Category Archives: Praying in Joy

Chief of hypocrites

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I surely can’t be the only one who skips over some Scriptures a hundred times, a thousand times, maybe, and then suddenly one day, as I’m asking the Lord to open the Scriptures to me, He opens some obscure little phrase in a way I never expected.

(That’s what makes reading the Bible exciting.)

So here I am in II Corinthians. Paul says, in chapter 4 verse 1, “Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;” For some reason the Lord directed me to hone in on that “mercy,” or compassion.

The concordance took me to I Timothy 1:16, where Paul candidly tells the reason he had received that compassion. “This is why I obtained mercy: so that in me first Jesus Christ might display all longsuffering, for a pattern to them that will afterwards believe on him to everlasting life.”

Did you get that? Paul says he was shown mercy very early on in the history of the New Covenant because Jesus Christ wanted someone to display His compassion.

“Look at me. I was as bad as it gets. So bad that as I presented myself as the pinnacle of Godliness, I was destroying the lambs who were trusting in the true God.” If the Lord saved someone as deeply hypocritical as Paul—not just saying one thing and doing another, but actively preaching and promoting one thing and actively, vigorously doing exactly the opposite-–if He saved someone like that, yes, the new Christians would marvel, yes, He can save anyone.

It’s never simply a coincidence that the Lord opens Scriptures to me that directly relate to what’s going on in my life. I’ve been learning about men (women too, but this particular field of hypocrisy seems to be dominated by men) who stand in the role of shepherds of the people of God, men who actively preach their own version of Christlikeness (read: “try harder”) while at the same time actively protecting the wolves in their flocks who attack the lambs. How appalling is this hypocrisy? Do you stand appalled?

And yet . . . God can save them. God has chosen Paul as the example, and we still marvel at the salvation of Paul, as if it were as fresh as yesterday. And we look for the day, maybe tomorrow, when one or more of these men will stand before the people of God and say, “In thinking I was protecting the church of God, I actually worked to destroy the church of God. I was a fool. I was deceived. I was a hypocritical sinner. But God has delivered me. And now I proclaim the true mercy of God, who can rescue even a sinner like me.”

We’ll embrace them. We’ll love them, we’ll welcome them. We’ll forgive them. We’ll weep and weep and groan and marvel over the compassion of Christ.

O God, speed the day.

The trump card of Romans 7

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It happens all the time. It happened to my daughter not long ago. She was in a group of young people having a devotional Bible study, she mentioned a Scripture about how Christians can live in victory, probably referencing something along the lines of Philippians 4:13 (“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”), and the response she received came back as “Well, yes, BUT . . .”

Romans 7.

Romans 7, for the uninitiated, seems in some circles to be the trump passage of Scripture when it comes to the Christian life. In it (the second half, to be specific), are found the verses in which Paul delineates a classic struggle: “The good that I wish I could do, I do not do. The evil that I wish I didn’t do, that’s what I do.”

These Scriptures, which resonate so deeply with Christians who truly love God and want to serve Him but find themselves falling again and again into sin, seem to overshadow other Scriptures.

Like the one from Philippians, above, only one of the many in Philippians that proclaim the truth of the power of Christ in the life of the Christian.

Like ones in Colossians, I Peter, Galatians, Ephesians, Hebrews, II Corinthians, Psalms, John, over and over again, in a veritable cornucopia of declarations of astonishing power available in the Christian life to live in victory. I’ve blogged about many of them.

Like ones in Romans. And to get specific, Romans 6, 7, and 8. Yes, the very same passage that ostensibly declares Defeatist Christianity. Taken in its beautiful context, the second half of Romans 7 fits into a very different picture than the one many Christians seem to want to see: a picture of a Christian life lived in victory.

My own take on Romans 7? I agree with a wise man (who happens to be my pastor) who said, “Paul is here describing the life of anyone trying to live a life pleasing to God by his own [fleshly] efforts.” Bingo. That’s a hard, hard life. Very opposed to a life lived in the power of the Spirit, which is described in both the previous chapter of Romans and the next.

