Author: TimMaynard

And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 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. 7 We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. 8 Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, 9 but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ 10 They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. 11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”  (Nehemiah 1:5-11)

“Faith is believing what you know ain’t so!”    So a young boy replied in Sunday School one day when asked how to define faith.  Do you pray in faith?  When you pray, AS you pray, do you really believe God is hearing you… that God is inclining His ear to you… that He is turning His face toward you in favor?  When you ask, in prayer, for God to do something amazing, something even miraculous, do you do so as though He is really going to respond to you in this way?  How much faith do we act in as we pray?

Few prayers are found in the Bible that were prayed with more faith than the prayer in Nehemiah 1:5-11.  In that prayer are four powerful ways to pray in faith… believing what IS so:

• Pray persistently.  The fact that God did not immediately answer Nehemiah’s prayer (he prayed this prayer for four months!) built Nehemiah’s faith.  He was about to undertake an incredibly difficult role… he needed great faith to accomplish it.  Sometimes God delays, not to be cruel or capricious, but to strengthen our faith and resolve as we continue to pray.
• Pray with purity.  Nehemiah not only was persistent in his prayer, but he prayed with purity.  He confessed his sins and the sins of his people before the Lord.  We need to pray with purity as we pray.
• Pray the promises of God.  Nehemiah not only prayed reminding God of Who He was, but He prayed reminding God of he promises He had made… even promises He had made to Moses in days past!
• Pray particularly.  We need to pray specifically when and when God answers the prayer we will know it’s His answer because the ask was so detailed.  Nehemiah prayed for success and favor as he approached the king.  Your prayer may need to be far more specific than it is.  It takes little faith to pray generally, but much faith to pray in specifics.  Be bold enough, by faith, to ask God to do what only HE can do for you.  And then, taking Him at His Word, relying on His character, asking with purity in our lives and praying persistently, we can see God do great and glorious things through our life!

FOR REFLECTION:  Think about the prayer you prayed or will pray today.  How specific is it?  What are you really asking God to do?

Ronald Dunn wrote, “The Book of Acts is filled with  prayer meetings; every forward thrust the first church made was immersed with prayer.

Take another look at the church at Pentecost.  They prayed ten days and preached ten minutes and three thousand souls were saved.  Today we pray ten minutes and preach ten days and are ecstatic if anyone is saved.”  His words, though cutting, are true.  I wonder if the barrier between the church today and God-sent revival is not an enemy who wishes to keep us in the darkness of sin, but a neglectful church that does not want to do the hard work of intercessory prayer?

I’m afraid we have become prayer-phobic.  We are afraid of what might be required of us if we truly pray.  We are afraid of what it might cost us if we are awakened in the middle of the night and are called to pray for a missionary couple in a Muslim country.  We are afraid of what it might mean to our comfort zone and our predictable religious experience.

In your life, personally, how have you advanced in prayers in recent days or months?  Would you say your prayer life is much the same as it was… or worse than a year ago?  We are losing the culture around us, not because we lack churches, or sermons, or Christian music.  We are losing the culture around us because we have lost our desire, our focus, our willingness to pray.

In an old booklet entitled “The Warfare of Prayer,” Brother Andrew wrote “God invites us to influence our community, our nation, and the world…to literally impact history while we’re on our knees.”  I wonder, sometimes, if we truly believe we can do that.  Often our prayers become automatic, rote statements of things we may or may not believe.  They become “vain repetitions,” according to Jesus, that really don’t reach the heart of God.  I have often said if our prayer life bores us, it probably bores God too!

I wonder what would happen in a community…in OUR community….if one church woke up to the potential, the power, the possibility of prayer?

How would life around us change… homes would be healed, children delivered from abuse, families reconciled, crime reduced, the lost saved… as darkness is pushed back by the prayers of God’s people?

“Every forward thrust the first church made was accompanied by a movement of prayer.”  And why would we not believe the same is possible…

… today?

“The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”  (James 5:16b)

FOR REFLECTION:  How could your prayers today bring change in the community and culture around you?  What are you asking God to do toward that end?

One of the privileges people lost when Adam and Eve sinned was the privilege of unhindered, unbroken fellowship with God. Because of their sinless state prior to the Fall, they were able to enjoy face-to-face intimacy with their Creator. Each day they walked together “in the cool of the day.” But among many other things sin broke that relationship, that conversation, that intimacy with God. Adam and Eve cut themselves off from Gods gracious presence. (See Genesis 3:1-6)

But as we pray, a part of that curse is reversed. The last thing the Enemy wants us to know is the potential joy of unbroken, unhindered fellowship with our Creator. Satan desires to sow discord, doubt, and distraction in place of the fellowship we could know in prayer.

As we pray we begin to return to the place God intended us to be…wants us to be. He wants us to draw near to Him that He can draw near to us.

It is there and only there in prayer we can be what He wants us to be. It is there that we can be empowered to live.

It is there we can be…

Home.

“Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” (James 4:8a)

FOR REFLECTION: As you reflect on the year that has come and gone are you closer to God now or further away?

It is here!  The anticipation, the planning, the wrapping, the whispered secrets, the phone calls… all finding their culmination for most today.  Christmas morning!  Finding brightly-wrapped gifts beneath the tree with YOUR NAME on them.

In the midst of the stress this holiday can bring, the love that gets poured into Christmas morning makes it worth coming back and doing it all again next year!  Well, let’s enjoy this one first.

Christmas memories seem indelible.  Like many, I can remember way back to waking my parents bleary-eyed on Christmas morning.  Only later did I learn why they were always so tired, as my own children awakened me after a night of assembling part A to non-existent part B and trying to make the toy look at least passingly like the cover on the box.

But it’s all done in love.  The gifts chosen, some beautifully wrapped and some clumsily taped by young fingers, are in a deep sense a giving away of love.  While to some Christmas may feel like obligation, to most it is a way to tell those who matter most to us “we love you.”

And that’s exactly what God did as He sent His only begotten Son, born of a woman, to come and be our substitute, our sacrifice for sin.  The Son of God willingly came, becoming a real human being.  The One Who died for us created the tree that made the manger in which he was laid.  The Son of God… created the parents Who bore Him!

Let the mystery of Christ’s coming soak in before the wrapping and tinsel and lights and trees go away, and Christmas memories fade into the new year.   The Savior we celebrate at Christmas made it all.  He was the eternal “Word made flesh.”  He is the One Who holds it all together, and Who is the exact image of the invisible God. (Colossians 1:15-20)

And He is truly the Reason for the Season.  And the greatest gift you can give Him this Christmas is your affection, your devotion… your heart.  Enjoy the day.  All of it.  Love your family, laugh, eat and celebrate.

But don’t forget the reason why.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  (John 3:16)

FOR REFLECTION:  During the day, find a few moments to quietly read the Christmas narrative in Luke 2 either privately or aloud to your family and friends.  Thank God again for His indescribable gift!

Our daughter Allison has always been our “Christmas child.”  While her brother loved the gifts Christmas brought, Allison loved the music.  I still remember listening to Kenny G’s Christmas CD flowing from her room until long into the New Year… like Valentine’s Day.