Sunday Prayer Questions 2: Do you know what you are to Pray for Your Church?

This is part 2 of our Sunday mini-series.

Do you know what you are to Pray for Your Church?

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Sunday Prayer Questions 1: Do you Pray for Your Church?

Just came back from our church retreat and ready to go to our church service to preach.

A short post with a quick question but one that hopefully encourages us to pray more:

Do you pray for your church?

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Prayer Request: Study and Lesson Plan for Overseas Pastoral Training Spring 2018

I have been caught up so busy with my church ministry but I also need to be finishing up my courses to teach theology next month in an undisclosed country that is security sensitive.  Of course during the weeks I’m overseas there will be guest posts on here given my access to the internet will be limited.

Pray for my preparation.  This include not only studying for and actually making my lecture outlines but also making power point presentations.  I also need to get it done sooner too to have it sent out to be translated into the native language.  Due to language issues the text books I would like to use is limited so I also need to read one of the books for assigned reading sometime as well.

Pray for my strength and wisdom to finish everything.  Thank you so much for those who are praying!

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Review: The Barber Who Wanted To Pray

R.C. Sproul,. The Barber Who Wanted To Pray.  Wheaton, IL: Crossway, September 16th 2011.  30 pp.

4 out of 5

Purchase: Westminster | Amazon

This is another of RC Sproul’s children book.  There has been a few of his books that I and my kids have enjoyed from him which led me to purchase this book as well.  In this work RC Sproul writes a book that touches on prayer.  I love how in this book as well as others RC Sproul writes on spiritual truths using a story within a story in which the first level of the story are kids hearing adults telling a story with a spiritual lesson that is relevant for them and their situation.  That helps the kids think more reflectively of how the main story applies to the children’s lives.

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Guest Post: The One Time You Shouldn’t Pray

SlimJim Note: This is a guest post from our dear friend Michael Coughlin.  I’m currently away at the moment.

In 1999 and the early 2000s a technology called the DVR became commonplace in American households. The ability to record live TV and play it back without a VCR or disc placed some freedom in the hands of the users. The most obvious benefit was the ability to speedily fast forward through commercials during your favorite show. There was one particular commercial which stands out in my mind.

I don’t recall who made the commercial, but there was a man watching a football game. His team was losing, but they were lining up for a last second, game winning field goal. Just as the ball was snapped and the kicker was ready to kick, the man in the commercial paused the TV with his DVR remote. He runs out of his house and down the street to a church building where he lights a candle and prays earnestly in a pew. Then he rushes back to his house and un-pauses the television and you can see the kicker make the kick! The man’s prayers are apparently answered and his team wins this important game.

The absurdity of the commercial is obvious. I cannot imagine anyone watching considered it a teaching about prayer, of course. But anyone watching realizes that the kicker made the kick before the man was even out of his house on his way to church. All his prayers and lighting of candles is entertaining, but it is impossible to believe even in the fictional world of the commercial that the kick was made as the result of his prayers. Whether that kick was made or missed was not going to change once it occurred. This is a reality of how time works.

Yet how often have you seen well-meaning Christians share similar sentiments. It goes like this. A celebrity dies who was well-known for his wicked behavior. Never once did the person even hint at being a believer in the One True God through Jesus Christ. As you scroll through social media you see people posting things like RIP (that’s another post), stories memorializing the person and the inevitable: “Praying that celebrity X repented and received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior before he died.”

Do you see that this prayer is as useless as the man in the commercial praying for the field goal? An event that has already completed is one time you shouldn’t pray. You will find no example in the Bible of a prayer that a completed event would be anything but what it already is.

What do you expect? That a man died yesterday and somehow your prayer today is going to change whether or not he received Christ as Lord and Savior? Christian, Jesus died so that your prayers may be heard by the Father – please keep them from being vapid. Praying about something that has already occurred simply makes no sense. There are countless examples of this that I’ve seen and heard. And if you are honest with yourself you will notice when you do it, if you do.

“Lord I pray that so and so had a good time at our church last week.”

“Lord I pray that it isn’t really cancer, that the test results were wrong.”

Here’s the formula: “Lord I pray that <insert your desire here> happened in the past.”

Similarly, we often pray about things that have already occurred, but we don’t know the outcome. Consider this prayer when leaving the scene of a biopsy: “Lord, please don’t let it be cancer!”  It’s either “already cancer: or it “isn’t already cancer.” This is another example, however technical of praying for a past event, or praying that an existent circumstance is different from what it is.

Think about it. If the doctor tells you it is cancer, how will praying that he is wrong make it wrong? The point is there is no action God could actually take in response to your prayer. If the doctor is wrong, then he’s already wrong in spite of your prayer; if he is right, and it is cancer, then praying he’s wrong won’t change that. Instead pray for healing, and more importantly, grace to endure the trial you or your loved one is facing.

Here’s the take home – do not pray in such a way that you pray for past events. When you ask God for supplication, ask Him to do things that He can do. Even our great God does not change the past. If you object and say, “Our God can do anything He pleases,” I will respond by saying, “Amen. But He gives no example in Scripture of praying in this manner, isn’t that where we ought to get our model of prayer?”

I know, hoping that people were saved is noble. Wanting people to enjoy your church gathering or for them to not have cancer is a good desire. What I’m saying is that your prayer ought to be directed rationally at our perfectly rational God. If what you mean to say is you “hope celebrity X was saved,” then say that! Just don’t speak or act like prayer isn’t something really special and important by diminishing the purpose of it by praying in ways God simply will not honor.

Ultimately, Christian, when you pray for God to do anything with a past event, you put your faith to the test. For we are to pray believing and if you are believing for something which has already occurred to be anything but what it is, you will be disappointed, maybe even disappointed by God someday. That is a place where no Christian ought to be.

For a good article on how TO pray, consider this excellent piece: Confident Christians Pray with Confidence
by Josh Buice

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Pray for Vincent S Artale Surgery on 1/4/18

If you have been on WordPress for any given amount of time  you might be familiar with Vincent S Artale Jr.  He reblogs a lot of posts on Wordress and also on other platform.

Vincent has a Health Update/Surgery.  He will be having surgery tommorow  at 730am Eastern Standard Time.

Keep him in your prayers.

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Thank you all for praying!

I really appreciated all of you who prayed for me and ministry based upon a post I shared earlier last week.  I just got back from speaking at a retreat so I am rather lagging behind with the blog this weekend.  Of course preaching at a retreat is the fun stuff with the ministry but the harder part is in the midst of sermon prep people are going through various things in lives and sometimes there are difficult late night counseling and intervention or all-day incidents.  Thank you again for your prayers.  In particular thank brother Wally for letting others know.

 

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