Lord Hear My Prayer

Lord Hear My Prayer

In Psalm 143:1 David pleads, “Hear my prayer, O LORD, give ear to my supplications! In Your faithfulness answer me, and in Your righteousness.” We all want our prayers to be heard and answered but the sad fact is many simply do not know how to pray. It is not uncommon in regard to prayer to hear folks say they don’t know what to say or how to say it.” Even the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray (Luke 11:1).

Prayer

Consider Prayer…

While Jesus answered His disciples with the model prayer (and the outline He sets forth for us there is indeed a great place to start) I want us to consider something Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7:7–8 Jesus sets forth important factors that, if followed, will benefit us with regard to prayer. Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” The application of this in line with our subject of prayer is that our prayer should be…

Simple. Jesus said, “Ask.” Asking is a prerequisite of receiving. Verse eight says, “For everyone who asks receives.” James said, “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2). Pray is not as complicated as men often teach or think. Keep it simple, talk to God.

Intense. Jesus says, “Seek.” Seeking is a precondition of discovery. Again in verse eight Jesus says, “he who seeks finds.” Through the prophet Jeremiah the Lord said, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Prayer should be a pouring out of ourselves to God.

Persistent. Jesus said, “Knock.” Knocking is the persistent action by which the divine storehouse of God’s blessings is accessed. Notice again Jesus says, “to him who knocks it will be opened.” We often think of persistence in prayer in the framework of repeatedly asking God for the same thing, but may I suggest that persistence here may have more to do with Paul’s instruction to, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). How persistent are we in prayer?

While these things will all help us in regards to aiding in the Lord hearing our prayers there is one other crucial factor that must be mentioned. Above all else, in order for the Lord to hear and answer our prayers, we must be right with God! James 5:16 says, “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” 1 Peter 3:12 declares, “For the eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil.”

If you are not in a right relationship with God today you need to understand that your sins are hindering the ears of the Lord from hearing your prayers. Isaiah 59:2 proclaims, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.”

Jesus died for every man on the cross, became our advocate, so that we might have access to the Father (Ephesians 2:18). If you will come to Him in obedience, repenting of your sins, confessing His name, and being baptized for the remission of your sins, He will cleanse you and open His ear to you. If you are a Christian who has fallen away, if you will repent and ask His forgiveness, you can once again enjoy the privilege of saying, “Lord, hear my prayer,” and the assurance that He will.

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Husband of Stone

I Thought My Husband Was Made of Stone

A while back, I was speaking to a husband who was injured. Not physically, but injured emotionally. He was not injured too deeply, but still injured. And, the person who injured him was his wife and it recalled an expression I heard used before and that is, “That didn’t hurt him. He’s made of stone.” So often it is the case that wives are hurt emotionally and we certainly know about it. But, oftentimes, husbands are also injured by wives. But, most do not even know about it and/or the wife does not even know that she is doing anything to him. Are you surprised? Well, it happens all the time.

husband of stone

Husband of Stone

When a couple is newly married and the bonding of minds is in progress, it is not uncommon for the husband to begin to realize how many things his wife is saying that is causing him to pull away from her. He therefore, puts up his guard and rather than starting a fight with her, he just withdraws. Every hear the expression, “Are you listening to me?” Perhaps, the reason he is not listening is because he has withdrawn from you because of something that you said or did. And because he does not want to hurt his wife or for someone to think he is any less of a person, he rarely admits his hurting. This is difficult for any man to do. But, what happens is that if there is not better communication and openness in this kind of marriage, it is heading for a disaster. And, there is a great chance that the wife has questions about the relationship too. And, what is needed is the opportunity to ask hard questions, learn valuable lessons and strengthen their marriage. But, let’s notice how a wife can injure her husband without even knowing it.

Put him down in front of other people – Most men will not counter this type of humiliation in public…if ever. Nothing makes him feel worse that his wife speaking bad of him to others. But, the majority of husbands will just simply take it even though it still hurts. And, if this kind of situation is not addressed soon in the relationship, it will harbor resentment towards his wife and maybe even anger. This leads to a very ugly fight down the road. So, avoid it by being more aware of what you say.

Go behind him when he tries to do something at home – When you always show him how much better you can do things than he can do them, his ego is injured. He feels undermined when he is trying to do things like fix the bed or clean up and then you follow right behind him showing your husband the “correct way” immediately a after he finishes. This may be why he sits in his recliner way too much because he would rather not even try because when he does, he is reminded he doesn’t measure up to your standards.

