Information (Internet)
changed business and communication.
Political upheaval – We have seen the fall of
communism. We’ve seen
Bush-to-Clinton-and back! We have seen
the race and gender barriers lowered; Mr. Obama is the first African-American
(or minority of any kind) to serve as President. Wow!
Can anything top all of that?
Hmmm?
Medical/ethical dilemmas like what to do about AIDS and Ebola, stem cell research and
other assorted worries.
ECONOMIC worries are on a roller
coaster ride.
And…There’s
nothing left to eat that’s safe,
except liver and okra!
Are we doomed? Is there an answer?
· Some would say, “No – just
hang tough, get what you can, and be yourself.
You’ll get by.”
· On late-night TV the
talking head says, “Of course there’s an answer; just send me $500 – I’ll send
you a prayer cloth, and soon you’ll be rich.”
· On the streets, in the
boardroom or classroom it’s, “Here, have a drink/snort/smoke, and you won’t
worry about all that!”
Well,
what does God say about all that? The
apostle Paul has a real solution for the gloom and doom crowd. He tells us that the answers to are
we doomed and many more (in fact, all) of life’s
nagging questions are found in prayer; specifically, true prayer – without
ceasing…
What does that mean?
Years
ago I stood at the Grand Canyon…and got a little dizzy. It is quite awesome to stand, looking out
over that incredible hole in the ground.
My
mind wandered to the old story of the famous acrobat, who attracted a huge
crowd to watch him walk a tightrope across Niagara Falls. He nimbly and skillfully passed over the
waters below, suspended by a thin line – and, without a safety net!
He
did it a second time – easily, with a smile on his face. “Bravo” yelled the crowd. The performer spoke to the onlookers, “How
many believe I could do this carrying someone on my shoulders?” All hands shot up; “We believe, we
believe.” “Who would like to be
first?” The crowd went home!
Shouting
Bravo
when you have no intention of climbing on the man’s back is what I call
“praying with a net.” It is saying, “OK, I’ll pray about this, but
if I get uncomfortable in this process, I’m gonna bail…I’ll go with something I
can see.” That something you can see is the safety net. It is trusting in yourself as the one who can
handle the problems if God won’t.
That
is not the kind of prayer God wants to hear.
He wants to hear prayers offered by people who have no safety net – just
faith in God.
What
does it look like when somebody is ready to pray without a net? What “marks” can you notice in a prayer
ministry that is net-less?
WE ARE TO PRAY CONSTANTLY –
A
dear friend, Donna Smith, once told me, I never say Amen I always have so
much to pray about. That’s
probably good advice; when you’ve got God on the line, you wouldn’t want to
hang up the phone!
Praying
constantly involves intentionality.
There must be something of a decision to organize your life around the
things of God. There must be a readiness
to respond to the leading of God.
If
not, you’re operating with a net.
Without
intentionally linking yourself to God, you’re at the mercy of the happenstance
of life. Actually, you have no net – it
just seems like you have one.
Place
a Styrofoam cup on the centerline of a highway; the first car that passes will
cause it to jump in that direction. As
another car passes on the opposite side, it will be snapped-back the other
way. If two cars pass at the same time
it will not know which way to jump.
Intentional
praying is when you link yourself to God constantly, allowing Him to
determine the outcome of things. It
means you relinquish control. It is like taking that Styrofoam cup off the
centerline on the road, and placing it in God’s truck. You’ve made a decision about your direction –
you’re going with God.
That’s
hard, isn’t it? Doing things God’s way is hard, isn’t it? Actually, in the long run, that is the
easiest way, because it’s God’s way, and His yoke is easy, His burden light.[1]
Constant
prayer – without a net – is no burden…it is the joy of being close to the
Lord. He is the source of beauty, love,
health and joy. What’s burdensome about
being near THAT all the time?
Constant
prayer, and…
WE ARE TO PRAY FOR HEALING
Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church
and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the
Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise
them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. James
5.13-14(NRSV)
Pray
for the sick – well, we’ve got that one down.
We
pray for the sick constantly here – and God in mercy and grace has responded
with healings! But, while we’re praying
that our loved ones get better physically, we should not
forget the other needs, emotional healing, spiritual healing, and
relationships.
There
is more spiritual virus affecting this world than any strains of AIDS or
Ebola. If we are going to pray without a
net in today’s spiritual warfare of morals, worldview and culture, we will have
to take a stand.
