It Takes Time

John 14:6 NIV

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

What Will You Do About The Truth?

Last month our church had a potluck and it was poorly attended.  In fact, there were fewer people in the worship service that day than I can remember.  A number of people put a significant amount of work into getting the potluck ready and the food was great.  Yet I wasn’t sure if we should have another one for a while.  I asked a couple if they thought we should wait a few months for the next church potluck or have one this month and they both smiled broadly and insisted that we have it this month.  I was caught off guard by their enthusiasm and then in a split moment of certainty, I knew that the Lord had spoken to me through them, that He wanted us to have a potluck so I went ahead and scheduled it.

I must admit though that I had a dilemma.  How was I to know that it really was God speaking to me and not just peer pressure?  It is not always God speaking to you when you want it to be and it isn’t easy knowing if you are right or wrong in it.  I did not have any Bible verse I could point to as evidence that this was coming from God.  Do you just rely on positive thinking and optimistic strategizing to guide you when you aren’t sure how to connect with the Lord on some matter that means a lot to you?  What is your go to method for hearing from God?  Most don’t care what God might be saying; they never give it much thought but what about you?  Have you come to the place where you want the Lord to show you the way?

Good people, God’s people have made horrible mistakes, when it comes to God.  We rightfully commend Peter for his tremendous faith taking God at His word and walking on the water.  When he and his fellow disciples were going across the Sea of Galilee in the middle of a great storm, they all saw Jesus coming toward them but at first none of them were really sure it was Him.  Timidly, Peter cried out to the Lord with a tremendous request.  "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."  "Come," he said.  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  (Matthew 14:28-29 NIV)  However, quickly Peter’s faith failed him and he started sinking into the billowing waves.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"   Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:30-31 NIV) When Peter started out toward Jesus, He had complete confidence in God to take him along but it didn’t last and rather than walking in the might and protection of God, he went out in his own strength and insight.  He could see no way that he was going to survive the waves and down he went.

The same was true with Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Instead of maintaining her faith in Jesus and walking in Him, she trusted in her own wits and along with her children, came to the conclusion that Jesus had lost His mind.  What He was teaching and how He was behaving seemed irrational to her.  Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." …Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. (Mark 3:20-21,31 NIV)  You can talk yourself into nearly anything if you rely just on you to figure out everything, including deciding that Jesus is crazy.  When Saul, who later became Paul was an unbeliever, he was convinced the Christian people were the worst sorts of souls and he set out on a quest to destroy them.  It seems so very reasonable, any conclusion you make when you are walking in yourself and deciding what you think is best.  The most rational and acceptable determinations are made by those who have no relationship with Christ.  They make sense and their arguments are levelheaded.  Mary, Saul and Peter all had their ducks in a row with their conclusions but just because the whole world agrees with you doesn’t mean it is so.

Jesus told His disciples not to talk about certain things until He was risen from the dead.  As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. (Mark 9:9 NIV)  There are many things you cannot understand nor can you grasp their importance until Christ is raised from the dead in you.  No matter how hard you look at a matter, regardless of how intensely you stare at a problem or an idea, you cannot get the gist of it until Jesus Christ has come alive in you.  Here is a Biblical example.  When Saul was just an ordinary person and had no sense of Christ in Him, he thought it was best to do whatever He could to stop the progression of the Christian message.  However, He met Christ and could no longer refute His Presence or authority as Lord.  Jesus became alive in Him and it completely changed the way He saw everything.  There is  a magical moment recorded in Acts 13 that completely altered the course of His life.  In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.  While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."  So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.  The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went… (Acts 13:1-4 NIV)

Consider just how monumental this really was.  Saul, who had been instrumental in the horrific persecution of Christian people in the Middle East, who personally ordered the murder of Christians and their imprisonment was now being commissioned to begin the great missionary movement into the depths of the Roman Empire.  Not only that, Saul was accepting the call and going off on the enterprise...without coercion, without resistance on his part!  We treat this lightly because we are used to Paul being the greatest of all missionaries and the author of one fourth the New Testament.  This was new ground however; for the Church as well as for Saul. Never before had any Christian workers officially with the blessing of the Church been sent out beyond the narrow confines of the Jewish world and certainly not someone of Saul’s notoriety.  You must consider the risk being taken by everyone involved.  What if Saul turned on them?  What if he wasn’t spiritually strong enough to withstand the persecution they might face?  What if Saul’s Christianity had no staying power?  It was a most shocking enterprise!

Take a close look at how this decision to send Saul and Barnabas into the wild pagan world of Roman rule developed.  In this one church in Antioch, there were a group of believers who had some experience hearing from God and praying.  While they were in a time of worship, the Holy Spirit told them to make Saul and Barnabas missionaries.  Somehow, the Lord got this message across to each one of these Christian leaders and church members.  They knew it was God saying it and they were certain of what He said.  Also, Christ in some way prepared Saul and Barnabas for this dramatic change of course.  They were not like Moses or Gideon who were spiritually unprepared for the calling each received from God.  Saul and Barnabas were ready to go; up for the challenge.  God did that in them.  God prepared their hearts for this crucial mission.

God has important things to say to you.  He has tasks for you that matter for eternity.  He has a way of looking at things that He wants you to see.  The Lord has plans for you, challenges for you, certain ways of doing things that are critical for you and for others that you may not even know yet.  You can be oblivious to Christ and remain in a spiritual fog if you like or you can come up into the bright sunlight of God and His word.  You can know what only Christ can show you.  You can see what only the Lord can reveal.  It is possible for you to be just as alert and spiritually alive as those Antioch church members who all knew God wanted Saul and Barnabas to be the first missionaries to the world outside the Middle East.

