Our prayer assumptions

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“…they suppose they will be heard for their many words” (Matthew 6:7).

We all suppose we will be heard for one reason or other, otherwise we’d stop praying.

What assumptions are you making? Here are a few erroneous positions we sometimes take.

WE EXPECT TO BE HEARD FOR OUR MANY WORDS.

I’ve actually seen books devoted to teaching us how to pray several hours a day. As if the Lord needs this and we gain some kind of medals by piling up the hours. Our Catholic friends are known to pray the Rosary hundreds of times in order to do something–convince God of our sincerity or earn His  favor, or something.

That said, I confess that often in the mornings when I am trying to get my mind awake and focused on the Lord in order to do some serious praying, I will repeat the Lord’s Prayer several times. This is not in order to build up anything with the Lord, but to break through my foggy brain.

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Shame and shamelessness.

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“I am not ashamed” (II Timothy 1:12).

No one enjoys being embarrassed. We do a hundred things to avoid it–take a daily bath, use deodorant, no longer wear some of the things in our closet, take care of the words we speak, admonish our children, and cut our lawns.

Shame is embarrassment on steroids. If embarrassment means to blush, shame means dying a thousand deaths while continuing to breathe.

To be ashamed is to be humiliated in front of people from whom you wanted acceptance or admiration or appreciation. You are devastated at the way people now see you; you wish to crawl into a hole.

Shame is a big issue with the Apostle Paul. Writing from his prison cell in Rome, in his final letter (or, at least, the last one we have of his epistles), he had this to say on the subject:

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Behold, the rabble!

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“And the rabble who were among them had greedy desires….” (Numbers 11:4)

When Israel left Egypt under Moses, the people of God were not alone. Accompanying them was a group of malcontents and hangers-on who apparently stayed with them all the way through the wilderness wanderings on into Canaan.

The Bible calls them “rabble.” They were along for the ride, glad for an excuse to break out of Egypt.

They were a persistent sore on the body of God’s people.

Their presence explains a lot of things.

Who were they?  Exodus 12:37-38 reads: “Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, aside from children, and a mixed multitude also went up with them, along with flocks and herds, a very large number of livestock.”

That’s all it says: “a mixed multitude.”

Not all were sons and daughters of Abraham or descendants of Jacob. We may assume they were a hodge-podge of humanity, people who for reasons of friendship or self-advancement or marriage had attached themselves to the Hebrews.

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Three irreducibles of the Christian faith

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“God is faithful” (I Corinthians 10:13).

1) If you do not like change, you do not want to start following Jesus.

Jesus Christ has great plans for your life, and if you hand “you” over to Him–and continue doing so every day of your life for the rest of your earthly journey–you will find that involves change, change, and more change.  We may call it growth or something spiritual like “sanctification,” but it’s all about change.

He loves you the way you are, but loves you enough not to leave you that way.

Here is how the Apostle Paul put it: “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (II Corinthians 3:18).

That is the plan.

You don’t like change, you say?

Then, do not come after Jesus.

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The angry pastor: trouble in the making

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“Now, in the last days, difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self…boastful, arrogant, revilers…ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited…. Avoid such men as these.” (II Timothy 3:1-5)

Veteran Christian workers get this a lot. People tell you of a conversation they had with you years or even decades ago in which you either said the magic words that changed their lives or came out with something that infuriated them then and continues to bug them to this day.

You don’t remember any of it.

In yesterday’s cybermail, I had two such messages, one of each kind. One young minister was thanking me and the other was venting. Both conversations had occurred nearly 10 years ago.

The second letter told of the time the writer sat in my office, seeking guidance for entering the ministry. According to his note, I asked what kind of church position he was interested in.  And that’s what ticked him off.

“I was morally outraged by the question,” he said.

