Jude 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,  21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

Jude gives two concerns for the Church here. He wants us to building one another up in our “most holy faith” and “praying in the Holy Spirit.” What does it mean to pray in the Holy Spirit? I think I am still learning to do so in many ways. God changed my prayer life in a radical way over a year ago. Reflection on Scripture and a document called the Didache from the first century Church convicted me how central prayer was to the daily life of the ancient Church. In the Didache, which was a discipleship training manual for the early Church, disciples were taught two main things: (1) to keep God’s commandments, and above all, (2) how to pray constantly through the day. They would pray through the Lord’s prayer as an outline three times daily. The goal of the training program in the Didache and the New Testament is summed up well here in Jude 21: “Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.” And by the way, the “mercy of the Lord” here most likely refers to his second coming which we are to look forward to with anticipation.

Eph. 6:18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

This is one of those key texts on prayer. Paul tells us to be praying at all times in the Spirit. This is one of the primary concerns among the Eastern Orthodox. To them and the Church fathers before them, the big question became how to pray without ceasing? How does one constantly focus the mind upon God without distraction? It is not easy. But that is precisely what he is talking about here. The call the ceasless prayer among the earliest Christians often came with a call to vigilance as it does here. The disciple is called to watch in prayer and persevere in both prayer and the faith. Moreover she or he is called to intercede for the saints. This is so that they persevere too.

1Cor. 7:5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

So how is the relationship between your prayer life and your sex life? What? Yup that is actually what the apostle talking about here. He says to not deprive one another of sex except by agreement. There was idealistic asceticism going on early in the Church. The Roman world was full of sexual perversion, and so it was understandable that some early Christians just associated (incorrectly) sex with perversion. So even some married couples just stopped having sex altogether and lived more as brother and sister. But Paul is saying, “don’t do that!” The husband and wife are mutually responsible to one another. Sex is good, and it is gift of God. Moreover, he is actually integrating it with a healthy spiritual life. In this verse, a happily married couple with a good sex life is encouraged to keep up with that, but to also mutually fast from it for times of spiritual discernment. Yes this a sex fast (which is different from fast sex). Food and water are not the only things that can be given up. If a couple is entering into a time of serious spiritual discernment, this might be something to seriously consider.

Dan. 9:4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, “Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments,

Do you start your prayer with a confession of who God is? I want to learn to do this more. It is a good place to start. I love this confession by Daniel. Look at what Daniel says about God. He is great and awesome. This means he is powerful and worthy to be feared. He not only has the power to do what he says, he has the power to both punish and save. Next, God keeps covenant. A covenant is a promise of formal relationships. A marriage is a covenant. God’s covenant is his marriage covenant to us, which he never breaks. This means he is faithful. Finally, he keeps loving-kindness. In Hebrew this is chesed or loving loyalty. It is often also just called grace. And that is the “good news” (Gospel) in Daniel’s confession. Even though God is great and awesome, he is full of loving-kindness. That means he wants to show grace to and save those who love him, fear him, and keep his commandments.

Dan. 6:10   Now when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem); and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously.

I really like the character Daniel in the Bible. It is because he is so unflinching in the face of threats. Daniel has faith, that leads to integrity. Weak integrity leads to adaptation. That means we change or stop doing what we are supposed to do because of the fear of other people’s opinions and their consequences. Daniel does not do that. When the King signs a decree to banning prayer to any other god, Daniel does not change his routine. He always went to his upper room, visible to the rest of the city, three times daily to pray. And so when it was signed, Daniel just does the same thing. Why? Because he was a man of prayer and truly trusted God, regardless of the outcome.  Whether God chose to save him or not, Daniel gave God what God deserved. That is what consistent prayer is about. It is not about us, it is not about what we want or need per se. It is about us giving God what he deserves. That is our part. And we can only do that if we trust that he will provide for us what we deserve. That is his part.

Acts 14:23 And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

What is ordination? Ordination is when the Church sets officers aside for a certain task. It is the set them apart as holy and not common. The temple (symbolizing the Church) that had varying degrees of holiness (set-apartness) as one went deeper into its precincts. The Church (God’s people) then has varying degrees of holiness as you go deeper into its leadership. All God’s people are set-apart by baptism. But the Church also sets apart leaders to varying offices that have greater authority. There is no part of the body more valuable than another, but like the temple there are roles and offices, which are more holy. To use the immortal words of Peter Parker’s (Spiderman) uncle, “with great power comes great responsibility.” This sanctification is gifted to these individuals by the authority of the Church and prayer. That means prayer is a an awesome and powerful tool in the hands of the Church and we should not take it lightly. There is the power of holiness in the words of the church because the Church bears the very words of God to the world.

Acts 10:31 and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God.

