors and missionaries when they are away.
This is just a quick snapshot of a few tactics that we can start incorporating into our prayer lives. Pray tactically. The battles that we fight are fought and won on our knees, not in political rallies or in conferences (though conferences can help equip us). Let us pray and learn how to pray once more. Let us be ambitious enough that when Satan has his “planning parties,” our names are the ones that have his attention. It makes his job easier without us to focus on – one fewer soldier for him to deal with. But it means we have to get up and fight and be ready for the pushback. We are called to fight, we are called to contend for the faith, and we are called to fight until the battle is won. Let us rise up and fight for the glory of our God so the flag of Zion, the flag of Jesus Christ, may fly on every hilltop and tower. It will be done on our knees, and then God will send us into action. It will not be done through political means but by spiritual means. Let’s answer the call.
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This statement that we are slaves to Christ is so central to the Gospel message that Paul makes a huge deal of it in Romans 6 in describing the born-again, transformed life. He had just come out of Romans 5 describing how the grace of God overcomes sin, how Jesus died for us while we were still sinners and still slaves to sin, and that by faith we enter salvation. But he paused to address a train of thought that would derail one’s faith: that because God’s grace is so great, we can sin freely and expect God to cover it. Commentaries suggest that Paul’s language in Romans 6:1-2 is so strong that he comes to nearly cussing. This is the only time besides Galatians 1 (when he confronts the false teacher that led them astray) that he goes this hard. The Christian should never enter the thought or notion of being able to continue in sin without fear of judgment or discipline.
From this, Paul goes on to describe how we are to die to sin and how sin is to become repulsive to us. Last week, I wrote about how many people want to come to Christ on their own terms. They want to hold on to certain sins and certain lifestyles and certain teachings. To be a Christian is to die to those things. Jesus said this clearly: “You must deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Me.” We are not following Him if we follow our own path and do things our own way.
Now to be clear: this is not legalism. I can picture many readers of last week’s post objecting to legalism. If following Christ at the expense of self is legalism, then what you are hearing is not true Christianity but antinomianism. It is the desire to live lawless lives, where they think they are saved but not expected to follow a law. Jesus called those who professed His name and would cast out as “workers of iniquity,” “as lawless ones.” The language is that of “you who live as though I gave you no law to follow.” His yoke is easy, and His burden is light, but there is still a law. I like to boil down this law into two simple commands: believe and obey. That is all there is to it. But obedience requires two things: one is faith; you have to believe Jesus. The second is that you have to submit to the Lordship of Christ. You don’t obey anyone you don’t submit to.
As much as the King James Version is perhaps the most respected version in English, they got something wrong. The KJV translated the Greek term doulos, which is commonly translated as “slave,” as “servant” or “bondservant” to lighten the weight of the term and also to avoid the connotation with the slave trading that had been going on in the rest of Europe. They got this one wrong. This mistranslation has carried to most of the English versions until John MacArthur and his team at The Master’s Seminary went to update the NASB and specifically targeted this term among others when giving the “Legacy Standard Bible.”
The born-again believer is to be a slave to Christ. What does that mean? It means our lives, our job descriptions, our hours, and our routines are to be determined by Christ. Most of us don’t live that way. We run our own schedules and our own agendas before consulting our Master. What Jesus lived for, the very essence of His being, was doing the will of His Father. He was controlled by no other thing but His Father’s will. He did not stop doing what He was to do for the sake of family, food, sleep, shelter, annoyance of unbelief, or anything. Jesus had many opportunities to do many different things, but He took the approach of (and I quote Paul Washer on this), “I have no opportunity but the doing of God’s will!” I can’t think of anyone where that truly is their general lifestyle, with perhaps only Rees Howells getting remotely near that point.
To be a slave to Christ is to give up all your rights. Yes, many of us are Americans, and we Americans love our freedom of speech, our right to bear arms, our right to not be illegally searched or arrested, etc. Paul exercised his Roman rights when under trial in Jerusalem under Felix and Festus. So, if we have political rights, there is nothing wrong with exercising them, but they have to be submitted to the will of a much higher authority – Christ. We are not servants of the United States. While we may be citizens, we should not serve the US as our Lord. We serve Christ. Now serving Christ does mean being good citizens and being peaceful with all men, but our primary authority is Christ. Our job is to what Christ says, and He has the right to rule over us.
When you take up your cross and deny yourself, you are denying your rights and submitting them to Christ. I know this sounds hard, but if Jesus is our Master, He is the one who determines what our rights are. But let me also say this: our rights as the slave of Christ are FAR better than what any country could give us. We don’t need a government agency to uphold our rights or a right to block a government agency from doing something corrupt. We have Christ defending us, and that is much better. Don’t hear what I am not saying. I am not saying that we should sit back while corrupt representatives, who do no representing, take things away from us because they think they can play god with our lives, our money, and our resources.
