The Importance of Your Praying

Genesis 20:7 NIV

 Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die."

What is the Big Deal about Prayer?

I have a shirt that across the front has in bold, bright letters, “Pray”.  I enjoy the reaction it stirs.  I usually wear it when I am going to be around a lot of different people.  It would be fun to have a web cam record the response of those who notice it for the first time.  A typical reaction is for a person to glance at the letters, then pause a moment as if trying to grasp the meaning of the word found on my shirt.  Almost always, the woman or man quickly looks away without meeting my eyes.  It is as if I stop being a real person to many, just a walking billboard.  Some smile and tell me they like the shirt, most try to pretend they didn’t see it or me.  I did not realize prayer was controversial, or something that made people uncomfortable.  Perhaps it is now; maybe prayer is no longer recognized as a critical part of being human; not thought to be important to making life better.

It seems odd that there has to be a rationale given for prayer but perhaps one must be given.    Does it really matter if you pray or not?  Is anyone affected by the shortness of your praying or your lack of prayer?  The problem is that you almost never get any feedback on how you pray.  If you diet or don’t, you see how you are doing.  When you send a check to a charity, you get a note back thanking you for the support and perhaps even a report of how much help you provide.  If you save for your retirement, eventually you find out what your disciplined living did for you.  Fail to keep oil in your car and at some point you will find out how important oil is to your car engine.  It is not like that with prayer.  How do you ever find out what your praying did or didn’t do for yourself or others?  You never get a report card.  No one knows how effective your praying is and you probably don’t know either.  Unless you are someone like George Muller who kept rigorous records of his praying and how his prayer requests fared, you probably haven’t a clue about your prayer success rate.  The default setting for most people is that they just don’t pray much for themselves or others because they don’t know why they should.  Is there a reason why you should pray often?  Let us look at this question carefully because it may really matter how much you pray.

The Bible has an intriguing account of prayer that must be considered.  The book of Job is most famous for its report of the terrible suffering of Job and how he tried to understand why God let him face such horror.  Yet it could be argued that the most important point made in the book is not even the narrative of Job and his trials but rather what we are told at the end.  Job had three friends who came to him ostensibly to comfort him but ended up berating Job for imaginary wrongs he had committed.  The friends decided that Job had to have been a terrible sinner for God to make him suffer so much.  More than half the book is a dialogue between Job and his friends; the later accusing Job of secret sins and the former denying the charges and asserting his holiness.  Famously Job pleads for someone to intervene for him, someone to defend him to God.  He insists, “…God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. “ (Job 19:6 NIV)

The final chapters of Job are given over to the Lord’s response to Job’s accusations.  God never explains His actions; He merely makes it clear that He is sovereign Lord over all and that no one rises above Him in authority and power.  God challenges Job to bring his charges directly to Him.  The Lord said to Job:  "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?  Let him who accuses God answer him!"  (Job 40:1-2 NIV)  Job’s response is quick and decided.  Then Job answered the Lord:  "I am unworthy — how can I reply to you?  I put my hand over my mouth.  I spoke once, but I have no answer — twice, but I will say no more."  (Job 40:3-5 NIV)  Then we come upon perhaps the most compelling aspect of the entire book…at least as far as we discover the value God gives His people and the part they play in the course of history.

At the conclusion of the book of Job, the Lord turns to Job’s friends and addresses their critique of Job.  After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.  So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly.  (Job 42:7-8 NIV)  What an astonishing revelation!  God will wait for someone to pray before He acts.  In this case it is Job.  Consider the implication.  After God’s monologue in which He declares His supreme authority over the universe, He warns Job’s friends that if they do not want to face the consequences of making false accusations against Job, they must depend upon Job to pray for God’s mercy.  Why did God have Job pray for his friends?  Clearly it was because the friends needed Job to pray for them.

This is a stupendous revelation!  God waited for Job to pray before He decided the fate of Job’s three friends.  It is as if you did not want to act until one of your friends gave her opinion.  Or it is more like your father not punishing your brother until you said whether he should or not.  Prayer has a real effect with God and changes the course of human events.  Remember what Jesus said about His people?  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15 NIV)  One characteristic of friendship is that friends influence each other.  They start to think alike as the bond between them strengthens.  Friendship is never a one-way street.  Friendship is by definition the linking of people so that they impact each other through love and loyalty.  If prayer is the way we bond with God, then it seems reasonable that in our prayers, there is a back and forth impact that takes place between us.  As your friend, God cares about what matters to you and He is affected by the way you think and how you feel about things.  We think of God as some isolated independent being who does everything on His own but He isn’t.  Our Lord is your friend and your Father and He loves you as your friend and your Father.   That is why prayer is so important.  God is, in some way that cannot be explained, influenced by you.

Consider the implications of Ephesians 6:18.  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. (NIV)  Jude 20 has a similar admonition.  But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. (NIV)  This verse, when considered in its original Greek setting is almost identical to Ephesians 6:18 because it literally directs us to “in the Holy Spirit continually be praying ones”.  To pray “in” the Holy Spirit is like a fish living “in” the ocean or a bird living “in” the atmosphere.  The “in” of being in the Holy Spirit is an “in” of complete immersion, of total envelopment.  The bird absorbs the atmosphere as well as moves within it.  If you pray in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is all about you in your praying.  He is “in” what you pray, the guide to your praying, He is why you pray and the reason you have trust in God as you pray.  When you “pray in the Holy Spirit”, it means that the Holy Spirit is a part of every aspect of your praying.

