1 Chronicles 5:18-20
"The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh had valiant men who carried shield and sword, and drew the bow, expert in war, 44,760, able to go to war. They waged war against the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab. And when they prevailed over them, the Hagrites and all who were with them were given into their hands, for they cried out to God in the battle, and he granted their urgent plea because they trusted in him." (emphasis added)
The more I read the book of Chronicles (1 & 2), the more I see it as a book of prayer. It is filled with communion and communication with God. Notice the passage above with its call for trust in God as a basis for prayer, rather than reliance on one's own resources. Surely this exemplifies the 'prayer of faith' referenced in James. It directs us in the spiritual battles with face, knowing our enemy is not flesh and blood.
Situated among the pages of Chronicles are the prayer of Jabez (1 Chron. 4), the prayer of Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 20), the prayer of Hezekiah (2 Chron. 32) and other portraits of prayer in relationship with and dependence upon the God with whom we have to do. These prayers and the examples they afford us are not merely for our interest; they are for our instruction. God shows us the natural voice of prayer in the story of His people, a voice that is to continue in the stories of our lives.
I toyed with the idea of getting a smart phone. To be honest, I fantasized about it. All those cool apps. Constantly connected. Then I thought of the downside. All those cool apps. Constantly connected. I could see myself becoming infatuated with the apps I had and wanting to know what else was available. I envisioned myself constantly checking my email to spend time on things that could easily wait until I got to my computers at home or office. Plus, I had seen the distractions the smart phones could be for others in classes I had taught.
Yet, the idea of constant connectivity does seem a positive thing when it comes to our communion with God. Whether the blogging of dialog with God in our journals or prayer closets (Neh.9), or tweeting expressions of thanks or praise or help as the occasion prompts (Neh. 2:4; 4:9), or posting the events of life in the friendship of His grace (Neh. 1:4-11), constant fellowship with God seems a good and necessary dimension of life with our Heavenly Father.
After all, we are to pray without ceasing.
As promised, here is the full text of the prayer of confession for our National Day of Prayer service, stemming from the idea that the best thing for America is for the church to be the church.
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On this National Day of Prayer in which the eyes of our nation are directed to you, the living and true God, we your church gather in the name of Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords, to confess that
· we your people, called by your name, do not humble ourselves and pray but instead go about our business in prideful self-sufficiency and willful neglect of your commandments and decrees, unconcerned for the name of Jesus Christ that we bear and inattentive to his design for us as his disciples;
· we do not seek your face nor turn from our loveless indifference and worldly preoccupations, actually tolerating and even enjoying the corruptions of this world to the dishonor of you who has called us to be holy as you are holy;
· we are not salt and light to our nation, nor do we desire to be, content to dabble in “Christian” practice and use you for our ends;
· we do not seek first your kingdom and righteousness, instead looking to devote our affections and dedicate our resources to seeking first our own kingdoms and glory, happy to build bigger barns to hold our goods, forgetting that all we have comes from you our God and that it all, along with our very selves, belongs to you;
O Lord, our sin abounds. Yet your grace super-abounds. In Christ, our sins are forgiven, our guilt is atoned for and the wrath we deserve is spent. Yet shall we continue in sin that grace may increase? May it never be! Work in us the grace of repentance and bring forth in us the fruit of that repentance. Make us to be a light to our nation, shining with the truth of your Word, glaring with the brilliance of your glory, conspicuous as a display of your grace.
Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayers of your servants and to our pleas for mercy, and for your own sake. O Lord, make your face to shine upon us. Renew us. Refresh us. Restore us. Bless and transform this nation through our faithfulness to your purpose for us as your church.
Gracious God and Father, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, the disrepair of your church and the disability of the people that are called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy bound up in the precious blood of Jesus Christ. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your church and your people are called by your name.
For Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
As the National Day of Prayer (the first Thursday in May) draws near a buzz has been generated by the ruling of a federal judge declaring the day unconstitutional. But even if that ruling is upheld, what difference does it make? Should it stop the church from praying? Can it stop the church from praying? Not only can believers legally gather for prayer, even the most severe of government strictures cannot silence believers in their communion with God and petitioning of him on behalf of the nation.