Why—when the bulk of Scriptures about the Christian life proclaim victory, and only a very small portion seems to describe a Christian life of constant failure (only 17 verses, to be exact)—why do these few verses almost invariably trump all the other dozens of fantastic declarations?

It’s because they match with our experience.

This is crucial. Don’t miss it. The way many Christians approach the Scriptures is to take our low-level experience as the grid through which we read. Then the Scriptures that match with the experience resonate, and the ones that don’t match get dismissed or relegated to the theoretical (the “positional” as opposed to the “practical”).

I think it’s safe to say that Christians would agree that the Apostle Paul wasn’t a schizoid. He didn’t live in consistent defeat (as some think Romans 7 seems to indicate) and at the same time in consistent victory (as about a hundred other Scriptures indicate). But many Christians have never come head to head with what to do with this seeming contradiction.

What’s the solution? It’s a matter of taking the Bible seriously—all of it—of crying out to God to grant vision to our near-sighted eyes, to soften our hard hearts, to knock His truths through our thick skulls, by the power of His Holy Spirit. To come face to face with these Scriptures, and—even though they may not match with our experience—to believe them.

Let’s not interpret all the victorious Christian life Scriptures through the lens of a Roman 7 life. Instead, let’s take all the Scriptures—including Romans 7—in their victorious context.

A friend once said to me something like, “Well, if Paul couldn’t live in victory, how can we expect to?” As far as I can remember she never mentioned Romans 7, but of course I knew that was what she was referring to. I answered, “Paul didn’t live in Romans 7. He lived in Romans 8.” She gazed at me, dumbfounded, and had no reply. I’m guessing she had never heard a challenge like that before.

Challenge Romans 7 thinking. In your own life and in the lives of those around you.

Challenge the Romans 7 trump card. Live in the resurrection power of the life of Jesus Christ. It will trump the Romans 7 life every time.

Let’s pray right now

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 Please pray about my relationship with my husband. My sickness. My trouble.

Yes, I would be glad to. Let’s pray right now.

Here? In front of all these people?

Well . . . it’s a church building. . . . These people probably pray too. . . .

Have you ever requested prayer from someone and wondered if the one who promised to pray about it really would? Have you ever said you would pray about something and then forgotten?

You can say it. Say it.

“Let’s pray right now.”

Loving Father, I pray that You would use this sickness, this trouble, to draw Your child closer to Yourself, to show Your power in a mighty way that goes beyond the simple healing of the body, to a stronger faith in Jesus Christ and a deeper joy in Him.

Let’s pray right now.

You didn’t say you’re afraid to pray in front of someone, did you? That you’re afraid your focus would only be on what the other person thinks of your words instead of on the great God that you’re approaching boldly, because you can enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus? Did you offer the flimsy excuse that you’re not a prayer warrior?

Oh Father, break down the walls, scatter the clouds of confusion and lies. Break forth in your dawn of Holy Spirit understanding.

A new year is upon us. You’re part of a church that has a prayer meeting. Maybe you’re part of a church that has a real prayer meeting. Go there and pray.

Learn to pray. Live prayer. Let prayer flow like a fountain. Pray without ceasing.

Then speak prayer. Speak it before others, and don’t worry about what they might think. You’re not talking to them. Pray spontaneously, in the halls of the church building. Outside the grocery store. In the front seat of the car.

Say it to that friend. “Let’s pray right now.”

How desperately the church needs to pray.

Pray . . .

. . . for the Holy Spirit to fall in power on your church, in the erupting of joy. Pray for hearts to be turned fully to Jesus Christ, for faces to shine with His love. Pray for the disasters, the calamities of life—and there are so many, all around us—to cause us to see those unseen things that are eternal, and to understand that the things that we see are temporal.

That the spiritual is more real than the physical.

Pray . . .

. . . that the passion of Jesus Christ would blaze in the hearts of His people, and that many would see that light and be drawn to Him. Pray that the passion would set hearts on fire to take the living Word of God to those who have never heard, that nations from the ends of the earth would lift their hands together and praise Him.

