Teach us to pray

That was the question the disciples asked Jesus and which people have been asking ever since.  I've met very few Christians who feel they have an adequate prayer life and most of the prayer warriors I've known have learnt how to pray through a lifetime of committed wrestling in prayer and to pray.  But how do we teach people to pray?  How do we help new believers both from within our church culture and from without pray?

That was something we discussed at an elders meeting some time ago.  We decided to try a weekly prayer bulletin that was sent to everyone in church with scriptures to base prayers on, varying from week to week in it's structure and content.  Our aim was to help provide some structure on prayer, to help people model their prayers on God's word, and to unite the church in praying for things we care about.

Aware that it's been helpful for some I thought I'd share a few over the next few days, not because they are perfect or even good but just because I think this an area we as churches need to be helping our members in.  The prayers reflect our local context and circumstances at the time so I've taken out the names of individuals or families but left in the general contents to give you a general idea.

Church Family

For the next few weeks we will be using some of the Psalms and other parts of scripture as a guide for our prayers:

Quietening our hearts

"Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures for ever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations."
Psalm 100

Stop and think about who it is we are coming to speak to; he is God; Father, Son and Spirit, he made us, he shepherds us with loving care and a goal in mind. Spend some time simply praising God for who he is, praise his name and all that stands for in terms of his character and actions, the way he has helped, guided, sustained, and saved you.

Keeping Jesus central to life
"‘How long has he been like this?’ [Jesus asked the boy's father] ‘From childhood,’ he answered. ‘It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.’
‘“If you can”?’ said Jesus. ‘Everything is possible for one who believes.’

Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, ‘I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!’
Mark 9v21-27

• Where are we prone to doubt Jesus can act? Are there areas of life where we have stopped bothering to pray because we aren't sure Jesus can or will act there?
• Echo this father's prayer 'I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!'.
• Pray for those in our fellowship who are doubting Jesus love and care or may doubt it because of the situations and circumstances they face. Pray that they would persevere in their faith.
• Pray that as a fellowship we can encourage and spur one another on to faith.

Confession
Take some time to ask forgiveness for those places in life and times when our Christians lives have been all talk and no actions. Now read Romans 12v1-2 and pray that God would be at work to change you:

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will."
Praying for others

• Pray for those being baptised this weekend: ____________.
• Pray for those who have had to delay being baptised for the moment but are planning to be baptised in the future.
• Pray for our young people. Pray that the books they received on Sunday would spur them on to want to know and live for Jesus.
• Pray for them to come to faith for themselves.
• Pray for them to stand at school where some of the things they are taught directly contradict the Bible's teaching.
• Pray for Impact and those leading it: ______________.

Praying for the day
Use Paul's words to either think through the day ahead or review the day ending. Ask God's help and wisdom in each and every situation you will face.

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."
Philippians 4v8-9
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Amen

I'd love to hear how you encourage and teach your congregations to pray, as we want to do so more and more.

Praying for us to obeying our calling in our community

On Sunday we responded to God's word to us as a church by praying this prayer together, it is borrowed from the Redeemer New York service I was at 9 months ago.  

Minister: In a world filled with brokenness, confusion, darkness, mourning and loneliness, God has called His people to bring the healing light of the gospel into every sector of our town through every profession, institution and calling.  There is no inch of this town where his gospel cannot redeem.

All:           We repent of how we have overlooked this great calling we have been given.  The Spirit is waking us to see this mission in God’s world.

                 We surrender all that we are to serve you, O Lord, our Rock, and King.

                 We pray for your power, renouncing our selfish pride, to serve our town with excellence in our respective roles, jobs and professions.

                 We rest in your unfailing love, which dissolves all bitterness, fear, anxiety, and resentment, so that this world will know we belong to you.

                 We ask that you would open our eyes to see how the gospel is powerfully at work to transform hearts, communities, and the world.

Minister: And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send, who will go for us?”

All:           Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

Minister: Go into all the world: work, build, design, write, dance, laugh, sing, create and care.

All:           We go with the assurance of God’s great commission.

Minister: Go into all the world: risk, explore, discover, and love.

All:           We go with the assurance of God’s abundant grace.

