Prayer - Drawing near

In Hebrews 4:14-16 the writer says Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 10:19-22 is similar. There the writer says Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

In Hebrews 7:19 we have the phrase a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God and 7:25 talks about those who come or draw near to God through him (Christ) and 10:1 those who draw near to worship.

In James 4:8 there is a well known verse that says Come or draw near to God and he will draw come near to you.

Here is a way of speaking about prayer then – coming or drawing near to God.

1. Prayer involves movement or change

The very fact that prayer is spoken of as coming to or drawing near shows that we cannot pray simply by staying as we are. There must be a movement, a change, a drawing near to God. We need to move from where we are. We need to stir ourselves up to action. This movement is clearly a spiritual movement or change nor a physical one.

2. We are responsible to move

In all the references it is clear that we are responsible to move towards God not just him to us. Now James does say Come or draw near to God and he will draw come near to you. That is there to encourage us. Only a little effort is needed and God will do the rest. We must bear our responsibilities, nevertheless.

3. Our prayers must centre on God

Perhaps this is too obvious to need saying but we need to draw near to God. God must be the object of our prayers. We must focus on him. We must seek his face. To set our minds anywhere else is to fail to pray.

Let's draw near to God.

Prayer - Lifting up the soul

Ruud Loeffen, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

In Psalm 25:1 David says In you, LORD my God, I put my trust. He uses a similar phrase in Psalm 84:4 Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you and in Psalm 143:8 Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. More literally in each place he is talking about lifting his soul to God. The same idea is in Lamentations 3:41 Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven, and say: …. Hannah uses a different idiom when she says (1 Samuel 1:15) I was pouring out my soul to the LORD.
To you I lift up my soul and similar phrases say at least three things about prayer.

1. Prayer is a spiritual affair – it is a soul matter

The use of the word soul (an heart elsewhere) suggests that we are talking about an essentially spiritual matter. When we talk of our souls we are talking about us, the essential us, the essential me. Merely saying prayers is a waste of time. That is one reason why written prayers rarely work. If you write it out yourself that is a but different I guess but merely to read prayers is a sure fire way to make it unlikely that you will be lifting up your soul.

2. Prayer is our responsibility – I must do it

The phrase is To you I lift up my soul. There is no suggestion of God lifting up our souls for us. This is not to deny that we need help from on high if we are to pray but there is a responsibility on us to lift our souls to God and not simply wait for him to do it for us.
I remember hearing Eric Alexander speaking about prayer once. He put it this way “We're not to wait until we get a tingle in our spine. It's a matter of moral obedience and duty. It is not a glandular condition where one does not pray until he feels like it”.

No, with prayer we simply have to get on to it.

3. Prayer involves effort – it is hard work

That leads on to the last point. It takes effort. I know the soul weighs nothing and so lifting it to God should not be difficult but sometimes it seems my soul is very heavy and lifting even an inch is hard work. Lift it up though. Pour it out. That's what it is to pray. That effort makes all the difference.

Experiencing the Trinity

This little book (Experiencing the Trinity) is by Joe Thorn, an American Baptist author new to me. It is made up of 50 short pieces on Father, Son and Holy Spirit, written out of the background of a struggle with some sort of depression. He says he wrote it for himself. I think that is a good way to write some books. It works here. The book is deceptively slight but would repay careful perusal, especially for someone is just heading out of a rough patch. More here. (A book with the same title came out some years ago. Do not confuse the two.)

Helpful Onesiphorus

2 Timothy 1:16-18 May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.  On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me.  May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus.

