Tag Archives: prayer

A Call to Spiritual Reformation

January 20, 2010 By in prayer, Sunday Morning Tags: , Leave a comment

Here is the study guide for this Sunday’s 9:30 equipping hour.

A Call to Spiritual Reformation – Study Guide #4
Chapter Three – Worthy Petitions

  1. What again are the two aspects of Paul’s framework for prayer in 2 Thessalonians 1 from chapter two?
  2. What is the first petition that Paul prays for the Thessalonian Christians? What explanation does Carson give about God’s calling in a Christian’s life and how does it tie into his prayer on their behalf?
  3. In light of this petition of Paul, what does Carson say should be our chief concern in petition and how does it relate to the framework Paul lays out earlier in the chapter? Why must we pray this way?
  4. How do you react to Carson’s question, When was the last time you prayed for such things?
  5. What is the second petition Paul prays for them? Why does Carson say this petition is so very important to pray?
  6. What is the two-part goal of Paul in these prayers? How is our glory tied up with Christ’s glory and what does this say about how we should pray for ourselves and others? How does Paul tie this idea back to his framework in 1:5-10?
  7. Again, how do you react to Carson’s question, When was the last time you prayed for such things?
  8. What reminder do we regularly need as evidenced by the ground of Paul’s prayer in conclusion?
  9. What does Carson mean by, It is vitally important to reflect on the extraordinarily wholistic thinking that is represented by this prayer (p. 61)?
  10. What one or two take aways from this chapter will shape your praying in the future?

A Call to Spiritual Reformation Study Guide

January 11, 2010 By in Sunday Morning Tags: , Leave a comment

As promised, here is this coming Sunday’s study guide.

A Call to Spiritual Reformation – Study Guide #3
Chapter Two – The Frame Work of Prayer (2 Thessalonians 1:3-12) 

  1. What key question does Carson raise concerning v. 11 of the Thessalonians passage in the first paragraph of this chapter? Why does it matter that we ask this question and understand the answer?
  2. What is the first dominant feature of this framework in vv. 3-4? To what extent would you say that this component is a feature of your praying?
  3. How do you respond to the statement, The unvarnished truth is that what we most frequently give thanks for betrays what we most highly value (p. 41)?
  4. What signs of grace does Paul give thanks for in these verses? What practical implication does Carson suggest for imitating Paul’s example on p. 44?
  5. What is the second dominant feature of Paul’s framework for praying in vv. 5-10? To what extent would you say that this component is a feature of your praying?
  6. How does Carson connect the notion of the Thessalonians’ perseverance in v. 4 with the evidence of God’s judgment in v. 5?
  7. What does the prospect of a new heaven and new earth mean for both believers and those who oppose them?
  8. To what extent do you live with a sense of expectancy about the Lord’s return?
  9. How do you react to the notion of ultimate retribution for those who oppose the gospel? How does Carson answer the objection that retribution is a throwback to the more primitive stance of the Old Testament on p. 48?
  10. Why is it important that we adopt Paul’s framework of a fundamental orientation to the end of the age?
  11. Where else in the New Testament are we exhorted to live (and pray!) with eternity’s values in view?

God is at work in our midst! Will you join me in praying for a spiritual reformation in our prayer lives as individuals and a community of believers?

How to Get a Richly Supplied Soul

January 9, 2010 By in Spiritual Life, Sunday Morning Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Proverbs contrasts the sluggard who craves and gets nothing with the diligent whose soul is richly supplied, or literally, made fat (13:4). 

No matter how much the sluggard craves something, his inherent laziness precludes him from acquiring anything. He is a victim of his own sins of sloth.

There is only one road to a richly supplied, spiritually fat soul. It’s called diligence. If you and I want a richly supplied soul by God’s grace, we must work at it. Hard.

J. C. Ryle, in his book, Holiness, said true Christianity will cost a man his love of ease.

He must take pains and trouble if he means to run a successful race toward heaven. He must daily watch and stand on his guard, like a soldier on enemy’s ground. He must take heed to his behavior every hour of the day, in every company and in every place, in public as well as in private, among strangers as well as at home. He must be careful over his time, his tongue, his temper, his thoughts, his imagination, his motives, his conduct in every relation of life. He must be diligent about his prayers, his Bible reading, and his use of Sundays, with all their means of grace. In attending to these things, he may come far short of perfection; but there is none of those who he can safely neglect. “The soul of the sluggard desires, and has nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat” (Prov. 13:4) (emphasis mine).