Minister: Go into all the world: believe, hope, struggle, persevere, and remember

All:       We go with the assurance of God’s unfailing love.  Amen

Frustrated and grateful

Anyone who follows this blog or occasionally drops by, or hears of anything, Grace Church related will know that we are currently looking for a permanent home from which we can serve the community and reach out with the gospel more effectively.  Having exhausted current buildings, such as office and retail spaces, as regards a new home and been told 'No' at every stage we had contacted Peel Holdings who own much of the land around Hayfield.  However, last week we heard back from them that they had no suitable spaces available for us to use.  This was immensely frustrating as they pretty much seem to own Hayfield.

So where now?  Firstly, we have contacted our local MP who has written to both Peel and the local authority about our need of premises from which to serve the community.  She has promised to be in contact once she hears back.  We are very grateful to God for her advocacy on our behalf and will continue to pray for her as she serves our community.

Secondly we are going to put some feelers out and enquire about the price of land that is for sale around about us just to gauge prices, though we fear it will be exorbitant due to the airport.  We do all of this grateful to God for the security we enjoy at the school where we meet and aware that we need to seek his will and trust his purposes and timing.  As a church we covet the prayers of God's people for our situation and our future.

Praying the parable of the sower as you approach God's word

The parable of the sower is one of the best known parable of Jesus.  But it is also a helpful parable for us to pray through both as we prepare to preach, prepare to listen to preaching or for ourselves and our church family in the hours and days after preaching.

In the parable Jesus identifies 4 different responses to the gospel as he explains the parable in Matthew 13:
“Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

What a challenge to pray through this as we prepare to preach God's word, not for others but for ourselves.  'Father, as I read and study your word do not let the evil one snatch it away from my heart by making me focus purely on others without going the hard yards with this passage and my own, prone to wandering, heart.  Speak to me and do your work in me so that I do not lightly treat its message but embed it in my heart so that it produces change and lasting fruit to your glory.  Father, you know the pressures and struggles I am facing, you know the things that battle in my heart and would rob me of my joy in your word and keep me from producing fruit.  Please help me understand your word and apply to myself so that I can teach it better to others and be an example of the fruit it can produce.  Amen'

Or alternatively what a great prayer to pray as we come to listen:  'Father, I recognise as I come to hear your word the battle that is raging right now.  A battle for me to dismiss your word lightly, to harden my heart, to apply it to others or to be too taken up with the pressures I am facing or the pleasures I am enjoying to really dwell on and work through what you want to say to me.  By your Spirit please produce fruit from your word, prepare my heart, make my conscience tender, engage my mind, and make me willing to respond and act as a result of yours Spirit's work through your word.  Amen'

Or in the days after hearing or studying God's word what a great thing to turn into prayer for our church family as well as for ourselves.  A prayer longing for God to produce specific fruit from his word, just praying that helps us to meditate on God's word in a way that causes us to dwell in it and sink our roots down deeply into it.  Obviously you want any such prayer to reflect on the specifics of the message preached and the word of God heard and brought home by the Spirit, but even in a more generic form there is something worth praying:  'Father, thank you for your word.  Please don't let Satan snatch it away from me I pray, don't let troubles or worries choke it to death, don't let them rob me of the joy of the fact I am your child whom you love, speak to and call to live as your ambassador.  Father, thank you that by your Spirit you spoke to us, may we, your church, produce fruit this week as we respond to your word to us by your grace and for your glory. Amen'

Lord I need you...

This is a new song (for us) we are going to be learning on Sunday.  In light of our series on prayer the chorus simply reminds us that we need God in everything and the verses that we can always come to him because of his grace.

Ministry hurts

Ministry hurts, that is the truth.  It is the harsh reality.  It is the heartbreaking truth we experience again and again.  After a refreshing week on holiday this weeks return has been hard.  Sometimes the reality of the brokenness of the world seems to crash over your head again and again like a series of waves trying their best to pummel you and drag you under, and coming up for air is merely a momentary, quickly gasped relief, before the next wave tries with all it might to suck you under.

And if I'm honest it's not just the last few days.  Sometimes ministry takes place on the sunlit, grass rich, water plentiful uplands, but at other times ministry just seems like one long fearful foray through the valley of the shadow of death.  It's in the light of that that God providentially drove me to study Psalm 77 this week.

