Monthly Archives: July 2023

Three cautions before you teach others how to pray

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They invite you to bring a talk, a lesson, or a sermon on prayer. Your first thought, if you are normal, is, “Who me? What little I know about prayer you could put in a thimble.”

There may be some Christian somewhere who considers himself an authority on prayer, but I have yet to meet him. The truly godly men and women known as prayer warriors will tell you they feel they have just enrolled in kindergarten.

I’m confident of this one thing: our Heavenly Father is not happy with any of His children claiming to have the inside track on how to approach Him, how to “get things from God,” “how to make prayer work for your benefit,” and how to get on His good side.

Jesus Christ has done everything necessary for us to enter the Throne Room of Heaven. See Hebrews 4:16.

Jesus Christ has opened the divider between man and God and we have an open invitation to “come on in.” See Hebrews 10:19-22.

If you and I are not entering God’s presence and lifting up our needs and petitions and interceding for those on our hearts, it’s not God’s fault. It’s not the fault of Jesus, who did everything necessary to make it possible for us to pray effectively.

So, come on in. Come in humbly, for this is the Throne Room of the Universe. Come in worshipfully for the One on the Throne is the Lord of Lords. Come in boldly because your Authority is the Blood of Jesus. Come in regularly because you live in a needy, fallen world. Come in with Jesus: in His Name, by His blood, for His sake.

That’s what we want to teach others.

But there are some things we do not want to teach, no matter how great the temptation.

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Where are the sins God has forgiven?

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Yes, You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.  Micah 7:19

Gospel song of the 1950s…

You ask me why I’m happy, I’ll tell you the reason why: My sins are gone.

And when I meet the scoffers who ask me where they are, I say, My sins are gone.

They’re underneath the blood of the cross of Calvary, as far removed as darkness is from dawn.  In the sea of God’s forgetfulness, that’s good enough for me, praise God, my sins are gone.

(second verse)  When Satan comes to tempt me, and cause me to doubt, I say, my sins are gone.  You got me into trouble, but Jesus got me out. I’m glad, my sins are gone. (then the chorus)

It’s a good song, take my word for it!

Some lessons God’s children have to keep learning…

She was a faithful member of the church I had gone to right after seminary.  I was 27 years old with a lot to learn about ministry.  But I knew something about her she thought no one else did.

One day the church secretary had blurted out to me that a year earlier Gloria Mae had had an affair with a man she worked with.  “And she thinks no one knows it!”  Well, it’s impossible to unknow something once you hear it.  And I was sorry to know this.  But God used that…

One day sometime later, while making my morning hospital rounds, I noticed that Gloria Mae had been admitted as a patient. I went in to visit her.  “My ulcer is acting up,” she told me.  As we visited, she said, “Pastor, one of these days there is something I need to tell you. Something that bothers me.”

I said, “I’m available any time,” and continued to stand there by her bed talking and listening.  And because I was patient, she began pouring out the sad tale of her sin.  She wept and my heart broke for her.  Finally, I said, “Gloria, has God forgiven you?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, “He has, but I can’t forgive myself.”

I said, “So, you have a higher standard than God. Is that right?”

She was almost offended.  “Brother Joe! Whatever does that mean?”

I said, “Well, listen to you.  Sure, God forgave me.  It’s easy for Him.  But I’m harder on myself than He is.”  I paused to let that sink in and said, “Gloria, if God forgave you, why don’t you forgive yourself?”

We prayed together and left that sordid business at the cross, where it belonged.  One year later, I received a note from her saying, “It was a year ago today that you visited me in the hospital.  And you said exactly what I needed to hear. I am well today. Thank you.”

Her sins were gone.  And how good is that???

Question: Where were her sins?  What had God done with them? Continue reading →

What the embattled pastor prays

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Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and that I am your servant…. (I Kings 18:36)

Elijah was confronting the prophets of Baal when he prayed that brief but potent prayer. But his goal was not to win these renegades over. His target audience was the spectators, the Israelites who in their shallow affection were going with the deity who could produce the most dramatic fireworks that day.

I have prayed Elijah’s prayer.

