How Should I Pray for My Friends?

                                               

                                                How Should I Pray for My Friends?

           "I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and divine revelation, so that you may know Him better."

                                            -- Ephesians 1:17

I love this verse. In Paul's opening thoughts in his letter to his dear friends in Ephesus he reminds them that he is thankful for them and that he prays for them.

And what does he pray? That God will give them "wisdom and divine revelation" - both of which come only from God, the Source of both -- and for what reason? That they may know God better!

Isn't this our pattern for praying for our friends? 

We pray for their health, safety, success, happiness, etc. and all the myriad of things that come to our minds. But isn't the real goal that they can know God better? 

Knowing God better will help us to equip ourselves for life here on earth and -- remember the old lullaby -- "fit us for heaven to live with Thee there"?

This should be our prayer model. 

Remember reading, probably years ago, Tennyson's Morte D'Arthur (The Death of King Arthur)?

These words from Arthur as he is in the barge saying good-bye to his friends:

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new

And God fulfills Himself in many ways..,.

I have lived my life, and that which I have done

May He within Himself make pure! But thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole world is in every way

                                Bound in gold chains about the feet of God."

Read it again....

The Thing with Feathers -Emily Dickinson and R C Sproul

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all.

And sweetest in the gale is heard,

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

  -- By Emily Dickinson

One of my best remembered poems from high school literature class.

Hope perches in the soul - not flies over, migrating to search for another home - it can always sing (hum?) the tune, even when the words are forgotten - and never stops at all.....

From R C Sproul:

Though he slay me, I will hope in him (Job 13:15).

Scripture says the just shall live by faith, which doesn't mean believing something when you're not sure if it's true.

It means that the just shall live by trusting God.

Paul distills the essence of the Christian life when he says, "Rejoice in your hope" (Romans 5:2), since our joy is vested in the future that God promises for His people.

Our joy as strangers and sojourners in this valley of tears is that God has prepared a place for us -- a better world that will be consummated at Christ's return.

Paul's use of the word hope isn't the way we use the term today to refer to things that are uncertain.

He and the other biblical authors talk about hope that is certain, hope that cannot fail, and hope that will not disappoint or embarrass us.

The New Testament calls hope the anchor of the soul.

Why? What is it that makes it certain?

The answer is God's sure promises and the demonstration of His faithfulness in the history of Israel, in the lives of the Apostles, and most clearly, in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us. Romans 5:5

Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath.

God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

Hebrews 6:17-19



What Should We Be Doing Now? C S Lewis

 

How should we be living in these difficult days as we wait for Jesus to come back?

C S Lewis reminds us that some, or many, of the things we see in the world today are contrary to God's will. He says: "Christianity is a fighting religion. It thinks God made the world -- that space and time, heat and cold, colors and taste, animals and vegetables, are things He created. But it also thinks that a great many things have gone wrong with the world He made and He insists, and insists very loudly, that we put them right again! (From "Mere Christianity").

Then again, in the Narnian Chronicles, after the evil witch has entered Narnia, Aslan, the great Lion, gathers the Narnians around and says, "But do not be cast down. Evil will come of that evil, and I will see to it that the worst falls on Myself. In the meantime, let us make this a merry world. And as Adam's race has done the harm, Adam's race will help heal it."

Looks like that's how we live in these ungodly times -- we start putting things right again! Looks like quite a task for us! But the worst, by far, fell on Jesus!

We want to work now and then hear Him say to us, "Well done, good and faithful servant!"

Maranatha, Lord Jesus!

From An Old Monk

                                             From An Old Monk

I'm reading a great book: "On Loving God" by Bernard of Clairvaux, who lived about 900 years ago.

We often think of those ancient saints as being rigid and austere. And we are often wrong. He is loving and joyous in his faith and  displays that in his writing.

He also wrote one of my favorite hymns: "Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee."

Here are some of the lines:

   Jesus, the very thought of Thee, with sweetness fills my breast.
   But sweeter  still Thy face to see, and in Thy presence rest.

   O hope of every contrite heart, O joy of all the meek
   To those who fall how kind Thou art, how good to all who seek!

   But what of those who find? Ah, this no pen or tongue can show
   The love of Jesus,  what it is, none but His loved ones know!

Sort of reminds me of a more modern hymn, "And He walks
with me and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own...
And the joy we share  as we tarry there, none other has ever known."

We can magnify the Lord!

For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance

through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ

according to my earnest expectation and hope

that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness,

as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body,

whether by life or by death.

Philippians 1:19-20 (NKJV)

In the preceding verses we read Paul's initial evaluation of his imprisonment -- in verses 12 and 13 he says that his

trials have served to advance the gospel, even throughout the palace guard...that he is in chains for Christ. 

And in verse 14 he says his boldness to preach the gospel has encouraged other Christians to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.

So because of his imprisonment the gospel has been spread and other Christians have been strengthened.

Not only that, in verses 19-20 he declares it is his earnest expectation that Christ will be magnified in his ordeal.

Earnest expectation conveys the meaning of watching for something so intently that one's head is turned away from everything else.

So here he is in prison in Rome, sort of a house arrest, because he is allowed to have visitors. But he is chained, day and night, to the guards, and unable to move about.

His upcoming trial could likely lead to his condemnation as a traitor to Rome and to his execution.

But, because he is single-minded -- desiring only God's glory -- he faces his circumstances fearlessly and joyfully.

Nothing else matters to Paul - except God!

But can we really magnify God?

O magnify the LORD with me, let us exalt His Name together, we read in Psalm 34:3.

Does God need to be magnified? Isn't He already bigger than anything else?

How can we mere human being make God bigger?

Well, what is a telescope? The Latin root word, telescopium,

means seeing from a distance. The instrument we call a telescope is used to make distant objects, such as stars, appear closer, and consequently appear larger.

The stars are huge objects, much larger than our largest telescopes, and yet the tiny instrument makes them look larger because it makes them appear closer!

A believer's body serves this same purpose. We are to be telescopes that bring Jesus Christ close to people.

To most people Jesus is a misty figure who lived many years ago, if they think about Him at all.

But when they watch Christians going through crises, they can see Jesus magnified and brought much closer.

The persecuted Christians  throughout the world today are making Jesus bigger and closer to all of us!

I am wearing a T-shirt from Voice of the Martyrs that has a large read Arabic letter on the front - a letter that stands for "Nazarene." This symbol is today being spray-painted on the homes and businesses of Christians in Iraq to single them out for persecution and death, much as the Jews in Nazi Germany were singled out.

As I wear this T-shirt, I am able to tell people about the plight of the persecuted church all over the world.

And I can focus on their trials and pray for them, and like Paul mentioned, I feel strengthened.

Hopefully, I am able to bring Jesus closer to the people I talk to. I would like to think I am glorifying and magnifying Him.

Anyway we do it, our task is to bring God closer!

Paul was not afraid of life or death. Either way, he wanted to use his body to magnify Christ.