True prayer, according to the Bible, is a dialogue. If we ever think of it as a monologue, it ceases to be true prayer.
Look at the contrasting statements in the opening verses of Psalms 13 and 14—
How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? (13:1)
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” (14:1)
We can have a dialogue with God—even asking questions of the Almighty—or we can monologue to ourselves.
The dialoguer asks a lot of questions (five of them in the first two verses of chapter 13) and anticipates that God will answer. In fact, David wrote in an earlier psalm, “In the morning, O Lord, You hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation” (Psalm 5:3).
God’s answers are expected, as the dialoguer stops asking questions of God and begins to express his trust in God’s love, as he rejoices in God’s salvation, and sings about God’s goodness (13:5-6). Clearly, this trust, rejoicing, and singing come from assurances received in his dialogue with God.
The monologuer asks no questions of God, but makes definitive conclusions that he himself concocted. He talks to himself, making himself the final authority! The result is inevitable: “There they are, overwhelmed with dread” (14:5).
Jesus told a similar account of a man whom Jesus said, “prayed about himself” (see Luke 18:9-14). That word “about” is probably better translated “to.” That’s right: this man was so sure of himself that he now monologued to himselfand thought he was praying. But Jesus said this about the monologuer: He went home without God taking notice of his prayer.
May we always be dialoguers in prayer, and never monologuers.
God wants to talk with you, even hearing and answering your many questions. Be sure you allow Him time to speak with you, as you anticipate His loving reply.
I will be continuing our series on prayer next Sunday, and I would love to have you join me!
When I was a kid in Sunday School, we used to have “sword drills.” Anyone remember those? We would hold our Bibles up in the air until the teacher gave us a reference to look up. The first one to find it, and stand up and read it, won that drill. For that, we received a sticker to put inside the front cover of our Bibles. I loved sword drills, and it showed: the front cover of my Bible was filled with stickers!
Oh, that we were as quick to pull out the Sword God has given us today! I wish we were as quick to flip open our Bibles as we seem to be to turn to something else. We call friends, consult a pastor or a counselor, pray about it, talk about, plan how to overcome it; but we are slow on pulling out our Swords.
The writer of Hebrews tells us that the Word of God is sharper than a sword (Hebrews 4:12).
Paul told Timothy that the Bible was the premier place for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training (2 Timothy 3:16).
He told the Corinthians that God’s Word is what helps us capture wrong thoughts (2 Corinthians 10:5).
In Revelation we see satan defeated by the blood of the Lamb and the use of the Word (Revelation 12:11).
Jesus Himself demonstrated the power to defeat satan’s temptations when He used the Word to ward off every attack (Luke 4:1-13).
And Paul said the Sword is the weapon we should arm ourselves with every single day (Ephesians 6:17).
I love the story John Knox (1514-1572) told about defeating satan’s temptations by the Sword of the Word—
“All my life I have been tested and assaulted of satan. But my present test has assailed me most fearfully. He has set to devour me, and make an end of me. Before, he often would place all my sins before my eyes. He tried to ensnare me with the allurements of this world. But the Spirit broke those attacks. Now he has attacked me another way. This cunning devil has labored to persuade me that I have earned heaven by my faithfulness to my ministry! … Blessed be God who has enabled me to beat down and quench this fiery dart by passages from the Scripture. By the grace of God, I am what I am, not I, but the grace of God in me. Through Jesus Christ I have gained the victory.” (emphasis added)
What do you think? Is it time to brush up on our Sword-handling skills? Get some Sword drills in today, and see how God’s Word will help you!
Dr. Robertson wrote: “The purpose of a harmony is not to teach theology, but to make available for men of any faith the facts in the Gospels concerning Jesus of Nazareth.” And that’s exactly what this book does.
It is one of the more interesting ways I have ever read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. When I followed the outline in Robertson’s book, instead of reading each gospel straight through, I read them in chronological order. For instance, in reading about John’s message announcing the soon-arrival of Jesus, I was reading Mark 1:7-8, Matthew 3:11-12, and Luke 3:15-18.
In other words, you will be reading the four gospels in chronological order as the events unfolded in Christ’s ministry. Right alongside each section of study are Dr. Robertson’s fascinating and insightful notes. Reading the gospels this way really brought out details that you may have missed when just reading through the gospels in a more traditional manner.
