(BACK TO PRAYER) 7- What is Prayer?

Muslims pray 5 times a day, while Jews have traditionally prayed 3 times a day. Each branch of the Christian church has different types of prayer whether it’s prayer from a book or just from one’s heart.

Buddhists use prayer wheels which fling prayers for compassion into the atmosphere. Hindus pray to gain union with the Supreme Being and escape the cycles of reincarnation.

People through other cultures like many Native American tribes pray through singing.

“Prayer is one of the most common phenomena of human life.” - Keller

One 2004 study found that nearly 30 percent of atheists admitted they prayed “sometimes” and another found that 17 percent of nonbelievers pray “regularly.”

Efforts to find cultures, no matter how small or remote or isolated, without some form of religion and prayer have failed. There has always been some form of attempt to communicate between humans and divine realms.

All of this Prayer is not all basically the same thing.

“Prayer presents a dizzying variety to the eye of the observer. Just look at the religious trances of Native American Shamanists; the chanting in Benedictine monasteries; devotees doing yoga in Manhattan offices,; the hour long pastoral prayers of the 17^th century Puritan ministers; speaking in tongues in Pentecostal churches,; Muslims engaging in sujud, with forehead, hands, and knees on the ground toward Mecca; Hasidim swaying and bowing in prayer; and the Anglican priest reading from the Book of Common Prayer. 

This leads to the question: In what ways are all these kinds of prayer the same and in what ways are all these kinds of prayer the same and in what ways are they different?”

Most prayer can be divided into two main types according to Keller: Mystical and Prophetic.

Mystical prayer is praying with the intention of becoming one with God, looking inward instead of outward seeking inner peace and a change of consciousness, to remove the boundary between you and God and to become part of Him or part of the spiritual force, this mystical hard to explain meditation.

Prophetic is closer to the type of prayer that we are familiar with in Christianity, it is prayer that is not focused on some inward meditation but is focused outward on God, this is a talking to God.

“The aim of prophetic prayer is not absorption into God but nearness to God.”

“While mystical prayer tends toward the loss of the boundary between the self and God, prophetic prayer leads to a much greater sense of the difference between the self and the majestic God, an awareness of sinfulness.”

From the Biblical perspective, prayer being a nearly universal phenomenon is not surprising.

John Calvin, “There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity, …. therefore the seed of religion is planted in all.”

Romans 1:18-20

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Have you ever heard someone say, “God doesn’t believe in atheists”? In a sense that is true. The Bible tells us that EVERYONE, whether they admit it or not, knows in the depths of their soul that there is a God, and those who pretend not to are “suppressing the truth.”

To get an idea of the image Paul is painting with that phrase, think of when you were young and playing in the pool. Did you ever grab a big rubber ball and try to hold it under the water? The whole time, you were having to fight against that ball as it moved in every direction trying to get back to the surface. 

This is the picture the Word paints for us of those who don’t believe in God. They spend much of their lives fighting this truth that they know is true.

“We can define prayer as a personal, communicative response to the knowledge of God. All human beings have some form of knowledge of God available to them. Prayer is seeking to respond and connect to that being and reality.” - Keller

Since we understand prayer as a response to the knowledge of God, that means that prayer is profoundly different based on the amount and the accuracy of that knowledge.

We will discuss this more in our next article.

Grace and Peace 

(TEASER, THERE WILL BE A TAYLOR SWIFT VIDEO INVOLVED IN THE NEXT ARTICLE)

(Detour) WHY CHURCH? - Conclusion

We are concluding our discussion on “Why Church?” today. I am assuming that you have read the previous 4 articles on the subject so I won’t rehash everything that we have covered so far again. I will however give you the acronym thus far:

Commanded to meet together

Hard to remain faithful without it

Realize your Identity

Imitate Christ

Selfish not to

True and Eternal Plan of God

“We have a generation not forsaking the cross, but forsaking all that the cross bought.”

I heard that in a poem about a year ago and thought it to be quite true. We don’t have a generation and a culture that is necessarily forsaking the cross, but we do have a generation that is forsaking much of what Christ did for us at the Cross.

The church is the true and eternal plan of God. This has been the plan since the beginning, not to save just you, but to save the body and bride of Christ as a whole. Ever since Adam and Eve made the mistake on our behalf, God has had his plan to bring about reconciliation and his Kingdom that is the church to the world.

In Ephesians chapter 5, Paul ties the marriage relationship, husbands loving their wives and giving themselves up for them, to Christ and the church. Watchman Nee points to the garden of Eden in reference to this passage and points out that Adam was a type of Christ (made clear by passages like Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15) and Eve was a type of the church, his bride. Adam being put to sleep points us also to the cross. Why was Adam put to sleep? Adam had to be put to sleep for Eve’s VERY CREATION! She could not have been created if Adam had not been put to sleep. In the same way, Christ had to be put to sleep not JUST for our justification, not JUST for our cleansing, but also for our VERY CREATION! The only possible way that his bride could exist was if he was put to sleep.

“In the same way, husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” Ephesians 5:25

Christ did not die for you and you alone, Christ did not die so that you may attempt to live Christianity out on your own; Christ died for us all, together, unified as one body and one bride, with the intention of us remaining united and living life together as that body and bride.

