Category: Prayer

Looking In the Mirror

Posted on by Kyle Fuller

In prayer, I began to think about some of the people in my life. There are those who are mere acquaintances, others who I know rather well, and still others who I would consider to be intimate friends. (While I most definitely haven’t retreated into some kind of monastic solitude and ceased to interact with those outside of Christ, I should point out that I am talking about brothers and sisters in the Lord). Anyhow, I was thinking about how my closest friends love the Lord and seek him just as I do, yet; we have such different thoughts concerning life and ministry. I began to ask the Lord to help me understand theses things. Honestly, I must say as of now I haven’t received any great “revelations,” but He did show me some things – about me.

Isn’t it strange that when you go to the Lord with your complaints about “every body else,” he is usually more interested in talking about you? The Spirit brought to my mind that passage in James 4 that asks, “What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you?” I immediately began to ask God to expose my motives. I started thinking that maybe some of the difficulty I was having with my thoughts about others was due to my own selfish desires. I wondered if perhaps my expectations of others had become centered on my desires instead of the will of God. I thought of how strange it is that in the midst of our pursuing Jesus, we are still able to hurt each other; if not outright, in the secret place of our hearts. Something just didn’t seem right about that. I began to suspect that perhaps even my supposed selflessness was selfish, and that my love for others was shallow and disingenuous.

As I waited before the Lord, I began to ask him if I had come to cherish the act of ministry more than the people to whom I minister. Am I truly seeking to build up and equip the body of Christ, or am I in love with preaching, teaching, and singing? Am I holding on to my position out of fear that if I let go, I wont be able to “minister” as I have I have become accustomed to doing? Has my service to God become about me? Perhaps the conflict regarding ministry I sometimes sense with others is merely a result of my own selfish desires.

Pondering these things in his presence, I began to cry out for God to heal me. I thought of David’s prayer to God for a clean heart and a right spirit. I was reminded that it is the willing spirit that the joy of fellowship with God produces that yields fruitful ministry. I was brought back to the realization that knowing and loving him is what life is all about. Anything that is pleasing to the Father is produced out of our intimacy with Jesus. I don’t have the capacity within myself to truly love or sincerely minister. I need God’s Spirit to expose me, and give me discernment as to my motives, and then produce in me the heart of Jesus. Yeah, there are always going to be trials, especially when it comes to relationships (real boats rock), but honestly; I’m beginning to think that the biggest problem I have with everybody else is me.

“So Peter seeing him said to Jesus, ‘Lord, and what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!’”

“What You Pray I Pray. What You Say I say.”

Posted on by Kyle Fuller

We’ve been talking about prayer lately. We’ve asked ourselves the question, “Why should I pray?” We’ve discussed the fact that when we pray we should keep in mind that we are praying to a holy God. Now, I’d like to look at how we know what we are to pray.

“And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word [emphasis mine].” (I Kings 17:1)

” Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years!” (James 5:17)

When we first meet the prophet Elijah, he kind of pops up on the scene and announces that it won’t rain unless he says so. That’s definitely a bold statement to make. What catches my attention even more than the claim that it won’t rain is the statement he makes, “…except at my word.” What gave Elijah the confidence (maybe audacity is a better word to use) to make such a claim? I think reading James’ commentary on the deal gives us a little more clarity. James said Elijah prayed earnestly (lit., “prayed with prayers”) that it wouldn’t rain.

Elijah said that he stood before the Lord. In other words, he served the Lord continually. He was a man who spent time with God, developing an intimate relationship with Him. As he “stood” before the Lord, the word of the Lord came to him, and that let him know how he should pray. James lets us know that this wasn’t just a casual offering up of a prayer or two, but earnest, continual prayer regarding what the Lord had spoken. Elijah was so “in tune” with the Lord, knowing His heart so well, praying only that which God had spoken to Him, that he was able to say, “It won’t rain unless I say so.” He knew what to pray (and say) because it was the very word of the Lord that had birthed the prayers  in him!

You can see another example of this kind of thing in Daniel 9. The Bible says that while Daniel was reading the writings of Jeremiah, he understood that the period of Israel’s desolation was complete, and this understanding moved him into a time of prayer and fasting. What Daniel read in Jeremiah provided the framework for his prayers.

How do we know what to pray? I think in light of what we’ve looked at today, we can confidently say that the Lord desires to birth His prayers within us through an abiding relationship with Him, and as we hear Him speak, we understand His heart and know what to pray.

Praying To A Holy God

Posted on by Kyle Fuller

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, the first thing he told them was, “Pray like this: Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name…” I think many of us have lost sight of the fact that when we pray we are praying to a holy God. While it is most definitely true that God is our Father, that we have his very Spirit in us that enables us to cry out “Abba Father,” and that we are tenderly loved by God himself, we must remember that he is God and his name is holy.

While I understand the motivation of many when they tell others to just talk with God like you would anyone else, we must keep in mind that while we don’t have to pray to God using King James English, he is not just anyone else. He is altogether holy and separate from anything that we can even imagine. He’s not just another buddy that we call up and say, “Hey, yo God…” When we pray, we are addressing the almighty living God, creator of heaven and earth. He is holy and his name is to be reverenced.

