It's been awhile since I've actually wrote something on here. I had a conversation with Josh R. about Jonathon Edwards and David Braneird and others who would journal extensively just to remind themselves of what God was teaching them and doing in their lives and how it is the only possible way to keep a thought and path going for years without getting distracted. It really made me want to get back into journalling. However the call Nashville is happening on July 07 2007 and they really want to change this nation and call a huge time of prayer and fasting to prepare for it so a lot of people are fasting the 40 days before then. I have never really done a long fast so I thought one thing that I can actually do without and would be really helpful it to get off the computer for this time. So this will be my last entry for the next 40 days.
Some pretty crazy stuff has been happening in my life lately. I feel like God is really shaking and purifying this school and getting us ready for something that he wants to do. One morning last week the group that meets for prayer early every wednesday and thursday morning just really felt the presence of God and then they led the 8:00 prayer and the Holy Spirit really moved throughout our student body. The first teacher that came in for the first year class said "It really wouldn't be right for me to teach you when obviously God has better plans" or something like that and so we just prayed the whole first class and I could just feel God changing my heart and giving me such a deep joy and love for him. Then the next class the teacher tried to teach it but just couldn't because of what was happening, stuff I'd never seen in my life. It just got so wild I can't describe it but the after effects were really neat. It was like God just binded our whole class together through this experience. The level of our unity and love was strengthened. I know my hunger for God has deepened and everything seems so meaningless compared to knowing God more and making him known. Not that I don't still mess up, but I do feel a different perspective since then.
That thursday night a grad came in and preached it was one of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard. Go to www.fire-church.org and click podcast to listen to it. It was preached by Joe Oden.
So often during these trimesters I get so many ideas of things that I want to do that I really can't focus and complete any of them. But this trimester I really just want to focus on learning Hebrew really well, memorizing mark, and praying. Those are things that I can accomplish if I really focus. Today I played risk game on my computer for a few hours so i kind of felt silly for wasting that much time but God has so much grace. Oh yeah here is a prayer that I found on the internet and have started praying before I read my bible and it has been amazing. It's not a formula but when I honestly pray it to God his word really comes alive and he points out a lot that I wouldn't normally notice and I remember it for way longer too. Here it is,
Father, I come again to you with hunger and expectation, with joy and delight. I love being fed by you, and God, I’m hungry! I want to feed on the word of God, the bread of Life. And I thank you Lord for your Holy Spirit . I am thirsty and Lord Jesus, I come to you believing that you can meet that need, quench that thirst, and fill us with Your Spirit as You teach us and enlighten us. I ask you to give me understanding to guide me into all truth. And I ask of you Lord for more than just comprehension, but for an apprehension and appropriation of believing and walking in the very things you speak to me about. And I ask all of this work and all of your will in my study now, in Jesus’ name Amen.
Give it a try for a week, change the wording to suit your personality but just this little prayer before I read the bible helps set my attitude right and give me a receptivity to recieve what God has for me.
Also lately God has been teaching me about not trusting my emotions at all but surrendering them to him and following his word even if it doesn't match my experience or emotions. So often I get bogged down if I don't feel like God is close to me, but then I remember Hebrews 10 and 2 Corinthians 5:last verse . Which talks about how because of Jesus' blood we are the righteousness of God and nothing we do can change that. If we've truly repented in the first place. So even if I feel like God is far away I can just trust his word that says I can enter past the curtain into the Most Holy Place, not because of anything that I have done at all but totally because of what Jesus has done.
