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“Master, would you teach us to pray?”
“Sure. Approach God as your Father, and align yourself with His agenda. Ask Him to fulfill all your needs: provision, forgiveness, and guidance. Just ask, and He’ll give you all these things. He’ll also give you the Holy Spirit, if you’ll ask.”
“Ok, I was with you, right up until the ‘Holy Spirit’ part. Where did that come from?”
Sometimes, when Jesus answers a question, there is a part of …
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What would it mean to “keep Christ in Christmas?”
At this time of year, I frequently hear of the need to “keep Christ in Christmas,” that we are loosing the “reason for the season,” and that recovering a proper emphasis at Christmas must be a priority. Indeed, the trends seem to reflect a declining Christian influence. Christmas break has become Winter Break, “Merry Christmas” is replaced by “Happy Holidays,” and public nativities with Jesus in …
(We are taking a break from our Dependence on God series to spend a couple of weeks looking at Christ and Christmas. We will pick up with the final discussion of Jesus’ teaching on prayer in Luke 11 with the first article in January.)
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We got to know Clay and Patty through our involvement in youth sports. Their son played on a football team I coached.
As we got to know them, we learned Clay had …
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Ever feel like God is ignoring you? Like your prayers are just dripping off the ceiling?
Have you ever prayed for days, weeks, months, even years for something that seemed really critical, and still God didn’t seem to come through?
Probably all of us have.
After seminary we moved to Colorado to pastor a church. Although we persistently prayed for our house in Fort Worth to sell, it didn’t. Dad had to take over payments, and it …
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You can pray like Jesus. Really.
In Luke 11:1, the disciples come to Jesus after one of His frequent prayer times, asking Him to teach them how to pray. In other words, they were saying, “Teach us how to do what you’ve been doing.”
Of course, He grants their request, and in so doing, teaches how to pray like Him.
Let me pause here for a brief detour, relevant to our discussion.
Much of what I share with …
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Jesus, living among men — what must that have been like?
How do you envision that? Something like Superman goes to kindergarten? I mean, He was the Son of God… right?
Of course He was. And is.
But if we emphasize His deity and minimize His humanity, we end up with a caricature – a distorted picture – of His earthly existence and His identity. For, while He came to earth as the Son of God, …
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For 400 years God went silent.
After the ministry of Malachi, we have no record of any communication from God until John the Baptist. But as we move into the Gospels, there is a flurry of communication, centering on Jesus’ arrival.
Zacharias receives a message from God through the angel, Gabriel, promising him a son – John the Baptist (Luke 1:8-20). Note that, because he doubted the message, the angel muted him until John was born.
Gabriel …
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“God hears & answers every prayer. Yes. No. Later. Those are his answers.”
I don’t recall how long it’s been since I first heard that, but I know it showed up pretty early in my journey. Maybe bible college. Nevertheless, I do remember how obviously true it seemed. Indeed, it seems to be accepted as God’s truth in evangelical circles today.
Perhaps, because it makes the point that God answers our prayer in His time, not …
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God gets blamed for a lot of stuff.
When Kasie and I were in Bible College, the church we attended had an extensive children’s ministry, which, of course, required a lot of workers. Two of these workers, a man and a woman, – married, but not to each other – were convinced that God was leading them to divorce their spouses and run off together to get married. In Vegas.
Also from Bible College comes the …
(A Note to Those Following The Exploring Dependence article series – These articles have always been about sharing the adventures of my journey with God. For the most part, they have reflected one long conversation, as it naturally unfolds. But occasionally, I sense that I should share from a different portion of my journey. This is one of those occasions. I plan to return to Dependence with the next article.)
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My Dad used to tell …
