Commit to Know God's Will

We are created in God's image. One of the implications of that reality is that we are to live out God's character in our lives. The best life, the life we were created to live, is discovered in doing God's will.

Since God created us to do His will, then it is logical to assume that God will not hide His will from us. He wants us to know His will.

How do we discover God's will?

We discover God's will by studying His word. The combination of the Bible and the Holy Spirit allow us to know and do God's will.

This is the point Henry and Richard Blackaby make in the book Hearing God’s Voice:

Many people underestimate God’s Word. It is far more powerful than many realize. From Genesis to Revelation God’s Word has the power to speak directly to a person’s heart. By the Holy Spirit, God takes his written Word and applies it specifically to people’s lives...The Bible is not merely one option for discovering God’s will. God’s written Word is the plumb line for our lives as we walk daily with him (p. 91).

If we hope to discover God’s will then the starting point needs to be the Bible. The Bible is God's revealed word to us, and the Holy Spirit is our divine teacher who helps us understand how God's will applies to our lives.

Finish reading at Paul's Ponderings: Commit to Know God's Will

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Creating the Future

The lives that we are currently living are the results of choices that were made. These choices include the choices we made, the choices that other people have made that have intersected with our lives, and the choices God has made. The reason we can be optimistic about the future is because God has chosen to get involved.

 

The future is the sum total of all the choices that are made in the present and in the past. Fortunately, that sum total includes the choices made by God.

Erwin McManus, Uprising, p. 237

The world we live in is the product of billions of choices. Each of every person who has every lived has had a hand in shaping this world.

This is why the idea of parallel universes is so appealing. A parallel universe allows us to dream about the “what ifs” of life. We can imagine what life would have been like if we would have gone out for the football team, asked a certain girl out for a date, or applied ourselves in the classroom. Just think there might be a universe out there where I am a Batman type superhero.

All of us have made choices that we now regret. We would love to go back and change them, but as the great theologian Eddie Money taught us, we can’t go back and do things over. The past is the past and we can’t go back and make different choices.

Even if there were other parallel universes out there the alternate me making different or better choices doesn’t affect my life. The only life that affects me is the life that I am currently living.

Finish reading at Creating the Future » Paul's Ponderings

 

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Linkage: Is Modern Israel the Key

I thought this article from Christian Standard is an important one for us to read and consider.

Is the founding of the modern state of Israel a sign that Jesus will return soon? Does God judge today’s nations based on how they treat Israel, or Jews in general? Does the Bible teach Christians always to side with Israel in conflicts with its neighbors? 

Many American Christians would answer all of these questions in the affirmative. Through the influence of popular preachers and writers, they have come to believe the modern state of Israel plays a clear and crucial role in the Bible. They are therefore prepared to give unconditional, unqualified support to the nation of Israel, believing that their own nation’s safety and prosperity depend on it. And they believe that events in the Middle East are indicators that Jesus will return very soon.

Continue reading Is Modern Israel the Key to God’s Plan?
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Daily Thought: Pray for Strength to Do God's Will

We tend to pray only for what we want and give little thought to what God wants of us at a particular moment. I sometimes think God would answer our prayers sooner if they were directed more to doing his will, and if our hearts were moved by the good spirit to ask what God wanted. Let me say it like this: God needs us every day – he needs people to carry out his will – so we should not pray for what we would like, but rather ask for the strength to do what he would have us do.

J. Heinrich Arnold. Discipleship: Living for Christ in the Daily Grind (Kindle Locations 174-177). Plough Publishing.

Think About the Blessing not the Circumstances

Daily Thought: God Will Accomplish His Plans

"Because God has chosen to create a cosmos populated with free agents, God's sovereignty is established as much by his wisdom as it is by his power.  He gives humans and angels the power to say no to him so they also might have the power to say yes to him.  But though these agents are able to thwart his will to some extent, God is nevertheless able to wisely accomplish his overall purposes in spite of, and sometimes by means of, their rebellion."

