Good Morning Friends,
In addition to the passage from the lectionary for today from Luke I have added ones about Jesus’ prayer for his disciples just before the crucifixion, and Paul’s prayer meeting with his friends in Ephesus just before he goes to Jerusalem and then is packed up on a ship for Rome to have his head chopped off. Then I have added from the Message the passage we know as the Lord’s prayer. There are some obvious similarities to the events between Jesus and Paul. But what comes to my mind this morning is the drama of the prayer lives both Jesus and Paul led. So, to guide our thinking we consider the Lord’s Prayer and the amazing way Jesus teaches us about prayer. There is something for me to learn and as I search perhaps you might learn something too about what we are to ask for in prayer and how to prepare for a conversation with God and the words we choose in the hopes of glorifying God…realizing that God knows our heart before we speak a word. People pray for all sorts of things that may not be God’s priority for us and some topics are right on point. So, whether we are praying for health of family and friends, God’s guidance and wisdom, and peace, finances jobs and tests, personal health, salvation of people, family relations, protection for children, the hungry and poor or for those grieving,
we need to be prepared to submit to the answers we get. I for one trust in the Lord’s Prayer as a framework for our personal conversations with God but we need to internalize it. Friends, if God wants us to learn a life lesson about how to pray, I think we need to work at increasing the believability in our own petitions glorify God. So, How Believable Are We When We Pray?
Scripture: The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this: Our Father in heaven, reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what’s best— as above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You’re in charge! You can do anything you want! You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.
Matthew 6:7-13 The Message (MSG)
After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.
John 17:1-11a (NRSV)
From Miletus he sent a message to Ephesus, asking the elders of the church to meet him. When they came to him, he said to them: “You yourselves know how I lived among you the entire time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews. I did not shrink from doing anything helpful, proclaiming the message to you and teaching you publicly and from house to house, as I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus. And now, as a captive to the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me. But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace. “And now I know that none of you, among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom, will ever see my face again. Therefore I declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God
Acts 20:17-27 (NRSV)
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Luke 18:1-8 (NRSV)
Message: The love of Jesus for us makes success out of our failures even in our prayer life. Our love of Jesus makes our testimony believable when we face trials and when we pray. And though Jesus does not want us to have to suffer through the temptation that he went through we all at some time will face them and must confront the lust of the flesh, the pride of life and the lust of the eyes. The proof text of God’s love and Sovereignty in all regards is in the scriptures. Here it becomes clear that God can love us, and the world can judge us but we are not in control of some things and must submit to God’s rule. We also learn, especially in the story of Peter, that hearing our named called can be a joyful or horrible experience. It all depends on the situation. And let’s be honest about today’s stories, and our petitions. In most cases we are not at all sure the outcomes of our prayers are going to be joyful experiences. But perhaps we might learn that they are about the nudging of God to get us to where God wants us to go in our lives and giving us what we need over what we want. The stories in the Bible are instructive here. When we say, we love Jesus, when we pray and are giving our testimony before the King our words are to be believable and backed up by actions in our lives. We must seek to love and care for others. We all have, hopefully, experienced the love of Jesus in our lives, but deep down, in addition to God’s love of us, we need to experience and express our love of God. Friends, we need to be lovers of people and for this love to be believed they need to see the love of Christ in our lives.
And So, believe but also be believable. Realize that God will be God and we are not in charge. Realize that there are many temptations and trials that we sadly fall into because our flesh is naturally weak, but we have a God who will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear. Realize that God will provide a way out and a court of a higher status that can rule with love and purpose in ways we cannot fully understand. Realize that God is not evil but sometimes uses the evil of men for good and even redeems people like Paul and Peter for a holy purpose. Realize that we may not be so great at determining what is good and bad because our love is not as great as God’s.
Pray we take time to be in God’s presence. Pray we be helped to pray by the Spirit of God. Pray we desire to commune with God through the life of Jesus. Pray the intensity of our prayers grow with time. Pray our conversations with God are not one sided. Pray our prayers are more in the listening than in the talking. Pray we let God have the last word. Pray we have a mountain moving faith. Pray our acts of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication are filled with the Holy Spirit. Pray our prayers focus on how to serve in the kingdom of God. Pray our prayers are truly powerful because we no longer look at the size of the mountain that must be moved but on the sufficiency of the Mountain Mover, the creator of all things seen and unseen. Pray we realize that the very act of prayer is a blessing from God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 