You don’t have to be a scholar to use this book, you just need to be desirous to learn more about Jesus.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
We have become a numbed culture: we try to soften every blow, water down each negative report, ask only surface questions in the hopes that no one will really tell us how much they’re hurting, and then medicate away every symptom. But these symptoms are screaming to be noticed!
Dr. Paul Brand the renown hand surgeon and missionary to leprosy patients in India, wrote:
“Pain contributes daily to a normal person’s quality of life…. Every normal person limps occasionally. Sadly, leprosy patients do not limp. Their injured legs never get the rest needed for healing…. This inability to ‘hear’ pain can cause permanent damage because the body’s careful responses to danger will break down. … A body only possesses unity to the degree that it possesses pain…. We must develop a lower threshold of pain by listening, truly listening, to those who suffer. … The body protects poorly what it does not feel.” —Dr. Paul Brand & Philip Yancey, In His Image
The Gospels often talk of the compassion of Jesus. His compassion led Him to teach the confused, feed the hungry, and heal the sick. The phrase usually used in the NKJV is descriptive: Jesus was moved with compassion. In other words His feelings moved Him to action.
The Old English way of describing compassion was to say someone was “moved in his bowels.” This is because when someone else is suffering it should be like a kick in my gut too.
Jesus gravitated toward the hurting, but in one story He told, Jesus related something different about His Father’s compassion. It’s the story we now call the story of the prodigal son. In this story Jesus said His Father watched the horizons every day to see if His wayward child would return. When He saw this child coming into view, God saw his slumped shoulders, He could detect his heavy heart and worn-out body. Then Jesus says something amazing, “The Father was moved with compassion and He RAN TO HIS SON!”
If our Heavenly Father runs TO another’s pain, what right do we have to ever run AWAY from it?
If we are to be God-honoring in our interaction with others, we need to—as Dr. Brand says—lower our threshold of pain. We need to feel what others feel, to feel it like a kick in our own gut, and then move toward the pain with help and healing and restoration.
Christians—if we are truly Christ-like—should be known as the most compassionate people of anyone.
So we need to always be asking: What am I doing to let this compassion be seen in my life?
Check out all of the other messages in our series Live Togetherby clicking here.
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
Overcoming Temptation
In the silent years Our Lord learned how to be; at His Baptism He had revealed to Him what He had to do; in the Temptation what to avoid.
…The word “temptation” is built on a Latin word meaning “to stretch.” … Temptation is the test by an alien power of the possession held by a personality.
…Every temptation of satan is perfectly wise. The wisest, shrewdest, subtlest things are said by satan, and they are accepted by everybody as the acme of human philosophy; but when the Spirit of God is at work in a man, instantly the hollow mockery at the heart of what satan is trying to do, is seen. When we understand the inwardness of the temptation we see how satan’s strategy is turned into confusion by the Spirit of God.
We, just like Jesus, can be victorious over these temptations by doing what Jesus did. (1) He was fully submitted to His Heavenly Father, (2) He was sensitive to go where the Holy Spirit led Him, and (3) He uncovered the shrewd and subtle arguments of satan by using the Word of God.
The One who overcame satan’s temptations wants to help you overcome as well—
For because He Himself [in His humanity] has suffered in being tempted (tested and tried), He is able [immediately] to run to the cry of (assist, relieve) those who are being tempted and tested and tried [and who therefore are being exposed to suffering].(Hebrews 2:18, Amplified Bible)
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
John opens the book of Revelation with this greeting: Grace and peace to you from Him who is, and who was, AND WHO IS TO COME… (Revelation 1:4). This is so significant because of the other descriptive phrases John uses for Jesus:
Jesus was pre-existent before creation (John 1:1).
John was witness to everything Jesus did during His public ministry, including all of the claims Jesus made about Himself (1 John 1:1).
And now John says not only has Jesus existed before time existed, not only is He alive now, but He is coming back again!
This is what makes the resurrection of Jesus so important. Jesus Himself told us exactly what was going to happen with His death by crucifixion and His resurrection three days later. The fact that these statements all turned out to be true gives us greater assurance that His promise that He is coming back is also true.
In His very first sermon, Jesus quoted from Isaiah about how He would conduct His earthly ministry (see Isaiah 61:1-2 and Luke 4:18-19). But when He quotes the passage from Isaiah, He leaves off a phrase “and a day of vengeance of our God.” God’s wrath against sin is being held back for now, but the day of judgment is coming.
