Praying for the Greatest Thing (Prayer Summer)

Lake Erie sunrise from Kelleys Island, Ohio

At the top of the list of things I am praying for is: to love as Jesus loves. I want a heart that even loves my enemies. And yes, as this prayer is answered and my heart is morphed and molded into Jesus's heart, I will benefit. I will become a free person, because only a free person can love their enemies.

Jesus was free from a spirit of victimization. Jesus had no "buttons" to push. Therefore he was free to love, from the heart. Jesus had a perfectly love-shaped heart that moved independently of circumstances. Jesus was never a "victim of circumstances." One also thinks of Paul, in prison, not in his mind because of Nero, but because of Christ. Paul's contentment and joy were non-circumstance-dependent. Paul, like Christ, was no "victim of circumstances."

I'm praying for this. As I'm writing this I'm asking God to do it, in me. This is great, because in the kingdom of God love is the greatest, right?

Pray for the greatest thing to happen in you.

Jesus and the Beautiful Kingdom

Lake Erie sunset, on Kelleys Island, Ohio

When I was attending Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Manfred Brauch’s required text for his New Testament Theology class was George Ladd’s A Theology of the New Testament. Ladd’s work focused on Jesus’s teachings on the kingdom of God as the heart of the Real Jesus and the gospel. I am so thankful Dr. Brauch chose this text. Years later, when I was teaching at Palmer Theological Seminary where Dr. Brauch was Dean, I was having lunch with him. I told him I wore out Ladd’s book until the cover began to fall off.

Ladd’s focus on Jesus and the kingdom was revolutionary at the time among evangelical Christians. Now many of us understand that the hermeneutical key to the Real Jesus is the kingdom of God, which is defined as the rule, or reign, of God. Richard Stearns, in his new book Unfinished, has got this right. Stearns writes:

“The arrival of the kingdom of God in Jesus was like that of a government in exile breaking through to establish its rightful authority, to overthrow the established regimes and liberate the people living in bondage. God undertook a rescue mission that would offer his children a final chance to be reconciled. The rescue mission would leave nothing to chance. God would lead it by taking on human form; he would send his own Son to accomplish it. And it would be costly.” (Stearns, Unfinished, p. 63)

Like Moses before him, Jesus came to deliver us out of oppression and into the freedom of his beautiful kingdom.

To Pray Is To Be Shepherded

Ancient glacial grooves, Kelleys Island, Ohio

"You must give all or nothing when God asks. If you have not the courage to give, at least let him take."
- Francois Fenelon (1651-1715)

Because the Lord is my shepherd I shall not be wanting.
- Psalm 23:1

In the act of praying we surrender our hearts to God's rule over our lives. To pray is to surrender. This is one reason some people do not have much of a prayer life. They are afraid of what God will ask of them. They are afraid of surrendering.

Sometimes happens that, when a person asks me for counsel, I give them my sense of what God wants them to do, but they don't do it. They refuse to take my counsel. Perhaps they only wanted me to tell them what they wanted to hear; they only wanted me to endorse their position. I find this common in marriage counseling. If a marriage is failing it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize both the husband and wife will need to do some things differently. If they refuse then I respond, "I am not your counselor any more."

When it comes to the counsel of God what will God ask of a person? He will ask them to give all of themselves to His reign and rule over their life. God wants to be their Shepherd. He wants the entire sheep to follow after Him, not just an arm or a leg, and not only st Christmas or Easter. Failure to follow the Shepherd's leading means God is not, for all practical purposes, really one's Shepherd.

When we pray one of the main things that happens is that God shepherds us. James Houston defines prayer as "keeping company with God." Christ is allowed and welcomed to dwell in our heart. Our heart becomes Christ's home. James Houston writes: "Jesus cannot simply become an occasional guest in the human heart." (Houston, The Transforming Power of Prayer: Deepening Your Friendship with God, 35)

Our heart, in prayer, turns into a dwelling place where Jesus is resident. In this intimate prayer-environment the Father reveals His heart and desires to us. Houston writes that when we learn to pray like this "we discover the amazing consequences of surrendering our self-determination to God. It leads to peace inside ourselves that strengthens and encourages us to continue along the road of surrender to God." (Ib.)

To pray is to be Shepherded, which implies surrender.

Bono on Jesus as the Messiah

Ann Arbor, Michigan

From Jim Daly's recent interview with U2's Bono.

 On Jesus as the Messiah:

Daly: So often those that struggle with accepting Jesus Christ as their savior … it's the idea that he's the Messiah. ... How did you respond to that?

