by Tim Cameron | Jul 20, 2015 | prayer, The Word
Is it more money? A promotion? Peace at home?
“Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all.” (Mark 6:41, NIV).
Christ saw that the people were like sheep without a shepherd, and He felt compassion for them. He had experienced the large crowds wildly running after Him from every city. It is probable that this particular crowd was just like the disciples that day–there was so much activity and the people were so excited they didn’t even take time to eat. You know there is a lot going on when you don’t even have time to eat. Christ was in the process of trying to set aside some time for the disciples to “debrief” with Him. The disciples had just returned from having been sent out by Jesus for the first time. So, they got in a boat and went to a secluded place. But they couldn’t evade the people. The people from all the cities ran ahead of them and waited on the shore. “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” (Mark 6:31, NIV).
When they landed in the boat and Jesus saw the people and had compassion on the crowd, but how did he show it? He showed it in a way we wouldn’t normally think of. We think in physical, temporal realms. He thinks in spiritual and eternal dimensions.
The dilemma of our needs and wants
When Jesus saw the crowd He had compassion on them and He discerned what they really needed. His intimate relationship with the Father was built on purposeful prayer in the secret place and constant prayer during the day. Through His communion with the Father He had a true understanding of the people’s need. The result, He fed the crowd spiritual food before He did anything else. “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.” (Luke 6:34, NIV). Jesus knew the crowd’s heart. They were following Him because only He could speak the words of eternal life.
What do you really need?
Some years back I made a trip to India for a few weeks to visit one of my sons who worked in Bangalore. He made friends everywhere he went and had a close group of young friends that I met and spent time with. In India if you are poor you walk everywhere you go. With a little bit of money you graduate to owning a bicycle. The next step up the transportation ladder of success is to own a motorcycle. Tourists and wealthy people use the auto rickshaws or even rent a car. Ownership of a car is reserved for the wealthy.
One day I was visiting a friend of my son who was considered upper middle class. He had a small business that rented a tiny—approximately 20 ft. x 20 ft. one-room office. There he employed two other young men, and like every other business he also had a chaiwala, a young boy who delivered tea for the office. One afternoon we went to the friend’s apartment. It was a small, but nice apartment. While we were sitting on the couch he started quarrying me about life in America. When the subject of cars came up, he wanted to know if I had a car. At the time I had two older vehicles, a small car eight years old with more than 110,000 miles and a mini-van nine years old with 125,000 miles. When he asked if I owned a car I told him about my two cars, his response, “You must be a very wealthy man Mr. Cameron.”
There is a vast difference between what we want and what we need. I need reliable transportation. Truth is, I have always wanted a hunter green Jaguar sedan. There is a huge gulf between my need and my want when it comes to the subject of cars. But, the gulf between our needs and wants encompasses much more than transportation. How we treat this gulf is a litmus test of our love for the world or our love for the Lord. Which do we love more, the things of the world or the Lord? “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” (1 John 2:15-17, NIV).
If we are walking intimately with Christ we have a different perspective on the world–the lusts of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life–than non-Christians. The mind of Christ and the discernment He gives provides us clarity concerning our needs and wants. With His spirit in us we are able to discern whether something is expedient or really necessary.
Jesus knew what the people needed first. It was for this that He came: to preach the Kingdom of God, to heal the infirm, and to bring life to many. He gave them what they needed first, His word. One of the most basic understandings of following Christ is that we need His word and prayer first, daily.
Daily food
The parallel to God’s Word and our spirit is exactly the same as the parallel that exists between food and our body. We know that we must have physical food to function, and we function best when we eat daily. It doesn’t make any difference what shape you are in; if you don’t take in food you will eventually grow weak. Even the healthiest athlete at the pinnacle of physical fitness and performance fails quickly without food. The Christian with the most responsibilities at church and who is the most educated concerning the Bible and apt to teach, will eventually wither up and die spiritually without a regular intake of the word and prayer.
But a healthy spiritual life is more than picking up the word to read and praying each day. Contrast my eating habits with Isaac the son of my daughter and son-in-law, both of whom are physicians. My mom was a short order cook for three siblings and my eating habits are atrocious. I was well into my 40s before I ate my first salad. Growing up my vegetables of choice consisted of corn, potatoes, and green beans. And, I am a recovering carnivore; most of my life I ate some kind of meat at almost every meal, chased by a soft drink. Now meat is a special treat and I actually eat a variety of vegetables and drink water. Then there is our four-year-old grandson Isaac; he drinks water. What? Just water most of the time? Ask him what he wants for a snack and he might say hummus and carrots. It’s unbelievable. He eats every kind of vegetable and from all outward appearance, likes it. Imagine that from a four-year-old. What planet is this kid from? Thankfully, my eating habits have changed considerably. I’m still working on it. But, the message is clear, when I compare my eating habits vs. Isaac’s, it’s the junk food diet vs. the healthy diet. There is no guessing which of the two of us will be most healthy during our lifetime. Jesus is the bread of life. He is our spiritual food. “Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35, NIV) What is the quality of your spiritual diet with the Lord in the secret place?
