Tag: Prayer

Saturday Strands

On By BrianIn Saturday Strands

Here are some loose strands for our growth:

How Should We Pray? A Helpful Framework of Seven ‘P’s – John Stevens
It helps to have some framework for prayer that shapes our thinking and speaking. I find it helpful to bear in mind the following aspects of prayer, both for my personal praying and public prayers.

Leave Church a Little Tired: Serving the Saints on Sunday Morning – Sam Emadi (DG)
The next time you gather with God’s people, I hope you leave strengthened and spiritually fed, I hope you’re built up by the gospel, and I also hope you leave a little tired. I hope you leave looking a little more like the Son of Man, who gave his life to serve.

The Radiance of Real Holiness – Trevin Wax
I’ve been thinking more carefully about how compelling and attractive holiness can be in a world that has forgotten the sacred dignity of humanity and the high calling God has for us.

Follow the Truth, Not Your Heart – Robby Lashua (STR)
The Christian worldview teaches that the heart is deceitfully wicked and that transformation happens when our minds are conformed to the truth. According to the New Age worldview, the mind is a trickster, so we should follow our hearts. This is a complete inversion of the truth.

Flashback: Where God Dwells
God is high and holy, so it should not surprise us that he dwells in a high and holy place. What should absolutely amaze us….

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshiping God with your local church!

Saturday Strands

On By BrianIn Saturday Strands

Here are some loose strands for our growth:

Never Too Busy to Pray – Scott Hubbard (DG)
God wants us to run and build and work in this world, but not apart from prayer. Jesus knew as much. So, though busy, though sought out, though needed, though weighed down by a world of urgent responsibility, Jesus prayed. Will we?

10 Ways to Fracture Your Church – Conrad Mbewe (Crossway)
Although I have given ten ways to fracture a church, there are many more. This is only a sample. Often you will find that it is a combination of these causes that finally lead to the fragmentation. To arrest a possible breakup, you need to talk about the threat before the root of bitterness grows. Deal with it quickly. Like cancer, it must be handled as soon as it is discovered because any delay only allows the cancer to grow.

In the School of Contentment – Doug Eaton (Fight of Faith)
It is easy to boast when things are good, but the believer must often be trained by many hardships to make contentment a reality.

Have You Lost the Ability to Think Deeply? – Lydia Kinne (TGC)
Our society desperately needs more people who can think wisely, discern clearly, and guide the next generation in God’s truth. It sounds like a big task, but it can start with something as small as turning off the TV and picking up a good book.

Flashback: Everlasting Significance
Don’t seek lasting significance in the temporary. Only an eternal God can give you lasting significance. He gives us an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshiping God with your local church!

Saturday Strands

On By BrianIn Saturday Strands

Here are some loose strands for our growth:

The Uselessness of Prayer – Trevin Wax (TGC)
Prayer is training us to look up to the God whose first and greatest commandment is to love him with our whole heart, mind, and soul. You cannot measure or quantify that goal. You can only give yourself over to that desire and direction.

The Golden Rule for Hard Conversations – Casey McCall (ROFD)
Now ask yourself, what would you want if you were that person? The Golden Rule helps us wisely discern when the difficult conversation is necessary.

7 Things to Remember When Tempted to Sin – Doug Eaton (FOF)
We all struggle with sin, but we must remember that sin makes us foolish. It is never reasonable, and when we are in the throes of temptation, we often become ignorant. It is as if sin puts blinders on our eyes, causing us to forget what is important to us. These blinders are why, when tempted to sin, it is crucial to pause and reflect on the following seven things.

The Olympic Vision: ‘My Way’ – Murray Campbell
Because of this, perhaps ‘My Way’ was a fitting end to the Paris Olympic Games. The Olympic flame was snuffed out, its dying embers a sign of where ‘Imagine’ becomes reality.

Flashback: Not Offended
Our identity is found in Christ and not in what others think or do. So let’s live as Christians and not be so easily offended.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshiping God with your local church!

Let Us Ask

On By BrianIn PASSION Reflections

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. – I John 5:14-15 (ESV)

We can have confidence toward God, boldness to actively approach God.  We are God’s beloved children and so we approach Him as children approach a loving parent.

When my toddling grandson is hurt, he runs to mommy.  When he is hungry, he runs to mommy.  When he needs help, he runs to mommy.  When he is happy, he runs to mommy. 

In the same way, when we are hurting or hungry or need help or are happy, we should run to God as His children, as instinctively and automatically as my grandson runs to his mommy.

