Wednesday 29 May 2013

What Every Christian Needs Pt 3:

3. Prayer life
Part of being a Christian is developing our relationship with God. Part of developing any relationship is communicating. Us communicating to God is called praying. It doesn’t have to be in fancy language: you wouldn’t try that on your human friends! It doesn’t always have to be in words even. The important thing is communicating.
Where is God while you are talking to him? You are now a child of God; the Holy Spirit now lives in you. (Being spirit he can do that and live simultaneously in any number of other people) So your prayers don’t have to “go” anywhere, God has come you.
You cannot tell God anything he doesn’t already know, but he still likes you to tell him. That is how relationships grow. Also part of telling him things is for our benefit. He is day by day changing our attitudes and habits of mind to make us the person he would like us to be. That is to be a person who is uniquely “us” but who is imitating Jesus in all important aspects. As we tell him how we see things, if we will let him he can start to help us understand how he sees them, and that is really important in our growth.
Yes of course God knows what we need before we ask. Tha is not the point. The point is we are developing a relationship with him. He likes us to ask!
One reason is given in Psalm 50.15 “
and call on me in the day of trouble; 
   I will deliver you, and you will honor me.
When we ask and he helps us, we know it was him and can honour him for it.
Another reason is that asking can be a growth experience. Will God give you anything you ask for? No. I don’t mean God ever lacks the power to do anything he wishes to do. That is never his situation. But there are reasons why he will not do everything we ask. Here are some common ones:-
1. God is utterly good, and there are many things we humans do – and may ask him to do - which he would never even think of doing. God would never tell a lie. God would never break a promise. God would never do anything unfair or unjust. As baby Christians some of our prayers are going to be for things that seemed OK to us before we became Christians, but which are not God’s way of doing things. If we pray for these things, God will not do them – no matter how grand a tantrum we throw - and that can be a learning opportunity for us.
2. We are spiritual babies. Even human parents safeguard their children by saying “No” to requests that would be dangerous.
If a child saw their parent preparing dinner with a sharp knife and wanted mummy or daddy to give them the knife to play with. Would a good parent would give it to them?3. We never know everything. We will to the end of our days be asking God to do things we think would be good which he does not do. Sometimes we get to look back and realize “Am I ever glad God did not answer that prayer! What I wanted then would have been a disaster”. Sometimes we don’t get this hindsight and just have to trust that he knew something we didn’t.
The best human parents will often refuse to give their child junk food just before dinner, or let them watch just one more TV show before bed no matter how much their child demands it. But should that same parent hear a scream of terror from their child they will come running and prepared to fight to the death to save their baby. God is to us a perfect parent. There are things he will not do no matter how much or how well we pray but even the most inarticulate desperate cry to him for help from one of his little ones can result in a more powerful miracle then all the prayers of some great saint.
There is nothing we can ask God to do for others or for his work in the world that he could not perform without our asking. But he seems to like to take us into a sort of junior partnership, where parts of his work he shares with us by letting us ask, and then he does the part requiring his power. One example from the Bible is Paul’s request for the believers to pray for his work spreading the gospel in Colossians 4 “ 2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.


Three common abuses of prayer you are likely to encounter are these.
A). Treating prayer as a way to manipulate God to get what we want, not as part of our relationship with a loving heavenly father.
At the light end of this practice, people can talk about “prayer achieving this or that”. It then develops into an attitude that somehow we make it happen by doing this thing called prayer. It is a bad attitude, and really needs to be nipped in the bud. It is God who does things. When he lets us share his work by letting us pray, or prompting us to pray and then doing his act of power it is thrilling and exciting and wonderful – just as long as we remember to picture ourselves as the toddler “helping” daddy carry the heavy bucket of water! It is a thing God is doing with us because that is the sort of thing that good fathers and their little kids do together.
Just remember NOT to imitate the spoilt toddler who throws a tantrum because daddy steers the bucket to the rose garden not to the mud pit the toddler wants to make to play in! Spiritually,
just as humanly, that behaviour is bound to end in tears!
At the really bad end we end up trying to be magicians – using “prayer” as some sort of magic to bring about what we want supernaturally regardless of God’s purposes. This one does not just end in tears: unless we are rescued, it ends in hell! There is a great description of an event in Acts that resulted in converts confessing that they had just added Christianity to their store of magic. I this instance they repented.
(Acts 19. 13-20)
13 Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” 14 Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. 15 One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” 16 Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.
 17 When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. 18 Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. 19 A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.[c] 20 In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.
An example of the difference between what the Bible means by prayer and what people often mistake it as can be found in 1 Kings 18.

