Jesus told us to ask the Father for our daily bread. We are tempted to devote prayer to the chocolate donuts of luxury and comfort. But none of these pleasures are good, if our real needs are not met. Two truths emerge from the wording of this prayer. Needs are immediate. And needs are ultimate.

We have a tendency to pray for God to provide our needs far into the future. These seem to be prayers for God to provide so we will not have to trust him ever again. I have terminal cancer. God has not chosen to remove my cancer. But I have lived and often been basically healthy years longer than my doctors told me I would. Not long ago a friend introduced me as a cancer survivor. I told him later that I couldn't say that. He said, "Every day you are alive, you are a survivor." I told one of my doctors I was doing better than he thought I would because people were praying for me. He was silent for a moment and then said, "That's right."

Our needs are also ultimate. You will die if you do not have food to eat. You have other ultimate needs. Some are physical like the need for bread. Others are emotional, intellectual or spiritual. From an ultimate perspective our greatest needs are spiritual. Life is ultimately meaningless without a sense of wonder, truth, purpose, righteousness and security. These only come from God. They are the fruit of the gospel in our lives. Jesus died that we might have life truly, fully and eternally. Are you focusing on the greatest needs that face us? Or are your prayers distracted by lesser things. My cancer brings an urgency to my life. I don't want to devote most of my energy to praying for a better parking place at the donut shop.

Next week we will look at praying for forgiveness.

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In this foundational prayer Jesus told us to pray for God's will to be done. Our sin and the subsequent fall has spun our world and our hearts out of the will of God. Only God can restore us to the way things ought to be. This is one of the most powerful aspects of prayer. But there is much more to praying for God's will than simply mouthing these words in a rote prayer. Let me suggest two critical factors of consistently praying in obedience to this directive from Jesus, Discernment of His will and Desire for His will.

To pray for God's will, I must learn learn to discern God's will in various situations. That begins in exposing myself to God's word. God powerfully and personally reveals Himself to us in the Bible. As we apply ourselves to learning Scripture, the Holy Spirit speaks to us.

A more important facet of discerning God's will is the transformation of your mind, indeed your entire character. Romans 12:2 says, "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God." God makes us more and more like Him. The verse just before calls us to present our bodies to Him as a living sacrifice. Transformation is a process that takes a lifetime. But every day of His work, often painful to our pride and self-centeredess, produces character, confidence and spiritual maturity. God shapes us in His image, in the likeness of Jesus, so we can know and understand His will. Through this process we come to desire His will. We learn in practice what we usually know superficially, that the best thing that can ever happen is what God desires whether it is what we want or not. Our joy increases exponentially as we come to delight in his will.

I need to note one other blessing that comes as we learn pray for God's will. He gives powerful assurance. 1 John 5:14-15 reads, "This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him."

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We pray for so many things. I saw two prayer requests this week for sick and suffering dogs. I think that is legitimate. Those who lifted the requests loved their animals. Our prayers should reflect the concerns and passions of our hearts. But it is crucial for us to have right priorities of desire and concerns. Jesus told us to seek first the kingdom of God. Are you praying for the kingdom?

The day will come when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. In 2 Peter 3:11-12 we find these words.

"Since all these things are to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening, the coming of the day of God."

We are to wait for and hasten that day. Now let me ask you what we could do to hasten the culmination of history?

It is legitimate to pray as John prayed at the end of The Revelation. "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" But there is more that we can do and pray in this regard. In Matthew 24 Jesus gave us signs of the end times. And in verse 14 He said, "This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all people groups, and then the end will come."

Are you praying for the spread of the gospel, the spread of the Kingdom?  Do you have lists of missionaries that you pray for every day? Are you praying for the gospel to be brought to unreached and unengaged people groups? www.operationworld.org/ is great place to begin. They have the definitive prayer guide for people groups around the world. You can also find information on praying for the spread of the gospel at www.imb.org/ or on the websites of other mission agencies. We can pray for His kingdom to come.

Next week we will look at praying for God's will.

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In Ephesus 5:14-15 Paul writes, "For this reason I bow before the Father from whom Every family in heaven and earth derives its name."

