CONFIDENT PRAYING

“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15, ESV).

You may ask, “Does God actually hear me when I pray? Is He even aware that I am praying, that I have a need that’s desperate for an answer?”

And then there is the question that has sparked endless debate: “How do we know when we are praying according to the will of God?” The narrow-minded say, “There are only certain things that we should be praying about and asking for. So it is very important that you understand exactly what the will of God is.”

Wrong!

The plain fact is that God has instructed us to pray about everything and has opened Himself to us so that we can make our requests known to Him.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6, ESV).

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace . . . in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16, NKJV).

It is God’s will that we come to Him and make our requests known. This does not mean that we are going to immediately receive everything we ask for. God is in charge of the timing and not us

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Some would say, “But the Word says, ‘God will supply every need . . . according to His riches . . . in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 4:19) so He is obligated to answer.” That is partially right because what the Word says is that He will supply your need — but not your greed. If you are in debt and the underlying reason is a lack of common sense on your part, when you ask the Lord to take care of the debt, His supply to your need may be different from what you think it should be. If God answered each of our narcissistic prayers and ignored the underlying problem, He would not be a loving Father, He would simply be an ATM machine — and thankfully He is not that. Before God takes care of the debt, He will deal with the lack of common sense; otherwise, the cycle of the problem will continue ad infinitum.

Some of us do not get answers to our prayers because we do not like the idea that God is not merely a heavenly money machine. Others of us don’t get answers because we have never learned to “stand fast or persevere” in prayer.

George Mueller was an evangelist in England during the 1800s. Along with his evangelistic work, Mueller was the director of an orphanage near the city of Bristol. There was no such thing as mass communication in Mueller’s day and he did not have an automated mailing program or e-mail. He was a man of prayer and he “prayed in” what was necessary for his orphans to be well clothed, housed and fed. It is said that Mueller prayed in about $7 million during his lifetime. In today’s currency that would be about $203 million. I call that serious praying!

But Mueller’s prayer life was not limited just to the support for the orphans. He also had a list of five people that he wanted to see become followers of Jesus and he prayed for each on the list regularly. The first person was converted after five years of praying. The second and third were converted after about ten years, and the fourth at the end of 25 years of believing prayer. The final man on Mueller’s list gave his life to Christ after Mueller had prayed for him for 52 years. This man actually came to Christ several months after Mueller died.

That’s confident, prevailing prayer. Prevailing prayer does not give up because something else comes along. Prevailing prayer does not quit because the answer is not yet in sight. Prevailing prayer does not get discouraged (for very long) and even though it’s tired, it keeps going.

We have more than enough people in the church today who think that if they pray once, God is obligated to do what they want Him to do. These good folks obviously have never read what Jesus said: “Keep on asking and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking [reverently] and [the door] will be opened to you. For everyone who keeps on asking receives; and he who keeps on seeking finds; and to him who keeps on knocking [the door] will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8, Amplified Bible).

The writer of Hebrews encouraged the church to be patient in their faith and prayer even when the circumstances were difficult, when the answers being sought were long in coming. They were to pray with a hopeful fortitude that actively resists weariness and defeat, not with a passive complacent attitude. “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36, ESV).

THE PIONEER

The first real zealot and missionary pioneer in the church after Pentecost was the apostle Paul. Paul was a zealot before his Damascus Road conversion — a nonstop whirlwind of havoc directed at the followers of Jesus Christ. Paul saw this group and their message that Jesus was the Messiah as a major threat to Judaism and he was determined to destroy them. After Paul’s conversion, God took his drive and ambition and used him as a pioneer to carve out a path for the church of the ages.

Both in the natural and in the spiritual, Paul’s ministry was that of a pioneer. Even a cursory look at his travels over his lifetime show an ever-expanding ministry. At first Paul seemed to minister in and around Jerusalem. The church leadership in Jerusalem found his presence difficult for them and encouraged (banished) him to his hometown of Tarsus (Acts 9:30). From Tarsus Paul went to Antioch and then things really began to expand.

The church in Antioch was troublesome to the early church leaders because it had quickly become a Gentile rather than a Jewish church. Prior to Antioch, most churches were made up primarily of Jews. Antioch was the real beginning of the explosion of the church among the Gentiles and Barnabas was mature enough to know that he needed someone who could “pioneer” this important development. Led by the Holy Spirit, Barnabas found Paul and brought him to Antioch. Barnabas seemed to understand that Paul was capable of helping guide and develop this important element of the continuing move of God’s Spirit. It was at Antioch that the term “Christian” was born (see Acts 11:26).