John says Jesus is the One Who is to come, and records later on how Jesus will come—
I saw Heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice He judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on His head are many crowns. He has a name written on Him that no one knows but He Himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and His name is the Word of God. The armies of Heaven were following Him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of His mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.”He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. (Revelation 19:11-15)
God made Jesus to be sin for us. He suffered and died to pay the penalty for our sins, and those who are still found in their sins—unforgiven, without placing their faith in Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection—must face the wrath of God.
Jesus is not only our Risen Savior, but He is the soon-returning King and Judge.
Three times the last book of the Bible records Jesus Himself saying, “I am coming soon!” This isn’t a scare tactic, it’s real. As certainly as Jesus rose from the grave, He is returning soon.
Are you ready for His return? Are you telling others that Jesus is our soon-returning King? I hope you know what it means to have Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and I hope you are telling as many other people as you can about our soon coming King!
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Could it really be this simple? Could it be that Jesus died and rose again just like the Bible says? Or does it need to be more complicated than that? Are there other theories that seem to fit the facts?
At the feast of Pentecost where Jewish people from all over the world convened in Jerusalem just 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus, Peter stood up to address them:
He began, “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem…” (Acts 2:14). He addressed both local residents and guests from faraway lands.
Peter began by saying, “Jesus of Nazareth was a Man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you, as you yourselves know” (v. 22). No one shouted Peter down or disputed this claim. Quite possibly because there were those in this audience who had personally seen or experienced one of Jesus’ miracles.
The he announced, “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact” (v. 32). Anyone could have easily refuted this claim because the tomb of Jesus was within walking distance of where they were standing, and yet no one disputed this claim.
A short time later, after healing a lame man outside of the temple, Peter and John were hauled before the Sanhedrin (the rulers and elders of the people [Acts 4:8]). This was the very group who had convinced the Roman governor Pontius Pilate to have Jesus crucified.
They addresses this group by saying, “It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Whom you crucified but Whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed” (v. 10). Once again, they didn’t dispute this, but they just told them to stop preaching in this name of Jesus (v. 17).
Paul was a devout member of this Jewish religious leadership until he had a personal encounter with Jesus. It became awfully difficult for Paul to argue that Jesus was dead, when he had personally seen Him and talked with Him!
Paul’s former colleagues had him arrested to stand trial before the Romans. The Roman governor Festus noted that the claims of the Jews against Paul were “about a dead man named Jesus Who Paul claimed was alive” (Acts 25:19). This is nearly 30 years after the resurrection of Jesus occurred. King Agrippa didn’t scoff this off. In fact, Paul said he was glad to talk to the king since “the king is familiar with these things…. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner” (Acts 26:26). Again, Agrippa didn’t dispute the claim of Jesus’ resurrection, but simply accused Paul of trying to convert him to Christianity.
There is something in our hearts that wants the resurrection to be true.
We don’t want to work all our lives for nothing.
We don’t want to invest in a relationship, only to have that end when the other person dies.
We want there to be something more. We want there to be something that makes sense of the world.
Only the resurrection of Jesus the Christ helps us make sense of life. Only His resurrection gives us lasting hope.
An old song by the band Kansas says:
Deep within the hardest heart
There is something there that knows
There’s a hunger life can never fill
Til you face the One Who rose
There were two followers of Jesus who were out for a walk on the evening of the day of the resurrection. They, too, were trying to figure out if the news reports they heard about Jesus’ resurrection was fact or fiction. Jesus met them on the road (although they didn’t recognize Him) and He walked and talked with them. He explained how all of the things in the Bible pointed to these facts: a Savior would come, a Savior would die, and a Savior would be raised to life again. As Jesus sat down to eat with them, they recognized Who He was, and then He disappeared from their sight. As they hurried back to tell the other disciples, they said, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us as He talked” (Luke 24:32).
Does it take faith to believe the biblical resurrection story? Yes!
Does it take faith to believe the conspiracy theories? Yes!
But I believe that not only is the resurrection account more plausible, but it’s more satisfying too. The resurrection of Jesus rings true because IT IS TRUE, and because you were created by God to believe this truth so you could be in a relationship with Him forever.
I suggested last week that John Piper’s book Love To The Uttermost is an excellent resource to help guide you through the Holy Week with some fresh insights (you can read my review of this book by clicking here). Here are a few of the fresh insights that stood out to me.
