Princeton Community Church

//How To Use This guideEach week we will be focusing on a different aspect of our walk with Christ and how prayer should be at the very center of that walk. Our hope is to unify our church as we seek to humble ourselves before the Lord, reviving our relationships with him both personally and corporately and inspiring us on to fulfill the calling that God has placed on our lives individually and on the church as a whole.

Contained within this guide are passages of scripture, reflections from great Christian thinkers past and present, and weekly devotionals to guide us through the different focus for each week. There are places provided for you to respond with your insight but this guide does not seek to guide you through a daily check-list of items. This guide is designed to create space for you to encounter Christ in a fresh way. You can work through this guide in many different ways but there are two main things we are asking you as a covenant member of our church to commit to for the next twenty-one days: communicating with the Lord through prayer and reading his Word. You might also consider a day of fasting during this time.

For some of us, this will be the first time we have ever devoted any real energy or attention to prayer. For others this may be a solemn reminder that we have neglected communication with the God who longs not only to save us but to know us. Wherever you find yourself today, the staff and leadership at PCC are praying that God will draw you to deeper fellowship with him. We are so excited to see what the Lord will do in the lives of individuals and amongst the body of believers that call PCC home as we put ourselves at his feet and commune in joyous fellowship with our loving Heavenly Father.

//A Word From Our PastorWe invite you to join us as we explore our relationship with the Lord!  This is not a “how to” or a “self-help” journal, it is simply an opportunity to consider how prayer will effect who we are in the Lord.  By altering our approach to prayer from an obligation of religion to an opportunity for relationship, we will discover that it is not about what we do for the Lord, but who we are in Him.  Join us as we “Discover and Experience the Life-Changing Love of Christ” together.

- Craig CaseySr. Pastor, Princeton Community Church

//Forming HabitsItʼs been suggested that it takes somewhere around three weeks to form a habit. Just like people donʼt accidentally become great musicians, great athletes, incredibly knowledgable, or incredibly skilled, we donʼt stumble into godliness. It is born out of a grace-inspired response that puts us at the feet of the Lord daily. Over the next three weeks we are asking everybody (especially covenant members) in our church to plan a set time each day devoted to the Lord. This could be early morning, lunch time, late at night, there is no God-ordained time and the Psalms give witness to believers praying at all sorts of different hours. During this time we encourage you to read the word, meditate on scripture, pray scripture out loud, write down your thoughts and responses, voice your thanks to the Lord for what heʼs given you, voice your displeasure with the Lord, ask him to convict you of sin, sing songs of worship to the Father, sit in silence and solitude, etc.

There is no God-prescribed method of prayer that will work for everyone. In fact, it is our hope that you will begin to see that God finds great joy in the things that you find joy in and sometimes he is merely asking that we slow down and acknowledge his presence in the seemingly mundane, everyday things. But we need to start at the beginning. It seems necessary that we have to have a time that is specifically sacred, specifically His before God begins to awaken us to the reality that every moment is sacred and His.

We encourage you, at the outset of this journey, to carve out the time that you will be present with the Lord. Make a plan, write it down, make it non-negotiable and see what the Lord might begin to do in your life.

//VoicesIn meditation we should not look for a “method” or a “system,” but cultivate an “attitude,” an “outlook”: faith openness, attention, reverence, expectation, supplication, trust, joy. All these finally permeate our being with love in so far as our living faith tells us we are in the presence of God, that we live in Christ, that in the Spirit of God we “see” God our Father without “seeing.” We know him in “unknowing.” Faith is the bond that unites us to him in the Spirit who gives us light and love.

Some people may doubtless have a spontaneous gift for meditative prayer. This is unusual today. Most people have to learn to meditate. There are ways of meditation. But we should not expect to find magical methods, systems which will make all difficulties and obstacles dissolve into thin air.

Meditation is sometimes difficult. If we bear with hardship in prayer and wait patiently for the time of grace, we may well discover that meditation and prayer are very joyful experiences. We should not, however, judge the value of our meditation by “how we feel.” A hard and apparently fruitless meditation may in fact be much more valuable that one that is easy, happy, enlightened, and apparently a big success.