Actually, when it comes down to restricting prayer, the church is doing a pretty good job all on its own. Often we don't pray, don't feel the need to pray, and the prayer we do engage in seems pretty anemic. In fact, this prayerlessness is one of the things for which we need to repent and bear the fruit of repentance in taking up the mantle of prayer given us by our Lord. In the service I prepared for my congregation for the National Day of Prayer, I include these confessions of our prayerlessness:
we your people, called by your name, do not humble ourselves and pray but instead go about our business in prideful self-sufficiency and willful neglect of your commandments and decrees, unconcerned for the name of Jesus Christ that we bear and inattentive to his design for us as his disciples;
we do not seek your face nor turn from our loveless indifference and worldly preoccupations, actually tolerating and even enjoying the corruptions of this world to the dishonor of you who has called us to be holy as you are holy;
we are not salt and light to our nation, nor do we desire to be, content to dabble in “Christian” practice and use you for our ends;
(I will post the whole prayer of confession after the May 6 service)
The buzz created by the judicial questioning of a national day of prayer and the ripples of rumor surrounding it should strengthen our resolve to pray, and not just on a designated day. But my guess is that it won't. Being up in arms will not translate to being on our knees. And that is to our shame.
I must admit in my unbelief I did not have high hopes that anyone in my neighborhood would respond to the invitations I gave out letting them know of a Christianity Explored study in my home. Christianity Explored is a 10-week study in the Gospel of Mark that addresses three basic questions: who Jesus is, what He did, and what that means to them. At first I didn’t hear anything. Then after a couple of weeks, I received one email telling me they’d like to attend, then another, then another asking if they could bring a friend. We started with six neighbors plus my wife and myself. As people got into it, they asked if they could invite others. We built from 6 to 8 to 9 and leveled off at ten. For some, they had never been part of a Bible study before.
Several weeks into the study, I received an email from the brother of one of the participants. He commented on how his sister was enjoying the time and then he said this: “I have been a Christian for 20 years now and have been praying for my family that whole time to give their lives to Christ and this seems to be a big answer.”
He thanked me “for being there and for [my] obedience to following God’s lead.” While his words were very meaningful to me and a wonderful encouragement from God, they were just trickle added to the river of blessing I was receiving by God in getting to know these neighbors and being a conduit for Christ in their lives.
How humbling it is to think of our being an answer to others’ prayers! Yet should that surprise us? After all, it is not angels that God uses to reach our neighbors with the gospel of life in Christ. How urgent it is that we prove faithful to our call. Just as we might pray for unbelieving family and friends, asking God to raise up influences for Christ in their lives, so we might find ourselves that answer to the same prayer by others.
I met with a Christian brother recently who has been vigorously trying to get the Community Houses of Prayer ministry started in his local church. I've always admired this brother for his administrative skills and wizened ways. He knows the patience and perseverance involved in establishing new ideas, and he has exhibited this approach with CHOP in his church--starting small, building an enthusiastic nucleus, trying to bring influential leaders on board, working with appropriate committees. So far he has some enthusiasts who have seen the power of prayer, experienced the heart of God and transformed their mentality as witnesses for Christ through the CHOP ministry. But overall he has encountered apathy and even annoyance.
It seems his church has a mentality of mission that looks to foreign soil. Mission affects them as supporters of "missionaries." There is little sense of or interest in personal witness and how God might use them for the sake the gospel. Complicating matters is the academic approach of the church that is happy to be instructed in theology but reluctant to be involved in its practice. Discipleship stops at education at the expense of being equipped and engaged in service to Christ.
I'm sure these are generalizations and it would be wrong to paint each member of that church with the brush that colors the whole. However, it does highlight a problem with the church militant and the forces of Christ for the sake of gospel and advancement of kingdom of our Lord. It seems to me the culprits are lack of love for God and neighbor, absence of commitment to Jesus Christ and an obstinate view of the church as an outpost of Christ's kingdom.
I would value my readers' thoughts and opinions on the subject. I would also enjoin each us to importunate prayer, giving God no rest until He restores His church to the action of faith that believes the gospel is the only hope of salvation and that we are His appointed conduits.
What a privilege to be an influence for Christ in someone's life! Whether it's conducting a neighborhood Bible study or meeting with a friend to go through a book together or broaching the subject in a casual conversation at work, we can bring the perspective of a relationship with God to bear. How will they react to the mention of prayer or reference to the blessings of God? We won't know until we interject that perspective into things. They may respond with scorn or skepticism. They may just ignore your comment. It may be that your reference piques their interest and may even identify you as someone they could approach later with "religious" questions. It may even be you hear the hearty "amen," from someone you did not realize was a brother or sister in Christ. The point is, you never know how God will work. But you do know being conspicuous for Christ places you in the work of the Great Commission. Let that be our prayer as we embark on each day, that our conversation would be seasoned with grace and that our God would be pleased to use us as His instruments.
