You may enjoy this book on prayer edited by Matt Hancock titled Pathway to Prayer: Encouragements to Pray from Voices of the Past. I have gotten to know a little about Matt through the United Prayer online prayer group started by Steven Lee of Sermon Audio as well as through an unofficial Discord server that started out of that online prayer meeting. He has edited these notes on prayer from godly folks through the ages as an encouragement to the church to be much in prayer. The first edition is available as a free download. This link from Matt’s blog includes the free download as well as information about purchasing the published edition of the book: https://openingtheireyes.com/pathway-to-prayer-mj-hancock/
Category: Books and Films
Book reviews, Film reviews and study notes.
Prayer Essentials
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!
Heaven and the New Earth
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…