You must read the Bible if you want to hear from God.  You can never be certain it is Jesus talking to you if the Bible isn’t a part of your thinking.  You don’t read the Bible to get something out of it but to be with Jesus.  If you don’t care what He is doing or how He thinks, then keep the Bible on your coffee table or stuck in your phone.  But if you want God to talk with you and be close to you, then you must read the Bible.  Do what God says whenever you know what He wants you to do.  The Lord will be as silent as a door knob if you disobey Him and ignore what He is telling you.  Pray.  Just sit with God and tell Him you love Him and be quiet…do this several times a day.  You don’t have to ask for anything.  If you have a sin to confess then confess it.  If you feel the desire to thank Him or tell Him you love Him, then do that.  Mostly just sit with Christ and let the Lord have room in your mind to work in it.  Become someone the Lord talks with and gives His thoughts and directions.  Be a disciple that the Lord can guide and lead.  Make the best use of your time here on earth by being one of the Lord’s trusted friends.  Be a disciple!

About Men

1 Corinthians 16:13-14 NIV

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.

What Makes a Man “Manly”?

There is a fascinating case study presented in the Old Testament that is generally overlooked by most readers of the Bible.  Before the nation of Israel had a king, there were a variety of regional leaders, called judges, who helped guide the people and unify them in times of national crisis.  There was a prophetess named Deborah who was looked to for insight in settling disputes and she was greatly respected by the people of the region of Ephraim.  She sent for Barak of Naphtali to come and lead the local army against a coalition of Canaanites who had been cruelly oppressing the Israelites for twenty years.  She told him, "The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: 'Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead the way to Mount Tabor.  I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.'" (Judges 4:6-7 NIV)  Barak’s reply was not what you would call heroic.  Barak said to her, "If you go with me, I will go; but if you don't go with me, I won't go." (Judges 4:8 NIV)  Deborah was clearly taken aback and it seems clear she did not think Barak to be particularly manly.  "Very well," Deborah said, "I will go with you. But because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman." (Judges 4:9 NIV)  In other words, a woman will be a better man than you!  Not exactly a politically correct way of looking at this but certainly the way such cowardice in men was viewed three thousand years ago.  Men were supposed to fight for their towns and the women and children, not the women fight in their place.

One of the difficulties inherent in exploring what the Bible has to say about what men are to be like is that much of the time “men” is used in a generic way and really means “people”.  It is hard sometimes to know if certain passages are really about men or more addressing both men and women.  There are a few times though that the Bible specifically addresses men and just men.  In Colossians 3: 19 married men are told,

Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.  Literally it is, “Men, love the women…”  Of course context tells us that it is talking about husbands and wives and speaks of the marital relationship.  Men are commanded by God to love their wives no matter what and not let any disagreement make the marriage lose its atmosphere of love…at least not as far as the husband is concerned.  Later Fathers are told to be certain to not make their children miserable in how they raise them.  Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. (Colossians 3:21NIV)  There is no such command to mothers in the passage.  Clearly this is something that God sees as a critical concern.  Fathers are prone or at least have a propensity to exasperate and frustrate their children.  Perhaps it is because fathers are not always patient with their kids or maybe it’s because men tend to expect too much of their children.  We do know and we have seen this for generations and generations, if there is a parent not on speaking terms with the children, it is far more likely to be the father than the mother.  We men can be too hard on our kids and the Bible warns men to be careful and commands fathers not to demand perfection of their children and not belittle them when they don’t live up to their expectations.

There are two verses that deal specifically with men and are not tied just to the family.  The first is multi-faceted.  Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.  (1 Corinthians16:13-14 NIV)  What is translated here, “be men of courage” is literally, “be manly”.    The four parts to this or if you like, the four points of manhood are pretty simple.  1.  Be vigilant; be awake; be attentive.  Don’t let the devil catch you off-guard, realize when you are being tempted.  Pay attention to what God is doing.  Know when He is speaking to you and recognize what is of God and what is of Satan.  2.  Stand firm in the faith.  This is much different than just standing firm.  Sometimes men play the fool by being stubborn.  “Oh, I don’t need to look at the directions!”  “It’s my way or the highway!”  This is not a command to always getting your way and if you don’t, pouting or throwing a tantrum.  God wants men to make the Bible their roadmap for life and not drift from it because it makes you or someone else uncomfortable.  Don’t be a spiritual wimp.  Stand for what is right and don’t be swayed by what is wrong.   3. Be strong.  Literally it is a command to keep growing strong.  Be a powerful force for good…for God’s good.  Take hold of the power you have with the Spirit in you and make the world better because you work hard at it.  Fight evil.  Take the devil’s strongholds by storm.  Do not let any addiction or unholy habit have control over you because you are a man with Christ living in you.  4.  Do everything in love.  Or literally, “in love do all your things.”  We men struggle to behave loving.  We can think loving and we can profess loving but to do loving is sometimes a great pitfall for us.  It is no accident that God makes love action a critical point of emphasis for men.  The Bible tells us that if we don’t act in loving ways, we are just a loud and obnoxious man.  Love is the hallmark of a man of God.  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  (1 John 4:7-8 NIV)

There is one more verse to consider as you and I close this discussion on manhood.  I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing.  (1 Timothy 2:8 NIV)  I heard someone recently argue that it is men who are almost always the ones shooting up malls and workplaces and that it is men who commit the most violent crimes and she is right.  The first known sin after the one committed by Adam and Eve was the flaming rage of Cain against his brother that ended in murder.  We must face this fact about men.  Many men have a tough time with anger and struggle to keep their temper.   God says that His men must become great at praying and get rid of that temper that leads to anger and arguing.  We have all heard of churches splitting apart and collapsing in a heap because of angry arguments.  For men in particular, anger is a warning light and arguments are a siren that you aren’t praying enough.  You do not get angry because someone treated you badly or someone is rude or you have been offended.  You get mad because you do not pray enough to make you into God’s sort of man.  I hear men cursing about things and you do too and it is not a sign of male toughness; it is a sure sign that there is no real strength or backbone in that man.  Men are not made to get their way.  Men are made to pray and always…always…God gets His way.  It is then that the world becomes a better place because men of prayer walked upon it. 