Thomas MertonFrom Contemplative Prayer

In this manner, therefore, pray:Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed be your name.Your kingdom come.

Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.And forgive us our debts,As we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,But deliver us from the evil one.

For Yours is the kingdom And the powerAnd the glory

Forever.Amen.

Matthew 6:9-15 (NKJV)

//IntroductionPrayer. What? Why? How? When? Where? The Bible has answers to all these questions concerning prayer but it also answers these questions collectively with a resounding: “Yes.” For those of us who have ever spent any time in church at all, the fact that God wants us to pray comes as no surprise or grand revelation. In fact, most of our thoughts on prayer typically have more to do with the nagging sense of guilt that we donʼt pray enough. So when weʼre confronted with our shortcomings in prayer, perhaps during a Sunday morning church service, we resolve that this week will be different, that we are going to pray more this week. For those of us who are determined enough, we may make it to Monday or Tuesday before we begin to ask ourselves questions like: “Am I doing this right?” “God, are you listening?” “What exactly is the point of this?”

To suggest that we should pray more, while likely true, doesnʼt really do anyone any good. Most of us view our feeble prayer lives as a reflection of discipline. Much like we would like to read more books, eat better, exercise more, spend more time with family, we would like to pray more. But what if our failure to pray is not so much about discipline, but our delight? The disconnect between the way things are and the way they should be might not be so much about our approach to prayer (the what, when, why, etc.) and more about our approach to God.

Salvation, making peace between holy God and rebellious humanity, would have been enough but God didnʼt stop there. Consider this: God likes you. Sure, he loves you, he has sacrificed his Son, he takes care of your needs; though we might not grasp the gravity of all of these truths, on some level, we know them. But, he goes even further. He likes you. And not some future version of yourself that lives a completely sold out life, free of sin, full of compassionate service and Biblical wisdom. You: flawed, broken, sinful, rebellious, you. At the beginning of it all God placed his creation in a garden to dwell with him (Genesis 1-2), he reminds the people of Israel constantly that He will their God and they will be his people (Exodus 6:7), he comes as God in the flesh, Jesus Christ to reveal himself and walk among us (John 1:14), he makes his home in the hearts of believers (1 Corinthians 6:19; 2 Corinthians 6:16), and ultimately we look to a day that we will see him face to face, dwelling with him in his holy city forever(John 17:24; Revelation 21:3). God is glorified and delights in relationship with you and he has relentlessly pursued that relationship, not even sparing his beloved Son.

So what does this have to do with prayer? Prayer is our response to Godʼs delight in us. Prayer puts us in the presence of the God of the universe who not only created and forgave us, but he walks with and knows us. When things go wrong in our lives it usually follows that we tell others of our suffering, our pain, our despair. The Bible describes Jesus as one who has endured everything that we will ever face in his life and that he is in heaven praying for us ceaselessly (Hebrews 4:15-16; Romans 8:34).

Prayer is Godʼs invitation to participate with Him in his redemption for all creation (Matthew 6:10). We stand before the Lord on behalf of ourselves, family, friends, nations, asking that God might bring awakening, healing, encouragement, salvation, justice (Romans 10:1; Colossians 1:9-12.)

Prayer is our communication with God (Psalm 62:8; 1 John 5:14). Many of us say that we love the Lord but we never speak to him. We rarely think of the Lord outside the walls of a church and wonder why our faith seems painfully dry and distant. We know the commands of Jesus but we donʼt know him. But this was not why Jesus came. He came that we might know him and that every aspect of our life would flow out of our relationship with him (John 15:1-17).

Read this Psalm:

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty!My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh cry out for the Living God.Even the sparrow has found a home,

and the swallow a nest for herself,where she may have her young-

a place near our altar,O Lord Almighty, my King, and my God.

Blessed are those who dwell in your house;they are ever praising you.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.As they pass through the Valley of Baca,

they make it a place of springs;the autumn rains also cover it with pools.

They go from strength to strength,til each appears before God in Zion.