But how does God our friend want us to pray?  He wants us to pray about anything the Holy Spirit brings to mind but especially He wants us to pray for every single Christian who comes to mind.  Why should we pray so much?  It is because God cares about our opinion of things: He wants to hear what we have to say about others.  In fact He cares so much that He waits for us to pray before He acts.  Job had the same task we have, to bring his concerns about people to God and ask for Him to help them.  How can we know what to pray about for others?  When we are in the Holy Spirit, immersed in Him, thinking with Him and through Him, we will get it right.  Our prayers will match what God wants to do for them.

Without the Holy Spirit directing our thinking as we pray, it is a hit or miss proposition.  Praying becomes irrational and filled with chaos.  The Spirit straightens out our praying, makes it coherent.  We know what we ought to pray and how we should pray because the Holy Spirit makes sense of it for us.  We have the foundation for confident praying in Romans 8, perhaps the most important chapter in the entire Bible.  In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.  (Romans 8:26-27 NIV)

Let this sink in a moment.  On our own we have no idea how to pray.  In our sin weakened state we are incompetent at prayer.  But with the Holy Spirit working within us, we have no limits in prayer, there is no ceiling.  Just think about what you could do for others if you become locked in on the Holy Spirit and were in total sync with God.  You could bring real peace and joy to the world…to those your love.  Imagine the good you could do if you took prayer seriously; if you made it your top priority!  It would not be a stretch to state that the book of James provides us with the greatest encouragement to pray found anywhere in literature.  Consider its implication.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.  Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.  Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.  (James 5:16-18 NIV)  Elijah was a person just like you with all your faults and weaknesses, with all kinds of idiosyncrasies and quirks just like you.  Yet he could pray and a drought came to pass because of his praying and then after three and a half years the drought ended because of his praying.  That could be you, praying just like Elijah.  You may argue that you aren’t righteous though.  The truth is that because of Christ in you, your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of Elijah and all the other greats of the Old Testament.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:7 NIV)  And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ — to the glory and praise of God.  (Philippians 1:9-11 NIV)  It is not a righteousness issue for you when it comes to praying.  It is a willingness issue.  Are you willing to stay close enough to the Holy Spirit that you can make a supernatural difference in your circle of influence when you pray?  Do you through the most powerful tool you have, prayer, want to make the lives of others better.  You can.  You just have to decide if you are willing to put in the effort to pray.

Praying or Fantasizing

Mark 11:24 NIV

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

How Confident Are About Praying?

A number of years ago we went to Disneyland and our daughter was only three.  She loved to dress up in princess outfits and she had a number that she brought for our trip there.  One day she could dress as Cinderella, another as Snow White and the next she was prepared to be Belle.  In fact she could change in the middle of the day and be a different princess at lunch and dinner.  Her face would light up when she spotted Arial or Belle or Pocahontas mingling in the crowd.  We had to wait for Rachel to stand in line and greet each of the princesses she came across. There was even a lunch meet and greet that Rachel attended.  Rachel was mesmerized by the parades when the princesses all came together in one place and she stared at them all wide-eyed.  Reality and fantasy came together in a mystical union.  That is until reality rose up and trampled fantasy one cloudy afternoon when Rachel spotted one of the Disneyland princesses standing out behind a building smoking a cigarette.  She was stunned and she never forgot the disappointment she felt at the unexpected sight.

Many have given up on Christianity because they believe it is like the Disney princesses; it is all a dress up that in the end is a sham.  Perhaps you have struggled with believing the Bible.  There is much about it that is interesting and helpful but some of the stories in it appear to be too good to be true.  The promises about prayer in particular hang you up as it does not seem like God holds up His end of the bargain.  You pray but the outcome is not what you had hoped.  Or worse, your praying seems to have been a waste of time and left you discouraged and feeling snookered by empty promises of God’s help.

Two case studies found in the Bible shed a bit of light on our discussion.  When Lazarus, a good friend of Jesus, became deathly ill, his sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." (John 11: 3 NIV)  When Jesus did not do anything about Lazarus’s condition and he died, both sisters were dumbfounded by His lack of help.  When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." (John 11:32 NIV)  How closely this mirrors the experience of many who have prayed and been disappointed by the results!

Prior to the birth of Christ, an elderly widow lived at the Temple and spent her days praying.  There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. (Luke 2:36-37 NIV)  We have no idea what sorts of matters were on her prayer list but we must say she had to wait an awfully long time before meeting the Messiah.  Not only that, should we just ignore the fact that this woman of prayer lost her husband after only seven years of marriage?  How much disappointment with prayer was locked up within the heart of this elderly widow for all those years!

Our problem, when it comes to praying, is not just the seeming slowness or even lack of responses to prayer.  We face a much more daunting task when it comes to believing in God.  We lack a physical connection to Him that can make trusting in Him more reasonable and sustainable.  We can’t see Him, hear Him or touch Him and that is not normal when it comes to relationships.  It can be argued that we don’t, hear, see or touch those we meet online and yet believe they are who they say they are but experience with fraud makes many such “encounters” impossible to trust completely.  When it comes to God, we don’t even have a picture profile to consider!  Yet, is it insane to believe in a God we cannot see, touch or hear?