Psychological Effect of Redemption The Will

Philippians 2:13 NIV

…for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

What Determines Your Actions?

When I asked Mary Jo to marry me, it was an important moment for her.  She had to make a decision that clearly would dramatically impact her life.  No one else could decide for her although others could influence her decision.  Her parents may not have been happy to have me as their son-in-law but they weren’t the ones given the responsibility of saying “yes” or “no” to my proposal.  Mary Jo might have had many factors weighing on her when I “popped the question”.  She could have thought about my extremely good looks and my hilarious sense of humor and that might have influenced her.  She might also have considered how poor I was, how limited my earning power was as well as all my quirky ideas and how skinny I was and been pushed the other way.  Unconscious forces within her might have impacted her opinion of me, determining factors that she could not explain.  Perhaps early childhood experiences with taller men influenced Mary Jo’s decision.  Maybe fears or lusts or angry feelings had an effect on how she responded.  In the end though, it was her will and hers alone that acted upon my question of marriage.

You have a will, the part of your personality that decides for you what you shall do.  It is what closes the deal.  All day you make decisions.  Your passions influence how your will acts.  You have done things simply because you were angry or broken-hearted or elated.  Your conscious thinking impacts how your will responds to what you face.  You think about things, weigh the evidence and ponder what is happening and how it affects what you might do.  Your unconscious thoughts influence your will.  Sometimes childhood trauma, a destructive forgotten relationship or a humiliating experience will without your conscious knowledge determine the direction your will takes.  Because your heart is poisoned by sin, the will you possess is also damaged by Sin.  For obvious reasons, a healthy and effective will is critical to your well-being because what you decide can have lasting ramifications for you and those you love.

Let us think of the will as the part of us that creates the outward push of self.  When you reach outside yourself and act upon what is percolating within you; that is the will making the determination. Your will drives your actions.  We see this in Philippians 2: 13 in which the Bible says,”…for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:13 NIV)  The will is linked to whatever you do or decide you won’t do.  The Lord’s intention for you is that your will would be free to do as it wishes.  You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. (Galatians 5:13 NIV)  However, with a free will, we can be wicked and cruel, selfish and filthy or loving and kind, truthful and generous.  It is our will that decides what we shall do.

What is amazing is that the God of the universe does not usurp your will.  Christ asked the two blind men who begged Him for help, "What do you want me to do for you?" (Matthew 20:32 NIV)  When two disciples of John the Baptist started tagging along behind Jesus, He asked them, "What do you want?" (John 1:38 NIV) The assumption underlying God’s relationship with us is that we are free to choose it or not.  “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15 NIV)  The very call of Jesus to Andrew and Peter was, “Come follow me”.  (Mark 1:17 NIV) It seems that they did not have to follow Jesus if they didn’t want to do so, if they weren’t interested in being “fishers of men”. Even when the Bible calls to us, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…", the will is left to decide how to respond.(Acts 16:31 NIV)

Consider the strange account of King David and his affair with Bathsheba.  The decision David made to sleep with her had disastrous ramifications for him.  It certainly impacted his family as well as those who saw him as a spiritual leader.  How did it affect God’s plans for David and the good He wanted David to accomplish?  The affair did not just hurt David’s reputation but God’s too.  What kind of God chooses men like David to lead His nation?  Given all the bad David’s act of Sin brought, it is interesting that God did not stop him somehow.  But David had a will that God was not willing to usurp even if it meant a disaster would be averted by doing so.  God has made us sovereign in the Will we have been given.  We are free to have Him as Lord or not, free to follow Him or not.

The will does not act in a vacuum however and in many ways it is a slave to forces beyond it.  Saul, the newly crowned king of Israel had been told by God through the prophet Samuel to wait seven days until Samuel returned before offering a sacrifice to God in preparation for the war that was about to begin.  He did wait for seven days but he did not wait long enough for Samuel to return and against God’s will, Saul and his soldiers offered a burnt offering to God.  Some of us have bought expensive presents for people we love even though they have told us not to do it and usually it works out well anyway.  In this case, it didn’t for Saul.  God punished Saul for his disobedience.

At the risk of making it seem that Saul should not have been held accountable for his rebellious act, we must consider the forces working upon Saul’s will.  First, there were his conscious thoughts.  He looked about and saw a great army of Philistines before him who were battle tested and far superior in numbers and weaponry.  As the Bible puts it, they were “as numerous as the sand on the seashore.” (1 Samuel 13: 5) Not only that, his own soldiers were going off and hiding in caves and behind bushes and in cisterns.  It seemed unreasonable to Saul as he considered the situation, not to hurry and offer the sacrifice so that he might gain God’s favor because if he waited much longer, nearly his entire army would desert him and the Philistines would attack.  Saul’s passion was pressuring his will certainly as fear began to overwhelm him.  He may have been angry too with Samuel for taking so long.  Consider Saul’s unconscious thoughts that pushed up against his will.  It was not that long ago that Saul was made king and even though Samuel had told him that he was God’s choice to be king, when it was time to present him to the nation, Saul hid among the baggage gathered off to the side.  When originally informed of God’s plans for him, Saul referred to himself as from one of the most insignificant of all the families among the Israelites.  How this impacted Saul unconsciously, we cannot say but it had to have some effect.  From birth, he saw himself as not good enough, as inadequate and incapable of accomplishing much in life.  Even when assured that God believed he could be king, Saul couldn’t buy it.  This embedded way of seeing himself made it difficult for Saul to accept the challenge of courageously trusting God.

What our Lord did for us as Savior was to take out of us the corruption of our will.  The Sin that makes the will unstable and untrustworthy is removed from it through Christ crucified.  It can function as God intended when He gave Adam the challenge of rejecting the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  What is more, with Christ joined to us, we can have a will that agrees with God on everything.  Philippians 2: 13 reminds us that now, with Christ as part of us, it is God who works in you to will and to act in conjunction with what He wants.  In other words, God gives your will backbone to withstand the sort of pressures Saul faced. 