I cried out to God for help;
    I cried out to God to hear me.
2 When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
    at night I stretched out untiring hands,
    and I would not be comforted.

3 I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
    I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.
4 You kept my eyes from closing;
    I was too troubled to speak.
5 I thought about the former days,
    the years of long ago;
6 I remembered my songs in the night.
    My heart meditated and my spirit asked:

7 ‘Will the Lord reject for ever?
    Will he never show his favour again?
8 Has his unfailing love vanished for ever?
    Has his promise failed for all time?
9 Has God forgotten to be merciful?
    Has he in anger withheld his compassion?’

10 Then I thought, ‘To this I will appeal:
    the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand.
11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
    yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
12 I will consider all your works
    and meditate on all your mighty deeds.’

13 Your ways, God, are holy.
    What god is as great as our God?
14 You are the God who performs miracles;
    you display your power among the peoples.
15 With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,
    the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

16 The waters saw you, God,
    the waters saw you and writhed;
    the very depths were convulsed.
17 The clouds poured down water,
    the heavens resounded with thunder;
    your arrows flashed back and forth.
18 Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,
    your lightning lit up the world;
    the earth trembled and quaked.
19 Your path led through the sea,
    your way through the mighty waters,
    though your footprints were not seen.

20 You led your people like a flock
    by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

I guess the obvious question is how does that help?  The Psalm seems unfinished, whilst he rehearses the rescue and redemption and covenant faithfulness of God in the past his own rescue remains a tantalisingly unrealised potential reality.  There is no joy filled verse 21-22 where he recounts his own experience of just such a rescue, exhorting Israel to sing God's praise with him.  There is just the fact that God is faithful, God rescues and redeems and the unspoken hope and faith in God's character to one day do that again.  Sometimes a Psalm articulates your prayers better than you can, and there is joy, comfort and rest in that.

Some days in ministry are Psalm 77 days, and that doesn't need swift theological correction via a metaphorical doctrinal boot up the backside, it needs the grace to give time and space for quiet prayer and a Spirit filled determination and trust that God loves and redeems and one day will fully rescue, rediscovered in God's word and articulated in the prayers he inspires to gives us words when we are struggling to find them.

Why bother praying for your leaders?

Over the last 6 months or so I've come across a significant number of people involved in Christian ministry who are struggling with significant debilitating long term health issues.  Not just the ordinary run of the mill minor illnesses but ones which make their ministry increasingly difficult and which place limits on them well below their previous capacity.  Now there are potentially a number of reasons for this.

It could just be that they have burnt themselves out by working too hard and too fast for too long.  That is a very real issue in Christian ministry and for those involved in it.  And those who lead alongside them and the fellowship or organisation that has a duty of care to those ministers needs to ask the question is this the result of overwork?  If so the remedy may seem easy but it is rarely so because ministry cannot be confined to work hours because it involves people.  But steps must be taken to ensure those in ministry feel sufficiently resourced to carry out their ministry and sufficiently rested (days off and holidays) to enable long term sustained ministry without burn out.

I wonder if the other significant reason is one that we tend to overlook; spiritual warfare.  The christian life is a spiritual battle, Peter writes "Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."  He's not a tame tabby or a feral but small stray, he is a lion on the hunt, a real threat.  We tend to live in the mundane and forget the spiritual reality that rages around us.  Revelation lifts the curtain and gives us a peak at that cosmic battle and our part in it, but then the curtain drops and we're back to the everyday.  But despite appearances that battle still rages, and at times Satan strikes at God's people with illness.

So we need to live and pray aware of that spiritual reality.  Aware of our enemy, but amazed at the opportunity to come to the only all-powerful sovereign God who we call Father and ask him to protect and shield those he has called to be set aside to bring the gospel to us and shepherd us.

Recognising I'm not sovereign

This week is going to be a bit different.  All the normal things are going on; meetings, conferences, preparation, toddlers, preaching, pastoral needs and so on...  But come Thursday I will largely be out of them for the next two weeks.  With my lovely wife having an operation I'm going to be on daddy duty for a couple of weeks.  Someone did ask me if I was looking forward to my holiday - I tried not to give them that look which said 'You clearly don't have 4 children or need to balance their needs with visiting your recovering wife who will be an hours drive away in a hospital ward!'  Not sure how successful I was?

