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To pray is nothing more involved than to open a door giving Jesus access to our needs and permitting Him to exercise His own power in dealing with them.
He who gave us the privilege of prayer knows us very well. He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.
That is why He designed prayer in such a way that the most impotent can make use of it. For to pray is to open the door unto Jesus.
(Ole Hallesby, Prayer, 15).
To pray is nothing more involved than to let Jesus into our needs. To pray is to give Jesus permission to employ His powers in the alleviation of our distress. To pray is to let Jesus glorify His name in the midst of our needs.
(Ole Hallesby, Prayer, 14.)
Jesus said in John 14:13-14…
“And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”
HE IS RISEN INDEED!
Perhaps the most astonishing characteristic of Jesus’ praying is that when He prayed for others He never concluded by saying “if it be Thy will.” Nor did the apostles or prophets when they were praying for others. They obviously believed that they knew what the will of God was when they prayed the prayer of faith. They were so immersed in the milieu of the Holy Spirit that when they encountered a specific situation, they knew what should be done. Their praying was so positive that it often took the form of a direct, authoritative command:
“Walk”
“Be Well”
“Stand up!”
I saw that praying that when praying for others there was evidently no room for indecisive, tentative, half-hoping, “if they it be Thy will” prayers.
Jesus modeled prayer as a priority. His actions demonstrated that his relationship with his Father was the basis for ministry. He prayed all night before important decisions. He slipped away to spend time with Father (see Mark 1:35; John 5:19-30; Mark 1:16)
(Bill Hull, The Complete Book of Discipleship, 294).
Of all the things Christ wants for us, loving Him and focusing our attention on Him are the most important.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. —Matthew 16:24–25
In Jesus’ day, if you saw someone walking through the city carrying a cross, it meant one thing: that person was going to die.
So when Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24), it meant that we are to die to ourselves. We are to deny ourselves. The word “deny” means to say no to. It means to put God’s will and desires above our own. Selfish people will find this outrageous, even offensive.
Maybe that is why the church is so weak and anemic today: we don’t know that much about cross-bearing. Maybe if Christians stopped trying to be so much like the world, the world would start wanting to be more like us. Are we really carrying our cross today? Are we really dying to ourselves? This is what Jesus is calling us to do.
To deny ourselves and take up the cross means many things. It is as simple as reading your Bible when you get up in the morning…
The Lord Jesus…
…would withdraw to desolate places and pray (Luke 5:16)
Prayer takes us out of this world and puts us in God’s world, an exercise through which we become equipped to be put back in this world for useful service. Jesus woke early in the morning and prayed, It is impossible to replace the voices of culture with God’s voice unless you are actively engaged in prayer, which is why the Apostle Paul said that we should “pray without ceasing” (The Culturally Savvy Christian, 104).
bryanaloha
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