The Lord's Prayer does not simply teach us to say the words, "Our Father which art in heaven." Jesus is calling us to bow our hearts to our Heavenly Father. The privilege of coming to God as our father represents ultimate intimacy and majesty. I remember my sister and I running out to meet my father and throwing ourselves around his legs as he came home from work. Jesus is telling us we have that kind of relationship with the God of the universe, the God beyond the universe who created heaven and earth.

In Matthew 23:9 Jesus told us we have one father who is in heaven. He is the source of our spiritual DNA. We are born again in Him. Have you ever seen a child who reflected his father's appearance? God is working in the lives of His children making us more and more like Him, like Jesus.

I also remember my father's deep quiet voice teaching and encouraging me. He did not always do it perfectly, but my heavenly Father does. God teaches and guides His children.

My father worked hard to provide for the needs of our family. But even my father's provision was given us by God. God provides our every need. In His arms we are blessed and comforted. He alone knows our deepest needs.

There were times when my children knew I was afraid. But I do not ever remember my father being afraid. I could not imagine being afraid when I was with him. If he was there we were safe. God is our ultimate rescuer. He is our Savior. More than a dozen times in Scripture we have the phrase, "God our savior." This of course includes Jesus as God the Son. Tutus 2:14 speaks of "our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ." Jude 25 reads, "To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time now and forever. amen"

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I have begun a series of blog entries on the foundations of prayer. And I think The Lord's Prayer is a logical place to start. Last week I discussed approaching God as father. This week I want us to note that Jesus told us to address God as "Our Father." This whole prayer is plural. "Give us our daily bread." "Forgive us our trespasses." "Lead us not into temptation."

I am always stirred by the prayer in Acts chapter 4 that is preceded by the words,  "They lifted their voices together to God." The power of God is mightily unleashed as we pray together. In Matthew 18 Jesus gave us a special promise when we agree in prayer. He gave us that in the context of reconciling with someone who has sinned against you. And He made such reconciliation a matter that concerns the entire church. In such situations we must pray together. But his statements about His being with us when we come together in the church and when we pray together seem to apply to many situations.

Our prayers should also be in tune with God's love for all persons. I often think of Samuel's word in 1 Samuel 12:23. "God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you." It is sin for us to neglect praying for others God has brought into our lives. And that includes people we may think are less important. God is no respecter of persons. I pray daily for a family who has an autistic child. My heart is stirred every time I pray for that boy. God seems to be reminding me that He longs for that boy to come to repentance quite as much as He cares for his parents. I believe God can use that boy with his handicap quite as easily as He can use the most gifted person I know of. And even if He does not use him mightily, God loves him every bit as much as He loves me.

Last week I concluded by saying I was going to ask God to put His loving arms around everyone I met that day. Frankly, I found that more difficult than it sounds. It took me the whole week to get into that groove. But I also found this to be a greater blessing on my prayers than I had suspected. 

FATHER

(The Foundations of Prayer 1)

This week I am beginning a series on the biblical foundations of prayer. We will start with The Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6. Its first words are, "Our Father."

Coming to God as our father is essential to Christian prayer. There are people who come to God as if He were their employer. They seek God to give them what they have earned by their sincerity or their righteousness. "I've been good or I will be good, so reward me, God." But coming to God as our father means we trust His fatherly love.

Coming to God as our father assums a special relationship. No one can approach the President or Prime Minister or a King in the middle of the night for as small a thing as a drink of water, but his child. Again and again Jesus urged us to bring audacious requests to God. As His children we can ask Him for anything. And of course that means we trust Him not to give us that which would harm us. Have you ever thanked God that He did not answer your prayers exactly like you prayed. I have.

As children we know we don't understand everything our parents know. We may resent or resist that fact, but we know it is true. Coming to God as our father is to rest in His understanding above our own. And yet we know He who is all powerful loves us with an infinite and everlasting love.

If I am taking The Lord's Prayer word for word, I skipped the word, "our." Next week I will deal with that little word. I am to pray not only to my father, but to our father.

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I took a break from my blog during the month of August, 2015. And I told you I would see you in September. Well, it is September. And I am back as I said I would be. I pray for God to speak to each of you in these entries.

