artwalk

WARNING: If You Read This, It Will Destroy The Way You Pray

-i hope

It has been my observation that Christians, at least when in a church building, out to dinner together, at a Bible study, and maybe even in our personal prayer lives we Christians tend to pray just like everybody else. I have noticed three most common prayers amongst the North American Christian community are:

1) God bless (God bless me, God bless them, God bless America …)

2) God be with (Be with me, Be with them…)

3) God forgive me.

Now the problem that I see is that these are not Biblical New Testament prayers. They are Old Testament or old covenant prayers. These are prayers that one would make before having a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Before you throw things at me, at least give me a minute to share my feelings…Then throw.

First Prayer: God bless (Bless me, Bless them, Bless America …)

God bless me. God bless me. God bless me. God bless me is what Christians everywhere are praying. God bless the Bible study tonight, God bless our food, God bless our mission trip, God bless my little cousin with cancer….and so on, and so on. This prayer is not found in the N.T. one time. Not once!

“But Dave, I’ve read Bruce Wilkinson’s book and he says to pray that God would bless us, in fact that He is waiting to bless us, so there!”

– And this is where God destroyed my prayer life as well.

The prayer of Jabez took place in the Old Testament book of 1^st Chronicles at a time in history when God chose who to bless, and He chose to bless Israel, and this man Jabez is praying that God would bless him as well. For God to bless him financially, emotionally, supportively, and more, and God did indeed choose to do so. God gave him his hearts desire… stuff.

Now, at a certain point in history, God took His blessing from only being for Israel and decided to give it to everyone. You might have heard of this blessing. His name was Jesus Christ. God reached down from mighty Heaven and blessed the entire earth with His Son. God gave us the biggest and best blessing anyone could ever ask for. He gave us Himself. And do we repay God, who graciously humbled Himself to take on the form of a servant and become obedient to the point of death, even the death of cross, (Philippians 2:8) We repay Him by asking Him for…stuff; a new car, house, maybe something not so huge, maybe something smaller like our “Bible” study, so it sounds all spiritual and humble, but what it really is, is a spit to the very face of God saying “Your Son isn’t good enough for me. I want a goose bumpy feeling when I leave here tonight also.”

The Bible teaches that God has indeed blessed us, and if you don’t agree that Christ coming in the flesh for us wasn’t a huge blessing then check out Ephesians 1:3, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” “Has blessed us’ – past tense, “with every spiritual blessing.” He already has given us the blessing that were asking for. Guys, our God is not so small that He has to wait for us to pray to Him before He blesses. He HAS blessed us, with EVERY spiritual blessing in Christ. He is a big God, who made the first move in our relationship with Him, and continues to do so. We don’t have to hope that maybe if we’re good enough then God will decide to ‘let’ us have a good Bible study, or mission trip. God has already given us something so much better than goose bumps, He has given us His Son, blessings incarnate. He has blessed us. We are blessed.

We live in the best country in the world. I myself live in Scottsdale, AZ voted the #1 most live able city the nation. That means that 6 billion people wish they had it as good as I do. We have the best economy, the best democracy, the best opportunities, the best educational institutions, the coolest cars, gadgets, etc. and we are so selfish to ask for more.

2^nd Prayer) God be with me.

“God I pray that You be with me as I go into this meeting, or into this ministry, or on a mission trip, or to church, or wherever. God please just be with me.” – Hello!!!!! How big is your God? Maybe I should rephrase the question to how small is your God? Two inches tall? Do you need to remind Him that you are doing something, and that it would be great if He put His hand on you.

Listen to the promise of Jesus in Matthew 28:20, “…And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (NIV) Oh yeah, I guess I forgot that Jesus promised me that He will always be with me, every second of every day. No matter what I am going through, no matter what I have to face, He is there. That’s a big God, who could be with all of us at the same time, always!

And if that isn’t good enough for you, look at what Jesus promises again for us in John 14:17,”…The Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.” (NIV) In You! In You! How cool is that, Jesus says that God is way more than just with us at times, or even all of the time, He is in fact IN us. While next to us would be supporting us as we face decisions, and that would be great, He is so much more than great. To be in us is that He is actually speaking to us, giving us the very words to say. He isn’t supporting our strength, He IS our strength.

