Thursday, March 18, 2010

Praying Like Paul

First off, have to say that the KCM CP chapter retreat was awesome. I definitely invite all who did not attend this year to attend next year's. I really was thinking of inviting Sam Ock but thought his presence might've been a slight distraction. Perhaps I did not give enough credit to the rest of KCM and I know Sam would have enjoyed it. In any case, one of the biggest thing we took away from the retreat was to pray like Paul did. Why don't we feel like our prayers are getting answered? Well God tends to glorify Himself in everything so praying for things that won't glorify Him may not work out so well. Paul was someone who prayed regarding God's glory; however, and so Pastor Robert was expounding on how praying like Paul started answering his own prayers much more as well.

Philippians 1:9-11
"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."

This is obviously a more God-glorifying prayer than "Please let me do well on my test tomorrow."

However, we see that there are other times where Paul offers his prayers to other groups. In Ephesians 1:17-19 it says (I'm including "I pray" in here because it's in my NIV but the website I'm getting bible verses from has omitted it and it's just easier to understand that way):

"(I pray) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might"

It's easy to see a correlation between this prayer in Ephesians and the one in Philippians. A "spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him", etc and a "love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment" are pretty similar in the ideas of themselves. However, Paul uses them to a different degree. The one from Philippians is so that we may "approve what is excellent". The one in Ephesians is so that we may "that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you". Slight differences but worth noting.

Just to expound upon it more, the Philippians prayer seems to focus more on discernment, meaning being able to judge well and tell what is right from wrong. The Ephesians prayer, while also having to do with knowledge, is more fundamental and basically wishes for your knowledge of how great God is and His great glory.

Moving right along...there's yet another one of Paul's prayers in Colossians 1:9-12

"And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light."

Yet again, we see a prayer of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. And yet again, the application is different, taking a route similar to Ephesians 4:1 and Philippians 1:27, calling them "to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord". This has more to deal with bearing good fruit. Paul later says to have endurance and patience, along with joy.

In 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12

"To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

There's no mention of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in this prayer. The main prayer was a what I thought was a bi-product of that wisdom which was being "worthy of his calling". This prayer is similar to the one in Thessalonians, yet applies more directly to God's glory instead of what being worthy applies to us for (which was the previous prayer in Colossians).

Finally, we have the last of Pauls' prayers explicitly in the Bible in Philemon 6:

"and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ."

I think Paul is praying that Philemon's evangelism may be good, conveying the whole gospel (full knowledge).




I hope this run-through wasn't too tedious but it was something I wanted to share and do for myself, so here's the summary:

Paul's cited prayers:
1. that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent
2. that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you
3. that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
4. that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you
5. that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.

Conclusions to take away from this compilation is that praying for knowledge, discernment, understanding, and wisdom will allow you to know God better and thus allow you know what is good in the sight of God. Another one is to be worthy of God's calling, bearing good fruit and also glorifying God. And the last is that we may share our knowledge well, telling of the gospel in its entirety. You may recognize that these ideas kind of lead to one another; that knowledge and discernment will lead to being able to be worthy of God, and being worthy of God means you are sharing the gospel, etc. in an endless cycle. But it's probably better to pray for all of them!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Would you die for a Chicken?

It's truly the most amazing story. Jesus Christ, God, died on the cross for my sins and yours. Why were we so important? We are foul, despicable creatures due to our sinful nature. Yet the Father gave the life of His Son for us. How much Love was needed for that act?

So I went home this weekend to a house full of poop. There was feces strewn everywhere. I kid you not. My dad had decided to take a week hiatus from the house where my cat was allowed to roam free. She's old now and like all old things, their bowel movements are prone to an increase in regularity. I imagine the litter box filled up quickly. There might have been twenty individual stains I had to clean up. I literally used up a whole container of Lysol wipes in this process.

When my mom picked me up today, I mentioned this whole ordeal and she said maybe we should give my cat away to a shelter now because it's getting difficult to take care of her and well...no one is around to do it. This seems reasonable but I am staunchly opposed to this idea. My cat is very specific to our family, our house, and perhaps me. I'm really the only one she seeks affection from. This means that the idea of giving her away to another family is kind of out of the question because she would probably end up wreaking havoc and just being a total pain for the new family.

I don't want to give her up to a shelter though because I can't imagine her living in a cage. I know she would hate it and would be so confused. I know I'm giving my cat a little too much credit with all these emotions but I'm sure any pet owner knows that an animal has a wide range of emotions (including vengeance). This is why I just came out and said to my mom, well why don't we just kill her then? Not existing is so peaceful. An animal doesn't have a soul so I don't have to worry about her not being a Christian and going to hell. It would just make everything much simpler. Obviously, I don't want to kill her. She's my cat, I've had her for twelve years now and I've become really attached to her. I feel kind of guilty for this because I'm basically saying...well you're being kind of a pain now and we don't need that. Bye bye.

I'm in a "God"-like situation here. I control her fate (for all I know). I could be a loving god and deal with all her vile, disgusting-ness. Or I could be remorseless and dump her to the waste basket. It's easy to see the parallel I'm making with the Gospel I mentioned in the beginning.

Now it's easy to say, "Hey, Genesis chapter 1 verse 26 says 'Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."'"

Because of this verse, it means that I can do with an animal what I will. I have the God given ability to do that (which means I can eat a lot of delicious meals). Yet by that same token, God has the God given ability to do with us what He will. He could kill us all at any instant if it was in His nature. We are His creation. But instead, He sent His Son to die for us. I'm sure perhaps one angel might've piped up at this time and been outraged. That God would die for something He had all authority over. It would be like me dying to save some chickens.

Jesus basically did that for us, except we're the chickens, and even on a greater and more outrageous scale than that. Thoughts?