Two emphases tomorrow at OGC will converge towards the end of promoting richly supplied souls for those who participate. In the 9:30 hour (meeting in the sanctuary this week) we will continue our study in Carson’s book, A Call to Spiritual Reformation. We have resupplied our resource table with copies that will be available tomorrow. Few books can help us more with how to grow in diligence in our prayers for a richly supplied soul. In the worship service I will preach another New Year’s sermon, this one from Colossians 3:1-4, entitled How to Stop the Sinful Self-Indulgence of the Flesh. Paul uses a diligence verb in his command in verse one – seek the things above where Christ is. Praying is one important way we do seeking that our souls may be richly supplied.

Diet all you will in the New Year that the body may return to fitness after the indulgence of the holidays. But take pains, eschew your love of ease, be diligent, seek the things above, that your soul may be made fat, richly supplied indeed.

Get a good night’s sleep and, Lord willing, I will see you tomorrow.

Lessons from the School of Prayer

January 7, 2010 By in Spiritual Life, Sunday Morning Tags: , 4 Comments

That’s the title for chapter one in Carson’s book A Call to Spiritual Reformation, our text for the 9:30 equipping hour during the first quarter of 2010.

Apart from my bleeding mouth (so sorry about that for those who saw it – near as we can figure I bit myself in an area numbed by my cancer surgery – I had no idea it happened until Nancy pointed it out to me), we got off to a smashing start in our study on prayer.

At the end of the class on Sunday I challenged us to four action steps for the quarter:

  1. Read the book.
  2. Attend the class.
  3. Enlist a prayer partner.
  4. Pray through the church directory.

As I made my way yet another time through chapter one in preparation for this week’s study, I was struck by something when I came to the third lesson Carson lists: At various points in your life, develop, if possible, a prayer-partner relationship (p. 22). He talks about several variations on that theme including meeting with a handful of people weekly, perhaps in the early morning, for an hour or more of intercessory prayer.

God has given me just such a group in our staff, interns, and others on Mondays from 6:30-7:30 AM.

The participants change from time to time. This picture was taken on our last day with several of the guys who recently took positions elsewhere around the country. But we continue to meet and it remains a highlight of my week to join with these men in pouring out our hearts to God. We never fail to pray for Monday’s group of folks in the directory!

My hope for what we do in those prayer meetings is well summed up by Dr. Carson on p. 25:

Such clusters of prayer partners have been used by God again and again to spearhead powerful ministry and extravagant blessing. They may continue unnoticed for years, except in the courts of heaven. Some little groups grow and become large prayer meetings; others multiply and divide, maintaining the same principles. But whatever the precise pattern, there is a great deal to be said for developing godly prayer-partnership relationships.

How about you? With whom do you have a prayer-partner relationship? I for one am so grateful for the men God has given me on Monday mornings!

A Call to Spiritual Reformation

January 2, 2010 By in prayer, Sunday Morning Tags: , 6 Comments

It’s Saturday evening. I have just finished my final preparations for tomorrow’s first session of our 9:30 hour 2010 equipping class on prayer.

I’m wondering how much anyone else in our fellowship thinks with me how terribly important this effort is to the vitality and viability of our church in 2010? Oh how I pray many do.

After all, we say intercessory prayer is one of our core values, one of our ten priorities. Here is how we unpack it in our new member’s class:

We value Christ-connected prayer over the ministry. Apart from the power of Jesus Christ working in and through us we can accomplish nothing of lasting spiritual value that magnifies God’s glorious grace (John 15:5). Therefore we will relentlessly saturate every dimension of our ministry with prayer, petition, supplication, and intercession, along with thanksgiving, in order that we might continually abide in Christ, the true vine, and thus bear much fruit (John 15:7-8).

Looks good on paper or in a blog, but oh how much I/we struggle to make it a reality.

Hence the reason for our church-wide emphasis beginning tomorrow morning in the SDA fellowship hall. We want to grow in our experience of vital, intercessory prayer!