Again look at the words of the apostle Paul, “Ephesians 1:13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.” (NIV) Don’t stop there. There’s more, and this is my favorite, Colossians. 1:27, “To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Paul prayed that we would realize that Christ is so much more than with us, He his in us. So what are we praying ‘be with me’ for? What if God answered that prayer, and removed Himself from us, and only came beside us when we asked? What if that happened? – Then every second of every day that we did not pray ‘be with me’, then we would literally experience hell, the absence of God in our lives. Hell.

Not me, I would rather have the very hope of all glory dwelling inside me every second of the day.

3) God forgive me

The third prayer that might actually be the most common prayer prayed by Bible believing Christians is, “God forgive me.”

“Dave, before you even start; didn’t the Lord Himself teach us to pray for forgiveness in the Lord’s prayer, (spiritual people tend to call this the students prayer). Right didn’t He say “Father, who is Heaven hallowed Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.” (From memory, probably like 4 different translations combined.)

Yes, Christ did teach people pray for forgiveness. He taught Jews, who were still under the Old covenant laws, who were dead in their trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2:1, and they would ask for forgiveness from God, (and here is the big word) BECAUSE they forgave those who sinned against them. They were to say, ‘God, I forgave Joe for stealing my rake, now please forgive me for calling him that so and so.’

But, years later Christ would die for Joe’s stealing problem and my dirty mouth, Christ died for my sins, and yours and He forgave them on the cross. Before I even sinned, Christ forgave me of all of my future sins. Jesus isn’t still on a cross waiting for our next sin so that He can suffer again and again each time we sin. No, He took the penalty for them once, for all! Hebrews 10:10. And now when I sin, it’s as if almost never happened in the eyes of God because He doesn’t see us as sinners about screw it up again, He sees us holy saints, called before the beginning of time to do the work of the ministry.

Here we are, asking for forgiveness as is if Christ’s death was insufficient to forgive us “again.” Our God is not two inches tall. He is big enough that when He says, “It is finished.” Or ‘paid in full’ John 19:30– He meant it!

We’re praying, “Oh Father, forgive me!”

And God is saying back, “Why, did I miss one?”

Does not the Bible teach that God’s mighty right hand has been stretched out to save us from the world? Psalm 139:10 “…even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

This is what Christ did on the cross, He stretched out His hands as they pierced Him, and His mighty power flowed from them saving us, as God forgave us from every sin.

“Well Dave, good point but what about 1^st John 1:9? If I know any verse from memory it’s that one. – ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’” Well, you got me. I forgot about 1^st John 1:9, I forgot that John was writing to new believers, who were being deceived by the first Gnostics in that time period who said that after they accepted Christ they were like God again, and therefore couldn’t possibly sin. That’s what these people were taught by the heretics of that day. And John simply says, ‘No, that isn’t true. Just because you have accepted Christ, and His grace doesn’t mean that you are perfect. It means that Christ sees you as perfect. Confessing our sins and asking for forgiveness from our sins are two completely different things. To confess simply means to agree with God that you screwed up, or to agree with our spouses that screwed up, or to our kids, or our co-workers, our family. To agree that we screwed up and turn (or repent) from that lifestyle to a Christ-like lifestyle. But that isn’t asking for forgiveness. In fact, that is merely what we did when we first accepted Christ. What did Paul tell the Philippian jailer in Acts 16? ‘Ask forgiveness!’ No, what did he say, Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved…” (KJV) Confess, and repent. Believe, Confess, and Repent. That’s Christianity at its most basic core.

If we have to ask for forgiveness for every time we sin, then we better be praying “Lord, Forgive me” every second of every day. Just in case…right.

So what do we pray then Dave? Seeing as how I’m doing it ‘wrong’ and all.