Because our God, our Savior, is mighty to accomplish beyond what we can ask for or even imagine. And we are not.

Pray. . . .

Pray. . . .

Let’s pray right now.

 

Patience Right Now

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The fruit of the Spirit is . . . patience.

My children were small, and I was impatient and irritable. So much so that I didn’t like myself sometimes. So of course I prayed for patience. That’s what you do, right? Ha ha.

Years went by before I finally learned that “being patient” doesn’t mean letting the children disobey and disobey while you stand by, smiling placidly and speaking gently. Instead, those gentle words should accompany a swift correction.

So I came to find out that I didn’t even really understand what patience was.

Our modern way of thinking about patience always embodies two attributes: Calmness, and Passive Inactivity. But that’s not how it is in the Bible.

One day my dear friend Heidi described how she had importuned God for six months to topple an idol in her heart. The day finally came when He smashed it and fully delivered her. Afterwards, she read Psalm 40, which begins, “I waited patiently for the Lord.”

She said, “That whole psalm is true about me, except the first verse. I did not wait patiently. I wanted Him to change me NOW.”

But many psalms say something like, “How long, O Lord?” So I looked and found that the Hebrew word in that verse was the same as the one before it: “wait.” So David is saying something like, “I waited and waited.”

“Oh, I definitely waited and waited!” said Heidi. “It was excruciating at times. But I kept asking, because I knew God would respond. And He did it. He did it.”

My soul, wait only on God, for my expectation is from Him.

Even in the New Testament, none of the words for patience imply inaction, and some don’t even imply calmness. They imply determined resolve, based on a rugged confidence, like Heidi’s. A blazing hope that God will do what we know we cannot do ourselves.

The seed on the good ground are those who, with an excellent and good heart, hear the Word and hold fast to it, bearing fruit with patience.

Romans 5 reminds me that because of Jesus Christ and His grace and glory, I can rejoice even in the very hard times of life. I will wait for Him, hope in Him, trust in Him, with determined resolve, because I have nowhere else to turn.

If we confidently hope for that which we cannot see, then we wait for it with patience.

And Romans 5 says that I will most surely see Him accomplish great things in me and for me, which gives me a fierce hope for His continued work, by His love in me through the power of the Holy Spirit.

If I pray for patience, because, well, I really just want to be a nicer person, I want to have an easier life, am I not failing to see the big picture? Isn’t this just one more way of focusing on the Screen?

When I look beyond, when I rejoice in the midst of the tribulations of life, because I expect God to do a mighty work for His glory, won’t I find that the determined resolve I need, based on a strong confidence, will be mine?

A woman like me complained about her need for patience with her children. “Oh, madam,” said Watchman Nee, “it is not patience that you need. It is Christ.”

Don’t focus on the patience you don’t have. Focus on the Savior you do have. And find that the Biblical patience to trust Him with determined resolve springs naturally, like fruit, out of your life.

Looking for Jesus

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“How can I pray for you?” I asked that question of three different young women on the same evening. To my surprise, they all gave basically the same answer.

“That my eyes would be opened.”
“That my vision of Christ would be clearer.”
“That I would see Jesus.”

They were groaning with the darkness of the soul, the waywardness of the heart, the distractedness of the eyes.

So.

Should I tell them, “But God said no one would ever see Him in this life, so don’t hope for that.” Be content at your low level of Christian experience. Settle for a life that’s shrouded in the mist of confusion and uncertainty. It may not be great, but it’s normal. Hoping for more, well, that’s just pie-in-the-sky Christianity. And you don’t want to be so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good. Heavens no.

And yet.

The language of light and sight fills the New Testament. “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light!” Matthew proclaimed about his countrymen. Jesus healed a blind man and then said that those who rejected Him were the ones who truly could not see. Paul told us that God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

I could go on and on.

