An Example of Spiritual Discipline - Scripture Memory - Two Verses a Day

Here is a very simple challenge. A lifelong discipline of scripture memory is an easy and effective way to a thorough knowledge of the New Testament. If a believer memorizes two verses a day, he or she can memorize the entire New Testament every ten years. If instead of memorizing every verse and only memorize key passages, in three or four years, a total mastery of the New Testament can be obtained.

Another benefit is that scripture memory gives a way to bracket the day with one thought with morning and evening meditation. Another benefit is that a single topic can be contemplated for about a week or so as most paragraphs are 8-12 verses long. Over the course of say 3-4 months, your meditation has been centered on one book of the bible, and, though this is a slower method to proceed through the New Testament, it is far more effective in learning the thoughts of the author.

Also, this is something, we can do with a friend or a spouse. This practice is my commitment this year, and, hopefully, by God's grace and the encouragement of friends, a commitment I could keep for the rest of the decade or even the rest of my life.

Confident in the Care of the Father - Matt 6:25-31

In our first post, we looked at the Challenge of the Teachings of Jesus. Jesus teaches us saying, and I paraphrase, "Do not store up treasures on earth", "Do not seek these things like the pagans do", and "Do not worry about them". These sayings are quite literal and quite challenging. How can we meet the challenge Jesus and voluntarily live a materially vulnerable life? How can we live in a world filled with uncertainty and not store up our own own safety net of financial "security"? This challenge is truly the road less traveled. It is all extremely challenging.  

How to Meet the Challenge

We can meet this challenge of Jesus only if we are confident in the care of the Father. 

In this passage, Matt 6:25-31, Jesus teaches us saying, 

25"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27"And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28"And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31"Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?'

Jesus teaches us that the only way to live a life unbuffered with wealth is to be aware of the fact that the Father cares for lesser creatures and that, by comparison, we are exponentially more valuable than a bird or a flower to Him. "If your heavenly Father cares for them, will He not MUCH MORE care for you"

In order to know of the Father, we must accept that we are valuable, important, and precious to the Father. All humans see a regal mountain or an awesome sunset and our whole being responds with "Wow, that is beautiful". By comparison, Jesus teaches us that we are far more wonderful and valuable and beautiful that these things. It is hard to say, "I am beautiful", when throughout our whole life we have been conditioned to criticize ourselves and to live in fear of other people's opinions of us. But the fact is the Father clothes us with more beauty and majesty than Solomon was able to cloth Himself.

Not only does God value us, but He is aware of our every need. Jesus teaches in Matt 10:29-31,

29Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. 30And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

We are to fear nothing because our Father is aware of every hair that falls from our heads. He thinks we are precious and valuable and He is aware of us and conscious of every scratch or bruise we might experience to both our bodies or our emotions.

Only if we understand these truths can we live as Jesus challenges us to live. Is it possible to live with no wealth stored in a bank or without any unnecessary luxury items as Jesus teaches us? Following Jesus in this way is the only way to live in a manner that displays our faith in the care and power of the Father. If we trust in wealth like the world, what distinction do we have? Our religions is impotent to glorify God. But if we  give wisely to the needy and if we give when we behold our brother in need, then the world will see the good works of Christ through us to the glory of God.

We can only meet this challenge if we are, by the Holy Spirit, aware and confident in the care of the Father.

A Life of Being Surprised By God

I have once again been surprised by the unbelievable grace of God. Lately, I have noticed that my prayer life is at a very low ebb. I know as well that as I look at my life, I have quenched the Spirit. My experience of God is suffering as well. Lately, I have been reflecting on the fact that not only is my spiritual condition low but my faith in a better spiritual condition in the future is quite low.

So in the last few days, I have been asking the Lord, “Can you help me out even though I have no faith and no merit to commend Your response? It is almost if I am praying, “Lord, help me out here but I will understand if you don’t”. So what I decided to do was to go through a time of praying and blessing whoever comes to my mind. ….These are very tiny little random prayers of forgiveness and blessing. I also spent some time (very little time like 10 minutes) reflecting on how God has shown compassion to me in my life. I have been doing these tiny prayers of giving and receiving compassion for about two or three days….

Well, today at work I have been surprised, once again, by the clear presence of God. For me this experience feels like being in the zone feels to an athlete. If you have ever played basketball for example, there are times when everything just seems to go in. It is uncanny. As the game progresses, you just seem to get more and more confident. Athletes call this being in the zone. Well, today, I am experiencing this but with respect to being kind and joyful. Then, as always happens in such situations, the moment I reflect and say to myself, “Wow, I am in a loving, joyful place. I love this feeling”. At that moment, I sense the presence of God and the clarity that, “Oh my Lord, this is You. This is the answer to those prayers”. The Spirit bears witness with my spirit that God is a God who answers small weak prayers and the result of this grace is a joy unspeakable and full of Glory.