No your not doing it wrong. There is no wrong way to pray, and what I’m saying now isn’t so much to be taken as a rule book to prayer, or guidelines to follow. I am simply challenging myself, and you to actually, maybe for the first time, to not pray just like the Pastor. Don’t pray just like your parents, or spouse, or your really ‘spiritual’ friend. Don’t pray just like you you’ve been praying for the last 5 years as a Christian, or 10 years, or 20. We need to actually start thinking about what we pray before we do it. We need to be intentional, when we come to God, that we’re not just using idle words, like Jesus did encouraged us there in Matthew 6:7 “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” (NIV) Some of us have been babbling the same prayer, “God bless me in life, be with me on my trip, and forgive me for what I did today,” for our entire Christian lives without questioning ourselves. We spend so much time and effort into everything else we do hoping to honor God with our lives, yet our prayer life, which we ‘say’ is the backbone of our faith and relationship with God, goes unchecked! I just want us to take our conversations with our beautiful God seriously, for a change. Let’s just be honest with God, He’s knows us better than we know ourselves anyways.

So three alternatives maybe to get the ball rolling. Now don’t simply substitute these three alternatives with the three prior, because all that would do would make us think that we’re praying holier than we were yesterday. But tonight, to just get the ball rolling here are three things that we can pray.

1) Instead of God bless me….How about God, I just want to bless You. Instead God please bless this Bible study, that I’ve prepared for hours without consulting you, but since its about 5 minutes away will You please put Your little stamp of approval on it and let us walk away with little holy goose bumps. Instead of that, how about, “God, You’re the one who told me what to prepare for this Bible study, You’ve guided me through this, so I know it’s what You want us to hear. So God, I just pray that all the effort that I put into this would bless Your heart. Even if the Bible study bombs, and only goes 15 minutes, and nobody learns anything new. God I pray that it would make you smile. To see Your kids trying so hard, and even though we might fail miserably, You accept us. God I hope this blesses You tonight!” That sounds like a prayer that God would like to hear for a change. That’s why Paul wrote in 2^nd Corinthians 5:9, “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. “ (NASB-U) At the church that I attend it is our purpose statement to “Develop Effective Lives That Are Pleasing To God.” That’s one of the reasons why we are here on earth.

Rick Warren in his book The Purpose Driven Life talks about one of the 5 Biblical purposes for life is to Worship God, or Honor God, in our words, to Please God. Rick writes these words, “You were planned for God’s pleasure. The moment you were born into the world, God was there as an unseen witness, smiling at your birth. He wanted you alive, and your arrival gave Him great pleasure. God did not need to create you, but he chose to create you for His own enjoyment. You exist for His benefit, His glory, His purpose, and His delight.”

“God, I just want to bless you today.”

2) Instead of God be with me, how about simply God thank You for Your presence in my life. Instead of, ‘Oh Lord, please show up once’ how about “Wow! You really are interested in my life, You really care what happens to me, and I want to show You how grateful that I am for Your presence in my life.”

We don’t to remind God to hang out with us, we need to be reminded that God wants to hang out with us, and that He wants us to hang out with Him. We need to remember that He is, giving us strength, and encouragement, and guidance or direction, and maybe even discipline. Not maybe, definitely, we need it.

There is one thing to think about though, if (since) God is always there. Be careful where you take Him. Since God is always with you when you need Him, He is also there when you might not want Him there. He is with you when you go to that same bar, or that movie theater, or event, or website. He is with you wherever you go , so remember, wherever you go, you are taking God there; and people will look at that and say it’s okay for me to do this because so and so is. And what they’re really thinking is ‘See, God doesn’t care if I smoke pot, or go to this bar, or this website, or whatever.”

So be careful, but be encouraged.

3) And finally, I’m sure many of us probably want to pray the prayer, “God forgive me for taking you places that You didn’t want to go, or forgive me for praying like babbling idiot.” Because we don’t have to pray that anymore, instead we can pray, “Father, thank You thank You thank You so much for forgiving me. Thank You for looking past my ignorance, or laziness, or sin and seeing something much more than I am, but You see what I can be if I only pay attention to You once and a while. Thank you for forgiving, now please teach me to forgive others, the same way that You forgave me, without restraint and without merit. I want to be like You, I want to be known as gracious, as merciful. I want people to say ‘Man, that Dave sure doesn’t seem to care if we bulldoze him.’ And although it might hurt, I want to do it, just like my Dad. I want to be like Father, like Son.”