Slaves in Roman times had rights. Slaves in ancient Israel had rights, too. We also have rights with Christ. But these rights are not to prevent God from ruining our fun. These rights are to give us power and authority to go out and proclaim the Gospel. Remember this: God’s logic is backwards and upside down to us. We picture the slave as being the lowest of the low, yet that is precisely whom God uses to exalt above kings and rulers. If Maximus Marcus Aurelius could, as a slave, become more powerful than the Emperor of Rome (in the movie Gladiator), how much more so the Christian? By becoming a slave to Christ, we become His ambassadors, His representative, and His body. That comes with an extraordinary command and extraordinary power. We can change lives, shut down wicked industries, heal the sick, cast out demons, trample snakes and scorpions, and the list goes on. Are you doing that now? Only on a small scale. Why? Because I have not yet fully submitted myself to Christ as a slave. I still have sin in me that wants to rule my life instead.
But the real reason we don’t see the Church out and about living with power enough that would make rulers shake is because we don’t actually believe the Bible as we claim. Queen Elizabeth I said she feared the prayers of Edmund Burke more than she feared the most powerful armada in the world, and she beat them in battle because of prayer warriors. The Allies should have lost many battles in World War II but Rees Howells took the war on his knees. He prayed over strategies and tactics and battles as though he was on the front lines, and while he wasn’t alone, it was his prayers among others that turned the European front against Hitler. How did Howells have such power that if he was looking at a property, the owner knew to get out of the way? He became a slave to Christ even to the point where he would not spend a penny unless God gave him permission.
Next week I will conclude this series with one major application to being a slave to Christ: to submit every thought to the will of Christ Jesus.
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by Eric Hansen
“I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.” - John 17:6-12
Verses 6 through 12 of John 17 are part of a section headlined as “Jesus Prays for His Disciples.” This whole section (vv. 6-19) ultimately applies not only to the disciples but to all believers, which will be covered in a future post. But for now I wanted to focus on vv. 6-12 specifically as it’s the bulk of Jesus’s prayer to us as believers.
The first 3 verses here essentially speak of how Jesus conducted His ministry while on Earth. He simply spoke the Truth as He needed to, when He needed to. It’s littered throughout the gospels how He conducted Himself in different situations and addressed certain people differently.
For example, when He healed the sick, He mostly just thanked the Father for being able to heal the person. When He met with someone struggling in life (the woman at the well, the paraplegic, etc.), then He was often in the middle of or started sharing some introspectives. He spoke to those individuals on a personal level, and the more “alone time” He had with the person, the more personal the discussion could be so they could understand the Truth. Then there were the religious leaders of the time, of course, with whom He was pretty direct and vulgar (for that time period). How Jesus spoke to them would be like in today’s culture if cancel culture was used for good instead of self.
In these verses, though, the important keywords are “you gave me,” “they have obeyed [your word],” and “they accepted them.” The Father puts people into our lives to minister to in some way, and that doesn’t look the same in all circumstances. He uses us to speak the Truth to others just as He used Jesus to do the same 2,000+ years ago. This is one of the reasons why we are and should be joyous of servitude, because even Jesus (part of the Godhead) was a servant in His first coming. However, it’s also important to remember that it’s not our duty to convert people but to share the Truth. The Holy Spirit works along with the Father to soften their heart so that they, too, may believe. We can hear it all we want, but if we don’t truly accept it and obey it, then it’s dead faith. Obeying is following God even when it’s inconvenient or painful, as we should aim to please God above ourselves, family, friends, career, etc.
Verse 9 strikes hard for me, as it is often taught as we should be praying for the enemies against Christ along with fellow believers. Yet Jesus says He is only praying for the ones the Father has sent Him – the ones brought to the Truth. The context of the passage makes it clear exactly why, but it also goes to show that while we should pray for those who are against God that their hearts will soften, we can’t forget to continuously pray for those already in the body of Christ as well. An analogy to this would be our health. If we focus on the external factors that can impact our health, we can’t neglect our actual health as well.
While I’m not a fan of prayers containing “hedge of [something]” like “hedge of protection,” through verses 10 and 11 Jesus asks the Father for protection over the disciples and other believers. As readers of the events that transpired afterwards, we can understand why this was said, but it’s pretty clear that Jesus was asking for parent-like protection over the children who would be doing nothing but fighting an uphill battle for as long as they remained faithful.