The critical factor with food is eating the right kind of food, that which is healthy and nutritious. Americans devour processed foods. It’s a function of our many dis-functions. We are too busy to prepare foods and we are addicted to sugar. When I asked one of our Chinese spiritual daughters what was her most problematic transition to America, she said it was that anything she ate had sugar in it. Sugar and processed foods are the staple of our diet, and we are experiencing the ramifications of this blight on our health. We have an epidemic of obesity and all the related health issues it creates, from coronary heart disease and high blood pressure to type 2 diabetes. What’s the quality level of your spiritual intake? Are you submitting yourself to regular bible study? Do you pray with others often? Do you meet the Lord daily in the secret place?
And there is more. It is not just about the right kind of food. You have to factor in the freshness of the food. There is something special about fresh food that can be eaten daily. It tastes different. It has more nutritional value. We try to do everything we can do to keep food fresh and make it last: we can it, we freeze it, shrink-wrap it, we dry it, freeze-dry it, we put substances in it to preserve the flavor and enhance its taste and appearance (additives), and the methods go on ad nausium. However, there is nothing like fresh food. We treat the word the same way we treat food. We do everything we can to hear the word without digging deeply into it in quietness before the Lord with prayer. We try devotionals, pre-recorded teaching, video recordings, television programs, radio programs, daily email devotions, and the list goes on ad infinitum. We try every other avenue except expending the time and focus that is necessary to have a full measure of His word and prayer daily. Granted, these other practices we try are good, but they can’t fully substitute for daily meditation on the word with prayer and meeting the Lord in the secret place.
Read the label
The pickings were slim as I rummaged for food at the condo where we were staying. However, there’s always the old standby, peanut butter and jelly; for my wife it is a mayonnaise and tomato sandwich. While making a sandwich I happened to look at the mayonnaise expiration date. It was one year and two months expired. Oops. It looked okay, but smelled somewhat questionable. It had every other appearance of the good old staple, mayo. I didn’t let my wife risk it. Off it went to the trash. I firmly believe that most spiritual encounters have an expiration date on them, like the food we buy at the store. That single encounter with the Lord isn’t meant to, nor is it going to sustain us for months and months. Elijah had an encounter with an angel and it sustained him forty days. “The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.” (I Kings 19:7-8, NIV). Obviously an encounter with an angel would be a bedrock experience for any of us. But the Lord wants us to meet Him daily in the word and prayer in the secret place. You will not be sustained in your body for long by yesterday’s food. Correspondingly, you can’t be sustained for long by yesterday’s spiritual food. When God supplied the children of Israel with manna in the desert He gave them just enough supply for each day. He wanted them to know, as He wants us to know, we need His spiritual food fresh every day.
Eat up
Thinking about eating food isn’t going to do much for your body. Eating is something you do daily. You have to eat food to live. You can know how to make food. You can know everything there is about its nutritional value. You can even have a month’s supply of the healthy food stored in the pantry. But your knowledge of food and a storehouse of food will not help you if you don’t eat. The same goes for our spiritual food. You can have a Masters in Divinity and be skilled at teaching or preaching the word. You can possess the best software programs for studying the Bible in the original language with wonderful historical commentaries. You can have email devotionals delivered to your smartphone every morning. However, all of this education, skill, and resources will not necessarily help you spiritually unless you take His word and prayer deep inside your spirit, daily. Jesus was tempted by the devil to turn a stone into bread while He was fasting in the wilderness. He quoted scripture to the devil: “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” (Deu. 8:3, NIV). Jesus taught us that we must take His Word deep inside us daily. We are more than just physical beings who need food to survive. We are spiritual creations who need to commune with our God every day.