Gregory Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil, IVP Academic (2001), p. 112

Daily Thought: Vigorously Do God's Will

"'Thy will be done.' But a great deal of it is to be done by God's creatures; including me.  The petition, then, is not merely that I may patiently suffer God's will but also that I may vigorously do it.  I must be an agent as well as a patient.  I am asking that I may be enabled to do it.  In the long run I am asking to be given 'the same mind which was also in Christ.'" ~ C. S. Lewis; The Joyful Christian, p. 87

Daily Thought: Not Our Will but His Will

"A missionary is one sent by Jesus Christ as He was sent by God.  They great dominant note is not the needs of men, but the command of Jesus.  The source of our inspiration in work for God is behind, not before.  The tendency to-day is to put the inspiration ahead, to sweep everything in front of us and bring it all out to our conception of success.  In the New Testament the inspiration is put behind us, the Lord Jesus. The ideal is to be true to Him, to carry out His enterprises." ~ Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, p. 300

Daily Thought: God Will Speak

"We constantly want God to 'show us Your will for my life' even after He has assured us that He is doing just that.  But God will do it in His way and in His time.  We want to help God! He does not need our help; we need His help!  The 'silences' of God do not mean He is late, or inactive, or not working.  It means that this is where faith works!  We are to continue faithfully doing the last things that we heard from God, with confident expectation that in God's 'fullness of time' He will speak and not delay." ~ Henry Blackaby, Created to be God's Friend, p. 117

Daily Thought: A Life of Doing Good

"One of the most-asked questions among sincere followers of Jesus Christ is, 'What is God's will for my life?'  We want a detailed map or plan.  We want God to spell it out so we can follow the instructions.  Too often we want it clear and uncomplicated, but God simply does not work like that.  For a lot of us the most spiritual thing we can do is to do something—to turn right when we want to turn left.  So we must move beyond simply choosing between right and wrong.  We must resolve not only to leave the path of doing evil, but also passionately pursue a life of doing good." Erwin McManus, Seizing Your Divine Moment, p. 43

Daily Thought: Surrendered to God's Will

"The strongest human will is always the one that is surrendered to God's will and acts with it." ~ Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 152

The Proper Response to God's Will

This morning in my devotional reading I read this from Oswald Chambers:

"It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we mistake panic for inspiration.  That is why there are so few fellow workers with God and so many workers for Him.  We would far rather work for God than believe in Him" (My Utmost for His Highest, p. 153)

There are opposite extremes that Christians make in their relationship with God.  The first extreme is that we sit and do nothing and call it waiting on God.  I know that this is the extreme I am most guilty of doing. I will fill my life with reading, meditating, and praying to avoid what I know God has called me to do.  Why do I do this?  This is my response to the fear I experience in the face of obedience.  I justify my lack of obedience and trust in God on my dedication to hearing His voice.

The other extreme is what Oswald Chambers talks about.  It is being so fearful about what is happening around us that we decide that doing something is better than doing nothing.  Rather than waiting on God's timing we try to create our own perfect opportunity.  The classic example of this is Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar.  Abraham and Sarah's fear of being childless overtook their trust in God's timing and so they decided to give God a hand rather than to wait on His plan.

So how can we find the balance in the midst of these two extremes?  I am not really sure I have an answer for that question, but I think it would begin with daily surrendering our lives to God.  One of the passages I that I have kept coming back to is Romans 12:1-2.  In this passage the apostle Paul writes:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (ESV).

I think part of our daily prayer needs to be a time when we surrender our lives, our bodies, as living sacrifices to God, to be used as He sees fit.  In this act of surrendering we open ourselves up to discovering God's will.  Once we understand what God's will is it will still require us to act in faith to do it according to His plan, but it does help us understand the type of response God desires us to have.

What Would Jesus Say to Me?

