Prayer for Today

I found this prayer online.  It is from a book, "The Collects of Thomas Cranmer", and it says it all:

Almighty and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve, pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy, forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid and giving unto us that which our prayer dare not presume to ask; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In a couple of days, I'll be going with 36 other men into Zephyrhills Correctional for 4 days to present the Gospel of Christ to inmates.  I find myself each time I go into these situations, feeling a little reluctant at first; during, and after the weekend however, I am once again amazed at the healing that God does for these men.  I think God does some healing, and work on the team members also.  

The inmates are reluctant at first.  At first they come as it is a break in the monotony of prison life.  After hearing the Truth of the Gospel, the Love of Christ, and the Forgiveness of God, many accept it, and count Jesus as their Lord, and Saviour.  It is an exciting time!

I am counting on this prayer for this weekend.  Praise God!

Prayer

We had our last team meeting on Saturday, and it was beautiful.  There was singing, and praising God.  At the beginning of the meeting we found one of the brothers on the team, who has been suffering from vertigo, was having some issues. We gathered around him, and prayed that God would relieve him of his vertigo.  So yes, we prayed for healing.  We didn't see any healing, as E.C. continued to suffer from his affliction.  At the end of the day, I think he had to be driven home.  I kept wondering why he wasn't relieved.  What I saw was people coming around him, and serving him, and helping him.  God was showing the necessity of being a servant, and allowing others to serve.  He usually takes his medication, but it didn't work this day;  naturally, we did what we thought was the right thing to do, so we prayed for him, but the result was different than what we expected.

Today in "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers talks about prayer.  "Prayer doesn't equip us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work."  He goes on to say that we get it mixed up, and I have to agree.  We think that prayer prepares us the greater work, but prayer is the greater work.  I get it messed up a lot, but today, I prayed for E.C.  I won't know what happened until I see him again next week when we go into the prison.  I'm also praying for two inmates, Gregory Leaf, and Harry Dean.  I'm praying that God will prepare their hearts for a wonderful time in praise, and worship of our Lord.  I'm also praying for God to prepare my heart for the weekend; after the real work, prayer, is done, lives will be changed, and Satan will be sent packing.  “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest”, Matthew 9:38.

Random Stuff for Monday 10/18/2010

1. Extremist is a Theological Category - With all the stuff we see on TV now, and how it's become the source of lot of people's beliefs, here's a good write up on the new whipping boy for political pundits.  http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2010/10/extremist-is-a-theological-category/
2. This is an interesting piece in Christianity Today on William Wilberforce, who was behind the abolition of the slave trade in Britain in the early 1800's, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/october/19.46.html.
3. Steve Martin, Bela Fleck, Tony Trischka Banjo  - some pretty good banjo picking!
   
   
   
4. There is a video that has been on the web for over a week, showing a teacher explaining to her students that they need to be green; when a couple of the students don't want to participate, she presses a button, and blows them up.  There's blood, and guts all over the place.  It's pretty disgusting, so I'm not going to show it, but Michelle Malkin puts together a good piece called The Green War on Children in which she shows environmentalist for what they really are.  Remember, they've got it backwards because they worship the creation, rather than the Creator.  It's a dyslexic worldview, where children are viewed as just life-sucking parasites who inhabit this world.  So what's wrong with just pressing the button.

Context is Important

I remember the first time I went to a Promise Keeper's event at the old Tampa Stadium, there were feminists outside holding up signs with that said something to the effect that Christian women are commanded to "submit to their husbands."  Being a new Christian, and at the time I was a liberal, and hence liberal in my theological thinking, I was struck by this; I also hadn't read the Bible.  I was thinking that this KJV translation would have surely been fixed by now; of course they are referring to verses written in Ephesians 5:22-6:9, and Colossians 3:18-4:1.  Later on though, I read it, and God helped me understand it, and later in my life I saw how it was and is the answer we need to be telling every family in the US on how it should be structured, it's amazing!

As with everything in Bible, you have to read it in context.  I later learned that cafeteria Christianity, the kind used by liberal theologians who pick and choose what they quote from the Bible, and, who are described by Francis Schaeffer as nothing but secular humanists who use theological terms, is not what God wants.  So as I read the Bible, which I suggest everyone do; get yourself a good study Bible, may I suggest the ESV Study Bible, because if you believe that the Bible is God's inspired Word given to over 40 different authors, then God will open your eyes because it is Him speaking through the words, and if you will let Him, he will change your heart, for the better.

Random Stuff for October 9, 2010:

1. Can people be saved apart from hearing about Jesus?  This is a great response from a preacher in North Carolina, J. D. Greear on a sermon he gave on Romans 10:14-17.
2. YUBA Theology is an interesting post given by Fred Sanders, a evangelical Protestant theologian, on Young, Unlearned, Busy, and Afflicted idea by another theologian, John Henry Newman's book, "A Grammar of Assent."  Interesting because it seems like times haven't changed as young people try to make their place in an unbelieving world, and have to work out their beliefs, in this case on the Trinity.
3. Saw this quote yesterday from C. S. Lewis that I love, especially since I've been reading Nancy Pearcey's book, "Saving Leonardo", "No doubt those who really founded modern science were usually those whose love of truth exceeded their love of power," from his book, "The Abolition of Man."
4. This is funny
   

Men Loved Darkness Rather than Light

I was reading Oswald Chamber's this morning from his devotion, "My Utmost for His Highest."  I was struck by a statement from John 3:19, where Jesus made this statement while speaking to Nicodemus.  Nicodemus was already confused by Jesus' statement about being born again, after telling him the Good News in John 3:16-18, basically His mission statement, He also told him in the next statement that man "loved the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil."

While at Disney's EPCOT this weekend I was at the Wine and Food Festival, that we've been going to for the last 4 or more years; the food, and drink were flowing.  It was crowded, and it was hot.  As the day went on, and after people had dropped probably more than $50 on an equivalent six-pack of beer, I couldn't help notice that we were probably leaving at the right time.  It was getting loud, you could see people were suffering the effects of drinking all day in hot Florida sun, and I knew that it was a good time for the family to be leaving.  I'm not saying that anything happened, because if it did, Disney has a way to push it behind the facades so that it's not noticed, but the door was opened, and evil was lurking around looking for an easy mark.  I could sense it.  Before I was a Christian, I would have been sitting on the curb with them, pounding down the drinks, oblivious to the evil that was lurking around looking for that moment to exploit; now that God's Spirit lives in me, it was telling me that this is a good time to go.  I'm also reminded that in a few weeks when I go into the prison to share God with inmates, that there was a missed opportunity here to share the Gospel.  That said, praise God, we did have a good time as it was one of the last times we'll get to spend as family, as Timmy's getting married in March, and when we do it again, there will be one less person in our room, but we will be blessed though with a beautiful daughter in-law with our son in the next room.

There was one neat thing that I've seen the last two or three years; there is a plane high above sky writing that "God Loves Us."  I noticed that some looked up, and smiled; some looked up, and laughed.  I was smiling...