Skip to main content

Making Time to be with Jesus, by Pastor Charlie Handren

By Anonymous

Making Time to be with Jesus
By Pastor Charlie
In John 15:7-8, Jesus makes a stunning promise:
“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (emphasis mine).
The call to abide in Christ, to allow his words to abide in us, and to ask for whatever we wish assumes something very basic but extremely important: we must actually spend time with Christ. We must actually speak with him. We must actually ask. Prayer is a vital part of a relationship, and relationships require time and speech.
Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) received a call to serve as a missionary to China early in his life. Although he didn’t know it, his parents had devoted him to the Lord for this very task but then wisely allowed the Lord to work in his life and clarify the call without their direct intervention. Almost as soon as he received his call from the Lord, Hudson knew that he had to be a man of prayer in order to bear fruit. But like all of us, he struggled with the practical, daily aspects of it.
Hudson Taylor was a normal boy living a busy life. Whether as a clerk in a bank or assistant in his father’s store, he had many temptations, and when a lively cousin came to be his roommate, it was not easy to keep first things first and make time for prayer. He knew, though, that without prayer there could only be failure and unrest. Taylor had to learn that there is no substitute for real spiritual blessing (Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, Littleton, CO: OMF Books, page 13).
It’s a mistake to think that the heroes of our faith did not struggle with prayer, for every one of them did. What separates them from most of us is that they simply would not give up until they learned what it means to pray without ceasing. They read the Bible, listened to the words of Jesus, fought, failed, and pressed on in grace day by day.
In the coming months, we will hear many stories of faith and answered prayer from some of the leading lights of the last two centuries. The most important lesson we will learn from them is this: to be a house of prayer requires personal and corporate intentionality, discipline, and community.
Prayer Focus: Pray that Jesus will help us see the importance of time and speech in our lives of prayer. Pray that he will give us a spirit to fight this good fight until we know what it means to pray without ceasing.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Secret of all Failure is our Failure in Secret Prayer

By
“We may be assured of this—the secret of all failure is our failure in secret prayer” (12). So writes the anonymous author of the classic little book on prayer entitled, The Kneeling Christian (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids: 1971). He means that the reason we so often fall into sin or live in discouragement or fail to bear fruit is because we do not cling to God in Christ above all things. We do not diligently seek him or lean on him or plead with him or draw on his strength. We give ourselves to busyness over communion with God and in this way we seek to accomplish in our flesh what can only be accomplished in the power of the Spirit.  Giving first place to what our dear author calls “secret prayer” is indeed a key to the Spirit-filled life but let’s be clear: prayer is not magic, rather, it’s a relationship. It’s not as if we simply have to file requests with God, being careful to use just the right words so that we can get him to respond as we wish. God is not a vending m
Post a Comment
Read more

Deacons - How They Serve and Strengthen the Church (Part 1)

By
  One of the next important priorities for GCF is to establish deacons in the life of the church. On March 14, 2021 we were able to establish an elder team. Currently, we have a team of four elders overseeing the congregation of GCF.  However, there is more work to be done. I have come to see that establishing an elder team was the bare minimum that needed to happen for GCF to survive. I believe GCF now needs to turn our attention to raising up a team of qualified and willing deacons to serve the congregation so that it will not only survive but thrive.   I would like to begin a series of blogs on deacons to help us understand who they are and what they do in the life of the church.  In this blog let me provide three reasons why I think deacons should be near our top priority.  Number 1: It is Biblical. Paul instructs Timothy to install elders who will help him pastor the church. For whatever reason, it seems the churches in our circles treat the installment of elders as non-negotiable
Post a Comment
Read more

Does the Doctrine Divide? by Patience Griswold

By Anonymous
“Oh, I try not to talk about doctrine. It’s so divisive.” This is a sentiment that I’ve heard expressed, as well as implied, on many occasions, and one that raises the question, does doctrine divide? In answering this question, we must keep in mind a very important truth and that is that everyone holds to some sort of doctrine . “Doctrine” is defined as “a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a church, political party, or other group.” Regardless of whether or not someone publicly holds to a statement of beliefs from a particular church, every Christian, by definition, holds to a particular set of beliefs. As Carl Trueman observes in his book The Creedal Imperative ,       [W]hile Christianity cannot be reduced to doctrine, to mere teaching, it cannot be meaningfully separated from it, either. Even the most basic claims, such as “Jesus is Lord,” carry clear doctrinal content that needs to be explicated in a world where, as we have noted before, every heretic has his text and n
Post a Comment
Read more