Not Your Average Pastor’s Prayer

January 16, 2014 By revheff in Personal Reflection Tags: confession, ministry, pastors, prayer Leave a comment

Hand it to the Puritans.

They knew how to go for the spiritual jugular.

Introspective overstatement or not, I resonate with this so-very-different prayer of pastors on so many levels. It is a fitting prayer, in my estimation, for anyone ordained to gospel ministry. If Jesus did not pitch a tent of grace in my weakness, I would have closed down my version of pastoral ministry and became a Walmart greeter long ago.

O God,
I know that I often do thy work
without thy power,
and sin by my dead, heartless, blind service,
my lack of inward light, love, delight,
my mind, heart, tongue moving
without thy help.
I see sin in my heart in seeking the approbation
of others;
this is my vileness, to make men’s opinion
my rule, whereas
I should see what good I have done,
and give thee glory,
consider what sin I have committed
and mourn for that.
It is my deceit to preach, and pray,
and to stir up others’ spiritual affections
in order to beget commendations,
whereas my rule should be daily
to consider myself more vile than any man
in my own eyes.

But thou does show thy power by my frailty,
so that the more feeble I am,
the more fit to be used,
for thou dost pitch a tent of grace
in my weakness.

Help me to rejoice in my infirmities
and give thee praise,
to acknowledge my deficiencies before others
and not be discouraged by them,
that they may see thy glory more clearly.
Teach me that I must act by a power supernatural,
whereby I can attempt things above my strength,
and bear evils beyond my strength,
acting for Christ in all,
and have his superior power to help me.
Let me learn of Paul
whose presence was mean,
his weakness great,
his utterance contemptible,
yet thou didst account him faithful and blessed.
Lord, let me lean on thee as he did,
and find my ministry thine.

For more prayers of substance like this, consult The Valley of Vision: a Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions.

Praying Without Ceasing

January 12, 2014 By revheff in prayer Tags: intercession, prayer, spiritual disciplines 2 Comments

This morning’s message, “The Jewelry of Grace,” from 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Following the service, someone approached me about the sermon. She called the yearly emphasis on prayer “inspiring” and “overwhelming.” I appreciated the honesty and vulnerability. Then she asked me if I could recommend any practical resources by way of follow up that might help with making prayer as a spiritual discipline more real in her life. I did and actually lent her the book from my library.

That got me thinking today about the best books on prayer I have read and their value to me. I don’t mean to imply that other resources don’t exist that perhaps equal or even outstrip these in value. But these have meant a lot to me.

Paul Miller’s A Praying Life. The final section where he gets down to the nitty gritty about making prayer practical has numerous helpful suggestions. It was this book I spoke of above.

E. M. Bounds’ Power Through Prayer. For an inspirational resource on prayer, this can hardly be beat.

D. A. Carson’s A Call to Spiritual Reformati0n. Carson examines the prayers of the Apostle Paul as a template for praying specific, biblical prayers as a follower of Jesus.

Dick Eastman’s The Hour That Changes the World. The author explains how to spend an hour alone with God without it feeling like the time will never pass.

Andrew Murray’s With Christ in the School of Prayer. A classic. Enough said.

John Piper’s A Hunger for God. This is the best treatment on prayer and fasting I have ever read.

R. J. Short’s, The Diary of George Muller. For a biography of a praying man, this will convict and inspire.

Jason Mandryk’s Operation World. No Christian with a global heart for God and missions should be without this definitive prayer guide for the nations.

I certainly have read my share of books on prayer. Now if I will only learn actually to pray more.

January 12, 2014 at OGC

January 11, 2014 By revheff in Sunday Morning Tags: church, education, grace, membership, prayer, worship Leave a comment

Big day tomorrow!

Note: it’s a name tag Sunday. Grab one on your way in and help make community easier for all.

8:30 AM – Prayer time in the conference room. Always up for newcomers to help us with intercession.

9:30 AM – Equipping Hour for all ages. Adult discipleship classes include Reformed Theology, New Testament, and Biblical Finances.