Most of us are too busy to eat properly. Busyness also keeps us from praying. Busyness keeps us from taking time to study, meditate, and hide God’s word in our heart. We have an epidemic in the church of people who don’t meet Jesus in the secret place daily in the word and prayer. The admonitions in the scripture are numerous and pointed. Meditate on the word and pray. Your spiritual life depends on it. Here are just a few of the promised results on meditating and hiding God’s word in our heart:
A young person can be free from pornography and other sexual sins. “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” (Ps. 119:9-11, NIV)
You can have your prayers answered. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (John 15:7, NIV)
You can have peace in your life. “Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.” (Ps. 119:165, NIV)
Success in all your endeavors. “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” (Joshua 1:8, NIV)
You will have a life full of joy and contentment. “…but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither– whatever they do prospers.” (Ps. 1:2-3, NIV)
Ask the Lord right now to let yourself see with your spiritual eyes and hear with your spiritual ears. You need to meet the Lord daily in the secret place with prayer and the word. You need to hunger after His Word—hunger and thirst for it profoundly and passionately. Hunger and thirst like this: Students from Iris Missions School in Mozambique related in a blog post, [They (pastors from small, surrounding churches) stood up one by one. Upon their faces rested a countenance of fullness. Fullness of the Spirit. Lemon, one of the pastors we have befriended, stood among the children of God who knew suffering to a depth we can’t fathom. Each one of the pastors stood because someone in their immediate family has died from starvation: a mother…a child…a wife. One teacher spoke this afternoon about hungering and thirsting after righteousness, the kingdom of God. They have desperation for this righteousness with the same yearning they have for food.] The word ‘hunger’ has a whole different meaning to them.
We need a fresh revelation of our need for Jesus in our lives every day, even more than we need food, water, and air. Jesus is the only one that can provide this kind of spiritual nourishment our souls long for. We get it from being in His presence in the secret place. Are you desperate? Do you see that you are spiritually bankrupt and Jesus is the only answer? We need to see that we are helpless and only Jesus can satisfy our spiritual starvation. I don’t think we get it. There is a supply of God’s spirit and presence that will kill us and fill us. It will kill us to put to death the flesh with its appetites, passions, and addictions and in the process empty ourselves of our own spirit as much as is possible. It will be painful–try fasting and praying for three days. But, it is a hurt that satisfies and electrifies our soul. Then we will be filled with His spirit and presence to overflowing. We will be so healthy spiritually that we will have something to offer every person in our path.
Here’s the deal
The Lord’s word is inseparably linked to prayer. It is in prayer that we seek to have a relationship with God and to know Him intimately. It is in the Word that He most often speaks to us. A full measure of daily prayer with little of the word gives life; however, it leads to a lack of steadfastness. Much of the word with little prayer leaves us unhealthy and prone to judgments and legalism. Being able to stand the tests and storms of life necessitates having the word embedded deep in our souls with a full measure of prayer, daily. As the psalmist says, “Those who love Your law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble.” (Psalm 119:165, NIV). A full measure of the word and prayer daily are indispensible in living the Spirit-filled life.
He is always enough
Because it was getting late the disciples encouraged Jesus to send away the 5,000 men–actually the total number of people present was probably 12,000 to 15,000 when including children and women. The disciples wanted Him to send the crowd into the surrounding countryside and villages to get themselves something to eat. “But he answered, ’You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ’That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?’” (Mark 6:37, NIV). The disciples were startled and didn’t know what to do. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish and multiplied them to feed the thousands and thousands of people with over twelve baskets full left over. He showed the disciples that He is sufficient for all things. His word is sufficient; His supply is inexhaustible. He was always teaching his followers. Did they have eyes to see and ears to hear? This is what we discover in the secret place with the word and prayer—He is always enough.
by Tim Cameron | Jul 19, 2015 | prayer
He Prayed All Night
“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor (Luke 6:12-16, NIV).
Are you too busy to pray?
We know now that the crowds were pressing in on Him. Hundreds, if not thousands, showed up at His doorstep where He spent the night. He needed a place to pray with no interruptions. He had business to transact and needed to hear from His Father about one of the most important decisions He would make during His earthly time, the choosing of the twelve disciples. So, He heads to the mountains to spend a night in prayer. A whole night!
It is incredible what we sometimes have to go through to just carve out thirty minutes of prayer, well, make that fifteen. In our way of thinking an hour spent in prayer would be a huge deal. We would qualify as spiritual giants! Then there is our Lord, He spent whole nights in prayer, yet while He was human, just like us in every way. How amazing and yet perplexing.
We have all these other pressures, commitments, requirements every day, and then there is the infamous “to do list.” They seem never ending. Managing our time is a momentous task. Today whole industries are built around assisting people in planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time that is spent on activities during the day.
