40 Days of Prayer Day 04

Purpose Driven Life Point to Ponder: There is more to life than just here and now.

EHBC Prayer Guide Note: PRAY for Christ’s followers to walk in the fullness of God’s Spirit so that they can live in the likeness of Christ.

What I think I have heard from God today:

(1) "I am with you on this journey." Yesterday, I'm pondering "walking in the Spirit." Today, our prayer note is to pray that we will walk in the fullness of God's Spirit. How cool is that? I have another item like that, but I'm saving it for point number two. Did God manufacture these coincidences just for me? I don't think so. I think there are too many other people involved for any of it to be "just for me." But God is big enough to weave together ALL the coincidences He needs to speak to any number of us in any number of ways, and then He is near enough to highlight for me in my mind what I need to see "just for me." :)

(2) Yesterday I questioned whether I would have the opportunity to speak to my HT students about spiritual matters. Today one of them asks me what I think about using a Ouija board! Thank you, God! I still didn't have time to get into it in the class, but I'll type up and print a response that she and any other student can read. It's possible that God is allowing me this opportunity but that it doesn't mean I'm "supposed" to be there. Yet as this follows so closely on the heels of my questions yesterday...I conclude with moderate confidence that He is also saying that it is He, and not my own wisdom, that has placed me in this position.

(3) Time for a new go-to preacher. Whenever I have wanted to listen to preaching I have for some time now clicked over to Piper. He's Calvinist and I'm not, but this has never been a hindrance. My wife and my pastor are also both Calvinists! :) But today, listening to a sermon called "If You Abide in My Word, You Are Truly My Disciples," I reached a point (unrelated to Calvinism) where I'm ready to go somewhere else to feed. Piper seems to me to have a bias against unmediated encounters with God. What I mean is, he seems to think that the Bible is the chief (and by his own words, in some ways the ONLY) means by which God speaks to His people today. I don't know that I disagree with the above statement (minus the part in parenthesis), but the bias seems to go beyond that. In explaining the statement of Christ that forms the title of the sermon, Piper makes what I think is an unsupported jump from "My word," to "the Bible." I've seen this bias before. I would say that the Holy Spirit (Spirit of Christ) is our chief connection with God, and the Bible is secondary, but he seems to reverse that. I may not be explaining this well, and I don't want to do anything to tear him down--I love him, his passion for God and His glory, his style of preaching, his pastor's heart, and his vulnerability as a church leader. I will still listen to him in the future, I am sure. But right now, what I yearn for, learning how to hear God's Spirit testify to my spirit, I don't think Piper will teach me, and beyond that I think he will try to discourage me. So, no hard feelings, but I'll be shopping around for a new go-to preacher. Any recommendations?

40 Days of Prayer Day 03

Purpose Driven Life Point to Ponder: Living on purpose is the path to peace.

EHBC Prayer Guide Note: PRAY for God to revive and unite His people as one family before Him.

What I think I heard from God today:

(1) [via PDL] I have had competing drives. Guilt, resentment and anger, need for approval, and God's purposes have each been the driving force at different times in my forty-almost-two years. . .ok, even in the last year, maybe even in the last month! I have two great hopes for this PDL experience. The first is that I'll learn how to minimize the first three and maximize the fourth. The second is that I'll learn how to judge wisely my opportunities. This school thing, for instance. It definitely takes time away from my "church" job. . .but I'm not sure whether it takes time away from my "kingdom" mission. I mean, I can tell myself that in this position I'll be able to plant evangelistic seeds and nurture the faith of Christian students. . .but will I really? So far there's not been a whole lot of time for spiritual conversations. . .

(2) [via Galatians 5] The Christian walk is so NOT about rules to follow. Walking by the Spirit leads to the kind of life we would want to create with rules, but never could. Of course, what exactly "walking by the Spirit" entails is for me yet a rather nebulous issue. . .

Acts 9:31 So the church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace, being built up and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, and it increased in numbers.

Romans 8:3-4 What the law could not do since it was limited^[3] by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain,^[4] and as a sin offering,^{[5] 4} in order that the law’s requirement would be accomplished in us who do not •walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Galatians 5:16 I say then, • walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

(3) This--this every day searching the Scriptures and/or listening to them taught, spider-senses on edge, waiting for that moment when God's voice comes through with life-changing significance, meditating on what He has said, and sharing it with others--this is supposed to be all my life, not just a 40-day project. Why do I so often settle for such a lesser life?

(4) [via the Narnia movie] Edmund was destined to be a king. It was his right, his proper place. And yet the witch lured him to darkness with promises that he could be king. She FALSELY offered him WHAT WAS ALREADY HIS!!! In order to fall to her temptation, he had to turn away from kingship in truth to a lie--with her, he never would be king! It seems to me that the promises of Satan are always thus. Whatever pleasures, freedoms and powers he offers (and which will be fleeting, hollow, or simply not really there at all), we who name the name of Christ ALREADY HAVE pleasures, freedoms and powers far superior AND WHICH WILL NEVER END!!! Yet so often we, like Edmund, do not know or fully comprehend what has been provided for us, and we sell our birthright for porridge.

