Tag: dependence
Editor’s note: This blog post is republished by permission of the author, Jack Gilbert. Jack & his wife are missionaries with SEND International in Spain. Jack regularly blogs at I’m Listening to GOD. This particular blog post is part of Jack’s series on the book of Romans.
Those whom God receives by grace must welcome others with grace as well.
Pastoral intent:
Paul wants to demonstrate that not all disagreements are of equal importance. He calls the Roman believers to seek to live together in peace by building each other up in Christ and welcoming one another in the same way Jesus has welcomed them
Outline of Romans 14:1 – 15:13
Rom. 14:1–12 — Receive One Another Despite Differences
Rom. 14:13–23 —Love One Another Through Self-Restraint
Rom. 15:1–7 — Serve One Another Through Self-Sacrifice
Rom. 15:8–13 — Glorify God as One People in Christ
Context
The Changing Makeup of the… Read the whole post
Editor’s note: This blog post is republished by permission of the author, Jack Gilbert. Jack & his wife are missionaries with SEND International in Spain. Jack regularly blogs at I’m Listening to GOD.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.(1 Thessalonians 5:17-18)
We all live busy lives, juggling responsibilities, challenges, and expectations. And in the middle of it, Paul’s words can hit hard: “Pray without ceasing.” At first, that might feel impossible, or even a little unfair. But what if it’s not a rule to follow, but a way of life to enter? Instead of an obligation, what if we are being invited into something better than just getting by? Prayer is the rhythm that sustains the soul, the connection that shapes how we face each day. And that is what Paul wanted to communicate… Read the whole post
Editor’s note: David and Kathy North planted multiple churches with TEAM for 33 years in various-sized cities in the Philippines. In their first few years in the Philippines, the Norths and I (Ken Guenther) served on the same church planting team in Baliwag, Bulacan. David is currently the Church Planting Coordinator for TEAM’s international network of church planters and disciple makers. The Norths are involved in Coaching, Training, Mentoring and encouraging front line workers. These blog posts were copied with permission from TEAM’s Church Planting Blog, Go and Plant.
Longing for help
For years as a young church planter, I longed for outside guidance and input about my efforts to plant churches. From time to time, an experienced church planter would speak even just a few words into my ministry and it would give me the new thoughts… Read the whole post
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
I have recently finished listening to Tyler Staton’s book on prayer – Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: An Invitation to the Wonder and Mystery of Prayer. I listened to Tyler Staton preach on the topic of the Lord’s Prayer at a leadership retreat a few months ago. Both his passion for and his experience in prayer impressed me.1 You can listen to these same sermons on the Bridgetown Church’s website. I did not expect this in such a young pastor. In his book, I was further intrigued by his emphasis on the importance of daily set times of prayer. He pointed out that both Jesus and the early church practiced regular times of prayer each day.
Jesus and his prayer life
Over the years, I have noticed that the Gospels (and particularly Luke) often note that Jesus gave himself to prayer. At this baptism, before he begins a busy day of ministry, and before he chooses the 12 apostles, Jesus is praying.2 See Luke 3:21, 5:15-16, 6:12-13. After a full day of teaching and then feeding a massive crowd of 5000, he climbs a mountain to pray rather than getting some sleep (Mark 5:44-46). What we often miss is that the Transfiguration happened when Jesus took his 3 closest disciples on a prayer retreat (see Luke 9:28-29). In fact, this prayer retreat was only about a week after another prayer retreat with his disciples (Luke 9:18-20).
A couple of chapters later, Jesus is again praying, and this time, the disciples ask him to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1). His example in prayer is so striking that the disciples want to learn to pray like that. By the time we get to Gethsemane, we are not surprised that Jesus insisted on praying until the very moment of his arrest (Luke 22:39-46).
Clearly, Jesus was a man of prayer. Major events in his life were framed by his times in prayer. He prepared for major decisions, important questions and the crowning crisis and triumph of his life on Golgotha through extended times of prayer. As Paul Miller observes, Jesus demonstrates his dependence on the Father in a remarkable way through his regular times of prayer.
When Jesus tells us to become like little children, he isn’t telling us to do anything he isn’t already doing. Jesus is, without question, the most dependent human being who ever lived. Because he can’t do life on his own, he prays. And he prays. And he prays. Luke tells us that Jesus “would withdraw to desolate places and pray” (5:16).
Paul E. Miller. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World, loc. 653.
Three times a day
In “Praying Like Monks”, Staton says that godly Jews would pray three times a day – in the morning, at noon and in the evening. The Psalmist references this pattern in Ps 55:17. This was Daniel’s practice, even in exile in Babylon (Dan. 6:10). Staton believes that Jesus observed a similar daily prayer rhythm, and that the early believers copied this practice. Tyler Staton points out that the book of Acts mentions times of prayers at certain times of the day. Look at these examples:
In the preparation of his servants, God uses crucible experiences that test and purify us. This is no less true of missionaries than of any other servants of God. In a previous post in this blog, I looked at Scripture verses that speak of crucibles and noted some different types of crucible experiences. I emphasized that our response to these crucible experiences is critical. If they are to be transformative, we need to identify and extract from these difficult and often painful experiences that which God has intended that we learn from it.
How do we do that? How do we mine crucibles? I think we need to begin by learning from Jesus. He not only went through the crucible in order to purchase our redemption, but he shows us how to persevere and learn from these experiences.