I am so blessed to have people whom I love and love me on daily prayer lists. I am not sure anything cultivates my love for them like prayer. I also have the names of people on prayer lists who are hard to love or even like. Exercising kindness toward them is necessary for feeling and growing my love for these people. But these actions must begin with and be carried out in prayer.

FORGIVENESS AND PRAYER

I have people on prayer lists who have wronged me, or worse, harmed people I love. God clearly impressed me to put these people on prayer lists. But I do often find it difficult to pray for them. Praying in general helps me understand and apply the truth of God's grace to them. God's forgiving love begins to rub off on me. Especially as I put forgiveness into words by asking God, even against my will, to forgive them.

PATIENCE AND PRAYER

Interestingly enough I often need more patience with people who are closer to me than those I have trouble loving. They are sinners. And I am a sinner. We sin against each other. I thank God that prayer brings me into contact with God's patience with me. Despite what the devil accuses I can go to God in confession immediately after sinning. I am still His child even after I sin. Praying in that grace opens my heart to patience with others even when we rub each other the wrong way.

HUMILITY AND PRAYER

I am not sure anything is as necessary to love as humility. And nothing cultivates humility like access to God by grace in prayer. I do not deserve the privilege of prayer. The Son of God had to die on a cross to purchase it for me. I did not just need a little more righteousness to see the kingdom of God. I had to be born again. And I am no more deserving of God's grace than that person I find it difficult to love.

Today I plan to pray specifically for God to show His great love to everyone one my prayer lists and people I come in contact with all day.

Next week I plan to begin a series of blog entries on the Foundations of Prayer

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For several reasons I have decided to suspend my blog during the month of August,2015. I am praying about some special future blog entries. So I will see you in September.

Last week I wrote about praying in or from the gospel. We could never plumb the depths or mount the heights of this subject. And I wish to pen just a few more lines specifically on the grace unleashed by the good news of Jesus Christ.

First note that we come to prayer In the Confession of The Gospel. There is a power here to kill the selfishness, self-centeredness and independence that separate us from God and others. The Son of God had to die in my place to redeem me. I did not just need a little correction or improvement. I was totally lost.

Next we come to pray In the Communion of The Gospel. The gospel brings far more to us than forgiveness. Forgiveness says, "You are pardoned. You may go. The grace of the gospel says, "You are forgiven. Come in to my presence."

And imagine the Confidence of Prayer from The Gospel. We now come to God in the love and approval of the Son of God! He became our sin so we might become His righteousness. We pray in the applause of our Heavenly Father!

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How do you end your prayers? You say "Amen," of course. We all do. Why do we do that? That is not how prayers end in the Bible. And while many of us know the verily, so be it, meaning of the word, I don't believe that is the real reason we end our prayers with"amen."

I believe we have a need to conclude our prayers, or rather to solemnize a conclusion to a prayer. Especially with petition, we are saying "This is what I need."

I think it is worth considering the amen of all your prayers. What would be the amen of your life? What is your ultimate need and longing? We may say, "I need this job because . . . " or "I need to be healed so that . . ." What needs do you have that are ends in themselves?

Suppose you tasted the most wonderful food you have ever eaten? And because it was so wonderful you told a friend about it. But the friend asked, "What will eating that get you?" The friend doesn't get it, does he? Psalm 34:8 calls us to "Taste and see that the Lord is good."

Let me push this picture a little further. Can you imagine falling in love? The two of you decide to get married. But someone at work asks, "Why do you want to marry him? What will that get you?" What would you answer?

And suppose before you were married he was shipped off to Afghanistan? From a letter you learn that he will skype you tomorrow morning at 5:00 A.M. You are thrilled about it and can hardly wait to go to bed tonight so you can get up and talk to him in the morning. But your friend at work asks why you would want to miss sleep just to talk. This is a harder picture for some of you because when you fall in love you fall for a sinner who will disappoint you as you will him. But we are waiting to be wed to the ultimate bridegroom. There will be no disappointment with Him.

What is your ultimate reason, your final "so that?" That is what I would call your ultimate amen. final amen of our lives is intricately connected to the embrace of God that we enjoy in prayer, more even than what you may ask in desperate prayer.  Revelation 3:14 speaks to this. Jesus said, "These are the words of the amen." This statement may be synonymous with His declaration, "I am the alpha and omega." Part of what Jesus was saying is that all things begin and end with Him. To say He is your Amen is to say He is your everything and He alone fulfills your deepest longing.

