Prayer for Beginners: Chapter Two- Part IV

We should pray because God’s honor deserves it, in fact demands it.

"To put it most simply, God is God, the Absolute Reality, Infinite Perfection, more massively real than the universe itself and more worthy than all the ideals together ever conceived by all human minds. If God is not this, then God is not God. Thus, we should pray because prayer is the most realistic thing in the world to do. It is our acknowledgment of reality, our right response to reality, our honesty with reality."

If God is truly God, and truly there then He is interested in us, and our response to him is the least thing we can do. And if we really recognize him as the Absolute Reality it's something we will do.

When the prodigal returns to his father in the story that Jesus tells (Luke 15:11ff) he's not expecting much, but to be one of the servants. He knows that even being a servant on his father's farm is better than anything he's experiencing in the "distant country." What do suppose his deep response is to the sight of old father running down the road to meet him? Think he stopped and let the father come? I suppose that he was overwhelmed with a sense love and compassion from his father and couldn't wait to be in his embrace. He's running to us...

Prayer for Beginners: Chapter Two- Part III

Three reasons that God commands us to pray correspond to our three deepest needs, the fundamental needs of the three powers of our soul: Prayer gives truth to our minds, goodness to our will, and beauty to our heart.

The true, the good, and the beautiful are the three things we need and love the most, because they are three attributes of God.

Prayer gives truth to our mind because it puts us in the presence of truth itself, the divine mind who designed our minds and our lives and our whole universe.

It gives goodness to our will because it puts us “on line with God, in love with God who is love and goodness. That is his essence. In prayer we become like the God we pray to and conform to; we catch the good infection of Godliness by contact.

It gives beauty to our heart because it plunges us into the heart of God, which is the eternal energy of infinite joy. That is why it gives us joy and peace and delight and happiness.

To pray is to enter the tent it seems, as Moses did in the wilderness. When he'd come out of the tent his face glowed; being in the presence of God changed him... the glory of God infused him to some degree. Not to a perfect degree... Moses' face would begin to fade when he was out of God's presence. The difference for us, or so says Paul in II Corinthians 3:18, is that we don't have to go into a tent to be in God's presence... because of Christ we're able to live in God's presence and therefore our glory (the degree to which we reflect the person of Christ) can continue to grow. Still it takes his presence purposefully entered.

II Timothy - Earl Palmer (Regent College)

I've been at Regent College this week taking a class on II Timothy from Earl Palmer (University Presbyterian Church - Seattle). It's been a great class and Earl Palmer is a wealth of interesting information about II Timothy and many other things. He's a guy who knows so much that he can easily talk about anything at the drop of the hat, and does, but connects his musings adeptly to the focus of the class. It's been delightful.

Here's a way of studying the text that he showed us the first day. Nothing substantially new... but a good reminder to me as to how to exegete the text of scripture. You follow the text through five questions. These don't have to relate to "preaching or teaching" but can relate simply to one's personal study of scripture.

I. The Technical Questions
Lower Criticism: What is the best reading of the text? What do the words mean? Why was this particular word used? “Tell me what the hard words mean and you will have done more for me than a 1000 commentaries.” C.S. Lewis

II. The Historical Questions
Behind: What’s the history behind what’s being said… the depth.
Form Criticism: What is the atmosphere behind the text? What’s going on around this writing? What is the context in which it’s given?
Within: Develop a “radical historical curiosity” about the things going on within the text and the time.

III. The Theological Question
What does the text say? What does it mean? What is the author trying to get at… what does he want us to see and know theologically?

IV. The Contemporary Question
Audience Criticism: How would an audience in the first Century hear this text? Why does John the Baptist ask, “Are you the one or should we look for another?” What makes John so disappointed with Jesus that he asks that question? How would those moving down through the centuries view the text? How would a Freudian view the text? We need new commentaries in every generation because every generation is dealing with something or someone new.

V. The Discipleship Question
There’s no great commentary that doesn’t deal with what it means of me? I want Paul to speak to me… to others

Palmer has a very high regard for Calvin's work, and one quote that he's given us from Calvin regards the importance of the biblical text, which says, “The text will always bring you to the ‘living center’ (Christ), the OT by anticipation, the NT by witness.” May it be so.

Movie Flash!!

I've seen a couple movies lately - thought I'd give a quick... I mean quick... rundown.