It has made me pause because I am not very good at letting go of things.  I'll no doubt leave a list of things that need doing in my absence, I'll do everything I can to set it up so it runs smoothly without me.  But the fear is about the stuff that simply won't get done, there are things those stepping in or up just don't know.  And straight away it exposes my messiah complex.  I think everyone involved in any sort of ministry has one of these and behind it is the desire to be needed, to be relied upon.  It becomes particularly dangerous if we set the church up so that it has to rely on us.  But I am not the one the church needs to rely on - something which I think is harder for someone who has planted their church to say for all manner of reasons.

You see that is so clearly shown when things start to go differently than we imagined and prayed for.  When people leave and the church shrinks rather than grows, when a project or activity has to fold due to lack of people to man it, and so on...  All of these things show us we are not sovereign.  We can't solve them by just trying harder, or by implementing the latest strategy in the latest 'I grew a church from 2 to 2000 in just one week' book.  God is sovereign and so the only right response is to pray.

An enforced two week break reminds me of that, as I have to set aside the 'I can do' mentality and step back into the 'I can pray' approach which if I'm honest ought to be the only approach but often gets crowded out the the tyranny of the to do list.  I'm praying God will teach me that lesson once and for all in the next two weeks because it's true whether we learn it or not - I am not sovereign.

How much is false teaching a threat to our churches?

I was teaching recently and as part of the session asked the group I was with what dangers their churches faced.  There were lots of dangers listed but no-one mentioned false teaching, which struck me as odd because the New Testament seems to see false teaching as a very real threat.  It's dangers are commented on in Acts 20 in Paul's warning to the Ephesian elders.  False teaching features heavily in the letters to Galatia and Colossae.  Romans 6 suggests another potential source of false teaching, 1 and 2 Timothy, 1 John and Jude warn against false teaching and in Jesus' letters to the 7 churches in Revelation he warns a number of churches about it.  How have we come to assume, something the bible takes so seriously, will not be a problem for us?

It's worth saying that there is a difference between bad or inadequate preaching and false teaching, and between mistaken preaching and false teaching.  False teaching is in error about something central to the Christian faith (e.g. denying Jesus is the Messiah, or was a real flesh and blood man, or which redefines sin so that things the Bible says are abhorrent are called good).  False teaching holds on to that teaching even when it is shown to be unbiblical, they will not be corrected even by God's word.  False teaching actively teaches this error to the church.

Now I wanted to be exact about that because it matters that we are careful in our definition of false teaching.  It is not false teaching if someone disagrees with us about mode of baptism, or number of times the church should meet or the like.  It is false teaching if they deny Jesus died for our sins or anything else central to the gospel.  It is not false teaching if their mode of teaching is just different from ours.  One of the great problems in our day is tribalism, but just because someone is different doesn't make them a false teacher.  We need to carefully listen and discern using the above three criteria.

But back to the question how much of a threat is false teaching to our churches.  False teaching is as big a threat in our day as it was in the apostles.  It is real it is alive and it is hollowing out churches by drawing them away from the gospel and into Christ-less salvation-less religion.  That is why the Holy Spirit has preserved the bible for us so that we weigh what we hear in light of what God's inspired word reveals to us.  It is where the authority and truth lies.

So if false teaching is a real threat what should we do?

1. Pray for those who teach you.  Pray that God will speak to them as they work hard at his word to teach it faithfully and apply it to our lives.
2. Listen Carefully.  Listen with your brain switched on to what you are being taught, taking notes may help, discussing it afterwards may help, you can often listen to it again via mp3 or podcast.  Don't sit back and turn your brain off, listen actively.
3. Look at what you are being taught.  Have the bible open in front of you.  Unless you know the whole bible word for word you need to be checking with the written word that what you are being taught is what the passage says.  It's even better if you have also read the passage and jotted down some questions before you come, it helps your brain be engaged and you are already thinking through issues.
4. Engage with the preacher.  The preacher doesn't want a that was a nice sermon on the door.  He wants you to ask him questions about the passage, to straighten out anything he didn't explain well or you just didn't get.  He wants to help you apply it to your life in detail in ways you can only do one on one.
5. Look at lives don't just listen to words.  In the New Testament ungodliness is a mark of false teaching, this makes it vital that we examine peoples lives as we listen to their teaching.  Not in terms of judging or being critical but in terms of looking to see the gospel lived out, sin fought, good done, and sinners called to follow Jesus.  Pray for your bible teachers here too, that they would be changed and thank God when they are.

