Prayer Matters

 
 

“Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me” (Romans 15:30).

      R.A. Torrey, a great man of prayer,  became the president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and later the Dean of Biola in Los Angeles. Ever wonder how it all started for Reuben Archer Torrey, this great man of God?

      Reuben was a young student at Yale when he was overcome with guilt and shame of his sinful lifestyle. Sin had taken him down a dark road and it about killed him. One night in 1875, overcome with his sinfulness, he looked for a razor there at his wash basin. He was trying to locate the instrument, not to shave, but to end his life. He had rebelled against his father and mother’s upbringing in the church and it now was costing him dearly.

      Reuben did not know, but his mother was on her knees far away in another city,  praying earnestly for her son’s salvation. Reuben became burdened also, and knelt there by his bed, and prayed to God and was found by Him. Prayer became special to this dear man after this time. His salvation resulted from his mother praying and in his own praying.

   What about us? Are we praying earnestly, fervently, time-consumingly? If we were saved because of someone else’s prayer life, should we not consider that God is wanting to reciprocate that very act in our lives?

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  • Hypocritical Subterfuge

    “After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight” (Hosea 6:2).

    When we come back to God, He brings the dawning of a new day with refreshing showers. We have a God who hastens but He also heals and revives His people. Why would we delay to return to Him?

    Aren’t we like a morning cloud that promises rain and yet does not deliver? We are much like the dew in the morning, our religious duty evaporates before the sun, and we are not changed. We have burning desires that smolder and at the right time they flare and blaze forth when opportunity comes. We are like half baked goods.

    It is God and Him only that can tame the heart and give the grace. The people in Hosea’s day thought they could come to God and ask for a quick release. The false prophets were like physicians putting suntan lotion on a cancerous tumor instead of calling for drastic surgery.

    Will we allow God to deeply cleanse us? Will we continue to be mechanical in our words and ways before the Lord? God’s desire is for us to stay before Him and surrender everything daily in dependence before and upon Him. “On the third day He will raise us up, if we will live in His sight.” Blind optimism if not the order of this day. We must seek Him and not delay.

  • Don’t Murmur

    “Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned” (James 5:14)

    For every Gospel action, there is an opposite and devious demonic reaction. All through the book of Acts there is God’s blessing upon the people, then there is Satan’s blasting upon the very people God has used.

    When the Spirit of God moved into the believer’s lives on the day of Pentecost, thousands were converted, baptized, and enfolded into the body of Christ. But Satan did not roll over. He reloaded. And he attacked with viciousness.

    We must understand that for every good action done in Jesus’ name there will be Satan’s sifting in our lives. He comes to destroy but God allows to build. Remember we are brothers and sisters in the Lord. We need each other like never before.

    Keep your hearts and eyes upon the Lord. Do not murmur against others. For when you and I do we will find ourselves in the very lap of Satan. And as you know that is not a great place to be.

     

     

  • Expectations: The Wise Men

    “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

     They (the wise men) came from a great distance, with difficulty, and even through the midst of danger, to find their Desire–the Lord Jesus. They knew that all of life was found in that Child, the Desire of nations.

     To superimpose selfish expectations onto the Bible and our own personal relationships with God is to short-circuit that which God desires. We should understand that God is anxious to “make me” rather than for Him to “give me.”

     God is the One that we must seek, the God who is, not as the God I want. Our expectations toward God is to change the desires of my heart to fit into His desires for me. To delight in the Lord is “to be soft or pliable.” We are to be soft clay in the Potter’s hands, to come before Him without any heavy demands that we want but to look to Him for who He is.

     Instead of telling God what my desires are, we are to come to understand and know Him. What is His character? What are His attributes? How can I worship and serve Him more acceptably? Then an amazing thing takes place: His desires become my desires! When I know Him I will desire what He desires and will pray and serve in that wonderful, freeing capacity.

     

  • Repentence as Gentle Rain

    “Then she arose…that she might return from the country of Moab; for she had heard…how the Lord had visited his people in giving them food” (Ruth’s 1:6).

    Naomi left the Promise Land, the House of Bread, Bethlehem.  She, along with her husband and sons, only planned to stay for a little while in Moab, but she ended up dwelling there in the land that is half-washed.  She lost her husband and her sons to death.  She was a broken woman who was living in a barren and pagan land.

    Repentance can be dramatic, but most true repentance is like a gentle rain, slowly and surely softening the hardened soil of our hearts.  In Psalm 23, the Lord “restores my soul” (v. 3).  The Hebrew word for “restores” is shun, which means “turn” or “return.”  When Naomi returns to Israel, to the house of the Lord, her own soul is restored.

    If you a part of the group that is “weary and heavy laden“, return with your depression, anger, and withdrawal.  You can come back complaining, but “come back.”  Come to Jesus with your mess, grumpiness, loneliness, and your self-centered heart.  He will clean you up.  The point is to come back! He loves you with an everlasting love!

  • The Flesh

    “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh” (Romans 8:12).

    “The flesh” is that urge within us toward total autonomy and rebellion, toward being our own little gods–accountable to no one, responsible to no one, obeying no one, respecting no one, and running our own little worlds to suit ourselves. It has inherent in us an element of self-centeredness and selfishness that keeps us from being completely and totally His.

    The Lord Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega–The Beginning and the End. He demands submission to Himself and that means every area of our lives are to be submitted to Him. To leave a pet sin is wickedness when He died for every sin. Also a good God expects us to capture every thought and denounce the flesh and announce that your mind belongs to Christ. The flesh does not run you for we run it by the Spirit of God. We are to resist the devil and the improper advances made available to us. We are to master them and punish every sign of disobedience that rises as a vagrant soldier to cut us down.

    Persistence and patience is what I get to do. For we are never free from an attack of the the world or the flesh. Don’t lay down your armor until you get home. There is no vacation when it comes to the exterior foe–the world, the interior foe–the flesh, and the infernal foe–Satan. But we have won in Christ, for what He has once delivered for us now, I must and have the privilege to deal with my interior life moment by moment and hour by hour. It is possible and plausible. Praise His name!

  • Prayers That Changed History

    “This is the confidence we have to approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us”

    (I John 5:14).

     The film starred by Jimmy Stewart, “It’s a Wonderful Life” teaches the value of a man who gives up his dreams and looks after the affairs of others. The life of “George” was a life that changed history because of his unselfish desires for others. Lives were saved, families were made whole, and individuals were elevated to better personalities and jobs.

     What about praying to God? Praying is asking Him for a certain thing. Praying is allowing God to change your heart to match His. Praying can be done anytime, anywhere. The more we pray according to God’s heart, the more we are changed. The more we are changed, the more we impact the world. Praying changes things, starting with us. When we pray, our prayers can also change history.

     “What can happen when I pray?” That’s a “Wonderful Life!” You’ll never know all that happens when you pray, but the results are often bigger than you think or imagine. Lives are different. Prayers of people, just like us, ordinary people, opened the doors to God’s work. And your prayers can do the same.