Day: September 16, 2020

9-16-20 Midweek Musings

Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out
of the heart or soul to God, through Christ,
in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit.

True Pattern of Prayer

Jesus’s redemptive work does more than bring us to God; it also creates a pattern of communion with God, and therefore a pattern for prayer. We see this in Ephesians 2:18: “For through [Jesus] we both [Jew and Gentile] have access in one Spirit to the Father.”

John Bunyan built his definition of prayer on this structure: “Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit.”

We pray to God the Father, as Jesus himself taught us to pray (Matthew 6:9), as he regularly modeled in his own prayer life (Matthew 11:25; 26:39; John 17:1), and as the apostles prayed (Ephesians 1:16–17).

Because our access to the Father is through the atoning death and continuing advocacy of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:34), we approach the Father in Jesus’s name (John 14:13; 15:16; 16:23–24, 26). We come “with confidence” because we’re “in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:11–12). Jesus, the Son of God by nature, makes us sons of God through adoption — and children have access to their parents. It’s like that for us because of the work of Jesus Christ.

And, as Bunyan says, we pray in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, interceding for us (Romans 8:26). So, we have double help in our prayers. Both God the Son and God the Spirit speak to God the Father on our behalf.

This pattern encourages us in our prayers, praying to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Spirit. Jesus’s passion, pleasure, and purpose is to bring us into the presence of the Father — and the Holy Spirit shares this passion.

From God, Through God, To God

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis memorably expressed the wonder of prayer to God:

An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God — that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him.

You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying — the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on — the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal.

The whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life . . . he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself.

There is major help and encouragement here for us, as we learn to pray, as we come alive to the massive privilege of access to God our Father, as we marvel that the Son and the Spirit intercede for us. And so we pray with a sense of wonder and a settled confidence.

We pray with joy and purpose.

Excerpted from https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-real-problem-of-prayer

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Dear KAG: 20200916 Open Thread

Boom boom boom.

President Donald Trump is delivering what the professional political class has promised for years.

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Appeal to the wallets and treasuries, and VIOLA! The Art of the Deal strikes again.

Take that professional political class.

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ARGH! I almost forgot the most important video of the day!

And now for the obligatory message from our sponsors:

Here at the Q tree we believe in the concept of CIVIL open free speech and the discussion that fleshes out ideas. When commenting and participating in the OPEN discussion on this thread all comments MUST NOT CONTAIN personal threats, baiting, name calling, or other anti-social words fomenting hate, violence or destruction. Our host Wolfm00n has strict rules about that.

Fellow tree dweller Wheatie gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:

  1. No food fights.
  2. No running with scissors.
  3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.

In addition, it is requested that there be no swinging from the chandeliers, celebratory gunfire, messing around with the nuclear weapons, and, please, everyone wash your hands.

Please, do not forget to apply sunscreen after a sensible amount of time in the sun so as to beef up the level of vitamin D in the system so we can all get our immune systems in shape to stop the Wuhan Flu thing sooner rather than later.

Please remember to remain locked and loaded and ready for trouble should the insurrectionists try to invade your space.

Those who have things to say that do not fit the generally accepted limits of “civil” discussion, Wolf has provided a venue known as the UTree. You’re welcome to visit over there and say hi to anyone hanging out over there.

A few other vital notes:

Please, review these rules that our host Wolfm00n outlined toward the beginning of the growth of the tree itself. it won’t take long.

Ridiculing the other side, on the other hand…well….

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LUKE 7:31-35

31“To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? 32They are like children sitting in the market place and calling to one another, `We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.’ 33For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine; and you say, `He has a demon.’ 34The Son of man has come eating and drinking; and you say, `Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ 35Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”

As always, prayers for the fight against that which seeks to enslave us are welcome.

Please include: President Donald Trump, the Q team, our soldiers in the field, special forces, tactical units, members of the Cabinet, first responders and those working behind the scenes.

Are we sure we’re ready?

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