Articles

Bible Study

Prayer Essentials 1

patricia_grace

Verses 1 King 8:27-30, 38-39

The instructions in The Essentials of Effective Prayer workbook for the next section were to read the 1 King verses, marking out references to Solomon, including the phrase “your servant”, as well as marking reference to “prayer”, including synonyms like “cry” or “spreading his hands”.

Some insights from this passage for me include noticing how often he’s simply asking that the Lord acknowledge prayer: “Have regard…listen…listen”. Multiple times, Solomon asks the Lord to hear when he cries to Him and to hear His people when they pray to Him.

The next insight is that following upon his request to be heard is the request for the Lord to forgive sin. I went ahead and read passages 31 – 37 even though they weren’t in this exercise, and the whole passage is regarding asking the Lord to forgive sins when the people acknowledge their sin to Him in prayer, crying out to Him after suffering the consequences of their sin.

In the hopes of learning to pray more biblically, I’m thinking of how these insights may be turned into obedience. Three practical things come to mind – avoiding presumption, confession of personal sins, and acknowledging the sins of my country and its leaders.

Solomon humbly asks that God will consider the cries of His people. This portion of Scripture is describing Solomon praying before the people after the temple was built. While he is king, he is showing humility before God and before his subjects. The corresponding passage in 2 Chronicles 6 includes how he got onto a platform and knelt on it while praying. It is good to remember that while we are able to come to God in prayer, by the merits of Christ, that we should remember that we come to a King and that we keep a reverent, humble spirit.

Two, I’m reminded of keeping confession of sin in my prayers. I certainly do confess sin, but I’m sitting here thinking of how often I’ll pray, asking for needs and wants, without ever stopping to consider my offenses towards God or others. It makes me thinks of the prayer help acronym of A.C.T.S that suggests always including in our prayers Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.

Jesus taught us this in what we call the “Lord’s Prayer” (See Matthew 6:12), reminding us to confess our sins to God.

Also, when I consider this prayer of Solomon, I see that he’s praying on behalf of the people, and the overriding request is for forgiveness of sins. He also acknowledges real consequences that may come because of those sins, such as defeat in war, lack of rain, and famine.

This mention of God bringing discipline for sin makes me think of how praying for my own country, including its leaders, should include acknowledging that God would be right in striking us down because of our many sins. How merciful and patient God is! I can’t help but think that many of our current woes (abortion, lawlessness not being punished in some areas, steps to deal with discrimination resulting in further discrimination, the celebration of young people believing the lie of transgenderism, etc.) are not just due to sinners being sinners, but rather are the results of God’s anger at His people’s disobedience. We have allowed the scourge of baby murder to continue so long and while I read of a lot social media posts and online articles decrying transgenderism, I wonder where are the men to stand up for the weak and the young?

Enough writing for now. It is time to pray.

Oh, Lord, please hear our prayer of confession and our supplications for respective nations!

Bible Study, Books and Films

Prayer Essentials

patricia_grace

As I was freshening the site, I came across an article from October 2018 where I noted an intention to write articles from a book about prayer that I had borrowed from my church library. Well, here it is almost six years later (!!!!) and I only had the one post. The book has long since been returned to the library, and I’m not even at the same church any longer.

I did find a small workbook about prayer from the same author on my own bookshelves, one that I’d start to work through but hadn’t finished. So, it is my intention, once again, to find a way to build a habit of regular writing. I’ll write as I go through The Essentials of Effective Prayer workbook by Kay Arthur, David Lawson, and BJ Lawson.

Verses: James 5:16b – 18

The first lesson suggests a read through the verses in James, marking each time the word “prayer” or “prayed” is used, then discussing observations. I won’t copy the questions in the workbook here but will just write some things that stood out to me.

Three things stand out to me right away – the words “earnestly” and “righteous” along with the mention in verse 17 that “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours…”

Although I tend to put someone like Elijah on a pedestal, this passage is a reminder that Elijah is just like every one of us in many ways (“a nature like ours”). He had a sin nature and needed redemption and he was needy and dependent on God.

The description of a man being “righteous” stands out, as it is only that kind of person who may have effective prayer. We are only righteous when we are in Christ, so only a person born again in Christ may enjoy regular effective prayer.

The word “earnestly” is a help for me to remember not to pray sloppy prayers. I often (Lord, forgive me) throw up prayers out of a sense of duty, but more and more lately I’m struck with the thought that I don’t really desire that for which I’m praying! Someone who has a need comes to mind and I begin to pray, but my prayer couldn’t be described as fervent or earnest.

Lately, when this happens, I’ve started my prayer over again, sometimes asking God for the proper desire for His glory and for love for the person for whom I’m praying. At times I’ve even abandoned the prayer, realizing that I am distracted, praying out of obligation and not being earnest and needing to move to a quieter place. At other times I will just write down the prayer to come back to it later when I’m in the proper frame of mind.

When we come to God in prayer, we are coming to a King! He is our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ, but He is still a King and worthy of our respectful, earnest prayers.

Please add your own thoughts in the comments!

Bible Study Notes, Books and Films

Heaven and the New Earth

patricia_grace

Book: Heaven by Randy Alcorn

For the upcoming fall discipleship class, we have several books we’ll be reading (as usual) and the one we’ve been tasked to start reading before class is Heaven by Randy Alcorn. I read the first seven chapters so quickly and it was a joy. I am encouraged and am having a much easier time obeying the command found in Colossians chapter 3: “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.” (Colossians 3:2).

What follows are some notes from my reading so far.

I appreciate that the author urges the reader in the preface to test everything he writes by Scripture. Moving on to the introduction, he states the claim that he will further develop in the coming chapters, that our eternal home is a physical place not some “ethereal realm of disembodied spirits” (pg xviii of Introduction). The author prepares us to begin thinking about how we will live on a New Earth with physical, resurrection bodies, not floating on clouds in a place without physical definition.

In chapter one titled “Are You Looking Forward to Heaven?”, the author brings out examples of unbiblical views of Heaven causing folks to mock it, not long for it, and with some even dreading it, believing it to be a state of spiritual tedium. If we are headed to a destination, especially a place where we will spend a long time, we generally want to know something about the place. How much more that should apply to the Christian’s eternal home! The author makes a great point: “How can we set our hearts on Heaven when we have an impoverished theology of Heaven?” (pg 10)

In chapter two, the author urges praying from Psalm 119:18 (“Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Your law”) in order to “ask God’s help to remove the blinders of our preconceived ideas about Heaven so we can understand Scripture” (pg 17).

At this point in the book, he seems to be laying the groundwork to get us thinking about a New Earth, where we will enjoy many of the things we do now, like eating and working, but all without sin, rather than imagining us as disembodied spirits floating around among clouds for all eternity.

…to be continued…