The word “protect” in verse 11 is an active imperative (a command), so Jesus isn’t just saying “Father, if it’s convenient for you to do so,” but He is saying, “Father, I know this is going to be a very difficult, very possibly deadly experience for all, so I need you to watch over them.” There is so much emphasis on these words that it’s almost a demand, but Jesus knows it’s all in the Father’s will. However, He can still express the importance and how much He loves the disciples (and us) by the emphasis. So, let’s rejoice as well in knowing that Jesus loved us so much that He came to the Father for us to protect us, to guard and watch over each of his sons, bought by the blood of Jesus into adopted sonship with the Father.
I’d like to close this out in a consideration of speaking the truth to those around us, and even ourselves. We should always lead with prayer, seeking to put God first in what we say rather than what we believe we should say. This removes us from the equation and lets God drive the conversation where it needs to be for His will. Then we need to remember that no matter the outcome, we have our protector in the Word and in our faith. With those, we have God’s blessing that His will be done not only through us but to us. There may be times we suffer for the truth, but there may also be times we plant that seed God waters to soften the heart and bring sight to the dead.
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by Chad Koons
Have you stopped believing in “unspoken prayer requests”? If so, then you are in good company. Let’s cut to the chase and review 5 great reasons why unspoken prayer requests should be forever stricken from our vocabulary.
1. Unspoken requests are simply not Biblical. This sounds heavy, but it’s true. A great example for this point would be the Apostle Paul. Paul requested prayer many times – Romans 15:30-32, Ephesians 6:18-20, and Colossians 4:2-4, just to name a few. Since he lived within the ancient world where letters and messengers were the means of correspondence, Paul’s prayer warriors didn’t always know every detail of what was going on with him. Yet Paul knew his situation and therefore gave them direction in how to pray! Read the passages above and you’ll see that Paul made specific requests. You will never find where Paul told the churches that he has an “unspoken request.” Paul’s prayer warriors knew what to pray because he told them! If we are wise, we will follow this example.
2. If it’s worth asking for prayer, then it’s worth being selectively transparent. Often, we use the unspoken prayer request because of privacy. And rightfully so, because not everyone should know your business! But some people should know what you’re going through, especially if you are asking them to pray for you. We all have a circle of family and friends who love and care for us. These are the people with whom we must be vulnerable; we should be transparent enough to share our specific prayer requests with them. Forget the unspoken, social media, shotgun blasts; instead, we need to confide with those whom the Lord has given us. Trust them with the information they need to go the Lord on your behalf! Paul had relationship with those whom he asked for prayer, and he put much faith in their specific prayers. Which brings me to #3…
3. We need to respect our prayer warriors. Whenever someone asks me to pray for their unspoken prayer request, it’s always an awkward feeling. I am left wondering and pressured with, “So… what should I pray for?” I cannot go to the Lord unless I know what I’m going to Him about. I’m not going to waste my time, or worse yet fumble around before the King of all kings! I take prayer seriously, as we all should. I’ll pray for you, sincerely I will, but if you can’t tell me what I’m praying for, then maybe I’m not the guy to do it. Think about this: when you ask for prayer, you are asking someone to present themselves before the throne of God Almighty on your behalf. Do we realize the gravity of this? Unspoken requests put your prayer warriors in awkward position, somewhere between sympathy, bewilderment, and struggle. This is not something I would ask anyone to experience on my behalf. Your prayer warriors are going before the Lord for you, so make sure that you have respected their time, fervency, and faith by not putting them in that awkward “unspoken” position.
4. Recognizing the gift of prayer itself. Within earthly kingdoms, it is a fearful and honorable thing to be summoned before the king, and nobody treats that summons lightly. In the same way, prayer is a fearful and honorable thing. It is an awesome gift from the Lord, so please ask for and use it wisely. The Lord calls us to come boldly before His throne (Hebrews 4:14-16), so we must respect this holy opportunity. When the apostle Paul considered the prayer of those supporting him, he approached it with the utmost respect. “For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance” (Philippians 1:19). Paul understood the gravity of the gift of prayer. He realized that it was not mere good vibes, positive thoughts, nor was it something to enter into flippantly. He recognized that prayer was a holy endeavor where we meet with our King, that prayer is a vehicle through which much power is made available! Unspoken requests are vague and not developed enough to bring before the Lord. Which brings me to my last point…
5. Prayer must be specific and based on His Word. Did you know that there is a protocol when it comes to prayer? When we pray, we must pray according to His will and know that He hears us (1 John 5:14-15). We cannot do this unless we know the will of God. What is God’s will? It’s actually not mysterious; God’s will is found in the Bible! The Bible is specific about many things, therefore you must find out what the Bible says about your situation before you go before the Lord with it.