There is one powerful force that works on the will that must now be given its due consideration.  Our body, our physical desires can and have made the will a slave.  There is a supernatural component to the will that alters altogether the way we can live.  Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NIV)  There is a tremendous promise here that we must take into account when we consider all those acts that it seems our bodies force us to perform.  It is seen, and we cannot say this strongly enough, that with Christ taking out of us our Sin and the Holy Spirit a part of us, the body cannot force our will into anything.  The will is altogether free in Christ to withstand even the most powerful urges of the body.  We must face this statement head on.  Either God is for us and we are able to fight off any addiction or behavior pattern that our will rejects or the Scripture is a mythology littered with colossal empty promises.

How can you ever know if your will, joined with Christ is strong enough to make free decisions that honor Christ and make your life good?  Jesus offers you an experiment to try.  Find out just how powerful Christ is and how effective His work is in you.  He says without pushing you, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”  (Matthew 7:13-14 NIV)  Impose your will upon every single desire that goes against what God is saying to do.  The will is like a great muscle. You must train it to follow God or it will be a slave to your passions, your body, your conscious or unconscious thoughts.  If you take your will in through the narrow gate you might find the way hard and uncomfortable and even some times unreasonable and maybe boring.  But as you train your will to follow Christ, something will happen to you that may surprise you.  God’s peace and contentment will begin to take over your heart and a joy that is supernatural will creep into you also.  The term the Bible uses for this experience is “life” and it is promised to those who bend their will to that of God.  Eventually as you train your will to follow Christ, God’s will becomes your will and you will be “the will of God”.

Guilt

In the United States and many parts of the world, it is considered prudish to have less than seven sexual partners.  No longer is promiscuity considered morally wrong, at least as it pertains to a standard derived from something less than the Bible.  There are other areas of behavior that are morally repugnant to a large portion of the population that would be odd concerns to any era but our own.  Feelings of guilt have not left us; they simply have become attached to new morality tenets that have surfaced in our time.    Would a couple ever before have felt guilty about having another child yet now many do!  Has there ever been an age where so much angst has been suffered over the military strength of one's own nation?  When did we start feeling guilty about expressing faith in Christ?  It is moral to send naked pictures of oneself by text but immoral to pass those naked pictures along to others.  There is a moral code to our world and it shifts about like seismic fissures.  The natural course is to make morality match one's behavior rather than the other way around.  In a social order that decides it is moral, what need is there for a God who dies for one's sins?  A god who powers success might be interesting or a deity that settles emotional instability could garner a following but a true Savior who wrecks ones inner world by becoming Lord is anathema to  moral self-determinists.  Satan does not want a guilty sinner and does his best to keep the fretting over right and wrong from the soul.  But once a man or woman faces the mirror of God's own justice and gains a fresh insight into what really is right and wrong, the sham is uncovered and the healthy guilt of the Holy Spirit descends.    We try so hard to be done with guilt but guilt is a window through which the light of God shines into the heart and reveals the true need of every soul, the need for Christ to bring salvation to the totality of life.

When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 

John 16:8 NIV

The Loss of Self-Realization

Ephesians 4:17 NIV

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.  

If You Could Do Anything With Your Life, What Would It Be?

You may know that my first year of college I decided to be a chemistry major in an effort to qualify for medical school.  It was of course a respectable degree to pursue…at least if I could do it.  It required lots of hard work and many who choose chemistry as their major don’t complete it because it is so challenging.  What interested me most about this selection of a major was that it was respectable and would push me to maximize my abilities to accomplish the goal of being a medical doctor.  No one tried to discourage me; I was generally told to pursue my dreams and that I could accomplish whatever my heart desired.  Few of us would not want to pursue our dreams and I was no exception to this normal approach to life.  If I could not be an NBA basketball player, I might as well be a medical doctor.  It seemed reasonable to me and I believed I could achieve this goal.

You could say that the expression that defined me at this point in my life was, “I got it.”  You hear “I got it” often in sports.  If a fly ball is hit to the outfield, one of the outfielders yells, “I got it!”  Volleyball players scream out “I got it” to let their teammates know they will receive the ball.  If a fish is on your line, you might yell, “I got it” to let everyone in on your impending accomplishment.  But you also say “I got it” if you are going to answer the phone or open the door for whoever is there.  Psychologically, “I got it” means that you can handle your problem; you don’t need help.  You may tend to like the independent type, the “I got it” you who relies on yourself to “get the job done.”  The term for “I got it” is “self-realization” and it is now about a century old.  Self-realization or “I got it” is generally the object in therapy of nearly every worker in mental health.  “Be all you can be” which is nearly the same as “you got it” has a noble feel to it and who would argue that it should not be your goal in life.  Yet you know that just because everyone else seems to hold to a particular view does not mean that it is the best way of seeing something.  Could it be that “be all you can be” is not the approach you should take to life?  Is there the possibility that you ought to evaluate this philosophy critically…maybe self-realization is not what is best for you or me?

There are several ways self-realization is practiced.  I have a talent and I want to maximize it.  I have an interest and I want to pursue it.  I have an opinion and I want to express it.  I have a goal and I want to chase it.  This line of thinking is often found in the Bible and although the term “self-realization” is not used, the expression of it in normal sorts of ways is often described in case studies that are provided in God’s word.  Lamech is not a familiar character in the Bible but he certainly was a dramatic figure.  His life is well summarized in his own words.  Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me.  If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times." (Genesis 4:23-24 NIV)  Although this is rather extreme, Lamech is expressing precisely the spirit of self-realization.  Self-realization is the determination to assert my will over my environment both internally and externally.  In this case Lamech decided that when he was wounded he had every right to kill the man who wounded him and then he did it.  He expressed himself and his morality by extending outward his influence.  Without independence, self-realization is not possible.  For Lamech, he took self-realization to the outer edges by killing the man who put limits on his happiness and comfort.  He referenced God but certainly never consulted with God nor did he act in conjunction with God when he decided to kill the young man who hurt him.

