Romans 11:33-36

Most of us enjoy feeling in control of our own schedule and grow frustrated when things don’t go according to plan. Yet if we truly desire to walk in the center of God’s perfect will, we must become willing to cooperate with His time frame.

Consider how you pray about situations in your life. Without realizing it, you may be demanding that God follow the schedule you’ve constructed according to your very limited human wisdom. Yet if we believe He is who He says He is, how can surrendering to His way not be to our benefit? Think about His unique, praiseworthy qualities:

• His all-encompassing knowledge. Unlike us, the Lord has complete awareness about our world and the details of every individual life–past, present, and future.
• His complete wisdom. God understands man’s every motive, whereas none of us are able to accurately discern people’s intentions. We make choices based on partial information, whereas He has the wisdom to take action based on truth.
• His unconditional love. Our Creator is always motivated by love and constantly has our best in mind. Unless we trust His heart, our view of reality will be distorted.
• His perfect sufficiency. At just the right time, God will provide us with everything we need to carry out His plan.

Submitting to God’s timetable requires faith and courage. Believe in the goodness of His heart and His plans–and determine to wait until He gives the signal to move forward. Then, as you follow His schedule, you’ll experience the joy of watching Him make all things beautiful in His timing.

Saint John Chrysostom wrote this about the power of prayer:

“Prayer is an all-efficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine which is never exhausted, a sky unobscured by the clouds, a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings. . . . The potency of prayer hath subdued the strength of fire, it hath bridled the rage of lions, hushed anarchy to rest; extinguished wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of death, expanded the gates of heaven, assuaged diseases, repelled frauds, rescued cities from destruction, stayed the sun in its course, and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt.”(1)

Who can read that and not be tempted to exclaim, “Is that mere rhetoric?” No, not so. Each of the instances referred to by Chrysostom is drawn right out of the Scriptures.

In all of its expressions, whether halting and short or flowing in beautiful, well-structured phrases, prayer is simply a conversation with God. If we turn prayer into a monologue or use it as a way to showcase our gift with words or as a venue for informing or instructing others who may be listening, we defeat the very purpose of prayer. The Bible makes it clear that prayer is intended as the line of connection from the heart of the praying person directly to the heart of God. Jesus himself practiced a lifestyle of prayer and urged his disciples to imitate him by making it part of their daily existence. His prayers represented prayer at its best and most sincere.

I marvel at the impact of praying with a hurting person. I have prayed many times with someone who has claimed to be a skeptic and is living in a manner that supports that claim, only to finish my prayer and open my eyes to see tears in his eyes. Although prayer remains a mystery to all of us but especially to one who lives apart from God, I have observed again and again that even the hardened heart retains a longing for the possibility of communicating with God.

Prayer can accomplish amazing things, reaching into hearts in a way that all the correct answers to questions that are honestly asked sometimes cannot do. Conversely, more certainly than anything else, sustained prayer that seems to bring nothing in response can result in a sense of futility with life and an erosion of faith. Like the myth of Sisyphus, who repeatedly rolled a huge rock up a mountain only to watch it roll down again, unanswered prayer may well be where most of those who have lost their faith began that journey into unbelief.

It is not my intention to deny the great disappointments of unanswered prayer or even to attempt to provide answers to why our prayers are not answered. Rather, I want us to take a good, hard look at what God intends prayer to be.

The most definitive passage on prayer is what is often called the Lord’s Prayer or, as some scholars like to call it, the Disciples’ Prayer. The highly significant first words carry the weight of all of prayer: “Our Father in heaven.” This is a uniquely Christian utterance. In these two words alone—”Our Father”—we recognize, at least implicitly, two truths: the nearness of God as heavenly Father, and the sovereignty of God as the one who controls everything. As soon as you cry out in prayer, “Heavenly Father,” you are recognizing his presence in your life.

And on the heels of the Lord’s Prayer and as his conclusion to it, Jesus tells us that God will give the Holy Spirit, his indwelling presence, to those who ask for it. That is the whole point of the prayer. It is not spoken in the form of a question—it ends with an exclamation point. God will give the gift of the indwelling presence of the holy God to any who ask for it—this is an absolute certainty! You can count on it!

Sadly, we hear so little of this today. We have turned prayer into a means to our ends and seldom wait on God’s response long enough to think about what he wants for us in that very moment. By reducing the evidence of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to one particular gift, we have robbed people of the Holy Presence that prompts us in prayer, prays for us when we don’t have the words to pray for ourselves, and comforts us in our times of need.

The paramount need today is the indwelling presence of God.  In this incredible twist, the indwelling presence of God, the Holy Spirit, makes God both the enabler of our prayers and the provider of answers to those prayers. More than anything else, this is what prayer is about—training one’s hungers and longings to correspond with God’s will for us—and it is what the Christian faith is all about. Paul reminds us of this numerous times. Jesus talks of the prompting from within and the provision that comes from without, which is the work of the Holy Spirit within us and the provision of God from without.