Instead of issuing a non-specific “unspoken prayer request,” begging God, or giving up, how about doing what it takes to search the Bible regarding your situation? Take the time, put in the effort, and even Google it if you need to. And once you know what the Lord has said about it, then you can pray boldly, specifically, and according to His will! What is God’s will? Again, God’s will is found within His Word.
Now for a practical example. Since many people battle anxiety, let’s just use that. If you battle anxiety, you would need to search the Bible and find out what it says about anxiety. You will find verses in Matthew, Philippians, 1 Peter, and 2 Corinthians that talk about anxiety and how to deal with it. Now that you know what the Word of God says regarding anxiety, you can take those Scriptures before the Lord. Having armed yourself with the will of God, here’s what you could say:
“In Matthew 6:25-34, the Lord Jesus commanded me to not be anxious or worry, therefore I realize that I must obey that command. Philippians 4:6-7 tells me not to be anxious about anything, but instead to tell the Lord what I need and to be thankful, and then the peace of God will guard my heart and mind. According to 1 Peter 5:7, I now know that the Lord doesn’t want me to keep my anxiety, but instead He wants me to cast my cares upon Him because He cares for me! 2 Corinthians 10:5 says that I am to destroy every argument and opinion that is contrary to the knowledge of God, and that I am expected to take every thought captive and make it obey Christ!”
Now that I know the will of God regarding anxiety, I will now pray according to the Word and will of God:
“Lord, I will no longer be anxious. You said to cast my cares upon You, so here are my cares, I cast them upon You (taking a moment to tell him what your cares are). I thank You for hearing me and I thank you because you are taking them away from me! Because I cast my cares upon You, I believe that Your peace will now guard my heart and mind. I will obey your command and I will no longer worry. I will focus instead upon You and Your Kingdom. I refuse and destroy every anxious thought that comes against me because they go against the Word of God. I will take my thoughts captive and I will make them obey Christ in Jesus’ name!”
It’s not magic. It’s not positive thought. No, it’s far better; it’s praying specifically according to the Word of God! Prayers like this get answered. They are specific, based upon the will of God, and full of faith.
This, my friends, is so much better than non-specific, wishy-washy, half-hearted prayer. When you search the Bible to see what He has to say about it, then you may go before His throne and pray with boldness according to His will!
So please, never again utter the words, “I have an unspoken prayer request.” Confide in those whom the Lord has given you, find out what the Bible says about it, and go before the Lord with this awesome gift of prayer! The Lord is waiting.
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As we wrap up this series on the Lord’s Prayer this week, let’s start by reviewing the entire prayer from Matthew 6:9-13:
“This, then, is how you should pray:
‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’”
You may be thinking… where’s the rest? Perhaps you’ve said this prayer in church before, and you’re expecting something like “For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” But, as you may have noticed, those words are not included in the Scriptures, either when Jesus gave this prayer as recorded in Matthew (above) or in Luke 11:2-4. So, why do we traditionally add that ending?
That ending, also known as a doxology or a benediction because of its form of praising God, is actually found in various forms in multiple ancient manuscripts. But it’s not always found in exactly the same form, which makes scholars suspicious that it should be included. Some manuscripts have this phrasing as, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." Others simply have, "For yours is the power forever and ever." Some even write, "For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit forever. Amen." All of this discrepancy shows disagreement, which indicates it was likely added in various forms by scribes.
So while this ending phrase does appear in ancient manuscripts, they’re not the best, most trustworthy, or most ancient. All of this evidence points to the fact that it should not be included as words of Scripture.
However, some scholars argue it should still be included. They say it’s very likely that Jesus (or Matthew) would not have just ended the prayer like this without some kind of blessing or praise of God at the end. Jewish prayers would traditionally end with something like this, so it would be their custom to do that. It is also unlikely that a scribe would have left this out when copying a text, especially an important prayer like this one. But these scholars are generally in the minority, based on the manuscript evidence. It would be more likely for a scribe to add a benediction at the end rather than leave one out.
So if this benediction at the end is not part of the text, why do we traditionally include some form of it when we say the Lord’s Prayer? Well for one thing, it does give a nice ending to the prayer, rather than leaving us hanging so to speak after asking for deliverance from the evil one. It is always appropriate to give God praise, especially during our prayers. We affirm that the kingdom, the power, and the glory are God’s and they should be proclaimed as such forever.
One interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer is that it represents God as the Trinity. The first part references the Father’s creation and providing for us through our daily bread. Next we see the Son’s work of forgiveness for us. Then we see the Holy Spirit’s power dwelling in us to keep us safe and not tempted by evil. So this triune phrase at the end (kingdom, power, and glory) is a reference to the triune nature of God - three persons but yet one God.