I have had this happen literally every time. I find that every time I move a little toward God in the exercise of faith in the Grace of God in Christ and obedience to the simple path of unconditional love that He surprises me with an unspeakable joy. So truly I can say, faith in the Christ and His path of love is the key to life.

The Most Important Part of Prayer

The Most Important part of Prayer
When our Lord taught us to pray, He outlined a specific prayer, a quite simple prayer, to keep our priorities and attitude properly aligned in our prayer life. What can we learn about prayer from our Lord’s teaching on prayer.

1. The foundation of prayer is the orientation of our life toward God’s rule and reign.

Jesus taught us to pray by saying, "Our father in heaven hallowed by Your name. Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This prayer is entirely about aligning ourselves with the Sovereign Lordship of God and submitting our lives to His agenda. Here is the key to our spiritual lives and in fact our peace and happiness. The purpose of prayer is first and foremost our own repentance. The key to daily living is to turn from self-centeredness to God-centeredness.

How to achieve this alignment of our wills!
It is important to know that such alignment of our wills does not come with the words of our prayer but with the actual act of alignment. Jesus Himself says that it is not the words that matter. The Father already knows what we need. Prayer is a spiritual discipline to condition our person in meekness and worship. A key to this exercise is to realize that the opposite of self-centeredness is not 'non-self-centeredness" but God centeredness. To rest in the place of God-centeredness requires spiritual vision. What we are seeking in this exercise is a right view of God. Such a view of God is dependent on the Holy Spirit.

So the second point I would make is that such an orientation is not about words but about a view of God that brings what the bible calls “the fear of the Lord”. This fear of the Lord is a joyful place of acknowledging and seeing in our person the greatness of God and accepting His perfections.

The possible content of such a meditation is almost infinite. We might think of His wisdom in sending Jesus that He might be both the “just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus. Or His love in sending Jesus to make a way for our abiding forgiveness. We might thank Him for our lives and our experience of life. We might be thankful for His faithfulness in our lives. We might read a healing story from the life of Jesus and simply meditate on God’s compassion. We might praise for being a God of justice and mercy. BUT most importantly, we must be aware that the Holy Spirit is working with us to help us to worship God and to see His excellencies.

The Acceptance of God’s Will
I prefer the term acceptance to the term surrender when it comes to the orientation of the will. So often we stumble over the term surrender as in “total surrender”. We always will ask ourselves “Am I totally surrendered?” if we believe that surrender is a doorway to the blessed life, but acceptance is a more precise description of what is really happening.

“Lord, what ever happens in my life, whether good or bad, health or sickness, favor or persecution, all of this I accept as coming from Your hand and an opportunity for Your kingdom to come”.

We accept two essential realities in life. We accept all our circumstances which come to us. We accept that significant people around us are spiritually sick. We desire their spiritual healing and desire their spiritual maturity but first we accept them just as they are. We are absolutely tolerant of all people. Here is our peace.

Secondly, we accept God’s declared will, His word. We accept the word revealed in Jesus to love unconditionally. In this acceptance, we have come in alignment with God’s providence and His commands. We see trials as opportunities and difficult people as the most in need of our acceptance and love. We see difficulties as the moment when we can Glorify God and show His love.

This alignment of our wills is something we do more than daily but it is helpful to formally do as a spiritual discipline at least morning and night if we expect to abide in Christ and His word and thereby bear fruit to the Glory of the Father. The goal is to learn to walk during our day in these attitudes with prayer being a focused and directed time of orientation.

God Bless,
brad

Prayer Tools - The Lord's Prayer - Part 1

Adrian Warnock introduced a topic on prayer. He is asking "Can you suggest how to keep a prayer journal?". Well, this is something I have been doing and learning for over 10 years and here is the best method I know.

I teach prayer through the Lord's prayer and I use these sheets. The goal is to pray morning and evening. Also, it is helpful to NOT BE HEROIC. What I mean by that is that when I was single and very charismatic, we tended to think you had to have some great "breakthrough" every day. I find this super-prayer warrior mwentality to not be helpful. So simply use these sheets to orient your heart in the surrender and to journal a few simple requests. The key is that our hearts are centered on God and His will. The "meekness, mercy, purity, peacemaking" part under "Thy kingdom come" is our way of keeping our hearts in the ways of the kingdom as taught in the Sermon on the Mount. So that is it for today. I will try to elaborate as the week progresses. I also will link the actual word docs too.



Well, that is the best I can do for now....I will try and clear this up...I hope this is helpful.
God Bless, brad