The King of Israel had married a feisty Sidonian princess named Jezebel. She worshiped the Sidonian god Baal, who they thought controlled the weather. Jezebel promoted Baal worship in Israel, and by the time she had either killed or forced into hiding all the ministers of God, Baal worship took over. God sent his prophet Elijah to throw down the gauntlet by announcing a drought. After three years with no rain Elijah challenged the king to assemble all the ministers of Baal to a contest on Mount Carmel. They could build an altar to Baal but not light the fire. He would build an altar to God, but not light the fire. The ministers of Baal would pray, Elijah would pray. The deity that answered by setting fire to his altar was the real god.
(I Kings 18. 25-39)25 Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “You go first, for there are many of you. Choose one of the bulls, and prepare it and call on the name of your god. But do not set fire to the wood.”
 26 So they prepared one of the bulls and placed it on the altar. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning until noontime, shouting, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no reply of any kind. Then they danced, hobbling around the altar they had made.
 27 About noontime Elijah began mocking them. “You’ll have to shout louder,” he scoffed, “for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself.[b] Or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!”
 28 So they shouted louder, and following their normal custom, they cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out. 29 They raved all afternoon until the time of the evening sacrifice, but still there was no sound, no reply, no response.
 30 Then Elijah called to the people, “Come over here!” They all crowded around him as he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been torn down. 31 He took twelve stones, one to represent each of the tribes of Israel,[c] 32and he used the stones to rebuild the altar in the name of the Lord. Then he dug a trench around the altar large enough to hold about three gallons.[d] 33 He piled wood on the altar, cut the bull into pieces, and laid the pieces on the wood.
   Then he said, “Fill four large jars with water, and pour the water over the offering and the wood.”
 34 After they had done this, he said, “Do the same thing again!” And when they were finished, he said, “Now do it a third time!” So they did as he said, 35 and the water ran around the altar and even filled the trench.
 36 At the usual time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,[e] prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command. 37 O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself.”
 38 Immediately the fire of the Lord flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench! 39 And when all the people saw it, they fell face down on the ground and cried out, “The Lord—he is God! Yes, the Lord is God!”
The ministers of Baal thought “prayer” worked (in the magic sense) and they did it with a passion, and all day – but nothing happened. Elijah believed God had sent him with instructions to set up this contest so that God could perform a great sign to convince the people and that God could be trusted to carry out his part.. His prayer was simple, short and said plainly: O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,[e] prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command. 37 O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself.The answer was a really spectacular miracle.


B). Content-less prayer.
You will hear this in the public prayers in many churches. Now of course public prayer is a bit different to private prayer. It is corporate, that is it is the action of a body of believers, even though just one person may be saying the words. So the person saying the prayer does have to be careful to pray things the whole body of believers can say “Amen” to. That does limit what one aught to pray publicly for: but you still have to be specific about what you are asking God to do. Prayers that run like “We pray for the church in Africa, we pray for the United Nations, we pray for …” are like posting letters without writing anything on the inside.
So if you are to pray for, say, the church in Africa, well what do you as a congregation want God to do for your brothers and sisters there? I suspect the lack of content of these prayers is often the result of a lack of belief that God is real or capable of doing anything.
For an example of public prayer that does have content the old Anglican prayer book is a good model, the authors managed to compose prayers that were so general they could be used in different situations century after century but which still asked God to do something. If we are going to pray in church for current circumstances and the present needs of others we should be able to do better, not less than this model! Here is just one example:
Almighty and everliving God,
who by thy holy Apostle hast taught us to make prayers, and supplications, and to give thanks for all men;
We humbly beseech thee most mercifully
 to receive these our prayers, which we offer unto thy Divine Majesty;
beseeching thee to inspire continually the Universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord:
And grant, that all they who do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity, and godly love.
We beseech thee also to save and defend all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors; and specially thy Servant
 ELIZABETH our Queen; that under her we may be godly and quietly governed:
And grant unto her whole Council, and to all that are put in authority under her, that they may truly and impartially administer justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of thy true religion, and virtue.
Give grace, O heavenly Father, to all Bishops and Curates, that they may both by their life and doctrine set forth thy true and lively Word, and rightly and duly administer thy holy Sacraments.
And to all thy people give thy heavenly grace; and especially to this congregation here present; that, with meek heart and due reverence, they may hear, and receive thy holy Word; truly serving thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life.
And we most humbly beseech thee, of thy goodness, O Lord, to comfort and succour all those who, in this transitory life, are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity.
And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom.
Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate.
 Amen.”