Productivity and outcomes, that’s what we are after, that’s what we are all about. Right?
There are two great differences in the way we see life and the way the Lord sees life.
1. Time
Time means everything to us. We squeeze it. We maximize it. We cherish it. We try to figure how not to waste it, how to capitalize on it, and how to multiply it. But, time means nothing to the Lord. He has all the time in the world. He is in no hurry. What he wants to accomplish in our lives can take four days for forty years. He isn’t concerned with the length of time it takes to accomplish His purposes. Here these words with your spiritual ears, “You can’t hurry the Spirit.” If your goal is unbroken fellowship with the Lord in every minute of the day and if you want to secure Christ’s presence to overcome every temptation that comes your way, then you must determine that spending time in the secret place every day is one of the great resolves of your life.
Put on you spiritual eyes and read this carefully, there is something of much greater importance than all of our requests to the Lord for our personal needs and the needs of others for whom we intercede. There is a prerequisite to all of this; it is to have a deep, living relationship with the Father. He created us for this. He created us to commune with Him, delight in Him, and fulfill His will for our lives.
The great encumbrance to our relationship with the Lord is that we are preoccupied with other things. Instead of making everything secondary to the decision to spend time with the Lord every day, we hurriedly shove in a few minutes here and there with Him. We try to focus on the Lord for a few minutes while we scurry from one project to the other, from one appointment to the other, from one person to the next.
2. Results
The short of it is, we want results. Productivity. We are getting paid to produce something. We have to see something tangible for our efforts. We transfer this fleshly propensity for the need to see results, to our spiritual life in the Lord. We often don’t see measurable results from our prayers with the Lord so we get discouraged and prayer wanes. The Lord simply does not measure our lives by our productivity. The Lord looks at all of our accomplishments, our degrees, our vitae, our “projects completed list” and He is not impressed. He doesn’t manage by outcomes or goals achieved. The Lord is out for depth in our relationship with Him. Intimacy. He doesn’t measure our lives by what is seen. He does His most significant work in the unseen. Our Lord wants His life deeply imbedded into the fabric of our soul. He wants our spirit exchanged for His, our character for His. “But the LORD said to Samuel, ’Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart’” (I Sam. 16:7, NIV).
Time and results, we need spiritual ears and spiritual eyes to hear and see what the Spirit is up to in our lives.
I called up a long time mentor recently to visit with him. When I asked him about a date the following week for us to get together for lunch. He responded that he wouldn’t know for sure about his availability until the day before. That’s all he said. It was a while later until I remembered he rarely sets appointments in advance. His reason, he always wants to be available to people, to those he shepherds and those with immediate needs. One thing about this man that is so unique is his ability to focus on one person at a time. He is never hurried. He is available.
When I was a new Christian I had the blessing to be discipled by a series of men, most of who had a Navigators background. The Navigators is a ministry that advances the gospel throughout the world by discipleship—a call to discover life to the fullest in Christ. In its call to discipleship, the Navigators place great importance on being faithful, available, and teachable. Availability is a huge issue in today’s hectic, fast-paced culture. Just try to get a few Christians together to pray on a regular basis and you will experience what great difficulty we have in “putting first things first.” Our busyness crowds out the most important things in life.
Are you available to others? Are you available to your fellowship or church? Are you available to the Lord?
We are in such a hurry. We have so many places to go and things to do. Can you make time to stop for the next person who comes across your path?
Hidden from men, in full view of God
He needed to avoid public display. He had no one to impress; there were no illusions of grandeur on His part.
I have spent a great deal of time in my life with young people. In the most recent years I always take occasion to query teens and others about their prayer life. One of the questions I repeatedly ask people is, “What keeps you from praying?” Oddly enough, one of the many responses people give is that they are not good about praying aloud so they are embarrassed to pray. That response raises an interesting question, “Should we be good or proficient about praying in the presence of others?” Jesus warns us to be very careful about the reason we pray. He warns us not be like the hypocrites who love to pray, but do so in order to be seen praying by others. “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get” (Matt. 6:5, NLT).
We know that our Lord was accustomed to strong crying and tears. His prayers were meant for only the Father to hear. He needed to pour out His entire soul–groanings and rejoicing. He held nothing back. He needed to have a place where he could have complete communion with His Father to make the decision at hand. He needed a place where there would be no bystanders looking on. To avoid being seen by men while He prayed, he sought the mountain. Even in this time of great travail before the Father, He was modeling what He would teach the disciples later, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matt. 6:6, NIV).