Haha this is a totally different train of thought but I found one of the neatest prophecies about Jesus on Sunday. Here is Zechariah 9
The Coming King of Zion
9Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
The whole passage is definitely a messianic prophecy, look at that last verse it seems completely like a prophecy about the substitutionary sacrifice of blood that Jesus makes and fulfills a new covenant (Hebrews 9). And saves us from hell (waterless pit). That was just what I read into it but I think it sounds reasonable. Now this next part you guys might not agree with me but if I have a choice between thinking the bible made a crazy amazing prophecy or just thinking it's coincedence I will go with crazy amazing. In verse nine it says "Righteous and having Salvation is he". Now we just learned in Jewish Roots that the name people would have called Jesus in his day was "Yeshua" or the long form "Yehoshua". "Isous Cristos" was just the Greek name for him and because the New Testament was written in Greek that is closer to how we know him today when it got anglicized to "Jesus Christ". But as I have been studying Hebrew this year I found out that the actual Hebrew word for salvation is "Yeshua" that is why in Matthew 1:21 it says "call his name yeshua because he will save his people from their sins". Also on a sidenote that is why Hillsong sings "Salvation is here and he lives in me, Salvation is here and he set me free". Because Jesus name also means salvation. All that to say I got out my Hebrew bible and read that phrase "Righteous and having salvation is he". And it's really neat because the word for righteous is stadaqah or stadeeq depending on the form, but in the hebrew bible word for word it says "Righeous and Salvation is he" maybe a little different I will have to ask my Hebrew teacher. But basically if you narrow that quote the prophecy about the Messiah is saying "He is Yeshua". So you might think that's stretching it, but I am willing to say God knew what Jesus' name would be and he alluded to it here in this messianic passage.
So have an amazing week, God bless you guys!
Monday, May 28, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The Fireplace of the church
I found this article here and it kind of put together some of the things that I have been thinking recently.
http://greggharrisblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/reformed-charismatic-evangelical.html
Reformed, Charismatic & Evangelical: Keeping the Fire in the Fireplace!
FOR MANY YEARS the Bible has been treated like a deck of cards. Denominations behave like players in some doctrinal “card game” where each church holds only a few cards in its hand as it competes with other churches for new members. Every church has its own “doctrinal distinctives” or emphases which are often reflected in the church’s name (e.g. Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.) In addition, churches are grouped into larger camps, based on over-arching values (e.g. Reformed, Charismatic & Evangelical). Such divisions rob every church of its heritage in the whole counsel of God.
Generally speaking, Reformed churches hold tightly to the cards (i.e. the passages of Scripture) that pertain to “the doctrines of grace.” They also emphasize the need to guard sound doctrine from error. Charismatic churches hold the cards that relate to the Holy Spirit and His gifts. They emphasize supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Evangelicals hold on dearly to the cards that teach the Great Commission, personal evangelism and world missions. They emphasize winning the lost to Christ.
Our analogy breaks down of course, because no true church is void of all interest in the doctrines championed by the others. But over time, these three camps have drifted farther and farther apart. Today they seem mutually exclusive of one another. What is worse, as each has over-emphasized and over-reacted to each doctrine errors have occurred on all sides. As each church pushes its favorite truth to an erroneous extreme, the other churches attempt to distance themselves from those errors and all but abandon some key doctrines. “We don’t emphasize election here.” Or, “We are not ‘seeker sensitive.’” Or, “We won’t stand for Holy Spirit wildfire.” In this way major passages of God’s Word are being abandoned to other churches who, in their zeal, distort them and make them the primary basis of their church’s identity. By being taught without the balance that comes from knowing and believing the other doctrines, every church loses out.
It Takes All Three!
The situation today requires a Christian to attend three churches just to receive a balanced diet of what the Bible actually teaches— one to enjoy expository Bible teaching and basic Bible doctrine (e.g. a sound Reformed Church), one to experience supernatural ministry (e.g. a sound Charismatic church) and yet another to be equipped to live the Great Commission (e.g. a sound Evangelical church). As long as every church holds only its own limited denominational “hand,” no church is “playing with a full deck.” The whole counsel of God has become divided, disjointed and out of balance. Household of Faith Community Church in the Portland Metro Area of Oregon (where I now serve as a Teaching Elder), is an attempt to bring these three camps of Bible doctrine back together in one local church. There we strive to be biblically Reformed, biblically Charismatic and biblically evangelical in order to enjoy the benefits (and avoid the errors) of all three. We want everything that the Bible teaches, but nothing more.
Our Strengths Can Become Our Weaknesses
The strength of the Reformed pastor can become his weakness. He has such confidence in the truth of the Bible and the sovereignty of God that he distrusts the Spirit of God and fatalistic in his response to missions. He becomes cold and academic in his teaching. He closes all opportunities for God to move with power in the church. He “despises prophesy” as “adding to the Scripture.” He “forbids speaking in tongues,” dismissing it as “wildfire.” He is like a man with a massive stone fireplace made up of sound Bible doctrine. But he would rather sit in a cold, dark, empty house than take any chance that the fire might get out of the fireplace, or that careless guests might damage his stone work. He does not understand that his precious fireplace has been designed by God to safely hold the blazing fire of God’s Holy Spirit for the benefit of many yet to be saved.