A second example of self-realization is also found in the book of Genesis.  The strange account of Jacob stealing his father’s blessing from his older brother illustrates how far some will go to extend the boundaries of self.  Rather than being satisfied with what he had as his mother’s favorite and heir to much of his father’s fortune, Jacob tricked his father into giving him the spiritual blessing the father intended to pass on to Jacob’s twin brother Esau.  Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may give me your blessing." (Genesis 27:19 NIV)  If it were not for the murderous anger it provoked in Esau, this could be labeled typical sibling rivalry.  Take it out of the context of family relations and you might make the case that Jacob was just fulfilling his destiny.  God had told Jacob’s mother that Esau or Esau’s descendants would eventually serve Jacob or Jacob’s descendants.  Jacob was following his dream of rising beyond his brother in influence and power by snatching away the blessing of his father.  One must wonder if Jacob ever gained much satisfaction in stealing his brother’s blessing as he immediately had to flee for his life and then spent twenty years living under the domination of his future father-in-law.  How far should one go to live out one’s dream?

A third example, this time from the New Testament, illustrates the reason why self-realization must never be our goal.  The often recounted attempt of Peter to correct Jesus is on the surface rather comical but Jesus did not treat it lightly.  The disciple “meant well”.  He thought Jesus was not trusting the Father enough when our Lord told the disciples that He would soon be killed by the religious authorities.  Without noticing at all that Jesus promised He would on the third day after death be resurrected, Peter made sure his opinion was voiced.   Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!" (Matthew 16:22 NIV)  Jesus’ response was not pretty.  “You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (Matthew 16:23 NIV)  Here we have precisely put the essence of self-realization.  There is in Peter a disconnect between himself and God and he is not aware of it taking place. Peter means well.  He has what he thinks is good advice for Jesus but he is thinking without God and becoming spiritually a part of Satan’s rebellion.  It seems so innocuous, self-realization.  All you want to do is make something of yourself, build something you care about, use your mind to be creative, enjoy life.  Who could argue against that?  Peter had a good idea and it made sense to him yet our Lord blasted his advice out of the water.

Consider the rebuke of Jesus carefully.  “You don’t have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”  This may seem so minor a criticism but it is actually the sin that defines all Sin.  Take note of Jesus’ warning in John 15.  "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. (John 15:5-6 NIV)   If you rationally contemplate this statement, it would seem that the most important determination you can make is to live your life out completely aligned with Christ.  There is no warning in scripture more severe than this that one might be “picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”  If this is disturbing, this possibility of being thrown into the fire and burned, then the goal of being attached to the vine, of remaining in Christ should rise above every other concern one has.  What good is it to realize your dreams, utilize your talents, enjoy your days and speak your mind if by doing so you are not remaining in Christ…if it all is completely outside life with God?  In self-realization, you take charge of your life and do as you see fit but that is not Christianity; that is a meager and impoverished alternative to Christianity.

Paul expressed perfectly what a normal Christian life is.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. (Galatians 2:20a NIV)  When you put your faith in Christ as your Savior, Christ becomes a part of you.  Your personality, who you are, is now Him and you and that is you as a person.  It is no longer just you; that person is dead but the you that exists as a result is Christ and you.  As you go about your day, you become conscious of Christ in you and it matters because He gives you wisdom, He strengthens you and encourages you and as you trust Him with what is happening with you, God’s peace takes over and His joy gets worked into you and it makes sense to remain in Christ because that life with God is grander than you ever imagined.  The life without Christ is an inadequate, empty and insufficient life that becomes nothing more than rubbish.  The life with Christ is a miracle of God and you.  The bigger Christ gets in you through your obedience to Him, the bigger you become.  Self-realization will only take you to the edges of you and the sin you have corrupting you.  Christ in you is you without limit and becomes closer and closer to perfection as you build your life with Him.  Just look closely at how Jesus lived His life; without worry or fear, full of love and forgiving, kind and having not an ounce of envy for what others had.  That is where we are heading, that is the direction we are going…for with Christ joined to us, we will become perfect.

Let us consider just one aspect of what it means to have Christ be a part of us.  He said, “my peace I give you”.  What does that mean?  Think for a moment about the time Jesus was in the boat with His disciples and a furious storm arose that brought terror to the disciples.  Meanwhile Jesus slept without a care in the world, unperturbed by the winds and waves raging.  When the panicked disciples awakened Him, Jesus calmly replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" (Matthew 8:26 NIV)  Now, what kind of life could you and I have with that peace available to us?  It is astounding to think just how big our lives could be if we let Jesus, living within us, play a bigger role in us! 

Nothing More, Nothing Less

Exodus 3: 11 NIV

But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

What Does God Want to Do With You?

