Good Morning Friends,
Today as we continue our Hurricane Ian recovery, we continue a devotional theme on the topic of prayer and discerning the will of God in the power of the Holy Spirit as to how we are to think post trauma. Amazing though this may sound, God really loves to spend time with us in prayer to help mold us into healthier being. Prayer is a verb that turns us into a better noun and is at the confluence our spiritual lives with leadership as a noun becoming activated in us as a verb evoking, engaging, and empowering us to fight the good fight. Unfortunately, it does not always feel natural to have a transparent and intimate dialogue with the creator of the universe. You see, prayer is a discipline that needs not just some regularity like breath but a continuity of rhythm if we are to live victoriously. Prayer, though it can take many forms does seem to have an order and structure that is designed to transform us in the events of our life and also to help face a media world that competes for our emotions and twists them all too often to serve another master. The beauty is that perfect prayer starts with a movement of the heart of Jesus as an act of faith that can, if it is Jesus’ heart and not our own, free us of the risk of judgement and might even give us Christ’s faith in the hope of civil discourse too, The thought brings me to my knees and to today’s devotion as we give thanks to God’s grace and step out in the faith of Christ on a topic reflective of our time too. And here in the writing and the asking and the praising, I cannot help but contemplate the centrality of Christ in our salvation and how the Holy Spirit might help all of us to live a life of prayer. But in our time and place, and given that our hearts sometimes deceive us, I wonder, Are We Serving God In Our Audacious Prayers Or Have We Been Bewitched?
Scripture: And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Luke 11:5-13 (NRSV)
You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so much for nothing? —if it really was for nothing. Well then, does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?
Galatians 3:1-5 (NRSV)
For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:12 (NRSV)
Message: The connecting point of today’s scripture is not so easy to discern but I think it is that we are to go boldly before the throne of God in our requests but not with so much zeal of the flesh as to risk life and limb in the process. Throughout prayer we are to have a victorious spirit because of Christ. With that in mind we look at a parable of Jesus on prayer designed to open the eyes of the disciples and a passage to the Galatians from Paul on the nature of their conversion and the purity and source of their leader’s motivations.
It is clear that Paul’s preaching clearly presented the Gospel in such a way that it opened people’s eyes. The power of the Spirit let him paint a picture with words and with such passion and urgency that people were moved to either accept or reject the message. Yet, when men came from Jerusalem to Galatia trying to add the Law to the Gospel these same people who heard that message were so bewitched and fascinated by the institutions of religious power that they were ready to leave the simplicity of the Gospel. They were ready to be circumcised and do whatever else they were told to do. Paul had to take them back to the beginning and challenged them to think whether it was by the law or by faith that they got saved and received the Holy Spirit. The revelation was that it was by faith, for the Gentiles had no knowledge of Jewish law until they were instructed by those religious leaders who put institutional power as a higher priority than God. They were taking those who had been walking in the Spirit and reverting them back to something less than the freedom Christ offers. The point here is that we cannot add to the work of Christ. When we start in the Spirit, we must end in the Spirit. But we are not to get stupid about it. So many times, scripture shows that wrong thinking profits nothing and gets us away from what Christ is doing in us by the Holy Spirit. Think about the political adds you see and the way they are designed to motivate us. And for such a time as this we are given a parable about prayer. In Luke 11:1, Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray. And as far as I can tell this is the only time in the entire Gospels when the disciples explicitly asked the greatest teacher who ever lived to teach them something. And I love it that they did not ask to be taught how to walk on water or to turn water into wine. No, they asked Jesus to teach them to pray. And in response, Jesus gives them the Lord’s Prayer and then told them today’s parable. In today’s translation of the NRSV the word persistence is used to describe the posture of appropriate prayers. But the NIV uses the phrase shameless audacity. You probably noticed that this perplexing parable tells something unexpected. Jesus was the greatest teacher that ever lived, and He knew that a fundamental principle of teaching is that you never learn anything without being a little disturbed.
And So, if you are a bit disturbed here you might just be learning something not just about the structure of prayer but its proper posture and preferred positive attitude in the face of a world that competes for our attention. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray there were a lot of things competing for their soul’s attention. And Jesus gave them, as Jesus gives us, a pattern on how to pray which in fact is a pattern on how to live so that our lives become a life of prayer to God. And in prayer we learn that we begin and end with Christ. We think about the reality that we cannot live only for ourselves. We realize that we cannot just be laying up treasure for our own needs. When Paul wrote some of today’s scripture, he was probably on his way to the first Jerusalem Council to whom he was bringing an offering for the poor Jews all raised from the gifts of generous and motivated Gentiles. He uses it as a productive time made more important though the encouragement of the power of daily prayer. Here we are lit by grace…here our response to God’s love demonstrates who we really are. That is why prayer is ever more important in our fast-paced society. Through prayer our hearts are prepared. Through prayer, with the Holy Spirit, we learn to be earnest….to be persistent and active and unwearied and intent. Though prayer we develop our character…we grow in Christ. That is why prayer is vitally important…that is why we must make it a priority in our lives. With prayer the Lord will open doors of opportunity for us and through prayer, open our eyes to them so we might see the way He wants us to live…overwhelmed with thanksgiving …. overwhelmed with obedience to love. Here we learn that praying to God, proclaiming the Word, and partnering with others to accomplish what we cannot do alone is our purpose. Through prayer we learn that it is good to be alive and glorify God. Friends most of us believe in prayer but we use it so sparingly that we rarely get good at it. We have access to power but so rarely use it. We know the promises God has made and we have heard stories about answered prayers, but we really do not understand how prayer works. But I admit I do not really understand how the electricity in my house works either. But that should not keep me from flipping on a switch. Then again maybe we understand how God’s sovereignty and authority works and maybe think that it does not really matter if we pray or not because God is going to do what God is going to do anyway. But really if we believe in God’s sovereignty and absolute authority then we really should pray the more because God has told us to pray. But I am concerned for most of us treat prayer as something to only be used in an emergency and we do not view prayer as making that big an impact on the decisions we make every day. We are to believe therefore that God has our best interests at heart. We are to believe that God does want us to live in the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of a moral and spiritual order. We get the sense of this in passage from Luke about the shameless neighbor. You see, we are to speak out but also love. We are to ask, seek and knock as an active work of prayer believing that God will do what we cannot. And so, even though a response is demanded, and we cannot do what we must do, God’s grace solves the problem once we understand it is about God’s will and character not ours. Our focus is not meant to be on our wants, needs and desires but on God and the good and perfect plan and purposes that have be designed for us. So, let us drink freely of the new wine by faith and watch what the Holy Spirit can do in our lives. Allow Jesus to transform each of us. Dare to be different and to stand firm in the faith of Jesus in both attitude and actions when you go before the throne of God.
Pray we have a proper perspective of who God is when we engage in a conversation with the divine. Pray we consider if the way we are praying reflects our own pessimistic, optimistic, or realistic attitude and not the mind of Christ. Pray therefor our speech is not deceptive, perverse, unkind, or abusive. Pray that we realize this is not about good feelings and thoughts, but it is about the right attitude. Pray therefor we share in the persistence and faith that is a gift of Jesus and not of our own doing. Pray in Christ’s faith we are transformed with reverence and grace that spills over into the lives of others. Pray we serve God with courage and righteousness. Pray Jesus make our sanctification completed so we might inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for us. Pray we love God apart from the fear of punishment and the hope of rewards. Pray we give some serious thought to what we ask of God for we might just get it.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 