On the other hand, the strength of the Charismatic pastor can also become his weakness. His confidence in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit can undermine his motivation to do the hard work of Bible study and sound doctrinal preaching of the Gospel. He believes he need only read a passage and “pray through” until he “feels the anointing.” Then he steps into his pulpit to serve up half-baked ideas to an ever-enthusiastic, but doctrinally famished congregation. This pastor is like a man who builds a bonfire in the middle of his living room floor. A wonderful stone fireplace stands just a few feet away. But he thinks that any attempt to regulate the moving of the Spirit, to limit the use of tongues in the service or to evaluate the content of a given prophesy, (as the Bible clearly commands us to do in 1 Cor. 14:26-33), would somehow “quench the Spirit.” He also presumes upon the Holy Spirit in evangelism, failing to explain what God has accomplished for the sinner through Jesus Christ, not taking seriously the fact that the Spirit of God works through the proclamation of the Gospel to save sinners. Fire belongs in a fireplace.
In yet a similar way the Evangelical pastor’s strength can become his weakness. His desire to reach people for Christ is admirable. But when he compromises God’s Word and despises God’s Spirit in order to get more people to make decisions for Christ, he does everyone a disservice. In his attempts to be “culturally relevant” and “seeker sensitive,” he can become ashamed of the Gospel, attempting to offer a Savior who is not Lord. Lacking zeal for sound doctrine for fear that God’s truth will turn off the visitors, and lacking faith in the power of the Holy Spirit to convict and convert the lost through the foolishness of the Gospel message, such pastors offer only a diet of short, fluffy, topical messages that produces many false conversions. This plague that we call “nominal Christianity” is seen in the growing number of people who now attend evangelical churches, but who have never been born again, have only a false assurance of salvation, who bear no spiritual fruit, are not zealous for good works and who know very little Bible doctrine.
Such an Evangelical pastor does not understand that without the fireplace of sound doctrine to display God’s Truth there can be no knowledge of sin, true repentance, nor saving faith. Without the fire of the Holy Spirit to confirm God’s Word with power in the new birth, there will be no lasting fruit. It is the combination of the fireplace and the fire that provides an ideal context for effective evangelistic ministry.
The Balance of God’s Truth
In each camp, the remedy is to be found in the doctrines now monopolized by the other two camps. The entire Bible is for the entire church! What has been lost in this situation is the integrity of the Truth itself. The major doctrines referred to by the terms Reformed, Charismatic and Evangelical, interact with one another in dynamic ways that check the excesses of one another and maintain the balance of Truth.
By keeping the fire in the fireplace we create the best possible setting for effective evangelism — a beautiful backdrop of God’s power in the confirmation of God’s Truth as an expression of God’s Love. Here we find God’s people showing their love for God by the way they love one another. Here we experience passionate worship toward God that is both “in spirit and in truth,” and discover a confidence in the Gospel that allows us to boldly speak God’s truth in love.
All of the Bible doctrines monopolized and distorted by the three major camps of Protestant Christianity are found in every Bible. They have always been there. They comprise an integrated whole. One group’s misunderstanding or misapplication of a doctrine cannot justify the rest of us in ignoring that part of God’s Word. All of God’s truths are intended to be understood, believed and obeyed in relation to one another by the entire Body of Christ. Every church is intended to be “a full deck church” with all of the checks and balances in place. HOFCC is an attempt to be just that. Thus far we find the combination to be both refreshing and effective.
http://greggharrisblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/reformed-charismatic-evangelical.html
Reformed, Charismatic & Evangelical: Keeping the Fire in the Fireplace!
FOR MANY YEARS the Bible has been treated like a deck of cards. Denominations behave like players in some doctrinal “card game” where each church holds only a few cards in its hand as it competes with other churches for new members. Every church has its own “doctrinal distinctives” or emphases which are often reflected in the church’s name (e.g. Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.) In addition, churches are grouped into larger camps, based on over-arching values (e.g. Reformed, Charismatic & Evangelical). Such divisions rob every church of its heritage in the whole counsel of God.