10:45 AM – Worship Service. I’m preaching on 1 Thess. 5:16-18, a message called “The Jewelry of Grace.” I plan to focus on v. 17 and what it means to pray without ceasing. Here’s how Charles Spurge0n tied joy, prayer, and giving thanks together:

When joy and prayer are married their first born child is gratitude. When we joy in God for what we have, and believingly pray to him for more, then our souls thank him both in the enjoyment of what we have, and in the prospect of what is yet to come. Those three texts are three companion pictures, representing the life of a true Christian, the central sketch is the connecting link between those on either side. These three precepts are an ornament of grace to every believer’s neck, wear them every one of you, for glory and for beauty; “Rejoice evermore;” “Pray without ceasing;” “in everything give thanks.”

At the end of the service we will receive twelve new members into the body. Be sure to greet them in the receiving line after the service and join us for a reception in the fellowship hall.

6:00 PM – Concert of Prayer in the conference room. We will resume our monthly times of intercession. Special emphasis on Japan given the Homestay ministry coming up next month.

Looking forward to a great Lord’s Day with God’s people!

Another Prayer for New Year’s Eve 2013

December 31, 2013 By revheff in prayer, Uncategorized Tags: Future, giving thanks, New Year, prayer, promises, will of God Leave a comment

Scotty Smith has already posted his. Not sure anyone does this kind of prayer writing better than he does. His example prompted me to offer my own version.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-16

Lord who wills all things great and small, this particular “mist” reflects at the end of another year mindful that You have graciously granted him once again length of days free from cancer or any other potentially life-ending threat. My times remain in your hands and You have seen fit in Your mercy to extend them a bit longer for Your purposes. I continue to praise You that I am immortal until Jesus has finished with me. And that You will perfect that which You started some forty-one years ago until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6), for this too I am so thankful. For all the ways I have acknowledged Your sanctifying influences this past year, as well as the many I have missed, it means everything to me that You relentlessly work all things together for my good that I might be further conformed to the image of Your beloved Son, (Rom. 8:28), my older Brother, who is not ashamed to be so called (Heb. 2:11).

I praise you, Father, for keeping me from the evil one and causing me in 2013 to continue to stand in the glorious gospel which I received and by which I am being saved (1 Cor. 15:1-2). While I have not always greeted the hard providences of 2013 or any year before it with a rejoice always, pray unceasingly, in everything give thanks disposition (1 Thess. 5:16-18), I revel in a gospel that wholly makes up for those shortcomings and every other crime I commit against Your goodness.

In a year when I felt the temptation to abandon my charge more than I can ever remember, You graciously steadied me with Col. 4:17 and Douthat’s Bad Religion. Where would I be without Your Word and good books that come to my rescue in just the nick of time? That you have gifted me as well with a wife I can’t shake, a staff I don’t deserve, a church by all human accounts I shouldn’t have, and a calling to which I never ultimately measure up, these gifts take my breath away and make me want, by your grace, in 2014 to be a better husband, better co-worker, better pastor, and most of all a better follower in practice of the way, truth, and life (John 14:6).

For what I do anticipate awaits me in 2014 in the way of ministry, travel, family, continuing education, and every other detail of life, I ask You to keep me from presumption by reminding me to qualify all expectations with a thoughtful and careful “if the Lord wills.” I do not know what tomorrow will bring or any other day of the new year. However, I resolve with Your help to leave what lies behind and advance forward to what lies ahead in the upward call in Christ Jesus banking on these, among other, exceedingly great and precious promises (2 Pet. 1:4):

You are for me and not against me (Rom. 8:31).
No weapon fashioned against me will succeed (Isa. 54:17).
You dwell in the heavens and do whatever pleases You (Psalm 115:3).
You will direct my paths (Prov. 3:5-6).
You will hear and answer my prayers (Psalm 116:1-2).
Your power will work mightily within me (Eph. 3:20).
I will not be subject to a spirit of fear but governed by a spirit of power, love, and self-control (2 Tim. 1:7).
You give grace to the humble and exalt at the proper time (1 Peter 5:5-7).
Nothing, absolutely nothing can or will separate me from Your love (Rom. 8:31-39).

Finally, One who was and is and always shall be, whatever time I may have left in these headed-for-the-finish line days of mine, whether one year or ten or more or less, as You will, may I be able to say with the apostle when all is said and done “I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith, I have finished the race” (2 Tim. 4:7).

Amen.