Verses 16-18 are about a man called Onesiphorus. We know nothing about this man except what is here (and in the passing reference in 4:19). We are told four things about him. First, that he was eager to do good. Paul says that when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me no doubt to help the apostle in his need. Second, helping was his default position. Timothy would have been well aware as Paul says of how many ways he helped me in Ephesus. Thirdly, he refreshed or revived Paul in Rome, either by providing physical help or though his very words, perhaps. Fourth, he was not ashamed of my chains. He sounds like a wonderful Christian man. The way Paul writes here suggests he is dead by this point, hence the wish for his household to know mercy and for him to be granted mercy on that day. Onesiphorus is one of the many unsung heroes of the New Testament that we catch only a glimpse of. Their counterparts are alive today and a church that has an Onesiphorus is a church that is blessed indeed. A lot depends on ministers but not everything. Without men who will be eager to do good, who help in different ways, who are able to refresh God's servants and who are not ashamed of Christ and his servants are a real asset. Appropriately, the name means "bringing profit".

Lonely Laish - a warning

Judges 18:28 There was no one to rescue them because they lived a long way from Sidon and had no relationship with anyone else. The city was in a valley near Beth Rehob. The Danites rebuilt the city and settled there. There are probably better places in Scripture from which to make this point but given that all of Scripture is God breathed and useful then it cannot be without significance that the reason the city of Laish fell to the Danites was not only that it was a long way from Sidon but also that it had no relationship with anyone else (see also verse 7). A people apparently living in safety, like the Sidonians, unsuspecting and secure were easily overcome by the Danites and their land, which lacked nothing and that had made them so prosperous was quickly lost. Those peaceful and unsuspecting people were attacked with the sword and their city burned down (verse 8). A wiser people would have made a treaty with Sidon or with some other city and not failed to foster relationships with at least one other city or other. What is true for cities and, by implication, for larger states, is also true for churches and for individuals. If we are unwilling to have relationships with others, as prosperous and as peaceful as we may be in the short term, we may well find ourselves under attack from one quarter or another and unable to continue as we once did in safety and security. Local churches should be independent, I believe, but not isolated. It is true that we are to carry our own load but a burden shared is a burden halved. Let the story of Laish be a warning to us.

I will strengthen

Zechariah 10:12 I will strengthen them in the LORD and in his name they will walk, declares the LORD.

The promises in this verse come at the end of a series of promises regarding God's future care for Israel. The LORD promises rain and crops; judgement on unreliable leaders; care for the flock and great boldness; the coming of Messiah; strength, salvation, restoration, compassion, answers to prayer; joy, redemption, growth; return from exile and large numbers. This final verse is really by way of summary. God's people will be given God's strength and so they will be able to live for him. They will walk in his name – that is to say, they will live in a way that honours him. That had not been happening in the past but it was going to happen in the future. In our day we have begun to see the fulfilment of Zechariah's prophecy. There is strength for all who look to the LORD and we are able to walk in his name. This is what we must do. There is no point in relying on our own strength or trying to walk in our own name. Rather we must live for him and in his strength.

Children of Abraham

John 8:9 Abraham is our father, they answered. If you were Abraham's children, said Jesus, then you would do the things Abraham did.

Often in John's Gospel we find Jesus and the Jews talking at cross purposes and misunderstanding each other. Jesus has spoken to them about being free. They have responded that they have always been free – though what was going on in Egypt on this basis is hard to see. Part of their claim to freedom is tied to their being descendants of Abraham. It is a nationalistic argument. What Jesus is talking about is spiritual freedom – freedom not to sin. He is quite happy to acknowledge that they are Abraham's descendants but they are also children of the devil as sure as he is the Son of God. Of course, they do not follow his argument and reassert that they are Abraham's children. But Jesus counters that if they were truly Abraham's children in the fullest sense then they would not be planning to kill Jesus but would embrace him and his teaching. Paul later takes up this point that the true children of Abraham are those with the same faith not those with a mere biological connection to him. An adopted son who truly loves his father can be much more of a son to him than one who is biologically linked yet opposes all that his father holds dear. What matters is not being a direct descendant of Abraham, Jewish or whatever, but doing the thngs that Abraham did, which sprang from faith in God.