Author Philip Yancey suggests we should consider the case of the woman who has been blind since birth who has never seen light and cannot see it.  How would you prove the existence of light to her?  You could present her with products of light such as heat or plant life but that does not prove light to her.  Light is real and not at all imaginary but to the one who has no sensitivity to it, light is just hearsay, only taken on trust.  If everyone in the world is blind from birth, men, women and children, light as described in books is to the entire crowd “religious” or “unscientific”.  It might be considered “mythological” and yet it is as real as the birds chirping in the trees.  The doubt in the minds of those who cannot see that light exists would not mitigate the reality of light.

We certainly lack the Spiritual sense needed to scientifically “prove” the presence of demons and angels, God and Satan but that is what we must accept when we speak of God and prayer.  Jesus did not try to pretend something else was the case.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24 NIV)  Rarely does God make Himself available to our physical senses.  Yet He has done so and many of the blind in our world just won’t believe the accounts given of His presence being seen, heard, touched or smelled. There is something else we must consider when it comes to knowing about the existence of God and believing in prayer.

The American Journal of Psychiatry reported a study of Harvard students who had experienced a “religious conversion.  They discovered that these students showed a dramatic change in their lifestyles.  Their use of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes went down spectacularly.  What is more, they did much better academically than they did before their conversion and were less likely to suffer from depression and despair when compared to the rest of the student body.  What does it mean when an internal transformation which is attributed to God results in an externally proven outcome?  Religious Americans are proven to be more likely to give money to someone homeless, spend time with someone depressed, return excess change to a clerk, help someone find a job and donate blood.  At what point do those who do not have the sensory equipment to see or touch God begin to consider the facts regarding the accomplishments of the God they cannot see?

Faith is the operating system of our relationship with God and that is not going to change!  We live by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV)  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)  Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6: 29 NIV) For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)  This is the way God works with us.  We must have faith in Him that He exists if we are to have a relationship with Him that transforms our lives.  It will not be altered; this plan of God.  No amount of complaining that God does not let us see, hear or touch Him will change His mind.  The Lord will do in us and through us what our faith in Him permits.  It has been shown that with God operating in people’s lives, crime, drug use, violence and gang activities go down.  What proof do you need to recognize that you pray to a God who changes people’s lives and literally is a part of what they do?

When you pray, the Lord will transform your character, create in you a hatred of your own sin and generate a growing desire to be close to Him.  He will guide you so that you will be able to make sense of what to do.  He will work in others and change them too.  God will alter your circumstances so that in the end all you face and encounter will turn out for your good.  To pray, you must have faith to pray.  To communicate with God who is real, you must believe that He is real.  You will never be certain that God exists or that He is part of your praying until you actually decide to believe He exists and then pray.  Once that transaction takes place, the Lord will move Heaven and Earth to keep you close to Him supernaturally and coherently.  You may not yet believe God loves you fully but that will come as you trust Him enough to pray.  Faith opens your mind to pray; miracles always follow faith…they don’t come before it.  A miracle is nothing more complex than this.  It is the discovery that God is in actuality a part of your life and giving you the very best He has to offer in response to your praying.  So pray.  Pray often.  Pray with your mind on God and your heart open to whatever He gives you.

The Fullness of You...Smelling

Genesis 8:20-21

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.  The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

How Do You Smell?

Smell has the unique ability to serve as a trigger within the heart.  It registers deeply within us and locates memories long forgotten or buried and drags them to the conscious mind.  The sudden whiff of a pot roast, coffee, a gardenia or a type of perfume can take us back to when we were young.  Scent is important to our relationship with God.  Smell and the use of odors were key parts of how the Israelites were to worship the Lord.  From the use of prescribed concoctions of incense in the Temple to the burning of sheep and goats on the altars, the smell of sacrifices pleased God.  As noted above, God was happy to smell the burnt sacrifices Noah offered following the flood.  The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man… (Genesis 8: 21a NIV)  The Temple, which was the central location for worship in Israel, at least in the beginning, produced a flood of smells that overwhelmed the nostrils.  The odors of blood, cinnamon, cooking meat, salt and smoking fire pits nearly took one’s breath away.  When Solomon dedicated the Temple, the smoke from cooking sacrifices and burning incense was so thick you could barely see.  Imagine the overworking of salivary glands as one entered into the Temple grounds and the odor of barbecuing beef and mutton reached you.

We find in the Scripture that all the smells of the Temple were to establish in the hearts of God’s people something of critical importance to God.  In Psalm 141:2 we get a hint of what God was doing through all the sacrifices and incense burning.  May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. (NIV)  The connection between all those smells and God’s people praying was intentionally created by the Lord.  In the book of Revelation the link between the two is spelled out for us.  Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.  He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne.  And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. (Revelation 5:6-8 NIV) Then later in Revelation 8: 4 this is reiterated.  The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand. (NIV)

If you went into the Temple, whether just the outer courts or deeper into its center, there were to be two senses that captivated you: sight with the simple beauty of the gold and woodwork and smell with the all the smoke and cooking.  The gold was to remind everyone of the majesty of God but the smells were to stir up within all who came to the Temple the call to prayer.  In speaking of the work God would soon do in bringing non-Jews into His Kingdom, Isaiah the prophet announced, “…these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.  Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." (Isaiah 56:7 NIV)  The smell of the burnt offerings coalesced with the prayers of the people producing a sweet perfume for God.  The house of incense and cooking meat was to be God’s house of prayer and not just for Jews but for all humanity who came to Him.  Jesus’ fury was directed toward those who destroyed that plan.  Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.  "It is written," he said to them, "'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers.'" (Matthew 21:12-13 NIV)

What we discover as we turn to the New Testament again is that just as the odor of the incense and the cooking sacrifices represented the prayers of the people and were to be a continual call to prayer, so too we find out that the Temple itself was a representation of something greater than wood and stone.  One of the most misapplied verses in the entire Bible is Paul’s admonition in 2 Corinthians.  Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV)  The Temple built in Jerusalem was a foreshadowing of what God would do with all people who came to Him in faith.  They were going to be “houses of prayer”.  Every last one of us are built by God to be a prayer center.  When prayers are not emanating from us like the smell of incense rising into the wind, then we wreck the sanctuary of our lives.  If Christ could beat out the money changers and vendors from the Temple for taking apart the prayer of the place, how much more so does our Lord demand that as the Temple of the Holy Spirit we are to be centers of prayer!

