Examen Me

Today hasn’t been that productive of a day.  So I decided that I MUST accomplish something worth while before I leave the coffee shop where I was supposed to be “studying”.  So I’ve decided to publish another blog about a wonderful site called Examen.Me.  If you’ve ever had a hard time developing your own time for personal devotions, or avoided keeping a journal at all cost because you really never knew how to start the whole process.  Examine.me is here to provide us with some direction.  It’s a website that has taken some of the most devotional and ancient practices of the Christian Fathers, and put them in a 21st century format.

The team behind the website describes Examen.Me describe the site like this: “We are working hard to build a web site (web app) that will let you interact with God by guiding you through Scripture and prayers while providing a journal to record your experiences…what we are working on could radically change how many interact with God on a  daily basis, at least that is the goal.”

Go check out the web tour, and register for your free account here

Here’s a screen shot of what the interface looks like:

The Kingdom & The Church

You cannot build a church.  After Peter confesses Jesus is the Christ.  Jesus makes a thought provoking statement.  Matthew 16:18 reads, “ And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”  It is Jesus who builds his church, not us.  We can have all the right models.  We can raise a mountain of funds.  We can craft a compelling mission statement.  We can have magnificent worship services.  HOWEVER, none this matters, unless it is Christ who is building the church.

You cannot bring in the kingdom.  Jesus tells Nicodemus that “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  The kingdom is something that we can not see, unless it is divinely disclosed.  Jesus says the kingdom is “at hand”, and this is because he was ushering it into the world.  We know that this baffled the minds of the disciples and even John the Baptist, for all these men were looking for Christ to usher in a physical kingdom.  But at that moment in history, Jesus did not have a physical kingdom in mind.  This kingdom would not be a physical kingdom, but a spiritual one.  “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”  (Romans 14:17)  And until Christ returns, it is this kind of spiritual kingdom that will be present here on earth.  Since this kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, we can only expect that the kingdom will be manifested by a spiritual disclosure through the Holy Spirit, not our own devices.

And this should not surprise us because God is in the business of building his kingdom, on his terms, by his means.  “For apart from me you can do nothing.”  But Jesus does give us a clue to what we can do.  “Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’”  We see this trend throughout the book of Acts as well.  It has been suggested that the entire book of Acts is a testimony of the acts of Christ in response to prayer.  “Proseuchomai”, the Greek lexical word for prayer, appears in Acts over 20 times, and over thirty times in the ESV.  And aside from Acts we can quickly survey the gospels and notice that Jesus “would withdraw to desolate places and pray.”  The model Jesus left us was to pray.

If we want to see the Christ’s church be revived here on earth, and we long to see the kingdom come down.  We must first trust that Christ is faithful to build his church.  Then, we must desperately pray that the kingdom will come and the Father’s will be done.

Prayer Repost

This is a old essay that I wrote on prayer a couple of years ago.  It was first published on my old blog, and now its back for you to enjoy!

Prayer is an ancient practice that is a staple for nearly all religions. Each religion has its own champion of prayer, who would devote hours, days, and even weeks to meditation and prayer. More times than not, the story for Christian’s is that prayer is one of their rustiest tools, filled with struggles and disappointments. Yet, prayer is a Christian’s most life-giving, and powerful avenues of change. Why is that?

 Each day a war is being fought within our hearts, and one of the primary focuses of the enemy’s attacks is our prayer life. It is the Bunker Hill of this spiritual war. “Satan does not mind if you read the Bible, just so you don’t pray, because then reading it will never transform your life. It may even give you a severe case of spiritual pride because you know it so well. Satan does not mind if you share your faith, just so you don’t pray, because he knows it is far more important to talk to God about men than it is to talk to men about God. Satan does not mind if you become neurotically involved in the ministry of a local church, just so you don’t pray, because then you will be active but you really won’t accomplishing that much. You see, Satan has methods. And one of his greatest methods is to keep you and me off our knees.” 

Prayer is so pivotal for our relationship with God. It is prayer that ushers us into the presence of God, and it is within the presence of God that our hearts and minds are radically changed. It is in prayer, “real prayer, that we begin to think God’s thoughts after him: to desire the things he desires, to love the things he loves, to will the things he wills.” It is within our daily prayers that we move closer to God’s heartbeat, and “the closer we come to the heartbeat of God the more we see our need and the more we desire to be conformed to Christ.” It is because of this fact that the enemy focuses his strengths in the area of prayer.

 We must remind ourselves of the importance of practicing prayer in our personal lives and within our communities. The importance of prayer cannot be established by a just a single verse. However, one can look at the life of Jesus, and see how much the son relies on prayer throughout his life.

 We find Jesus praying at the very beginning of his ministry, at his baptism. “Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove;” We find Jesus praying right before he calls his disciples. “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.” Numerous times in the book of Luke, we find that Jesus took his disciples with him to pray, most notably the transfiguration. The entire seventeenth chapter of the book of John is a record of Jesus praying for himself, for his disciples, and for all believers. As the events of the crucifixion approached him, we find Jesus crying out to the Father in prayer, saying “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you.” And to this very day, we find Jesus at the right hand of God, interceding for us. 

Jesus established a reputation of withdrawing to lonely places and praying. This reputation did not stop after Christ’s ascension, but continues some two thousand years later. If the son of the living God found it, and still finds it, absolutely essential to frequently enter into prayer, what does that say about the necessity of prayer in our lives, our ministries, our community? 

”In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.” ..Hebrews 5:7

End notes

Hendricks, Howard, “Prayer..the Christian’s Secret Weapon” in Veritas, Jan. 2004 (Dallas, TX: Dallas Theological Seminary) p. 1, 2
2.

Foster, Richard J., Celebration of Discipline (New York: HarperCollins) p. 33
3.

Foster, Richard J., Celebration of Discipline (New York: HarperCollins) p. 33
4.

Luke 3:21-22
5. Luke 6:12-13
6. Mark 14:36
7. Romans 8:34