The Pastor & Prayer

E.M. BoundsMy fellow pastor, please consider these wise words from E.M. Bounds—

“No one having any knowledge of the existing facts, will deny the comparative lack of expository preaching in the pulpit effort of today. And none, we should, at least, imagine, will do other than lament the lack. Topical preaching, polemical preaching, historical preaching, and other forms of sermonic output have, one supposes, their rightful and opportune uses. But expository preaching—the prayerful expounding of the Word of God is preaching that is preaching—pulpit effort par excellence. For its successful accomplishment, however, a preacher needs must be a man of prayer. For every hour spent in his study-chair, he will have to spend two upon his knees.”

I believe God will be honored if we spend twice as much time praying our sermons as we do preparing our sermons. 

Keep Striking

Keep strikingThere is an unusual story in 2 Kings about King Jehoash. Elisha the prophet was on his deathbed, Israel was morally bankrupt and on the brink of defeat. The entire Israeli army had been reduced to fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand infantry. It was in this hour of desperation that Jehoash sought out the counsel of Elisha.

Elisha said [to Jehoash], “Get a bow and some arrows,” and he did so. “Take the bow in your hands,” he said to the king of Israel. When he had taken it, Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands.

“Open the east window,” he said, and he opened it. “Shoot!” Elisha said, and he shot. “The Lord’s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Aram!” Elisha declared. “You will completely destroy the Arameans at Aphek.”

Then he said, “Take the arrows,” and the king took them. Elisha told him, “Strike the ground.” He struck it three times and stopped. The man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.”

What made Elisha angry is what I believe makes God angry. Jehoash came to God when the situation seemed impossible, but he wouldn’t pray it through. It’s almost as if he felt like three times was enough to pray, and then he needed to take it from there.

God wants us to pray BIG, but He also wants us to pray LONG.

We need to keep striking the ground (or as Mark Batterson would say, keep drawing the circle) until God answers. God gave Jehoash a promise of victory, but Jehoash didn’t pray long enough to see it through.

What are you praying for? What promise has God given you? God is glorified when you place your request in His hands, and leave it there. Keep on praying. Keep on striking. Keep on circling until God brings about what He has promised!

To check out the others messages in this series on prayer called Praying Circles, please click here.

Exhortation To Prayer

William CowperThis morning I shared one stanza from this wonderful poem by William Cowper (I have highlighted that stanza below) called Exhortation To Prayer. Here is the full poem—

What various hindrances we meet

In coming to a mercy-seat!

Yet who that knows the worth of prayer,

But wishes to be often there?

Prayer makes the darken’d cloud withdraw,

Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw,

Gives exercise to faith and love,

Brings every blessing from above.

Restraining prayer, we cease to fight, 

Prayer makes the Christian’s armor bright; 

And satan trembles when he sees 

The weakest saint upon his knees.

While Moses stood with arms spread wide,

Success was found on Israel’s side;

But when through weariness they fail’d,

That moment Amalek prevail’d.

Have you no words? Ah! think again,

Words flow apace when you complain,

And fill your fellow-creature’s ear

With the sad tale of all your care.

Were half the breath thus vainly spent

To Heaven in supplication sent,

Your cheerful song would oftener be,

“Hear what the Lord has done for me.”

Week Of Prayer Activities

2013 Week of Prayer headerThe church moves forward on her knees. So I can think of no better way to start the year than with this renewed call to prayer.

Join us each Sunday in January as we learn about Praying Circles.

Join us each day January 6-11 as we dedicate ourselves to a week of prayer. You can download a prayer guide by clicking here → Week of prayer – prayer guide ←

Join us at the church on Friday, January 11, for a prayer concert. We’ll be praying from 6-7pm, and then our worship team will lead us in singing our prayers and praises to our God.

Consider these wise words of E.M. Bounds…

Sacred work—church activities—may so engage and absorb us as to hinder praying, and when this is the case, evil results always follow. It is better to let the work go by default than to let the praying go by neglect. Whatever affects the intensity of our praying affects the value of our work. …How easily men, even leaders in Zion, be led by the insidious wiles of satan to cut short our praying in the interests of the work! How easy to neglect prayer or abbreviate our praying simply by the plea that we have church work on our hands. satan has effectively disarmed us when he can keep us too busy doing things to stop and pray.