Bono: Jesus isn't lettin' you off the hook. The Scriptures don't let you off the hook so easily. ... When people say, you know, "Good teacher", "Prophet", "Really nice guy" ... this is not how Jesus thought of Himself. So you're left with a challenge in that, which is either Jesus was who he said he was or a complete and utter nut case. ... You have to make a choice on that.

And I believe that Jesus was, you know, the Son of God. And I understand that ... we need to be really, really respectful to people who find that ridiculous and ... preposterous.

Prayer and Humility (Prayer Summer)

Monroe

Humility is the foundational attitude for spiritual formation and transformation. Which means that humility is foundational for prayer, since conversational prayer requires listening, and to really listen so as to understand we must be humble.

Jack Deere has some good things on "humility" from his excellent, clearly-written little book The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy. Here are some highlights.

• God values and esteems a humble person. "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word." (Isaiah 66:2)
• The humble hear and understand the voice of God. God deals with the proud from a distance, but with the humble "it's up close and personal." (72)
• Minimally, sermons on humility are rare. Deere writes (astonishingly!): "I've never heard a sermon or a theological lecture on humility. I've heard lots of sermons on faithfulness, service, purity, giving, judgment, grace, mercy, obedience, prayer, meditation and spiritual gifts, but I can't remember ever hearing humility talked about." (72) 
• "Humility is the virtue to which our flesh is most opposed, because it is the soil from which so many other virtues grow." (72)
• "Humble people are small in their own eyes." (72) See what the prophet Samuel said to Saul in 1 Sam. 15:17 - Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel.
• "Humility is not the denial of our attributes; it is believing in our hearts that our best qualities are not good enough to cause us to deserve God's attention, or even to gain us the lowest position of service to Him." (73)
• "Humble people know it is not their physical strength, nor their intelligence, nor their luck, but the Lord who determines the outcome (see Prov. 21:31; 16:9, 23)." (73)
• "Humble people put their confidence in the mercy of God rather than in their abilities or character (see Rom. 9:15-16)." (73)
• "Humble people put their confidence in the Holy Spirit's ability to speak, not in their ability to hear. Humble people put their confidence in Jesus' ability to lead, not in their ability to follow." (74)
• "Humble people are willing to associate with and serve people of lower position, just as Jesus and our Father do." (74)
• "Humble people have learned to embrace their weaknesses." (74)
• We can't get humility by reading about it. "No one becomes humble without pain doing its work. Often that pain takes the form of desert experiences. Humility is almost always acquired in the desert." (75)
• "The desert is necessary because no human being has the character to bear perpetual success." (75, emphasis mine)
• Acquire humility by hanging around humble people. "Humility is produced by pain, being with Jesus, being with humble people and is a life-long process (see Phil. 3:12-14)." (78)

Francis Frangipane, in The Three Battlegrounds, called pride "the armor of darkness." C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, called pride "the complete anti-God state of mind." So of course, if our hearts are proud, we won't hear from God, which will make it unlikely that we will truly prophesy (in the sense of 1 Cor. 14:1-4).

How important is humility, when it comes to the desire to prophesy? Mike Bickle, in Growing In the Prophetic, says: "This is not a good time for a "know-it-all," but rather it's the proper time for the virtue of humility expressed in a teachable spirit as we go to greater depths in the prophetic." (x) 

Pray "Lord, teach me your humility."

Where Prayer Focuses Power Falls (Prayer Summer)

Tiger Swallowtail in Yellow Springs, Ohio

In the mid-1970s I was a pastor in Joliet, Illinois. I remember a beautiful, elderly Jesus-follower named Elsie. I can see her smile even now, many years later.

Elsie was in her 80s. She was thin and frail. One day I got word that Elsie was sick. I visited her in her home, and prayed for God to make her well. I always prayed this way for sick people. But to be honest I was not expecting much to happen. Yet it was good and felt good to lovingly pray for others, and they always seemed to appreciate it.

When I left Elsie's home that day I felt sad. She had some kind of virus that was taking her down. In her feeble condition I didn't know if she was going to make it. But she did, as I found out that evening when Elsie called.

Her voice was alive and vibrant. "John, after you prayed for me I began to get better. I think God has healed me. Thank you so much for your prayers!" Really?!

I was happy and stunned. We all loved Elsie so much. Whatever illness had a grip on her physical body was gone!

The idea that through prayer God heals is a biblical teaching. The first time we see the word "pray" in the Bible is in a healing context. In Genesis 20 the king of Gerar, Abimelek, takes Abraham's wife Sarah, since Abraham said Sarah was not his wife but his sister. God appears to Abimlelek in a dream, telling him to return Sarah to Abraham. "Abraham is a prophet," God said, "and he will pray for you and you will live."