Hear my prayer, O Lord God Almighty;listen to me, O God of JacobLook upon our shield, O God;

look with your favor on your anointed one.Better is one day in your courts

than a thousand elsewhere;I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God

than dwell in the tents of the wicked.For the Lord God is a sun and shield;

the Lord bestows favor and honor;no good thing does he withhold

from those whose walk is blamelessO Lord God Almighty,

blessed is the man who trusts in you.

-Psalm 84

Does the presence of the Lord sound like a chore to the Psalmist? You may say, “Yeah but thatʼs for the super-spiritual types, Iʼm just not like that.” But what the Bible is trying to show us about prayer is that we are all “like that.” God shaped us from dirt and breathed his life into our lungs, and just as we are dependent on God for the very air that we breathe we were designed to rely

wholly upon him and to worship him alone. The question is not what? how? why? when? where? we should pray, the question is this: do we delight in him?

As we begin in this season of focused prayer and fasting perhaps the first thing we should ask of the Lord is simply:

God help me. Help me to love you with all of my heart, my soul, my mind, my strength. Mark 12:30

Questions for reflection:

1. How is your prayer life?

2. Why donʼt you pray more consistently, earnestly, passionately, and expectantly?

3. What would it take to alter your perspective on prayer?

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Rejoice always,pray without ceasing,

give thanks in all circumstances;for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Do not quench the Spirit.Do not despise prophecies, but test everything;

hold fast to what is good.Abstain from every form of evil.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-22

Humble yourselves, therefore,under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he

may exalt you,casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

1 Peter 5:6-7

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in

them and that I myself may be in them.” John 17:24-26

Week One///To Know

Him//

//VoicesThe terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self- all your wishes and precautions- to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call “ourselves,” to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be “good.” We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way- centered on money or pleasure or ambition- and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly.

And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do. As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be plowed up and resown.

That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It the comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through.

He never talked vague, idealistic gas. When He said, “Be perfect,” He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder- in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

May I come back to what I said before? This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects- education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects- military, political, economic, and what not.

But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State simply exists to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden- that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, polices, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.

In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose. It says in the Bible that the whole universe was made for Christ and that everything is to be gathered together in Him.

I do not suppose any of us can understand how this will happen as regards the whole universe. We do not know what (if anything) lives in the parts of it that are millions of miles from the Earth. Even on this Earth we do not know how it applies to things other than men. After all, that is what you would expect. We have been shown the plan only in so far as it concerns ourselves.

What we have been told is how we can be drawn into Christ- can become part of that wonderful present which the Prince of the universe wants to offer his Father- that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begin to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning.

C. S. LewisFrom Mere Christianity

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and

blameless until the day of Christ, filled with fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ- to the

glory and praise of God. Phil. 1:9-11

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not

stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of

wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called

you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

Eph. 1:15-19

//DevotionPaul begins most of his letters with prayers for the people that he is writing to. Look at the prayers for the churches at Phillipi and Ephesus. He is praying fervently that the people would come to know Christ better. This is the ultimate goal of prayer: to know God. Paulʼs prayers here are rich and spacious, asking for love to abound and for the eyes of the hearts of believers to be opened. But one thing is even more evident in Paulʼs prayers: he wants more.

Now this is Paul. If youʼre not familiar with him read the Book of Acts. Paulʼs exploits for the Lord are incredible. Heʼs experienced deeper fellowship with the Lord during his morning prayers than many of us will ever pursue in our entire lifetimes. But he still wants more. He longs for more fellowship, more wisdom, more knowledge, more love, more fruit of the Spirit. He embodies Psalm 34:8, he has “tasted and seen that the Lord is good” and he wants more.

Paul will go on to say:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death...

Phil. 3:7-10

Paulʼs prayers are not for the health of his aunt Sally, for safe travels, for everybody to be happy (these things are in no way inherently bad or petty but when they make up the totality of our prayers they seem to reflect an inadequate view of God and our relationship with him). Paul is pleading with God to allow him to know him more.

This seems like the perfect point of departure for a refocusing and reigniting of our prayer lives. God is so unsearchable and beyond our comprehension that the only way that we would be able to know him is if he revealed himself to us. And praise God he has revealed himself and he helps draw us to himself.

