Author Archive: Craig

The Cost of Prayer

February 23, 2018 1 Comment

The cost of our redemption is succinctly captured in the phrase, “Jesus paid it all.” So, why do we treat prayer as a struggle? Why is it a struggle to pray? We struggle to pray not because prayer for us is meant to be a struggle. It is not that God Himself has ordained for us that prayer must be a struggle. God does not gain from our struggle to pray. Rather we have gained the right to pray from His struggle.

 

And yet, I do struggle at times

to pray.

And I struggle

in prayer.

 

Oswald Chambers suggests our struggle in prayer may spring from unsettled regions of our heart and mind, places where we have not yet rested in the redemptive work, agony, struggle of Jesus Christ.

 

The more we get into the atmosphere of the New Testament the more we discover the unfathomable and unhastening leisure of our Lord’s life, no matter what His agony. The difficulty is that when we do what God wants us to do, our friends say, “It is all very well, but suppose we all did that?” Our Lord did not tell all the disciples to sit there while He prayed. He told only three of them. The point is that we must take as from God the haphazard arrangements of our lives.

 

If we accept the Lord Jesus Christ and the domination of His lordship, we also accept that nothing happens by chance because we know that God orders and engineers circumstances. The fuss has gone, the amateur providence has gone, the amateur disposer has gone, and we know that “all things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8: 28). If Jesus says, “Sit here while I go and pray over there,” the only appropriate thing we can do is to sit.

 

We ought to give much more time than we do— a great deal more than we do— to brooding on the fundamental truths on which the Spirit of God works the simplicity of our Christian experience. The fundamental truths are redemption and the personal presence of the Holy Spirit, and these two are focused in one mighty personality, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God for the emphasis laid on the efficacy of the Holy Spirit to make experientially real the redemption of Jesus Christ in individual lives.

 

Remember, what makes prayer easy is not our wits or our understanding, but the tremendous agony of God in redemption. A thing is worth just what it costs. Prayer is not what it costs us, but what it cost God to enable us to pray. It cost God so much that a little child can pray. It cost God Almighty so much that anyone can pray. But it is time those of us who name His name knew the secret of the cost, and the secret is here: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.”

 

Beware of placing the emphasis on what prayer costs us. It cost God everything to make it possible for us to pray. Jesus did not say to these men, “Agonize!” He said, “Watch with me.” Our Lord tried to lift the veil from before these disciples that they might see what He was going through. Think who He was— the Son of God. “My soul”— the reasoning mind of the Lord Jesus Christ—“ is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.”

 

Chambers, Oswald. If You Will Ask: Reflections on the Power of Prayer (Kindle Locations 223-229, 242-249, 256-259). Discovery House. Kindle Edition.

 

Heavenly Father,
I have struggled to drag myself forward into prayer. So, I’m going to sit here in this moment and trust You in the shadow of the your Son’s Cross. I will take each thought that comes to mind and consider it under your gaze and your grace. I trust you. May Your Spirit direct me into Your thoughts and your ways. Thank you for creating me anew as your child. Thank you for calling me into your Kingdom.
AMEN.

Change, Discipleship, Prayer

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How do you read Creation & Genesis 1-12?

February 22, 2018 0 Comments

 

1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.   Genesis 1:1-3

 

“Creator creates creation.” (Walter Brueggemann, Genesis)

 

Recently I asked myself, what New Testament passages shape my reading of the Creation?

I came up with three.

 

Romans 8:18-25
18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

 

John 1:1-5, 10-14
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it….

10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

 

Colossians 1:15-19

15The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

I’m curious. When you read Genesis, especially Genesis 1-12, what New Testament passages are directing your reading of Creation?

Discipleship

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Why isn’t interdependence our vision of maturity?

February 19, 2018 0 Comments

 

Interdependence requires two things.

1. I am able to be dependable. In other words, its ok for someone to depend on me.

AND

2. I am able to be dependent. In other words, its ok for me to ask someone else for help.

 

I find interdependence to be a more exciting and compelling vision of maturity. Independence is an illusion. We are all dependent on someone for something.

Discipleship, Leadership

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So you want your relationship with Jesus to grow?

January 29, 2018 0 Comments

Growth with Jesus. That’s the vision — to be like Jesus.

It appears to me that none of my friends have grown with Jesus without being with Him. And to be with Him, requires spiritual disciplines. The disciplines rehearse with the Spirit of God what godliness looks like. The Spirit of God meets us in the disciplines to uncover what’s in our heart. The disciplines drive our roots deeper into God. So if you want to grow, the Spirit of God is going to bring you into disciplines. Disciplines like setting up a regular times for meeting God in prayer, in the Scripture, with His people, in service, put yourself in the place and posture to receive from God and join God in what He is doing in the world. Here’s Donald S. Whitney commenting on this in Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life:

 

Think of the Spiritual Disciplines as ways by which we can spiritually place ourselves in the path of God’s grace and seek Him, much like Zacchaeus placed himself physically in Jesus’ path and sought Him. The Lord, by His Spirit, still travels down certain paths, paths that He Himself has ordained and revealed in Scripture. We call these paths the Spiritual Disciplines, and if we will place ourselves on these paths and look for Him there by faith, we can expect to encounter Him. For instance, when we come to the Bible, or when we engage in any of the biblical Disciplines—looking by faith to God through them—we can anticipate experiencing God. As with this tax collector, we will find Him willing to have mercy on us and to have communion with us. And in the course of time we, too, will be transformed by Him from one level of Christlikeness to another (see 2 Corinthians 3:18). So again, by means of these Bible-based practices we consciously place ourselves before God in anticipation of enjoying His presence and receiving His transforming grace.

Discipleship

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Loving first again and again and again and again

December 14, 2017 0 Comments

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:10

 

I have long been delighted with the prevenience of God. God acts first. God moves first. God loves first. Before I awaken, He is awakening me. Such grace abounds. This view of God’s pre – action, before my awareness, is evident even in Mark 4 in the parable of the sower or soils. God is sowing good seed into our lives; in fact God is always sowing good seed that would awaken us to Him and His Kingdom.

 

Recently while reading James Bryan Smith’s book Embracing the Love of God, I was introduced to one of Soren Kierkegard’s prayers. I’ve been reflecting on it and praying it for the past week as an advent reminder. Here it is for you. I hope you will be reminded of God’s ever-present unceasing kindness and faithful love towards you.

 

You have loved us first, O God, alas! We speak of it in terms of history as if You loved us first but a single time, rather than that without ceasing. You have loved us first many times and everyday and our whole life through. When we wake up in the morning and turn our soul toward You — You are there first — You have loved us first; if I rise at dawn and at the same second turn my soul toward You in prayer, You are there ahead of me, You have loved me first. When I withdraw from the distractions of the day and turn my soul toward You, You are there first and thus forever. And we speak ungratefully as if You have loved us first only once.

Discipleship

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