D. A. Carson writes in his introduction to the book we will use toward this end:

Just as God’s Word must reform our theology, our ethics, and our practices, so also must it reform our praying. The purpose of this book, then is to think through some of Paul’s prayers, so that we may align our prayer habits with his. We want to learn what to pray for, what arguments to use, what priorities we should adopt, what beliefs should shape our prayers, and much more (pp. 17-18).

Church, my praying needs reforming. What about yours?

A New Year’s Prayer

January 1, 2010 By in prayer Tags: , 3 Comments

Embarking today on another year of reading through the entire Bible today took me as always to Matthew 1:1-16, the genealogy of Jesus. Last year I wrote a prayer in light of some of the personages listed in the lengthy text. I revisited it again this year and offer it as a catalyst for prayer as others enter 2010. 

Heavenly Father, 

Give me the tenacious faith of Abraham.
Keep me from the fear of man and deception of Isaac.
Grant me a pursuit of your blessing so strenuous that puts my hip out of place with Jacob.
Deliver me from the lust of Judah.
Keep me from the malice, jealousy, resentment, and cruelty of Judah’s brothers.
Give me the perspective of Joseph to calculate your sovereignty.
Make me generous with the kindness of Boaz.
Make me loyal to commitments with the perseverance of Ruth.
Give me courage to take sanctified risks like Rahab.
Make me the father of godly descendants like Jesse.
Make me a worshipper after your own heart like David.
Help me to understand grace like You must have done for the wife of Uriah.
Give me wisdom like that of Solomon to lead your great people.
Keep me from the kind of bad counsel to which Rehoboam listened.
Make me a leader like Jehoshaphat with the courage and insight to send in the choir first.
Bless me with prophetic counselors like Isaiah even as you did Uzziah.
Keep me from the pride of Hezekiah in my advancing years.
Keep me from the wickedness of Manasseh but give me his repentant humility when I fall.
Fill me with the zeal of Josiah to work for the reform of your church.
Cause me to work hard with the energy of Zerubbabel in everything I do.
Make me a blend of righteousness and mercy and selflessness like Joseph.
Give me the submissive spirit of Mary.
Grant me the humility of Jesus. 

In Jesus’ name and for His glory, amen.

A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Your Study Guide for 01/03/10

December 23, 2009 By in Books, Sunday Morning Tags: , Leave a comment

CarsonAnyone who has hung around our Oxford Club for Men group knows I believe in study guides big time for working our way through books in a way that facilitates critical thinking.

For our equipping hour emphasis in the New Year I plan to do this for D. A. Carson’s book which we will focus on in a church-wide effort to transfrom our knowledge of God in prayer.

Here is the guide for the preface and introduction. I am now working on my second read of this great tool. I trust you will get into it soon and use these questions as an aid to your learning and transformation process.

  1. What are some of the reasons for which you find it difficult to pray?
  2. How do you react to the author’s allegation regarding “the sheer prayerlessness that characterizes so much of the Western church?” What are some passages of Scripture that you can think of or find that paint a picture of prayerfulness among God’s people? List two or three insights you gain from these passages.
  3. What is Carson’s aim in this book (pp. 9-10)? How do you react to his purpose and approach?
  4. What do you believe is the most urgent need in the church of the Western world today? What things does Carson hypothesize for answers and what thoughts and feelings does your reading generate?
  5. Where does Carson finally land on the question of most urgent need in the church and why?
  6. How does prayer fit into addressing this need according to the author?
  7. How do you react to the quote by R. M. M’Cheyene, “What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more” and/or the quote by J. I. Packer, “I believe that prayer is the measure of the man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face”?
  8. How would you evaluate the “delight quotient” of your own praying and why?
  9. What are you prepared to do in light of this introduction and your understanding of Carson’s aim in writing this book (see pp. 17-18)?

Many Ways to Destroy a Church

December 20, 2009 By in Books, Personal Reflection Tags: , , 2 Comments

Carson crossMore than once recently I have come across this quote from D.A. Carson (in his book The Cross and Christian Ministry).

At first I wasn’t inclined to post it. But something happened to me during the silent communion time this morning that changed that.

