What Do You Pray For?

That is a challenging question for to ask myself – what do you pray for? I think the answer to that question depends on what defines our life. If our life is defined by the values of the world around us, than our prayers will be focused on those values. Our prayer life will be dominated by petitions to make us successful, and to provide for our needs (and our wants). There will be prayers that our children get good jobs, score high on important tests and get into the right colleges.

But what if our life is defined by something else? What happens when our life is defined by what God values, rather than what the world values? What do our prayers look like then? Let's ask the apostle Paul:

With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of His calling.... (2 Th. 1:11a)

What does it mean to be worthy of God's calling? In Paul's letters, God's call is always an effective call to salvation. The call of God on your life leads to salvation. So he is talking to people who are saved. He is not praying that somehow these folks would work hard enough to become worthy to be saved. None of us were worthy to receive God's call – it is a gift of grace.

God has called us into relationship with him. We are heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ. (Rom. 8:17) We are adopted into God's eternal family. (Gal. 3:26) We are not worthy of that call. But Paul prays that we become what we are not. As D. A. Carson notes in his book, A Call to Spiritual Reformation:

He prays that Christians might become worthy of all that is means to be a Christian, of all that it means to be a child of the living God, of all that it means to be worthy of the love that brought Jesus to the cross. (p. 53-54)

Being worthy of the calling of God does not mean we work longer and strive harder. Is there responsibility on our part? Sure. But the real power to transform comes from God. Paul prays that God would count us worthy, that God would do the work in our lives that is necessary to bring that about.

So what does a prayer like that look like? Let me give you an example. We pray for all kinds of things for our kids. I have a child with a chronic medical problem that has so far eluded doctors and medicines. I pray every day for healing for my child. But if I am praying that God may count her worthy of His calling, I should also pray that God would work in her spiritually, that she would grow in her knowledge of Him, that she would serve Him with all her heart, regardless of any healing from God or solution through medicines or doctors.

What do you pray for? And how will your prayers change if you pray for yourself, your spouse, your family and your church that God may count each and all of them worthy of His calling?

Amazing Thoughts from the Writer of Amazing Grace

I am greatly enjoying reading a biography of John Newton, the English pastor who is most famous for writing the hymn 'Amazing Grace'. The book by Jonathan Aitken is entitled John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace.

 

Like many biographies, Aitken traces Newton's life from his earliest childhood days, detailing the influences of his youth and his spiritual struggles. Newton worked in the slave trade, becoming the captain of his own ship. He fell in love and spent years apart from his bride to be while he earned money to support her. Newton struggled with the temptations of the slave trade, but in the midst of that was drawn to God and experienced God's saving grace.

Eventually John Newton felt the call to the ministry. He had friends in many religious groups, being friends with prominent Church of England pastors as well as revivalists like John Wesley and George Whitefield. Newton quickly became known in religious circles as a man who was a religious enthusiast – in other words, he took his faith seriously. Unfortunately religious enthusiasm was frowned upon by the formal, socially accepted Church of England he sought to join as a minister. Only after many years and many refusals and disappointments was he granted a pastoral position in the township of Olney.

Newton's mindset as he approached his first church is what struck me. We can all learn from it. This is what he wrote to his wife on the eve of his move to Olney:

“I now almost stagger at the prospect before me. I am to stand in a very public point of view, to take charge of a large parish, to answer the incessant demands of stated and occasional services, to preach what I ought and to be what I preach.”  John Newton:  From Disgrace to Amazing Grace, p. 179.

I am challenged by his last two phrases. First, to preach what I ought – to be faithful in preaching the truth of the Word of God. And that challenge exists for all of us, whether we are in full time ministry or not, because we are all involved in communicating truth, preaching as it were, to family and friends around us. Is our communication in line with the Word of God?

And then, even more challenging, his last phrase – to be what I preach. To live a life consistent with the truth that I am communicating to others. A life that is not hypocritical – saying one thing and living another – but a life that lines up with the truths of God's Word.

Lord, help me be faithful in your service, preaching what I ought, and being what I preach. Amen.

The Importance of Diet and Exercise

All of us face the struggle to live a healthy, balanced life. The temptations to eat too much or be less active are always there. We have to keep an eye on our diet. We can be as active as we want, but if we eat too much junk, our lives will not be healthy and balanced. On the other hand, we can have a great diet, but if spend our days lying around in front of the TV, we cannot be healthy and balanced either. A life that is healthy and balanced physically depends on both diet and exercise.

