The Most Important Part of Prayer

The Most Important part of Prayer
When our Lord taught us to pray, He outlined a specific prayer, a quite simple prayer, to keep our priorities and attitude properly aligned in our prayer life. What can we learn about prayer from our Lord’s teaching on prayer.

1. The foundation of prayer is the orientation of our life toward God’s rule and reign.

Jesus taught us to pray by saying, "Our father in heaven hallowed by Your name. Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This prayer is entirely about aligning ourselves with the Sovereign Lordship of God and submitting our lives to His agenda. Here is the key to our spiritual lives and in fact our peace and happiness. The purpose of prayer is first and foremost our own repentance. The key to daily living is to turn from self-centeredness to God-centeredness.

How to achieve this alignment of our wills!
It is important to know that such alignment of our wills does not come with the words of our prayer but with the actual act of alignment. Jesus Himself says that it is not the words that matter. The Father already knows what we need. Prayer is a spiritual discipline to condition our person in meekness and worship. A key to this exercise is to realize that the opposite of self-centeredness is not 'non-self-centeredness" but God centeredness. To rest in the place of God-centeredness requires spiritual vision. What we are seeking in this exercise is a right view of God. Such a view of God is dependent on the Holy Spirit.

So the second point I would make is that such an orientation is not about words but about a view of God that brings what the bible calls “the fear of the Lord”. This fear of the Lord is a joyful place of acknowledging and seeing in our person the greatness of God and accepting His perfections.

The possible content of such a meditation is almost infinite. We might think of His wisdom in sending Jesus that He might be both the “just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus. Or His love in sending Jesus to make a way for our abiding forgiveness. We might thank Him for our lives and our experience of life. We might be thankful for His faithfulness in our lives. We might read a healing story from the life of Jesus and simply meditate on God’s compassion. We might praise for being a God of justice and mercy. BUT most importantly, we must be aware that the Holy Spirit is working with us to help us to worship God and to see His excellencies.

The Acceptance of God’s Will
I prefer the term acceptance to the term surrender when it comes to the orientation of the will. So often we stumble over the term surrender as in “total surrender”. We always will ask ourselves “Am I totally surrendered?” if we believe that surrender is a doorway to the blessed life, but acceptance is a more precise description of what is really happening.

“Lord, what ever happens in my life, whether good or bad, health or sickness, favor or persecution, all of this I accept as coming from Your hand and an opportunity for Your kingdom to come”.

We accept two essential realities in life. We accept all our circumstances which come to us. We accept that significant people around us are spiritually sick. We desire their spiritual healing and desire their spiritual maturity but first we accept them just as they are. We are absolutely tolerant of all people. Here is our peace.

Secondly, we accept God’s declared will, His word. We accept the word revealed in Jesus to love unconditionally. In this acceptance, we have come in alignment with God’s providence and His commands. We see trials as opportunities and difficult people as the most in need of our acceptance and love. We see difficulties as the moment when we can Glorify God and show His love.

This alignment of our wills is something we do more than daily but it is helpful to formally do as a spiritual discipline at least morning and night if we expect to abide in Christ and His word and thereby bear fruit to the Glory of the Father. The goal is to learn to walk during our day in these attitudes with prayer being a focused and directed time of orientation.

God Bless,
brad

Prayer Tools - The Lord's Prayer - Part 1

Adrian Warnock introduced a topic on prayer. He is asking "Can you suggest how to keep a prayer journal?". Well, this is something I have been doing and learning for over 10 years and here is the best method I know.

I teach prayer through the Lord's prayer and I use these sheets. The goal is to pray morning and evening. Also, it is helpful to NOT BE HEROIC. What I mean by that is that when I was single and very charismatic, we tended to think you had to have some great "breakthrough" every day. I find this super-prayer warrior mwentality to not be helpful. So simply use these sheets to orient your heart in the surrender and to journal a few simple requests. The key is that our hearts are centered on God and His will. The "meekness, mercy, purity, peacemaking" part under "Thy kingdom come" is our way of keeping our hearts in the ways of the kingdom as taught in the Sermon on the Mount. So that is it for today. I will try to elaborate as the week progresses. I also will link the actual word docs too.



Well, that is the best I can do for now....I will try and clear this up...I hope this is helpful.
God Bless, brad

The Spiritual Way - It Works (cont.)

The Spiritual Way – It Works!!

Jesus tells a great and very relevant parable in Mark 4. Jesus says;

"This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."

I contend that there is a path to true happiness and a heavenly quality of life that surpasses anything you have ever experienced but I have a confession. I know what to do to get it BUT I really do not know how it works. I know that if we take the steps Jesus calls us to do we become overwhelmed with how free and happy we are. But as to how it works in my heart and how God communicates His power and life to me. I have no idea. All I know is it works.

Jesus basically gives us a path to be filled with a power that totally alluded us before we set upon this journey. As we progress, we find out that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. All we do know is that if we sow to the Spirit, we reap righteousness, peace and joy. How it works? That one is for the smart guys and the theologians.

How does it work that when I humbly ask for God to remove my anger and fear and to empower me to “turn the other cheek” and to “not resist an evil person” and to “go the extra mile” that He puts His life in me and sets me free? I do not know the answer to that question. Nor does the 1st century farmer know how the soil makes the plants grow, but that doesn’t stop him from sowing seed. Does the farmer have to be convinced about the theory of osmosis and capillary action and chemistry and fructose before he makes a leap of faith and sows seeds? No, the farmer saw his father do it and he saw the harvest that came so he just trusts the process regardless of whether he intellectually understands how it works. The farmer really doesn’t even care how it works but only what the results are.

Here is a key to spirituality and Christianity. We are simply to be able to supply the suggested means that people need to take to enter into the truly happy and heavenly life, the kingdom of God. All our pontificating is really not relevant. All that is relevant is can we show results. A tree is known by its fruit.

Does your method deliver? Do people look at us and say ‘show me how to live because you have it down”. When we tell them the solution do we teach them how to sow in such a way that reaps the true reward of peace and righteousness.

The path is narrow and few take it but do not fool yourself and think it is intellectually challenging. The path to life does not require deep insight into the workings of the human psyche or an intricate scheme of self-knowledge and self-discovery. It does require a few things. The spiritual way requires rigorous honesty. In the course of this journey, we will come to realize that our approach to life is all wrong. Our minds are going to be changed every day and in every way. The spiritual way involves extensive house cleaning. But at the same time, we come to realize how simple the process is. The spiritual path takes courage but not strength. There are no heroes in the kingdom. No great heroic effort is required. We are far simpler than that. It doesn’t require great wisdom and intellectual prowess. We are far simpler than that. I hope you are willing to take this journey of simple daily steps toward a life you could have never dreamed is possible. But trust Jesus on this one, “ 7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened”. This is the promise that indeed the spiritual way works!!!

God Bless,
brad