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March 11, 2010
Matthew 6:5-15 (NIV)
5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'
14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
So what do you do when you get alone with God in the secret place? Do you go through a long list of asking for things you need? Do you read a lot from the Bible, or other prayer books? How do you organize your time? Does God care how you spend this time with Him? Has he given any instructions?
God is the best on this subject. He has not left us to fend for ourselves in this arena. Listen carefully to his directions here. When you get to your secret place just sit before him in silence for a few moments. You do not need to bring a large list of things to ask Him for He already knows what you need. Just learn to enjoy being in his presence. Rest in his sovereign care for you.
If you do not feel like praying, just be there. I suggest you plan at least fifteen minutes of being with the Father every day at first. Your prayer might go something like this, "Father I am here because I want to know you and enjoy your presence. I want to love to be with you more than anything. Would you please direct me as I spend each day apart with you. Direct my heart to grow in love towards you.
You may want to take a notebook with you and write down what you want to talk to God about. After you have your list then take a few moments to pray and offer your questions up to God and ask him to help you discover Him as you set about to find he answers.
Take a moment to confess your need of Him in your life today and ask his directions as you walk together.
God help us, we are barely crawling and we want to walk and perhaps someday we can even run with you, March 10, 2010
Matthew 6:5-15 (NIV)
5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'
14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
For the next several days we will examine the role of prayer for the true child of God. I have been trying to walk with God for the past thirty five years. I say 'trying' because often times I find that even now I cannot do what I want to do as far as it comes to following Christ.
The first emphasis our Lord makes about prayer is that it is first and foremost an issue of the heart in secret. If your prayer life with God is not first built on much secret prayer your corporate prayer will have little effect.
Public prayer is still important but it is secondary to our private prayer closets. This is something that sets Christianity apart from all the other religions. All the other religions are first and foremost an outward display not an inward reality. But this is not the case with our relationship with God. Our first call is to the prayer closet where we commune with God in secret.
Why the secret place first and not in the open? It is only in the secret place where there are no other distractions that you can discover who God really is. In the secret place the noise of the world is stilled and the distractions are removed. Psalm 46:10 says it best, "Be still and know that I am God."
You may notice this in husbands and wives when they are out in public. You can tell the ones who enjoy each others company in private, they are the most joyful in public. If there is little time spent together in private there will be little joy demonstrated in public. Much private prayer makes for much public rejoicing.
Your Father in Heaven longs to reveal to you just who he really is and he can only get your undivided attention in secret away from all others. This secret time needs much cultivation. It first needs to be a habit and then after it becomes a habit it will grow to become a joy. Once your secret time with God becomes a joy then it will overflow into your public time and imagine what would happen if all of God's people had much private time with him and then at the end of the week they all came together to celebrate God publicly. I think our worship services would never be the same again.
Let us give ourselves to much private time alone with the Father so he would be rightly celebrated when we come together each Sunday.
Heading for the closet, March 9, 2010
Psalms 85:12-13 (NIV)
12 The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.
13 Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps.
Are you facing hard times in your family or job? Feeling stretched in every possible direction? Want to throw in the towel and quit? Take heart you are not alone. This thing called life is not all the positive talkers say it is. But also you must remember that living in this fallen world will not be your experience forever.
In this world you will have tribulation, our Lord promised as much in John 16:33 so this should not surprise you. The word for tribulation here means wine press. This life will bring you to the point of utter exhaustion often. You will find waves of despair that will sweep over you and you will find yourself on the brink of a bottomless pit often but you must not let these feelings mislead you.
This is not as it will be forever; it is only while you are in this flesh. The psalmist speaks of another day when the Lord will indeed give what is good. Everything that will add to your enjoyment of life will soon be yours for all eternity. It will come when you are least expecting it.
So are you to live with this state of constant despair while you are in this body? Not always. C. S. Lewis spoke of it in such words when he wrote that this life is not the mountain top that we desire. Often this life is the deep valley but ever so often our God breaks through the despair and gives us a brief glimpse of heaven. We find ourselves on top of the world thinking that we will never fail again to believe in God and to walk with him. We are so convinced of this that we deceive ourselves into thinking this life is going to be great with one thrill ride after another.
When we come down from the mountain we all too soon discover that is not the case. The ones we love do not see things the way we do and we are once again plunged into another battle with our sinful flesh and the cursed world in which we live. We begin to question ourselves, thinking we must have sinned somewhere for this to get as bad as it is.