As I prepare to jump back into Marshall Leggett's book Introduction to the Restoration Ideal I want to remind us of a very important truth: we belong to God and what matters most in our lives is His will.

On page 19 Leggett writes:

Then something happened. The church began to lose its purity. The New Testament church penetrated the world, and it seemed that nothing could stop its momentum. No outside force, not even the power of Caesar, could blunt its progress. However, change began to evolve from within. Whereas the New Testament church had penetrated the world, its successors became penetrated by the world. It ceased to be the sect 'spoken against' (Acts 28:22) and became in vogue; not just in the world, but of the world. The church began to leave the plan Jesus had given.

I wonder what Jesus would say to us? If He sent us letters like the letter He sent to the Seven Churches of Revelation what would He write? I would bet that they would contain much of the same things. I think He would praise us for our willingness to stand up for right and wrong, but I think He would condemn us for leaving our first love. I believe He would be upset by the sexual immorality (from pornography to sexual abuse) that we have allowed to infiltrate our churches. I think Jesus would be upset at how much we have grown to be like the world rather than becoming like Him.

We can lose sight of what Jesus Christ has called us to do. Let's face it it is very easy to get distracted by politics, by technology, by church growth techniques, and by the latest Christian fad that the true mission of Jesus to make disciples of all nations can fall by the wayside.

When you couple distractions with an increasing uninterested public all of sudden we are trying to figure out how to keep the crowd rather than worshipping God, and we seek the advice of "experts" rather than seeking God's will.  What happens is that we begin to look increasingly like the rest of the world rather than the holy nation we were called to be.

But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are a kingdom of priests, God's holy nation, his very own possession. This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. "Once you were not a people; now you are the people of God. Once you received none of God's mercy; now you have received his mercy." Dear brothers and sisters, you are foreigners and aliens here. So I warn you to keep away from evil desires because they fight against your very souls. Be careful how you live among your unbelieving neighbors. Even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will believe and give honor to God when he comes to judge the world (1 Peter 2:9-12; NLT).

What God desires from us, more than a religion that is in vogue with the population and more than political agendas, are people who are wholly devoted to Him. People willing to live differently than the rest of the world, Churches willing to extend a helping hand to people, and Christians who give their passions, time, and money so that disciples are made of all nations.

I want to challenge you today to stop and take a look at your life and your church. Ask yourself, "What would Jesus say to me?" Take some time to pray asking God to show You His desire for your life and church. Consider if what you think is important is the same thing God knows is important.

The only way to be where God wants us to be, the only way we can remain pure, is to give ourselves to what God has commanded us to do. This requires us to understand what He has revealed about Himself in the Bible and trusting Him to show us where we need to be. We can be the People God wants us to be. It begins with out willingness to do things God's way rather than our way.

Discover the Value of the Bible

Stop and ponder for a moment this question: If God wants us to do His will would He make it difficult to discover?  It is my belief that we miss out on God’s will, not because He has withheld it from us, but because we desperately want Him to bless our agenda.  Rather than going to His Word to discover and align our lives to His Will we plead with God to align Himself with our will.  We especially do this when our agenda seems to be so good.

I want you to consider what Henry and Richard Blackaby wrote in Hearing God’s Voice:

Many people underestimate God’s Word.  It is far more powerful than many realize.  From Genesis to Revelation God’s Word has the power to speak directly to a person’s heart.  By the Holy Spirit, God takes his written Word and applies it specifically to people’s lives...The Bible is not merely one option for discovering God’s will.  God’s written Word is the plumb line for our lives as we walk daily with him (p. 91).

If we hope to discover God’s will then the starting point will be the Bible.  Too many of us start within ourselves: our dreams and our desires.  The result is that we are led astray from what God truly expects from our lives, as we pursue the life that we want.  You see it is easier to live our lives based on our emotions and desires rather than to discipline ourselves to the study and obedience of God’s Word.  We would rather spend a few moments of self-reflection than doing an hour’s worth of studying the Bible.  Yet, it is the Bible that provides us the foundation we need for knowing and doing God’s will.