Get Smart: Particularly for those of us who grew up during the era of Maxwell Smart it's a must see. It's hilariously funny at some points - I nearly wet my pants laughing at two points in the movie. The second time I saw it there was a lady in front of us who was absolutely howling it was so funny. I mentioned this to my brother-in-law with whom I'd seen the movie the first time and said, "that's just what you sounded like the first time you saw it!" I saw it twice in the theatre... I never do that. It's worth the price of admission. There is relatively little inappropriate stuff - good movie.

Wanted: If you can get past a couple of early, and graphic, sex scenes the rest of it is just as bad! Truly, I went to see it because it looked like a lot of fun and action. There were some great action spots to be sure. Morgan Freeman is an amazing actor, one of my favorites, I expect to see him in better movies. In the end Angelina Jolie is true to the code... it's just a bit of weird code to be true to! If you have to see it wait for the DVD in my opinion.

Prayer for Beginners: Chapter Two- Part II

Matthew 5:9, 45; Luke 6:35; John 1:12; Romans 8:14ff; Romans 9:26; 2 Corinthians 6:16-18; Galatians 3:26

The second motivation for prayer is because God commands it.

“We pray not simply as some solitary self-improvement program, but because we have been addressed by God. Prayer is a response to a prior divine invitation. No, ‘invitation’ is too weak. God commands us to pray, in fact to ‘pray constantly.’ (1 Thessalonians 5:17) He yearns and longs for us to pray more passionately than any earthly lover yearns for his beloved to turn her eyes and her attention to him.
We pray to obey God, not to ‘play God’. We pray, not to change God’s mind, but to change our own; not to command God, but to let Him command us. We pray to ‘let God be God.’”

This divine invitation is for relationship, and we see it in no better place than the beginning, the garden, when God formed man and woman, breathed life into them, and then, wonder of wonders, walked with them in the cool of the day. It seems this picture is lost; at least it is to me at times, too often in fact. My interaction with God becomes asking, which he’s told us to do. But it becomes only asking. It seems that what God was after with us from the beginning was relationship. We’re uniquely created for it, with Him and with each other.

Throughout scripture the picture is expanded. God is seeking after us for relationship, for a heart that longs for Him. The first chapter of Isaiah is a prime example. The people are jumping through the religious hoops day in and day out, but there’s no heart for relationship with Him. He is simply dissatisfied with their religion because it’s not what he’s after. God is, after all, not looking for subjects as much as he is looking for sons and daughters to whom He desperately wishes to give an inheritance of all sorts of good things. (Matthew 5:9, 45; Luke 6:35; John 1:12; Romans 8:14ff; Romans 9:26; 2 Corinthians 6:16-18; Galatians 3:26)

I’ve been reading Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller. He’s a thoughtful and funny writer (you should read one of his books Blue Like Jazz is popular). I came across this thought there, “The God of the Bible seemed to be brokenhearted over the separation in our relationship and downright obsessed with mending the tear.” And a bit later on, “I realized that Jesus was always, and I mean always, talking about love, about people, about relationship, and He never once broke anything into steps or formulas. What if, because we were constantly trying to dissect His message, we were missing a blatant invitation? I began to wonder if becoming a Christian did not work more like falling in love than agreeing with a list of true principles.” (Chapter 3, pp 45, 46).

Prayer for Beginners: Chapter Two- Part I

In chapter three Kreeft gives ten motivations for prayer. I’m going to give you the ten motivations for prayer, but I’ll take the next few posts to expand on them… today, only motivation number one:

1. Only prayer can save the world.
2. There is a better reason to pray than the fact that only prayer can save the world. We must pray because God commands it.
3. Three reasons that God commands us to pray correspond to our three deepest needs, the fundamental needs of the three powers of our soul: Prayer gives truth to our minds, goodness to our will, and beauty to our heart.
4. We should pray because God’s honor deserves it, in fact demands it.
5. Remembering the facts of death and Heaven gives us an even more pressing reason to learn to pray: We do not have an infinite amount of time.
6. Prayer is delightful.
7. Prayer is the way to know God, and this is Jesus’ definition of eternal life: “This is eternal life: that they know thee, the only true God.” (John 17:3)
8. Prayer, and its effect, knowing God, is the essential prerequisite for all religious teachers, catechists, evangelists, and preachers.
9. Prayer is the only way to spiritual progress.
10. Prayer is necessary because without it we cannot attain the meaning in life, the end and purpose of our existence.

