Prayer devotional, video of Bible reading week 11, day 1 and one more video

Today's devotional is an in between chapter one.  We will move onto Ecclesiastes chapter 10 on Wednesday.  We only have 3 chapters left in this interested book.

I had the privilege this last week to view most of the Shepherd's Conference held in California each March.  It was online and I am so thankful that many of these great conferences are streamed live or that I can watch later when posted to YouTube.  This conference takes preference over all others for me and I actually try to work my schedule so I can catch all the sessions live.  I want to share with you just a portion of one session that was actually a workshop by Mark Dever, the pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church of Washington D.C.  A couple years ago Brad Rinehart and I had the opportunity to listen to him live at a conference in East Lansing, Michigan.

His talk was titled, "Upon This Rock" and it was about the marks of an authentic church of Jesus Christ.  Different marks are necessary like expository preaching, correct theology, clarity on conversion and evangelism, church membership and the like.  Tucked in the talk, near the end, was point number 8 that dealt with prayer.  He called it, "the Biblical understanding and practice of prayer."  I was already making notes but now I put full attention to what was being said because I believe that nothing of spiritual impact will happen if there is not a wealth of prayer behind it.  Let me give you his 7 points on this point about prayer and I will do them in reverse order than the way he spoke them.

7.  Give an expectation of your members to be at times of prayer.  

Part of their membership classes was this expectation.  Not all attend but many do.  The reality is and I am sorry to say that this is not the case here.  But let's keep going on because the answer might lie in the other 6.

6.  Make sure to pray at every interaction or function.

This does happen here.  I am thankful that we start with prayer and we end with prayer not just on Sunday mornings but also at our meetings and many times before special events.  It could be because it is typically a part of the program schedule and so ingrained in us to do this because that is what you do.  Sometimes those ritual things become just that, a ritual, and they don't carry within us the impact of what we are doing.  Moving on to number 5.

5.  We need long prayers of praise, confession, and intercession.

We need to have times that we just speak in prayer about God and those would be prayers of praise.  We need to have times that we just speak in prayer to God about our sin and those would be prayers of confession.  We need to have times that we just speak in prayer to God for others and those would be prayers of intercession.  The practice is to cut our prayers short or get uncomfortable when they go a little long.  We tend not to be able to keep on praising God in prayer before getting to the real reason we are talking to Him, to ask Him for something.  We make light of our sins or at least not let others know about them even though that is going directly against Scriptural instruction, "confess your sins to one another."  We pray for others physically but to be in intercession for others also has an element of their spiritual life.  Enough said about that let's move to number 4.

4.  There needs to be different types of prayers.  Some short, some long, some planned, some off the cuff, some by the pastor and some by the laity.

I think the point here is that there needs to be more prayers.  Prayer needs to be a bigger part of the life of the church and its activities and ministries.  It needs to be injected at more points that at the start and ending of a meeting or at a prescribed prayer meeting or when it says we are to do that in the bulletin as part of the service.  "Pray without ceasing" probably describes better what is point is talking about if put into practice.  Winding down backwards and here is number 3.

3.  Use "we" and "amen" in corporate prayer.

Mark Dever said he had to train and practice this practice with his people.  He taught on keeping in the plural when praying before others for the purpose of all.  It was like turning around to face the front along with the rest of the congregation and addressing God as a group, "we."  He also instructed his whole congregation to respond at the end of any prayer with "amen."  All of them would say this without someone saying, "and all God's people said."  "Amen" means "so be it" or "I am agreement with" or "ditto that for me too God."  You need to be actively engaged in the other's prayer.  You need to be listening to agree.  They are not just taking their turn praying aloud but you are also praying with them, using their words at times and thoughts.  This was a very interesting point to think about.  Number 2.

2.  Prayer practices vary over time.

Sometimes prayer times need to be moved to another day.  Sometimes they need to have a different format.  Sometimes they need a different leader.  Sometimes they have Scripture instruction and sometimes they have musical background.  Sometimes we write things on the white board and sometimes we just allow God to bring to our minds who we are to pray for or what we are to pray about.  Sometimes prayer time needs a lot of prep to keep it focused and other times the only prep is the place and time we are meeting.  Lastly but not "least-ly" and actually I put them in this order to make this the last we focus on is number 1. 

1.  The outgrowth of prayer in the church publicly is directly tied to the amount of prayer of the congregation in private.

OUCH!?  But I know this is true.  A fervent prayer life at home spills over into a fervent prayer life with other brothers and sisters in Christ.  I know there are prayer warriors here at OUC but the fact is is that we need more.  We need more who are making it a practice to in their personal lives so that when prayer is spoken of as a public thing to do that it creates a positive response.  So we end this time not calling you all to come to prayer meeting this week but rather make sure to have some prayer time specifically to talk to God and not just on the run from one event to the next or when a crisis arises but when you set aside time to be just with Him.  That practice of priority will have a positive effect on you and your church which is really His church that we get to be a part of.

Convicting stuff isn't it?  Let us pray.

"Lord, as I pray this morning I want to think of You and also all the "we" who are reading this or listening to it.  We need to talk to You more for the sake of knowing You more.  May we not just come when something is up but to be a continuation of a conversation we will have the rest of our lives with You.  Convict us where we need to be convicted and help us to praise You, confess to You and of You, and inter-cess for others before You.  Amen."  

Pastor Adam

Bible reading of the day, week 11, day 1

One more video of a great testimony where God stopped the spiritual funeral of this man's life.  5 minutes worth your time.