The phrase “praying in the Spirit” or “praying in the Holy Spirit” appears in both Ephesians and Jude, and is much misunderstood in Christian circles. Some associate it with a sensation of being caught up or carried along, like riding a bike down a slope instead of pushing uphill.
Maybe it’s just me, but I get edgy when anyone starts talking about feelings or sensations when we are discussing the faith and its practice.
I’ve been praying for Canada lately. If you’ve been following our political scene, we got rid of one failing, bitterly disliked Prime Minister and replaced him with the behind-the-scenes architect of his most abject failures. It’s been 17 months since we had a federal budget, gas prices and food prices are through the roof, youth unemployment is soaring, immigration is wildly out of control and I’m seeing drug addicts and homeless people in every city in Ontario that I visit.
In short, lots to pray about. But how to pray is a good question.
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David de Bruyn’s morning email is a short prayer checklist entitled “When God Says ‘No’ ”. I’ve made them myself from time to time, and I’m sure I’ve done a post on the subject at some point over the years. You know what that looks like: “My prayer is not being answered in the affirmative, Lord. So what does your word say about that?”
What possible reasons might there be?
Some spiritual experiences are useful to share. Others, I find, I am better off keeping to myself, not because they are trivial but because they are personal, just between me and the Lord. Also, more than a few of these experiences are easily misunderstood.
An example. This morning I wake at 2:15 a.m., as is often the case. I know I’m either up for the day or at least for the next few hours. Long experience has proven trying to go back to sleep when I’m wide awake is wasted time. Upstairs, I can hear my son struggling with what turns out to be an uncooperative file conversion (he works overnight from home), and I overhear an uncharacteristic expression of frustration pass his lips.
Naturally, I go up and intrude. Come on, you would too.
“… always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.”
Our New Testament preserves four letters Paul wrote during his first Roman imprisonment. From these epistles and from the last chapter of the book of Acts, we learn that in Rome the authorities allowed him to stay “by himself” under guard for two years in what was probably a rented dwelling, awaiting trial. There, he was able to receive visitors and preach and teach unhindered.
During this period he had both “fellow prisoners” and “fellow workers”. Epaphras was one of the former.
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“Does God really care about the little things that trouble us?”
Last night was prayer meeting, and I sat listening to others pray, thinking about corporate prayer and what it means to the Lord. One after another, men stood up and took their concerns to their Father in heaven: a full-time worker struggling with health issues; the preparations for this summer’s camp work; the regular meetings of the congregation; a father, brother and grandmother who do not know Christ; a family with its head under church discipline. All the ordinary concerns of a local church had their moments, and we said our amens as others expressed them.
But I couldn’t help thinking about all the things we were not requesting.
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“How do you feel about prayer in public schools?”
My family returned to Canada from overseas when I was due to enter grade 4, resulting in the school system bumping me into grade 5 a year early. Awkward and shy, I pretty much accepted everything the way it came, at least initially. Each morning at school started the same way: with the day’s announcements, preceded by rising for the national anthem and a rote recitation of the “Lord’s prayer”.
How did I feel about it?
Growing up, from time to time my father would assign me a job of one sort or another around the house. I doubt my unskilled service was overly helpful; he probably had to redo most of my work after I finished. But the tasks were a training exercise. Dad knew his children needed to learn that life was not all road hockey games, good books and model kits.
I was less-than-entirely keen on learning the discipline of service. I used to drag my feet, complaining that I didn’t understand what was required, didn’t have the proper tools I needed to do the job, or couldn’t possibly be expected to operate that dangerous-looking lawnmower thingy with no prior experience. The object, naturally, was to get out of having to do it at all.
At such times my father would simply say, “Stop quaddling and get to it.”
Everyone has needs. The man who says he doesn’t isn’t without need, he’s without self-awareness, or perhaps just unwilling to be honest. With respect to need, the only important difference between Christians and unbelievers is that, in coming to Christ, believers acknowledge their neediness and seek to have it addressed. Unbelievers don’t.
That makes us weak, some say. Let’s grant them that. Why not?
