Praying the Scripture

My mother taught me to say my prayers when I was just old enough to talk. I learned to say:

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray Thee Lord my soul to keep

If I should die before I wake

I pray Thee Lord my soul to take.

When I was a little older the big kids taught me this one (which we never used in the presence of adults):

Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat.

I also learned to pray by repeating the words my mother said at bedtime, words which were usually the same basic, “Thank you for the day and for my blessings” prayers. And of course I learned the Lord’s Prayer. So my early prayers were repetitions of other people's words. As I grew older, learning to “make up” prayers using my own words was a challenge, but by the time I was a teenager, I was having long conversations with God. I used to go for walks and tell Him all about my life – out loud.

Now, in some ways, I've returned to repeating other's prayers. As I read the prayers that people in the scriptures prayed, I wonder why I bother using my own words. They say it so much better.

Miriam’s song of deliverance: Exodus 15:1-18

     The Lord is my strength and my song;
         he has given me victory.

David’s prayer of confession: Psalm 51

      Against you, and you alone, have I sinned;
         I have done what is evil in your sight.

 David’s prayer of praise: I Chronicles 29:10-13

     Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty.

Of course there are so many more. I could spend days praying the Psalms. And what about the non-stop praises in Revelation? But I am particularly drawn to prayers for others. When God puts people on my heart, I am finding that He also leads me to the right prayer for them. I can and do ask God to bless, comfort and heal, and to give them peace and patience, as needed. But the scripture is so much deeper.

We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Colossians 1:9-14

I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God. Philippians 1:9-11

Now, when I run across a prayer in the scripture, I stop and pray it. It’s such a blessing to be given the words by the Author and Recipient of my prayers.

**All the scriptures are from the NLT.

Give Your Father Joy

Proverbs 23:22-25

I’m blessed that my father is still in this world. I don’t get to see him often, but it’s such a comfort to know he’s here loving and praying for me and available when I need his wisdom. But sometimes I forget that I’m here to love him as well. Children are a blessing from God. That’s me, God’s blessing to my father.

So naturally, I should do whatever I can to bring him joy. The wisdom of Proverbs tells me how to do that.

Listen to him. 

Daddy has lived a long life of serving God and he has great stories about his experiences and about the people he’s known. I like his stories, but like many older people, he tends to repeat them. That shouldn’t matter. It brings him joy to share his walk with God. It brings me pleasure to hear about it. 

Get the truth and never sell it.

I learned God’s truth from my parents, but as I began to grow up I encountered different interpretations of the Bible and I explored new ideas. Because I was grounded in the truth I didn’t stray and I have realized that the more I read the Word, the more my father’s understanding of it is confirmed. When Daddy and I talk about the Bible, I can tell this brings him joy.

Get wisdom.

My father is a wise man. I’ve come to him for advice many times and I’m always impressed with his knowledge of scripture and his ability to apply it to my circumstances. I love that I’m the one who’s blessed when I listen to him.

Get discipline.

I remember coming into the dining room when I was a very young child. The breakfast dishes hadn’t been cleared yet but the room was empty. I got caught licking the jam off a piece of leftover toast. My punishment was not being allowed another treat with the rest of my siblings because I had already had mine. I’d like to say I learned from the experience, but I’m afraid I’m sometimes still that little girl indulging herself when no one is looking. But God is at work transforming me through discipline and I know that Daddy is pleased when he sees the evidence.

Get good judgment.

Daddy drives all his kids crazy when he has to make a decision like buying a car. He researches all the options and then talks them over with each one of us many times, telling us what everyone else thinks. His decision making can be agonizing, but in the end he makes good decisions. I’ve learned to slow down and think through my own decisions because of his example.

Be godly.

After walking with God for 75 years, my father is as close to being a godly man as anyone I know. It makes me proud to be his daughter and I hope that he can take joy in watching me grow towards godliness as he has. 

I love Daddy and I hope that these things in me make him happy. As I bring my earthly father joy, I know that my Heavenly Father is also pleased.

Carefully Determine

Ephesians5:8-10

For the last few years, when I read the Bible I’ve been asking myself what the scripture tells me about what pleases God. 

That’s exactly what Paul tells the Ephesians to do. They must carefully determine what pleases Him. This instruction follows the reminder that they have moved from the darkness to the light.

At one time, we Christians were full of darkness, but now we have light and must live as people of light.

I believe living in the light is another way of saying that we are being sanctified. Having been forgiven of our sins and justified before the Lord, we are now being transformed into the image of Christ.

Living in the light produces only what is good, right and true. It’s encouraging to know that as I walk in the light that Christ sheds on my way, I will do good things. Or, if you don’t mind the mixed metaphor, I will bear good fruit.

