Praying Through

Praying isn't just saying a few words to some being you can't see and hope exists; prayer is intense conversation with the Creator of the universe, and your Redeemer. Jesus repeatedly admonished His disciples and followers to pray. He asked His disciples to pray with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. When He found them sleeping in Matthew 26:40, he asked Peter, "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?"

While the disciples were sleeping Jesus was praying so earnestly that the Bible says in Luke 22:44 that His sweat became like drops of blood. I doubt that anyone has ever struggled and prayed in the fashion that Jesus did at that point. He didn't just pray a little prayer and then come back to get the disciples and wait for them to come and arrest Him. He prayed for an hour, then checked on the disciples, then prayed some more, then checked on them again, and then prayed some more. He prayed all the way until his betrayer was close at hand; until it was time to go.

We as men should follow the example that Jesus led us in here to be leaders at prayer time. We should be the first to hit the altars at altar call, and the last to leave. We shouldn't be waiting for everyone's heads to be bowed so nobody will catch us going up to pray, and we shouldn't try to sneak away from the altars while everyone is still praying to go back to our seats. Prayer is never a thing of shame; it's our opportunity to approach God's throne and talk to Him.

Also, we should be staying in prayer until we're through praying; until the conversation with God is over. We don't have to quit praying because the guy beside us got up from the altar. What greater thing could we do, and why would we be so afraid and try to hide it? Men, I urge you to get in the altars and seek God. Make a prayer time at home and seek God. Let Him speak to you through prayer, and you will never regret it.

Preparing to Run

I've recently decided that I should spend more time exercising than what I have been. One way that I thought of to do that would be to increase the amount of walking that I do until I'm in good enough shape to run. After stepping up my exercise routines for a very short time, I decided it was time to test out the new strength in my legs and see how far I could run.

Surprisingly, I was able to run a considerable distance further than I had been able to previously. When I got home that night, my legs were on fire though. The next day, my ankles hurt so bad I could hardly walk. Apparently, I had done tendon damage by not being properly prepared to run. In all my preparations to walk, I got my media player out, headphones, etc.; stretching was never on my list.

When I decided to run, I stretched first, but because I hadn't made it a habit before exercise to stretch, my body was unprepared to deal with the added stress. My legs were strong enough, the muscles could handle it. I'm reminded of our daily dealings with God in all of this. We pray a little every day, read our Bibles; we're just walking along with God. Then, we come upon a hard time, and have the need to run, and we falter or we injure ourselves because we weren't used to stretching our spiritual lives that far.

1 Timothy 4:7-8 says to exercise yourself to Godliness. You exercise normally by practicing what you want to do at the top of your training routine and you'll always be ready to do your best. If you do the bare minimum for the stage you're on, you'll find yourself injured trying to reach the next phase.

Laughed At and Destroyed

Did you know that if you're following in the will of God, He laughs at those who come against you? Not only does He laugh, He scoffs at them according to Psalms 2:1-4. The King James version uses the phrase "the Lord shall have them in derision". Derision is just a shorter way of saying extreme mockery, humiliation, or ridicule. We don't want to be associated with those that God mocks. We don't want to be part of their group, part of their "in" crowd. We don't need to try to "fit in" with the world. When we join the world in their wickedness, we become a part of the group that God Himself ridicules.

We definitely don't want to be a part of that group, and Psalms 2:5-9 tells us why. God will deal harshly and angrily with them. They will be ruled with an iron scepter, and broken like pottery. Those who don't follow after the will of God will be utterly destroyed. We see a reference to this in Jude 1:5, where it talks about the people who complained about the Manna from Heaven, and we see that God destroyed all of those who complained.

Psalms 2:10-12 tells us what to do: serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling, kiss the Son, and take refuge in Him. Jude 1:20-25 gives us a correlation to that as well, showing that not only should we take refuge in Christ, but that we should bring as many in with us as possible, saving them also from the wrath of God. Romans 12:1-2 says to give our bodies as a living sacrifice, and not conform to the world, but let God transform our minds to follow Christ. Let us not join in the world and be mocked and destroyed by God, but let's follow Jesus and save as many as we can through His power in our lives.

Sacrifices (Part 2 of 2)

Yesterday, we looked at Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his own son in order to follow God's command. If you didn't read it and you aren't very familiar with the story, you should go back and read it now. We're going to pick up in Genesis 22:11-12, where we see the angel of the Lord stop Abraham from sacrificing his son. Abraham didn't have to kill his son. God knew the intention of Abraham's heart, and that he would have sacrificed his son to serve God.

And now, in Genesis 22:13, we see the faith that Abraham had exhibited in Genesis 22:8 paying off. Abraham finds a ram stuck in a thicket. There's another recurring theme here, though, that we should be aware of: a sacrifice still had to be made. The angel didn't just stop Abraham from sacrificing his son, and they just go on home. There was a replacement sacrifice offered in place of Isaac. This is very much symbolic of the way that God provided His Son to die in place of us, the Lamb of God, that we wouldn't have to die for our sins.

In Genesis 22:14, we see Abraham give a name to the place, and it's a phrase that we hear from time to time. He called it Jehovahjireh (Genesis 22:14 KJV (KJV)), which interpreted means "The Lord Will Provide". The Lord provided a sacrifice in place of Isaac, and because of Abraham's complete obedience, He makes him another promise in Genesis 22:15-18. Our complete obedience to God will never lose us more than we gain. Sometimes it may seem like we're following God, and we're going to lose everything that's important to us, everything we hold dear.

Remember that no matter what we're tasked with, we need to do it in faith believing that God will provide for us. If we do that, we will be blessed. Jehovahjireh, The Lord Will Provide!

Sacrifices (Part 1 of 2)

Today, we enter the life of Abraham, and we see God, much like in the instance of Job, placing a burden on a man as a test to see if that man will follow through with the instruction of the Lord. The story begins in Genesis 22:1-2, where we see God tell Abraham to take the only son he has with his wife Sarah and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. The very next thing we see is Genesis 22:3, and Abraham has gotten up early the next morning, packed everything he needed, and set out to where God had told him to go.

As the story goes on, we see that Abraham arrives and takes his son up the mountain. We pick up again in Genesis 22:7, and we see now the son Isaac questioning his father, "Where is the lamb?" The response from Abraham is amazing in Genesis 22:8. Abraham says the one thing that is both true and faithful that he can in this situation. God had already provided him his son, as we see in Genesis 18:1-15, and Abraham had faith that the Lord would provide a sacrifice. Both options were true, and both options were faithful.

God had promised Abraham that he would establish his covenant through Abraham's heirs through Isaac (Genesis 17:19). Isaac at this time was still very young, and, as far as we know, had no children. Abraham had to have faith that God's promise would be fulfilled, and that Isaac would somehow survive this. And if Isaac were not to survive, the Lord had still provided the sacrifice, as He had provided the son, Isaac.

The story continues, and we see in Genesis 22:9-10 Abraham builds an altar, binds his son on the altar, and prepares to sacrifice his son. How far would we go to serve God? Would we go all the way to giving up the ones we love in service to our Master? This is an amazing example of faith and obedience, we see that Abraham never questions, never complains, and never hesitates. He simply does as God commanded. If we do question, hesitate, or complain, we're not much of a servant, are we? How can we call Jesus our Master, but not do as He commands?

A man of God may question his elder, he may question his spiritual leaders, he may even question his pastor, but a man of God can't hesitate in following God's commands. Tomorrow we'll see the result of this blind faith and obedience, and how God provides for those who follow Him. We'll see how one of the names we call God came to be.