Is it wrong to include this last phrase when we say the prayer? Definitely not! The words that we pray are less important than the heart attitude and meaning behind it. I grew up in a church tradition that says “for ever and ever” at the end of the prayer when we’d pray it together weekly, and when I went to college I attended a church tradition that ended it at “forever.” I had to make a conscious effort to not add “... and ever” each time! Was one of these traditions “wrong”? Nope, they just disagreed on the specific wording, just like various manuscripts disagree as well, but the meaning was still the same.
We know that the kingdom, power, and glory of God will go on to all eternity, and we are proclaiming that each time we pray the words of this prayer. Amen!
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As followers of Jesus, we know that prayer is the method we can use to communicate with God. We at Worldview Warriors have written on prayer multiple times; for example, I wrote on how to pray and if God hears our prayers. Charlie Wolcott wrote a series on prayer a few years ago that starts here. But for this series, I want to focus on one specific prayer: the Lord’s prayer.
We find the Lord’s Prayer twice in Scripture, in the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke. Here are those two versions for comparison:
“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’” (Matthew 6:9-13)
“He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’” (Luke 11:2-4)
After reading both of those, you may notice a few things. First, those two versions are different; some scholars believe that the one in Matthew happened around a year earlier than the one in Luke, and that those were two different occasions. How do they know? Check out the context.
Based on the introduction in Matthew 5:1-2, chapters 5, 6, and 7 in the book of Matthew are what’s commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount, and you’ll notice that this prayer is right in the middle of that. Immediately before it, Jesus is teaching on giving to the needy, and then on prayer in general. From there, He launches into this specific prayer with the instruction of “This, then is how you should pray.” It’s not enough to tell people that they need to do something; it’s much more helpful to actually give an example of how to do it. After this prayer, Jesus goes on to talk about forgiveness, fasting, and more.
The introduction in Luke 11:1 says, “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’” Immediately before that in the gospel account, Jesus is at the home of Mary and Martha. So, the context makes it pretty clear that these are two different instances.
You’ll notice that the wording of both prayers is actually somewhat different too. This is true in the original Greek as well as in our English translations. If you were to teach something twice, chances are you may say it a little bit differently the second time; that’s what’s going on here. It could also be the difference between Matthew and Luke recording the words of Jesus at different times in their separate manuscripts.
You may have also noticed that perhaps neither of those line up exactly with the way you were taught to say the Lord’s Prayer. The version in Matthew is likely closer to what you learned than the one in Luke, but I would guess there are still differences. That may be due to the version I quoted (the NIV) being translated in 2011; perhaps you learned it from the older NIV translation or even from the King James Version.
So… which version is correct? Did Jesus speak the words of the version in Matthew? I believe so. Did Jesus speak the words of the version in Luke? I believe so. Which English version is the “right” one? That depends on how you define “right.” We all have our preferences, but a preference doesn’t make it correct or incorrect. If you gauge that by being the closest possible to the words that Jesus spoke, then no English version is “correct.” It’s likely that Jesus spoke those words in Aramaic (the commonly spoken language of the day), but as far as scholars know, it was first written down in Koine Greek in both the Matthew and Luke accounts, though there are even slight differences in those Greek texts. There has been much scholarly study done on how the Lord’s Prayer transitioned from the most original written words we have to the common forms we know it in today, but I’m not going to focus on that here; you can check this out for an overview.
The fact of the matter is that there is no wrong way to pray - for the Lord’s Prayer or any prayer. There are no specific words that make your prayer “right” or “wrong.” The most important issue with any prayer, including the Lord’s Prayer, is the state of your heart. Is your attitude one of desiring true communication with God? Are you just repeating the words because you have to for participating in a church service? Is your attitude a self-serving one, thinking that you’ll get something from God for saying these words?
The specific words that you say when you speak the Lord’s Prayer are less important than the attitude of your heart. I grew up reciting the Lord’s Prayer at least weekly in church services and in the Christian school I attended as well. For much of that time, it was just saying the words because that’s what you’re supposed to do. After I graduated college, the church I attended at the time had a tradition where toward the end of the service, everyone would hold hands and recite the Lord’s Prayer together. The pastor explained it once by saying that when we hold hands to pray, those who are spiritually “higher” will lift up those who are spiritually “lower,” and we all encourage one another. It also unifies us as part of the body of Christ. Having that closeness to my fellow believers while praying these words of Jesus really brought them alive to me and made them mean so much more.