A New Year’s Call

December 29, 2013 By revheff in Spiritual Life Tags: prayer, resolutions, solitude, spiritual disciplines, spiritual life Leave a comment

What summons beckon you in 2014? If you are like most folks, lots of things run through your mind.

Of all the options you weigh, consider this from Scottish churchman and hymn writer, Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), among, if not the most important of them:

Be much alone with God. Do not put Him off with a quarter of an hour morning and evening. Take time to get thoroughly acquainted. Converse over everything with Him. Unbosom yourself wholly,—every thought, feeling, wish, plan, doubt,—to Him. He wants converse with His creatures; shall His creatures not want converse with Him? He wants, not merely to be on “good terms” with you, if one may use man’s phrase, but to be intimate; shall you decline the intimacy, and be satisfied with mere acquaintance? What! Intimate with the world, with friends, with neighbors, with politicians, with philosophers, with naturalists, or with poets; but not with God? That would look ill indeed. Folly, to prefer the clay to the potter, the marble to the sculptor, this little earth and its lesser creatures to the mighty Maker of the universe, the great “All and in all!”

Might you resolve to spend more time alone with God this coming year than in any previous one of your life? If so, you will never regret it.

WEAPONS FOR WAGING WAR AT A HOUSE OF DEATH

December 21, 2013 By revheff in Mission Tags: abortion, life, mission, praise, prayer, preaching, spiritual warfare Leave a comment

Believers on mission for Jesus in the places where they live, work, and play wield weapons of warfare that “are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4). In the town where I live, right up the street from my church, exists one of the more formidable castles of destruction upon which we at OGC and other churches have declared spiritual war. I mean, of course, the All Women’s Health Center, an abortuary where babies perish regularly in the name of the right to choose.

This morning a platoon of us gathered on the sidewalk to engage the battle for life yet another time. We employed three mighty weapons for the fray. First, we took up the weapon of praise. We sang Christmas carols within earshot of the waiting room where women prepare for their abortions. They heard carols like “Angels We Have Heard on High,” “Away in a Manger,” ” O Come, All Ye Faithful,” and other tunes as well. You could feel the Spirit of God come with power.

Second, I took up the weapon of preaching. Originally I was asked only to pray. This I was only too happy to do. But then this morning the invitation came to bring the Word of God. I didn’t hesitate. I spoke from John 1:12. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, glory of the only begotten full of grace and truth.” Once again, I sensed the Spirit come with power as I exhorted the faithful to carry on the campaign for life until the abortion mills in our city close and that the saving of babies would occur through the sidewalk interventions day in and day out.

Third, and finally, we picked up the weapon of prayer. We pleaded with the Lord of life to save children from destruction. We begged Him to bring down the fortress of death upon which we had descended. We asked Jesus to convict the doctors and nurses within its walls. And we asked for fathers and mothers to choose life over death for their children in the womb.

One never knows just how any of these firefights will go. On this day, the Lord scored a major victory for life. During the battle with its praise, preaching, and prayer, one couple hearkened to the counselors invitation to come over to the sidewalk and talk. They listened to the passionate and informed pleas of the trained advocates for life. AND THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS! They turned back. They chose not to abort their baby and left the premises. And we rejoiced at the goodness of God to hear our prayers and grant such a merciful encouragement in response to our feeble efforts to subdue evil.

The One who abhorred not the womb nor the cross, King Jesus, showed up in the fight for life today and granted us a victory. May He be inclined to do so all the more as we carry on the struggle into 2014 and beyond, as long as it takes.

A Holiday Reflection

November 28, 2013 By revheff in Church Year Tags: holidays, Joy, prayer, thanksgiving, worship Leave a comment

I woke up early this morning with First Thessalonians 5:16-18 on my mind. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” I got up and did some digging in the text. Here are some thoughts that may help shape this holiday in a Godward fashion. Bottom line? Simple. Be joyful, be prayerful, and be thankful.

These staccato exhortations by the apostle come embedded in a series of final instructions to the church at Thessalonica. Everything therein focuses on obligations for the church in community as a whole. Even the three verbs in v. 16-18 all have second person plural “we” subjects. So while I don’t think it wrong to apply commands (imperatives all) like rejoice, pray, and give thanks to the individual, personal life of the believer, Paul stresses in the text the necessity of the church gathered putting on these gospel graces. He’s adamant about this. It is the will of God for those of us who are connected to Christ Jesus by grace through faith. Corporate worship should consistently look like a joyful, prayerful, thankful affair. Do I hear an “Amen!” from the Hebrew poet (Psalm 95:1-2)? Absolutely.