Praying Circles

Praying CirclesI grew up hearing a constant refrain from my Grandma Owens, “I prayed it through.” Grandma prayed until God answered.

Sadly, one of the biggest hindrances to our prayer lives today is that we are in too much of a hurry to pray it through.

I grew up hearing another reminder from my boyhood pastor, “The church moves forward on her knees.” So I like to begin each new year with a reminder of the importance of prayer.

This year I’m using the thoughts I read a year ago in Mark Batterson’s powerful book The Circle Maker as the inspiration behind our series on prayer that I’m calling Praying Circles. This series of messages is intended to remind us of the power of praying with perseverance. Or as my Grandma might have said, the power of praying it through.

Mark Batterson said this in The Circle Maker—

“Just like the sound barrier, there is a faith barrier. And breaking the faith barrier in the spiritual realm is much like breaking the sound barrier in the physical realm. If you want to experience a supernatural breakthrough, you have to pray through. But as you get closer to the breakthrough, it often feels like you’re about to lose control, about to fall apart. That is when you need to press in and pray through. If you allow them to, your disappointments will create drag. If you allow them to, your doubts will nosedive your dreams. But if you pray through, God will come through and you’ll experience a supernatural breakthrough.”

Please join me as we rediscover the power of praying through with perseverance. Check out all of the messages in this series:

Hypocritical Pastors

Jonathan EdwardsI was reading a passage from Jonathan Edwards’ Hypocrites Deficient in the Duty of Prayer, where Edwards warned pastors against neglecting the sacred duty of private prayer. Edwards says that pastors who spend more time praying publicly than they do privately are hypocrites.

T.M. Moore commented on this—

“So we [pastors], when we attend upon public prayers—even leading them, during morning worship—but have no prayer life of our own to speak of, practice hypocrisy of the first water. We seem to be men of prayer, but we are hardly ever calling on the Lord of glory.”

There is a simple remedy to this: Pray!

  • Pray every day
  • Pray about every thing
  • Pray in private
  • Make prayer your continual and ongoing habit

Pastors, may we always pray!

My Prayer To Live Holy

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

I love to take passages of Scripture and turn them into prayers. This prayer is based on 1 Peter 1:13-23.

     Dear Heavenly Father,

     I want to think clearly about You and exercise self-control in the way I live. Help me to always be looking forward to the gracious salvation that will come when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world, and not looking back on the past.

     Help me to live as Your obedient child. I don’t ever want to slip back into my old ways of living only to satisfy my selfish desires. I didn’t know any better before, but I do now. May I be holy in everything I do, just as You, God, who chose me is holy. For You said, “You must be holy because I am holy.”

     I know that You have no favorites. You will judge or reward me according to how I live. So I want to live in reverent fear of You throughout my entire life. I know that You paid a costly ransom to save me from the empty life I would’ve had without You. The ransom You paid for me was not mere gold or silver; no, it was the precious blood of Jesus Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. You chose Him as my ransom long before the world began, and now through Christ I have come to trust in You. I have placed my complete faith and hope in You because You raised Christ from the dead and gave Him great glory.

     I was cleansed from my hideous sins when I obeyed the truth, so now I want to show my sincere love to You by living holy and loving others as brothers and sisters. Help me to love others deeply with all my heart. For I have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. My new life will last forever because it comes from You, and is confirmed in Your eternal, living Word.

     Help me to always live in a way that brings You glory. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen!

Friends, I encourage you to use the Bible to enhance your prayer life.

P.S. Here is a video where I explain how I turn the Bible into a prayer. And you may also like this video as well.

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No Missed Opportunities

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

One fear that can haunt us is the fear that we’ve missed an opportunity. The fear becomes even more acute when the opportunity we fear we’ve missed is an opportunity that we believe God has promised us.

