March 30, 2005

• Tuesday’s Bible Study

  
  

  Pastor Don was going to begin teaching on John 11, but he asked if there were any questions that needed answering. Someone raised their hand and said that they had been attending our church several Sundays and were puzzled why we do not say the Lord’s Prayer. So we went to Luke 11 and he shared the following.

  
  

  Luke 11′s caption in NKJV is the Model Prayer (not the final format, just an example)- The disciples had observed Jesus for some time now, and they began to see that there was a linkage between the miracles that Jesus did and prayer, so naturally they asked Him to teach them how to pray.

  
  

  The disciples were being taught under the Old Covenant (for Pentecost had not come and the Holy Spirit was not given to all), so they were under mercy. If  you look at the prayers of the Psalms they are prayers that ask for God’s mercy. The New Covenant gives us the grace of God. Mercy is the kindness of God, but Grace is the abundance of God, and the power of God coming to work in our lives. It is not tit for tat, it is above and beyond our wildest imaginations.

  
  

  If you look at the punctuation in Luke 11:2 you see that it says “When you pray (comma) say (colon). A colon denotes a list of things, so Jesus gave us a list of the things that are important for prayer.

  
  

  So what are the components.

  
  

  1. Recognizing that God is God and we are not. (Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.)

  
  

  
  2. Prophesy (Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven). This is prophesy that God’s will will be done on earth. Of course it requires us asking God to let this happen, for Adam and Eve gave the world over to satan, so God now needs us to ask, so he has permission to work on the earth. After Jesus comes again and the Kingdom is restored, things will be different.

  
  

  
  3. Now here is an Old Covenant idea asking for provision under mercy (Give us day by day our daily bread.) The servants were given their bread day by day, but now we are the sons and daughters of God, so we have all the gifts of God freely given, it is in abundance to day by day. We must depend on God and rely on God, but God gives far more than our wildest expectations, why put him into a box in this?

  
  

  
  4. Another Old Covenant idea, (And forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who is indebeted to us) Yes, we do need to forgive others, Jesus makes that abundantly clear, but do we want to be on a tit for tat accounting of this, what if we forget someone we should have forgiven, what if we forgive one less than we should have, way better to rely on God’s grace saying that we have forgiven to the best of our ability, and would God’s grace cover any omission we might have made. And as we receive the abundance of the forgiveness of God through the blood of Jesus, that abundance will spill over into our world and our forgiveness of others.

  
  

  
  5. Another Old Covenant idea (And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one), That is a done deal, when Jesus died on the cross, he delivered us from the evil one. If we keep asking for deliverance from the evil one are we saying that Christ’s death does not cover all of it. Yes, we need to ask for help in our temptations, and yet we also need to know that Christ has provided all we need to resolve thought this. He died once for all.

  
  

  So then we went to Matthew 6, the other place where the Lord’s prayer is mentioned, and covered vain repetitions, how we are not to say prayers by rote, but that we need to pray from the heart. I asked, what about the woman who kept appealing to the Judge, and Pastor Don pointed out that as we pray our needs to God, we may pray often about them, but the prayers will change. The act of praying helps to form the prayer more into our mind, to shape it, change it. For example if you need a job, you may first ask for a job, that you will do anything, then the next day, you may remind God that he has promised to provide for your needs, and you need a job. Then you may ask the Holy Spirit if there is something in your life that is blocking this provision, and receive an impression of something you need to change, and over time you work through your prayer, and in God’s time the job will be provided, then you pray thanking God for his provision. It seems that thanking God for the good that He has provided, has the least amount of use, but we must be thankful for what has been given to us. Also the woman was asking the judge to judge a situation in which she was legally to receive. And her contract (ours is the Bible), needed to be judged accordingly.

  
  

  Pastor Don had us laughing when he said that he was convicted about Jesus’ statement about going to your closet to pray (before he realized that it was the head covering), and he went home and cleaned out a closet and started praying amid the smelly shoes. But God met him there. But the closet idea did not last long, or maybe the closet could have been made into an idol, build a house with a big closet, etc.