Over the next few months, I will be focusing on each phrase of the Lord’s Prayer based on the account in Matthew 6:9-13. Each week, we’ll dig into one phrase in Koine Greek, what it means in English, and how we can apply it to our lives today.
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When I was in college, I wore a T-Shirt that said, “Pray for Juarez” put together by the ministry my parents worked for at the time. This was 10 years ago and Juarez, Mexico was in the middle of a fierce drug cartel war, making it the deadliest city in the world at the time. It was not uncommon to be in Mexico and see a dead body or even a head on a city fountain (yes, that kind of graphic violence). One of my college advisors saw the shirt and said “Did you know that scientific evidence says that when people are sick and pray for healing, there is only about a 50% success rate? Therefore, prayer doesn’t work.” I didn’t answer because I didn’t feel that was the place for the debate, but I brushed it off, knowing this guy knew nothing of prayer and so did his source.
But what’s the deal with this? This is part of the “Why Doesn’t God Heal Amputees?” issue. The claim was, “If Jesus said you can pray for anything in His name and He’ll give it to us, why doesn’t He answer prayers or do miracles?” I want to make this clear. One of the reasons why many people reject the Bible is due to “unanswered prayers.” They have certain expectations, and when the expectations aren’t met, God is to blame. But is the fault with God for not answering a prayer? Is the fault with the person for not asking the right kind of prayer? Is there not enough faith? What’s the deal?
As I’ve studied prayer and tried to practice it, one thing is for certain: prayer is NOT a process. It is not a formula. God is not a “rub the lamp and get three wishes” genie. Prayer is man reaching out to a personal but sovereign God. It is man calling out to God to do what man cannot do. While Scripture does indeed say, “Ask and you shall receive,” there is fine print that goes with it. These aren’t hidden contract fees, but you must interpret what is said in one verse in context with all other verses that talk about the same issue.
One thing must be made clear: God is only responsible for answering the prayers that He said He would answer. Just asking for a few things and attaching “Jesus’ name” to the end of it and saying “Amen” is not true prayer. To ask in the name of Jesus means to ask as though Jesus Himself is asking. That means we need to have the mind of Christ and pray what He wants to be praying. While we do have the authority in Christ to ask whatever we need and God will grant it, that authority only works if we are submitted under the authority of Christ. The Centurion understood this. He knew Jesus didn’t operate under His own power or agenda. He also knew that Jesus could delegate the power and it would be done. If we want free access to the throne of Grace, we have to do thing God’s way and go after the things God wants.
God’s typical answers prayers are yes, no, or later. Not many people like the “no” or “later” answers, but we have to remember that God is a Person and He is sovereign. That means that God has His will and His Kingdom as the chief agenda. God does indeed love us and seek the best for us, but we are not the center of the universe. We are not what it is all about; God is. We have to keep that in mind. God does not need us, nor did He create us to fill a missing hole. He created us to showcase His glory and His character. That includes His love and mercy, and that includes His justice and His wrath.
Now don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that God is indifferent about us. I’m not saying that God doesn’t actually care about our desires and our feelings. But I am saying that God’s primary focus is what will give Him glory. He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. He brought a 14-year old boy back to life after drowning and being formally declared dead for over an hour. But He let a former Muslim and Christian apologist, Nabeel Qureshi, die of cancer. Why? Prayers were offered for both. Does one being saved and one dying mean that God is arbitrary? No. It means God has reasons for letting somethings happen and intervening in another that we don’t see. The boy, John Smith, who died was brought back is not proud or boasting of the gift God gave him. He’s asking: “Why me?” And that’s the attitude anyone of us should have when God acts on our behalf. “Why me?” We don’t deserve it. The only thing we deserve is the wrath of Almighty God.
When God moves, it’s always for a purpose. Miracles are called rare for a reason. If God answered the prayers of every person who wanted a healing or a restored limb, several things would happen. People would get complacent and reckless. They’d start doing stupid things because after all, who cares about safety if only we believe God will fix the problem? There is natural law and consequences for our actions for a reason. Part of it is to teach us not to do stupid things. Be sexually promiscuous, you will likely catch an STD. Drive drunk, you’ll likely crash and kill someone, if not yourself. Tell a lie to your boss, you may get fired. If God were to fix every problem we created, would we ever learn from them?
Another issue is that the miracle would become commonplace and God’s glory would be minimized. I do believe God does miracles still today (though I am against the notion of “miracle workers” where God always does them through the ministry of a specific person), however those are rare what could be called “mercy drops.” The miracles God does are set up so only He can get the glory. God is capable of working through natural means, and often He will orchestrate the natural to do what He wants done. But He also works in the supernatural where He intervenes upon the natural world to do something it won’t do normally.
