“2Ch 7:14  If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. “

The practice of personal, at home prayer is at an abysmal low.  Prayer at church cannot replace prayer at home, in fact, prayer at church does not lead to prayer at home but prayer at home does lead to prayer at church.  And when Christians do pray during the week they mostly do it on the run.  A quality relationship cannot be maintained this way.  Investing so little time and effort in a relationship does not make, or keep, it fruitful.

We say things like, “I know I should pray.”  “To grow in Christ I have to pray.”  “For this revival to happen we must pray.”  We make it sound like prayer is some sort of spiritual castor oil.  Not very pleasant but essential.  And it is essential.  But it is also so much more.  Prayer should be a delightful session of closeness with a Father who loves us and not just something we try to ration out just enough time to get a desired result.

We often treat prayer as nothing more than a transaction.  “Well Lord, I’ve served you and I’ve asked you, so now it’s your turn, God.”  But prayer as transaction will turn into either dissatisfaction, or be seen as a duty, when it actually is a privilege.  It is a privilege that Jesus died for.

Sometimes we want to use prayer as just a method of establishing Gods presence, but instead we should use it as a way of responding to His presence.  He is there, whether you feel him or not.  We cannot have awesome mighty experiences of His presence every time we pray, but if we are of the mind that we are to just spend enough time with God to get what we want, not only will we probably not get what we want, but we will never have that awesome experience in His presence.

Sometimes we tend to reduce prayer to a mere component of worship, but it should be a natural demonstration of our love for the One who loved us first.  Prayer should be passionate because love should be passionate.  We think that loving the church, or our ministry, is the same as loving God, but it is not.  These things are just vehicles for service.  We serve the church, but our passion belongs to Christ.  When we pour out our hearts to God with passion we will end up praying through our objections, overcome our disobedience, become able to confront our doubts and overcome our fears.

We must understand that we are dependent on God.  We must realize how very weak we are.  Prayer is a declaration of that dependence.  An admission of our weakness disarms our pride and prepares us for grace.  By trying to be strong in ourselves we can actually block God’s presence and practice.

Devout Buddhists use a prayer wheel.  They believe that every rotation sends up prayers.  They do it all day.  Some tech savvy Buddhists have prayer wheel programs on their computers that spin at 5400 revolutions per minute.  That’s a ton of prayer every day.

In Japan some pay priests at Shinto shrines pay up to 50 dollars to have a priest offer up prayers.

In Taiwan they have “ghost money” which is fake money offered up to ghosts for good fortune.

Hindus in India appease the gods with offerings of food, flowers and animal sacrifices.

Muslims pray five times at least a day, every day.

It is amazing to me that there are more people praying to nothing than those of us who know the real God.

God said that if we humble ourselves and pray and seek his face, He would heal our land.  Our land is in much need of being healed.  So we must not be praying.  God has the power; He just wants us to ask. As I said earlier, He wants us as partners in creation.  He also wants to share His love, dry our tears, allay our fears, lighten our load, and fulfill our needs.  To do all of this, we must pray.  We must share our lives with Him.

Have you prayed today?

Love you all

Tags: castor oil, God, jesus, muslim, Personal, Power, Prayer, presence, privilege, quality relationship, relationship, Sin

The choir in my church sang a song today called, I believe, We Are Not Ashamed.  They have sung this song on many occasions and I am always moved by it.  It is about not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is something we should all take to heart.

But do we?  How often do we keep silent when we should speak up?  How often do we make sure we do not put ourselves in a place or a position where we might have to speak of the gospel?

Some of us, maybe even all of us at times, find ourselves embarrassingly inadequate at sharing our faith.  Are we really ashamed?   Probably not.  I truly doubt, except in certain situations, that most of us are really ashamed of our God and Savior.  That would be like being ashamed of our wives or girlfriends, husbands or boyfriends.  Most of us are really not ashamed of those we really love.

So what is really the problem?

I believe it is probably intimidation.  I do not, entirely, mean intimidation in the sense of being afraid, but instead being under the impression that it will do no good.  That it won’t really matter or make a difference.  Some of us are concerned with others attitudes toward us and opinions of us and some of us just really think we cannot make a difference.

Why bother talking to that guy at work who is bragging about his adulterous affair?  He won’t listen if he is that outspoken about it and I just might be ostracized from the group for my holier than thou attitude.

That Muslim you know is just so devout that you know you will never reach them, and you are a little intimidated by what you know of their religion; so why take the chance of being looked on as one of those hate spewing Christians?  We can all live together in love, if we keep silent.

And that goes for that very outspoken atheist also.  If we keep silent about our faith, we can all get along very well.  And maybe even love each other.  And if we can show enough love, then that will win out in the end.  Right?

Wrong.  What love is this that is willing to keep silent about something so important?  I started thinking about this post after listening to this video the other day.  In this video you will hear Penn Jillette, a very outspoken, oftentimes crude, but very logical and consistent thinker and atheist.  He is the talkative half of the comedian/ magician team known as Penn and Teller.

He is also what I call a true atheist.  I was one for many years myself.  I believe a true atheist is someone who says they do not believe that there is a God and they are not afraid of those who believe.  We seem to be surrounded today by people calling themselves atheist that are intent on silencing us.  They seem afraid of something, or maybe it is Someone.

In the video you will hear Penn say that if we, as believers, really love everyone and we really believe what we say about heaven and hell, then our love demands that we tell everyone about it; in effect, we should proselytize.  Evangelize, if you prefer.

I admire his stance on this and find that this was the way I felt also.  As a Christian we must tell everyone the gospel.  If we do not, do we really love?  I can’t see how.

We can never be ashamed, and as I stated, I doubt many of us really are.  But we must also never be intimidated.  We may be called intolerant, or a holy roller, or hateful, or many other things; but we must still tell the story because for the sake of love, it is necessary.  Those that can’t except this and call us all of these things are running scared and can probably be reached.

And those that are not running scared, like Penn and like I used to be, will be reached through the consistent witness of love and the telling of the good news.

Listen to the video.  And pray for Penn Jillette.  A transformation of someone like him would be a mighty witness for the Kingdom.

And the next time you feel a little timid about sharing, remember that if you really love them, you have to.

Love you all

Tags: atheist, Believe, Christians, Church, Faith, Good, Heaven, Hell, Jesus Christ, Kingdom, Love, muslim, Penn Jillette, religion, Self, Sin, witness, Work