Can you imagine the difference doing those five things would make to your listening, and as a preacher let me tell you a secret, it would also encourage and probably improve the preacher and their preaching.  They should be the norm as we seek to avoid false teaching by loving and pursuing and encouraging good teaching of the word of God.

Is it ever right to pray: Father God please shut that church down?

Malachi 1:10 must have been like a bolt from the blue for the Israelites just back in Jerusalem from exile; "Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain!"  And it is not a one off, there are other times God says when it would be better if Israel shut the temple doors and padlocked them because their "worship" does more harm than good.

In every case in the Old Testament it is when Israel have let a sacred secular divide infiltrate them.  When they do worship at the temple but leave worship at the temple.  When the temple has just become the place where we do our God slot for the week and the rest of the week we live how we like.

It is a shocking things for God to say, Israel must have been staggered by God saying this, it ought to have brought them up short.  It got me thinking about whether God would say the same thing about some of our churches today?  Are there places where for the glory of God's name and for the spread of the gospel it would be better if churches closed? 

And as you read through the Bible you realise it isn't just an Old Testament challenge.  Read the gospels where Jesus challenges the religious practices which take place at the temple, or which are done for show and favour of man.  Or read Revelation 2-3 where Jesus warns churches of the dangers they face and even of the potential his coming to remove their lampstand(2:5) or of his vomiting them out of his mouth(3:16).  God cares passionately for his glory and he invests his glorious gospel in the church, his church, and he is passionate about it's purity and integrity.  How can we be any less?

We sleep because we forget we are in a war.

In Gospel Group last night we used this quote to try to fire some discussion:

“Church is not a sleepy, comfy lounge in which you pick out your favourite chair and relax, taking a breather from the pressures of everyday life. It is a barracks where soldiers get trained and equipped and help one another sharpen their weapons and put on their equipment ready to go back out into battle."

It lead to an interesting and honest discussion about how we don't approach church like that because we don't view out life as being like that. We forget that we are in a spiritual battle, we get lulled into a false sense of security and simply breeze along confident that we will just muddle through. So when we come to church it is with no sense of urgency, no real sense of needing this to get me through another week. Is it because we are sure we will be at church again next week, is it because we hide away from the war that rages around us and don't feel the pressure, is it because we are most middle class and move in those polite circles.

I find myself, therefore, praying today both for myself, our church and the church in the UK that God would make me desperate to hear the word of God, to meet with and know the encouragement and brotherhood of the people of God, and aware again of my need of him to make it through everyday as he works in me to change me and make me more like Jesus. Prayer is not safe and that is certainly not a safe prayer to pray because it may mean God making me and us uncomfortable in order to make us dependent (see Isaiah 1-5).

Two thoughts I can't get out of my head

I've had two ideas knocking around inside my head this week that I just can't seem to get away from, so here's my attempt to write them out of my head.

On Sunday night we were looking at Matthew 9:36-10:15 but all last week as I studied the passage just one thing kept getting stuck in my head, one thing kept hitting me again and again.  Jesus looks at the people of Israel and sees lost people but he knows he needs more workers to reach the harvest field, and so that is what he prays for.  Now there is a place for strategy, there is a place for programmes and getting out there.  But his immediate response to that need is to tell the disciples to pray for more workers.  I can't help wondering if that influences their thinking in Acts 6, here's a problem of food distribution and serving the gospel lets pray and find more workers.

It may have been in part that last week I had been to a small church to do an evangelistic coffee morning and they need leaders and workers, it may be our own need of leaders and workers, Sunday School Teachers and so on.  It actually strikes me as a pretty universal need for our churches, but interestingly Jesus sees the need for workers out there not in the church.  He sees the need for people who will carry the gospel out into a waiting world.  And his first response is prayer.  I'm trying to make that my prayer for the foreseeable future: 'Lord, Doncaster is desperately needy in terms of people who will reach the lost with the good news of Jesus, please send us more workers.'