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In 2 Cor. 4:17 Paul says our earthly suffering is working for us an eternal weight of glory. This statement gives us an interesting insight into the word, "glory.” The Bible's use of words for the glory of God actually change the meaning of the words in at least four languages. The Greek word translated in 2 Corinthians 4 is "doxa." We take the word doxology from doxa. But before the Bible was put into Greek the word only meant importance in the opinion of people as trite as popularity. Our English word glory comes to us from the Latin word gloria. It too originally held the shallow meaning of the Greek word. The Hebrew word for glory was much more substantial. It reflected the reality of God. Its root meant weighty or significant. Anywhere we find the glory of the Lord people and even the earth is shaken by the weight of His significance.

The use of doxa for this Hebrew word in the Greek Old Testament, increased the power of the word infinitely. The word went from a trend to an earthquake or a thunderstorm. Or it might be better to call it a divine lightning storm. Even though the word began as weighty, it describes the shikina glory that settled on the mercy seat in the tabernacle. It was the glory that shown on Moses' face when he left the presence of God. And the glory of the Lamb is what will light the holy city described in Revelation 21. Our words in English Latin Greek and even Hebrew have come to mean unapproachable splendor. So we can sing "shining in the light of his glory."

If you truly come into the presence of God in prayer you will be overwhelmed by the recognition that God's glory is brighter than your darkness. His weight is greater than your needs or wants. If you have experienced the lightening storm of God's presence, nothing else can be as significant in your life. In His presence our prayers will be shaken by His Glory.

Let me point out three facets praying the glory of God.

The first thing that may come to your mind is praise. Praising His Glory

Isaiah 42:12 equates glorifying God with declaring his praises. We glorify God in praise. This can be in private as well as public worship. It can also be in witness of his glory to people we come in contact with each day.

Praying God's glory includes Praying for His Glory.

One of the most stunning examples of this is found in John 12:27-28. Jesus begins this passage by grieving over His coming sorrow. "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour." Instead, Jesus simply prays, "Father, glorify your name." At that a voice came from heaven saying, "I have glorified it and will glorify it again." Some of the crowd said it thundered. Others thought an angel had spoken to Jesus. He said that the voice had come for them not Him. God answered by glorifying His name as Jesus asked.

Finally, you pray His glory by Praying for His Glory Through You.

God is working His glory in us. When you begin to catch a glimpse of the glory of God, you realize how preposterous that is. How could Almighty God gain any glory from me? Well, if we return to 2 Corinthians 4:17 we see again that through the light and temporary troubles that we face God is working an eternal weight of glory."

O God, may it be so! By Your power bring it about.

I slipped into her room knowing where I was going but not absolutely sure I would not step on a noisy toy in the dark. I knelt by her bed and with my eyes adjusting to the darkness I could see her peaceful face asleep against the White linen pillow slip. Waves of wonder, thankfulness and incredible hope washed over me. But I was not there to revel in sentiment. I was there to pray. What was I to pray for my precious daughter?

As I pen these words she is no longer seven or eight. Those years have long since fled. She now has a seven year old of her own that she, and I too, pray for every day. In later years my daughter admitted that she sometimes was not quite asleep when I came in to pray. But she pretended so she could hear me pray for her.

I don't remember all that I asked of God for my children. But I do know this. The trials they faced, the temptations they had to overcome were much worse than I ever dreamed. And that should inform what I pray for my granddaughter, what we pray for our children. Does anyone one believe the uncertainty of our future has decreased in these days?

I think the most important thing I can do is simply pray, not knowing what to pray for. We are thrown in desperation onto God's intercession for our children. There are a number children, mostly family members, for whom I am making a concerted effort to lift in prayer every day of their lives. I am convinced that I need God to intercede for them. I can't know what they will face. But I am also confident that He will be sufficient whatever the enemy throws their way.

When I began this post I had several things in mind to suggest we pray for our children. I pray for them to have a hold on truth in a world that has replaced certainty for desire and inclinations. I pray they will be delivered from temptation that will come crashing down upon them. And I will ask that they be used in ways that I cannot imagine. But I will have to trust specifics to God. I cry out for our Lord to intercede in their lives.