Generally speaking, Reformed churches hold tightly to the cards (i.e. the passages of Scripture) that pertain to “the doctrines of grace.” They also emphasize the need to guard sound doctrine from error. Charismatic churches hold the cards that relate to the Holy Spirit and His gifts. They emphasize supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Evangelicals hold on dearly to the cards that teach the Great Commission, personal evangelism and world missions. They emphasize winning the lost to Christ.
Our analogy breaks down of course, because no true church is void of all interest in the doctrines championed by the others. But over time, these three camps have drifted farther and farther apart. Today they seem mutually exclusive of one another. What is worse, as each has over-emphasized and over-reacted to each doctrine errors have occurred on all sides. As each church pushes its favorite truth to an erroneous extreme, the other churches attempt to distance themselves from those errors and all but abandon some key doctrines. “We don’t emphasize election here.” Or, “We are not ‘seeker sensitive.’” Or, “We won’t stand for Holy Spirit wildfire.” In this way major passages of God’s Word are being abandoned to other churches who, in their zeal, distort them and make them the primary basis of their church’s identity. By being taught without the balance that comes from knowing and believing the other doctrines, every church loses out.
It Takes All Three!
The situation today requires a Christian to attend three churches just to receive a balanced diet of what the Bible actually teaches— one to enjoy expository Bible teaching and basic Bible doctrine (e.g. a sound Reformed Church), one to experience supernatural ministry (e.g. a sound Charismatic church) and yet another to be equipped to live the Great Commission (e.g. a sound Evangelical church). As long as every church holds only its own limited denominational “hand,” no church is “playing with a full deck.” The whole counsel of God has become divided, disjointed and out of balance. Household of Faith Community Church in the Portland Metro Area of Oregon (where I now serve as a Teaching Elder), is an attempt to bring these three camps of Bible doctrine back together in one local church. There we strive to be biblically Reformed, biblically Charismatic and biblically evangelical in order to enjoy the benefits (and avoid the errors) of all three. We want everything that the Bible teaches, but nothing more.
Our Strengths Can Become Our Weaknesses
The strength of the Reformed pastor can become his weakness. He has such confidence in the truth of the Bible and the sovereignty of God that he distrusts the Spirit of God and fatalistic in his response to missions. He becomes cold and academic in his teaching. He closes all opportunities for God to move with power in the church. He “despises prophesy” as “adding to the Scripture.” He “forbids speaking in tongues,” dismissing it as “wildfire.” He is like a man with a massive stone fireplace made up of sound Bible doctrine. But he would rather sit in a cold, dark, empty house than take any chance that the fire might get out of the fireplace, or that careless guests might damage his stone work. He does not understand that his precious fireplace has been designed by God to safely hold the blazing fire of God’s Holy Spirit for the benefit of many yet to be saved.
On the other hand, the strength of the Charismatic pastor can also become his weakness. His confidence in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit can undermine his motivation to do the hard work of Bible study and sound doctrinal preaching of the Gospel. He believes he need only read a passage and “pray through” until he “feels the anointing.” Then he steps into his pulpit to serve up half-baked ideas to an ever-enthusiastic, but doctrinally famished congregation. This pastor is like a man who builds a bonfire in the middle of his living room floor. A wonderful stone fireplace stands just a few feet away. But he thinks that any attempt to regulate the moving of the Spirit, to limit the use of tongues in the service or to evaluate the content of a given prophesy, (as the Bible clearly commands us to do in 1 Cor. 14:26-33), would somehow “quench the Spirit.” He also presumes upon the Holy Spirit in evangelism, failing to explain what God has accomplished for the sinner through Jesus Christ, not taking seriously the fact that the Spirit of God works through the proclamation of the Gospel to save sinners. Fire belongs in a fireplace.