I can remember only one time my dad took me and my brother fishing.  There may have been other times but I can only recall one.  I cannot remember my dad ever fishing.  I don’t know of any times he went out with his buddies to fish.  I can’t think of a time in all our family camping trips my dad broke out fishing poles except this one time.  He got us some nice backpacking fishing poles and on a camping trip took us to a stream to fish for the first time.  It was a beautiful location; the water was brilliantly clear and sparkling with the mountain sunlight lathering it with the effervescence of its white rainbow.  We could see trout passing in and out of the rocky caves and crevices.  My dad showed us how to push the salmon eggs onto the hook, put the lead weights on the line on which we each had a bob to keep track of where our hooks settled.  I can’t remember much advice my dad gave us on how to cast our lines; I am not sure how much he knew about it himself.  I reared my pole back and got my hook caught in a bush behind me.  Then I tried again and forgot to release the button on the reel to let out the line and the hook came flying back at me.  I gathered myself, pitched back my pole and with all my strength sent the hook and weights and bob out toward the middle of the stream but it got no further than the edge of the shore.  Eventually I just leaned my pole out over the water and without casting, dropped the hook down into the water.  I caught a piece of wood, some plants growing near the shore, a large rock at the bottom of the stream and some very nice twigs.  It was not a very long fishing adventure.  I think in about an hour or so we all gave up on it.  Later I discovered my dad didn’t even like fish and probably not fishing either.  He took us though and we all did pretty poorly at fishing.  Looking back after almost thirty years of parenting, I realize that fishing trip was never about fishing.  It was about my dad wanting to be with us; to do something with us that we might find fun.  Fish did not figure into the equation at all.  The fishing trip was about family…nothing more, nothing less.

What for you is a nothing more, nothing less deal?  For Scrooge it was making money.  For Huck Finn, it was no controls upon his life.  For Ronald Reagan it was the end of communist tyranny.  For George Washington it was the establishment of a new country.  For Abraham Lincoln it was the preservation of the Union.  For Martin Luther King Jr., it was the equality of all races.  For Captain “Sully”, it was the survival of his passengers.  For Michael Jordan, it was complete domination of the basketball world.  For many parents it is the success of their children.  What is the bottom line for you?  What is your “nothing more, nothing less” determination?  Is there an all-encompassing goal for your life that if you don’t reach it, you will feel like you failed?  Have you thought about what matters most for you?

As a “great fisherman myself”, I have often thought about the offer Jesus made to Peter and his brother Andrew to make them “fishers of men”.  "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew 4:19 NIV) These disciples and all the others often misunderstood Jesus’ intentions and perhaps they didn’t grasp in this case what mattered to Jesus.  The men already had a fishing business going and perhaps they assumed that being “fishers of men” would be much the same as being fishers of fish.  They would acquire some important skills from a mentor, practice what they learned and then off they would go, “fishers of men.  Many Christian and non-Christian people make this mistake when they read the passage too.  God wants to teach us a few things that will make our lives better and with our fresh insight we will be good people.  What is completely overlooked by both those within the Christian faith and outside it is that God is not a lecturer who provides the keys to success.  We mistakenly think and perhaps the disciples did too that our Lord’s call was about fishing.  It was not!  It was about the clause in the center of the call.  “I will make you…”  This is the core of what Christianity is.  Christ will make you.  It does not really matter at all what He might make you…a fisherman, a missionary, a leader, a musician, a teacher, an astrophysicist.  All of that is subordinate to the purpose of God.  He will make you.

We have analyzed and reanalyzed Moses so many times that it feels a bit redundant to look at him again but it seems important to put his calling by God into its proper perspective.  When God called to Moses from a bush supernaturally on fire, Moses was stunned, not by the miracle of the bush in flames but not being consumed or by the voice coming from seemingly nowhere, but by what the Lord had to say to him.  The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.  So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey — the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.  And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.  So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."

(Exodus 3:7-10 NIV)

You and I cannot fault Moses for his reaction to the pronouncement because we probably would have responded much like him.  “Who am I to do such a thing?”  How could I get this done?   But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" (Exodus 3:11 NIV)  Nearly a chapter and a half is given to Moses trying his best to get out of going down to Egypt and God countering every one of Moses’s excuses.  It is almost comical, the exchange, and yet the drama of whether or not Moses agrees to go with God takes a back seat to th revelation of how disconnected Moses was from God.  His immediate reaction to discovering that it was the Creator of the universe who was talking to him was to shrink back in fear but all too quickly Moses began to think of himself as the Lord’s peer.  If you read this the first time and did not know just how God actually is, you might be waiting for the Lord simply to strike Moses dead because of Moses’s cheekiness and move on to someone else.  It is all too easy for us to miss what God is actually doing with His people if we misunderstand the personality of God.

Moses really was a perfectly silly man.  He thought he was responsible for getting the Israelites free of the Egyptians and out of Egypt.  It was as absurd as any of the disciples thinking God’s challenge was for them to figure out how to be fishers of men.  Moses thought God somehow needed him to get this monumental task done.  If you read again what God had to say about it, He kept reiterating over and over what He was going to do to free the Israelites; what He was going to do through Moses.  When God was done with Sodom and Gomorrah, He simply wiped them out with fire and brimstone.  He could have done that with the Egyptian problem.  Even the ancient account of Abraham and Abimelech reminds us of how easy it was for God all by Himself to take out of Egypt the Israelites.  When Abraham acted like a child and pretended that his wife Sarah was merely his sister so that the King Abimelech or any of the men of Gerar where he had moved would not kill Abraham in order to steal his wife from him, Abraham succeeded.  King Abimelech took took Sarah into his harem without killing Abraham.  Abraham though lost is wife and the Lord was not happy.   The Lord immediately closed up all the wombs of the women of Gerar and then in a dream Abimelech was warned by God that he and all his subjects would be killed off if Abimelech did not quickly release Sarah back to her husband.  The Lord had the ability to wipe out anyone He wished if it suited His purposes and the people of Gerar, like the Egyptians enslaving the Israelites were not exceptions.  God could easily separate out who He wanted to keep and who He wanted to destroy without any help from Moses or anyone else. 