The first motivation is that only prayer can save the world, but what does he mean by it? “Though some claim that prayer is an unaffordable luxury today, or an irresponsible withdrawal from the pressing public problems of our poor, hurting world, I say just the opposite: that nothing, nothing is more relevant and responsible; that nothing else can ever cure our sick world except saints, and saints are never made except by prayer.
Nothing but saints can save our world because the deepest root of all the world’s diseases is sin, and saints are the antibodies that fight sin. Nothing but prayer can make saints because nothing but God can make saints, and we meet God in prayer. Prayer is the hospital for souls where we meet Doctor God.”

Jesus has said that we're supposed to be "light" and "salt". (Matthew 5:13-16). We need to be light because the world, by almost any one's standard is pretty dark at times. We need to be salt because the world, by any one's standard, can be pretty bitter at times. Only God can take flesh and blood people and give them the properties of light and salt.

In another biblical analogy (Romans 9:19ff) we are the clay, and God is the potter. In order for us to be shaped in a way that is useful we need to be on the wheel... prayer is the wheel.

Prayer for Beginners - Peter Kreeft

Necessity - Chapter 1

Matthew 14:23; Mark 6:46; Luke 5:16; Luke 6:12; Luke 9:28; Luke 11:1ff; Luke 18:1ff.

"Eating keeps your body alive, and prayer keeps your soul alive. Praying is more important than eating because your soul is more important than your body. Your soul is more important than your body because your soul is you, your personality your self... prayer keeps your soul alive because prayer is real contact with God, and God is the life of the soul as the soul is the life of the body. If you do not pray, your soul will wither and die, just as, if you do not eat, your body will wither and die."



The difficult issue in view of this truth is that it's not as evident to us that our soul is dying as it is that our body is dying. Fasting, though one of the classic Christian disciplines has been almost completely neglected, makes our need for food painfully evident. Most protestants neglect fasting because it's unpleasant. Do you fast regularly? I go through periods of regular fasting; Mondays are the days I choose. I can honestly say that I'm annoyed by 11:00 AM or so on fasting days. It's not just that I'm famished, it's that I like eating... I enjoy it... it's part of my daily routine... I schedule my days around breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So do you. I just don't think of going through a day without eating, unless I'm exceptionally busy. My body misses food and thinks I'm dying if I miss a meal. My soul, on the other hand, doesn't demonstrably complain if I miss prayer for one session... a day... or perhaps even a week!



Kreeft says that prayer is important because it is real contact with God. Unfortunately, however, real contact with God isn't that helpful if GOD DOESN'T SEEM REAL SOMETIMES! Of course we know, intuitively if no other way, that God is real. Like the death of our soul can happen quietly the death of God's presence can also die a quite death. Of course he never ceases to be present, but my awareness of his presence can be severely hindered by my neglect of prayer.



It's fortunate that as humans we have complex souls. That is to say, we don't simply have desires, we can have desires about our desires. Simply put, if we don't have a desire for prayer at this moment, but we recognize how important prayer is to the health and life of our soul, we can have a desire about our desire to pray! Not feeling like praying? Not consistent with prayer? Wallowing in condemnation about not being a "prayer warrior" is probably not the best option for us... rather perhaps it's time to start with this prayer... "Lord give me a desire to pray because I don't feel like it just now, or at least I don't seem to remember it." Let's don't live in what we didn't do with prayer yesterday let's just make a run at beginning today... our souls need food!

It's Been Awhile.. I guess

It's time to get back at this blog... it's been awhile since I've written, sort of lost my way... in a way. It's not that I haven't been having the coffee... it's just that I haven't gotten round to writing anything here. Life has been real hectic, not just busy, but lots of moving around - going from here to there. It's been a great summer so far - visiting family, renewing old friendships, vacationing with Sharlyn and the boys, busy in the yard and at work. It's been a great summer, but it's keeping me running.

In keeping with that I'd like to spend some time over the next weeks thinking out loud about a great book that I've read in the past couple months, Prayer for Beginners by Peter Kreeft. He says in the introduction, "it could be called prayer for dummies - people who aren't good at praying." He goes on to say, "it could also be called 'prayer for Martha's,' not for Mary's, prayer for people with little time to pray, for busy people who keep finding excuses not to pray - in other words, for people like me." I really enjoy Kreeft's writing, and this book doesn't disappoint, there is a lot of good stuff in it, I'll try to hit the high spots over the next few weeks... don't let that stop you from picking it up, it's only about $10. If ever there was a "Martha" I'm one and this book delivers what it promises. It helps us learn how to practice God's presence which doesn't negate the need for setting aside time to be "Mary." I find that I need the challenge and the encouragement that Kreeft delivers here. Hope it's helpful... I hope I can keep it up on a regular schedule.

JJR