Have you checked out the blog Of First Importance? I got it off J & A G’s blog. It includes a thought for the day to remember that which is most important, the gospel. Take a look.

Class is back in session.

The first five principles from Dr. Carson:

Much praying is not done because we don’t plan to pray.
Adopt practical ways to impede mental drift.
At various periods in your life, develop, if possible, a prayer-partner relationship.
Choose models, but choose them well.
Develop a system for your prayer lists.

Number six may be the most important in the list.

Mingle praise, confession, and intercession; but when you intercede, try to tie as many requests as possible to Scripture.

It’s that last phrase that impresses me as potentially vaulting this principle to the top of the list.

He writes:

Prayer is his ordained means of conveying his blessings to his people. That means we must pray according to his will, in line with his values, in conformity with his own character and purposes, claiming his own promises. Practically speaking, how do we do that?

Where shall we learn the will of God, the values of God, the character and purposes of God, the promises of God? We shall learn such things in the Scriptures he has graciously given us. But that means that when we pray, when we ask God for things, we must try to tie as many requests as possible to Scripture. That is an immensely practical step.

Ever since my planning week in Idaho back in May, the Lord has helped me pray through the flock every week, a certain portion each day. One of my requests for our people always involves praying back to God a verse or two from His word.

An immensely practical step indeed.

Those are the exact words of my oncologist today. I went in for my six-month check up. No sign of cancer. Thanks be to God. Blood work looks great. Neck and mouth clean as a whistle.

You have to understand that my dear doctor tends to the over cautious side. For him to say that my continuing to come in seems perfunctory, well, that’s a big deal. He still wants to see me in six months, but the end of ENT, radiation oncologist, and medical oncologist appointments seems imminent.

Next month I will observe the four year anniversary of the end of my treatment for head and neck cancer. Expect more posts as August arrives. For now, I’m basking in the word perfunctory. God is pleased to give me length of days. Praise Him for His glorious grace.

Brett and Nicole finished up CCC staff trianing. They posted a bunch of pictures and a terrific video summary of their time. It’s short and it’s cool. Check it out here. I don’t know about that thing Brett was eating. Doesn’t look at all healthy to me. What was he thinking?

If you are, Justin Taylor has a slew of videos with clips of him in his own voice on a variety of topics. You can check it out here.

So far D. A. Carson has given us four practical helps about prayer in his book A Call to Spiritual Reformation.

Much praying is not done because we don’t plan to pray.
Adopt practical ways to impede mental drift.
At various periods in your life, develop, if possible, a prayer-partner relationship.
Choose models, but choose them well.

Here is the fifth:

Develop a system for your prayer lists.

Three cheers for Dr. Carson. He makes a big deal out of one must for everyone’s prayer list – Operation World. He commends this resource for the way it over the course of a year takes you around the world to country after country and region after region, and provides you with succinct, intelligent information to assist you in your prayers. Its value lies in its ability to enlarge your horizons, to expand your interest in the world church and the world’s needs.

Amen.

This from William Gurnall for July 29:

A spectator sometimes sees more than the actor himself. And a man with an open-hearted friend who dares speak honestly has a wonderful source of encouragement for the power of holiness. Sometimes self-love binds us so we cannot see a single fault; and at other times, self-condemnation makes us appear worse than we really are. Therefore, keep your heart soft and ready to receive a reproof with real meekness.

Easier said than done. He who hates reproof is stupid (Prov. 12:1). Sometimes I don’t feel very smart. Lord, have mercy. Make me soft and ready.

It’s time for lesson four. Let’s review first.

1. Much praying is not done because we don’t plan to pray.
2. Adopt practical ways to impede mental drift.
3. At various periods in your life, develop, if possible, a prayer-partner relationship.

   And now:

4. Choose models, but choose them well.

D. A. Carson pays moving tribute to his parents in this regard, especially his father, a Baptist minister of a small church in Canada. Would that my sons would remember me for my model in prayer.

Never. We’ve always been covenantal in our theology. We probably have some folks in our church who subscribe to dispensationalism, but we adhere to a covenant grid in our teaching.

My point on Sunday in referencing a conversation I had before the service with a new person who assumed we were dispensational (whom I gently corrected) was that we subscribe to an historic confession, the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), that clearly communicates where we stand on such issues.

Chapter seven of that document is God’s Covenant. Paragraph three states this:

God’s covenant is revealed in the gospel; in the first place to Adam in the promise of salvation by ‘the seed of the woman’, and afterwards, step by step, until the full revelation of salvation was completed in the New Testament. The salvation of the elect is based upon a covenant of redemption that was transacted in eternity between the Father and the Son; and it is solely through the grace conveyed by this covenant that all the descendants of fallen Adam who have been saved have obtained life and a blessed immortality; for the terms of blessing which applied to Adam in his state of innocency have no application to his posterity to render them acceptable to God.

Discussions related to dispensational vs. covenant theology often spill over into matters of eschatology. We have people who fall into all the main camps citing various biblical proofs. Our confession in its statement on the doctrine of last things gives a wide berth to all those views, sticking with the main issues all orthodox Christians agree upon and goes no further. I, for one, like that about the 1689. I also am covenantal in my theology and so is OGC.

Sorry for the confusion. Times like this I think about applying at Walmart for a greeter position. JK.

Our own Olivia Allmand leaves for Rwanda on Saturday with a group from another church.

Here are her prayer requests.

Unity with the team (this has been an issue, being a multi-generational, multi-economic class, & multi-place in life team)
Health & safety
The 75 orphans awaiting the camp; that healing and restoration may begin/continue

Let’s stand with her in prayer as she steps out for the sake of the Name.