Our decision making model
How do we approach the Lord when we have a great decision to make? Do we pray for many hours? Do we fast? Do we seek counsel? With the challenge of this particular decision, choosing the twelve, the particular time selected by Christ to pray is meant to be a lesson to all of us. He had a decision to make that would resound throughout history of mankind. The decision that lurked the next day required perfect communication and unity with His Father. Can you see the great oneness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in this decision? Can we grasp the depth of unity the Lord is asking us to enter with our fellow believers? So He prayed the whole night. He has set us an example that we should follow. In great emergencies in our life, when we have duties with boundless consequence, or we are about to meet severe encounters, we should seek the divine blessing and direction by setting apart an unusual portion of time for prayer. If we are praying or fasting unto the Lord, others won’t see it as zeal or fanaticism. Our Savior did it. We should follow in His steps.
Men of the world, in business, will sometimes spend hours upon hours in strategic planning, goal setting, developing marketing plans, even if it takes all night sessions. Why should it seem strange that Christians spend an equal portion of time in the far more important business with eternal significance? We need our minds renewed. We need to see the great necessity for prayer.
Jesus the man
There is a fathomless mystery here. Jesus was a man, but He was completely God. We can ask, “Why Jesus should pray?” As a man, He was subject to the same needs as us; He needed divine support, strength, and blessing. It is difficult for us to get our arms around the fact Jesus had physical and human needs. The mystery here is that there was no more contradiction in His praying than there was in His drinking or eating. Both are consistent with who He was while here on earth.
What do we really need? What should we be praying about? We pray for a lot of things. Mostly we pray for things we need (or think we need). We pray for the forgiveness of our sins; Jesus had no sin. He was tempted, but He did not fall into temptation. There was no backsliding on His part. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matt. 6:12, NIV) is an appropriate prayer for us, but He didn’t need it for Himself. Paul describes this inner struggle that each of us face: “O wretched man that I am!” (Rom. 7:24, NIV). But Jesus didn’t experience this. He had guarded His heart from sin and the enemy, “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30, NIV). The enemy had no way to find entrance into Christ’s heart.
The mystery: He was divine, yet was tempted just like us. He was perfect, yet he was a man. He needed to pray all night on occasions, particularly on this occasion; His humanity compelled Him to pray.
His wisdom
Luke frequently shows Jesus praying before some significant event. But can you imagine Jesus fully human, mentally and emotionally. See Jesus as a young boy; He had to grow in wisdom (Luke 2:52). What must it have been like for Joseph and Mary to raise Jesus the Messiah? Did He make bad decisions? Did He have to learn new things just like any other young boy? In the Infancy of Thomas, a pseudepigraphical gospel about the childhood of Jesus that is believed to date to the 2nd century, the child Jesus does numerous whimsical and malicious miracles. A pseudepigrapha writing usually refers to a collection of Jewish religious works written circa 300 BC to 300 AD. Though not accurate, this gospel account was written because there are so many unanswered questions about His childhood and people wanted to know what His childhood was like.
The Bible is silent about Jesus’s early years, except for the encounter in Luke of Jesus in the synagogue at age twelve (Luke 2:39-52). We are given a snapshot of Jesus’s development before this synagogue experience. “And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him” (Luke 2:40, NIV). In this account, the boy Jesus asks astute questions that indicate He has a profound understanding at this tender age. And at the end of the passage we get a glimpse of the years of Jesus between twelve and thirty. “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (2:52, NIV).
See the three areas of His development:
• Wisdom, godly understanding
• Stature, maturing as a young man
• Favor, from man and God
He called upon God the Father to be in complete communion with Him in choosing the twelve. He used the spiritual understanding He acquired and He called on the Father and the Holy Spirit for more understanding. He wanted to be in total unity with Father and Holy Spirit in the choosing of the disciples. The example is clear for us, if we have spiritual eyes to see: Christ wants us to grow in spiritual understanding, in the knowledge and application of His word, but we must submit all that we are to His spirit. We must commune with Him every day to know His will for our lives in all situations. It is in the secret place with God where we learn from Him. By the Lord’s matchless grace that is given to us, we can live every day and make every decision in concert with His will for our lives. We can fellowship with Christ so intimately in the secret place that we can understand His will for lives and be empowered by His spirit to walk it out.
There are practices of prayer mentioned over and over in the Psalms:
• “But whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night” (Psalm 1:2, NIV).
• “I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me” (Psalm 16:7, NIV).
• “On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night” (Psalm 63:6.).
Jesus knew firsthand of the counsel and wisdom of the Father to be gained in the night hours. He sought the Father and found the wisdom He needed.