In our previous reflection on Acts 12:5 I issued a challenge to be “earnest” in prayer. In other words, as Christians we need to learn to pray hard. If we do, what should we expect from God. Well in Acts 10:31 we get an answer. There a spiritually bewildered Gentile seeker has been laboring to the God of Israel in prayer. He wants to know God more. He wanted an answer, and like the persistent widow, he will not be put off. God loves this. And so here the angel shows up and tells him “your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God.” What this means is that your earnest prayer will never go to waste. He loves those who diligently seek him (Heb. 11:6) The answer will never be “NO.” If you want to know God, it is because he has already touched you and awakened our soul. He was calling you before you started calling him. And for that reason you can be sure that when you labor in prayer, the answer will always be Yes to knowing God more fully.

Acts 12:5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.

Have you ever heard someone say “play hard?” How about “pray hard?” have you ever thought about that. When peter was put in prison, the infant church prayed for him. Luke (the writer of Acts) says that “earnest prayer” was made for him. This means that the disciples prayed with conviction, hope, and discipline. This was not the usual prayer meeting like today where we get together talk, catch up, and joke for forty minutes and then pray for fifteen minutes. They labored in prayer. They gave time and inconvenienced themselves for it. The gloves came off, and they showed God they meant business. Are you earnest in prayer? What are you praying for right now? Are you willing to labor in prayer to show God that what he wants is that important to you?

Day 30 – Praying for Mercy

Dan. 9:17 Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate.

What are we supposed to ask for in prayer? According to Daniel here, we are to pray for mercy. Is prayer that simple? I think it is. I think we overcomplicate it. The spirit and focus of prayer is really that simple. We are petitioning God for him to have mercy on us and meet us in our brokenness. But if that seems to simple for you, don’t jump to fast. We are called to “interceded!” So now how many people, situations and so on in you live need for someone to intercede on their behalf for mercy. Honestly, if we just begin interceding for mercy for all the people we touch and Christ’s church in detail, we might not have time to cover it all. Just a thought!

Day 29 – The Ministry of the Pastor

Acts 6:4 “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

What is the job of a pastor and Church leaders? Well there are a lot of worldy definitions of leadership wafting around the Church today that have little to do with what the Bible actually teaches. We want our pastors to be counselors, CEOs, therapists, strategic planners, brother’s, father’s, buddy’s, clairvoyants, confidants, even planners, administrative officers, and sometimes just short of miracle workers. But the Bible gives them a rather narrow definition. When the needs of the widows come up in Acts 6, the Apostles offload that very important job to deacons saying, “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” That is pretty much a two part job description, the study and proclamation of the word and prayer. The pastor is the practice it, and lead in it. Paul similarly summarizes this duty to a young pastor saying, “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”

Day 28  - “A House of Prayer”

Is. 56:7 these I will bring to my holy mountain,
  and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
  their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
  will be accepted on my altar;
  for my house shall be called a house of prayer

In Matthew 21 as Jesus enters the temple at the end of his public ministry, he finds it full of merchandising and greed. The temple was meant to be a house of prayer for all nations. See this, Jesus is enraged. And so casting out the merchandizers he quotes here from Isaiah 56. Here the prophet actually gives us a vision of the kingdom when the temple of God is truly a house of prayer. But we know from the New Testament that God’s true house is his people. The temple signified his Church. We are called to be a house of prayer. That begins by each and every one of us being a person of prayer. Prayer is simply communing with God. That is the call of every Christian. Prayer is the chief Christian discipline. Above all we seek the face of God through prayer that we might be a people of prayer!

Day 27 – Praying with Our Bodies

Dan. 9:3 ¶ Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

What should it look like to seek God through prayer? What are we to do? In the Old Testament and the early Church it was quite involved at times. Singe the Enlightenment, we tend to think that only the thoughts in our mind actually matter. Prayer postures like kneeling, or prostrating one’s self look foolish and awkward to us, not pious. But for the ancients, prayer was not only in the mind. One prayed with one’s entire body. The entire human being was engaged in prayer. Here Daniel, who is one of the greatest prayer warriors of the Old Testament seeks God not only by prayers of his mind and mouth, but with the prayers of his body by fasting and putting on rough clothing. Does this seem ridiculous to you? Does this make a difference? Does it really matter, when, how, where, and in what posture you pray? To Daniel and much of the Bible, it seems like it does. This is especially true if the postures of the body reflect the attitudes of the heart. So for example, if kneeling or prostrating yourself seems foolish or embarrassing, then maybe you should do that because your pride is in the way. On the other hand if public prayer is something you crave, maybe you need to head to closet more often to deal with your ego.

Day 25 - July 29th, 2015 – Acceptable Prayer

Prov. 15:8  The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD,
  but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him.
Prov. 15:29  The LORD is afar from the wicked,
  but he hears the prayer of the righteous.

Did you know that there are only two kinds of people in the Bible? God does not see race, gender, language, ethnicity, and so on. As Paul says, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male or female, slave or free. The only two kinds of people in the Bible are the “righteous” and the “wicked.” In this verse, God hates the sacrifice of the wicked. What this means is that Jesus hates the worship of the person who is outwardly religious but will not really humble themselves and obey his commands. On the other hand, just the prayer of the upright is beautiful and welcome to him. He delights in the prayers of the humble. And there is another big contrast here. A sacrifice in those days was expensive and a prayer cost a person nothing but our ego. In this case, the wicked are spending big money to impress God. He his entirely unimpressed, however. On the other hand, he delights in the one who prays a simple non-pretentious prayer.