//ReflectionLook again at Paulʼs prayers. Do you ever pray such rich and spacious prayers?

Are you passionate for prayer? If not, why?

Consider the things that may be getting in the way of your encountering the Lord (misplaced priorities, endless entertainment, over-scheduling, inability to find solitude/silence).

//ReflectionConfess and repent of any indifference to and neglect of the gift of prayer.

Pray that during this season of prayer at PCC that God would revive and humble our hearts.

Pray that we would desire to know the Lord more than anything.

Pray for the people in your small group. Ask that God will continue to develop genuine, Christ-centered community.

Praise God for allowing us access to Himself through His Son and for loving to hear and answer our prayers. Meditate on some of the promises of God and pray those back to him (the Psalms are a good starting point here).

Pray the words of Paul for yourself, for hearts of family and friends, PCC, and the church as a whole:-That the “eyes of our heart” may be enlightened-That we would “abound in love” -That we consider everything short of knowing him “rubbish”- Spend some time thanking God for all He has done in your life. Tell him some specific things for which you are thankful.- Have an honest conversation with God by telling Him your true feelings about Him. Ask

for a deeper relationship with Him.- Read 1 Kings 19. Pray that God would open your ears to the still, small voice.

Week Two///People Of The

Word//

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge

who neither feared God nor cared about men.

And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ʻGrant me justice against my adversary.ʼ

“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ʻEven though I don't fear God or care about men,

yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!ʼ ”

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?

Will he keep putting them off?”

Luke 18:1-7

//VoicesFirst, the habit of reading the Word of God daily, preferably in the morning. The New Testament is the inspired record of the Revelation- the revelation is the person of Jesus Christ. He moves out of the pages of the Book and meets us with the impact of his person on our persons. That impact is cleansing. “Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken to you.” When you “expose your all to his everything,” then you submit yourself to a daily cleansing of the mind, of motive, of emotions.$ I know two brilliant Christians who come to the daily morning devotions without their Bibles. They can meditate, they say. They are both shallow For they mediate God to themselves through their own thinking- they become the medium. They do not go to God direct as they imagine- they go through their own thinking; they become the mediator. That is why we have to have the revelation of God through the Word. It is God interpreting himself to us. His interpretation of himself is Jesus. When you expose your thinking to him, you expose yourself to God. These words of the New Testament have been in such close contact with the Word that they are vibrant with Life.$ Dr. Howard Atwood Kelly, professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, says of reading the Bible, “Such reading applied with an honest heart transforms the nature, enables the prostitute to love holiness and become an angel of mercy, and raises the beggar and the drunkard to set them among the princes of the earth.” He said again: “The Bible vindicates itself because it is such excellent medicine. It has never failed to cure a single patient if only he took his prescription honestly.” $ Take the prescription of the Word of God daily. No Christian is sound who is not scriptural.$ Second, pray in private by habit. When we read the Scripture, God speaks to us. In prayer we speak to God. Then God speaks to us, no longer through the Word only, but directly in words to us. $ Carlyle says: “Prayer is and remains the native and deepest impulse of the soul of man.” (Abraham) Lincoln said: “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go; my own conviction and that of those around me seemed insufficient for the day.” $ Lincoln practiced prayer. A gentlemen with an appointment to meet Lincoln at five A.M. arrived fifteen minutes early. He heard a voice in the next room and asked the attendant: “Who is in the next room? Someone with the President?” “No, he is reading the Bible and praying.” “Is that his habit so early in the morning?” “Yes, sir, he spends each morning from four to five in reading the Scriptures and praying.” No wonder we cannot forget Lincoln. He is perennially fresh with God.$ There is no experience of conversion which will make you immune against the lack of reading the word of God and prayer. When prayer fades out, power fades out. We are as spiritual as we are prayerful; no more, no less.