After helping to establish the church at Antioch, Paul turned his attention to all the people, cities, nations in the regions to the west of Antioch. At that time this area around the Mediterranean was the center of civilization and Paul viewed this with the eye of a pioneer.

We see the pioneering spirit of Paul in his travels. Virtually each of his missionary trips is a discernible expansion in the territory covered. The very idea of doing what Paul and his team did in traveling is intimidating. Yes, from time to time they traveled by ship, but most of the time they walked. Just think about walking from Dallas to Los Angeles to plant a witness for Christ — and carrying your luggage with you!

We get an understanding of why Paul did what he did in Philippians 1:12-13: “I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident . . . that my chains are in Christ” (NKJV).

Paul is not only bringing a word of encouragement to the believers at Philippi, he is sharing an important understanding with all the church down through the ages.

The Philippian believers were concerned for Paul, knowing that he was being held in chains by the Romans for trial before Caesar. It is in his speaking to that concern that he shares this insight with us.

Paul is saying, “There is something important for you to learn from this.” That is the meaning of the expression, “I want you to know.” The words “which happened” are not in the original text but are implied. Paul is saying that these events have not just happened but have been orchestrated by heaven according to the will and plan of God.

The phrase “for the furtherance of the gospel” really unlocks the meaning of what Paul wanted to say and gives us a very clear understanding of his pioneer spirit.

The word furtherance in the original means “to cut before.” In ancient times warfare was not conducted by drones and remote-controlled, laser-guided bombs. Warfare primarily consisted of thousands of soldiers on one side fighting with thousands of soldiers on the opposing side. As the armies marched out to the field of battle, a smaller army of pioneers went before them to scout out a path and clear obstacles from in front of the main force. If the pioneers came to a stand of trees that would slow down the main army, their responsibility was to cut a path through so that progress was not disrupted. This is the meaning of the word furtherance as Paul uses it. Paul was a Holy Ghost pioneer who has gone before us and cleared the way so that our progress is not unnecessarily impeded.

Or so it should be! Unfortunately, when the Word of God is taken lightly and even essentially ignored, the church loses sight of the path. This is the case in large segments of the church of today, especially the church in America.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105, ESV).

It was Paul who cleared the way for us to understand that we are no longer under the law but under grace (Galatians 3:13). Paul pioneered the order and conduct of the New Testament church, the gifts and operation of the Holy Spirit both in the lives of believers and in the church itself, and many other important truths.

Paul’s teachings are rich for us to understand and implement in our lives because Paul was under assignment from the Lord. All those things that happened to him and all those letters he wrote were not just accidents, but as a pioneer of God’s church, Paul did everything for the furtherance of the work of God in and through us. 

STUMBLING FORWARD

 Under the best of circumstances, spiritual growth is an inexact science. The Bible gives us models to study, principles to understand, and the Holy Spirit to guide us — but no benchmarks to tell us when we’ve finally arrived. I believe my great interest in spiritual growth stems from the fact that I have struggled with it all my life and haven’t always done as well as I would have liked. Beneath my exterior is a man who frequently says, “Why did I do that? I know better than that. Will I ever grow up?”

Spiritual growth is often a set of paradoxical steps. We go several steps ahead and then we take a step or two back. Because there is a map that gets blurred as we try to view it through our humanity, we sometimes take the wrong road and then have to run around and find the right one. I have gained a new appreciation for the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 7:14-15 (NIV): “I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Paul seemed to understand that his humanity often got in the way of his desire to grow in God.

I recently reread the Book of Acts. One of my troublesome personal traits is that I read passages of Scripture with an eye to understand as much of the minutiae as I can: “Why did the writer say that? What was the problem he was dealing with? What did the original language say there?”  Most of the time that is good but sometimes it is refreshing to take what I call the panoramic view — just read the passages or the book and see what jumps out at you. Don’t go hunting — instead, let the truth fly to you.

When you approach the reading of the Book of Acts as the story of the early church rather than trying to mine gold from every verse, you begin to see the story of a church fumbling its way forward.

In the first ten chapters of Acts, the church was made up primarily of Jewish converts. Most of the Jews went to the synagogue on the Sabbath (Saturday) and then worshipped with their “believer” friends on Sunday. The early church held on to the Jewish law as they attempted to “fumble their way forward” in this new life they had found in the Messiah. The church had not yet stumbled its way into a full understanding of grace.