This verse brought to mind Micah 6:8. There’s no doubt about how to walk as people of the light because God has told us what is good. To walk in the light is to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.

And how do we know what is right? We carefully determine what pleases the Lord. There’s a beautiful symmetry in the way God speaks to us in the Bible. It’s full of God’s commands, starting with the Royal Law  to love the Lord with all my heart, soul and mind. That law is expanded on in the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Bible. All we need to know about living in the light is in the Bible.

Jesus is the Light, but His word lights our way. This year, I commit to read the Bible more, and to more carefully look in it for what pleases Him.

Why Go To Church

Luke 4:16, Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:1-2

Christians are part of the Body of Christ, which is the Church. That’s not a beautiful metaphor, it’s a fact. That means we need to commit ourselves to a church so we participate in a local body of believers. Wayne and I have been blessed to belong to several wonderful churches. There are a lot of different kinds of churches with a lot of different styles of worship and different priorities for their members, but God has always led us to the church where He wants us. We don’t entirely agree on worship styles, but we do agree on the importance of attending church.

If we ever had any doubt, these scriptures give a glimpse into what was important to Jesus and to the early Christians. They provide reasons to go to church.

Jesus habitually went to the synagogue on the Sabbath and read the scriptures. Going to church regularly is the first important thing. In our country we are blessed with so many choices that we have no excuse for not attending. But if we lived in a place with only one church and we didn’t like everything about it, we should still attend.

I’ve been to a Bat Mitzvah and a Jewish wedding, so I’ve seen some modern Jewish services, but I don’t know what all happened in the synagogue when Jesus attended. I do know they read the scriptures and talked about them. So Bible reading is important (even if no one brings their Bibles anymore because the scriptures are projected onto a screen).

The early believers gathered on the first day of the week to share the Lord’s supper. There are lots of traditions about taking communion – how it’s served, how often it’s served, who receives it . . . But it’s something the body of believers does together, so we need to go to church for communion. 

Paul preached when he met with the church. I haven’t researched this, but I assume that when he wasn’t there, other people preached. I’ve read that his letters were read at gatherings of believers and passed around the churches. However it was done, believers gathered to hear preaching. We should too.

The early believers took an offering for other churches. Paul advised them to do it weekly when they gathered on Sunday. The offering should be part of the service, but the point here is that churches should care for other Christians who have a need – not just support their own programs. We should go to church to bring our offerings.

To summarize, these are the reasons to go to church:

To follow Jesus’ example

To gather with other believers

To read the scriptures

To take communion

To hear preaching

To bring an offering

The cool thing is that I love doing these things and I love the churches where I’ve been going to do them.

The Purpose of the Law

Matthew 5:17-18

Sometimes the scripture raises more questions than answers. When a question jumps out at me it turns me into a detective and I pull out my concordance and the cross references in my Bible get a workout. I love that because it helps me to look past the immediate verse to the whole scripture.

This verse started one of those searches and I’m not sure I’ve found a correct answer. But it’s a start.

Jesus said the law of Moses won’t disappear until its purpose is accomplished. So what is its purpose?

In Galatians 3:19, Paul writes that the law was given to show us our sin. Okay, I get that. I know I’m a sinner because I know the law, which gives me something to measure my actions against. The better I know the law, the more clear it is that I break it.

But Jesus also said the purpose of the law won’t be accomplished until heaven and earth disappear. So until Jesus returns, the law will go on showing people their sin. Here’s where it gets confusing. Paul said the law was designed to last only until the coming of Jesus. In Galatians 3:25, Paul says that we no longer need the law.

Obviously I need to do more research. What he actually says is that we no longer need the law to be our guardian. 

It’s not the purpose of the law to make us right with God. It can’t because we can’t keep it perfectly. But it is part of the Good News. The law and the promise of a savior go hand in hand. The law shows us our sin; the promise frees us from it. 

In Galatians 3:23 Paul says that the law put us in protective custody before Jesus came. It put a guard on our actions to restrain us. Now that Jesus has come we no longer need the restraint because He has freed us from sin. 

So why did Jesus say the law won’t pass away until He comes back? 

This is where I might be stretching my understanding, but I think that the law helps us to live the way God wants us to. In Galatians5:13-14 Paul tells us not to use our freedom to live however we want. Instead we are to serve each other with love. That’s the royal law we read about in James2:8. Jesus said that all of the law and prophets hang on this commandment and the about loving God with all our being. (Matthew 22:38-40) 

So . . .

Because I’ve been saved, I’m no longer slave to the law. But the law is still there to show me how God has intended me to live. It shows me how to love God and my neighbor. 

God wants me to use my freedom to live the intention of the law.