Consider just a couple of examples to make clear how important our praying is to God.  When the ancient king Abimelech mistakenly took Abraham’s wife Sarah into his harem because Abraham had told the king that Sarah was his sister, God’s wrath broke out against Abimelech and his subjects.  The Lord warned Abimelech in a dream that He was about to kill him for taking Sarah from Abraham.  But, God gave Abimelech a chance at life.  “Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die." (Genesis 20:7 NIV)  God would wait on deciding Abimelech’s fate until he heard from Abraham in prayer.  Consider the high place of prayer and its exalted status.  The prayer of one man would decide the fate of another.

We see a similar situation in Job.  Job’s friends who were critical of Job and accused him of terrible sinning also found themselves under the wrath of God.  "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7 NIV)   But the Lord was willing to be merciful, depending on how Job responded. “My servant Job will pray for you and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly.” (Job 42:8b NIV)  If Job prayed for his friends, the Lord would be merciful to them.  Ponder how great a responsibility that is!  One person’s praying determined how God would act.

We have in James 5: 16 the sort of odor we are to produce in this world.  Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.  Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.  Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. (James 5:16-18 NIV)  If you are not obsessed with praying for others, then you have no idea who you are in Christ and what He wants you to be.  As the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the Lord is a part of your personality and He operates in you and through you.  The more aware you are of God, the more He will pray through you and your prayers will become His prayers.  You are not a righteous person because of what you are on your own.  Your righteousness is the righteousness of Christ which comes to your through Christ crucified and resurrected.  Therefore, the effectiveness of your praying is not dependent upon you but upon God living in you and through you.  You make yourself a sweet odor to God and to all around you by offering prayers to God for every person God brings to your mind night and day.  The smell that God loves above all is the praying of His people and like Job and Abraham, you can change the course of history by praying. 

Secret Praying

Our Lord's admonition against public praying is full-on assault against mindlessness in being with God.  He wants us thinking and not with our mind upon those around us but upon Him.  The hypocrites are engaged in "prayerishness" but not actual praying.  When Jesus pushed for closet praying, He wasn't speaking of spaces and locations but the way of being that prayer people maintain.  He gave us structure to praying in the model prayer that provides a framework for what prayer is but not a closed in box for prayer.  If we are not praying with God at the center of what we are doing, without Him as the form of thinking we are taking, then we might as well just call ourselves pagans and be done with the exercise.  But if we have our mind on God, we come into fellowship with Him and actual transformation occurs in our praying.  No individual who met with God as God stayed the same.  Whether you consider Abraham, Moses or Peter, the work of God in each was tangible.  It is interesting that in His teaching on prayer, Jesus immediately moves into forgiveness.  Why is that?  Is this just a jumble of sayings thrown together without cohesive thought given to them or is there a connection Christ makes between prayer and forgiveness?  It seems that the natural outcome of praying is that we change...sometimes in big ways and other times in nearly imperceptible increments.  If we meet with God though, we will become different and here He gives as an example of this forgiveness.  You cannot remain attached to God as a praying person and hold a grudge against someone else.  It is reflexive.  Prayer results in a change of direction in some way, whether it is in how we judge others, the generosity of our heart, the developing loss of attachment to money and possessions, an internal integrity that defies dishonesty or a genuine love for enemies.  Prayer is not an exercise in religious development, it is an astounding union between God and His people; the outcome is building holiness grounded in humility.  The beauty of prayer is that it can be done at any moment of every single day and the bridge into the mind of our Lord is open whenever we choose to meet with Him.  The room of Matthew 6: 6 is symbolic of the determination to be with God and not let our world encroach upon that relationship.  Our God is jealous for our attention and rightfully so.  He knows just what is possible when we turn our minds to Him in prayer.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…      Matthew 6: 9b  NIV

Conversion of the Mind

Matthew 7:1 NIV

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

Are You Opinionated?

It is one of the most natural of all human behaviors, judging others.  We may not let people in on what we are thinking but we are constantly critiquing and evaluating.  We make determinations regarding the lectures of our professors, the performance of our servers at restaurants, the job done by our hair stylists and the conversational skills of those we meet at parties.  We judge the effort given by our co-workers, the intelligence of our doctors, the creativity of our friends on Facebook and the friendliness of the clerks at supermarkets.  We give everyone we meet a quick evaluation…how well they have dressed, how they smell and how they look.  Often we pride ourselves on how accurately we assess others…their honesty, skill levels and worthiness of our time and friendship.  Fans who have never played above fourth grade baseball somehow know more about baseball than major league managers and millions watching football on TV believe they would not have thrown the “stupid” interception or made the bad pass the point guard made because they are smarter than the players they are watching.

