May 7th"Prayer: Life Beyond the Status Quo..."
Life Beyond the Status Quo-
Prayer takes you into life with God- absence of prayer is nice way of saying you’re Ignoring the presence of God in your life
So this whole month we are going to be learning about prayer- talking about it- and DOING it- We’re going to study prayer and life in general today, than Prayer and the family next week, We’ll cover prayer and the local church and we’ll also learn about prayer and our community and the world- So I encourage you to come this whole month and learn and put into practice what you learn and experience here
“To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
And I don’t know about you- but I spend too much of life holding my breath and ignoring God.
So Let’s Pray-
We believe as followers of Jesus Christ- that Love is Life as it is meant to be (repeat)- and Prayer is a life- receiving connection with the Source of Love- our Loving God-(repeat) We don’t pray because we have to- we pray because we’re called to be lovers of the world- loving friends and enemies-
Let’s read our first scripture:
1 John 3:16-24
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us. [Message Translation: My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self criticism...] For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
(
Pt. 1- V. 16 says, that we know what love is because Jesus Christ laid down his life for us- and therefore we ought live lives of love towards one another-
Challenge- So we KNOW that Jesus loves us and died for us- But how do we keep that fresh and real in our lives- so much so that we are called and daily feel led to love our neighbors and enemies? How do we keep that belief from turning into a stale doctrine that no longer has power of us? And honestly- I allow it to become stale- I don’t let God breath on that fire sometimes- and consequently it is a whole lot easier in those times judge, mistreat and hate people
Prayer is the key to living a life of sacrificial love that Christians are called to live- if my spirit stays in connection with the Spirit of God- My identity becomes tied into Christ’s great love for me and consequently I am set free to spread that love to others
Prayer is a vertical relationship(internal) with horizontal consequences (external)- Vertical= trusting/relating to God, Horizontal= Loving one another
Pt. 2: We don’t make prayer happen- just like we don’t create life.
We participate in the life giving processes that produce life- and likewise we participate in prayer but we don’t originate it.
Let’s Read:
Rom 8:26-27
6 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
This is just one scripture where we get the idea that something deeper is going on in prayer than us saying some words toward the sky. It is deeper than language- broader than knowledge- It is communicating- it is listening to God- and it is sharing our heart with God
Prayer is deeply Spiritual. The Deep Spirit of God calls out to the recesses of our own Spirit- Deep cries out to Deep- We devalue prayer when we think we control by our own formulas or use of certain words or wordings
Prayer is not formula- I heard a guy say- all our prayer formulas- you know pray this way thirty days in a row and your territory will be enlarged- that’s voodoo. God doesn’t want to trust a formula he wants us to trust him.
I heard a guy say prayer is not like a web address- if you don’t get the .com in the right place your prayer gets returned
What prayer is not: transactional, earthly origins, not just for certain places and times and words
We sometimes get caught up in the language of prayer:
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966, “I often pray, though I'm not really sure Anyone's listening; and I phrase it carefully, just in case He's literary.”
A six year old said grace at family dinner one evening. "Dear God, thank You for the pancakes."
When he concluded, his mother asked him why he thanked God for pancakes when they were having chicken-pot-pie.
He smiled and said, "I thought I would check to see if He was paying attention."
We don’t make “prayer happen” by our language- you can’t screw prayer up by your words- only by your pretensions- you can’t hang up on God because he never puts the phone down- God’s always paying attention- the question is are we paying attention to God living in and around us
I love the message version of Message Matt 6:5-12, “And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?
Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense God’s grace.
The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply.”
So if God’s spirit is in charge of Prayer- What is our part?
Pt. 3- Our part is praying simply- the key to simple prayer is utter honesty. I shutter that I have to use the words utter honesty- but I’ve been around long enough to know that there’s nice domesticated honesty and then there’s the utter deep gut wrenching share your hurts, dreams and fears honesty
God wants honesty- Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie - I found that out. ~Mark Twain
Our part is pretty simple- Not pretending before God- Letting God- Who knows us best- Letting God tell us who we truly are and what we truly can become
In review- prayer is relational- not just for emergencies and ceremonies- it is indeed the way we breathe God into our life- it keeps fresh in our hearts the knowledge of Christ’s love for us- so that we can love others- it is from God’s Spirit- and we only participate in it- it is beyond our control- it is best practiced simply, with utter honesty-
A Story: I had 8th grade lunch as a 7th grader- a scary thing. I could not find a table that would accept me- except one on the fringe of the large cafeteria. Ryan sat by himself everyday, pretty much. Every day he prayed silently for a minute or two before eating- that time, though he may have just been saying a blessing for his food– I don’t know- was a blessing from God. Because Ryan was loving and kind- a teenager unafraid to be Christian in the middle of the day- he was 13 but he was deeply spiritual
I have been thinking about School Prayer a lot lately- but not the way its usually talked about
Christians like to talk big about prayer in school- like mandatory prayer is really something God wants- since scripture teaches clearly that he starts and controls prayer... Anyways- we talk big about prayer- but what if we spent as Christians less time blowing hot air talking about prayer and more time praying- What I’m getting at is isn’t time we put our knees where our mouths are- so to speak-
We have 200 and some students in the GarPal schools- more in Potlatch- dozens of employees and volunteers
One form of prayer is confession- and while I was mowing the lawn this week and asking God what he wanted me to teach on- God said you have to confess
I confess that I have not led by example and prayed for our schools- the teachers, students, administrators, staff, parents and volunteers-
I realized as I was quiet enough to finally hear God say- Confess, because my Spirit has been telling you to pray for your community every day. What if we all listened to God and prayed for our schools every day- who knows what God could do with us- who knows how we could help serve and influence the community- who knows how God’s Spirit could move in waves of love throughout our community
Prayer takes you into life with God- absence of prayer is nice way of saying you’re Ignoring the presence of God in your life
So this whole month we are going to be learning about prayer- talking about it- and DOING it- We’re going to study prayer and life in general today, than Prayer and the family next week, We’ll cover prayer and the local church and we’ll also learn about prayer and our community and the world- So I encourage you to come this whole month and learn and put into practice what you learn and experience here
“To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
And I don’t know about you- but I spend too much of life holding my breath and ignoring God.
