Category: Prayer
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A Prayer for Septmber 11
In anticipation of the tenth anniversary of 9-11 attacks today, which will be recognized in our church this morning, and which will no doubt be remembered in many, many other congregations across the USA, I have been benefitting from the insights and prayers of many all week. I have particularly found the following prayer/litany by…
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Your Will Be Done in My Life
This prayer from Thomas a Kempis has really touched me where I am today: O Lord, blessed be your name forever, for it is your will that this temptation and trouble come to me. I cannot escape it, but must run to you so that you can help me and turn it to my good. Lord, I am now being afflicted, and my…
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Prayer a Priority?
Sometimes the truth hurts, doesn’t it? Such is the case in a recent article by Jonathan Graf for Prayer Connect. In the article titled Living Up to a Core Value Graf writes: I was recently at a denominational gathering for a group that I know values prayer tremendously. In one of its core values it…
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Praying for Forgiveness
In the title song of Toby Keith‘s movie and soundtrack, Broken Bridges, the first line of the chorus is: Here I am, prayin’ for forgiveness… If you’ve seen the movie on CMT it makes sense. It is a story of a guy facing up to his past mistakes and the people he has hurt. It is…
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Ancient Prayer
Here is a beautiful description of prayer from my friend John Smed: “In believing prayer, we learn to connect our present troubles to the good and perfect will of God. We refuse to believe that chance rules our lives. We withstand the temptation to imagine that God is capricious or malicious. We know he has…
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Beyond the Sick List
It is one of my peeves. And it seems to be one of the most difficult habits to break church members of. I am referring to the common pracactice of praying the sick list. For some reason it is difficult to get even seasoned Christians to pray for much else. David Powlison takes up this…
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6 Words Toward Open Hearts
From Donald Whitney: Over and over I’ve seen one simple question open people’s hearts to hear the gospel. Until I asked this question, they showed no interest in spiritual matters. But then after six words—only seventeen letters in English—I’ve seen people suddenly begin to weep and their resistance fall. The question is, “How can I…
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Prayer Mirrors the Gospel
“Prayer mirrors the gospel. In the gospel, the Father takes us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of salvation. In prayer, the Father receives us as we are because of Jesus and gives us the gift of help. We look at the inadequacy of our praying and give up, thinking…
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In Constant Prayer
Here is a challenging insight from Robert Benson, taken from his book In Constant Prayer: Our modern church has some distinct advantages over the early church. Or at least I suspect it does. We have better youth programs and better acoustics and finer buildings. We have better literature that is more easily available to…
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A Call to Prayer
With today being National Day of Prayer, I thought I would post a wonderful and challenging message from one of my favorite writers from the 19th Century, J.C. Ryle, Bishop of Liverpool in England. The message is titled: A Call To Prayer One of the great things about Ryle is that his style is not…
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2009 Lenten Devotional
We have now entered into the Season of Lent. I realize that for many who read this blog Lent may be a familiar word, but still it may be a word that really carries no meaning. If you are not from a church with a liturgical background it probably won’t mean much. In fact, for some…