In yet a similar way the Evangelical pastor’s strength can become his weakness. His desire to reach people for Christ is admirable. But when he compromises God’s Word and despises God’s Spirit in order to get more people to make decisions for Christ, he does everyone a disservice. In his attempts to be “culturally relevant” and “seeker sensitive,” he can become ashamed of the Gospel, attempting to offer a Savior who is not Lord. Lacking zeal for sound doctrine for fear that God’s truth will turn off the visitors, and lacking faith in the power of the Holy Spirit to convict and convert the lost through the foolishness of the Gospel message, such pastors offer only a diet of short, fluffy, topical messages that produces many false conversions. This plague that we call “nominal Christianity” is seen in the growing number of people who now attend evangelical churches, but who have never been born again, have only a false assurance of salvation, who bear no spiritual fruit, are not zealous for good works and who know very little Bible doctrine.
Such an Evangelical pastor does not understand that without the fireplace of sound doctrine to display God’s Truth there can be no knowledge of sin, true repentance, nor saving faith. Without the fire of the Holy Spirit to confirm God’s Word with power in the new birth, there will be no lasting fruit. It is the combination of the fireplace and the fire that provides an ideal context for effective evangelistic ministry.
The Balance of God’s Truth
In each camp, the remedy is to be found in the doctrines now monopolized by the other two camps. The entire Bible is for the entire church! What has been lost in this situation is the integrity of the Truth itself. The major doctrines referred to by the terms Reformed, Charismatic and Evangelical, interact with one another in dynamic ways that check the excesses of one another and maintain the balance of Truth.
By keeping the fire in the fireplace we create the best possible setting for effective evangelism — a beautiful backdrop of God’s power in the confirmation of God’s Truth as an expression of God’s Love. Here we find God’s people showing their love for God by the way they love one another. Here we experience passionate worship toward God that is both “in spirit and in truth,” and discover a confidence in the Gospel that allows us to boldly speak God’s truth in love.
All of the Bible doctrines monopolized and distorted by the three major camps of Protestant Christianity are found in every Bible. They have always been there. They comprise an integrated whole. One group’s misunderstanding or misapplication of a doctrine cannot justify the rest of us in ignoring that part of God’s Word. All of God’s truths are intended to be understood, believed and obeyed in relation to one another by the entire Body of Christ. Every church is intended to be “a full deck church” with all of the checks and balances in place. HOFCC is an attempt to be just that. Thus far we find the combination to be both refreshing and effective.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Praying Men - EM Bounds
This is a beautiful article, so many times when I pray I think that there is more faith to just praying once and then believing that God will do it. But like this article says it is the importunance of prayer, the constant seeking and asking until the answer or the assurance of the answer comes that shows more faith. Because in the second case it shows that God is the only one who holds the answer in his hands that he is the only one worthy of turning to with our problems. If you look in the bible at kings who went to doctors or looked to other nations for allies it wasn't that they were trying to solve the problem that God was angry at but that they never trusted him. I am so tired of putting confidence in my flesh, in trying to get through this life by myself and only offering a few prayers up to God each day and hoping he will bless my decisions. I want to know God's heart and be changed by him. Nothing else matters. This last week God has kept bringing me back to Philippians 3, everything else is rubbish compared to knowing Jesus.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
I love that relentless pursuit of the one thing which is important. It's so weird how we can mentally assent what is the best and then live completely different, I do it all the time. God, help me to press on toward the goal to win the prize. All right, here is the article.
***********
The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are absolutely incapable of prayer. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
BISHOP WILSON says: In H. Martyn's journal the spirit of prayer, the time he devoted to the duty, and his fervor in it are the first things which strike me."
Payson wore the hard-wood boards into grooves where his knees pressed so often and so long. His biographer says: "His continuing instant in prayer, be his circumstances what they might, is the most noticeable fact in his history, and points out the duty of all who would rival his eminency. To his ardent and persevering prayers must no doubt be ascribed in a great measure his distinguished and almost uninterrupted success."
The Marquis DeRenty, to whom Christ was most precious, ordered his servant to call him from his devotions at the end of half an hour. The servant at the time saw his face through an aperture. It was marked with such holiness that he hated to arouse him. His lips were moving, but he was perfectly silent. He waited until three half hours had passed; then he called to him, when he arose from his knees, saying that the half hour was so short when he was communing with Christ.
Brainerd said: "I love to be alone in my cottage, where I can spend much time in prayer."