It would be like on Christmas morning you wake up, and your dad or your husband or wife has gone through all of this trouble to buy you a brand new car, whatever your dream car is. You have wanted this car for so long but knew you would never be able to have it. You walk outside and see it, and you just start crying at how amazing that person is to do this for you, realizing the sacrifice that they must have made in order to give you this amazing gift. You jump on them, hugging them and thanking them for it. They then toss you the keys and say, “Drive it on to work.” You respond, “O no thanks, I don’t actually want it, I’ll just walk.” When we want Jesus and not the church, we are missing the whole point!

What if someone walked up to you and said something like, “Rene, I like you, but man I can’t stand being around Ariel. She is manipulative, and stuck in her ways, and hard headed. She refuses to change with the times. She is boring.” How would you react to someone saying that about your wife or husband? If you don’t want my wife, you don’t want me. This is what we do when we tell God that we want Him, we just don’t like His church, His bride.

How bout this, what if you ask someone after church,

“Do you like that Rene’ guy?”

And they respond, “You know, I like his head, but his body I just can’t stand.”

“What? All I’m asking is if you like Rene.”

“I answered, I like his head but not the rest of him.”

 That doesn’t make any sense! This is what it is to tell God that you like Him but don’t like His church, the body.

If you take the hottest coal in the world out of the fire, it will turn cold, and hard, and black. It doesn’t matter how on fire you are or you get one day, you will always need the church.

Jesus tells us to pray OUR Father, Give US OUR daily bread, Forgive US OUR trespasses as WE forgive who trespasses against US. Lead US, deliver US.

God, Christ never intended for us to live the Christian life alone, it was always meant to be lived together.

To sum it all up:

Why church?

We are Commanded to put a priority in our lives on meeting regularly together with other Christians.

It is Hard, if not impossible, to remain faithful while not being connected consistently and with commitment to the church as a whole. The devil has an easy time picking off the ones away from the pack.

The church is not where you are asked to lose your identity, but is where you will truly Realize it. You will begin to understand why you were made, how you were made, and how you are meant to serve the body.

One of the foundations of Christian living is to Imitate Christ. Christ found it important enough to meet every week on the Sabbath with believers.

It is Selfish to not be involved in the Christian community. We are all different parts of the body, so not only will you not realize your purpose outside of the body, you are also depriving the body of what it needs from you. You were given gifts by God not for your benefit primarily, but for the benefit of the body.

And lastly, the church, us living life together, us holding hands and chasing after Christ together, is the True and eternal plan of God. Telling God that you want Him but not His church is illogical and disrespectful.

I hope this has helped, I love you all. We will get back to the prayer articles as soon as I can.

Grace and Peace

(Detour) WHY CHURCH - 4

Continuing on our 5 part series on “Why Church,” today we will talk about the I and the S. We have already discussed that it is Commanded to meet together with other Christians regularly as God knows that we need it desperately. We discussed that it is Hard to remain faithful without regularly being with and living alongside other Christians. We said that the church does not force you to lose your identity, but on the contrary, is the place where you will finally Realize your identity and why you were created the way that you were created. Today we will discuss our next two points with our acronym of CHRIST.

I.

Imitate Jesus

Luke 4:16

(The message puts it like this) As He always did on the Sabbath, He went to the meeting place

One of the goals of Christian life is to become more like Christ in every way (which includes in suffering by the way, but that’s another article). It was important to Jesus to meet together with other believers and others that were trying to follow the Father. As Luke puts it here, as Jesus always did, He went to the meeting place on the Sabbath.

I wonder why Jesus went. I wonder if he left the meeting saying things like “Man that singing or music really just didn’t do it for me,” or “Well the preaching was a bit dull and I didn’t get much out of it.”

What do you think? What was His purpose for going?

Jesus did not go to the meeting place primarily for Himself, He went primarily for others.

S.

Selfish not to.

Woah Rene, it is selfish not to put a priority on meeting together with other Christians? Ouch, don’t you think that is a little harsh?

Here’s the truth:

Romans 12:5-8

For as in one body we have many members,  and the members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. ⁶ Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.

1 Corinthians 12:12, 14-21

  

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵ If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?¹⁸ But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹ If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

We discussed last time that we are all members of a body, and that we realize our identity once we become part of that body. I gave the illustration that if a hand is lying on the ground on its own, it wonders why it exists, its life makes no sense, what was it made for; however, as soon as it is placed onto a body, it begins to understand why it was made the way that it was made, and the purpose for its life.

Now look at it from the other side. If there is a hand lying on the ground, there is also a body that is missing a hand. Look at verse 21 of 1 Corinthians 12 again:

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’”

You want to know why the eye cannot say that to the hand or the head cannot say that to the feet? Because THE EYE NEEDS THE HAND! THE HEAD NEEDS THE FEET! We need each other! If you are a hand that refuses to be constantly and consistently joined with the rest of the body, then we are handless.

I have heard some say, “There is a YOU shaped hole in the body of Christ that was made for you to fill.”

Look at this verse:

1 Peter 4:10

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace

God has gifted us all in a specific way, and He says that the reason you have that gift is to serve one another.

The reason God made you a hand or a foot is so that you may be attached to the body and become the missing hand or foot that the body needs.

If you decide to keep your gifts to yourself, to not primarily use them for others, to not attach yourself to the church and to not put a priority in your life on regularly being with and living alongside other Christians, that is selfishness.

Grace and Peace

Rene

Conclusion hopefully tomorrow.