Jesus followed all of these practices of the Jewish culture on prayer and more. This is what He grew up on. He grew in His communication with the Father through prayer. He received the Father’s words through prayer. He knew when to heal through prayer. He chose the twelve through a night of prayer. Think of the scene: After praying all night, Jesus calls His disciples together and then invites the twelve, one by one into a deeper place of intimacy with Him. Like the good shepherd who knows each of his sheep individually, Jesus now knows each and every one of his disciples intimately. And He desires to be known and loved by each of us in this same way.
Your invitation to be known is found in prayer; answer the invitation.
by Tim Cameron | Jul 19, 2015 | prayer
Don’t Lose Heart in Prayer
Then He spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart (Luke 18:1).
We don’t need to construe or conjecture what Jesus meant in giving us this parable because Luke states Jesus’ meaning from the outset. Christ strategically designed the parable, Luke explains, to empower the prayer lives of His people. Jesus wants us to pray always and believe for fulfillment of Promise. Prayer is to be incessant and unrelenting until answer comes.
The greatest temptation when waiting for God’s answer to your prayer is to lose heart. To become faint-hearted. To be discouraged to the point of despair. To give up hope. To conclude you don’t have what it takes, in this instance, to move heaven on your behalf. To decide that nothing is going to change.
Make no mistake about it; there is a mocking spirit that has been launched from the enemy that is part of Satan’s strategy to pummel God’s people into faint-heartedness.
That is why this parable is more relevant and crucial today than ever. Because of the warfare we face, we desperately need the faith this parable imparts.
Bob Sorge
by Tim Cameron | Jul 15, 2015 | Cost of Prayer, prayer
The Tyranny of the Urgent
“Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:15-16, NIV).
“The enemy of the best is always the good.” That’s what one of my mentors, Dr. Charles Farah would say. People who are popular will have many others pulling at them. Anyone with multiple responsibilities will daily face the decision to leave something undone.
What comes first?
What is the most important decision you will make every day? Is it what suit or outfit to put on? What engagement to say no to? Which calls to return? How to prioritize the many tasks pulling at your limited time? Or, is it the decision to spend time with the Lord and pray the first thing in the day?
In my training as a school superintendent one of the last exercises every new applicant faced was the “in-box” test. The challenge was to take an in-box of ten items and prioritize them in importance as to which you would tackle first for the day and what others could wait to be addressed later. I learned that invariably, disguised in the ten items, there would always be a safety item that was difficult to identify. A safety item is something that related to school safety. Safety items always take priority above every other administrative task and are always first priority for school administrators. And so it is in our spiritual lives. The safety item for our relationship with Christ is investing time alone with Him every day, preferably time at the start of the day, time in prayer and the Word.
Lord of my habits
The key word in this text of Luke 5:15-16 is “often,” or “frequent.” The ISV says, “However, he continued his habit of retiring to deserted places and praying” (Luke 5:16, ISV). He made it a habit to go away and pray. No matter how busy it seemed, no matter how many people were clamoring for His attention, He often withdrew; it was His practice. If it was His practice, how much more should it be ours?
His habit begs the issue, what are your habits to start the day? A habit is defined as something that is your custom or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. The most widely accepted studies on habit conclude that it takes on an average sixty-six days to form a new habit. One of the difficulties with forming a new habit is that we may be attempting to break habits that have been formed over years and years. And all of us know that one of the raging conflicts we face in life is breaking bad habits and forming positive habits.
One morning in my quiet time before the Lord I heard Him as clearly as if words had been spoken, “It’s time to put the newspaper down.” I laughed out loud as I contemplated that thought. For fifteen years I had worked a second job to supplement my income as a school administrator. It was a purposeful decision I made to facilitate my wife staying home to care for our children and home school them. My second job was delivering newspapers every morning from 4 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. Every morning for fifteen years, seven days a week (one day off each year when the paper was not printed), I delivered 500-plus newspapers, then sat down at a coffee shop and read the paper for a few minutes. Now I had finally come to a place in my career where I didn’t need to work a second job, but I still started the day the same way, newspaper in hand, sitting at the coffee shop. Now I could relax, enjoy the newspaper and not be in a hurry. The newspaper was the first thing I meditated on every day. It took more than the average of sixty-six days for me to break the newspaper habit, but I did break it. I replaced the newspaper habit with another compulsive-like habit, meditating on God’s Word. For more than fifteen plus years I have devoured the Word of God habitually. Most of us have a character trait, skill, or gifting for which we are recognized or identified by others. For some of us it is being an artist, being well read, having a degree from a prestigious school, or perhaps being mercy motivated. For me, most people who know me would quickly characterize me as a man of God’s Word. It is what many know me for. This is one compulsive habit that has served me well.