E. Stanley JonesFrom Conversation

//DevotionRead 2 Kings 22-24

In 2 Kings 22 the people of God are in ruins. The Jewish people, long ago divided into North-South, are scattered and on the brink of exile. The Northern Kingdom (Israel) has been destroyed and Judah is not far behind. So naturally, the person God lines up to be on the throne is just the kind of guy that can fix all that is ailing the fledgling monarchy: an eight year old. Josiah comes to the throne and unlike most of the kings before him, Josiah “did what was right in the eyes of the lord and walked in all the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.” Despite Josiahʼs righteousness before the Lord, the Lord has pronounced judgment on Judah because they havenʼt been keeping the covenant that the Lord made with them. In 2 Kings 22:8 we see why: they hadnʼt been reading the covenant (the Book of the Law).

When Josiah hears the words of the Book of the Law he is so overcome with guilt and shame that he tears his robes (a sign of deep remorse in ancient Jewish culture). Immediately, he assembles his subjects to hear the words of the Book of the Covenant read and to reaffirm his peopleʼs commitment to the covenant. This results in some serious cleansing: destroying idols and altars, killing false prophets and priests, and re-instituting the Passover celebration which remembered the people of Israelʼs liberation from slavery in Egypt and the inauguration of the Covenant.

So how does this relate to prayer? For many of us we are in a similar situation that the people of Judah were in prior to the reign of Josiah. We are not submitting to Godʼs truth revealed in Scripture because we donʼt study the scriptures on a regular basis. If prayer is our response to Godʼs desire to know us, approaching God in scripture is allowing ourselves to encounter the Lord where he has spoken. Scripture shows us the heart of the Lord, enables us to see his will for the world, and invites us to be active participants in Godʼs redemptive plan for the entire world. Furthermore, scripture is the testimony that Godʼs Word stands true for all peoples at all times and that he is faithful in his dealings with the world. It reveals his character: love, holiness, mercy, justice, etc.

So understanding scripture allows us to pray the words of Jesus: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Because God has shown us through his word what his Kingdom is, what his will is, and the ways these things will come to fruition.

//ReflectionHow often do you read the Word in your daily life?

Do you identify with the people of Judah described in 2 Kings 22?

What are some steps you could take to make Scripture more of an integral part of your life?

//ResponsePray that God would give you a desire to encounter him daily in the Scripture.

Pray that God would awaken a desire to read and live the Word in our church.

Take some extended time and read through the Book of Acts this week:$ -How does our Christ-following look compared to theirs?$ -How do the disciples make use of the word in their kingdom-advancing work?

Find a passage of scripture to memorize for the week. Meditate on this scripture as you go about your week.

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//VoicesIn the word absurd we find the Latin word surdus, which means “deaf.” A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear.$ When, however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means “listening.” A spiritual discipline is necessary in order to to move slowly from an absurd to an obedient life, from a life filled with many noisy worries to a life in which there is some free inner space where we can listen to God and follow his guidance. $ Jesusʼ life was a life of obedience. He was always listening to the Father, always attentive to his voice, always alert for his directions. Jesus was “all ear.” That is true prayer: being all ear for God. The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.$ Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. Solitude begins with a time and a place for God, and him alone. If we really believe not only that God exists but also that he is actively present in our lives- healing, teaching, and guiding- we need to set aside a time and a space to give him our undivided attention. Jesus says, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father...” (Matthew 6:6).$ To bring some solitude into our lives is one of the most necessary but also most difficult disciplines. Even though we may have a deep desire for real solitude, we also experience a certain apprehension as we approach that solitary place and time. As soon as we are alone, without people to talk with, books to read, TV to watch, or phone calls to make, an inner chaos opens up in us.$ This chaos can be so disturbing and confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again. Entering a private room and shutting the door, therefore, does not mean that we immediately shut out all our inner doubts, anxieties, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings, and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distractions, we often find that our inner distractions manifest themselves to us in full force.$ We often use these distractions to shield ourselves from the interior noises. It is thus not surprising that we have a difficult time being alone. The confrontation with our inner conflicts can be too painful for us to endure. $ This makes the discipline of solitude all the more important. Solitude is not a spontaneous response to an occupied and preoccupied life. There are too many reasons not to be alone. Therefore we must begin by carefully planning some solitude.$ Five or ten minutes a day may be all we can tolerate. Perhaps we are ready for an hour every day, an afternoon every week, a day every month, or a week every year. The amount of time will vary for each person according to temperament, age, job, lifestyle, and maturity.$ But we dot no take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him. We may have to write in black and white in our daily calendar so that nobody else can take away this period of time. Then we will be able to say to our friends, neighbors, students, customers, clients, or patients, “Iʼm sorry but Iʼve already made an appointment at that time and it canʼt be changed.”