  
  

  Basically we cannot approach God with a formula. He wants intimacy, not a formula. And sometimes he just likes to hear us talk with Him, and praise Him. Often we do not think of God except when we want or need something (this is from a previous Bible study, not Tuesday’s), and sometimes the delay could just be that God wants to talk with us some and if he gives us immediately our request we will quit talking to him. The best way to have quicker answers to prayer is to pray often, even when there is no need but fellowship. God loves that and enjoys our talking with Him. (end of previous study)

  
  

  So, then the question was raised, how then are we to pray, and he said that there are wonderful examples in John 14, 15, 16 and 17. Of how Jesus went boldly before God, and spoke his needs, for we too are children of God through the blood of Christ and Christ has told us that we too can ask for anything in His name. Of course, if we are asking in His name, we have to know what we are asking, it has to align up with the Word of God, and if we are asking in Jesus’ name, it needs to be the kinds of things that Jesus would ask.

  
  

  A couple of interesting quotes, “The definition of faith is never the definition of the flesh.”

  
  

  Then a question was asked about whom do you want to pray for you. And Pastor Don gave an eye opening example. If you are in a hospital and someone prays for your healing that is good. If the doctor says that you are sick unto death, do you want a person praying “God make her death a painless death?” or do you want a prayer warrior who says, “God, you can work in the impossible, I know you can heal her inspite of what the doctor’s are saying.” So it is important to pick those who are praying for you carefully. You may not always want to pick someone who has been healed of what you have because they may want to tell you that you have to do what they did to be healed, and sometimes God wants to heal you in a different way. You want to pick someone who has your best interests at heart, and someone who is not puffed up in pride. Also when someone prophesies over you, make sure that you listen to what the Spirit has moved in your heart, not what you want to hear. You may be led astray in the flesh.
  

  
  

  He gave an example of when he was searching to minister to a church, and at that time was doing music ministry, hospital and jail ministry, but the church did not come forth. A woman prophesised to him about a church ministry, but then added now is the time…. Well in his Spirit, Pastor Don knew that now was not the time, so he did not act on this word. Had he listened to that, he would have been out of time with God’s plan, and he would not be the pastor of our church now. So it is important to be careful about prophesy as well.

  
  

  We talked about Jairus, and his daughter. Jesus was side tracked by the woman with the issue of blood, and he pointed out that the faith of the woman was what brought on her healing. She knew if she just touched the edge of His garment, then she would be healed. Jesus pointed out that it was her faith that healed her. Then the men came and told Jairus that his daughter was dead. He did a fantastic interpretation of how the crowd reacted to this news, first they were bopping along, wow, healing awesome, and look this woman was healed, can’t wait for the next healing. Then the bad news and the spirit and mood of the crowd changed. Jesus spoke to Jairus and told him to believe, he needed to get Jairus’ faith back at least to neutral, not believing the lie of death. When he got to the girl, he threw out the mourners, took in his disciples, and Jairus and the mom, but predominately it was Jesus’ faith that raised the girl for those around him still saw the flesh situation, not the spirit.

  
  

  Another quote, “We don’t see more miracles because our emotional need to see a miracle is greater than our faith to be a miracle.”

  
  

  Often we would rather see a miracle healing in others than to put ourselves into the faith to be the miracle. There is a vulnerability and a fear of failure that kicks in.

  
  

   

  
  

  Totally unrelated to the Bible study fact that blew me away. Jesus covered our sins with his blood. When the Roman soldiers were gambling for Jesus’ clothes (another covering provided from Jesus) they threw dice. Guess what the dice were made from, the bone from a lamb’s foot. A lamb had to die to provide the dice for the gambling for the clothes. sigh.

  
  

  Please note, some of the above Bible study is new to me, and if I got the doctrine or facts wrong, it is not Pastor Don, of this I am sure, it would be my mishearing.

  
  

  Heather

  • 10:18 am
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