This is what God wanted.  He was making an offer to Moses, just like He did to the disciples to join Him and be a part of Him.  It wasn’t about God needing someone to fish for men or rescue Israelites from slavery.  The Lord was giving them the opportunity to be joined with Him, the Lord’s life built into theirs and their lives built into His.  If they refused, it would be tragic for them, not for God’s cause or for those they could have helped.  They would have lost the opportunity to have God’s personality become a part of theirs, His life merged with them and then together do all God wanted to do.  Moses would never have lifted his staff and seen the Red Sea part and John never would have been held by the resurrected Jesus Christ and gained the power of the Holy Spirit if they did not let God join Himself to them.  We cannot know what God might do with us if we let Him make us into His people but it will be certain that whatever it might be will be far greater than what we might do just on our own.  The words of Paul express perfectly what it is like to have Christ joined with us.  I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:11-13 NIV)

What more could we want out of life than this?  Some people would sell their souls to have what Paul had!  Rich and poor, successful and failing…all alike would love nothing more than to be content in any and every situation.  And what is more, Paul said anything he needed to do, he could through Christ who gave him strength.  The best you can have in life is for Christ to be a part of it, living through you in all you do.  He chooses what comes your way and just think of that.  The same one who died to save you decides for you what your life will become.  Contentment and the peace of knowing that a loving Savior has your days ordered makes for what I would call a perfect life.  Nothing more, nothing less!

Obedience—The Great Uncovering

Luke 1: 18 NIV

 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this?  I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

Have You Considered What Is Below Your Surface?

When I was in high school I made a decision that was not completely conscious but had long lasting ramifications for me.  Somewhere around my sophomore year I started playing basketball at gradually increasing degrees of priority.  It reached a point where I was playing basketball every evening after school for three to four hours and on weekends ten hours a day.  I wanted to increase my jumping ability and so I began wearing five pound ankle weights around and using them to jump rope.  I lifted weights to increase my upper body strength and ran to improve my endurance.  It became obsessive for me, this drive to become a great basketball player.  I did not have confidence in my ability though to make the high school team until my senior year when I finally tried out for the varsity.  What I did not realize though as I chased “my dream” was how little concern I had for what my parents wanted for me.  I did not care that by playing basketball all the time I wasn’t doing any schoolwork and I was rebelling against them and their wishes.  I was going against the direction of my school counselor who tried to get me to work harder at school and at a certain level, which I did not yet understand, I was rejecting the plan God had for me.  I was not made by Him to be a world class athlete.  He had shaped me for academia and I didn’t want what He wanted for me.  There was something deeply buried in me that drove my need to prove my worth on a basketball court day after day rather than fit in with what my parents as well as my God wanted for me.

We rarely think of “doing what we are told” as uncovering hidden secrets about ourselves.  We usually don’t like being bossed around by our parents, by our teachers, by police officers, by our supervisors at work or by the IRS.  And whether we are “good Christians” or not, we certainly aren’t usually happy to have even God tell us what to do.  But there is a fascinating side to our reactions to being bossed around that might be of great value to consider and that is the depths of insight we gain about ourselves when someone…even God, tells us what to do.  Today we will begin to explore this consideration and see if there might be much we can learn about ourselves when it comes to obedience.

There is within the birth narrative of Christ a most interesting study in human personality.  We find in it the strange and wonderful account of Zechariah, a Jewish priest who was old and had a wife named Elizabeth who was barren.  He was in the Temple of Jerusalem, having been chosen by lot to light the incense there.  It was a great honor for him to do this and so it was a big day for Zechariah to be alone at the altar doing this highly esteemed priestly duty.  But there was something not quite right with Zechariah; as his encounter with the angel Gabriel uncovered.

Without warning, the angel Gabriel suddenly appeared at the right side of the incense altar.  Zechariah’s visceral reaction to the angel standing before him tells us much of the supernatural quality of this visit.  When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. (Luke 1:12 NIV) Zechariah might have been startled by a fellow priest showing up out of nowhere in the eerie splendor of the Temple but his reaction was much more like that of one who had seen a ghost. Whatever followed from this encounter would certainly be significant perhaps even life-changing.  In a split second of awareness Zechariah must have come to this conclusion that he was “in for it”.  The angel though was not there to wreck Zechariah.  Quite the opposite!  His declaration though was one Zechariah, clearly was not prepared to hear.  "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John.” (Luke 1:13 NIV) 

The immensity of the angel’s proclamation cannot be overstated.  It was after all an angel who said it and his presence alone terrified the old priest.  Perhaps more importantly, at least for our discussion here, Zechariah and his wife were old, childless and as far as the couple knew, Elizabeth was barren and for her it was disgraceful to not be able to have children.  Later, when she found out she was indeed pregnant, her reaction makes it clear how devastated she had been by her inability to have children.  “The Lord has done this for me," she said. "In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people." (Luke 1:25 NIV)  After announcing the shocking news of a coming son, Gabriel, the scary angel then gave Zechariah a clear command about raising the child.  He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. (Luke 1:15 NIV)

But before all the angel promised Zechariah came to pass, Zechariah had no experience with God giving him such monumental gifts.  We know he had been praying for a child…most likely for decades.  The angel even said the coming child was an answer to his praying so most likely he had been praying faithfully for a long time.  He was a priest and he knew all the mechanics of praying for what he wanted…he had to have understood the scriptures promoting prayer and asking for what you want and need.  Perhaps he even did quite a bit of teaching on prayer but at some point it seems, Zechariah quit believing God would answer his most important prayer of all.  How do we know this?  Consider Zechariah’s reaction to the declaration that he would have a son!  Zechariah asked the angel, "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years." (Luke 1:18 NIV)  The angel Gabriel was not at all pleased with Zechariah’s response.  The angel answered, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.  And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time." (Luke 1:19-20 NIV) 

Clearly the angel knew, and was not guessing, that what may have seemed a quite natural reaction to being told that as an old man with a wife who was an old woman who never before had been able to have children that they as a couple would have a child was not a good reaction at all…it in fact revealed something very wrong with Zechariah.