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How to take an offering for the guest preacher

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“The laborer is worthy of his hire.” (I Timothy 5:18)

I’m finishing my fourth year as an itinerant preacher and have been the beneficiary of some great (i.e., generous, encouraging) love offerings and the victim of no poor offerings. (That was a good place to have said I’ve been victimized by some unscrupulous pastors or lay leaders, but thankfully, I haven’t. Every check given to me has been more than I deserved and well appreciated.)

On the other hand, I’ve seen the other side of it. I regret to say that a time or two, when I was pastoring, my church was struggling financially and we gave the guest preacher far, far less than he deserved.

Every minister understands this. If a church does all it can, that’s all anyone can ask. On the other hand, some have some funny ways of doing the Lord’s business.

Once, many years ago, I drove 150 miles round trip each evening to preach in a church, arriving around 4 pm in time to make some visits with the pastor, then to have supper with some church member, and get to church in time for the evening service. I’d get home around 10:30 each night. It was a demanding week. On Friday night, following the service, I joined the pastor and staff at the home of a leader who clearly was calling the shots. At one point, he called me off to the side and peeled off five $50 bills and handed me. I honestly thought he was paying for my mileage. But no, that was the offering.

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Why you pray for revival and it does not come

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“…you were unwilling.” (Matthew 23:37)

1) We do not want revival. Not really.

2) God does not trust us with a revival, and for good reason.  He refuses to arm an enemy, to endow a rebel.

There! Those are the answers to the question.

Now, pull up a chair and let’s talk about it.

It’s that plain and simple: we really do not want a Heaven-sent, life-rearranging revival.

We want the results, the good part, but not the upheaval in our personal lives, priorities, and schedules which a Heaven-sent revival would demand.

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The “so what” of the resurrection

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“Therefore, my beloved brethren….” (I Corinthians 15:58)

Think of these as resurREACTIONS.

Every sermon, they say, should be made up of two parts, the “what” and the “so what.”

Today is Easter Sunday. Churches across the globe are reading selections from Matthew 28, Luke 24, Mark 16, John 20, and I Corinthians 15 about the Lord Jesus’ victory over death, hell, and the grave.

We’re covering the “what” of the resurrection fairly well, I’d say.

But we must not stop there.

The whole point of the Lord’s rising from the dead is what it says about the Lord Jesus, what that says to the enemy, and the difference this should make to believers.

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Things we do by faith

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“The just shall live by faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11)

One day this week while traveling down the interstate through the open country, I began listing the things we Christians do by faith. The list became lengthy in a hurry.

To do anything by faith means we have an invisible authority for this thing we do. An outsider, not understanding or valuing the invisible, would consider us presumptuous or foolish or deluded, but as followers of Jesus Christ and believers in His Word, we calmly do these things and consider doing them completely reasonable.

Acting by faith for one man meant going out not knowing where he was headed but trusting the Invisible Authority to let him know when he had arrived, for another building a massive boat on dry land far removed from water, and for a third renouncing the luxury of the palace to throw his lot in with a group of slaves.

Faith people have been known to do some strange things.

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What true love looks like. And what it doesn’t.

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No one will ever convince me Solomon wrote the “Song” attributed to him in the Old Testament.

No one with hundreds of wives and a gymnasiumful of ready-made girlfriends can focus on one woman the way the writer of that poetic rhapsody did.  (If you love the Song of Solomon, good. I’m only saying there is no way it’s from the pen and heart of this Israeli king.)

True love is not about being enamored by the sheen in her hair or the gleam in her brown eyes.  It’s far deeper than that.

I’ve been in revival this week in Elberta, Alabama, a sweet little community near the coastal resort town of Gulf Shores.  One morning, host pastor Mike Keech and I met for breakfast at a quaint breakfast cafe called Grits ‘n Gravy. I’d brought along my sketch pad, so during the hour we were there, I drew all the diners, a dozen or more, as well as Patrick the owner and Megan the counter lady.  They were all memorable, but none more than an older couple sitting in a booth.

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