40 Days of Prayer Day 02

Purpose Driven Life Point to Ponder: I am not an accident.

EHBC Prayer Guide Note: Read Acts 2:17-21 and pray according to these verses, that God will again pour out His Spirit upon our church and our community.

What I think I've heard from God today:

Nothing. :) At least not like yesterday. I've listened to more Piper today, and this morning was working on the introductory verses in Galatians. I prayed that while I'm at the school I'll be God's agent of grace and somehow have an impact on these teens. (There's not a whole lot of opportunity to interact with them...)

I heard some very interesting teaching on Daniel's 70th week on 3ABN (the 7th Day Adventist network) which held that Daniel's 70th week was about the Messiah, not the anti-Christ, and that it's already been fulfilled. The little bit I heard made a lot of sense, but I haven't followed up on it yet.

Piper mentioned a funeral in which the minister said at one point in a booming voice "[Whatever the name was] IS NOT DEAD!" That was awesome. He also said that at "death," our fellowship with God is not interrupted for a millisecond, but is in that instant perfected. Wow.

The prayer guide note above ties into something I was thinking...maybe Sunday? Maybe yesterday? It's that we can't share what we don't have. If I want to lead people to go deeper with God, I must go deeper with God. There is no substitute.

None.

No doctrine, outline, book study or even the "gift of teaching" can make up for a shallow walk with Christ. I love my Lord, and I have learned so much from Him, but I know how easily distracted I am, and I know I have never plumbed the depths of His Spirit. I'm asking Him to take me deeper.

I think He's reminding me that He's taught me (some) about the Spiritual Disciplines as a means for opening up to His depth-diving. I've been trying to renew my exploration (as in practice--I think my "research" phase is over) of meditation the last few days, so far in only brief moments, but I intend to continue by His grace. I want to claim the words of "I Refuse," by Josh Wilson, as my own. I just hope I don't look back at the end of these 40 days and have to eat them.

40 Days of Prayer Day 01

Purpose Driven Life Point to Ponder: It's not about me.

EHBC Prayer Guide Note: Pray that as you spend the next 40 days in prayer and seeking God, you will be able to clearly discern His voice. Record in this journal the things you read and hear. Pray for protection from the enemy. Seeking God on a deeper level makes you vulnerable to spiritual attack. BE AWARE. Cover yourself in prayer, and cover the other members of the church. Read PSALM 42 Pray for that deep calling to deep.

What I think I have heard from God today:

(1) Years after first reading "it's not about me," I still fail so often to live in the light of this wisdom. Many of my angers, frustrations, and impatient attitudes simply crumble before the force of this simple statement. For example, when my children are fighting, why does it make me so angry? What does it have to do with me? The moment is not about my "peace and quiet," but about the adults into which God is growing these children--and He has tasked me to participate in that developmental process! I do not have to meet their anger with my own, because "it's not about me."

(2) [via John Piper preaching] Pursuing the cause is not important; seeking purpose is. What this means in my context is this: I feel fairly certain that certain actions and attitudes have resulted in our church being disciplined, and that this is the cause for the financial problems we have been experiencing. Almost no one that I know of agrees with me on this. I want them to. I want them to hear me, agree with me, and then REPENT! I think God is telling me to let that go. Maybe (if I'm right) He'll show them these things some day, but for now the important thing is not how did we get here, but what does God want to do from here forward. This is hard for me to accept, because if sin got us here, then I think we need to recognize that and repent before we can move forward. But I think God is telling me that changing the minds of other people is not my department. What I need to focus on is primarily this: what will God do in ME through this situation, regardless of the cause. Even if sin got us here, God has an overruling purpose for me--and for the church. This is where I need to focus. [I'm still not sure I'm hearing this one right. I don't want it to be this way. I want to FIX what I think is wrong! I'll ask God to help me see clearly on this matter.]

(3) [incidental, triggered by a glance at a "new believer's workbook"] Discipleship should not be about managing the growth of another believer (new or otherwise), but about facilitating that growth. I have tried on occasion to design a discipleship strategy for our church, and I think they have always been about managing: making sure everyone went through this or that series of studies, learned this or that series of truths... I don't believe having some overall goals or strategies is necessarily a bad thing, but I think my tendency (and I doubt I'm alone in this) is to want to control the path the new believer walks. In considering the concept of facilitating rather than managing, I can envision that a newly baptized believer is paired with a mentor (coach, partner, whatever) who takes him to lunch and at some point asks the new believer: "What questions do you have?" Now, even if the mentor knows the answers to the questions, he doesn't answer them. Rather he leads his new friend to pray to God about the questions, and then (over time, perhaps) they work together to find the answers in Scripture. In this way, the mentor moves in the direction God seems to be moving in this new convert's heart, and he teaches not just the answer to a question, but how to find answers. The joy of discovery and the faithfulness of God to answer prayer are highlighted for the one new to the faith! I'm not saying this is an entire discipleship strategy. I'm just jotting these ideas down while they are fresh in my mind.