Constantly badger him – If he doesn’t do what you want him to do, you might remind him again, and again and again. This never accomplishes what you think it will. In fact, it will make him move slower or it just makes your husband walk away and let you do it. This is why he may go golfing or fishing more than normal. He is trying to flee, which again, does not address the issue. Just suppresses it.

Use the “you always” phrase…excessively – Because…he “always” does… Not really. Husbands can be unpredictable and so, when you accuse him that he “always” does this or that, what the wife is actually doing is helping to build a man that always will do something even when he does not want to do that.

Hold him responsible for your emotional well–‐being – Acting as if he’s the reason you feel bad today and every other day you feel bad, puts undue pressure on him and he does not know what to do with that information. This does not have to be verbal because body language speaks volumes to him. So, if you are in bad moods towards him and you make him guilty about it, he certainly will take the hint and own up to his responsibility. But, if the wife always blames him, after a while, the husband will think it is always his fault even if it’s not. So, he carries that pain with him and weighs his heart down considerably.

Complain about what you don’t have or get to do – He has a desire to fix things. He wants to be a provider. Every man does. But, when he’s trying and doing the best he can, yet he feels he isn’t measuring up…he’s crushed. When you are always commenting on what other women have that you don’t, he carries the blame, even if you’re not intending it to be his. He will even work a second or third job for his wife only to still be told by his wife that she wants more.

Don’t appreciate his efforts – Want to injure a man? This is the big one. Refuse to appreciate the things he feels he does well, just tears him apart. It could be work, a hobby or a trait, but he feels part of his identity in the things he does. And so, when you don’t find them as “valuable” as he does, his ego is bruised.

Remember that your husband is not made of stone. He is made in the image of God and since God has given him feelings too, feeling emotionally detached from your spouse can hurt and drive your spouse further away. So wives, remember that the reality of a man’s feelings and ego, his self–‐confidence and sense of worth is greatly tied to his wife, just as a woman’s ego is to her husband. He really cares about what you think of him. And, while we are all fragile people, some are more fragile than others. But, understanding these issues and addressing them will build healthier, stronger and happier people…and marriages.

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Proclaiming the Bible

Our teaching should be influenced by the Bible over any outside influence. There’s nothing deep or profound about that statement, it’s merely an idea with which we all can, and should, agree. Unfortunately that’s not always how we operate. Because there is so much false teaching in the world today we can easily get caught up in interpreting the Bible from a standpoint of refuting falsehoods rather than proclaiming truth. In that sense, what we teach is being determined by denominations, the Catholic Church, or our culture. When we look only at what the Bible doesn’t say, we miss out on so much of what it does.

Bible

Proclaim the Bible

Take, for example, the matter of grace. Because John Calvin and his followers have so distorted grace to mean simply the good luck bestowed on those whom God hand-picked to be delivered from their so-called original sin, because others have distorted it as a free pass to sin, and because still others view it as a substitute for the biblical plan of salvation, we spend much of our time fighting those falsehoods. When you hear Ephesians 2:8-9 or Romans 5:1-2, think of your first reaction or of the sermons you’ve heard on this passage – what comes to mind?

In many cases we instantly begin thinking about how this idea of grace through faith is only part of the plan of salvation and how we need to bring in other verses before someone gets too carried away with a false interpretation of “faith only” salvation. While it’s true we have to see the topic of salvation as a whole, that’s not the entire point. That interpretation limits our interpretation of the verses and the Bible’s emphasis on grace to only saying what isn’t right rather than what is. Because of our reactionary doctrine of grace, two less-than-accurate phrases can be commonly heard among Christians today, even from those who have been Christians their whole lives.

1. “We just have to do our best.”

We’ve all tried to do our best before realizing that our best leaves us marked for eternal death. Romans makes it very clear that abiding by a system of law keeping will only end in death for us, for we all have sinned. Unfortunately many still look at God’s justice as some big chalkboard in heaven with a ledger of our good deeds on the right side and our bad on the left. What we forget is that one sin is enough to separate us from God eternally, that no good deed can make the blood payment that God’s justice demands. Only Jesus Christ can do that.

The alternative to this is to say that we’ve already been covered, so we don’t have to do anything. Paul strongly rebuked that attitude in Romans 6:1 – “May it never be!” Rather, since we have died to sin and it has been put behind us, and since we are now living by faith, we live in the faith that whatever God commands us is what is best for our lives. The acts Scriptures requires of the Christian are not a checklist to make us feel like good people, but a list of things that will make us more like Him. We attend worship, study our Bibles, evangelize, fight temptation, encourage others, etc. because we believe it is what’s best for us. Because we want to, not because we have to. Anyone who is walking in faith will produce the good fruit God expects of His children because He is walking with us.