Ravi Zacharias is founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. 

Excerpted from Has Christianity Failed You? by RAVI ZACHARIAS.  Copyright © 2010 by Ravi Zacharias.  Used by permission of Zondervan; http://www.zondervan.com

(1) Quoted in Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1959), 156.

Morning    “This do in remembrance of me.”     1 Corinthians 11:24

It seems then, that Christians may forget Christ! There could be no need for

this loving exhortation, if there were not a fearful supposition that our

memories might prove treacherous. Nor is this a bare supposition: it is, alas!

too well confirmed in our experience, not as a possibility, but as a lamentable

fact. It appears almost impossible that those who have been redeemed by the

blood of the dying Lamb, and loved with an everlasting love by the eternal Son

of God, should forget that gracious Saviour; but, if startling to the ear, it

is, alas! too apparent to the eye to allow us to deny the crime. Forget him who

never forgot us! Forget him who poured his blood forth for our sins! Forget

him who loved us even to the death! Can it be possible? Yes, it is not only

possible, but conscience confesses that it is too sadly a fault with all of us,

that we suffer him to be as a wayfaring man tarrying but for a night. He whom we

should make the abiding tenant of our memories is but a visitor therein. The

cross where one would think that memory would linger, and unmindfulness would be

an unknown intruder, is desecrated by the feet of forgetfulness. Does not your

conscience say that this is true? Do you not find yourselves forgetful of Jesus?

Some creature steals away your heart, and you are unmindful of him upon whom

your affection ought to be set. Some earthly business engrosses

your attention when you should fix your eye steadily upon the cross. It is the

incessant turmoil of the world, the constant attraction of earthly things which

takes away the soul from Christ. While memory too well preserves a poisonous

weed, it suffereth the rose of Sharon to wither. Let us charge ourselves to bind

a heavenly forget-me-not about our hearts for Jesus our Beloved, and, whatever

else we let slip, let us hold fast to him.

 

Evening    “Blessed is he that watcheth.”     Revelation 16:15

“We die daily,” said the apostle. This was the life of the early Christians;

they went everywhere with their lives in their hands. We are not in this day

called to pass through the same fearful persecutions: if we were, the Lord would

give us grace to bear the test; but the tests of Christian life, at the present

moment, though outwardly not so terrible, are yet more likely to overcome us

than even those of the fiery age. We have to bear the sneer of the world–that

is little; its blandishments, its soft words, its oily speeches, its fawning,

its hypocrisy, are far worse. Our danger is lest we grow rich and become proud,

lest we give ourselves up to the fashions of this present evil world,

and lose our faith. Or if wealth be not the trial, worldly care is quite as

mischievous. If we cannot be torn in pieces by the roaring lion, if we may be

hugged to death by the bear, the devil little cares which it is, so long as he

destroys our love to Christ, and our confidence in him. I fear me that the

Christian church is far more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and

silken days than in those rougher times. We must be awake now, for we traverse

the enchanted ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our own undoing,

unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus a vehement flame.

Many in these days of easy profession are likely to prove tares, and not

wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces, but not the true-born

children of the living God. Christian, do not think that these are times in

which you can dispense with watchfulness or with holy ardour; you need these

things more than ever, and may God the eternal Spirit display his omnipotence in

you, that you may be able to say, in all these softer things, as well as in the

rougher, “We are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

 

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him.

Revelation 3:20

What is your desire this evening? Is it focused on heavenly things? Do you long to enjoy the high doctrine of eternal love? Do you desire liberty in very close communion with God? Do you aspire to know the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of His love? Then you must draw near to Jesus; you must get a clear sight of Him in His preciousness and completeness: you must view Him in His work—in His role as prophet, friend, and king—and in His person. He who understands Christ, receives an anointing from the Holy One, by which He knows all things. Christ is the great master-key of all the chambers of God: There is no treasure-house of God that will not open and yield up all its wealth to the soul that lives near to Jesus.

Are you saying, “I wish that He would live in my heart and make it His dwelling-place forever”? Open the door, beloved, and He will come into your soul. He has been knocking continually in order that you and He may break bread together. He eats with you because you provide the house or the heart, and you with Him because He brings the meal. He could not eat with you if it were not in your heart, you finding the house; nor could you eat with Him, for you would have an empty table if He did not bring the food with Him.

Fling wide, then, the portals of your soul. He will come with that love that you long to feel; He will come with that joy into which you cannot work your poor depressed spirit; He will bring the peace that now you do not have; He will come with His flagons of wine and sweet apples of love and will cheer you until you have no other sickness but that of overpowering, divine love. Only open the door to Him, drive out His enemies, give Him the keys of your heart, and He will live there forever. What wondrous love that brings such a guest to dwell in such a heart!

The family reading plan for April 25, 2012

Ecclesiastes 12 | Philemon 1