You and I can spend the rest of our lives aligning them to the truth we find in Scripture.  God doesn’t need to get anymore specific, and He certainly doesn’t need to get any clearer.  The Bible, being the very words of God, give us what we so long to have: the knowledge of God’s will.

Since the Bible is God’s Word and since it is the source of His will that means we need to make two commitments when it comes to the Bible.  If we do not make these commitments then the Bible will not have any value to us.  That is precisely why these commitments are so important to make.

The first commitment is to commit to knowing the Bible.  The author of Hebrews wrote; For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12; ESV).  The Bible, which is God’s Word, has the ability to get to the heart of the matter, if we take the time to really get to know what it says.  I fear that too many people miss the power of Scripture because they are so intent on reading the Bible they don’t take the time to study or meditate on God’s Word. 

While I want to urge you to read the Bible, I also want to challenge you to do three things.  First, I want to challenge you to submit yourself to the teaching of solid Bible teachers.  This is one of the reasons it is valuable to be part of a good Bible teaching Church, but in our day and age we can put ourselves under the teaching of people who teach the Bible on a daily basis.  Find good books written by sound teachers and find podcasts by teachers who correctly handle the word of God so that you can benefit from their study and insight.  A second activity I would challenge you to do is to meditate on Scripture.  When a passage jumps up at you take the time to think about the passage, pray and ask God about it, and then jot your thoughts down in a journal or the margin of your Bible.  The third activity I urge you to adopt is to memorize Scripture.  Memorization is the best way I know to get God’s Word into our hearts and minds so that it is able to constantly inform the way that we live.

The second commitment that we need to make is that we need to commit to applying Scripture to our lives.  I like the illustration James uses for this truth:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (James 1:22-25; ESV).

Knowing the Bible does us little good if we are not committed to aligning our lives to the truth we discover on its pages.  How are we able to do that?  The only way I know how to do this consistently is to be part of a community or a fellowship which challenges and encourages our spiritual growth.  This begins with being part of a good church, but it also includes have a close group of friends who are committed to following Christ Jesus.  Our dearest and closest friends need to be Christians who are committed to doing whatever it takes to follow Jesus.  Another essential thing we can do is develop a plan that leads to change.  We need to think about how to pray and ask for God’s assistance, we need to know the steps to take to cut sin out of our lives, and we need to know who we can turn to for support and encourage as step out in obedience.  Without a plan, that is based on God’s Word, we will not be able to align our lives to God’s will.  We need to be intentional about obedience otherwise our obedience will be spotty at best.

The Bible is valuable to our lives because it is God’s Word.  If we hope to live a life that honors and glorifies Him then we must make the Bible a big part of our lives.  It must become the source that informs the way we live our lives.  That mean means we have to know it and we have to obey it.  When we make those two commitments we will discover that the Bible is indeed the precious Word of God.

Sunday Quote: Who Opened the Door?

"The problem with open doors is the emphasis is erroneously placed on the door rather than on God.  Some people enter open doors under the mistaken assumption that God only allows good opportunities to come their way.  Therefore, any good opportunity that comes along must be from God.  Looking for open doors can appear easier than developing a relationship with God.  Various opportunities, including questionable business opportunities and marriage proposals, can be treated as open doors.  As you might imagine, this can often lead to disastrous results...Simply entering an open door without checking to see if God opened it can bring catastrophic consequences." ~ Henry and Richard Blackaby, Hearing God's Voice,  pp. 144-45

Set Our Minds

One of the reasons it is essential to be people of the Book is because it allows God to use the truth it contains to capture our attention. What amazes me is that God will use certain books or passage to really hammer home truth into our hearts. One of the books that God has been using over and over again in my life is the book of Colossians.