People say there’s no objective evidence for miracles. I always ask: “What’s your criteria? What are you expecting?” I rarely, if ever, get a straight answer. I’ve been miraculously healed. I’ve seen food multiply. I’ve even been present (though I was too young to recognize it then) when eyeglasses for a giveaway were multiplied and the last pair of donated glasses went to the last person, each with their precise prescription. But I’ve also seen doors shut, the sick remain sick, the lame remain lame, the damaged brain remain damaged though it was no fault of that person. The fact remains that we live in a sinful, fallen, cursed world and the source of that curse is not God. It’s us.
But what about those who need a miracle? The parent whose child is battling cancer, or a defective heart (as a family in my church is dealing with a second child with the same issue, the first died a few years ago before age 6), or those in a serious financial bind (through no fault of their own)? How should they pray? They should pray knowing two things: God is the God of the universe and He loves His children. He loves to give good gifts. He does hear the pleading and desperate heart. But He is also sovereign, and He has a bigger plan than we can imagine. To the parent with a suffering child, God loves your child even more than you do. He knows what is going on, but He also knows what needs to happen for His glory, or what would happen if He intervenes as we request. Make your plea and keep asking for your plea until the answer comes. David did, but God didn’t answer his prayer to save his son. Yet the Syro-Phonecian woman persisted and God did answer her. Pray until you received closure to your request, but accept the answer when it comes, even if it is a no.
Next week, I’ll examine a crucial Christian doctrine that is sadly ignored or even vilified in many churches today: the doctrine of suffering.
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by Chad Koons
The door flung open as he strode into the office, holding an envelope. I greeted him but he did not respond, staring at me with a face overcome with emotion. “What’s this?” I asked him. He went to speak but found no words, instead slapping the envelope on the counter and walking back out the door. I knew that it must be about his grandson, Clint.
What was inside of that envelope blew me away. We look for God to move inside of our church buildings, and He does, yet what if He most often prefers to move outside of them?
I try to remain open to the Spirit’s leading. Quite often the Lord will have me pray for someone, speak a Scripture, give Godly counsel, or outright share the gospel when I am out and about.
On this particular day, it happened while I was at work, just a couple of months ago.
While working with a particular customer, the conversation had somehow shifted off of his project and onto the funny things that little kids do. I don’t remember how this happened, but when a conversation shifts to something off topic, I have learned to pay special attention for this may be the leading of the Lord. And in this case, it was. He told me that he has a 3-year old grandson named Clint. “Please pray for him,” he said softly, “he’s undergoing surgery right now.”
This information alarmed me. He said that Clint had been having pain in his ear, nasal trouble, and a loss of hearing. The doctor suspected a tumor or cyst, some mass that needed to be removed, though they would not know more until they got in there to find out.
“You said that he’s undergoing surgery now, did you mean right this instant?” I asked him. He confirmed that Clint was literally on the operating table at that very moment. “Then let’s pray for him right now,” I said. The man seemed surprised by this but said, “Yes, let’s pray.” We stood in the parking lot while I began to pray out loud. Being careful to listen to the leading of the Lord during my prayer, I was slow to speak as the right Scripture and words came into my heart and out of my mouth.
A great urgency came in my heart just then during my prayer, and in my mind, I briefly saw an image of a gloved hand performing surgery. The hand suddenly moved towards a different section within the surgery area, then the image went away. I sensed a need to pray accordingly, so I did: “Fill the surgeons with wisdom and foresight, bring all things back into their remembrance, move and guide their hands to the right areas, directing them to see exactly what they need to see for Clint’s situation.” I felt relief after praying this. I knew in my heart that something significant had happened just then.
Upon concluding the prayer, the man thanked me and left. However, the situation remained upon my heart. A dear little 3-year old boy, the same age as my little son, it was a burden that I could feel.
A few days later, the man returned. He quickly walked into the office and delivered an envelope to me, leaving without saying a word, as he was overcome with emotion. Inside the envelope was a card:
“Thank you for praying for Clint. The doctor’s hand was clearly guided during the operation. At first he couldn’t find the obstruction and thought maybe it had resolved itself, but his hand was led to a spot he did not imagine could hold the cyst. He found and removed the obstruction and Clint will be fine. The obstruction was against a major nerve and if the Spirit had not moved his hand forward, Clint would have been stricken with both facial and brain issues. May God be glorified.”
Amazing.
God moves right where you are, regardless if you are at work, play, rest, or church. This may surprise you, but as the ministry of Jesus shows us… God especially “works” in mundane places, like the workplace. Have a look in the Gospels and identify the many individual people that Jesus encountered. Most of these occur within a place of work, so to speak.