Now please, again, do not misunderstand me. I don’t want us to walk away get all mad at ourselves because we’ve been praying ‘wrong’ all this time. I don’t even think it matters if we do pray these prayers, because the Holy Spirit is just going to translate them into the Heavenly language for God anyways, Romans 8:26. The point of this entire thing isn’t to pray the with the right words, but with the right heart. The point, if you don’t get anything else out of this, please get this, think about what were saying to God in prayer. Be mindful of who it is who we are talking to.

If I were to meet the President of the United States I wouldn’t say, “You dude, when you gonna flip this shizzle and bank up bizziey the common peozzies?! No, I would think about what I would say, to properly represent myself, my family, my church and what not. How much more should we be reverent when we talk to God. And at the same time remember that God is much more approachable than the President of the United States . We can talk to Him as intimately, actually more intimately, than anyone else on earth. Just like a dad who cares for his children ask. Jesus said, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:13 (NIV)

From my heart, because God just destroyed my prayer life.

-artwalk

Last week I was driving on the 101 freeway towards I-17 south. I was in the far left lane and needed to get to the right for my approaching exit nearly a mile and half away. I signaled, turned and found my way into the middle lane. I increased in speed slightly to find a spot for my next transition when in the corner of my eye I noticed that guy who was in front of me in the right lane, now beside also signaled to come into the same lane I was currently in. Without thinking, I removed my foot from the acceleration pedal, slightly tapped the brake and gave the guy a wave. He returned with the ever expected thanks wave. We both got over one more time and exited I-17, myself south and him north. Four miles down the road as I passed Thunderbird I realized something that is probably one of the biggest breakthroughs in my entire Christian walk. I let the guy in for no reason. For no reason whatsoever. Then I recalled the motives or purpose for everything I had done in my entire life.

I am at least a 4^th generation Christian. That means my great grandfather was a Christian, my grandfather, my dad and myself have all accepted God’s free gift of grace. I was raised in a Christian home, obviously, with Judean-Christian morals instilled within me, all my life. I accepted Christ when I was nine years and baptized in my grand-fathers swimming pool later that year. My grandfather was an elder in the church we attended when I was young. My great-grandfather was also and elder in the same denomination. My dad is also a great Bible teacher. Teaching several Bible studies every week at his local church, and with Victorious Christian Living (VCL). I myself begin to teach and lead a youth ministry at age 18, was brought on part-time staff at 19 and became the full-time Youth Pastor at 20 for a church in Scottsdale, AZ. Christianity is my memory.

Galatians Chapter 5

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. 1-6 (NIV)

In the first 16-17 years of my life I was devoted to being “a good Christian.” Not just a Christians, a good one. I wanted the type of faith I had read about in the Bible that heals sickness, encourages the broken hearted, and teaches the next person to do the same. So, I went to church, went to youth group, went to college group (when I was in Jr. High, just to get ahead), read my Bible, practiced the discipline of prayer, met one on one with an accountability partner, attended Bible studies, taught Bible studies, went to Bible college. All of this for the one word the severed me from basic Biblical principles. One word that although I never my parents say it, never heard my grand-father say it. I never heard word from the pastors of the church I was attending. But for some reason, some where between the pulpit and my ears one word was added. Because. For in this word I felt myself being compelled to do all the Christian stuff I thought was ‘right’.

When I was baptized, I was baptized because Christians are supposed to be. A year later I got my first key chain with the inscription, “Jesus is the key” not ever fully understanding what it meant I picked it out, because all the Christians I respected, my mom, my pastor, all had a Christian key chain. In high school I got purity ring to wear on my left ring finger until I was married to symbolize my choice to remain a virgin till marriage because, the popular Christian trend lined up with my age group. I joined an accountability Bible study with my friend because I wanted to stop certain sins in my life. I memorized the books of the Bible, and the names of the apostles, because my mom promised me I could get something for it. I studied my Bible, cross reference, Greek meanings, other cults and religions, because I wanted to ‘know’ the facts about truth. I did all of the things because I wanted to be a “Good Christian.”