A part of being human is the capacity to judge the skill and effort of others as well as ourselves.  Adam, even before he sinned, was given the task of naming all the animals based on his evaluation of them.  We see in the Bible a number of examples of judging, evaluating and assessing the motives and decision making of friends and co-workers.  King Saul famously decided that young David, his general, was a risk to Saul’s throne and that David’s popularity among the people of Israel might go to David’s head.  Saul came to the conclusion that David was greedy for power and could not be trusted so he tried to kill him.  Was Saul right in his determination?  Did Saul see something in David that warranted his concern?  Perhaps there was a smirk on David’s face when the women of Jerusalem sang about his exploits in front of King Saul.  Maybe David was not as respectful in the way he addressed Saul as Saul thought he should have been.  Whatever evidence Saul had though for judging David disloyal and a traitor, the King later realized it was not sufficient to warrant his mistrust.  He later admitted to David, "You are more righteous than I," he said. "You have treated me well, but I have treated you badly.”(1 Samuel 24:17 NIV)

One of the problems with judging others is that we may be dead wrong in our evaluations and a friendship or alliance that could have been wonderful and beneficial might be lost.  Family relationships can be destroyed by our judging.  Absalom, one of David’s sons became enraged when his half-brother Amnon raped his full-sister Tamar.  Their father David didn’t do anything about the crime though despite being king and having the power to punish Amnon any way he wished.  After three years, Absalom gained his vengeance on Amnon and had him murdered.  This did not settle the account fully though in Absalom’s mind.  He decided that David was wrong in this for not taking up the cause of his sister and thus not competent enough to be king, that he was an unfair and unjust ruler.  He began to gather evidence that David was not just in his other dealings.  Absalom interviewed men and their families as they entered Jerusalem on visits and asked them what they thought about the justice in the land with David as king.  “Did he treat everyone fairly?”  “Did David play favorites, only advancing the careers of those from Judah but disregarding the needs of those from other parts of Israel?

For four years Absalom criticized his father’s fairness as king.  He would get up early and stand by the side of the road leading to the city gate. Whenever anyone came with a complaint to be placed before the king for a decision, Absalom would call out to him, "What town are you from?" He would answer, "Your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel."  Then Absalom would say to him, "Look, your claims are valid and proper, but there is no representative of the king to hear you." And Absalom would add, "If only I were appointed judge in the land! Then everyone who has a complaint or case could come to me and I would see that he gets justice." Also, whenever anyone approached him to bow down before him, Absalom would reach out his hand, take hold of him and kiss him.  Absalom behaved in this way toward all the Israelites who came to the king asking for justice, and so he stole the hearts of the men of Israel. (2 Samuel 15:2-6 NIV)  With Absalom, the judgmental attitude toward his father festered into hatred that careened out of control.  Not every critical thought morphs into disgust and loathing. Some just fade to ambivalence and disinterest.  However, never does a critical and judgmental thought disappear from the mind.  It always leaves its mark; always damages in some way our personality.

Two of the Disciples, James and John, responded with rage to the lack of interest in Jesus and His ministry shown by the leaders of a Samaritan village and they made a rather troubling request of Him.  When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?"  But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.  (Luke 9:54-56 NIV)  This was an extreme reaction to a mundane occurrence.  It is not like these people were ripping into Jesus or wanting to stone Him to death.  They just weren’t interested in hearing Him because He was going to Jerusalem.  Was this the only collection of people who had some sort of reason for turning aside from Christ?  Of course not!  But James and John for some reason believed they were far worse than all the other critics and skeptics of Jesus.  Our Lord rebuked them for their judgmental response to the Samaritans.  We can be certain that there was a much bigger concern of James and John than that these poor villagers didn’t want Jesus lecturing them about religion.  Perhaps racism was at the root of their criticism…perhaps it was their nationalism rearing its head in them…they were not happy that the Samaritans had a bad opinion of Jerusalem.  Whatever the case nearly every time we become judgmental, there is something behind our criticism that fuels it.  Something that runs much deeper than our sense of fashion, political beliefs or loyalty to God!

Jesus’ command during His Sermon on the Mount is unequivocal.  We must not judge others!  "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (Matthew 7: 1 NIV)  Luke quotes Jesus almost exactly the same way.  "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.” (Luke 6:37 NIV) This is an astounding demand of God.  We all are so good at judging others.  Not only that, our criticism is always warranted or so we think.  Yet it seems that our Lord does not care how smart we believe we are or how wise we decide our evaluations, we are not to judge others critically.  Of course this is not saying judgments are never to be made.  Those in places of authority are directed by God to make judgments when the law is broken.  Murder, vandalism, theft; God puts it in the hands of those in authority to judge crimes and determine guilt or innocence.  God has established Law as a protection for us from the evil in people’s hearts.  Jesus is not dealing with authority judgement in these passages.  He is commanding against personal judgment.

Let us be clear about this.  There is never a time when a Christian, who is not in a position of authority under the law or as a part of his or her occupation, is given permission to judge the character, motives or actions of another person, whether that person is Christian or non-Christian, in this life.  To do so puts us in direct opposition to God and His mercy.  If you or I judge someone, the Lord will judge us and we would be hard-pressed to find an instance where God’s judgment was pleasant.  Yet our Lord has made us judging people, with critical minds and discerning hearts.  Why is it that, if we are not to use those skills unless we are circuit judges, we have the instantaneous judging mechanism up and running all the time?