The cosmic conflict is bigger than us.  All the conflicts we see around us are bigger than us.  The conflict you face today is very likely too big for you.  But none of these conflicts are too big for God. God is bigger.  God is stronger.  We can run to Him.

We run to God with confidence – and we ask, and He hears, and we receive.  This is the equation for prayer that John gives us: We ask + He hears = We receive.  Do you believe that?  Do you have that confidence?  Do you grasp that God delights to answer your prayers, delights to give you what is good?

Now we must ask according to His will. He won’t just give us anything we ask for.  Why not?  Because He is a good Father.  If my grandson wants to play in road or play with a stick of dynamite, his daddy is going to say “no” because it is not good for him.  In the same way, we all too often don’t know what is best for us.  But our Father knows what is best for us, and so He screens our requests according to His will.  His will is not against us, but for us.  Do you believe that?  Will you trust Him?

Come to Him and make your request.  He will hear and gives us what is best. 

Saturday Strands

On By BrianIn Saturday Strands

Loose strand for our growth:

Good News! You Can’t Engineer an Experience with God – Trevin Wax
The presence of God can feel elusive to us, even when we ask for it, because prayer isn’t magic. We aren’t conjurers. We cannot manufacture a true religious experience. Prayer is an encounter with the living God. The feeling that sometimes results from an encounter with God is uncontrollable because we’re dealing with a personal God, not a force we can harness through incantations.

Win the Next Generation with Love – Kevin DeYoung (Crossway)
Jesus said it best: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Jesus did not say, “They will know you are my disciples by how attuned you are to new trends in youth culture.” Or “They will know you are my disciples by the hip atmosphere you create.” Give up on “relevance” and try love. If they see love in you, love for each other, love for the world, and love for them, they will listen. No matter who “they” are.

When Self-Centeredness Sets In – justinmykoagpangan (By Grace Alone)
We are naturally self-centered. We live as if we are the center of the universe. We live to achieve what we want in life. We live for the aim of our self-centered pursuits in life. Our dreams, wants, and longings revolve around us.

The Case Against the Abortion Pill – Rachel Roth Aldhizer (First Things)
In this story, medical abortions induce an unnatural process, one in which up to 20 percent of women experience a complication—four times the complication rate of surgical abortion. The medical abortion process is designed to hide adverse events and discourage patient follow-up. Women seeking abortion receive lower standards of care than do women suffering miscarriage….

Flashback: A Gentle Life
A gentle person doesn’t attack others with her words. She doesn’t speak evil of people, slandering and maligning them. She doesn’t fight with others, quarreling or brawling. A gentle person is courteous, considerate, and polite towards others.

True Prayer

On By BrianIn Prayer Quotes

Prayer is not a convenient device for imposing our will upon God, or bending His will to ours, but the prescribed way of subordinating our will to His. It is by prayer that we seek God’s will, embrace it and align ourselves with it. Every true prayer is a variation on the theme “Thy will be done.”
– John Stott

Saturday Strands

On By BrianIn Saturday Strands

Loose strands for our growth:

Ask God for More of God: Lessons for a Better Prayer Life – Matt Smethurst (DG)
The ability to converse with the King of the universe isn’t just an honor — it’s the glorious union of two disparate truths: awe before an infinite being and intimacy with a personal friend. Because we’re made to know a triune God — a merry, generous, hospitable community of persons — prayer is the furthest thing from a sterile concept or boring duty. It’s an invitation into unimaginable joy.

The Soundtrack of Heaven – Tim Challies
God is the master of transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, the mundane into the miraculous. God is the master of accepting little and multiplying it to much. God is the master of taking our little contributions and making them the great means through which he blesses his people and brings glory to his name. And I am convinced we will one day learn that the soundtrack of heaven is made up of the simplest of sounds that God has joined together into the most stirring of symphonies.

We Need Restorative Rest – Jonathan Noyes (STR)
But we weren’t created to be “on” all the time. Part of the health of a Sabbath is the “ceasing from” so that we might attend to other things that get drowned out by our connection addiction. Entire aspects of our humanity are withering because we’re neglecting them in favor of swiping and scrolling through curated social media pages.

Evil Doesn’t Always Show Up Waving a Flag – Trevin Wax
When we look at evil up close, we hope to walk away with a greater sense of moral clarity, and part of that clarity is the realization we’re all capable of justifying, minimizing, or engaging in evil.

Flashback: The Savior’s Example, Part 2
More often than we think, the people around us are bruised, battered, smoldering, weary, tired, and fragile. We need to follow Jesus’ example and treat one another carefully, with great gentleness that builds up and gives life.