William Bramwell is famous in Methodist annals for personal holiness and for his wonderful success in preaching and for the marvelous answers to his prayers. For hours at a time he would pray. He almost lived on his knees. He went over his circuits like a flame of fire. The fire was kindled by the time he spent in prayer. He often spent as much as four hours in a single season of prayer in retirement.
Dr. Judson's success in prayer is attributable to the fact that he gave much time to prayer. He says on this point: "Arrange thy affairs, if possible, so that thou canst leisurely devote two or three hours every day not merely to devotional exercises but to the very act of secret prayer and communion with God. Endeavor seven times a day to withdraw from business and company and lift up thy soul to God in private retirement. Begin the day by rising after midnight and devoting some time amid the silence and darkness of the night to this sacred work. Let the hour of opening dawn find thee at the same work. Let the hours of nine, twelve, three, six, and nine at night witness the same. Be resolute in his cause. Make all practicable sacrifices to maintain it. Consider that thy time is short, and that business and company must not be allowed to rob thee of thy God." Impossible, say we, fanatical directions! Dr. Judson impressed an empire for Christ and laid the foundations of God's kingdom with imperishable granite in the heart of Burmah. He was successful, one of the few men who mightily impressed the world for Christ. Many men of greater gifts and genius and learning than he have made no such impression; their religious work is like footsteps in the sands, but he has engraven his work on the adamant. The secret of its profundity and endurance is found in the fact that he gave time to prayer. He kept the iron red-hot with prayer, and God's skill fashioned it with enduring power. No man can do a great and enduring work for God who is not a man of prayer, and no man can be a man of prayer who does not give much time to praying.
Is it true that prayer is simply the compliance with habit, dull and mechanical? A petty performance into which we are trained till tameness, shortness, superficiality are its chief elements? "Is it true that prayer is, as is assumed, little else than the half-passive play of sentiment which flows languidly on through the minutes or hours of easy reverie?" Canon Liddon continues: "Let those who have really prayed give the answer. They sometimes describe prayer with the patriarch Jacob as a wrestling together with an Unseen Power which may last, not unfrequently in an earnest life, late into the night hours, or even to the break of day. Sometimes they refer to common intercession with St. Paul as a concerted struggle. They have, when praying, their eyes fixed on the Great Intercessor in Gethsemane, upon the drops of blood which fall to the ground in that agony of resignation and sacrifice. Importunity is of the essence of successful prayer. Importunity means not dreaminess but sustained work. It is through prayer especially that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force. It was a saying of the late Bishop Hamilton that "No man is likely to do much good in prayer who does not begin by looking upon it in the light of a work to be prepared for and persevered in with all the earnestness which we bring to bear upon subjects which are in our opinion at once most interesting and most necessary."
The angel fetched Peter out of prison,
but it was prayer that fetched the angel.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
I love that relentless pursuit of the one thing which is important. It's so weird how we can mentally assent what is the best and then live completely different, I do it all the time. God, help me to press on toward the goal to win the prize. All right, here is the article.
***********
The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are absolutely incapable of prayer. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
BISHOP WILSON says: In H. Martyn's journal the spirit of prayer, the time he devoted to the duty, and his fervor in it are the first things which strike me."
Payson wore the hard-wood boards into grooves where his knees pressed so often and so long. His biographer says: "His continuing instant in prayer, be his circumstances what they might, is the most noticeable fact in his history, and points out the duty of all who would rival his eminency. To his ardent and persevering prayers must no doubt be ascribed in a great measure his distinguished and almost uninterrupted success."
The Marquis DeRenty, to whom Christ was most precious, ordered his servant to call him from his devotions at the end of half an hour. The servant at the time saw his face through an aperture. It was marked with such holiness that he hated to arouse him. His lips were moving, but he was perfectly silent. He waited until three half hours had passed; then he called to him, when he arose from his knees, saying that the half hour was so short when he was communing with Christ.
Brainerd said: "I love to be alone in my cottage, where I can spend much time in prayer."
William Bramwell is famous in Methodist annals for personal holiness and for his wonderful success in preaching and for the marvelous answers to his prayers. For hours at a time he would pray. He almost lived on his knees. He went over his circuits like a flame of fire. The fire was kindled by the time he spent in prayer. He often spent as much as four hours in a single season of prayer in retirement.