The second thing came in part from a discussion at LightHouse on Sunday night and in part from some other stuff I've been reading.  What is a pastors job?  What do you expect a pastor to do?  A pastor is to equip people to live out and share the good news of Jesus.  That means that the longer a pastor is in a church the less he should do of the speaking and preaching!  As a pastor builds and trains up people to teach the bible, ideally in teams with built in networks of support and feedback, he will be able to do less of the up front stuff in terms of teaching.  Now I still think the pastor should do the majority of the teaching but he won't speak at every guest event, every Sunday morning, every Sunday evening, lead a gospel group every week, speak at the youth group etc...  In fact if he is doing all that how on earth is he expected to find time to train and disciple disciple makers.

A leaders job is to be making disciple makers.  It is a pastors job, it is a home group leaders job, it is the Sunday school teachers job, it is the joyful task of every member of the church to be a disciple making disciple.  How should that change the way we do things?  I wonder if it would help to work through a church prayer diary in our gospel groups so we can spot those who are drifting and others pray for and look to encourage them.  An Acts 2 model of church as in and out of each others homes, a continual encouraging of people to minister to others not leave the ministering to the ministers.  To see it modelled.

Praying when you are suffering

How do we pray when we are suffering?  Here is a brilliant article from CCEF; http://www.ccef.org/blog/how-talk-god

Prayer

I'm doing some thinking on prayer for Gospel Group tonight, the basis of prayer, how and why we pray, our misunderstandings about prayer and our need to understand the liberating relational nature of the bibles teaching on prayer.  Here are 5 questions to use as a diagnostic tool on your thinking (assumptions) about prayer:

Which of these are true you:

a. When I think about prayer I focus on...

...what I am like as a praying Christian or  ...on God what our heavenly Father is like

b. God hears my prayers because...

...because I am good and faithful or ...Jesus is faithful and acceptable on my behalf.

c. I am motivated to pray by...

...the power of prayer to move God to act or ...the power of God who allows his children to share in his reveal purposes

d. when you think about God bringing about his purposes do you mainly think about...

...what God has done, is doing, and will do or ...a remote future event

e. when struggling with prayer do you...

...take distractions, how overwhelmed you feel and the mess of life to your loving Father or ...struggle and give up because you just can’t pray as you should?

Prayer as a diagnostic tool

This morning we were looking at the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18 and I couldn't help but be struck by the way Jesus uses the men's prayers as a diagnostic tool.  It is their prayers which reveal their hearts.

It is a theme which seems to run through scriptures - we see Paul's heart for the gospel and the church in his letters, many of which contain his prayers for the disciples in a given locale, these prayers are often summaries of his teaching.  His heart is revealed by his prayers.

We see it with Jesus in Gethsemane - the sorrow and burden he feels and yet his hearts desire to obey his Father's will are seen in his prayers.

So what about us?  What does our prayer reveal about our hearts?

A Praying Life for free

One of the best books I've read for ages is 'A Praying Life'.  Well now you can get it for free if you go to amazon and download the kindle version; .  But you say I haven't got kindle!  Click here Well you can download a kindle reader for your laptop or phone for free too!

It is a great book on prayer and one which I plan to re-read every 6 months or so.  Its free so why not read it!

Depending on God

We were looking last night at Mark 14 and Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, one of the things that struck me in preparing was the difference between Jesus and the disciples.

Peter, James and John have made various boasts about standing with Jesus, not being scattered and being able to drink the cup he drinks. But as Jesus prays they do not, instead they fall asleep and they fail. Instead of standing with him they run, or simply remain in the shadows.

By contrast Jesus is at a critical moment in salvation history as he battles over doing the Father's will, he has none of the disciples easy confidence but he is in agony as he faces what he knows is coming. This leads him to depend on his Father as he pours out his prayer. And it is Jesus who emerges to do what he has said he will do, facing the cross, drinking the cup.

If even Jesus is that dependent on his Father why are we so often more like the disciples?

Glen updates

Many of you will know about Glen Heggarty's diagnosis with a growth in his brain this week and that he faces surgery in the coming weeks and chemotherapy in the coming months. So that people can stay updated and pray effectively, and so that the family are not constantly repeating the same information Glen has set up a blog where updates and prayer points will appear. It can be found at http://glenhegg.blogspot.com/

A Praying Life by P Miller

I've been taking my time reading through this book, reading one or two chapters a day so that I took time to think its ideas and implications through, but having finished I thought it was time I reviewed it. So here goes.