The emphasis Paul puts on the need for consistency in these practices stands out big time in the Greek text. The present tense of the verbs conveys continuous, keep-on-doing-these-things, kind of action. As if that were not enough, Paul uses adverbs like “always” and “unceasingly” and the prepositional phrase “in all things.” And he places all three modifiers before each verb to punctuate the emphasis. ALWAYS rejoice, WITHOUT CEASING pray, IN EVERYTHING give thanks. He virtually dares us to miss the point. A gospel-shaped people gathered to worship King Jesus for who He is and all He has done should relentlessly manifest a joyful, prayerful, and thankful DNA from start to finish.

What embracing each of these graces looks like will have to wait for later posts. But one final consideration. The three intersect and overlap. Charles Spurgeon said it well:

When joy and prayer are married their first born child is gratitude. When we joy in God for what we have, and believingly pray to him for more, then our souls thank him both in the enjoyment of what we have, and in the prospect of what is yet to come. Those three texts are three companion pictures, representing the life of a true Christian, the central sketch is the connecting link between those on either side. These three precepts are an ornament of grace to every believer’s neck, wear them every one of you, for glory and for beauty; “Rejoice evermore;” “Pray without ceasing;” “in everything give thanks.”

When you get dressed today for your Thanksgiving celebration with whomever and wherever, make sure you put on your ornaments of grace. Wear them for glory and for beauty. And please don’t forget to do the same when Sunday rolls around and you head off to church for your Lord’s Day worship.

Why Pray for the Persecuted Church?

November 9, 2013 By revheff in prayer Tags: martyrdom, Missions, persecution, prayer Leave a comment

Tomorrow brings us to another International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. We will devote exclusively our monthly concert of prayer on the evening of the 10^th at 6 PM in F5 to interceding for our brothers and sisters in chains. Why does it matter that we do this? Here are several reasons.

Jesus suffered much at the hand of a host of persecutors. He identifies completely with their weakness (Heb. 4:15). So should we.
Multitudes of believers worldwide, some 200 million, pay a great price for their faith, even martyrdom. The sheer extent of the need cries for our attention. More Christians were martyred in the 20^th century than in all previous centuries combined (International Journal of Missionary Research).
Scriptures command us to remember their plight as if incarcerated with them (Heb. 13:3). How better to remember than in prayer?
The most frequent prayer request by the persecuted is that other believers would pray for and with them. Can we possibly refuse?
When one member of the body suffers, all suffer (1 Cor. 12:26). Sixty to ninety minutes of prayer is a small price to pay to identify with the suffering of dear saints around the globe.
Praying for one another imitates the model of Jesus who prayed for Peter in advance for his strength in the face of persecution sure to come (Luke 22:32). What would Jesus do?
God answers prayers for the persecuted in miraculous ways.

One reason why I read Voice of the Martyrs’ monthly newsletter is that it includes countless reports of how God miraculously encourages saints under duress as a direct result of the prayers of God’s people on the other side of the world. Join us on Sunday evening.

Part of me wants to say this: if you don’t come to any other of the eleven concerts of prayer OGC hosts, come to this one. Remember the persecuted. In the sovereignty of God you and I could just as easily find ourselves today holed away in a North Korean prison camp for our faith as opposed to luxuriating ourselves in the affluent West. Enough said.

For a look at the World Watch list top 50 restricted nations for 2013 click here.

Whatever Happened to Prayer Meeting?

September 4, 2013 By revheff in prayer Tags: church, corporate prayer, individualism, meetings, motivation, prayer 2 Comments

Today at lunch I met for the first time with my new men’s ministry partner for this quarter. Right out of the chute my brother asked me, “What makes you feel alive?” And off we went!

We agreed to get together again. So much to learn about a fellow member of the body of Christ. I planted a seed with a question for our next lunch. “What puzzles you?”