Many are saying America and possibly most of the world is under the imminent judgment of God in these days. I am reminded of God's judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah. God said the outcry against Sodom was great. People were crying out to him in oppression and suffering. God could not be a God of compassion and not judge the selfishness, wickedness, prejudice and violence we have turned to today. And yet as He was preparing to rain fire down upon Sodom the Lord invited Abraham to intercede for the city. If God is making you aware of imminent judgment, He is inviting you to intercede in prayer. Do you sense the urgency to intercede in prayer even if you are not sure how to do that? Interestingly enough Abraham came to some principles that will help us pray in these days.

First, Abraham appealed to God's love for righteousness. "Will not the judge of all the earth do what is right?" We need to pray for churches and believers and people who seek righteousness in high places in our society. They may be our only hope against immediate judgment. This week one of the most prominent pastors in America stepped down from his pulpit because of moral failure. I saw several Face Book posts on it. I made a comment on one of them. "If you were our enemy, who would you attack?" But while I had respected this man, I had never prayed for him. God forgive me.

Another principal that Abraham discovered was the intercession of the gospel. Some of you are skeptical of Abraham's understanding of the gospel. But he grasped a core principle in his interaction with the LORD over Sodom. The Lord loves righteousness so much that He was willing to spare the wicked because of the righteousness of the righteous. How does that relate to the gospel? That is its very heart. The only reason any of us are spared from immediate and final judgment is that God has imputed to us the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He alone is truly righteous. He is our only righteousness. He is our only hope. Interceding in the face of judgment must be based upon the spread of the gospel. Many of us in these days sense an urgency to pray for unreached and unengaged people groups in the world. That is intercession for the gospel. Are you praying and giving and going and sending so the gospel will be available to all who Jesus died to save?

Today, I believe there is another facet of interceding in the face of judgment. That is crying out to God for His supernatural hand in our ministry to hurting people. The first major judgment of God was a mercy on the world because of what we had become. God saw that the thoughts and intents of the heart of man were only evil continually. (Gen. 6:5) I do not know what kind of judgment God is preparing to send. We may well be preparing to taste the 7 bowls of God’s wrath upon the earth. But the Bible speaks of another kind of judgment that is in many ways worse. This is the judgment of what we become. In Romans 1 Paul says that God gives men over to the perversions and corruption of our hearts. 2 Timothy 3 says that in the last days people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud arrogant, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. These are days in which we need to pray for God to use us to heal in the face of incredible wickedness all around and within us.

Father, we cry out for Your mighty hand upon us as we seek to be righteous, as we spread the gospel and as we show compassion to a hurting world.

I recently listened to a powerful sermon on missions by Tim Keller. sermons.redeemer.com/missions He drew his text from the prayer of Jesus in John 17. When he came to verses 16-19 where Jesus prayed that His followers be sanctified, Tim Keller asked the question, “What did Jesus put in the hands of the first disciples as He sent them out to change the world?” Did they have manuals on evangelism, or church planting, or even preaching? They did not. They had one thing, holiness. And they turned the world upside down. Surely the Lord’s holiness is something we need to pray for.

How do we pray for His such transformation in our lives? If we take the Lord’s prayer for our guide in this, we might begin with forgiveness.

And forgive us our debts,

As we forgive our debtors.

None of us is holy before God. We need the Holiness of Jesus imputed into our lives.

Forgiveness also has another side. A major part of transformation into the likeness of Christ is developing forgiveness in our hearts for others. We need to exercise prayers of forgiveness for those who have wronged us. You can pray for God to forgive people who have harmed you. Have you ever prayed like Stephen while he was being stoned,

“Lord, do not charge them with this sin.”

How could you ever pray such a prayer for those who hate you and are harming you? I have trouble praying that prayer for people who love and annoy me. Stephen saw Jesus seated on the right hand of God. If you had such a vision of the majesty of our Lord, you might be able to pray as he did. Hebrews 11:27 tells us Moses endured as seeing Him who is invisible. 1 John 3:2 tells us we will be like Jesus when He returns for we will see Him as He is. We get a glimpse of His face as we spend time with Him in prayer and we are made more and more like Jesus.