So what can we do, those of us who are longing, aching to see Him more clearly? Longing for our spiritual vision to be, if it could be possible, even more clear than our physical vision? Because truly, in the deepest heart, we know that He is more lovely, glorious, desirable, fulfilling, worthy of praise than all the hundred distractions that are calling for our time and energy and attention.

We seek Him through His written Word, the great Magnifying Glass of God. We beg Him to turn on the light in our souls. We cry out to Him to open the eyes of our understanding. We band together in desperately dependent prayer. There is a world of darkness, and the light of God is as narrow as a laser beam.

Maybe you see the light . . . a little. But your vision is blurry. “I see men like trees walking.” He is your only Hope. Believe that. Seize the hem of His robe and don’t let go. Cry out to Him for vision correction, read His Word, and believe what you read.

But you have to look in the right direction. There is one narrow laser beam of light. Turn toward that, with your new eyes. Don’t keep avoiding Him, claiming you can’t see Him. He has told you how to seek Him. Turn toward Him and seek Him alone, with your hungry heart.

But get obstructions out of the way. Forcefully turn from the things that would pull you away, and run, run after Him, with all the energy He gives you. Then trust Him for more, to keep running.

O man of God, Paul wrote to Timothy, as fast as you can, run from those things that would pull your eyes away—that seeking after riches that has led so many astray. Instead, chase after the one true thing so valuable, so precious, so beautiful, that He will take your breath away when you catch sight of Him. With all your energy press forward toward the righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness that is found in Jesus Christ. Don’t give up. Keep pursuing. Pursue through desperate dependence. Believe with confident assurance that as you pursue, you will see. This is active faith.

Keep seeking. Keep longing. Keep trusting. Keep asking. Keep chasing. And know that your efforts are not in vain. As your gaze becomes more direct, as your vision becomes more clear, as the distractions fade away, the sight of Jesus Christ will take your breath away.

Facing anxiety attacks

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What do you do when your daughter who’s getting married in a week is sick with mononucleosis?

Well . . . for me . . . default reaction.

Worry.

Yes, okay, I’m subject to anxiety attacks. Probably not the clinically diagnosable kind: I don’t think I would ever be hospitalized for mine. But they’ve been able to keep me awake at night. Even when times are relatively peaceful, but especially when things are rocky. After all, you’ve got to do something, and worry is at least something.

But in the past few years I’ve been growing in my understanding about who Jesus is to me. That He is everything. My all in all. Words that I used to say, and really believed, but have been learning more to understand.

I think that the first time I tackled an anxiety attack through Jesus Christ was only as recently as the summer of 2008. Instead of my usual method of trying to reason with myself to say, “Look here, you, we’ll list all the things you’re worried about and go through them one by one and see why it is that you really don’t need to worry about them.” Which in the past had given me a modicum of success, so that I could at least function in society.

Instead of that, I saw it as a spiritual battle. And I fought it on a spiritual level. “Lord Jesus, You are my rest and peace. You are my hope and joy. All my anxieties, all my worries, I can thrust on You, because You are the Great Deliverer.” And instead of trying to reason myself through my anxieties, I turned my thoughts to Jesus. Since I had been learning to know and love Him more, I had plenty to think about. He is an ocean of love, beauty, peace, joy, power.

So, as should have always been as obvious as breathing, my Deliverer, who has already come victorious through the worst of temptations, was strong enough to tackle this battle all by Himself. I slept well.

Anyway, it happens every once in a while, and it’s been happening the last few days. So I have the privilege of reminding myself again why I can “count it all joy” when I’m attacked by temptations (James 1). It’s because the attack reminds me to turn all my heart, all my racing thoughts, to the Mighty One, who delights to deliver me. Now I can say, “Look here, you, are you going to worry, or are you going to trust your Savior?”

Once again I turn my thoughts to Christ. Once again, because He has all our circumstances completely under His control, and He is completely trustworthy, I can focus on Him.

And because of who He is, and because of the work He has accomplished, and because of the work He is doing now and will continue to do, I can rejoice, and I can rest.