“Luke 12:32 is a verse about the nature of God. It’s a verse about what kind of heart God has. It’s a verse about what makes God glad—not merely about what God will do or what He has to do, but what He delights to do, what He loves to do, and what He takes pleasure in doing. ‘Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’ … This is what the word means: God’s joy, His desire, His want and wish and hope and pleasure and gladness and delight, is to give the kingdom to His flock.”
“Jesus was not accidentally entangled in a web of injustice. The saving benefits of His death for sinners were not an afterthought. God planned it all out of infinite love to sinners like us, and He appointed a time. Jesus, who was the very embodiment of His Father’s love for sinners, saw that the time had come and set His face to fulfill His mission: to die in Jerusalem for our sake. ‘No one takes my life from Me,’ Jesus said, ‘I lay it down of my own accord’ (John 10:18).”
“First, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by what it costs him. Second, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by how little we deserve it. Third, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by the greatness of the benefits we receive in being loved. Fourth, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by the freedom with which they love us.”
“[God] does not need us. If we stay away He is not impoverished. He does not need us in order to be happy in the fellowship of the Trinity. But He magnifies His mercy by giving us free access through His Son, in spite of our sin, to the one Reality that can satisfy us completely and forever, namely, Himself.”
“The resurrection of Jesus is given to us as the confirmation or evidence that He was indeed free in laying down His life. And so the resurrection is Christ’s testimony to the freedom of His love. … Of all the great things that Easter means, it also means this: it is a mighty ‘I meant it!’ behind Christ’s death. I meant it! I was free. You see how free I am? You see how much power and authority I have? I was able to avoid it. I have power to take up My life out of the grave. And could I not, then, have devastated My enemies and escaped the Cross? My resurrection is a shout over My love for My sheep: It was free! It was free! I chose it. I embraced it. I was not caught. I was not cornered. Nothing can constrain Me to do what I do not choose to do. I had power to take My life from death. And I have taken My life from death. How much more, then, could I have kept My life from death! I am alive to show you that I really loved you. I freely loved you. Nobody forced Me to it. And I am now alive to spend eternity loving you with omnipotent resurrection love forever and ever. Come to Me, all you sinners who need a Savior. And I will forgive you and accept you and love you with all My heart forevermore.”
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Have you ever experienced this? You are certain that God has spoken to you. You’ve launched out in obedience, things are sailing along smoothly, and then <wham!> a storm threatens to swamp you. And you begin to second-guess what you thought God said to you. You begin to wonder if perhaps you misunderstood the directions God spoke: “Did God send me into this?!”
Ever been there?
The disciples of Jesus must have felt that way. Jesus says, “Let’s get into the boat and head over to the other side of the lake.” The disciples obeyed Jesus only to have a huge storm come crashing down on them, to the point that their boat was about to be swamped (see Luke 8:22-25).
What were they thinking then? What would you have been thinking? Perhaps you might have thought, “Did I miss something God said?”
I love this thought from Oswald Chambers—
You say, “If I had not obeyed Jesus I should not have got into this complication.” Exactly. The problems in our walk with God are to be accounted for along this line, and the temptation is to say, “God could have never told me to go there, if He had done so this would not have happened.” We discover then whether we are going to trust God’s integrity or listen to our own expressed skepticism.
God knows what He’s doing. He knows what He needs to accomplish.
Too many times I get focused on the destination, while God is focusing on the process. I often will learn more about my faith, and about the power and faithfulness and love of my God, during these storms than I will in an incident-free journey.
If you are on a journey on which God sent you and your boat’s rocking, don’t second-guess what God said. Keep your eyes on Jesus, and watch to see what He’s developing in you during your stormy trip.
It’s extremely rare that a 19th-century pastor, Jesus Christ, and a noted atheist would all agree on something. But as we wrapped up our series on love today, I had to share these quotes (the added emphasis in the quotes is mine)—
“Never offer men a thimbleful of gospel. Do not offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or merely rest, or merely safety; tell them how Christ came to give men a more abundant life than they have, a life abundant in love, and therefore abundant in salvation for themselves, and large in enterprise for the alleviation and redemption of the world. … Only this fuller love can compete with the love of the world.” —Henry Drummond
“If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much! … By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you truly love one another.” —Jesus (Luke 6:32-33; John 13:35)
“Nothing can penetrate the loneliness of the human heart except the highest intensity of the sort of love the religious teachers have preached.” —Bertrand Russell
True prayer, according to the Bible, is a dialogue. If we ever think of it as a monologue, it ceases to be true prayer.
Craig T. Owens 