This morning I was reading through Colossians once again when I was struck by verses 1-4 of chapter 3. In this passage the apostle Paul writes:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (ESV)

I want you to keep in mind, because it is foundational to what I have to say, that salvation and transformation begins and ends with God. It begins with God’s promise to bless all the nations of the world through Abraham and his descendant, it continues through Christ Jesus (the promised descendant of Abraham), and ends with the return of Jesus and the coming of the Kingdom in all of its glory.

Without God’s initiative, without God’s promise, and without Christ’s faithfulness we would have no hope, no matter what choices we might make. Our hope and our lives are bound up in the actions of our loving heavenly Father.

Yet, that does not mean that we have no part in the transformation process. Paul tells us that there is something that we must do, a choice that we must make. We are to set our minds on the things that are above. This requires an act of the will, for if we don’t choose to set our minds on the things of God, then it will not happen.

So what must we do if we are going to set our minds on the things that are above? First, it requires us to get rid of the negative and earthly things that grab our attention and focus. It means going through our movie collection and chucking those movies that take our hearts down paths that we shouldn’t go. It means buying software that will limit the access that we have online so that we are not tempted to view things that we shouldn’t see. It means saying goodbye to friends that lead us town dark pathways and away from God.

It is not good enough to get rid of the old, but we also have to replace the old with something new. Part of this means that instead of putting junk into our hearts and minds we are putting positive and God-honoring messages into our lives. I think we understand this truth, and many of us have made it this far. We have shunned the negative and we have embraced the positive, but things are still not what they should be. The distractions still come and pull us off course taking us down the paths of sin.

I believe that there is another step that we must take. We have to make the decision to add to our lives certain spiritual disciplines that will help us gain control of the flesh and will help us live more fully by the guidance of the Spirit. We need disciplines like Bible study (private and group), prayer, fasting, simplicity (living a simple life), generosity, and service. Being devoted to these disciplines will allow our hearts to be opened up to God truth, and will make it possible for us to implement that truth to the way we live our lives.

Not only do we have to add spiritual disciplines to our lives, but I think we also have to speak about what God is doing in our lives. So much of the time I think we miss out on what God is doing in our lives because we are not focused on what God is doing in our lives. We miss out on the connection between the changes that are taking place and God’s activity. By speaking out about God and changes in our lives helps us to make that connection, it sharpens our focus on God and His activity in this world, especially His activity in our lives.

God took the initiative to save us from sin and death. Let us respond to that initiative by focusing our lives on the things that come from God. Let us set our minds of the things that are above.

A Shut Door

Originally posted on December 13, 2004

God is surrounded by mystery. Yes, God has revealed Himself to us, and as a result we can understand certain aspects of who He is. We cannot understand God in His entirety, there is no way our finite minds could understand God in His entirety. God’s ways are not our ways, so there will always be a mystery about God.

When we ignore this reality and construct a box to put God into we miss out on the opportunity to experience God at work in our lives. One way this is seen is the common belief that God opens “doors” to reveal His will to us. By doing this we miss out on experiencing so much of what God wants to do through our lives.

Many times in the Bible God didn’t open doors for people to go through. One might even conclude that God revealed His will and then locked the door. God told Moses to go to Pharaoh to demand that Israel be sent free. Moses went, but the task was not easy. Obstacle after obstacle was put in Moses’ way. There were Pharaoh’s hard heart, Israel’s unbelief, and Egypt’s dependance on Israel’s cheap labor. Given our thinking Moses would have given up after the miracle of turning water into blood didn’t convince Pharaoh. It was Moses commitment to God’s will that he, along with all the Israelites and Egyptians, eventually experienced God’s power.