So Let’s Pray-
We believe as followers of Jesus Christ- that Love is Life as it is meant to be (repeat)- and Prayer is a life- receiving connection with the Source of Love- our Loving God-(repeat) We don’t pray because we have to- we pray because we’re called to be lovers of the world- loving friends and enemies-
Let’s read our first scripture:
1 John 3:16-24
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us. [Message Translation: My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self criticism...] For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
(
Pt. 1- V. 16 says, that we know what love is because Jesus Christ laid down his life for us- and therefore we ought live lives of love towards one another-
Challenge- So we KNOW that Jesus loves us and died for us- But how do we keep that fresh and real in our lives- so much so that we are called and daily feel led to love our neighbors and enemies? How do we keep that belief from turning into a stale doctrine that no longer has power of us? And honestly- I allow it to become stale- I don’t let God breath on that fire sometimes- and consequently it is a whole lot easier in those times judge, mistreat and hate people
Prayer is the key to living a life of sacrificial love that Christians are called to live- if my spirit stays in connection with the Spirit of God- My identity becomes tied into Christ’s great love for me and consequently I am set free to spread that love to others
Prayer is a vertical relationship(internal) with horizontal consequences (external)- Vertical= trusting/relating to God, Horizontal= Loving one another
Pt. 2: We don’t make prayer happen- just like we don’t create life.
We participate in the life giving processes that produce life- and likewise we participate in prayer but we don’t originate it.
Let’s Read:
Rom 8:26-27
6 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
This is just one scripture where we get the idea that something deeper is going on in prayer than us saying some words toward the sky. It is deeper than language- broader than knowledge- It is communicating- it is listening to God- and it is sharing our heart with God
Prayer is deeply Spiritual. The Deep Spirit of God calls out to the recesses of our own Spirit- Deep cries out to Deep- We devalue prayer when we think we control by our own formulas or use of certain words or wordings
Prayer is not formula- I heard a guy say- all our prayer formulas- you know pray this way thirty days in a row and your territory will be enlarged- that’s voodoo. God doesn’t want to trust a formula he wants us to trust him.
I heard a guy say prayer is not like a web address- if you don’t get the .com in the right place your prayer gets returned
What prayer is not: transactional, earthly origins, not just for certain places and times and words
We sometimes get caught up in the language of prayer:
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966, “I often pray, though I'm not really sure Anyone's listening; and I phrase it carefully, just in case He's literary.”
A six year old said grace at family dinner one evening. "Dear God, thank You for the pancakes."
When he concluded, his mother asked him why he thanked God for pancakes when they were having chicken-pot-pie.
He smiled and said, "I thought I would check to see if He was paying attention."
We don’t make “prayer happen” by our language- you can’t screw prayer up by your words- only by your pretensions- you can’t hang up on God because he never puts the phone down- God’s always paying attention- the question is are we paying attention to God living in and around us
I love the message version of Message Matt 6:5-12, “And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?
Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense God’s grace.
The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply.”
So if God’s spirit is in charge of Prayer- What is our part?
Pt. 3- Our part is praying simply- the key to simple prayer is utter honesty. I shutter that I have to use the words utter honesty- but I’ve been around long enough to know that there’s nice domesticated honesty and then there’s the utter deep gut wrenching share your hurts, dreams and fears honesty
God wants honesty- Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie - I found that out. ~Mark Twain
Our part is pretty simple- Not pretending before God- Letting God- Who knows us best- Letting God tell us who we truly are and what we truly can become
In review- prayer is relational- not just for emergencies and ceremonies- it is indeed the way we breathe God into our life- it keeps fresh in our hearts the knowledge of Christ’s love for us- so that we can love others- it is from God’s Spirit- and we only participate in it- it is beyond our control- it is best practiced simply, with utter honesty-
A Story: I had 8th grade lunch as a 7th grader- a scary thing. I could not find a table that would accept me- except one on the fringe of the large cafeteria. Ryan sat by himself everyday, pretty much. Every day he prayed silently for a minute or two before eating- that time, though he may have just been saying a blessing for his food– I don’t know- was a blessing from God. Because Ryan was loving and kind- a teenager unafraid to be Christian in the middle of the day- he was 13 but he was deeply spiritual
I have been thinking about School Prayer a lot lately- but not the way its usually talked about
Christians like to talk big about prayer in school- like mandatory prayer is really something God wants- since scripture teaches clearly that he starts and controls prayer... Anyways- we talk big about prayer- but what if we spent as Christians less time blowing hot air talking about prayer and more time praying- What I’m getting at is isn’t time we put our knees where our mouths are- so to speak-
We have 200 and some students in the GarPal schools- more in Potlatch- dozens of employees and volunteers
One form of prayer is confession- and while I was mowing the lawn this week and asking God what he wanted me to teach on- God said you have to confess
I confess that I have not led by example and prayed for our schools- the teachers, students, administrators, staff, parents and volunteers-
I realized as I was quiet enough to finally hear God say- Confess, because my Spirit has been telling you to pray for your community every day. What if we all listened to God and prayed for our schools every day- who knows what God could do with us- who knows how we could help serve and influence the community- who knows how God’s Spirit could move in waves of love throughout our community
posted by Palouse Fed. Church at 10:00 AM
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