Plan for Prayer

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. . . . These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:7–8, 11)

Prayer pursues joy in fruitful fellowship with Jesus, knowing that God is glorified when we bear fruit in answer to prayer. Why do God’s children so often fail to have consistent habits of happy, fruitful prayer?

Unless I’m badly mistaken, one of the reasons is not so much that we don’t want to, but that we don’t plan to.

If you want to take a four-week vacation, you don’t just get up one summer morning and say, “Hey, let’s go today!” You won’t have anything ready. You won’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned.

But that is how many of us treat prayer. We get up day after day and realize that significant times of prayer should be a part of our life, but nothing is ready.

We don’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned. No time. No place. No procedure. And we all know that the opposite of planning is not a wonderful flow of deep, spontaneous experiences in prayer. The opposite of planning is the same old rut.

If you don’t plan a vacation, you will probably stay home and watch TV. The natural, unplanned flow of spiritual life sinks to the lowest ebb of vitality. There is a race to be run and a fight to be fought. If you want renewal in your life of prayer, you must plan to see it.

Therefore, my simple exhortation is this: Let us take time this very day to rethink our priorities and how prayer fits in. Make some new resolve. Try some new venture with God. Set a time. Set a place. Choose a portion of Scripture to guide you.

Don’t be tyrannized by the press of busy days. We all need mid course corrections. Make this a day of turning to prayer — for the glory of God and for the fullness of your joy.

John Piper 

What if my parents aren’t worthy of respect?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Exodus 20:12

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Whether you are young or old, you can honor your parents. How? By showing respect. Leviticus 19:3 says, “Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God.” The word “fear” doesn’t mean to quake in the presence of your parents, but to have a holy respect for your father and mother.

“Honor” literally means to add weight to. To take our parents seriously; to reverence and respect them.

You may say, “But my parents aren’t worthy of respect.” With all due respect, you aren’t either. None of us are worthy. Only perfect children can demand perfect parents. They are imperfect; we are imperfect. But God is holy, and He says we are to respect our parents.

Their life blood flows in us. Their very life is in us. They would give their life for us. I believe the closest, greatest illustration on earth to the love of God is the love of parents for their children.

ACTION POINT:

What’s your relationship like with your parents? If you’ve been showing less than the biblical respect God requires, then begin today to turn that around for His glory. If your parents are still alive, show that love, show that honor, and do it now. Dead noses smell no roses. I urge you: write that letter now, pay that visit now, send that gift now, do that chore now, give that kiss of affection now. Whatever you’re going to do, do it, and do it now.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

God Of All Flesh

"Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me? - Jeremiah 32:27

And they fell on their faces and said, "O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and will you be angry with all the congregation?" - Numbers 16:22

Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son." - Genesis 18:14

In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.  - Job 12:10

and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. - Ecclesiastes 12:7

But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." - Matthew 19:26

"I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.  - Job 42:2

38 And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

39 I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them.

40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. - Jeremiah 32:38-40

2 "Thus says the LORD who made the earth, the LORD who formed it to establish it-the LORD is his name:

3 Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. - Jeremiah 33:2-3

God Heals by Humbling

“I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,” says the Lord, “and I will heal him.” (Isaiah 57:18–19)

In spite of the severity of man’s disease of rebellion and willfulness, God will heal. How will he heal? Isaiah 57:15 says that God dwells with the crushed and humble. Yet the people of Isaiah 57:17 are not humble. They are brazenly pursuing their own proud way. So, what will a healing be?

It can only be one thing. God will heal them by humbling them. He will cure the patient by crushing his pride. If only the crushed and humble enjoy God’s fellowship (Isaiah 57:15), and if Israel’s sickness is a proud and willful rebellion (Isaiah 57:17), and if God promises to heal them (Isaiah 57:18), then his healing must be humbling and his cure must be a crushed spirit.

Isn’t this Isaiah’s way of prophesying what Jeremiah called the new covenant and the gift of a new heart? He said, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. . . . I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:31, 33).

Isaiah and Jeremiah both see a time coming when a sick, disobedient, hard-hearted people will be supernaturally changed. Isaiah speaks of healing. Jeremiah speaks of writing the law on their hearts. And Ezekiel puts it like this: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26)

So the healing of Isaiah 57:18 is a major heart transplant — the old hardened, proud, willful heart of stone is taken out, and a new soft, tender heart is put in, which is easily humbled and crushed by the memory of sin and the sin that remains.

This is a heart that the lofty One whose name is Holy will dwell with forever.

John Piper 

Do you really mean business with God?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I’m amazed at how little it takes to stop some Christians from accomplishing the tasks the Father has given them to do. This thing of being a Christian is not a Sunday afternoon stroll. Shining God’s light in a dark world is a full time job. The Christian life, being saved, leading others to Jesus Christ, is a full time occupation. We must pray over it, weep over it, and study over it to show ourselves approved.

If we possess life in Christ, it first must possess us. Every great athlete is possessed with a desire to win. When I watch the Olympics and see these young people who’ve trained, sometimes tears come to my eyes. I pray, "Oh, God, I want to be that kind of a Christian! I want to live in the spiritual realm as these people are willing to live in the physical realm!"

Most of us in America get up on Sunday mornings and sit in an air-conditioned church with beautiful stained glass windows in streamlined comfort. The truth is…we’re flabby, undisciplined, and exhibit no determination.

Friend, God does business with those who mean business.

ACTION POINT:

Do you mean business? “…seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). Does your life indicate that you’re in serious pursuit of running the race set before you?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

You Alone Are Sovereign God

8 No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it.

9 All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt. - Ecclesiastes 8:8-9

10 Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity.

11 Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.

12 Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him.

13 But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God. - Ecclesiastes 8:10-13

14 There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.

15 And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.

16 When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep,

17 then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out. - Ecclesiastes 8:14-17

But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him. - Ecclesiastes 9:1

5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.

6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 9:5-6

For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them. - Ecclesiastes 9:12

The Master Servant

. . . so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:7)

To me, the Bible’s most astonishing image of Christ’s second coming is in Luke 12:35–37, which pictures the return of a master from a marriage feast like this:

“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.”

To be sure, we are called servants — and that no doubt means we are to do exactly as we are told. But the wonder of this picture is that the “master” insists on serving. We may have expected this during Jesus’s ministry on earth, since he said, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). But Luke 12:35–37 is a picture of the second coming, when the Son of Man comes in the blinding glory of his Father “with his mighty angels in flaming fire” as 2 Thessalonians 1:7–8 says. Why would Jesus be portrayed as a table waiter at the second coming?

Because the very heart of his glory is the fullness of grace that overflows in kindness to needy people. This is why Ephesians 2:7 says he aims “in the coming ages [to] show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

What is the greatness of our God? What is his uniqueness in the world? Isaiah answers: “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4 RSV). There is no other god like this. He never relinquishes the role of inexhaustible benefactor of his ever-dependent, happy people.

John Piper