At first it seems a bit harsh of the angel to take away like this Zechariah’s ability to speak.  Of course he did regain his speech after the baby was born so it wasn’t permanent, the Lord’s disabling of Zechariah but it certainly was a strong message sent by God.  There was something very wrong about Zechariah and the command of God to raise the child he was about to receive in a certain way helped uncover what was perhaps hidden to everyone but God Himself.  Remember that the angel Gabriel did not need to come to Zechariah to tell him he was going to father a child; that would become all too obvious in a few months.  What he did need to know in advance was how this child would fit into God’s overall plan and how he was to raise the child.  The mother, if the baby was to be alcohol free, would need to be alcohol free herself even while she carried the baby.  That command required immediate attention.  So when the command of how to raise the coming child within God’s plan for him came, it was uncovered that Zechariah had lost his faith in God to answer his prayer.  “How could this be” he asked.  Indeed, how could it be if God does not answer our big prayers?  Zechariah was deeply wounded by what he had faced for so many years and he had buried that hurt for so long that it was not easy to be done with it. 

Consider just how far Zechariah had fallen from being a praying man.  Despite the fact that Gabriel clearly was supernatural and Zechariah knew Gabriel was an angel sent by God, he still could not accept the possibility that God suddenly would do for him what he had for so long been asking God to do.  Not even an angel, who brought him great fear by simply being before him, could shake the deeply rooted unbelief in God to be able to answer his prayer.  Many of us would say that if an angel spoke to us in person, we would believe everything there is to believe in God.  But maybe we wouldn’t.  Maybe we have such buried brokenness that we have for years hidden from view that not even an angel could shake us of it.  But, maybe, God with a simple command can uncover what is broken inside of us and through our obedience heal that place of brokenness.

Zechariah was bound up in doubt and disappointment that maybe no one but his wife guessed existed.  Perhaps this is reading too much into the matter but maybe it isn’t. As we will see, it seems to be a spiritual principle.  Elizabeth had to follow a command and she did it.  She had to raise her child free of alcohol.  This would have meant her abstaining from it too.  There is a slight detail in the account of the son’s birth that is subtle but of great value to us.  Pay careful attention to what is said.  When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son.  Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy. (Luke 1:57-58 NIV)  Notice that the neighbors and relatives shared in the joy Elizabeth had.  No mention is made of Zechariah’s joy.  Is it possible that Elizabeth was the only one of the two who was happy to finally be a parent?  Was not Zechariah also happy to be a father?  Of course he was.  But the expression of that joy needed a simple act of obedience to completely heal the pain of his buried loss of faith in God.  There was controversy among family and friends of the elderly couple.  Elizabeth and Zechariah knew that God wanted the child to be named John but that seemed preposterous to everyone else.  But then Zechariah asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment he wrote, "His name is John."  Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God. (Luke 1:63-64 NIV)  It was only after Zechariah obeyed God in what many of us would say was a small matter but for Zechariah it was a tremendous moment of victory because in the act of declaring the name of the child to be the name the angel told him to give the son, he revealed his complete belief in God’s work of giving the child to them.  It was in that one bit of obedience that Zechariah’s joy was unlocked and his unbelief and broken feelings about God healed.

Could it be that like Zechariah, there is a command of God that is revealing buried brokenness of soul?  Is it possible that if you in faith did what God says to do in the matter you might be healed of that brokenness and it would be replaced by joy?  We will give this fuller attention later but for now, consider the possibility that there is something God has told you to do and you have been stopped dead in your tracks by some past hurt or wound that you have buried and by rejecting out of hand God’s command to you, the wound is just festering within you and keeping you from bubbling joy.  What great joy might we all have if we did what God tells us to do?  May it be that in our disobedience to some simple matter, we have been our own worst enemy?  Could it be so?

Spiritual Leakage

When once we start to question our ability to do a thing or give up a thing, we should always ask if we have let a habit or a behavior sap our strength and diminish our spiritual vitality.  God will never give you a task or a challenge that He has not already empowered you in the matter.  You have all the ability you need and all the creativity necessary for the task.  But if you lack power or will, you need to first go back to the beginning point when you started leaking the Lord's oil and plug the leak.  Renounce the act, stop the habit, get rid of the subtle rebellion and climb back into the arms of Christ with determination to trust Him in the matters that have caused you to turn your back on His help....he should do it with the strength God provides...(1 Peter 4:11 NIV)

Prayer Living

What makes prayer such a crucial exercise for the Christian?  Is it the impact we have on others when we get what we ask?  Is it the ephemeral presence of God we feel as we pray?  Is it the duty done to Christ and the work accomplished in pleasing Him?  Is there something about prayer that gives it a special place in the Christian's daily doings?

Prayer is the hub of everything Christian.  It is the center from which all things of God spring.  Take the start of every action you do that is Christian.  It begins with the movement of God toward you just as the body only acts with the spark of innervation coming from the nervous system.  You cannot do a single thing of God without it being generated first in His own mind.  Once this happens you enter into prayer even if it is subconsciously.  Prayer is the interaction between God and us in whatever form it takes, whether it is us talking to Him or Him breaking through to us or our sometimes discouraging, sometimes awakening effort to listen for Him.  That is what makes Bible reading such a profound experience.  When we read the Bible, we enter into a form of prayer rarely deemed prayer but indeed the very essence of it.  The more we interact with God as we read the Bible the deeper we enter into prayer.  The Bible was never intended to be a history book or even a theological manual.  It is first and foremost the entryway into God.  Treat Bible reading as an exercise or task to get done and you lose the best part of it.  Recognize it as it is, time spent living in Christ and you gain the mind of God dwelling in you.

When praying through the scripture, give yourself a shot at really drawing near God.  Expect the Holy Spirit to make something of your time there with Him.  Talk to Him as you go through it.  Bring your requests to God as you go through the verses and make your time with Him in the scriptures a fellowship rather than a spiritual exercise.  The Psalms obviously are meant to be spoken out to God but the rest of the Bible also is a dialogue between the two of you so make the most of it and gain from your prayer within the Bible all the strength and guidance and recovery from the wounds of your day intended when God first called you into the Scriptures at the beginning.  Pray the Bible; don't just "read" it.