Among Christians today, it seems that the casual manner in which they approach God is worn like some sort of badge of spirituality. We are told in the Bible that even the angels cover their faces before our holy God. Think of the times in the Bible when you read about people having a real up close encounter with the Lord; it scared the daylights out of them! John, the beloved Apostle who walked with Jesus, ate with him and leaned against his breast, says in the book of Revelation that when he turned around and saw the One speaking to him he fell down like a dead man. When Isaiah had his vision of God he said, “Woe is me!” It seems like today it has almost become unpopular to speak of God’s holiness. People immediately shout, “Legalist, Pharisee!” We want a God we can control, a snugly teddy bear, Santa Clause God that we can manipulate and who is subject to our every whim. Why have we become offended when we are reminded that we pray to a God that says, “I am the Lord God and there is no other!”

The understanding of God’s holiness should produce confidence when we pray. The God we pray to, the “Our Father” is the One before whom the hosts of heaven bow down and cry, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty— the one who always was, who is, and who is still to come…You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased.” This holy God before whom mountains tremble and the earth quakes is the One that loves you!

The fact that our Abba is holy means that he is separate and different from all else, there is nothing nor no one like him. I think we see this so clearly in the cross. This God who is holy, righteous, and beyond comparison revealed his heart in the offering of Jesus.  Someone has said, “What God’s holiness has demanded, his grace has provided in Jesus.” Can we not pray in humble reverence to such a God as this?

To be continued…

Let Us Pray: Why?

Posted on by Kyle Fuller

Why must I pray? How am I supposed to pray? How do I know if  I’m praying the will of God? These are just a few of the questions about prayer that most of us ask. While I would not even begin to claim that I understand everything about prayer, I would like to share some thoughts on the subject. So, please join me as we  see what we can learn about this thing called prayer.

The first thing about prayer that stands out to me is the fact that when we pray, we are intentionally placing ourselves in a position to encounter God. We read in the Bible things about seeking the Lord, waiting on God, crying out to the Lord, and coming into his presence, well what does all of that mean? How do you do that? It’s in prayer. We cant (at this point) physically come into the presence of God. I can’t physically “enter his gates.”  Prayer is the way I come to the Lord. Prayer is how I encounter the presence of the living God. (I understand about community & the Body, but we’re just talking about prayer right now.) I can  come and talk to God, and what’s more, I can hear him speak to me. (Yeah, I said it.)  No wonder we meet so much opposition when we endeavor to develop our prayer life.  Through prayer I am communing with the living God. Why must I pray? I should think the answer is pretty obvious! In prayer, I’m meeting with God and he has the tendency to “rub off” on you. (And to rub stuff off of you as well!) It has been said that demons get alarmed when a Christian begins to read the Bible, but they TREMBLE when Christians begin to pray.

I heard pastor Dennis Hall once say that “how much we depend on God is a gauge of sorts as to a Christian’s maturity.” The mature disciple is one that depends upon God and prayer is perhaps the ultimate sign of this dependence. “But I thought that the more one matures the more independent he becomes.” Isn’t that what they tell us? Once again we need to be reminded that God’s ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. We seek a spiritual maturity that only comes through surrender and dependence on God. Our heart before the new birth cries out for independence and maturity according to the flesh, but the heart of the disciple relates maturity to his relationship with God. Let me ask you this, when Jesus said, “I do nothing of myself. I only do and say what I see and hear from the Father,” how do you suppose he saw and heard those things? You already know the answer-prayer, communing with the Father. What an example he gave us to follow!

Simply put, when we pray, we are meeting with God. We can’t really meet with him and not come away changed.

To be continued…

Better Than Life

Posted on by Kyle Fuller

” O God, you are my God;
I earnestly search for you.
My soul thirsts for you;
my whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in your sanctuary
and gazed upon your power and glory.
Your unfailing love is better than life itself;
how I praise you!
I will praise you as long as I live,
lifting up my hands to you in prayer.
You satisfy me more than the richest feast.
I will praise you with songs of joy.

I lie awake thinking of you,
meditating on you through the night.” (Ps. 63: 1-6 NLT)

When you read these words of David you can’t help but be moved by his expression of longing and love for the Lord. You get a glimpse into the heart of a man who has a very real love relationship with the living God. “I long for you, I thirst for you, I lie awake thinking of you;” these are words lovers use.

David goes on to say that the love of the Lord is better than life itself. In other words, he is saying that if he were to be deprived of God’s unfailing love, life would not be worth living. Lord, your nearness, your fellowship, experiencing your love is something I can’t live without.

Notice what this intimacy, this love inspires : WORSHIP. The  intimacy David shares with the Lord moves him to worship the Lord. He says,  “I will praise you, I will lift my hands to you, I will pray to you, I will sing to you.” Intimacy and worship go hand in hand. As we began to discover how high, how deep, how wide, and how long the love of God is, our hearts will naturally overflow with worship.

Jesus, I don’t want to just know about you; I want to know you.