Lord of my time
One of the great lessons of life and relationships is that there is no substitute for time. Here is an even greater truth: there is no substitute for time alone with the Lord. In any relationship, time is the vital element. From friendships to marriage, you cannot cheat time. It takes time to develop intimacy. Dennis Jernigan, the great gospel songwriter, says, “Intimacy is… into me see.” No matter what excuses a person gives, no matter what a person says, show me where time is spent and I will show you what is important to the person. Where a person spends his or her time is a view into the soul. Consider these thoughts:
A daily quiet time with God is a dramatic necessity for relationship with the Lord. It is in our daily quiet time that we study the Bible, pray, and listen to the Lord. These practices bring life and vitality to our soul. But, the morning watch is not the goal; it is not the end. The goal is not to be so disciplined that we habitually have a quiet time with the Lord every morning for an hour. No, the whole purpose of time with the Lord in the morning is know Christ, have His presence in our life, to be connected with Him throughout the entire day.
The goal of spending time with Christ is to have His character become our character. For our life to be hidden in His life, His nature to become our nature, and His habits our habits. It is possible to become so intimately acquainted with a practice, a way of doing something that you can do it without thinking. It becomes second nature, natural. When we find the secret place of abiding in Christ, our ordinary, daily interactions with people will become oh such more than mundane. They will be majestic opportunities to fulfill God’s purposes. We will become fruitful Christians. All fruitfulness of this kind flows out of intimacy with Him.
There are two great hindrances to prayer. Listen carefully with your spirit as I write. Revelations 3:6 states, “Let him that has an ear to hear listen to what the Spirit is saying.” The two great hindrances to prayer are busyness and worldliness. Busyness steals our time to pray, and worldliness diverts our will from prayer. If a person is too busy to pray, they are too busy to live a life that is wholly given to Jesus.
You cannot give to others what you do not possess yourself. It is truly in our private times of prayer and devotion that His presence increases within us. If your heart’s desire is to influence others for Christ, give hope to the hopeless, and speak words of encouragement to the weary, then you must have the presence of the Lord in your life. A presence that is attained by spending quiet time with Him is the one constant that must be present in your life.
Jesus withdrew to a lonely, deserted place. He knew where he had to go to be alone. Do you have a place to pray? If you don’t, that may indicate that you probably don’t pray often.
Crowds of people came to hear him
The news was spreading and spreading farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear him and be healed. Can you imagine what that must have been like? As a young man, I witnessed the phenomenon of Kathryn Khulman in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California and in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The impact was the same in both places: thousands came to hear her, lining up for blocks, waiting 10-12 hours before the doors opened. Why? The news spread that you could come and be healed. Where the power of God is rumored, people will come. And, oh yes, I do remember hearing Kathryn say that she prayed for as many five hours or more before she would minister and pray for people.
In our culture today, there is a great danger that the masses will celebrate those who move with authority, charisma, or anointing. The craving of people to exalt a minister of the gospel is difficult for any normal human to resist. Every successful minister faces this test.
I recently had lunch with a young man who has dedicated himself to the Lord since an early age. He carries an anointing from the Holy Spirit. He is committed to purity and transparency. And he is a man of prayer. As we spoke, I could sense that he did not want to give in to the enticements to have a ministry that would be of celebrity status. For this young man, there will be many who will encourage him to pursue those things that will exalt him personally. I believe he will stand strong and lift up the Lord Jesus. However, couple the influence of others with our natural propensity for pride and you have the most dangerous of elixirs for those who minister. Almost any minister is vulnerable. I’ve heard it said from many different stalwarts of the faith in various ways, but the message is the same, a person doesn’t need to be spiritual or holy to teach or preach today. In our media driven culture, a person with personality, self-confidence, and charisma, can gain a following and move the masses. This kind of message impacts men, prayer impacts souls.
The conjunction “but” is used to suggest a contrast in Luke 5:15-16. “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” In spite of the crowds growing larger and larger and the news spreading about him, Christ made it a habit to withdraw far away to the desert to pray. Crowds or their clamor did not sway him from being with the Father. He knew that the needs of the people were so great that He must spend time in prayer with the Father.