Jews pray to God generically, though they sometimes write his name “G-d”. Muslims pray to God generically; that’s what “Allah” means. The devout men and women of the Old Testament addressed their prayers to God generically: “O God” (or, more frequently, “O Lord” and sometimes “O Lord God”).
But they never prayed “O Father”. Not once.
You may be thinking my title contains a typo. That will probably happen one of these days, but this isn’t it. No, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the way luck, chance or fortune factor into the Christian life.
Of course, how we view that depends on what we believe about events that to us appear random. To be consistent with their theology, Christian determinists are obliged to assign responsibility for every transaction in the universe — favorable or unfavorable — to God, right down to the atomic level. “All events whatsoever,” wrote John Calvin. Many of his followers take him literally.
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Over at Blog & Mablog, Justin has a question about a difficult passage at the end of James:
“What is the purpose of anointing with oil [James 5:14]? Does it make our prayers extra powerful? Is that for us in this day and age?
I am genuinely curious due to the fact that in our church there is a sister that has just been diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. We do pray and have been praying for her, her husband, and their children.
This past Sunday during our announcements after the service our pastor stated that he and another elder were going to fulfill the James 5 principle and personally go and anoint her head with oil for healing.”
Oddly enough, we just discussed this passage in our weekly Bible study.
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Why do the wicked appear to prosper while allowed to oppress, injure and even murder those more righteous than they? The question has troubled anyone with an attention span and reasonable powers of observation over the centuries. One of these was the prophet Habakkuk, who took his question to almighty God. God graciously responded, and Habakkuk wrote down what he said for those of us who would come later.
Here is how God answered him.
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Talk show host David Pakman comments on Twitter about the recent spree shooting at a Nashville Christian school:
“Very surprising that there would be a mass shooting at a Christian school, given that lack of prayer is often blamed for these horrible events. Is it possible they weren’t praying enough, or correctly, despite being a Christian school?”
If you guessed that a tidal wave of negative feedback prompted Pakman to quickly delete his tweet, points for getting used to the drill.
I had just finished Sunday’s post when Antemodernist dropped a new post of his own into my inbox. In this one, he starts with a question posed by a Calvinist: “What does praying to an Arminian God actually accomplish, since he can’t compel anyone to believe?” The Calvinist went on to assert, “Arminians pray like Calvinists when they pray for salvation.”
Antemodernist answers the question, but first explores a much more difficult one: “What does praying to a Calvinist God actually accomplish?”
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In a previous post, we were considering the danger of using prayer as a sort of blanket to hide under when we ought to be doing something else, and I suggested that there are times when it is inappropriate for us to pray.
We will come back to that idea shortly, but let’s begin with this statement:
All men are either in Adam or in Christ.
True faith is an expression of submission and obedience.
When a person believes on Jesus Christ, he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s who Jesus is. A believer receives a Lord who saves and a Savior who lords. The person who expresses faith in this way may never understand all that involves. They simply know they are lost, they realize they need salvation, they cry out for mercy and they put their trust in a Lord who saves, with the emphasis (in their minds) on being saved.
However, once they have come to him, they realize they have come to one who not only saves but also rules. He is Lord.
“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
The Lord Jesus came to create division, and when he returned to his Father, he left us with the division his visit, his person and his claims created. Those who have believed in him enjoy a unity and a commonality previously unimagined, which we sometimes call fellowship. But the difference between his children and those who are not his own is the difference between light and darkness, between righteousness and lawlessness, and between Christ and Belial.
That is not always apparent. It is especially not apparent to those in darkness.
Paradise is lost beyond recovery as far as man is concerned. There will be weeds in your garden, pain in your body and distress in your mind until the Lord returns; not all the time and in the same measure perhaps, but frustrating conditions will come and go in everyone’s experience; those who have faith and those who have none.
There was nothing wrong with the content of the letter. It was carefully thought-through, but may as well not have been written. It was back on my desk, rejected by the post office.
Did I make a mistake in the house number? Was the stamp of insufficient value? Perhaps the machine mistook my ‘B’ for an ‘8’ in the postal code …
Some time ago I became concerned about the habit of closing our prayers with “in the name of”, followed by whatever name or title of the Savior was our choice: “Jesus” or “Lord” or “Lord Jesus Christ”.