Here is another example. God crowns Saul as king, but the Philistines are in control of Israel. Saul’s first duty is to gather an army to kick the Philistines out. An army of 3,000 is raised. 2,000 stay with Saul and 1,000 go with Jonathan. Jonathan takes his 1,000 men and begins to attack Philistine outposts. The result is that Jonathan and his men experience success. Jonathan’s men had so much success that the Philistines send in 30,000 men along with horses and chariots. Israel had 3,000 men and two swords and no spears. Out manned and out gunned all but 600 men run into the hills and in the process the door was slammed shut in the face of Jonathan. This is when we say, “I guess it is not God’s will for me to fight the Philistines.” If you read the account in 1 Samuel 14 you discover that was the reaction of King Saul, but Jonathan took his sword and his armor bearer and took the fight to the Philistines. God didn’t open a door for Jonathan, but He did give Jonathan an understanding of what His will was, and as a result the Israelites and the Philistines experienced God’s power.

James 1:12 reads; God blesses the people who patiently endure testing. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him (NLT). An open door is no more an indication of God’s will than a closed one. We experience God’s blessing when we do what we know God’s will is, even when all the circumstances are against us. We have been taught to give up too soon, and the result has been that we have missed the blessings God has wanted to give us.

Stop waiting for God to open the door before you take a step of faith. Start moving toward the wall and trust God to get you to where you need to go. It is this act of faith that will lead us to experience God’s power first hand.


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Selfishness and God's Kingdom

I was reading Exodus 4 this morning in my devotional time. Exodus 4, you will recall, is part of the account that details Moses' call to confront Pharaoh and lead Israel. The chapter begins with God giving Moses signs that were designed to give Moses confidence in his calling, and yet Moses doubts.

I was struck by verse 13 this morning: But he said, "Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever You will" (NASB). The reason it struck me is because I am used to reading this out of the NLT which says, "send anyone else."

Moses is asking God to send whoever God wills to send, when he IS the one God desires to send. Moses was not interested in God's will be done, he was hoping to get out if a difficult task.

I can see this same problem in my life. "God, may You will be done on earth, as long as you find someone else to do it." My faith will only take me so far.

This desire to avoid the difficult raises two questions in my mind. The first is, "What have I missed out on because of my unwillingness to do the hard thing?" If Moses continued to refuse to go he would gave missed out on the whole experience of leading Israel and witnessing the plagues God brought on Eygpt.

I probably won't know for certain until the end of time, but I think it is a safe assumption to say that my lack of courage and faith has caused me to miss out on experiencing God's power at work in the world around me.

The second question it raises is, "Why do I avoid things that are difficult?" I am sure that there are many ways that this could be answered, depending the task that is at hand, but I am fairly confident that it all comes done to our desire for life is greater that our desire to see God's Kingdom come into the earth.

In other words we are selfish, well at least I am selfish. I don't want to risk my reputation, my money, my life, or anything else if I am not guaranteed to be generously compensated (at least in a way that I think is generous).

At the end of the day what we discover is that our selfishness keeps us from experiencing God at work in our lives and in the world around us. This means that we have to make a decision. What is more important to us: our lives or being part of God's kingdom? The way we consistently choose to live will reveal the answer.

Aligning Our Lives to God's Will

“The places we go, the friendships we embrace, the language we use, the shows we watch, the books we read, the thoughts we entertain—all must be aligned with the purpose to which we are called by God.” ~ Ravi Zacharias, Cries of the Heart

There is importance to the things we do every day. The choices we make about where we go and the people we spend time with affect who we are and what we accomplish with our lives. The decisions we make concerning the every day choices we face either help us or hinder us in living out God’ purpose for our lives.

God has created us for a purpose. So many of us miss out on that purpose because we get caught in the busy-ness flow of life. Discovering the specific purpose of our lives (the general purpose for everyone is to love God and to love people) requires a decision to step out of the current of society to follow Jesus wherever He decides to lead us. The choices we make everyday must reflect our desire to follow Jesus, and thus our purpose for life begins to take shape.

This means we need to become more discriminating in how we live our lives. More thought needs to be put into what movies we watch. Better discernment is needed in who we have as our closest friends. Holiness and purity must flow from our hearts and minds. We will never be able to live out our God given purpose if we remain within the stream of culture.

