James

This week I will be starting a series on James with the youth.  The series will be entitled "Faith with Legs," and will focus on practically living out your faith.  Pray that this series would impact the youth and help them to better live out their faith in different areas.  Pray for me as I prepare these messages for them. 

 

I just outlined the book, and it looks like it will be a 14 week series (will go through the summer), so continue to keep this in your prayers.  If you would like the tentative preaching schedule so you can follow along and discuss some things with the youth/your prayer partner, please let me know.      

 

Prayer and Labour

"Right prayer is accompanied with a continual labour after that which is prayed for" -John Bunyan on Prayer

 

Are you just praying or are you laboring after what you are praying for.  This is a question we must ask and dwell on. 

When God doesn't Answer

"When I have been in my fits of agonies of spirit, I have been strongly persuaded to leave off, and to seek the Lord no longer; but being made to understand what great sinners the Lord has had mercy upon, and how large his promises were still to sinners; and that it was not the whole, but the sick, not the righteous, but the sinner, not the full, but the empty, that he extended his grace and mercy unto--this made me, through the assistance of his Holy Spirit, to cleave to him, to hang upon him, and yet to cry, though for the present he made no answer." - John Bunyan on Prayer

 

Labor in prayer!  Do not stop praying when it is diffictult and hard.  We don't pray becasue we want the genie to answer, we pray because we have a deep longing for God and His will.  Remember this as you pray.  And remember that our ultimate hope in prayer is to get more of God, not more of his gifts.  Let Him be central, not what we want answered.  He is a jealous God who wants all of us, and may choose to be silent or not answer to reveal that we want certain prayer answered more than we want God himself.    

 

Trust Him, rest in Him, and do not stop pursing Him in prayer. 

Which are you?

From John Bunyan on Prayer:

 

"Suppose there should come two men begging to your door; the one is a poor, lame, wounded, and almost starved creature, the other is a healthy strong person; these two use the same words in their begging; the one says he is almost starved, so does the other: but the man that is indeed the poor, lame, or maimed person, he speaks with more sense, feeling, and understanding of the misery that is mentioned in their begging, than the other can do; and it is discovered more by his manner of speaking, his bemoaning himself.  his pain and poverty makes him speak more in a spirit of lamentation than the other, and he is pitied sooner than the other, by all those that have the least dram of natural affection or pity.  Just thus it is with God: there are some who out of custom and formality go and pray; there are others who go in bitterness of their spirits: the one prays out of bare notion and naked knowledge; the other has his words forced from him by the anguish of his soul.  Surely that is the man that God will look at, 'even to him that is poor, and of contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word' (Is. 66.2)."

 

So the question I ask: Is our praying merely a formality?  Or is it out of a deep longing of the soul?  Which man are you? 

Romans 8:26-27

"None knows how many by-ways the heart has, and back-lanes, to slip away from the presence of God.  How much pride also, if enabled with expressions!  How much hypocrisy, if before others!  And how little conscience is there made of prayer between God and the soul in secret, unless the Spirit of supplication be there to help!  When the Spirit gets into the heart, then there is prayer indeed, and not till then." -John Bunyan

 

It is so easy for our prayers to be prideful, hypocritical. or even meaningless words we say but don't feel.  Prayer does not happen apart from the Spirit interceding.  You might think you are praying or look like you are praying, but apart from the Spirit, there is no prayer.  Read Romans 8:26-27 when you get a chance today.  Think of what it will take for you to be and stay Spirit led in prayer.  We need to take this scripture seriously, and truly depend on the Sprit as we commune with the Lord. 

 

Emptiness under Heaven

"The soul that thus prays indeed, sees an emptiness in all things under heaven; that in God alone there is rest and satisfaction for the soul." -John Bunyan

 

This makes me realize that much of the problem in my payer life is an attachment to the things of this world.  The more "of this world" I am, the more I become self dependent instead of dependent on God.  True prayer is completely dependent on God and hopeful for heaven, and not putting hope in the world we live in now.  It is in God alone where our souls will be satisfied.  Sounds impossible to do, but with prayer it can happen.   

Prayer

Our desires for this church are completely dependent on God being gracious and merciful on us and on those he calls.  Nothing we desire can be done by merely human effort.  Because of this, we MUST be a people who seek the Lord in prayer.    

 

John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, wrote some classic books on prayer, which I will now start reading through.  Prayer is difficult, and maybe learning from this great man of God will stir my heart to pray as I ought.  With that, I am going to be inviting you into what I am reading through this blog.  My hope is that we can all take these coming weeks to be challenged in our prayer life, and motivated to grow in this area.  My prayer now for all of us is that we take seriously prayer, and take seriously wanting to grow in it.       

 

If any of you are interested in the book I will be reading and quoting from, it is called "Prayer" and is from the Puritan Paperback series.  This book contains 2 books by Bunyan, "Praying in the Spirit," and "The Throne of Grace." 

Do it.

Take a minute and think about something you feel God is asking you to do that you haven't done.  Whatever it is, pray about it, come up with a plan, and do it.  It could be visiting a friend, reconciling a relationship, saying a kind word to someone, giving money to a good cause, reading your Bible more...whatever it is.  It is so easy to put off what God is putting on our hearts, but there is so much joy in being obedient to His leadings. 

Don't Stare

"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."  After [Jesus] said this, he was taken up before their very eyes and a cloud hid him from their sight.  They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.  "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky?  This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." -Acts 1:8-10

 

Translation: Don't sit around waiting for Jesus to come back.  He will come, but until then, we are to obey what he has called us to do - be his witness.  So now that we have celebrated the resurrection, let's not just stand around looking at the grave site for another year or into the sky.  Let's go share about what He has done! 

Celebrate Death

Tomorrow is a day we celebrate Jesus dying on a cross for our sins.  Maybe you find celebrate an odd choice of words, but I find it very fitting.  Jesus chose to leave heaven, come to earth and live without sin so that one day he could pay our penalty.  He died for us not so we can walk around sad and droopy.  He did it so we can live!  And we celebrate because we know that our God in not dead.  We know that 3 days later he would rise from the dead.  Our savior is not dead...he is alive!  So we celebrate that through one man's death we all can receive life.  Believe in what Jesus Christ has done for your sins!  Celebrate what he has accomplished on this Good Friday.  Let this truth humble you, and let it move you to live for Him who bought you.