Jehoshaphat's prayer

2 Chronicles 20:12 O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.

These words are the closing ones of a public prayer that good king Jehoshaphat made at a time when Judah was under threat from the Moabites and other enemies. It is a prayer that received a definite and positive response from God when first of all a prophet called Jahaziel assured Jehoshaphat and the people that the battle was the Lord's and then when victory in battle followed. In this particular verse there are four parts. First, a request – for judgement on their enemies whose cause was most unjust. Then there is confession – both of weakness and of ignorance as to what to do. Finally, there is that desperate yet hopeful but our eyes are upon you. Here is a model for prayer. Make your request, one that is shaped by the teaching of God's Word as this one was. Then confess your utter helplessness and your ignorance about what to do. Finally - look to the Lord. This should always be our attitude, whatever the crisis. If we fail to look to the Lord, for whatever reason, then we will suffer for it.

No more tears

Revelation 7:7 For the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Here is a great verse that is full of comfort for believers. One's eye immediately leaps to the statement that God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Although as we grow older we generally cry less often, we conversely tend to see more reasons for tears. The idea of God's acting like a loving parent and using his hand to gently dry our eyes is a powerful and striking one. The shepherd figure that precedes the parental one is also striking, even more so when we consider that the shepherd is the Lamb, the Lord Jesus who was slain. Though at the centre of the throne of the universe, he also leads his grateful sheep to refreshing springs. The prospect for the believer then is not only the negative one of relief but just as much the more positive one of refreshment too. God is our Father and Christ our Shepherd here on earth – and even more so in the world to come. And so we press on.

Swallowed up in victory

Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. Exodus 7:12

Going into the presence of the great Pharaoh must have been something of an ordeal for Moses and Aaron. No doubt when God described what to do when Pharaoh said to them 'Perform a miracle', as he surely would, they were greatly relieved to know they would have an answer. Moses, in particular would have recalled how God had done the very same thing when he first called him out in the desert. He may have remembered running from the snake. In a similar way the Gospel promises give believers confidence when they go out in his name. We believe in miracles. We believe that God can turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. We believe he answers prayer and can transform situations. When we see such things happening, we are very encouraged as Moses and Aaron surely were when they saw Aaron's staff turn into a snake before their very eyes.
How very disappointed Moses and Aaron must have been then when instead of acceding to their every demand, Pharaoh reacted quite differently. He sent for his wise men and sorcerers, and soon Jannes and Jambres and the whole crew were proceeding, one by one, to do what appeared to be the very same thing with their staffs. Again we can identify. The world constantly apes the best that Christians can do. They steal our best ideas, mimic our profoundest thoughts, counterfeit all our experiences and copy our every action. It can get quite discouraging at times. But then we read these striking words - But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. It failed to soften Pharaoh's heart, of course. That particular struggle was only beginning. But it must have put heart into God's servants and when we hear of the power of Christ's kingdom to swallow up all before it, as we do from time to time, then it ought to give us heart too. God is at work and no jumped up magician or pundit, for all his tricks, has a hope against the advance of his church. The gates of hell cannot prevail for Christ will have his way.

Accepting Trouble

Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised. Job 1:21

These words of Job are famous. They are often used in funerals. They were spoken following one of the most unimaginable series of disasters ever to befall an individual. At the beginning of the day Job was a prosperous man with a large family. Yet in the course of just one day, he lost all his oxen and donkeys, all his camels and sheep, most of his servants and, worst of all, his ten grown up children. It is hard to imagine a worse scenario, unless it is losing your health - and that is what happened next! We are unlikely ever to face troubles of that magnitude though we may begin to get close to it. The lesson from this verse is how to react in such situations. Job basically says five things here. Some of what he says we simply have to accept. Other ideas we may struggle with.
So first, we come from our mothers' wombs naked. That's a simple fact. No-one brings anything into this world. As for naked I shall depart I am not aware that many people are literally buried naked but the thought that 'you can't take anything with you when you die' is pretty easy to establish. On this bedrock Job erects his next two points. Firstly, that everything we have has been given to us by God - intellect, health, family, worldly goods, life itself. Equally, if we lose anything - mental or physical faculties, family, worldly goods, life itself, it must be because he has taken it away. Some struggle with that idea but it is hard to fault the logic. Finally, we come to Job's challenging conclusion - may the name of the LORD be praised. Of course, it is easier to praise God for giving than for taking but he is sovereign and ought to be praised at all times. As Job says to his wife in 2:10, after things have become worse again, Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble? Satan's contention was that Job only served God because of God's gifts. Here Job proves him wrong. Would we do the same?

