Worship: The Question Everyone Must Answer
Here’s the latest talk from the Sunday Gathering of Origin Church
Live Loved: The Question Everyone Must Answer
Tag Archive: Discipleship
A prayer that will be answered
Life has its disappointments. I liked Pirate Joe’s. Why? I admire entrepreneurs and enterprising folks. But as we know, even though the pirate met a need here, he irritated the original Joe, and had to close up shop. Not to make light of the struggle or the disappointment, but this is our common experience: everything doesn’t always work out the way we hoped. For praying people, we often pray all the way through such struggles. Which causes us to wonder
about our prayers
and
about our adventures
and
about our Lord.
Will all prayers be answered the way we intend?
Here’s a prayer that will be answered just as it was intended:
“They they may be one just as we are one.” John 17:22
Jesus asked the Father to do it.
In the Scripture when get to listen in on Jesus’ prayers, that’s the conversation of the communion of God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are aligned with His intentions.
Jesus prayed for us…”That they may be one just as We are one.”
I am challenged by Oswald Chambers as he explores the implications of this prayer. (See below) What is available to God to accomplish Jesus’ request in us? All my struggles! Surrendering to the Lord in the midst of my struggles entails surrendering these struggles to Him and surrendering the “aims” that are frustrated.
“That they may be one just as We are one.”
In oneness with the Father, we can discern what to leave behind, how to persevere and how to love.
God is not concerned about our aims. He does not say, “Do you want to go through this bereavement, this upset?” He allows these things for His own purpose. We may say what we like, but God does allow the devil, He does allow sin, He does allow bad God is not concerned about our aims. He does not say, “Do you want to go through this bereavement, this upset?”
He allows these things for His own purpose. We may say what we like, but God does allow the devil, He does allow sin, He does allow bad mean and intensely selfish. How are we behaving ourselves in our circumstances? Do we understand the purpose of our life as never before?
God does not exist to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we come to discern the mind of God, and that is declared in John 17: 22: “That they may be one just as We are one.” Am I as close to Jesus as that? God will not leave me alone until I am. God has one prayer He must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus Christ. It does not matter how imperfect or immature a disciple may be, if he will hang in, that prayer will be answered.
Chambers, Oswald. If You Will Ask: Reflections on the Power of Prayer (Kindle Locations 618 -629). Discovery House. Kindle Edition.
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
AMEN.
The Cost of Prayer
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.
So you want your relationship with Jesus to grow?
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.
Jump Start Your Spiritual Plan
Our good spiritual life habits are most vulnerable when we have a big change in our schedule and location.
Why is that?
Habits have triggers. Your good habits are always in danger of losing their triggers when you change your schedule and your space. Before you got to university you may have had the good fortune of a person who helped you get your spiritual disciplines going. But now you are going to move and they are not going to be right there checking in on you. In fact all the usual triggers that you may have depending on are probably going to be displaced. You are the most responsible person for your own relationship with Jesus Christ.
Soon you will be arriving at UBC if you aren’t here already. So think about it. Let’s jump start your spiritual plan!
What’s going to be beside your bed?
Bible – a Bible with a cover and pages. I know… so old school!
Journal
Pen
Why not your computer and phone?
We have all given in to the competition for our attention! We are so distractible. Help yourself out; don’t include a screen in your initial move toward the spiritual disciplines.
Reset every night.
Before you go to bed, reset all the items required for your Morning Meet Up with God.
Get an alarm clock.
I know the phone is convenient. But it comes with liabilities! It will mess with your sleep hygiene. And it will interrupt your most important conversation of the day: your conversation with God! You like tens of thousands of other people check messages, the news, and all the random pictures available — before you get the most important word into your life.
Have a plan so you are:
Ready to read a section of Scripture.
Ready to keep a record what is said.
Ready to lift up prayer requests to God.
Find a Partner.
So before you get to UBC for the Fall term, why don’t you reach out to fellow follower of Jesus and ask them to partner with you in this habit. Pray for each other specifically asking the Holy Spirit to meet you both and keep it fresh! Together make a plan to text or WeChat each other with a simple spiritual discipline “check in.” After you have complete your Morning Meet UP with God check in with your friend. A simple, “I met up with God today” will do. If you are really ambitions, check in with each other once a week with a verse or prayer from your week.
Your life with Jesus is the most valuable relationship you are going to have in University. Its worth planning ahead.
So if you are already in University and have been keeping the habit of Meeting Up with Jesus daily, what has been helpful for you? And if you are just getting ready, What’s your plan?
Filed Under: Jump Start, Spiritual Plan, UBC, Origin Church, Born for More, Discipleship