Henri NouwenFrom Making All Things New

Week Three///With Great Boldness//

Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great

boldness. Stretch out you hand to heal and perform

miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

Acts 4:28-29

//DevotionWe have seen that the Lord longs for fellowship with us, He hears our prayers and that he takes care of our needs. In our brief treatment of prayer we have sought to shift our perspective on prayer from duty to delight. As we reorient our perspective on prayer we see that God is filling up our lives so much that it canʼt help but overflow onto our surroundings: neighborhoods, work environments, schools, activities. God is a God of action, calling the whole world to see His glory revealed in his Son Jesus Christ. Therefore, as people who follow after this God, our prayers must reflect Godʼs call to action.

Look at the words of Jesus:

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.

John 14:13

Each day we go off into a realm that God has placed us in to, as Jesus would say, “shine as a light in the darkness.” The biggest mistake we can make as believers is somehow convincing ourselves that we can compartmentalize our lives. Categories like church stuff, family stuff, work stuff become irrelevant and destructive when we see that Christʼs call to us is to sell everything that we have and follow Him. There are people we encounter everyday drowning in self-deception, pride, despair, depression, and living their lives far from the freedom and peace that Christ paid for. God has placed us in their world to be a representative of his Kingdom.

Thatʼs right, you and me. It would seem that Jesus Christ missed the course on starting world religions because he forgot to write his teachings down. He spent his time mingling with the outcasts of society and a misfit band of, shall we say, less-than-scholarly individuals and then he was executed like a criminal. The only record we have of him writing was in the sands of Jerusalem (John 8). So Jesus leaves and entrusts the most important message the world has ever known to a handful of seemingly mediocre men and women. Look at what Paul (for the record, a murderer and persecutor of Christians before he came to know the Lord) writes:

You yourselves are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant- not of the letter but of the Spirit...

2 Corinthians 3: 2-3; 6a

Christ did not come so you could invite your friends, family, and coworkers to church where maybe if the pastor preaches a good enough message that day they might come to trust in the Lord. Christ sent you! Paul says that you are the testimony: your story of life-change and repentance through faith in Christ, the way you live your life with integrity and the fruit of the Spirit, the way you seem to have peace even when you fall short.

This, more than anything else, should move our hearts to daily, almost moment-by-moment reliance on Godʼs Spirit in our lives. We make excuses like: “I canʼt talk about that kind of stuff at work.” “People will think Iʼm weird.” “To each their own.” But look at the words of Peter and John when they were being told to stop talking about the resurrection of Christ at the threat of their very lives:

“ ʻJudge for yourselves whether it is right in Godʼs sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.ʼ”

Acts 4:19b-20

This is not some guilt trip to make you feel bad about little you share the Gospel with people you encounter. This is an invitation to pray as the believers did in the passage we started this devotion with: enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. The amazing thing about Christ and the things he asks of his followers is that he gives abundantly the means necessary to complete those tasks. As a church, we must be a people that is marked by a “whatever it takes” attitude to make Christʼs love known even if it compromises some of our comfort, our leisure time, or our security. The invitation to pray is an invitation to participate with God as he redeems the whole world and draws his beloved creation back to fellowship with him. But so many of us, because of our lack of insight and wisdom regarding the things of the Lord, basically our lack of prayer, donʼt ever engage the people around us with Godʼs love and truth. But the beauty of it all is God stands ready, inviting us to action in a strange sort of paradox: prayer seems to be inactivity, stillness. But in our stillness and trust in him, God, who creates worlds with one word of his mouth moves in amazing and miraculous ways. And so now that God is beckoning us to move with him. God help us to pray. Help us to trust. Help us to move.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in he church and Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!