Many a time as I entered the sanctuary for the Sunday morning service, I sent up this plea. “Lord, there are a few people in this church who are roadblocks to us doing anything. They fight me on every proposal. And they do it in Your Name. Father, please–let them know that You are God and that I am your servant.”

Now, you would think it was the second part of that prayer that occupied my attention, that what I wanted most of all was for this bunch of nay-sayers to get clear on the fact that God in Heaven had sent me as His ambassador. But you’d be wrong.

Before anything else, I wanted the same thing Elijah wanted for God’s people that day: for them to settle once and for all that the Living God is Lord and in charge and in this place. That He is “God in Israel.”

I am personally convinced that the trouble-makers in most churches do not really believe in God. Oh, they do, theoretically. If you press them, they can tell you when they professed faith in Jesus and were baptized. Call on them to pray in the service and they will render up an invocation or offertory prayer with the best of them. It’s just that they don’t really believe God is on the premises.

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Clippings on various things from my journal

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Carl Sandburg said, “There is an eagle inside me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus inside me that wants to wallow in the mud.”

We all get to choose–have to choose!–every day of our lives which it shall be.

(1) Chuck Colson once asked a prisoner on death row if he wanted a television in his cell. “No,” he said. “TV wastes too much time.”

We get to choose–have to choose!–what to do with our time each day.

(2) Thomas Merton said, “There were only a few shepherds at the first Bethlehem. The ox and the ass understood more of the first Christmas than the high priests in Jerusalem. And it is the same today.”

We choose what to do with Jesus.

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My sin is just a little thing

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A pastor in Haiti tells about a fellow he knew who wanted to sell his house for $2,000. In time, he found a buyer, but the man could scrape together only half the asking price. The owner agreed to sell for that amount but with one reservation: he would continue to own one nail above the front door.

A couple of years later, the first fellow decided he wanted to repurchase the house. The new owner declined, saying, “I like this house; I don’t want to sell.”

The previous owner found the carcass of a dead dog on the street and hung it from the nail he still owned above the front door. Soon the stench became so strong no one could go in or out of the house, and the family had to leave. They sold the house to the former owner.

The Haitian pastor said, “If we leave the devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making our lives unfit for Christ’s habitation.”

–I sure am enjoying my new life in Christ. Bible study is great, my new friends at church are wonderful, and I’m loving the new relationships. I wish I’d done this years ago. Some nights I’m down at the church til 10 o’clock with my friends there. Sometimes we are praying, studying the Bible, or working on various projects. I hope no one finds out what I’m watching on the internet at home. I know it’s called pornography, but it’s such a little thing and as long as no one knows, what can be wrong with it?

–My wife and I have this wonderful relationship. After 20 years of marriage, we know each other completely and have learned to work together as a team. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s so good with our kids, and I’m always proud of her when we go out in public. I don’t want her to find out about the harmless little flirtation I’m having with this girl at the office, though. She wouldn’t understand.

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When the stiff, inflexibles are in control of the church

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“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart….”  (Acts 7:51). 

“No one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment and a worse tear results.  Nor do men put new wine in old wineskins….” (Matthew 9:16-17).

Let’s start with an intriguing quote from a great churchman….

“The church recruited people who had been starched and ironed before they were washed.”  –John Wesley

Not sure of the context of Wesley’s quote, but I like it because it so accurately sums up the situation of a small contingent within every church.  Now, I have to say this conjures up memories of my childhood.  Mom did her own washing and ironing, and often, to starch a shirt or blouse, she would soak it in a bucket into which she had mixed up the dry starch with water. These days, anyone starching at home uses a spray, I expect.

There’s nothing like a great starched shirt.  I love them. Trace Cleaners does mine. My wife loves me but not enough to do that!

Now then, some church members have been starched and ironed before they were washed.  A great metaphor!  But what does it mean?

“Starched and ironed” means they are now–

–prim and proper

–firmly set and fixed in their ways

–but they are missing something essential: An experience with the living God by the blood of Jesus Christ.  Scripture promises “the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:7).  But these people have bypassed that experience for one reason or the other.

As a result, they are–

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