Tag Archives: prayer

Devotions: July 30

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Psalms 69:5-17

Before I get into this text I’ve got to say that, frankly, sometimes the Psalms make me uneasy. Often enough the author of a psalm will seem to declare his own righteousness while asking God to destroy his enemies. A first glance this seems pretty arrogant and presumptuous. One of the things that has helped me rethink that view is to think of the psalmist as a defendant pleading before a judge. If he is innocent (and yeah, even if he’s not, just bear with me) he will say “I haven’t done anything wrong!” Is our defendant literally saying he has never done a single thing wrong in all his life? Of course not. He’s saying that in this matter he has been unjustly accused, that he didn’t do what he is accused of doing.

Okay, back to Psalm 69.  This psalm has takes a different tact on his state before God. In verses 5 and 6 he says:

O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you. Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel.

The psalmist (David, in this case) is laying himself bare, with no pretensions of personal righteousness. He is asking that God preserve the honor and good name of Israel despite what he has done. David is repentant. In verse 13 he goes on to ask God:

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.

What an amazing prayer, I love it!

Devotions: July 29

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Acts 16:6-10

So Paul, along with Silas and Timothy, have been wandering around preaching the Gospel. Verses 6 and 7 tell us that despite a strong desire to visit “Asia” (modern day Turkey), the Holy Spirit (or Spirit of Jesus) has so far prevented them. I wonder what the specifics of the prevention were but that’s not for us to know I guess. What is interesting is what happens next.

Paul has a dream (Acts 16:9) in which a man from Macedonia (just across the Mediterranean from Asia, where Paul has been wanting to go) is pleading with him to come there and help. Immediately they go, “concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.” This is, in my mind, one of the clearest illustrations of a call or leading towards ministry in the Bible. God used a dream to make clear to Paul (notice all three knew immediately what it meant and what they needed to do).

How often do we find ourselves wanting to go to our own “Asia”? Paul was even well intentioned here, he wasn’t planning on having a vacation in Istanbul, he was planning on preaching the Gospel throughout the entire area. So here’s the question, do you have a “man from Macedonia” that God is using to lead you?

Mark 11:22-24

This is frankly a really hard section of Scripture for me to understand.  Jesus has just triumphantly entered Jerusalem, cleansed the Temple of the money changers, and is now on his way out of town for the night. He and the disciples pass by a fig tree that Jesus had earlier cursed and the disciples are astonished that the tree is, in fact, now dead. Jesus replies with a statement on prayer:

Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Now this seems kind of paradoxical since we are all very aware that we don’t get everything we ask for. In fact, it would be a very bad thing if that were the case since we may very well ask for something bad for us or others unintentionally. Here are some thoughts and possibilities concerning what Jesus says here:

  • Jesus often seems to use hyperbole or exaggeration to make a point. Perhaps what he is trying to say is “Look guys, don’t be surprised when you receive something you prayed about, God desires to give you you’re heart’s desire, have a little faith.”
  • This verse needs to be thought of in light of James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” I think what James is saying is that when our desires and intentions are in tune with God’s desires and intentions, we can have confidence and faith that God will see it through.
  • God is not a genie. Jesus is not giving a “if you do X, then God must give you Y” kind of direction. Today it is popular in too many Christian circles to force God into the role of a personal genie bottle. We rub Him the right way and we are assured to get a better job, the latest gadget, or even a mended hurt. Instead God assures us that even when we are going through that “valley of the shadow of death”, He is with us and loves us.
  • In Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, the great Christian author C.S. Lewis says: My own idea is that it occurs only when the one who prays does so as God’s fellow-worker, demanding what is needed for the joint work.