It’s
never hard to get people to agree to pray for someone battling against cancer,
or a heart attack. But these are minor,
incredibly minor, compared to the spiritual diseases of abortion, sexual
perversion, cruelty and oppression. The
apostle Paul showed us the bull’s-eye.
He said,
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians 6.12 (KJV)
The
reason Paul told us to put on the whole armor of God is because you
need it when you pray for healing against the real sicknesses that can hurt
people – the kind that can kill the spirit, and consign the soul to hell.
Constant
prayer, Healing prayer, and…
WE ARE TO PRAY WITH REPENTANCE
Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another,
so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and
effective. James 5:16(NRSV)
The
net drops quickly when we confess our sins to each other, seeking each other’s
forgiveness. That’s when we get help –
real help – when we drop the fences, the walls.
To repent is to ask God to clean our slate; we can then offer that clean
slate back to Him, so He can begin to write our new future.
Repenting
means, in a literal sense, turning around. It means a complete change of attitude
towards sin…and a complete change of actions.
What we purpose in our heart becomes what we live out each day!
Paul
said the
prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. That could be restated…The man who has a clean slate, and goes to
work praying… If you want to be part
of a net-less
prayer ministry, cleaning the slate
is a daily necessity. God uses cleaned
vessels.
WE ARE TO INTERCEDE AS WE PRAY
Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might
not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the
earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth
yielded its harvest. My brothers and
sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by
another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering
will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. James 5:17-20 (NRSV)
Intercession
and reconciliation – that’s the ministry of the body of Christ.
Abraham
was the beginning of the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people. They were to intercede, bring God’s message
to the world. The New Testament church’s
calling is the same; we are to present the gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost
world. That’s not easy!
Intercession
is standing in the gap – for the lost, the sick, the needy. When you stand in a gap between God and the
people God has told you to help….there is no net!
Intercessory
prayer hands the net to God. It is when
you do what William Carey[2] the father of modern
missions said,
Attempt great things for God; expect great things
from God.
It
is like a small child turning over his security blankey to Dad, trusting
that Dad won’t hurt him.
That
Charlotte, NC farmer in 1934 had spent a good deal of time battling a stubborn
farm during the Great Depression.
Raising a family was tough work then – as it is now – only in a
different way. The Depression had spread
spiritual apathy in the city. But, when
asked, the farmer lent out one of his pasture fields to some business leaders
for a day of prayer. A man named Vernon
Patterson lead the prayer: O Lord, raise up from Charlotte someone to
preach the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Those
businessmen erected a tabernacle of pine beams in
the city. For the next eleven weeks an
evangelist by the name of Mordecai Ham shattered the complacency of church-going
Charlotte.
The
farmer who lent his pasture for the original prayer meeting was named Franklin
Graham. During the revival, Franklin’s
young son, Billy, responded to Christ, and committed his life. These days we call him Dr. Graham. Only eternity will reveal how many souls were
touched for Christ beginning with one farmer willing to let go of a field for a
while, and one businessman willing to pray without a net for the sake of the
gospel.
So,
praying without a net looks like this:
we pray constantly for healing as we personally repent of our sins and
intercede for others.
Got
it….but….
How can I get rid of the net?
Preacher,
I want to trust God that way. I really
want to pray without a net. How do I do
that? Answer: You just do it. Really!
· Do you remember what
happened when Mrs. Job looked her man in the eyes and said you’ve lost it all, children,
possessions, reputation and even your health – why don’t you just curse God and
die? He said, though
he slay me I’ll worship him.
That was Job, handing God the net.
· Do you remember Naaman the
Leper? God’s prophet said, Go
dip in the Jordan River seven times to be healed. Naaman grumbled, but he went. Each time he bobbed up in the water, it was
Naaman saying, Here, God of Elisha, take my net.
· Do you remember how an
angel told an unmarried 13 year old girl she was going to have a baby? And Mary, the virgin mother of our Lord,
said, I have no net. Let God rule in
my life.
· The big fisherman, Peter,
knew something about nets. Outside
Pilate’s house the night Jesus was tried, then crucified, he protected his
identity – I don’t know Jesus” – a net!
After the crucifixion, he went home to do some fishing – back to the
nets. What happened? He had a meeting with Jesus, the resurrected
Lord of the universe. And Peter found
out he was forgiven. All that cowardice
and backpedaling…forgiven. Peter just
gave up his nets.
Most
pictures I’ve ever seen of Jesus have his hands extended, palms up. I’ve been told it is to show us his nail
prints.
I’ve
been told it means, Come unto me….
Today,
for us, it should mean, give me your net…
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