Do you see your desperate need to spend time in prayer? Neither success nor failure precludes our need for continual prayer. We must watch that we do not fall prey to the pride that lurks around the corner with every success in life. The Lord is giving an invitation. The invitation is to join Him every morning and every day, continually in a spirit of prayer.
by Tim Cameron | Jul 13, 2015 | prayer
God and Time
Lord of my time
One of the great lessons of life and relationships is that there is no substitute for time. Here is an even greater truth: there is no substitute for time alone with the Lord. In any relationship, time is the vital element. From friendships to marriage, you cannot cheat time. It takes time to develop intimacy. Dennis Jernigan, the great gospel songwriter, says, “Intimacy is… into me see.” No matter what excuses a person gives, no matter what a person says, show me where time is spent and I will show you what is important to the person. Where a person spends his or her time is a view into the soul. Consider these thoughts:
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” William Penn
“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” Theophrastus
“Lost time is never found again.” Benjamin Franklin
A daily quiet time with God is a dramatic necessity for relationship with the Lord. It is in our daily quiet time that we study the Bible, pray, and listen to the Lord. These practices bring life and vitality to our soul. But, the morning watch is not the goal; it is not the end. The goal is not to be so disciplined that we habitually have a quiet time with the Lord every morning for an hour. No, the whole purpose of time with the Lord in the morning is know Christ, have His presence in our life, to be connected with Him throughout the entire day.
The goal of spending time with Christ is to have His character become our character. For our life to be hidden in His life, His nature to become our nature, and His habits our habits. It is possible to become so intimately acquainted with a practice, a way of doing something that you can do it without thinking. It becomes second nature, natural. When we find the secret place of abiding in Christ, our ordinary, daily interactions with people will become oh such more than mundane. They will be majestic opportunities to fulfill God’s purposes. We will become fruitful Christians. All fruitfulness of this kind flows out of intimacy with Him.
There are two great hindrances to prayer. Listen carefully with your spirit as I write. Revelations 3:6 states, “Let him that has an ear to hear listen to what the Spirit is saying.” The two great hindrances to prayer are busyness and worldliness. Busyness steals our time to pray, and worldliness diverts our will from prayer. If a person is too busy to pray, they are too busy to live a life that is wholly given to Jesus.
You cannot give to others what you do not possess yourself. It is truly in our private times of prayer and devotion that His presence increases within us. If your heart’s desire is to influence others for Christ, give hope to the hopeless, and speak words of encouragement to the weary, then you must have the presence of the Lord in your life. A presence that is attained by spending quiet time with Him is the one constant that must be present in your life.
Jesus withdrew to a lonely, deserted place. He knew where he had to go to be alone. Do you have a place to pray? If you don’t, that may indicate that you probably don’t pray often.
He has all the time in the world. And He does not see time as we see time. He can accomplish His purposes in four days, forty days, or forty years. He is in no hurry. You cannot hurry the spirit.
I am perfectly confident that the man who does not spend hours along with God will never know the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The world must be left outside until God alone fills the vision…God has promised to answer prayer. It is not that He is unwilling, for the fact is, He is more willing to give than we are to receive. But the trouble is, we are not ready. Oswald J. Smith
There must be closet praying! It is in the closet that we establish the beautiful habit of spontaneous praying on every occasion. When we are fresh out of the closet we are quick to pray about every turn of events. Unceasing prayer is God’s avenue for His children to react to all happenings. Clyde Martin
Oh how few find time for prayer! There is time for everything else, time to sleep and time to eat, time to red the newspaper and the novel, time to visit friends, time for everything else under the sun, but no time for prayer, the most important of all things, the one great essential. Oswald Smith
Tim Cameron
by Tim Cameron | Jul 11, 2015 | prayer
Provoking Thoughts on Prayer
“For this sin hungry age we need a prayer-hungry church. We need to explore again the “exceeding great and precious promises of God.” In “that day”, the fire of judgment is going to test the sort, not the size, of the work we have done. That which is born in prayer will survive the test. Prayer does business with God. Prayer creates hunger for souls; hunger for souls creates prayer. The understanding soul prays, the praying soul gets understanding. To the soul who prays in self-owned weakness, the Lord gives His strength…Lord, let us pray.
Leonard Ravenhilll. (1907–1994) was an English Christian evangelist and author who focused on the subjects of prayer and revival. He is best known for challenging western evangelicalism (through his books and sermons) to compare itself to the early Christian Church as chronicled in the Book of Acts. His most notable book is Why Revival Tarries which has sold over a million copies worldwide. He was a close friend of A.W. Tozer and Keith Green’s mentor.
