Pray Bigger

“And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:13-14)

So many of us struggle with prayer.  Many books have been written on the subject and there’s a reason for that.  Prayer comes hard to most of us, in most seasons.  And when we do pray, we often don't know what to say.  What is it that my Father loves to hear about? What are the best things I could pray for, my family, my church, and myself?

When Jesus left the Earth, He promised to be with us forever.  He may have left in His physical form but through the power of the Holy Spirit, He now lives in our hearts.  He is always with us in everything we do and say.  Because we are human we still manage to confine God to our small imagination and images.

Although He may live in our hearts, we tend to put limitations to what God can do because of our finite understanding of Him.  Yet if we are to take God at His word, in fact, Jesus’ very own words, then surely our prayers will start to become more radical and outrageously hopeful. The more we realize who lives in us, the more we realize His power and might.  If the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us, and Jesus said ‘You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it,’ then why don’t we start praying bigger prayers?

With man there are so many things that are impossible. Yet with God, in Jesus’ Name, through the power of the Holy Spirit, alive in us, nothing is impossible.  We can pray for a change in our communities, for our bosses and colleagues to be transformed by the love of Jesus, for our world leaders to give their hearts, lives and actions to Jesus, for peace and unity to rule and reign. These things are impossible in our own eyes, but not with Jesus.

Pray bigger, trust for more.

Who Are You Living For?

Someone once said, “At twenty, we worry what everyone thinks of us.  At forty, we don’t care what anyone thinks of us.  At sixty, we realize no one was even thinking of us!”  If we are honest with ourselves, we spend plenty of time worrying about what others are thinking and seeking to please them.  We run the risk of being less ‘real’ about who we are in order to meet the expectations of those around us.

Would you admit to being a people pleaser?  Here are some signs that you may fit into that category:

   1) You are often motivated by a sense of duty and obligation rather than desire.

   2) You’re afraid what people will think if you don’t meet their expectations.

   3) You aren’t completely truthful with others about who you really are.

   4) You say you like things that you really don’t like.

Winston Churchill was a great model for being oblivious to public opinion.  The Puritans, though disliked by many, are admired for their conviction-driven lifestyles.  They were tightly focused in the belief that all of life was to be lived “By faith, to the glory of God!”  They lived to please the Father and no one else.

John the Baptist was a great example of living before an Audience of One.  He was a radical man of God.  He didn’t feel the need to fit in, be popular, or please people.  His clothing of camel hair was out of fashion, and his call to repentance did not make the Pharisees and Sadducees very happy.

“John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham” (Matthew 3:4-9)

Would you join me in praying for a renewed passion to live before an audience of One, honoring God, regardless of the cost?

Oswald Chambers once said, “If I love Jesus personally and passionately, I can serve humanity though they treat me like a doormat.”