We need to be different. Not so much different in the way we look, but different in the choices we make. Our lives must be aligned to God’s will, and in the end that will make us different. The prophet Isaiah reminds us, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD” (Isaiah 55:8; NLT). By choosing to follow Jesus and to live according to God’s plan, we will be different because God’s ways are different than the ways of man.

As we follow Jesus our priorities change. Luke records these encounters people had with Jesus.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:57-62; ESV).

What Jesus makes clear is that His priorities are different from the priorities of other people. The priorities of these men weren’t necessarily sinful, but these earthly priorities did prevent the men from making a full commitment to Christ. The Kingdom of God isn’t about houses, jobs, and families, rather it is about doing what King Jesus has asked us to do. It is changing from what we believe to be important to what the King says is important. The entire scope of our lives need to be aligned to God’s will.  This is exactly the way Jesus lived His life.

It is hard to give up the control of our lives and surrender to Jesus. Yet, the way we discover true life is to align our purpose for living with God’s will for our lives. Only by doing God’s will do we discover what it means to truly live.

Joining God

If Christians are honest about prayer we would admit that it is often a hit or miss enterprise. There are times when it seems that there are more misses than they are hits, and when God does answer our prayers (at least the way we think He should) we use that one hit as absolute proof that prayer works. So let us be honest for a moment, aside from anecdotal evidence, there really is no solid evidence that prayer does anything in this world. In fact, there are times when prayer seems to raise more questions than it answers.

For example, when my dog, Barkley (who is all of 20 pounds), got hit by a big SUV in January I thought he was going to die. As I rode the fifteen miles to the vet’s office I started to pray and I called a few friends and family and asked them to pray; it was a short time later that Barkley started showing signs of life, and then I knew that he was going to be alright. I am convinced that prayer saved Barkley’s life, but I can’t prove that it did. I have no idea what would have happened if we didn’t pray and so all I can go on is my feeling (hardly the stuff evidence is made of).

Here is the question this event raises in my mind: If I say that God saved Barkley’s life through the few minutes of prayer of faithful people, why didn’t God save my Uncle Tim from cancer based on the months and months of many faithful people? I don’t know, and from our perspective it makes no sense that God would save the life of a dog, but not the life of a person. Even for faithful followers of Christ Jesus there is a mystery to prayer that we cannot explain, and yet we still pray. Why is that?

Part of the reason is because we understand that prayer is an act of faith. Prayer is appealing to our Heavenly Father, who is unseen (Matthew 6:6), to intercede on our behalf. Yes, to the unbeliever this seems to be an act of lunacy (talking to an invisible friend), but to the follower of Christ Jesus it is a way of connecting with our Heavenly Father.

A second reason why Christians pray is because we understand that prayer is essential in ushering in God’s Kingdom. We discover this in the middle of the model prayer that Jesus gave to us; “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10; ESV). We pray because we want to join God in the work He is doing in bringing life to people, opposing evil, comforting people who hurt, and restoring creation.

As we pray a transformation takes place in our lives. We realize that for God’s Kingdom to come, for His will to be done, we, who are called by His name, must choose to do it. So followers of Christ give money to bring food, medicine, and water to people who desperately need it. Christians leave the comfort of their homes to live among the hurting and brokenhearted to provide hope and help for those who have neither. Christ Followers establish hospitals, food pantries, colleges, and other charitable organizations in order to help the most people as possible. Through it all, the Christian understands that the greatest need people have is for the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and so we spend time telling others about the hope found in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Christians pray, not because they want to avoid doing the hard work of ministry, but because they realize the task of making a real difference in this world is bigger than what they can do in their own strength. We pray so we can join God in what He is doing in this world and be part of ushering in His Kingdom of light and love. Ultimately prayer is not about asking for a miracle, it is about joining God in the work He is already doing in the world.