In fact, for holiness we need to start earlier in the Lord’s prayer than His word on forgiveness. As Jesus modeled, we need to begin with worship and praise.

“Hallowed be your name.”

As we grow in fellowship with Him we will expand our praise more and more. Such praise gives us a clearer and clearer vision of the glory and majesty of our Lord. And it naturally leads to submission to His will.

Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

   on earth as it is in heaven.

Holiness is not simply the absence of sin. It is growing obedience that rejoices in His will. 

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How do you pray in a formal worship service? Of course you want to join your heart to prayers that are prayed out loud as part of the service. You need to remind yourself to connect with those prayers. And you need to pour yourself into the praises being sung. This too may need to be intentional.

However, that is not all the praying you need to do in a worship service. Every time you enter a worship service you need to ask God to help you hear His voice. One of my life-scriptures is Matthew 23:1-12. In those verses Jesus said none of us were to be called Rabbi or instructor “because we have one instructor, the Christ.” This is more than a call for humility in preachers. This is a reminder that if we learn from or are stirred by a preacher, it is to be Christ Jesus Himself speaking through him. There are a number of barriers to hearing from God in a worship service. The greatest of them are in our own hearts. But whatever the barriers, we can ask God to speak to us.

For many years  I began worship services by inviting people to ask God to speak to them and let them hear His voice. I have usually added words like, “I do not believe it offends God for you to pray, ‘God if you are real, let me hear your voice.’”

I have also asked people to pray the same prayer for the persons seated on either side of them. You may not know exactly what that person needs, but God knows just what they need to hear from Him. I have also suggested that it would not be impossible for some to pray for everyone in the room, or if it were a large congregation, it would not be impossible to pray for many people all around them during the service. I am aware that many preachers have told us to pray only for ourselves in a worship service. We understand that they wanted us not to be distracted from our own needs or sins by praying for other people. However, I believe we are most likely to hear God’s voice if we are praying throughout the service.

How do you pray when you are suffering? The first thing we pray is, "Lord, deliver me! I am hurting." And I know that it could never be God's will for me to hurt. However in the Garden before the cross Jesus prayed, "Father, take this cup from me. But not my will but Your will be done." I am so thankful that it was God's will for Him to suffer. He was bruised for my inequities. He was wounded for my transgressions. Has it ever occurred to that your suffering may be the thing God will use to bring someone God loves to His grace?

You have heard the statement, "We are the Lord's hands and feet." We are His hands. And when others see the nail marks in our lives, like His disciple, Thomas, they may come to Him as their Lord and their God.

I agree that we should pray for God to deliver us from pain. But we also need to be willing for God to use our heartache, our suffering our loss and failure. When we suffer we need to pray for Jesus to be glorified in our pain. And we can pray for God to use our suffering to bring about His glorious will in someone else's life.

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I have been alarmed over the recent disasters like earthquakes in Nepal and the Philippines. I have also been concerned about potential disaster closer to my home. On the west coast we are in the midst of a multi-year drought. We are coming into summer with the least mountain snow pack ever recorded. And Texas and Oklahoma have come out of a four year drought with tornadoes and deadly flooding. Have you noticed the price of eggs? Eggs have doubled and tripled in cost is because millions of tons of chickens as well as turkeys have been slaughtered and buried because of an epidemic of bird flu. My brother kept bees for many years. He finally had to stop because so many colonies were disappearing. I heard now that 40% of bee colonies died in the past year. I noticed a display in the grocery store this week with “local honey” being sold for about $20/lb. This is also a crisis for farmers and gardeners and all of us who need to eat what grows from the ground. Without bees, fruits and vegetables will not be able to pollinate and produce.

Frankly this is a lot like Biblical predictions of the last days. I can hear the seals of Revelation 6 being broken. Doesn’t this sound like Revelation 6:6?

“And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying,

‘A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius,

and do not harm the oil and wine!’”

Of course anytime you bring such passages up in scholarly circles you find someone who will point out that such things have always happened. And that is right. But pardon me if I believe those passages are still true and will certainly be fulfilled.

However, a more important question is how should we pray, how will we pray in days of disaster? The Lord intentionally led Abraham to pray as He was preparing to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because He was going to bless all nations through him. Make no mistake. Even in days of disaster God intends to use you to share the blessing of the gospel with all the earth. In light of this I have several suggestions for how we should pray.