Suffering and resurrection

After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Acts 1:2 The opening of Luke's second, less obvious, book about Jesus begins by summarising the 'period of 40 days' between 'his suffering' and ascension. There is, then, the period of suffering then the 40 days, in which he proved he had risen and spoke of God's kingdom.
Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, was always with the Father before his incarnation. He has now ascended again to God's right hand. Between these two points are his years of suffering and the 40 days of showing himself to his disciples and teaching them.
The suffering began with his birth, circumcision and flight from Herod. Next came poverty and obscurity in Nazareth then constant opposition and attempts to take his life culminating in his arrest and the cruelty and indignity of flogging, crucifixion, death and burial. Many things happened over the 33 years before resurrection but Luke sums them up as 'his suffering', enduring the penalty for sin to save his people.
His death and burial were not the end of the story. After three days he arose. He remained on earth in a resurrection body some six weeks to do two things. First, to show himself - not to everyone but to the Apostles, chosen in the time of suffering. He gave them 'many convincing proofs that he was alive' - eating; allowing them to touch him, perhaps. It was important they be convinced that he who suffered and died then rose again.
He also spoke about God's kingdom. There were things they could not understand in the time of suffering and that could only be clarified after his resurrection. They are reflected in the New Testament, which, though not always speaking in such terms, is concerned with God's rule and its extension.
We know Christ suffered to save his people and triumphed over death to rise again. We know he taught about God's Kingdom - that entrance is by new birth, is through many hardships and is a matter not of eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17). We must live in light of these truths.

Learning from Jehoshaphat

The LORD was with Jehoshaphat because in his early years he walked in the ways his father David had followed. He did not consult the Baals but sought the God of his father and followed his commands rather than the practices of Israel. 2 Chronicles 17:3, 4

The Bible can sum up a whole life in a few words. It reminds us of God’s power to do that with us all. Jehoshaphat, the fifth from David, was the second of eight good kings who reigned over the southern kingdom of Judah. He died aged 60 having reigned for 25 years. The key to his success was that God was with him. This happened because in his vital early years he walked in the ways of his father David, in faith and holiness. As in a race, so in life - a good start makes all the difference.
From his earliest days Jehoshaphat was constantly reminded that God’s judgement is what counts. Jehoshaphat means ‘Yeshua is judge’. So, negatively, he did not consult the Baals. It was the ‘in’ thing, just as secularism or ‘new age‘ religion are 'in' today. It was what the neighbouring nations did, including Ahab and his people to the north. It was the practice of people throughout Israel. But God was with Jehoshaphat and it was his judgement that counted with the king. This gave him the strength of mind to ignore what others said.
Positively, he sought the God of his father Asa. He wanted to know the true God. That was who he prayed to, who he sought. In trouble, he turned not to wood or stone but to the true and living God. God’s commands were his guide - regardless of others. If God said it, he believed it and acted on it.
How many Jehoshaphats today? They are rare, it appears. Public opinion, the latest thinking - these rule. Oh how we need clear-minded people today, people with one desire - to seek God in Christ and obey him.
That must be the tenor of our lives - not just for a few years but throughout. Sadly, Jehoshaphat’s latter years were spoiled by compromise. As time passes it is easy, even for those who begin well, to stray. Decay easily creeps in. Resist all such tendencies. Seek God and obey him to the end.