Our mind is wired this way by God that we might be skillful at prayer, quickly seeing what we need to bring to God and able to join with the Lord in what He shows us.  If you see an area of weakness in someone or a moral flaw, you take that to God as soon as you become aware of it.  Your professor is giving a boring lecture, pray for God to help her.  A friend has been gossiping about you, bring it to the Lord for Him to fix.  Your parent prepared something for dinner that is not very good, pray for God to help your parent do better.  A hotel clerk is snappy with you and it is irritating, rather than snap back at her or talk about her rude behavior with your wife or co-worker, bring her to the Lord for healing.  One of your relatives clearly doesn’t like you and treats you disrespectfully and you want to “tell her off.”  You cannot.  You must talk only with God about her and ask the Lord to change her ways.  The person of any use to God is the one who prays.  God’s way for us to help people is by letting Christ work through us and He will never do so if we judge them or criticize them.  Have we ever helped anyone with our criticism?  We probably have often hurt them with our criticism, but helped them…most likely not!   We can be certain we have never hurt anyone with our prayers, but we have most assuredly helped every one of those we have prayed for God to come alongside and build into perfection!  Greatness in our Lord’s Kingdom is never determined by our ability to see the faults in others but by our faithfulness to pray for each person God brings our way.

Prayer Re-thought

Matthew 6:8 NIV

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Why Do You Pray?

A couple of years ago we were awakened by a violent shaking near our bed.  It wasn’t an earthquake but for us something much worse.  Our youngest son still slept in a small bed at the foot of our bed and in the middle of the night started having a seizure.  He had never gone through one before and we had not experienced a seizure ourselves nor seen one of our kids have one.  The disorientation caused by just having been asleep and the shock of witnessing one of our children experiencing something so terrible threw us into a panic.  His eyes were rolled up into the top of his head and his body was stiff as a bamboo pole.  Not knowing what to do, we called 911 and soon emergency personnel were at our house helping us with Ben.   I rode with him in the ambulance and after a couple hours, we were sent home, reassured that the seizure had not harmed him and did not mean that he would have other seizures.  Throughout this ordeal, both Mary Jo and I prayed for Ben, prayed for wisdom about what to do for him, prayed for the nurses and doctor to know how to help him and prayed that he would recover without damage to his brain.  We did not hesitate to pray when the seizure began and never questioned the value of continuing to pray on the way to the hospital, while in emergency and after we returned with the doctor’s clearance.

Prayer is one of the most frequent activities engaged in by people world-wide and specifically within the Christian community.  Those who pray rarely question the logic of it or its validity when doing so yet there may be many times when we wonder if we should keep praying about a matter and countless hours and perhaps even days when prayer does not cross our mind.  Why do we pray?  What is a father whose child is addicted to meth hoping to accomplish by praying?  How come a woman going through a divorce prays or a young man needing work prays?  Why does a high school student pray when facing a tough final?  Is there a reason why a mother prays for her family or a grandparent prays her health?  What do you hope to accomplish by praying?

It seems so simple, right?  We pray to get something.  We see in the Bible plenty of examples of people who prayed and did hope to get something.  The accomplished and mostly good King Hezekiah found himself in a tough spot.  In the fourteenth year of his reign, Hezekiah’s country Judah was being ransacked by a huge Assyrian army and now they were at his doorstep, surrounding his hometown of Jerusalem.  It was an impossible situation; he had no hope of being able to fight off the Assyrian invaders…starvation or capitulation seemed to be the only options he and the people of Jerusalem had.  The general of the Assyrians mocked Hezekiah and the Hebrews for believing the Lord might answer their prayers and rescue them.  "Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, 'The Lord will deliver us.' Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?  Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand?  Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?" (2 Kings 18:32-35 NIV)

Many of us have felt like it was hopeless to pray and perhaps Hezekiah did too.  The Bible does not say that Hezekiah himself prayed for deliverance from the Assyrians although we might assume he did.  We do know however that he sent messengers to Isaiah the prophet and asked him to pray for God to drive off the Assyrians.  Isaiah’s reply was, “Tell your master, 'This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard — those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.  Listen! I am going to put such a spirit in him that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.'" (2 Kings 19:6-7 NIV)  But the Assyrians did not leave immediately.  More threats came from their general and Hezekiah himself prayed.  Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God." (2 Kings 19:19 NIV)  That night one hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers were struck dead by a plague sent from the Lord and Hezekiah gained fresh insight into the Lord’s power and care for him and the nation of Judah.

At the age of thirty-nine, the Lord told Hezekiah through the prophet Isaiah that he was about to die.  Devastated by the news, he prayed for God not to take his life.  Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, "Remember, O Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes." And Hezekiah wept bitterly. (2 Kings 20:2-3 NIV) Of course Hezekiah was overjoyed when the Lord through the prophet Isaiah promised him fifteen more years of life and he did gain them.  Something interesting happened though in those fifteen years.  Hezekiah lost his interest in praying.  Things went so well for him and he was so prosperous that it seems he became comfortable and his interest in God casual.  There were all sorts of issues he faced we can be sure but he solved them on his own.  Hezekiah was smart and a talented leader and it seemed to him that everything was going so smoothly that he didn’t need to waste his time praying or bother his head with it…and it is true.  He was doing well.  He was successful, popular and content.