Often we think of prayer as talking to God, that flow of communication with the Sovereign Lord of hosts by which we express our praise, thanks, laments, doubts, fears, petitions, complaints, confessions and all those other aspects of life in communion with our Father in heaven. But how often do we just linger in the presence of God practicing the call of Psalm 46:10 to "be still and know that He is God." The scriptures are punctuated with the reminder that our God is "with" us. He reminds us of this in Isaiah 41:10 to calm our fears. He asserts this in Matthew 28:20 to embolden us and authorize us for mission. Jesus promises not to leave us as orphans but will come to us and be with us (John 14). "With us"--what exactly does that mean? Let me think about it. That is the agenda of being still.
In our times of prayer we whip out the prayer list, run through it with dispatch, pack up and go on our way. How much different is that from the confessional, where adherents line up to enter the enclosure, dump their sins and be on their way? How strange would it be to linger in silence? Surely the priest would hasten us on our way, the business having been conducted.
But prayer is more than a business meeting. Prayer is communion with our God in the splendor of His glory and the expression of His care. One of our goals in prayer is to grow to know our God, to reflect on His revelation in His Word and in His creation and in His providence and in His Son. We want to ruminate. That takes time and that takes discipline, the discipline of being still to know that He is God. In that stillness God impresses His glory upon us, prompting praise. He reminds us of His wisdom, that His ways are not ours, His workings are often inscrutable to our finite minds. Our prayers being fueled by awe and saturated with humility, dependence and submission. Stillness before God fosters depth of relationship with Him by which we might know Him not just academically but experientially.
Silence in prayer can become quite noisy, both with ejaculations of response and with unarticulated murmurs of musing in communion with the God of glory and grace who has entered into relationship with us through the reconciling work of His Son. With these sounds of silence, unlike the song that bears the same name, we don't say, "Hello, darkness, my old friend," but commune with Him who is the Light as the sons of light He has made us to be.
God instructs us in prayer in various ways and at various times throughout His Word. We sit in with Jesus' disciples as He responds to the request, "Lord, teach us to pray." The mechanism and mechanics of prayer are unveiled to us in teaching points on the subject giving us a practical theology of prayer. Prayer is illustrated for us in places like Ezra 9, Nehemiah 9 and Daniel 9. The psalms comprise a prayerbook leading us in multifaceted prayer. Paul's prayers in Ephesians, Phillipians and Colossians expand our framework for prayer beyond our parochial concerns. We are commanded to pray, enjoined to pray and constrained to pray.
But our God instructs us in prayer even beyond the more conspicuous teachings or examples of prayer. As we navigate the terrain of redemptive history in our regular reading of God's Word, we would do well to keep our eyes open for nuggets of prayer buried within the text that are easy to gloss over in our haste.
Genesis 20 serves as a good example. Abraham is traveling in Gerar. He represents Sarah as his sister rather than his wife. Abimelech, king of Gerar, pursues Sarah as an unattached woman. God speaks to Abimelech in a dream and alerts him to dire consequences because Sarah is Abraham's wife. As we read this account, we shake our heads in disgust at Abraham's lack of trust and in befuddlement wondering what God is communicating in the event. Yet buried in the account is a nugget on prayer.
God lays out His solution to Abimelech's predicament: "Now then, return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live." (Gen. 20:7) God showcases the role of Abraham as intercessor and prayer as God's means for the promised ends. Since God had communicated to Abimelech directly, couldn't He have just told him to return Sarah to Abraham and let bygones be bygones? Instead, God shows us that He deals in prayer. In so doing, He gives prayer a place and value, lending it a certain weight as we hold the weapon of prayer in our hands. Ten verses later we see how it plays out: "Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children."
Notice how stopping to pick up this nugget and study it enriches our notion of prayer, giving us appreciation for the extraordinary value of prayer in the workings of God. It emboldens us and raises our expectations in our role as appointed intercessors. The Bible is filled with such nuggets, easily missed unless we're looking for them.
As we embark on a new year, our Lord alerts us to struggles, challenges and temptations. He assures us of the supremacy of His abiding presence with us and the sufficiency of His abounding grace in whatever He sets before us. On the cover of the weekly prayer guide I publish for my personal use I have a reminder to help me keep my bearings as I navigate those sometime stormy seas that threaten to undo me. Distress gave birth to the reminder as the Spirit of God girded me up with His truth and sustained me. I share it here as one seeking to comfort others with the comfort I myself have received from God.
I can handle all things
trusting God's providence
that brought it to me
in Christ's strength
that is perfectly sufficient for me
for God's glory
that is to be my goal over my comfort and convenience.
May the peace of God guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.