Another manifestation of this statement can be heard when someone says, “Well, I just hope that when I die the good outweighs the bad.” Trust me, it doesn’t – unless you have the blood of Christ! We do good deeds not to earn favor, but because we have been given favor by His wonderful grace!

2. “I hope I get to heaven, but I guess I won’t know until I die.”

The New Testament makes it clear that not only can we know, we should be confident in our salvation. 1 John 5:11-12 tells us that He has given us eternal life (past tense) and that whoever has the Son has His life. That’s exactly how and why we can know for certain where our eternal destination is. It’s not a matter of the good deeds that we have done. If it were, we still would have no reason to be unsure. We could be 100% confident that heaven isn’t in our future.

I encourage you to read through Romans chapters 6-8 in considering this powerful truth about grace, our works, and our sin. When we are buried with Him in baptism, we are raised in the likeness of His resurrection as well. We’ve received a new life! Just as we can be sure of what will happen to those who are outside of Christ on the day of judgment, we can be sure of what God will say to those who are washed in His blood – “Well done, good and faithful servant!

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Bible Math

Bible Math

Have you ever thought of the Bible as a calculator? This may seem like a strange question to you, but think of it: studying the Bible is a little like taking a math course in which there is…

ADDITION (2 Pet. 1:5-10) “…And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).

Math

Math is Everywhere in Scripture!

SUBTRACTION (1 John 3:5) “and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Rev. 22:19).

MULTIPLICATION (2 Cor. 9:10) “But the word of God grew and multiplied” (Acts 12:24).

DIVISION (1 Cor. 1:10) “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).

To students, math teachers commonly say something like, “You need to know these things because math is used everywhere in life.”  Interestingly, the Lord conveys a similar concept spiritually – and that’s a lesson you can “count” on.

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Serious About Salvation?

Let’s face it folks; it’s time to get real when it comes to the world of religion and our relationship to God. It’s time to be completely honest with ourselves and really assess what it is we’re doing here, and where it is we’re going when our life here is over. And if you’re somebody within the general public who is truly and sincerely serious about your eternal salvation, then you’re probably therefore also sick and tired of:

Salvation

Get Real About Salvation

·         T.V. preachers “picking and grinning” – grinning while they’re picking out and giving you nothing but the soft, ear-tickling, light-hearted “feel-good” stuff that only serves to make them more popular, instead of teaching a well-balanced biblical diet of that, plus what you most desperately need to hear in order to get right with God so you can go home to be with Him instead of to hell in the end.

·         Being challenged the hardest only to open your wallet in order to subsidize some of those televangelist’s self-indulgent lifestyles, instead of being honestly challenged to open your heart in order to accept and practice God’s sin-denying righteousness and eternity-granting lifestyle.

·         Hearing denominational leaders who loudly and proudly proclaim that the “miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit” – gifts such as speaking in tongues, instantly healing the desperately sick, and raising the dead – are still in effect today, but whom you know from very painful personal experience, allow loved one after loved one of yours to still somehow get sick and die without healing them as they claim they can.

·         Attending “church,” only to be entertained by concerts, rodeos, drama-skits and preacher story-telling – all of man-made origin and none of which can save your eternal soul – instead of attending bible class and worship services exclusively designed to educate and enlighten by “book, chapter, and verse,” solid bible gospel preaching – which is the only thing that can save your eternal soul (Romans 1:16).

And if you additionally, truly believe that the bible is the timeless, eternal, divinely-inspired, inerrant, and all-authoritative word of almighty God Himself, delivered to save, sanctify, and make a weak and sinful people able to perfectly stand before that same almighty God just as it claims to be (II Timothy 3:14-4:4); then you are also most certainly therefore, sick and tired of:

·         Attending man-made denominations which you cannot find in existence or referred to by name anywhere within that sacred and all-sufficient word…

·         Attending man-made denominations which promote and practice as doctrines and commandments (Matthew 15:7-9; Mark 7:5-13; Galatians 1:6-10; I Timothy 4:1-5; II Peter 2:1-3), those teachings which are also never found anywhere within that sacred and all sufficient word – teachings such as instruments being played in the church’s religious hymns of praise and worship offered up to God; saying a prayer to welcome Jesus into your heart as the process by which they say a sinner is saved and forgiven; and etc…

·         Or, attending a man-made denomination which teaches those things which are expressly and explicitly condemned and forbidden within that same, sacred, and all-sufficient word of God… things like:

  • Calling your religious leaders “Father” (Matthew 23:9).
  • Claiming one can be saved by “faith alone” (James 2:26).
  • Insisting that “once saved, always saved” (or that one cannot “fall from grace”) is a viable, biblical teaching, when it is most assuredly not (Hebrews 6:4-6, 10:26-31; Galatians 5:4).
  • Saying that female preachers, teachers, pastors, and song and prayer leaders leading over men in the church assembly is somehow acceptable to God (I Corinthians 14:33-37; I Timothy 2:11-15).
  • Teaching that baptism doesn’t serve as one of the essential elements which initially saves a person, and that being saved can somehow occur either before or without it (I Peter 3:21).