What happens if we import these ideas into our spiritual lives? Our diet would consist of encounters with God and His Word that strengthen and nourish us. The exercise we participate in would be the times when we put our faith into action – serving the Lord by serving others. Are both diet and exercise as important spiritually as they are physically?

Consider what would happen if we were all about diet, all about nourishment alone. We would know our Bibles. We would be able to argue ourselves out of every theological box. We would be able to quote chapter and verse as well as anyone. But does head knowledge alone lead to spiritual maturity? Or does it just make us a prideful, spiritual snob?

At the same time, consider what would happen if we were only about spiritual exercise, putting our faith in practice. We would be busy. No grass would grow under our feet. But where does the spiritual strength to achieve all the good works and sacrificial service come from without a diet of God and His Word? Spiritual exercise alone can only lead to exhaustion, frustration and burnout.

The key, as in so many things in life, is balance. Are we getting the proper nutrition? Do we sit under the teaching of the Word of God regularly? Are we engaged in personal Bible study and prayer? At the same time, we are active in our exercise? Do we serve God by serving others? Are we giving of ourselves, putting our faith in action and reflecting the love of Christ to people around us?

The balanced Christian life needs both diet and exercise. In Colossians 1, the apostle Paul tells the Colossian Christians what he prays for them. He wants them to live a life worthy of the Lord. And what are the key components of such a life? Diet and exercise!

And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work (here is the exercise!), growing in the knowledge of God (here is the diet!).... (Col. 1:10, NIV, comments in parenthesis are mine)

That is my prayer for all of you – that we would be as diligent (or in some cases, more diligent) pursuing spiritual balance through both diet and exercise as we are chasing the same balance in our physical bodies.

The Gospel: Never Assume

Over the past year or so, our church's leadership team has been seeking God for future vision and direction for Lolo Community Church. We have prayed, we have spent the weekend together, we have discussed and boiled down ideas to the point that we have what we feel is a God-given plan that will give focus, clarity and intentionality to our church's ministry.

As the pastor of the church, I have found myself (appropriately so) in the middle of this discussion. I am pretty well versed in our new mission and vision document and feel pretty confident that I can explain it clearly to anyone who asks. But sometimes familiarity breeds, if not in this case contempt, at the very least complacency.

As many of you who are familiar with Lolo church know, our “unofficial” motto has been “Where the Bible is preached.” Strong Bible preaching drove Pastor Gale Fister's ministry here for 40 years and I hope strong Bible preaching is a vital part of my ministry as well as God uses me to build on the foundation He laid through Gale's faithfulness. As a result, in our vision and mission discussions this past year, on the first things that came up was the need to reaffirm our commitment to being biblical in all we do and staying true to God's word.

That has been a given, an assumption throughout my almost 20 years of ministry. But every once and a while even your strongest convictions, your strongest assumptions need to be shaken and challenged a bit.

 

A few weeks ago, I began reading The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel by Mark Dever and Paul Alexander. In that book the authors challenge pastors never to be slow in preaching the gospel and to never assume that your congregation has a rudimentary assumption of the gospel and the Christian life. They write:

“...when we assume the Gospel instead of clarifying it, people who profess Christianity but don't understand or obey the Gospel are cordially allowed to presume their own conversion without examining themselves for evidence of it – which may amount to nothing more than a blissful damnation.” (The Deliberate Church - p. 43)

When we preach, teach or share our faith, we cannot assume that people understood either the truths of the gospel or their need to respond to it. After all, as Jeremiah reminds us, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9) – we are good at lulling ourselves into a sense of spiritual comfort and complacency. The gospel needs to be central to ministry. Above all, our task is to win people with the gospel.

“What you win them with is likely what you'll win them to. If you win them with the Gospel, you'll win them to the Gospel. If you win them with technique, programs, entertainment and personal charisma, you might end up winning them to yourself and your methods (and you might not!), but it's likely that they won't be won to the Gospel first and foremost. “For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond servant for Jesus' sake.” (2 Cor. 4:5)” (The Deliberate Church - p. 44)

Well said, brothers!