That’s the fear that plagued Zechariah (Luke 1:5-13). He and his wife Elizabeth were both PKs (priest’s kids), they were godly people who were upright in God’s estimation. Zechariah was even chosen by God to offer the incense in the Holy Place of the temple. Yet one fear haunted Zechariah: He and Elizabeth were childless.

The Bible says they were well along in years; or as the King James Version more poetically says it, they were stricken with years. This literally means they had moved on—they weren’t in their prime childbearing years any longer.

Zechariah had almost pushed this out of his mind, thinking that he had missed his window of opportunity, when the angel showed up with God’s message to him—

Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son…. (Luke 1:13)

Did you notice this phrase: your prayer HAS BEEN heard? The verb tense really makes it say: “The thing you used to pray for—the child you used to believe for, the pregnancy you used to try for—has been heard. But you stopped praying, you stopped believing, you stopped trying to get pregnant.”

Zechariah let his fears speak louder than God’s voice. That’s why the angel called him by name. Zechariah means Jehovah doesn’t forget! 

What has God promised you? Are you still praying for it? Still believing for it? Are you still doing what you need to do to see it happen? Zechariah needed to sleep with his wife. What do you need to do? Do you need to go back to school? Make a phone call? Set up an appointment?

If God spoke it to you, He has not forgotten you! Don’t believe the lie that the window of opportunity has closed!

If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed. (Habakkuk 2:3)

If you have missed any of the messages in our Fear Not! series, you can find them all by clicking here.

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Watch Out For Pride

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

This post is especially for my fellow pastors, but it would be thoughtful reading for anyone in a leadership position.

Let me state it simply: Pastor, you need to watch out for pride.

Listen to the words of A.W. Tozer—

“A clergyman is a man, and often he has a proud little kingdom of his own, a kingdom of position and often of pride and sometimes with power.”

Pride is so insidious that it can creep into the hearts of leaders at anytime.

  • When things are going well. We think to ourselves, “Look what I’ve done” or we even spiritualize it a bit to say, “Look what God’s done through me.”
  • When things are going poorly. Pride causes us to look out the window at others, instead of looking in the mirror at ourselves.
  • When we’ve successfully handled a situation. We think, “Wow, I’ve really got it!”
  • When we’ve dropped the ball and we make excuses instead of asking for forgiveness.
  • And on and on it goes….

One of the things that has helped me immensely is the thoughts Kenneth Blanchard and Phil Hodges shared in their book Lead Like Jesus. They point out that every leader has an ego. The issue is what kind of ego is it?

It can be negative: E.G.O. = Edging God Out 

It can be positive: E.G.O. = Exalting God Only

So what do we do to make sure we have the God-honoring E.G.O.?

  • Look in the mirror. James says the Bible is the perfect mirror. So how does your life line up with the Scripture? Don’t sugarcoat it … Don’t make excuses … Say the words “Look at me” or “Wow, I’ve got it” out loud. Do you find those in God’s Word? If not, root it out!
  • Get some tough guys around you. You need some loving people around you that aren’t the ones writing your press releases. You need people around you that can boldly say, “Ahem! You appear to be getting off track.”
  • Monitor your gut-level responses. If you feel defensive, or if you feel the need to justify or make excuses, watch out because that’s pride’s signature.
  • Stay on your knees. Not only in prayer, but in service too. It’s awfully hard to get full of yourself when you’re washing feet, or scrubbing toilets. If you ever think any job is beneath you, watch out because you may have been infected by pride.

“Depth under depth of self-love and self-admiration. Pride! It was through Pride that the devil became the devil; it is the complete anti-God state of mind. Pride is essentially competitive in a way the other vices are not. Pride is a spiritual cancer.” —C.S. Lewis

I have two companion chapters in my book Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter that dive deeper into this topic: “A confident leader’s attitude adjustment” and “A humble leader’s attitude adjustment.” I hope you will pick up a copy.

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials. ◀︎◀︎

Heart Check

Seven rules for self-discovery:

1. What we want most;

2. What we think about most;

3. How we use our money;

4. What we do with our leisure time;

5. The company we enjoy;

6. Who and what we admire; and

7. What we laugh at. —A.W. Tozer

Search me thoroughly, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24, Amplified Bible)