If that’s you, then perhaps it’s time to get serious enough about your salvation to come by and experience us…

We are the church of Christ. And we are in the bible (Romans 16:16). We are not here to “tickle your ears,” while avoiding the “tough stuff” (John 6:60-69; II Timothy 4:1-5), but to teach and challenge people – including ourselves – with the “whole council of God” (Acts 20:26-27), to become the whole people of God that God desires. We do this in order to truly save sinners’ souls, instead of simply making them “feel good” so they’ll send us their money, while they are happily, pleasantly, and comfortably but ignorantly headed down the wide road to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14; II Peter 2:1-3). We understand that truly and fully being transformed into the image of Christ (Romans 12:1-2) takes a whole lot of dedicated time, effort, prayer, and bible study (II Peter 1:2-11), and so we don’t want to waste either yours or our time doing anything less or else (Ephesians 5:15-16).

And speaking of money, we’re not here to steal yours. That’s not what we’re all about at all. In fact, we teach the whole “book, chapter, and verse” truth about that as well; and that is this:

·         Tithing, or giving ten percent, was part of God’s Old Agreement (or Testament) with the Jews (Exodus 27; Deuteronomy 14).

·         The Old Covenant (or agreement) was done away with by Christ on the cross when He instituted the New Covenant in His blood (II Corinthians 3:5-18; Colossians 2:8-14; Hebrews 8:7-13, 9:15-17).

·         Therefore, the Old Testament having been thus done away with, under the New Covenant the amount or percentage a person is to give was not important enough to God for Him to anywhere specify. The only thing that mattered enough for God to specify regarding giving was the attitude with which one gives whatever amount they have decided between themselves and Him (II Corinthians 8:1-5, and 9:5-7)… But He also made it abundantly clear that the privilege of supporting His church, belongs only to His people – that is to say, only to those who are specifically members of His Son’s one, New Testament church (Acts 2:36-47; 4:32-33; I Corinthians 16:1-2). And so, no; we neither ask nor rudely beg our friends and visitors to open up their wallets and give their hard-earned money to support the work our Lord gave us to support. “Going to church” was never meant to be like attending a man-made movie or concert, both of which were designed exclusively to make money. Attendance doesn’t require you to “buy a ticket” here.

The bible says that there will be ‘many’ who will prefer the wide and easy way that leads to destruction – including many false teachers who are nothing more than wolves in sheep’s clothing. This, while there will be only a ‘few’ who will want to truly listen to, and then faithfully carry out, the commands of Jesus. (All of this can, and should be personally verified by you from your own bible: please read Matthew 7:13-27.)

Therefore, the real question that every one of us must seriously answer is simply this: To which group of people do we personally prefer to belong? To the ‘many,’ who are more concerned with being momentarily comfortable than with being biblically correct? Or the ‘few,’ who are willing to faithfully listen to, and then put into practice the words of Jesus no matter what? That choice, God leaves completely up to us as individuals.

For those ‘many’ (as the bible calls them) who are comfortable enough with the man-made but scripturally-foreign commandments and doctrines of men that they are truly willing to face God based on them, instead of truly doing the will of the Father as outlined in His word, well, that’s their choice. We mean no disrespect. God’s people have been dealing with such for thousands of years (Acts 13:46).

But for those ‘few’ who are serious enough about their salvation and relationship with God to truly want to grow closer to Him by learning and living His word exactly as He taught it, we earnestly encourage you to join the rest of us this coming Sunday morning as we gather together to humbly but thoroughly study the word of God in “book, chapter, and verse” format, and then to worship God in “spirit and truth,” exactly as we see outlined in His word. This, because we are seeking with all we’ve got and with all God said, to be the kind of worshippers the Father Himself is seeking (John 4:23-24).

Please read through Matthew 7:13-27 again. Do you want to be part of the ‘few’… or the ‘many?’ The choice… is yours… We will plan to see the serious “few” come by to be with the rest of their like-minded counterparts and contemporaries this coming Sunday morning.

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