Dr. Judson's success in prayer is attributable to the fact that he gave much time to prayer. He says on this point: "Arrange thy affairs, if possible, so that thou canst leisurely devote two or three hours every day not merely to devotional exercises but to the very act of secret prayer and communion with God. Endeavor seven times a day to withdraw from business and company and lift up thy soul to God in private retirement. Begin the day by rising after midnight and devoting some time amid the silence and darkness of the night to this sacred work. Let the hour of opening dawn find thee at the same work. Let the hours of nine, twelve, three, six, and nine at night witness the same. Be resolute in his cause. Make all practicable sacrifices to maintain it. Consider that thy time is short, and that business and company must not be allowed to rob thee of thy God." Impossible, say we, fanatical directions! Dr. Judson impressed an empire for Christ and laid the foundations of God's kingdom with imperishable granite in the heart of Burmah. He was successful, one of the few men who mightily impressed the world for Christ. Many men of greater gifts and genius and learning than he have made no such impression; their religious work is like footsteps in the sands, but he has engraven his work on the adamant. The secret of its profundity and endurance is found in the fact that he gave time to prayer. He kept the iron red-hot with prayer, and God's skill fashioned it with enduring power. No man can do a great and enduring work for God who is not a man of prayer, and no man can be a man of prayer who does not give much time to praying.
Is it true that prayer is simply the compliance with habit, dull and mechanical? A petty performance into which we are trained till tameness, shortness, superficiality are its chief elements? "Is it true that prayer is, as is assumed, little else than the half-passive play of sentiment which flows languidly on through the minutes or hours of easy reverie?" Canon Liddon continues: "Let those who have really prayed give the answer. They sometimes describe prayer with the patriarch Jacob as a wrestling together with an Unseen Power which may last, not unfrequently in an earnest life, late into the night hours, or even to the break of day. Sometimes they refer to common intercession with St. Paul as a concerted struggle. They have, when praying, their eyes fixed on the Great Intercessor in Gethsemane, upon the drops of blood which fall to the ground in that agony of resignation and sacrifice. Importunity is of the essence of successful prayer. Importunity means not dreaminess but sustained work. It is through prayer especially that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force. It was a saying of the late Bishop Hamilton that "No man is likely to do much good in prayer who does not begin by looking upon it in the light of a work to be prepared for and persevered in with all the earnestness which we bring to bear upon subjects which are in our opinion at once most interesting and most necessary."
The angel fetched Peter out of prison,
but it was prayer that fetched the angel.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Trust
This is one of my favourite quotes ever, I may have posted it on here before but I will do it again.
"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How could I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming to close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."
-Soren Kierkegaard
He is such an honest guy, you can read his book provocations online for free, it is a collection of quotes, really powerful ones.
The main thing that I have been thinking about lately is trust. Especially in the area of finances, here are some of the most intense verses on finances that I sometimes feel like I am the only person who notices them. Perhaps I misunderstand them, but perhaps not and this is what is frightening.
Matthew 5:42
Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Romans 13:8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; (My friend is taking greek and he said it is most word for word translated as "Owe no man anything" the context is almost unquestionably talking of owing finances)
Matthew 6:19
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
1 Timothy 6:9
People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.
Matthew 6:25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Especially that last verse is intense. Those are just a few, here are a couple of christian thoughts about finances
Hudson Taylor "To me it seemed that the teaching of God's Word was unmistakably clear : `Owe no man anything,' To borrow money implied, to my mind, a contradiction of Scripture-a confession that God had withheld some good thing, and a determination to get for ourselves what He had not given. Could any amount of precedents make a wrong course justifiable ? If the Word taught me anything, it taught me to have no connection with debt. I could not think that God was poor, that He was short of resources, or unwilling to supply any want of whatever work was really His. It seemed to me that if there were lack of funds to carry on work, then to that degree, in that special development, or at that time, it could not be the work of God."