First, pray together and pray fervently. The first chapter of Joel calls us to call a sacred assembly and cry out to the Lord. Are things not serious enough for us to call people to come together in earnest prayer?

Second, pray that we will not fall into temptation. As Jesus warned, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Pray that you will not sin because things are tough. As with Job, God will glorify His name by our obedience in the midst of trials. We also need to pray for each other to stand strong in the face of temptation.

Third, we need to pray for hurting people as we seek to minister to them in times of crisis and judgment on the earth. When we obediently minister to hurting people in these days, we also bring supernatural power into their lives as we pray for them.

And fourth, but certainly not finally, Pray for people to repent and turn to God in the face of judgment that is coming on the earth. If you pray about this, I strongly suspect God will lay on your heart other ways to pray in the face of disaster.

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I drove by a very forbidding compound today. It had twelve foot fences with concertina wire curled around its top. Its buildings were all unpainted concrete. I saw no grass or trees. Its yards were concrete. There were high guard towers and garish flood lights. It was of course a prison. We are all familiar with this sight. They have been springing up like noxious weeds all over America. As I drove by I realized I had never prayed for this particular prison. Why was that? I suppose I have tried not to think about its presence there. God forgive me. That prison houses people Jesus told me to visit and minister to. He said visiting them was the same as visiting Him in need. I need to start praying for them. Right now I do not even know how to find the names of inmates or guards in this or any prison.  But for now I am committing to pray for this prison every time I pass the compound. I am also putting a reminder in my prayer lists to pray for this prison. And I want to start praying daily for prisons and prisoners in general. I wonder what God will do and how He will expand my prayers as I fulfill this commitment.

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Do you believe in prayer? Almost everyone does. I have even seen Buddhist prayer wheels although Buddhism is a non-theist system. The better question is do you believe in the One we pray to. We can boil this down to John 3:16. Do you believe in the Son of God? This is a poem on John 3:16 from my book I AM.

ONLY BEGOTTEN

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

God sent His Son, the fullness of His love,

He became “The Son of Man,” though God of very God,

The living incarnation from above.

No other could fulfill His loving job.

God gave His son, His heart, His very self,

The Son was God the only begotten.

He showed us how God loved and gave and felt.

He gave love the world has not forgotten.

He claimed His own who would believe in Him.

Whoever believes in God's only Son,

Would not parish with all the rest of men.

They put their faith in everything He's done.

Responding to His grace they are asking.

That He might give them life everlasting.

The question of prayer and discipleship and life contemporary and eternal is, “Do you believe in the only begotten Son of God?”

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My website has a link to the book on Amazon.com. You can also see a book trailer there.

How do you pray when you don't see your prayers being answered? Of course it is important to examine your prayers and yours motives. There may be reasons your prayers are not being answered. If that is the case, you can be sure your loving heavenly Father will show you what is wrong. But there are also times when God wants us to persevere in prayer. In Matthew 7:7,8 and Luke 11:9-13 Jesus told us to ask, seek and knock. And the tense of those verbs requires us to ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking and to knock and keep on knocking. Are you persevering?

I am praying for a spiritual awakening in America that will be part of an end time movement that will shake the earth. I believe God wants me to keep praying for that even though I don't see signs of it coming about. I have written recently about that asking those of you who read my blog to pray with me for God to bring this about. You can scroll back to the blogs on extraordinary prayer if you missed them. I have several other similar ideas that I believe have come from God that I need to keep praying for even though I don't yet see what God is doing.

More personally I am praying for people that I love dearly who have not come to Christ. My wife prayed faithfully for her grandfather for 30 years before seeing him come to faith in the last year of his life. I am praying for others who are facing great need, are trapped in some sin or are enduring painful trials. I need to admit that I do see God at work in some of these situations. But I don't see His hand in others. And I need to keep praying until God clearly tells me to stop, or shows me a different way to pray for those involved.

Are you persevering in prayer. Keep on praying. You can be sure it pleases God.

My book I AM (poetic reflections through the Gospel of John) has been released. You can see a video trailer on my website,  http://daveswatch.com/books/

http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/