This Prayer Thing...
I'm in this book Gutsy Faith and reading about prayer and wow am I taking a good hard look at how much I pray and how I pray. The quantity factor is vital because Jesus modeled daily prayer with the Father and the quality factor is vital also because you gotta know what questions to ask and the motive by which to ask.
Well, along with Gutsy I chose to pick up Living the Lord's Prayer because of something Jeff said on page 77. The context is "did Jesus really mean mean it when He said that anything that is asked for in His name will be granted?"..."I believe Jesus meant exactly that...The issue at hand is knowing what exactly it means to ask for something in Jesus' name."
Now enter Living the Lord's Prayer.
Coming back to this foundational prayer is helping me see where Jeff is going with all this. Think about it..."Our Father...." That's saying #1 that He's in control right off the bat!
Well, invoking His name and His sovereign name is primary to the thought pattern of asking anything in His name. It also coincides with waht Jeff is saying on 77 that when we pray in a person's name we are really praying for the will of that person to be done not just trying to drop a name so we can get something. For instance if I say I need Royals tickets (yeah right!) in a luxury box or something then I would maybe drop a name of a person in the front office that might help me get what I want. What biblical perspective provides is the fact that this would never work in those days. A servant would never say the name of His master to procure something unless "the deal" was already done. SEE?
We pray in Jesus name only in a way that's in keeping with the nature and will of what Jesus desires. Not our desire.
Gutsy Faith may just be another book in the legions of books out there on what it means to understand the mysteries of God's ways, but then again it may be one of the few that helps it's readers truly evaluate in this "me" centered, self-centered quasi-Christian world what it means to truly pray in the Name of Jesus.
My question for you today is this...have you assessed your prayer life lately? Are you praying in ways that truly reflect how Jesus taught us or has your prayer life become stale and mundane and utilitarian?
I'm in this book Gutsy Faith and reading about prayer and wow am I taking a good hard look at how much I pray and how I pray. The quantity factor is vital because Jesus modeled daily prayer with the Father and the quality factor is vital also because you gotta know what questions to ask and the motive by which to ask.
Well, along with Gutsy I chose to pick up Living the Lord's Prayer because of something Jeff said on page 77. The context is "did Jesus really mean mean it when He said that anything that is asked for in His name will be granted?"..."I believe Jesus meant exactly that...The issue at hand is knowing what exactly it means to ask for something in Jesus' name."
Now enter Living the Lord's Prayer.
Coming back to this foundational prayer is helping me see where Jeff is going with all this. Think about it..."Our Father...." That's saying #1 that He's in control right off the bat!
Well, invoking His name and His sovereign name is primary to the thought pattern of asking anything in His name. It also coincides with waht Jeff is saying on 77 that when we pray in a person's name we are really praying for the will of that person to be done not just trying to drop a name so we can get something. For instance if I say I need Royals tickets (yeah right!) in a luxury box or something then I would maybe drop a name of a person in the front office that might help me get what I want. What biblical perspective provides is the fact that this would never work in those days. A servant would never say the name of His master to procure something unless "the deal" was already done. SEE?
We pray in Jesus name only in a way that's in keeping with the nature and will of what Jesus desires. Not our desire.
Gutsy Faith may just be another book in the legions of books out there on what it means to understand the mysteries of God's ways, but then again it may be one of the few that helps it's readers truly evaluate in this "me" centered, self-centered quasi-Christian world what it means to truly pray in the Name of Jesus.
My question for you today is this...have you assessed your prayer life lately? Are you praying in ways that truly reflect how Jesus taught us or has your prayer life become stale and mundane and utilitarian?
posted by zimmerzblogz at
12:36 PM
1 Comments:
Matt, I've been finding that prayer is a matter of the heart (a.k.a. spirit). For me, a clearer understanding of how I operate and function provides me with the foundation for setting my prayers in order.
First we consider that as humans we're made up of body (physical), soul (intellectual) and spirit (spiritual). In the garden, before original sin, we were in perfect communication with God. It was a real "give and take" realationship. After that sin took place, the eternal consequences were passed down, and our spirit connection to God was broken. If you talk to anyone with a disability, like blindness, your likely to hear that the other senses have become stronger to make up for the lack of the missing sense.
In that same way, I think that our body and soul "overdevelop" to make up for the lack of spiritual connection. Left to ourselves, we would attempt to work our way into eternal security, while intellectualizing why our plan should work.
Anyway - it's our broken spirit that the Bible addresses over and over again. It's not an appeal for us to be more physically comfortable or smarter in the "ways of the world." The entire book is the story about how we got where we are. The New Testament is specifically about the rebirth of our spirit - through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ AND how that relationship changes our attitudes, beliefs and responses in the physical and intellectual.
I've been in Psalm 86 this week - working through the devotional by Dennis Kinlaw, This day with the master. The author has brought out verses 11 & 12 "Teach me your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; UNITE my heart to fear your name. I will praise You, O Lord, my God, with all my heart, And I will glorify your name forevermore."
This verse goes along with what you're saying about the name of Jesus. The author makes this statement about it, "The psalmist wants to walk in the way of the Lord, yet he knows that a divided heart will make it impossible. He cries our for God to unite his heart, so that it is not a combination of two wills. When his heart is whole, he can praise God with all his heart, as he knows he ought to do." See Mark 12:30 to fully comprehend how much God wants all of us!
Two things strike me: 1)God is the ONE who will unite our heart! and 2) when our heart is united, we have tapped directly into what it takes to live our lives in the spirit of The Lord's Prayer. Surrender is the key that unlocks the door.
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Just A Girl, at 8:15 AM, August 04, 2006
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