Later, a contingent of Babylonian merchants and politicians came to Jerusalem to meet with Hezekiah and the king welcomed them with open arms.  Hezekiah received the messengers and showed them all that was in his storehouses — the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine oil — his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them. (2 Kings 20:13 NIV)  Now, this seemed like a lovely gesture of comradery and neighborliness.  Hezekiah was smartly hoping to form an alliance with an up and coming international power that could help both him and his country in the future.  Of course it was a little boastful on his part, showing off his riches and bragging a bit about his accomplishments but he had great reason to be proud of his work and what harm was it anyway to show off some.  The Lord immediately sent the prophet Isaiah to Hezekiah to explain the ramifications of what he had done in welcoming the Babylonian contingent into Jerusalem.  Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the Lord:  The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, that will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." (2 Kings 20:16-18 NIV)

Hezekiah’s reaction to this rebuke from God is fascinating but quite representative of how the mind responds to the Lord when it has lost its sensitivity to the way God thinks. "The word of the Lord you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?" (2 Kings 20:19 NIV)  God had nothing more to say to Hezekiah after that reaction to the warning.  Hezekiah was not thinking like the Lord; it was as if they had nothing in common with each other.  Now we realize that there are plenty of people who don’t care how their actions will impact the generations that follow them.  They don’t worry about what their career move will do to their children, how their divorce will impact their grandkids, what will happen a hundred years from now if they choose one school over another.  Who thinks that way?  God does.  He cares what sort of life we lay down for future generations and it matters to Him the decisions we make and their ramifications for ourselves and others.

There is an interesting statement Jesus makes about prayer and praying that has confused many Christians and non-Christians.  Talking about pagans and all who misunderstand what is to happen when we pray, Jesus commented, Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:8 NIV)  Now it is easy to confuse this statement with those of atheists who teach that praying is irrelevant and useless.  That is not at all the gist of this as Jesus goes on to explain how prayers should be presented to God.  In fact immediately after this verse He then gave us the model prayer to be certain we all know how praying should go.  If prayer is not giving God key information that He might not be aware exists, then why do we tell Him about what we want and what we need and about our concerns?  It is because as we pray, our mind comes in contact with God’s mind and all we care about becomes immersed in Him and is transformed by His thinking.  The panicked minds or the calm and faith-filled minds are all changed by going to the Lord in prayer.  As  we bring before Him the things He already knows and cares about, we find that we lose our own view of what we face and we begin to see it as He does.  It is not a terrible storm.  It is Christ in the boat.  It is not a devastating loss.  It is the Lord lifting us to a new opportunity.  It is not the end of the world.  It is the beginning of a more important journey.

Every situation we face, whether we deem it good, bad, frightening or inconsequential, we can go through it with God’s mind thinking through our mind or push forward on our own.  When we pray to Christ for help or guidance or simply to honor Him, we put ourselves in touch with God who miraculously guides us through what we face and gives us His thoughts about what is before us and what we do not yet see.  Hezekiah stopped thinking that it was important to see things God’s way but you haven’t!  You want God to tell you to relax and trust Him.  You look forward to being guided by Christ through your next crisis or job opportunity.  You want the Lord to tell you what to think about your trials as well as your victories.  Prayer is how our Savior shows us the way…even when we don’t realize we need directions.  It takes practice learning how to recognize when it is God leading you and when it is just you forming an opinion.  That is why we need to pray all the time that His voice is not a stranger to us when we need to know it is Him!

Dynamic Change

There are many of us who are weary; we have tremendous burdens that wear down our souls and we are tired of all the difficulties we face.  Not everyone is like this.  Some are cheery and pleased beyond measure with their lives.  All the "breaks" seem to fall their way and nothing much troubles them.  There is though, a great number of us who are going through the motions at work, just trying to get by at home, trudging through mud at school and we need more than just a pat on the back; we need the supernatural hand of God upon us.  Thomas the disciple lived in such a gloom that even the good news of his fellow disciples that Jesus was alive could not shake him out of it.  Only Jesus Christ Himself could lift the despair of his heart.  Our age is one of disbelief; that there are no devils tormenting souls, no satanic power working amongst us.  It is just the circumstances, broken relationships and troubled pasts that we have in the middle of our darkness.  Amateur and professional counselors alike do their best to try to "get at the root of our issues" and after years of probing and manipulating and prescribing, the "terror of the night" is still there.   The misery and torment so many of us suffer is real and it cannot all be explained by our experiences; the wise must take into account the very real presence of unseen evil forces in our world.  Perhaps you have tried your best to get at what is wrong with someone you love dearly and you have gotten nowhere.   You are at the end of your rope with this person and you don't know what more could be done.  God may never show you what is causing the "jangling of nerves" and anguish but maybe if you would give the Holy Spirit space, Jesus Christ could be brought in contact with the broken soul and do what was done for Mary Magdalene.  Are you willing to intercede with desperate determination for the weary souls you know and by God's grace, bring Jesus Christ to them through your praying?  Remember that Jesus told His disciples that some people could only be helped through prayer!  Prayer was not in Jesus' mind the feeble alternative of weak and unsophisticated minds; it was the great blast of dynamite that alone could break loose certain people from their despair and turmoil when the "wise and skilled" come up against those cases too big for them to handle.