During the fourth movement of the communion we prayed through the flock. My pastoral role means I know more about everybody on the list than almost anyone else in the church. While I pray through parts of the flock every day, I don’t often pray through it in its entirety. As I worked my way quickly through the list it dawned on me how many issues I prayed for related to peacemaking in troubled relationships of all kinds. No surprise that Dr. Carson includes such things in his list of ways to destroy a church.

The ways of destroying the church are many and colorful. Raw factionalism will do it. Rank heresy will do it. Taking your eyes off the cross and letting other, more peripheral matters dominate the agenda will do it-admittedly more slowly than frank heresy, but just as effectively over the long haul. Building the church with superficial ‘conversions’ and wonderful programs that rarely bring people into a deepening knowledge of the living God will do it. Entertaining people to death but never fostering the beauty of holiness or the centrality of self-crucifying love will build an assembling of religious people, but it will destroy the church of the living God. Gossip, prayerlessness, bitterness, sustained biblical illiteracy, self-promotion, materialism-all of these things, and many more, can destroy a church. And to do so is dangerous: ‘If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple (1 Cor. 3:17).” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

During this holiday season, when relationships can be strained by expectations and disappointments galore, may we be a peacemaking people in our homes and in our church that the enemy not have his way in destroying either.

Another Way to Stimulate Our Prayer Lives

December 18, 2009 By in prayer Tags: , , Leave a comment

Someone shared a website with me where you can submit your email to receive daily prayers that utilize the Bible in the first person. The purpose of the site, edited by Ligon Duncan and others, is to encourage, promote and assist biblical prayer.

For example, I received this copy today:

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you or in comparison with you. When my flesh and my heart fail, Lord, be the strength of my heart and my portion forever, Psalm 73:25-26(ESV) the chosen portion of my inheritance in the other world and of my cup in this; and then I will say that the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, and that I have a beautiful inheritance. Psalm 16:5-6(ESV)
Your name and remembrance are the desire of my soul; my soul yearns for you in the night, and my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. Isaiah 26:8-9(ESV)
As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God; my soul thirsts for God, for the living God, Psalm 42:1-2(ESV) who commands his steadfast love by day, and at night his song is with me; a prayer to the God of my life. Psalm 42:8(ESV)
O that I may come hungering and thirsting after righteousness, Matthew 5:6(ESV) for you fill the hungry with good things, but the rich you send away empty. Luke 1:53(ESV)
O that my soul may thirst for you, and my flesh faint for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water; that I may see your power and glory, as I have looked upon you in the sanctuary. Your steadfast love is better than life; Psalm 63:1-3(ESV) my soul will be satisfied with that as with fat and rich food, and then my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. Psalm 63:5(ESV)

The site is called Matthew Henry’s Method of Prayer. Click on here and sign up for your daily email and begin personally praying the Scriptures back to God. You will find these prayers a great encouragement to your abiding in Christ!

More Fuel on the Carson Prayer Book Fire

December 15, 2009 By in Books, prayer, Sunday Morning Tags: , , Leave a comment

Carson

I really do hope that as many of our adults as possible take advantage of our church-wide  9:30 hour equipping emphasis on prayer starting January 3, 2010.

To throw more fuel on the fire of your motivation I offer an online review by Chris Bruce. Here is how he begins:

Take yourself back almost 2000 years and imagine that you are Luke, Barnabas, or another of Paul’s companions. Imagine spending days and nights in lent homes or on the road, sharing Paul’s concern for the churches, and his joy in hearing of new life and growth among his spiritual children. Now imagine again that you were there when Paul took all of these things to God in prayer. How much would you know about how Paul prayed, and how would that knowledge affect your prayer life?

You might know more than Don Carson, Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and you might even be able to communicate it more effectively. But that would be some feat. Carson’s A Call to Spiritual Reformation,a study of Paul’s prayers, is a book worthy of reading and re-reading on an annual basis. Carson’s goal is “to work through several of Paul’s prayers in such a way that we hear God speak to us today, and to find strength and direction to improve our praying, both for God’s glory and for our good.” The need is dire, he says, noting “the sheer prayerlessness that characterizes so much of the Western church.”

You can read the entire article here.

Copies of Dr. Carson’s book are available at our resource table on Sundays for $13 or whatever you can afford. Pick up your copy soon and begin reading.

What a way to start the new year! Let us set our sights high for spiritual reformation in our personal lives and in the life our church.