I admit much puzzles me, particularly in the pastoral ministry. Among the things that baffle me most is the difficulty believers have, including me, with prayer. We often think of that only in terms of individual prayer. This truly is a dilemma. But equally puzzling to me is the challenge to motivate God’s church to participate in corporate prayer. No meeting of the church presents bigger issues in terms of ownership by its people than the corporate prayer meeting.

This is indeed puzzling when you consider, among other things, the testimony of the New Testament church. For example, we have Acts 1:14 – All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. And then in response to persecution, the church gathered for prayer with Acts 4:31 noting this outcome: And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. Acts 13:1-3 tell us that the first missionaries, Barnabas and Saul, got commissioned and sent out from Antioch during a time of corporate prayer and fasting.

Ben Patterson wrestled with this puzzle in an article I discovered recently. He places the blame for the woeful lack of corporate prayer in the local church in a couple of strategic places including this one:

American individualism has taken its toll. If churches fancy themselves self-sufficient, it’s because their members share the same conceit. We like our lives to be self-contained. For many, the prayer meeting is unnecessary as long as individuals are praying in their own homes on their own time. What is missed is that most of what the Bible says about prayer is addressed to groups, people meeting together, to pray. The Bible’s great book of prayer, Psalms, was written largely for use in the congregation of Israel.

You can read the rest of the article, including other reasons for the malaise of the missing prayer meeting here.

I fear we have become far too conformed to the world in our individualism when we consider how many of us take corporate prayer so lightly. It seems we treat it as an optional accessory to our lives rather then the vital necessity it truly is.

I don’t write this post out of a desire to motivate from guilt. That won’t cut it. I appeal to all of us at OGC, especially with another monthly concert of prayer coming up this Sunday night at 6 PM at the church in the conference room, to take our cue from Jesus in John 17. There, before He did His saving work of atonement on the cross, He poured out His heart in prayer that was corporate. He prayed with His disciples on so many fronts before His passion. Let us be imitators of Jesus, loving one another well by praying with one another.

Hope to have to move the meeting Sunday night from the conference room to a bigger venue.

Fasting – an Expedient Appointment

March 28, 2013 By revheff in Spiritual Life Tags: fasting, prayer, self-denial 3 Comments

That’s what John Calvin called voluntary absence from food for spiritual purposes. “Whenever men are to pray to God concerning any great matter, it would be expedient to appoint fasting along with prayer.”

He had good reason to advocate this given the godly examples we have in the Scriptures.

When Moses went up to Mt. Sinai to receive the law of God on tablets of stone, he went without bread and water in a supernatural fast for forty days and nights (Deut. 9:9).

When Nehemiah got word about the disastrous condition of Jerusalem’s walls and gates, he fasted and prayed for days about the situation (Neh. 1:4).

When Daniel perceived the seventy years that needed to pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, he sought the Lord with pleas for mercy with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes (Dan. 9:3).

Lest we think examples lie only in the Old Testament, the New Testament reveals that even Jesus practiced fasting for forty days when He went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matt. 4:2).

The apostolic church followed suit by committing important decisions like sending out missionaries (Acts 13:2-3) and setting apart elders (Acts 14:23) for their work of ministry through prayer accompanied by fasting.

In the spirit of these examples, our elders have called our congregation to a 24 hour period of fasting and prayer for a special purpose. As many of our people know, our sister Chantel has fought for years now a battle with sleeplessness. We want to believe God for a breakthrough in 2013 restoring to Chantel normal and restorative sleep. The tenacity of this affliction and its wear and tear on our sister and her husband warrant our joining together in a concerted effort of fasting and prayer beginning at sundown tonight and ending with Communion tomorrow in our Good Friday service at 6 PM.

Again I would remind you, if physical limitations prohibit you from fasting from food, consider some other form of gospel-motivated self-denial in its place.

Regardless of your form of this expedient appointment to go with your praying, please remember these insightful words of Edith Schaeffer about fasting:

Is fasting ever a bribe to get God to pay more attention to the petitions ? No, a thousand times no. It is simply a way to make clear that we sufficiently reverence the amazing opportunity to ask help from the everlasting God, the Creator of the universe, to choose to put everything else aside and concentrate on worshiping, asking forgiveness, and making our requests known-considering His help more important than anything we could do ourselves in our own strength and with our own ideas.

May God hear our pleas and grant deliverance to our sister for His glory and our joy.