After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"  He replied, "This kind can come out only by prayer."     Mark 9:28-29 NIV

Attachment

Jesus gave a simple expectation of those who have become His disciples.  Remain in me.  The implication is that we might not...that it is not automatic for us.  The great deception that runs rampant through the Church is that we can only get so far with praying and then we have to "do something".  It is as if all the pronouncements of Christ on prayer were the ravings of a lunatic or the naïve expectancies of a child staying up late waiting for Santa Claus to come down through a chimney not built into the home.  We pray but not like Christ told us we could pray.  Of course we give it a shot and then when we get bored with it or frustrated by its "failure" we move on to more important business.    Prayer is not a means by which we achieve something, whatever that achieving might be.  Prayer is what makes something, something.  Unless there is prayer in it, what we do is chasing after the wind; fruitless harvesting.  Jesus, noted, "What good is it  for a man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul."  We mistakenly file this comment away as a final judgment saying when it isn't.  It is about life here and now.  If what we strive to gain has nothing of Christ in it, then we have cut out our soul then and there and cast it aside.  Do we not realize that our soul is Christ joined to us in a new personality that is born again?  If our Lord is not in our striving, if we are not so completely attached to Him in what we do that our "soul" is in it, then our striving is fuel for the fires of hell.    God expects us to be immersed in Christ at every moment because we can.  The bloody death of Christ makes it possible for us to be attached to Christ so completely that whatever we do is the will of God and whatever we achieve is good fruit. 

If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.  John 15: 7 NIV

Urgent Care

Can we bear a bit of honesty?  The Church has as a whole forgotten to pray.  We organize meals, put together events, talk extensively about the Bible, argue over by-laws and form endless numbers of committees but give prayer the once over and then we’re off to something else.  We pray and then try to get something accomplished as if the accomplishing is not occurring in the praying.  The Disciples asked the Lord to teach them how to pray.  We know how to pray.  We don’t know how to start praying with determination and abandonment to the work of prayer.  Would Peter have been led out of prison by the angel if the band of believers quartered in the home of John Mark’s mother had not been praying?  We cannot say for sure one way or another but they certainly were juxtaposed with each other in the Scripture.  Would Lot have escaped Sodom if his uncle were not praying?  Would Job’s friends have escaped judgment if Job had not prayed?  Would Jericho have ever been taken if for seven days straight the Israelites had not prayed?  Given the stakes, why do we do so little praying?  The Lord insists that He will do the heavy lifting if we would just put the shovel down for a while and pray.  The seeds need rain and sun and good soil to bring about the harvest.  All of these required necessities come from God.  Only the seed distribution is our responsibility.  If three-fourths of the work is God’s and we must go to Him in prayer to gain His help in them, why do we give most of our time to seed casting?  It is the praying that is the most critical part of the harvest because to be brutally honest, we can chuck our seeds anywhere and God can make them sprout right where they land. We have so little confidence God actually exists and carries those who go to Him in prayer that we make prayer perfunctory and everything else a necessity.  Our Lord is not scanning the horizon for better workers to bless; He is searching for more faith-full workers who have come to rely upon prayer above all else to make it through their days.  Would the world collapse in a heap if you gave an entire day to praying and reading the Scriptures?   Would your family be crushed by the weight of your devotion to praying?  Or might it just be that more can be done in ten hours of prayer than a lifetime of plowing?

                                                                            

"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.   2 Chronicles 7: 13-15 NIV  

Pushing Forward

Why do we think we have developed a heightened level of spirituality when we give up on praying and stifle our love of Christ in a muffling "your will be done"?  Nothing so marks the carnal mind like the indifference to praying and "keeping on" praying.  It is passive aggressive bitterness that stops at the point of impassioned interceding for all the needs that come to our mind.  The great purpose of intercessory prayer is simple; to bring each and every one of those things that disturb us to the mind of Christ and there with the Holy Spirit working in our heart  learn to love God with the type of love Mary had not many minutes after she  wondered aloud why Jesus had waited too long to save Lazarus.  The pagan determination to pray for the dead is not so far off the mark as we think.  In Christ, who is the Alpha and Omega all at once, who is to say our praying cannot reach back before us and alter even what has happened in the past.  Where is the justification for giving up on everything that seems hopeless to us if God can pull the dead from the grave on the last day?  The praying of one believing Christian can change the course of events miraculously and in stunning fashion, not because she is worthy of it but because the love of God is poured out in the interceding and that love is a healing fire.  Nothing in the spiritual realm is quite so intoxicating as the determination to quit on a matter because it seems hopeless.  It is the morphine of Satan, this resolve to let go of the thing when the Holy Spirit is pressing us forward in prayer.  Who among us has not quit on a matter just as arrogantly as the mourners who laughed when Jesus informed them that the little girl was not dead but merely sleeping?  The opportunity to pray at any given moment for each part of a day is a privilege won for us at the Cross and we should not quit on it so carelessly.  

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:24 NIV

Wanting More

The difference between wanting and demanding is quite clear when you are dealing with your children but seems nebulous when it is found in your praying.  How can you be certain you have not run off the tracks as you make your way through your requests?  Hezekiah saw nothing wrong with begging God for added years when told he was about to die and Hannah is renowned for her spiritual fortitude in frantically crying out to God for a baby.  How can we know a desire is godly and not just a self-centered lust?  Hezekiah took his added fifteen years and fathered a son who became the most wicked of all the kings of Judah and Hannah took her boy Samuel and turned him back over to God to raise and mold into arguably the greatest of all priests not named Jesus.  We can pray for anything and feel quite justified in our praying.  After all, Christ Himself told us to ask and keep on asking.  God may grant our demands just as freely as our wants but as Israel regretted the longing she had for a king, we too may wish we never got what our fevered prayers demanded.  Our drive must always move in this one direction, that we become so close to God that our wants become His.  Then what we ask for in prayer will truly bless all it touches. Give the Holy Spirit space to reshape your wants into God given desires.

People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap...  1 Timothy 6:9 NIV