“Prayer isn’t just an activity of relation; it’s an activity of revelation. God doesn’t just want us to know Him in prayer; He wants to show us things about Him and about us in prayer.”
A loving community of Christ-followers glorifying God together by making disciples of all nations
A loving community of Christ-followers glorifying God together by making disciples of all nations
Sermons by Darin Avery (Page 24)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of occasional praying—we should pray on every occasion that we’re moved in our hearts to pray, no matter where, when, why, or for what or whom! But to be people like Daniel, we need something more; God wants something more from us, and for us. To be occasional pray-ors is to see God as someone to whom we occasionally go. But by making prayer the occasion we’re saying God is most important, and that spending time with God is the central organizing principle of our lives.
Praying to a God who bases His decisions on what we pray or don’t pray for is to pray to a lesser God than the Bible’s God. And to not pray because God predestines is to disobey the Bible’s God. But praying to a God who orders all things in His universe—right down to every word every person will ever say—is not only to pray to the Bible’s God but to have the fullest, most biblical view of prayer possible, and to embrace the fact that this God employs our prayers in the execution of His fixed eternal will and plan.
Perhaps none said it better than John Wesley: “Prayer is where the action is.” Wherever you are in your prayer life, let’s resolve together to get into the action, to pray with greater frequency and fervency, to truly be people of prayer!
Christians, we mustn’t let the resurrection be to us a mere fact of the past, but a force shaping our present and our future. And non-Christians, unless the resurrection becomes a fact of your past and present by putting your faith in Christ, you mustn’t assume that you have any future—at least not a desirable future in any way graced by the loving presence of a forgiving God.
If God took the initiative to love you in your sinfulness you can imitate Him by being a loving, initiative-taking wife, husband, fellow church member, Christian co-worker, parent, son or daughter, friend, or fiancée. Whatever the relationship, whatever the situation, it’s possible to imitate and initiate God’s personal and sacrificial love if and only if the Spirit of this same God inhabits you.
The universe wasn’t created by a feeling. You and I weren’t saved by a feeling. Our Creator and Savior is not a feeling; He’s a Person! Actually, He’s three Persons in one with a plan and a shared will to carry out that plan. His will toward us is grace, and that sin-forgiving grace is set in motion by His redeeming love for us.
Very few of us will be called upon to literally lay down our lives for the faith. But Jesus calls all of us to lay down our lives for the faithful.
Jesus is not concerned primarily with you and I being able to persuade other people into the Christian faith through arguments and eloquence, though we should be passionate witnesses and able to speak articulately about our faith. And He’s not concerned primarily that others see us as kind, generous, patient or peace-loving people. As important as these and other traits are, of all the good impressions we might make on non-Christian people, the impression He most wants others to have when they encounter a Christian is, ‘Man, this person really loves Jesus.’