Also Rees Howells really inspired me the way that he lived by faith, he took that Matthew 5 verse seriously, he is the only christian that I have ever heard of that has ever done that. Anytime he saw somebody with a genuine need he sold or did whatever it took to meet that need and God always met his needs. Here is a quote about him
"There is no man that
hath left house, or brethren, or lands, for My sake
and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundred-
fold now in this time.” It was not easy to step out
on God—to part with his last pound. The devil
argued that he’d not be able to go wherever the
Lord wanted unless he had some money stored up.
Rees laughed at that, for if a person has money he
can go without asking God, like Jonah, who could
afford to pay his passage to run away from Him!
We must all realize we can never really be
bondservants until God controls our finances.
He began to see that he had a claim on God
for what he could not supply himself. Just as the
villagers had a claim on his money to meet their
needs, so he had a claim on God’s resources to
meet his. The promises of God had replaced
money in the bank and become equal to current
coin to him.
Really incredible story if you ever have the chance to read the book Rees Howells:Intercessor it's powerful. Anyways it may seem like I'm really focusing on money and I am only choosing certain verses out of the bible and certain missionaries who have the same opinions as I do (although I definitely don't live them out as well as they do ;)). But it's definitely worth considering if you are a christian and you are in debt or you are storing up treasures, come to terms with what the bible says and decide for yourself if it's sin or not. God has taught me a lot about finances this year and provided for me in some really neat ways when I trust him, when I don't things don't work out and I end up having to borrow money to pay bills. It's definately an adventure to trust him, and live in the faith that "Where God guides, he provides".
"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How could I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming to close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."
-Soren Kierkegaard
He is such an honest guy, you can read his book provocations online for free, it is a collection of quotes, really powerful ones.
The main thing that I have been thinking about lately is trust. Especially in the area of finances, here are some of the most intense verses on finances that I sometimes feel like I am the only person who notices them. Perhaps I misunderstand them, but perhaps not and this is what is frightening.
Matthew 5:42
Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Romans 13:8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; (My friend is taking greek and he said it is most word for word translated as "Owe no man anything" the context is almost unquestionably talking of owing finances)
Matthew 6:19
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
1 Timothy 6:9
People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.
Matthew 6:25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Especially that last verse is intense. Those are just a few, here are a couple of christian thoughts about finances
Hudson Taylor "To me it seemed that the teaching of God's Word was unmistakably clear : `Owe no man anything,' To borrow money implied, to my mind, a contradiction of Scripture-a confession that God had withheld some good thing, and a determination to get for ourselves what He had not given. Could any amount of precedents make a wrong course justifiable ? If the Word taught me anything, it taught me to have no connection with debt. I could not think that God was poor, that He was short of resources, or unwilling to supply any want of whatever work was really His. It seemed to me that if there were lack of funds to carry on work, then to that degree, in that special development, or at that time, it could not be the work of God."
Also Rees Howells really inspired me the way that he lived by faith, he took that Matthew 5 verse seriously, he is the only christian that I have ever heard of that has ever done that. Anytime he saw somebody with a genuine need he sold or did whatever it took to meet that need and God always met his needs. Here is a quote about him
"There is no man that
hath left house, or brethren, or lands, for My sake
and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundred-
fold now in this time.” It was not easy to step out
on God—to part with his last pound. The devil
argued that he’d not be able to go wherever the
Lord wanted unless he had some money stored up.
Rees laughed at that, for if a person has money he
can go without asking God, like Jonah, who could
afford to pay his passage to run away from Him!
We must all realize we can never really be
bondservants until God controls our finances.
He began to see that he had a claim on God
for what he could not supply himself. Just as the
villagers had a claim on his money to meet their
needs, so he had a claim on God’s resources to
meet his. The promises of God had replaced
money in the bank and become equal to current
coin to him.
Really incredible story if you ever have the chance to read the book Rees Howells:Intercessor it's powerful. Anyways it may seem like I'm really focusing on money and I am only choosing certain verses out of the bible and certain missionaries who have the same opinions as I do (although I definitely don't live them out as well as they do ;)). But it's definitely worth considering if you are a christian and you are in debt or you are storing up treasures, come to terms with what the bible says and decide for yourself if it's sin or not. God has taught me a lot about finances this year and provided for me in some really neat ways when I trust him, when I don't things don't work out and I end up having to borrow money to pay bills. It's definately an adventure to trust him, and live in the faith that "Where God guides, he provides".
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