Day 24 - July 28thth, 2015 – “Praying at all times…”

Eph. 6:18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,  19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel,

Why did God send the Spirit? Well there are many reasons for that. Over all of them was that it was how he would build his Church. But perhaps the first order in that was to provide God’s people could have constant intimate communion with him. God loves communion with his people. This is why Paul says here in Ephesians that we are to be “praying at all times in the Spirit.” That is God’s will for our lives—communion at all times. This is the source of our “perseverance” in the faith. But a major part of our prayer is “supplication for the saints,” both the good and the bad. Some of us are good Christians. Some of us are bad. But we all need to be prayed for because we are all at different places in our character journey. This prayer however is not only nurturing of those who are already Christians. Rather it is also procreative. Paul wants prayer at all times to empower him to open his mouth “boldly to proclaim the mystery of the Gospel.” This Gospel is about How God lvoes to save sinners.

Nehemiah 1:6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned.

As a Pastor, I have a lot of people ask me how to pray. There is no one way. Above all, God wants us to come to him with the simplicity of a child sitting on his or her father’s lap. There we can ask ridiculous questions and inform God of really amazing things we learned that day that he thought of before the foundation of the world. But here is one suggestion from Ezra. Ezra leads the people in prayer night and day. But the one thing he highlights in that is “confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you.” Jesus tells us to come to him as a child because as we get older and wiser, our hearts become darker than at first. And there is only one thing that stands in the way of our prayers: That is un-confessed sin. And un-confessed sin leads to a hardened heart. That is not what we want. A hardened heart then leads to a root of bitterness whereby many (the entire church) is defiled.  We want to keep short accounts with God.

Romans 12:12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

These words are Paul’s simple recipe for a life of purpose and meaning. He offers three things: (1) hope – this is hope for what has promised us in the kingdom. It is new life in communion with God. (2) patience – this is the endurance to keep on keeping on when our Christian life is difficult. Jesus promised his followers a narrow path and a cross, but it leads to that eternal hope. (3) constant prayer – This is not a thing, but a discipline. The constant reminder of hope and the patience to endure the difficulty of the pursuit of the kingdom comes through practicing constant prayer. Does this describe you? This is not a chore. It is an invitation for intimacy with the Father. God wants us to come to him like a cold refreshing spring in the desert.

Romans 10:1 ¶ Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

Augustine Probably wrote more than any of the Church Fathers about the desires of the heart. What are the desires of your heart? Do you know that the desires of your heart actually define you? There is that old saying, “you are what you eat.” That is true as far as your physical body: “Garbage in, garbage out.” But who are you emotionally and spiritually? What you desire emotionally and spiritually is what you feed yourself with emotionally and spiritually. And that defines the direction and outcome of your life. Is your desire that God would save your family, neighbors, co-workers? Does it cross your mind? Do you stop and take days to fast for the people God has put in your life?

2 Chronicles 7:1  As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple.

This verse takes place when King Solomon is consecrating the temple. After working on it for years, Solomon prays. The response of the Lord to this honor is to bring fire down from heaven. It consumed the burnt offering Solomon had sacrificed to him. Then it says, “and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.” I have always loved this story. I have loved even more that Luke (the writer of Acts) uses this same imagery in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit enters the disciples. Instead of consuming a sacrifice, fire came down and rested on the disciples and manifested as tongues (Acts 2:1-4). They spoke in the foreign language of their hearers. Then it says that a rushing wind filled them. What this means is that God’s people are God’s house. We are his temple and his Shekinah glory now fills us, that is if we walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh!

Mark 9:29 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

As religious leaders, we get used to being the complaint department for both our ministry teams and ourselves. Jesus gets a complaint here for his disciples not being able to cast out a demon. Jesus is teaching the disciples that a really sinister fallen angel cannot be cast out without serious prayer. Flippant prayer does not work. Yet I love this story because of how it works out. After saying that they only come out by prayer, he then casts it out immediately! Why? Jesus’ entire life was prayer. He did not have to set aside time for special fasting and prayer because he was always in perfect communion with the Father. What is the lesson here? Two points: (1) The disciples’ power is always God’s. We can do nothing for God in our own power. (2) That power is accessed by a life of constant supplicating prayer.

Jonah 2:7 

When my life was fainting away,
  I remembered the LORD,
   and my prayer came to you,
  into your holy temple.

Have you ever had a day like this? (Jonah was in the belly of a large sea creature preparing to be vomited up in a couple days.) I mean not literally, but just one of those days that just about everything about it seeks to suck. I have had a bunch of those lately in my life. It is just one of those days where we forget all the other good in our life and can only see our immediate circumstances. But Jonah, for all his brazenly obvious character flaws, declares “my prayer came to you!” Perhaps he is talking about his own faithfulness. But likely he saying that his prayer was received by God. This may only be because God had humbled him. But God wants to hear and receive our prayer. He delights in you!