C). Praying to something other than God.
Over the years we have had various Roman Catholic friends who were a great inspiration and model to us for the way they could talk freely and naturally about their Christian faith. But all the same some of them have had attitudes to prayer that were not good. I know they were just doing what they were taught from the cradle, and indeed God seemed to cut them a great deal of slack and obviously answered their prayers ! But that is no excuse for anyone else to adopt habits of prayer that the Bible clearly shows are deficient if not downright forbidden!
One dear lady used to pray to her dead mother in law, because as a good woman she would be in heaven and be able to take it up with Mary, and then if Mary asked Jesus well as a good son he would do what his mother asked! OK that is very human but it is also very wrong!
What does the Bible say?
a) We are adopted sons and daughters with direct access to God, Father Son and Holy Spirit
John 112 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
Romans 8.1514 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.[h]And by him we cry, “Abba,[i] Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
Ephesians 2.1818 For through him (Jesus) we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.


b). Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit would come and dwell in our hearts, and through the Spirit he and the Father would be in us. So we can pray to Father Son and Holy Spirit because they are in us. We cannot pray to dead people, even saints or Mary because they do not live in us!
We are also strictly forbidden in the Bible from trying to talk to dead people.
John 15  15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[c] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. … … 23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 
Isaiah 8.1919 When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? 



c) It can lead to giving glory to something other than God. Which God hates.
For instance when we visited the island of Corfu we were told of the deliverance of the city during the Ottoman attack in 1716. here is a clip from the Wikipedia article:
After a great storm on 9 August—which the defenders attributed to the intervention of Corfu's patron saint, Saint Spyridon—caused great casualties among the besiegers, the siege was broken off on 11 August and the last Ottoman forces withdrew on 20 August”
The defenders had apparently been praying for deliverance, but when there was great storm which caused the attackers to retreat did they attribute it to God? No! What they did, and still do was to praise St Spyridon for it! In the church in the city is his coffin to this day with a continuous line of people filing past presumably praying to his corpse!
This is not Christianity! It is human religion pretending to be Christian. Spyridon (AD 270 – 348) himself was by all accounts a fine Christian, in which case we can say he is now with Christ in heaven. The corpse in the casket is not the living Spiridon, it is just human remains: but it has become an idol and if there is anything spiritual associated with it then according to the Bible it is a demon (Deuteronomy 32 : “16 They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. 17They sacrificed to demons, which are not God—and 1 Corinthians 1020  the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.”)
What does the Bible say about how God views this sort of behavior…
Deuteronomy 6.1414 Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; 15 for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. 
Isaiah 42:8 8 “I am the LORD; that is my name! 
   I will not yield my glory to another 
   or my praise to idols. 
So, if you are going to pray: pray to God, Father Son Holy Spirit. If you are going to give praise for answered prayer: give it to God alone. Anything else is idolatry!
…………………………..
I should of course not leave the topic of our prayer life without pasting in some of Jesus teaching from Matthew 6.
 5 “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. 6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.
 7 “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.8 Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! 9 Pray like this:
   Our Father in heaven,
      may your name be kept holy.
   
10 May your Kingdom come soon.
   May your will be done on earth,
      as it is in heaven.
   
11 Give us today the food we need,[a]
   
12 and forgive us our sins,
      as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
   
13 And don’t let us yield to temptation,[b]
      but rescue us from the evil one.
[c]
 14 “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. 15 But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.



Next week: Heresy Alert! Heresy Alert! ...

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