It was not until Peter had his roof-top encounter with God over what is clean and what is not (Acts 10) that the church began to break out of the idea that this new life through Jesus was not exclusively for the Jews. Suddenly the church began to fumble its way out of the past into the future and into becoming the worldwide entity that it now is. But the forward movement was a struggle and it wasn’t until years later that Paul and Barnabus (Acts 15) went to Jerusalem and confronted the pharisaical idea that Gentiles had to become Jews in order to become Christians. It was a stumbling forward progress by very human people just like all of us.

Back to the panoramic view of the Book of Acts for a moment. Acts tell us that Paul took at least four missionary journeys. His first trip took him into modern day Turkey, roughly 500 miles from Jerusalem. The second and third trips took him about 900 miles from home, and his fourth and final trip about 1500 miles from home. Paul’s journeys can be described as a series of expanding circles. As his faith and experience grew, so did the scope of his ministry.

Like our journey of faith through this life, some of Paul’s trips were marked with immediate success. However, sometimes he didn’t know exactly where to go; sometimes the Spirit of the Lord wouldn’t let him go where he wanted; and sometimes the growth came only through great struggle. Paul’s second and third journeys were virtually over the same territory. More than once he had to revisit areas where the truth didn’t seem to take a good hold the first time and the people needed some additional attention for growth to happen. (Wow! This sounds just like my journey of faith.) But Paul kept stumbling his way forward and his journey is a great model upon which we can base our spiritual life and growth.

Paul’s tenacious desire to grow made him into the champion of the faith that he became.

“Winners are not those who never fail, but those who never quit.” (Dr. Edwin Louis Cole)

THE BLESSINGS OF ADOPTION

In today’s world, adoption takes place in a way vastly different from Bible days. Today when a couple (or sometimes a single person) wishes to adopt, after taking the appropriate legal steps they take the child into their home and raise it as their own. The decision of whether to adopt or not does not lie with the child but rests solely on the adopting parents’ shoulders. In the majority of cases the child is too young to understand “adoption” but there comes a time when he/she has to be told, “You are adopted.”

In ancient days adoption took place in a much different way. During the Roman Empire it was a common practice for an adult who wanted an heir, someone to carry on the family name, to adopt a mature young adult male as his son. These young men had shown themselves to be worthy of adoption and capable of carrying on the family name. It is from this context that Paul draws his understanding of adoption.

The word the apostle Paul uses for adoption means “being placed as an adult son.” We come into God’s family by way of the “new birth” and the moment we are born into the family, God adopts us and gives us the position of an adult son. This means that every newborn believer has all the rights and privileges of a son, an heir. It does not mean that all newborn believers know how to conduct themselves, because most of the time they don’t — they must be taught. They must learn to grow into their inheritance and understand how to conduct themselves in the Kingdom.

In salvation we receive a new life; in justification, a new standing; and in adoption, a new position. There are several wonderful blessings of our new position of being adopted.

The first blessing is the assurance of our salvation: “To redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:5-6, ESV). The Holy Spirit witnesses to or assures us of our sonship, our adoption. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16).

When our assurance takes hold and our confidence is built, then we can freely “walk in the Spirit” and be “led by the Spirit.” “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14).

 

The second blessing or result of adoption is freedom from fear. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery [bondage] to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry ‘Abba! Father!’” (verse 15). The Holy Spirit living in us, indwelling us, makes the awareness of God’s acceptance of us as His children so real that fear is banished. This is an important understanding for us to grasp, especially those who are constantly struggling with fear.

The third blessing of adoption is that we are made heirs and joint-heirs with Christ. “And if children, then heirs — heirs of God and fellow [joint] heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with his in order that we may also be glorified with Him” (Romans 8:17).

In the natural world a child may be an heir of his parents’ estate but until he comes “of age,” he cannot possess his inheritance. When he reaches that age, whatever it might be, then he can receive the inheritance. In the divine adoption plan we are instantly “of age.”  I hope that’s shouting and praising the Lord I hear in the distance — or am I sharing this with a bunch of Pentecostal deadheads?

“The heir, as long as he is child, is no different from a slave [servant], though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son . . . to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. . . . So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4:1-7).

Too many of God’s children do not realize their inheritance and are acting like servants rather than sons. In Luke 15 the older brother to the prodigal son complained to his father by saying something like, “All these years I have served you and you never threw me a party like you’re throwing for him.” The father turned to the older son and said, “Son, you are always with me and everything I have is yours” (see Luke 15:19-21).

In a future blog we’ll talk more about being an heir, but right now let the full blessing of adoption be yours and praise Him for what He has done!