Simon, Andrew, James, and John were at work fishing. (Matthew 4:18-22)
Matthew was at work in the tax booth. (Matthew 9:9-10)
The lame man was at work begging. (John 5:1-15)
The woman from Samaria was at work drawing water. (John 4:7-42)
We seem to think that we need to have the proper setting for God to move: the gathering of believers, the worship team, the pastor, and all that comes with the corporate assembly of “church.” Make no mistake about it, there is much power within the corporate assembly, and special things happen therein by God’s design (Psalm 133, 1 Corinthians 14:26, Hebrews 10:24,25). However, the Lord works through His people wherever they may be, regardless of numbers or location.
Sometimes it will come as a small voice leading you to do something. Perhaps a normal conversation shifts, and you will recognize the Lord in it. Maybe a Scripture will pop into your mind and you’ll be compelled to share it. Do not hold back when these things happen; these urgings can be the leading of the Holy Spirit, directly connected to the work of God being performed within another’s life! We want to be used of God, as if it was some clear cut, organized thing. Yet most often it is not! Look closer, it’s right there mixed among the mundane, ordinary, everyday duties of life, where the Lord shows up with an opportunity for wonder and power that we so quickly discard if we are not listening. But when we do listen… great things happen.
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So far, the book of Ecclesiastes has consisted of the Teacher trying to find meaning and purpose in this life, and finding that every aspect of life is meaningless from a worldly sense. Here, in today’s passage of Ecclesiastes 5:1-7, he takes that one step further and encourages us to experience God’s presence in order to find that true meaning and satisfaction.
Verse 1 instructs us to, “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.” In chapter 4, the discussion was about power, motivation, and authority; here the tone changes to quietly experiencing God’s presence. This verse invites us to examine our motivation for being in God’s presence. Are we there to be seen as when offering sacrifices, or are we going to experience God listen to Him?
In our world today, it’s so easy to get caught up in doing religious actions rather than simply being in God’s presence to listen to Him. We want to feel like we’re accomplishing something, to check off those items on our to-do lists, rather than simply experiencing God’s presence, sitting in silence to listen to Him. While doing things like reading the Bible and studying the Word are very worthwhile, our focus shouldn’t be on doing that for the sake of doing it, but for the sake of experiencing God and being in His presence in His Word. We should have a mindset of prayer that encompasses both talking and listening to God.
Verse 2 expands on this idea of prayer a bit: “Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.” How many of us are guilty of prayer being all us talking and allowing no time for God to talk? That wouldn’t work very well in a conversation with a friend, so why do we think it’s okay to do that with God? The Teacher encourages us to do less talking and more listening in our prayer lives. Check out Matthew 6:7-8 for what Jesus had to say about this, and these blog posts for what some of our writers have shared on prayer.
In verse 3, the Teacher compares our prayers to dreams. Dreams generally don’t have any real substance to them, and that’s how our prayers are when they are simply a lot of words. When we pray, we’re often so focused on ourselves that we lose focus of what truly matters - giving God glory and praising His name. When we talk too much, we’re foolish because the only thing that matters is God.
The Teacher discusses vows in verses 4-6. The focus is that if we tell God we’re going to do something, we really need to follow through with it. It is foolish to do otherwise. Whatever the promise is, it’s better to not make the commitment rather than to commit to something and not do it. This is echoed in James 5:12: “Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ Otherwise you will be condemned.”
For an application of this concept, check out the story of Jephthah in Judges 11. Jephthah makes a vow to God that if God helps him win a battle, he will sacrifice the first thing that comes out of his house when he returns home. It looks like Jephthah wasn’t thinking clearly when he made that vow, but once he made it, he was obligated to keep it. Unfortunately for him, the first thing to come out of his house was his daughter! He told his daughter what he had done, they both made their peace with it, and Jephthah fulfilled his foolish vow.
This story is just one example of why we should not flippantly make vows or promises to God. As the Teacher says, “Do not let your mouth lead you into sin” (verse 6). If you make a vow that you end up not being able to keep, for whatever reason, you will be sinning when you break it.
The Teacher wraps up this section with these words in verse 7: “Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore fear God.” The way in which we approach God must be realistic. We should not commit to what we can’t follow through on. We need to remember that God puts the highest value on our heart’s condition and motivation. Spend time quietly being in God’s presence rather than praying with empty words. Listen to what God is saying to you, don’t just talk at Him in your prayers. Don’t make vows or promises that you may not be able to keep, but instead strive to spend time with God and discover what He has for your life.
As the Teacher says, everything outside of our fearing God is meaningless. Fearing God, acknowledging and praising His awesome greatness and power in reverence is what we are created to do.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