Amen. Ephesians 3:19-21

//ReflectionAre there ways in which you have compartmentalized your life?

What are some things you have a heart/passion for (anything from working on cars, stamp collecting, music, etc.) Itʼs always amazing to see the way that God takes the little things that bring us joy and can use them for his glory.

Do you have a heart for lost people? Do you remember what it was like in your own life before you knew the Lord?

Do you serve in church are you merely a consumer?

//ResponseRead Luke 15. Ask God for forgiveness where you have failed to share his heart for the lost.

Pray that God would allow you to testify to the things that he has done in your life to the people that you encounter everyday.

Pray that the Lord would begin to open doors for you to have conversations about Christ with co-workers, classmates, etc.

Pray for the people that you encounter on a regular basis. Ask that God would reveal himself.

Pray for our church. Pray that we would be a place that is training and discipling believers to be able to go into their worlds and live a life that is a testimony to Christʼs love and grace.

Pray that our church would continue to be creative in reaching out to the community as a whole.

Pray that God would show you the part he has beckoning you to play in His Kingdom.

Pray the words of Isaiah: “Here am I Lord send me.”- Isaiah 6:8

Pray that God would continue to draw you to his presence in prayer as we enter the season of Lent.

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//VoicesThere is too little real communion with Jesus Christ. If, by the grace of God, our conduct and conversation were consistent and our lives were unblemished, many of us are still sorely lacking in that area we call holy fellowship with Jesus.$ Men and women, let me ask you, How long has it been since you have had an intimate conversation with Jesus Christ? Some of you may be able to say, “It was only this morning that I last spoke with him; I beheld his face with joy.” But I fear that the great majority of you will have to say, “It has been months since I have been with the Lord.”$ What have you been doing with your life? Is Christ living in your home and yet you have not spoken to him for months? Do not let me condemn you or judge; only let your conscience speak. Have we not all lived too much without Jesus? Have we not grown contented with the world to the neglect of Christ.$ I have in some degree substantiated my claim that we are in need of revival, but now I must turn to the solution of this great problem that we face. Habakkuk prayed, “O Lord, revive thy work.” Do you hear his groaning for revival? Our problem is this: there are many who say they want revival but they do not groan for it, they do not long for it.$ The true believer, when he is confronted with his need for revival, will long for it. He will not be happy, but will at once begin to strain after it. The true believer will pray day and night, “O Lord, revive thy work!”$ And what is it that will make that true Christian groan for revival? When he reflects on what Christ has done for him, he will groan for his own revival. When he hears someone tell a story about a fellow believer who is experiencing great joy in the Lord, he will groan for his own revival. When he attends a lively fellowship and feels no emotion in his heart, he will groan for his own revival.$ Those of you who feel you are in need of revival, I would ask you only this: Can you groan for your revival? If you can, do it! May God be pleased to give you grace to continue to do it. And may you turn your groanings into prayers.$ Make sure that you turn your groanings into prayers. Do not say, “Sir, I feel my need of revival; I intend to work on it later this afternoon- then I shall begin reviving my soul.” Make no resolutions as to what you will do; your resolutions will surely be broken as they are made. Instead of trying to revive yourself, offer prayers. Do not say, “I will revive myself,” but cry, “O Lord revive thy work.”$ To say, “I will revive myself,” reveals that you do not know your true state. If you knew your own true state, you would just as soon expect a wounded soldier on the battlefield to heal himself without medicine, or get himself to the hospital when his arms and legs have been shot off as you would expect to revive yourself without the help of God.$ I urge you: do nothing until you have first prayed to God, crying out, “O Lord, revive thy work.” Begin, then, by humbling yourself- giving up all hope of reviving yourself, but beginning at once with firm prayer and earnest supplication to God: “O Lord, what I cannot, you do for me. O Lord, revive thy work!”

Charles SpurgeonFrom “Spiritual Revival the Want of the Church”

Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord.

Renew them in our day, in our time make them known;

in wrath remember mercy.

Habakkuk 3:2