Praying The Scriptures

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Praying the scriptures actually makes me nervous sometimes.  Not nervous like scared but nervous like, God already knows what He said in scripture so who am I to tell him about it.  Then I think about Daniel.  Daniel read the scriptures and discovered what God said would happen to the people of Israel.  When Daniel read Jeremiah he knew that the time for Israel to be in exile was seventy years so he knew their time was almost up.  So what did he do, he asked for forgiveness for his sins, the sins of his family, the sins of the leaders, and the sins of all the people of Israel.  Then he prays back what God had said.  He prays that God would stick to his word and free the people of Israel just like he says he will in Jeremiah.

God said this is what would happen and knew Daniel would pray for it to happen before he did.  Daniel knew that God knew everything but he still prayed.  As should we.  Yes God knows the beginning from the end but we need to heed the call to pray. When we feel that need it may just be God using us to free someone from bondage.

Praying the scripture should not be used out of context.  Context, Context, Context.  This is something we have gotten away from thanks to many of the popular preachers of our day.  Know the full passage before you claim a scripture.  Get a book on the subject.  Beth Moore wrote a good book several years ago called Praying God’s Word: Breaking Free From Spiritual Strongholds I know she is known predominately as a women’s author but this is a good book for everyone.  Scripture cover things like: addiction, Guilt, unbelief, pride and several more topics.

Using the Psalms or Proverbs is a good place to start.  Here is an example form the 23rd Psalm.

Lord you lead my life, and I do not want anything but you.  You guide me and comfort me, You restore my soul.  You increase my righteousness for your glory not mine.  I have no fear because you are with me and you provide for my needs.  I am filled with goodness and love because your spirit is within me, and because of your sacrifice I will join you in heaven when you call me there.

Make it your own, live by it and think on it regularly.

If you are in the Middleburg Florida area this Sunday we would love to have you. Our Church is located at 3965 Old Jennings Rd on the corner of Old Jennings and Long Bay

Who or What Do You Worship?

What Is The Chief End of Man? Man’s Chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever!

That is the first question and answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Apply that to your life. Do you glorify God in all you do? Do you enjoy being with him? We attribute worship to what we love.

Today we most commonly think of Christian Worship as only one thing; Sunday morning church service. We have had a change over the last twenty years, like never before, in how the Sunday morning worship service is going to be acted out. We have seen churches split apart over the style of music used in the worship services. We are now seeing a new kind of service, and churches for that matter, that is modeled after what some believe to be the book of Acts model.

But is Sunday morning the only time we are to worship God? Do we worship him in our daily lives and work? Do we give our all to honor him? Lets explore worship and see what it really is.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 10:27)

What Do You Worship

Not everyone that says they worship God actually worships Him. We see so many people today that go to church only show up there because they get a good feeling from the experience or out of duty to someone (maybe to God maybe grandma).  They go to a church but do not actually worship the God they go to see.  How do we determine this? Look at the divorce rate or the teen pregnancy rate or the drug and alcohol abuse rate in the church at large.  For every pastor that gets caught with drugs or porn there are ten more that have not been.

So what does this have to do with worship?

Look at the verse above. We worship what we love. We pour or affection into what we love. One of the reasons I say the Church in America has become a laughing stock is because we love the world and all it has to offer and we put God and Jesus on the back burner. When we say yes to Christ we begin a discipleship where we learn from him. If we do not love Him then how can we learn anything from Him?

Let’s go back for a minute. If you came to this lens from the Spiritual Disciplines lens then you know that I asked you to read the 23rd Psalm during the week. Verse 1-3 says:

1The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. (KJV)

How are you going to let someone lead you if you do not love them? How can you read this and worship him for leading you if you do not love him? in verse 4 it says, “thy rod and thy staff comfort me.” How can you say that if you are trying to buck the system and lead yourself.

Worship is about love, we will worship and need what we love and we will shun and deny what we do not.

Tony Jones Blesses Gay Marriage & Ordination

I’m going to go ahead and walk right out on a limb here and make a stand.  I believe the bible is the absolute inerrant word of God.  I believe it is good for teaching as well as rebuke.  I believe it can teach us about salvation and about living a life that is holy.  I do not believe it changes nor do I believe it need to be reinterpreted.  I believe that there are things in it that we will not understand until we get to Heaven and if I get there and was wrong so be it, but to what I understand now I will not waiver.

In Romans 1 Paul says this:

16I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

According to the bible, I am going to go ahead and say that I believe Tony Jones got it wrong.  If you read the above and believe that sexual immorality and homosexuality are o.k. I have no argument for you because I can not say it anymore clear than that.  We as Christians are to declare the gospel and according to the parable of the sower some will listen and some won’t its just that simple.

Let me know what you think.

Read the originating article here:

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2008/11/tony_jones_bles.html

Some More Prayer Blog Posts

If you are looking for the insight of others on prayer here are four good links:

http://www.twelvewitnesses.com/2007/07/31/spiritual-disciplines-prayer/

http://blog.wordsarenotenough.com/2007/07/31/the-spiritual-disciplines-creative-prayer/

http://www.sacredvapor.com/?p=293

http://tikesbestfriend.blogspot.com/2007/07/on-prayer.html

We are perfected by prayer.

In our life with Christ our one avenue to the heart of God is through prayer. Many Christians today will say they have no real relationship with Christ in prayer. They do not want either to take the time, or use the excuse of not having enough time to pray. You see them every day. They want more out of their Christian life. They want to overcome this world and its desires. But they do not want to take the time to build a relationship, so they are still powerless to the addictions of this world.

1st John two says this, “4The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.”

We can not walk as Jesus did if we have no relationship to him. If we say we are Christians and still fall pray to repeated and perpetual sins we are not really Christians. (Read the entire book of 1st John, it explains this in detail and it only takes about 15 minutes to read)

At some point in our Christian life we may have been told that we are free and salvation is only for the afterlife. Maybe you heard this, “I curse and yell because God made me this way.” Those excuses are just not true, refer back to first John. We can not overcome this world by ourselves, but Christ can and did, and he expects us to trust him and let him change us so that we can open up his light to others. I fell into both of these traps myself and spent the first 6 years as a Christian struggling with terrible sin. I am still letting Christ work in me to make me more and more like him knowing full well I will not be perfected until the end.

It does not matter how long you have known Christ. If you have spent all this time putting him on a shelf only to take him off when you needed help it is time to stop. This process starts where our Christian life started, with prayer. Tell him you want him to be the Lord of your life and let him in to change you. Remember you have spent your life up until now living this way. So some things you may have to work on but some he may remove instantly. Remember, “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4B)

I listed the Lord’s Prayer in the post before this one as the skeleton for our prayer life. Some other examples we can use are:

1. The Acts Model. Adoration, Confession, Supplication, and Thanksgiving.

2. Start a Prayer Journal. This lets you see where you came from and where you are going.

3. Praying the scriptures. If you are looking for help in this area Beth Moore has a book that lists many scripture you can pray Praying God’s Word: Breaking Free From Spiritual Strongholds

4. Just Pray. Do something whether it is screaming at the ceiling or crying on the floor, (both of which I have done) just do something