Millers book begins slowly but then grabs you and takes you on a grand tour of prayer which will challenge the way we pray. One of the most helpful pictures that he keeps coming back to throughout the book is the father child analogy, prayer is us as God's grace bought children coming to our loving heavenly Father and pursuing relationship with him. Miller also gives chapters over to looking at how too often we try to pray as adults or equals rather than coming as those who are reliant on our Father for everything, as well as exposing how cynicism saps our prayer lives. He rightly, in my opinion, diagnoses that we struggle to pray partly because we focus on prayer and the mechanics rather than on God.

The chapter looking at how Jesus prays I found to be immensely helpful especially the call to take time out away from distractions to pursue God. Yet Miller also stresses the every day every moment nature of our reliance on prayer and ability to pray life connected to God.

Practically the final section deals with prayer tools - journalling, and prayer cards in particular and I find both to be incredible helpful tools, yet Miller does not claim these are the answer just that they are tools that must not be relied upon or sought in themselves but used as such to help us get to know God and come to our Father as his dependent children.

It is a really encouraging book and I have found it both thought provoking, insightful, and easy to read. However, there are a couple of quibbles I have with Miller, the main one is that a lot of his lessons about prayer seem to have been drawn from his relationships with his children especially his daughter. Whilst this is not a bad thing in and of itself there are times when this is given too much attention, though he is always honest about his failings and the lessons he has learnt through his children.

It is a good book and well worth reading. It will challenge the way we too often think of prayer and its purpose and most importantly get you praying as we share his journey and what he has learnt by God's grace about prayer. You can order a copy from Amazon using the side bar to the right, it also means I earn some amazon vouchers which will cost you nothing.

Matthew 6:5-15 A New Relationship with Prayer

What makes praying difficult? What questions do you have about prayer?

Our natural desire to pray comes from the way we were made, but our struggles with prayer come from the fall.

Here again Jesus is explaining kingdom distinctive. Prayer for the believer is to be different from the prayers of the religious(5) and the irreligious(7). The religious pray for others to see them and praise them, the pagans pray babbling, a word that takes us back to Genesis 11 where God confuses the language of men, where there is confusion, noise and misunderstanding of one another and about God. Don’t be like that when you pray. The idol worshipper had elaborate rituals, chants and incantations which could go on for hours and had to be used in certain ways with certain words. That was the way to ensure that whichever god they were worshipping would hear them. Don’t be like that Jesus says God knows what you need, you don’t need to convince him and present a 94 page dossier to twist his arm.

But the disciples prayer is to be different it is to be distinctive because it is relational and it is reliant.

1. Relational and reverent
One word is repeated over and over again in Matthew 6 what is it? “Father”, and notice how it permeates this section here (2x v6, 8, 9, 14, 15).

Prayer is not about our relationship with others, it is not meant to be about gaining a reputation with those around us, or their praise or respect. Prayer is us communicating with God. Pray is not about our relationship with men but with God.

Jewish culture had an exceptionally high view of God, something our culture does not share. The intimacy of this prayer would have stood out, for the disciples it would have been amazing because it addresses God using a term of intimacy. Father – it is not overly familiar and it is not formal.

When God revealed himself to Abraham it was as ‘El Shaddai’, ‘God Almighty’. When he revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush it was as ‘Yahweh’ or the ‘Lord’.

But in every example we have of Jesus prayers recorded for us in the gospels Jesus addresses God as ‘Father’. The only exception is his prayer from the cross, his cry “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” which is a direct quotation from Psalm 22. Everywhere else he prays “Father” even in the Garden as he battles temptation and to obey God’s will. Jesus relationship with God is intimate, he addresses God as Father because he is his perfect Son as God said “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Yet now as Jesus teaches his disciples about how prayer is transformed in his kingdom he tells them that they too can share in that intimacy, that they too can address God as he does, that they too share in his relationship with the Father. The disciple prays knowing that they will be welcomed, that they are coming before their loving heavenly Father.