We then read Genesis 20:17-18 - 17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelek, his wife and his female slaves so they could have children again, 18 for the Lord had kept all the women in Abimelek’s household from conceiving because of Abraham’s wife Sarah.

The first biblical window into a life of prayer has to do with healing power. As for me, God's healing of Elsie encouraged me to pray for the sick. Since then I have seen this happen many times. While it's true that I have prayed for sick people and not seen the results I hoped for, those times when prayer has brought God's healing power have given me confidence when facing the humanly impossible.

As you pray today remember that where prayer focuses, power falls.

(For the best empirical study on Proximal Intercessory Prayer [laying on of hands while praying] as it relates to physical healing see University of Indiana professor Candy Brown's Testing Prayer: Science and Healing [Harvard University Press].)

The Real Kosher Jesus

University of Michigan

Linda and I are taking this week to get away and celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. We spent several hours today sitting in the sun around a pool, reading.

This past weekend one of our Redeemer family members gave me the gift of Michael Brown's book The Real Kosher Jesus: Revealing the mysteries of the hidden Messiah. I read 70 pages today. It is excellent! Brown is one of our greatest Jesus-scholars. 

I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in historical Jesus studies. And check out these reviews.

Michael Brown is a compelling voice in the critically important debate over the true identity of Jesus of Nazareth. —Lee Strobel, New York Times best-selling author of The Case for Christ

 

The Real Kosher Jesus explains with real clarity how Jesus as a Jew makes sense—biblically, historically, and theologically. It is a pleasure to recommend this work for any who are just curious about him and his relationship to Judaism. —Darrell Bock, PhD, research professor of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary and author of Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism

 

Will the real kosher Jesus please stand up? Is he a great Jewish rabbi? Or is he the Son of God? Now we know the truth, thanks to this groundbreaking book by Dr. Michael Brown. —Sid Roth, host of It’s Supernatural!

 

Michael Brown excels as a true scholar as well as an apologist; his answers to objections are carefully thought out, honest and well researched. —Craig Keener, PhD, professor of the New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary and author of Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts

 

Dr. Brown powerfully details why Yeshua is the Messiah, arguing his point from both Testaments and bolstering his arguments with the extensive use of Jewish sources, both modern and Rabbinic. This book is a must read for all those who care about God’s chosen people. —Mitch Glaser, President of Chosen People Ministries

Formation Prayer (Prayer Summer)

Flowers, in Michigan

William Cary wrote: "Prayer—secret, fervent, believing prayer—lies at the root of all personal godliness."

Prayer is perhaps the main way of abiding in Christ. Prayer-as-relationship is the arena of spiritual formation and transformation.  To pray is to be changed, by the Spirit of God.

The more intimate the relationship, the more one is changed. Prayer is, arguably, the moment of intimacy with God.

Richard Foster writes: "The primary purpose of prayer is to bring us into such a life of communion with the Father that, by the power of the Spirit, we are increasingly conformed to the image of the Son. This process of transformation is the sole focus of Formation Prayer." (Foster, Prayer - 10th Anniversary Edition: Finding the Heart's True Home, p. 57)

This week - meet with God. Converse with God, just you and him. Attend the God-Conference. Pray. In secret. Fervently. Believing. And be formed into greater Jesus-likeness.

Our 40th Wedding Anniversary!

Linda and I were married on August 11, 1973. We've been married 40 years! I am so grateful to God that he gave Linda to me.

Linda and I, August 11, 2013

Religion in Viet Nam

(From nytimes, Lien Hoang)

Here's a nice overview on religion in today's Viet Nam. Viet Nam is officially an atheist (Communist) government, but religion and all things religious are very much alive and well. Such as:

• Buddhism
• Catholicism
• Protestantism
• Folk religions
• Animism
• Ancestor worship
• Karma
• Belief in the afterlife
• "Everyday devotionalism"
• A general respect for all things sacred, which implies belief that certain things are sacred (divine, in some sense

And there's "Cao Dai (a local religion that embraces the three major Abrahamic faiths, plus Buddha, Confucius, Laozi and even Victor Hugo.)" [Pronounced gao-DIE] (For more on Cao Dai see "Where the Faithful Worship Among the Tourists.")

Here's a statue of Victor Hugo in a Cao Dai temple in Viet Nam, next to other deities. USC anthropology professor Janet Hoskins writes that "Victor Hugo is there almost like John the Baptist. He's a prophet who predicted that this Asian vision would become important in the 20th century."