Because –bik’awz –for the reason that follows, so that. I have lived my entire life so that…because…for the reason of...

Last year my licensed was suspended by the state of AZ for 3 months, because I had received nine points on my license as a result of several moving violations, namely speeding. Upon the reinstatement of my license for the next year I have driven the speed limit. Exactly, to the ‘t’ on cruise control right by cops ready with radar fully assured that the red and blue won’t be behind me again, because I wasn’t speeding, because, I slowed down to let people in, because I stopped on yellow, because, because, because. But my righteousness was fake. Although I have not even been pulled over since then I have only not sped physically, my heart has gone through every yellow, and it has cut off people going 5 below. But last week, for the first time ever, I let a guy go in front of me for no reason.

I didn’t do it because it was the right thing to do, I didn’t do it because I have a Christian bumper sticker, and I didn’t do because that’s WWJD. I didn’t for any reason at all. I just did. I know quite well that all of things that I’ve done in my walk weren’t to earn salvation. I know for sure I accepted salvation as free gift when I was nine years old, but I have since tried to “be justified by law.” Not in God’s sight – that was free, but in everyone else’s; in my grand-fathers, in my parents, in my pastors, in my boss’, and even in my own.

I don’t know what writing this will mean. I don’t know if anybody else out there will identify with me. Maybe because you have never struggled with legalism, or maybe like me you always assume legalism is what others tell you to do and what goes inside your own head is “conviction” from the Holy Spirit. I have attempted to trace all sources of this poison in my life to contain it and come across several places where for me I was being legalistic. I challenge whoever to look at these areas and see if they also fall short in these areas, or maybe just take the concept of freedom and scan it through your own personal lives.

All things below are lies, and how I would order myself to act Christian.

· new people at church, “go say hi-you really ‘ought’ to. WWJD Dave”

· don’t drink alcohol, what if a non-believer sees you, oh know!!!

· agree with the pastor, he is the one in authority so he is always right

· tithe.

· drive slow

· only listen to Christian music

· stick up for ‘that guy’

You might notice that all the things listed above are good. They are righteous they are things that Christ did on earth. They truly are WWJD. But that doesn’t mean that they should be a checklist of things that I ought to, should, need to, or am supposed to do because…I’m a Christian, Jesus would, seekers are watching, etc. They are simply “faith expressing itself through love.”

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1

Paul goes on to say “Christ will be of no value to you at all” if you act like this. I think his point was, if we’re all doing all this great stuff, what does Jesus need to do for us. But if were not living by these self inflicted rules, Jesus will have a job to do. He will have the job of being the Lord of your life, not you. He will tell you when to say hi to the new kid, to stick for someone else, to help out where there is need. If are going to do any of these things for a reason, do it because you truly feel Christ putting on your heart individually and not because you heard a sermon about it, or read a verse, or because seekers are watching. Do it for God, not for yourself.

All of you reading this have the ability to sluff me off. You might say, Dave is out his mind, I can’t believe what he is saying,”and he is supposed to be a pastor.” That’s fine if you say that. It’s up to, and I won’t hold it against you at all. But this is as honest that I have been with myself for a long time. This is what God is doing in my heart right now. The truth is, I heard another pastor sharing message with his students about two years ago, and I was among the hearers. Along with the rest of the crowd I scoffed at what the pastor was teaching. I couldn’t believe it, I honestly thought that he was doing some sort of reverse psychology to test us to see if we really knew what “right” answer to be. He didn’t correct us, rather he let us have our point and realizing that we weren’t ready for this lesson ended his teaching smoothly. Man, I wish I could have those moments back. But I can’t, I can just learn, adjust, grow, and well I don’t what I’m “supposed” to do next, but I’ll be listening for it.

-artwalk