This possibly could be the case but I suggest another possibility to consider, you live in a fallen world and what you are now experiencing is what the Lord said was tribulation. As you walk with God through the valley he develops within you a growing desire to be with him. The things of the world begin to lose their appeal and you find yourself beginning to live more in tune with Him and less in tune with the world.
What can you say to yourself in these times? Exactly what the psalmist did, "The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest." It does not matter how you feel or what you think presently, God is working for your good and his glory and he guarantees it with his word.
True revival happens when God's people lose their attraction for the things of this world and find their true enjoyment in God alone. O to be so caught up to be with the Lord would change our view of everything.
Lord, rend the heavens and come down and dwell in our midst while we wait eagerly for your return.
Praying and Longing for His return, March 8, 2010
Psalms 85:10-11 (NIV)
10 Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.
11 Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.
Behold the picture of full redeeming grace. Love and faithfulness will once again be in abundance, more so than in the garden of Eden. Before we heard the message of the gospel there was no peace for we were under the wrath of God because were at that time enemies and God haters. There could be no peace, there was only constant war.
But now, in Christ, love and faithfulness have found their resting place. Where ever God has turned the hearts of the elect to him there will be rich expressions of love and faithfulness. Broken promises will be a thing of the past, ruined families will be no more. They will be our experience only until God redeems his chosen people for good.
Often when righteousness is thought of in our day there are the groans because we have been led to believe that righteousness brings with it no fun, no joy, no pleasure. How have we been deceived in this matter. True righteousness brings with it a profound peace of mind and heart. There is no fear of the future for we have been forgiven and rescued from the judgment to come. There is no fear of the present because we have found our contentment in Christ alone and he cannot ever be taken from us so we have no reason to fear anything in this world. The Scriptures are true that God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind.
Where there is true righteousness and peace, flowers of beauty will burst from the earth that was once barren and dry. In the very places where we have fought long and hard over sin and evil we will find places of great rest and comfort because of his transforming grace.
The text indicates that this springing forth will be like a seed long buried in the dry ground breaking forth against seemingly impossible forces and springing up to show forth its beauty in all of its God intended splendor. O there is buried deep within this land a revival that will suddenly spring forth and once again display the glories of God. It looks like an impossible event but when God turns the hearts of his people back to him once again we will see righteousness spring forth from the ground and peace will be the ruling king over this land.
So we will pray and claim these promises that one day love and faithfulness will finally meet each other for good, and that righteousness and peace will cover the land as the waters cover the seas.
Until that day Comes I will pray on, March 6, 2010
Psalms 85:7-8 (NIV)
7 Show us your unfailing love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.
8 I will listen to what God the Lord will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints-- but let them not return to folly.
Do you hear these words? Show us your unfailing love. To have a love that will not fail is not to be found on this earth, it is from another place outside of time and space. If we would get a glimpse of God we could see that he has a love for us that is unfailing. Too often we cannot see it due to all the stuff we hide behind.
Some one said one day that they had tried but they just could not see God any more. The wise sage answered back, "No wonder you have too much stuff to see through." Perhaps we cannot see Him as he is because we too have too much stuff in the way cluttering up our view.
The psalmist says that we need not only to see God's unfailing love but we need to be able to hear his voice. I have learned how hard it is to hear his voice today. I have been reading books on church growth and just finished with three of them and they all say something different. Do this and this will happen. Another book says no don't do that or this might happen.
It seems every time I go off and read something other than the Scripture I just end up filling my mind with stuff that clutters my view and my hearing. So let's see if the Psalmist can unclutter our view and unclog our ears. What is it that God wants us to see and hear?
God desires that we see his unfailing love and find his salvation. The view from Mount Calvary is far better than you could imagine. God also desires to speak his word to us. The sound of his voice is like that of the most peaceful sound you could imagine. He speaks peace to his people. God longs for his people to find peace, real lasting peace that unclogs the ears so you can hear the sounds of creation again but this time without the clutter of the noise of other gods.
And what will be the result if we see and hear Him in our lives? We will not desire to return to the things of this world that are filled with vanity and emptiness. Let us hear your voice once again O God.
Unstopping my ears and taking off my blinders once more,
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Daily Devotions by
Devotions for your daily Bible readings written by Pastor Phil Nelson.
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