We do not come to God fearfully, we come to our Father knowing we will be welcomed because access does not depend on our performance but on what Jesus has done for us. Every time we pray we ought to be amazed again at the access we have to God.

But whilst it is relational it is also reverent. The address “Father” is not overly familiar but is familial, and notice how the prayer begins, what are the first lines? “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name...” The Disciples prayer is neither distant from God nor dismissive of God, the disciple knows exactly who it is that they are praying to, that it is God almighty, that it is the Lord, that it is the holy one who is sovereign and is deservingly worshipped day and night by a heavenly host, the one who one day will be worshipped by everyone and everything. Distinctive disciple prayer is relational and reverent. Indeed its reverence makes its access and intimacy all the more amazing.

And the relationally reverent nature of prayer is seen in what the disciple prays for. What are the first three petitions of this prayer concerned with? They are taken up with God; they are concerned for God’s glory, God’s kingdom and God’s will.

The disciples prayer is relational and reflects that relationship. God is the believers greatest treasure and the family values mark how they live and what they pray for. Prayer for the believer is about knowing God, about being his people, about the spread of the kingdom they are part of and living out for God’s glory in their lives.

But something is glaringly absent from Jesus teaching on prayer; he does not console us with the difficult nature of prayer, he does not warn the disciples of its hardships and the struggle they will have with prayer, indeed the bible does not seem to anywhere. And that is odd because it warns us about our struggle with temptation, with sin, with each other, with powers and principalities, with Satan but it doesn’t seem to indicate prayer will be a struggle! It warns us of all the other struggles and difficulties we will face but not about a struggle to pray. Could it be that we have made something a struggle which is not meant to be.

Could it be that we worry too much about how we pray and what we ask for when what we are meant to do in prayer is simply respond to God, reflect on God and seek God? To come to God our Father as his children.

2. Reliant and real
How do children and adults approach things differently? Children trust, adults tend to cynicism, children ask for help they are not afraid to say they can’t adults tend to want to do to solve to be independent. Children are grateful when someone does it for them as adults we can resent it.
Kingdom prayer is distinctive because it is reliant, it is God’s children coming to their loving heavenly father who knows what they need. Prayer involves acknowledging that we are not in control of our lives but that our Father is. That reality is what underpins prayer, there are three things that this prayer highlights we are to pray for and notice the reality of each of them – they are not particularly pious they are real world requests but they also reflect the disciples reliance on God for everything.

a. Physical need (11)- In Jesus day a days labour earned a days wage and that wage paid for a days food, in such a society Jesus point is simply isn’t it. The disciple is to pray for their needs, reliant on God for food every day.

What is our problem with that? We aren’t. Our problem is that it isn’t that simple for us, or at least it doesn’t seem to be, we aren’t paid daily and our wage buys much more than just our bread, and we are removed from that reliance on God. Or are we? It’s interesting how often we pray for people to get a job, yet once we get it act as if we provide. We need to recognise that actually God provides for us – we may be one or two steps removed from the process but God has given us our food sufficient for today. We are still reliant on God even for the basics.

b. Forgiveness(12) – What word is used here to described sin? “debt”, its the idea that sin is a debt we owe God which we cannot pay. The foundation of our even being able to address God as Father is that God has provided for us a way for the debt to be paid not by us because we can’t but by Jesus. Such a prayer strips us of self righteousness and reminds us of our dependence on God and of the thankfulness that should mark our living, seen in grace experienced overflowing to others in our forgiveness of them(14-15).

c. Protection(13) – The disciple lives life aware that they are in the kingdom but living out that reality in a world that is opposed to the kingdom. Engaged in a battle dependent on God. Disciples are to pray to God to protect them from falling into the devils schemes and traps, to help them fight sin, because on their own they will fail.

Do you see the reliance of the disciple and the reality of what they pray for? The disciples praying is distinctive it is relational, it is reverent, it is reliant and it is real. It is driven not by guilt, not by fear, not by habit, not by earning favour, but by their knowledge and experience of God as their good father and their desire to know God.

It is in contrast to the hypocrite who has no interest in knowing and relying on God and in contrast to the pagan who has no real idea of who it is he is praying to.

(2 min in groups) What stops us praying?
e.g.s Independence, Busyness

How does this passage challenge those?