One Thing I Know I Won’t Say Face to Face to Christ?

The puritan pastor, Thomas Brooks, has helped me see prayer with new perspectives, and fresh light. Now and then his encouragement and lessons hit like a hammer on the thumb. The lesson when we smack our thumb with the hammer is to get your thumb out of the way. Unless of course, if you like pain. Not me. I think I’m allergic to pain.

Excuses that I tell myself for not following through on spiritual exercises and/or obedience vaporize in the light of this thought:  “The day that I see Jesus face-to-face will I be able to tell Him that I couldn’t find time for prayer?” Obviously not.  Just because I can’t see Him physically now, makes Him no less in my presence. When I use an excuse for disobedience today, I am doing the same thing–telling it to Him face-to-face. That though it hurts, right?

“Jesus, I’d make time to sit at your feet and learn from you–in Your word, and in prayer, but I just can’t make the time. Maybe another day. I’ll work on it, I promise.”  Are you kidding me? Not only do I love being in His presence in the proverbial closet, but also, would I brush my King, my Savior, my God off like that? What could possibly be more important than my King? No, I will say, “Lord, I am anxious to sit with you in the morning and learn from You; to open my heart to You; to be refreshed by Your Spirit. My soul is thirsty for You. Help me put all things in their place in my life and make You priority number one.”

Luke 10:41–42 (NKJV) — And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things.  But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

If I dare say that I don’t have enough time in my day for private prayer, may I remember this response from Thomas Brooks.

No man dares plead this objection before the Lord Jesus in the great day of account, Eccles. 11:9; Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10. And why then should any man be so childish and foolish, so ignorant and impudent to plead that before men, which is not pleadable before the judgment-seat of Christ. O sirs! as you love your souls, and as you would be happy for ever, never put off your own consciences nor others’ with any pleas, arguments, or objections now, that you dare not own and stand by, when you shall lie upon a dying bed, and when you shall appear before the whole court of heaven, &c. In the great day of account, when the secrets of all hearts shall be made manifest, and God shall call men to a reckoning before angels, men, and devils, for the neglect of private prayer, all guilty persons will be found speechless: there will not be a man or woman found, that shall dare to stand up and say, ‘Lord, I would have waited upon thee in my closet, but that I had so much business to do in the world, that I had no time to enjoy secret communion with thee in a corner.’ It is the greatest wisdom in the world, to plead nothing by way of excuse in this our day, that we dare not plead in the great day.

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Brooks, T. (1866). The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks. (A. B. Grosart, Ed.) (Vol. 2, pp. 203–204). Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert.

How Much Time is Actually in Your Day?

The answer to the title question is 24, right? Dah!  Some days seem shorter than others, we all get that. For me, this last weekend didn’t seem like two days but one stretched a little longer than 24 hours. It went by so quick. We can all relate to having time fly right by us.

One of my priorities each day is managing my time. If I don’t manage it, it is wasted and gone, and I cannot get it back. This includes my sleep time, my getting ready for work time, my travel to work and back time, my time with family and friends, my time on pastoral duties, relax time, and so forth. I maybe sounding too rigid, but I’m no different than you. You do the same, but you may not have thought of it this way.

It would be easy for my devotional time with God to be lost in that busy 24 hour period. What do I do so this necessary part of my day doesn’t get lost and I miss it? I plan for it. I prioritize it. I plan and prioritize other important parts of my day–sleep, getting ready for work, travel to work, meal-time, spending time with family, chores, and etc. I wouldn’t I take the same approach to this important part of my life–devotional alone time with my God.  I need this time in my life. I NEED IT!  It is a priority and so I treat it as such.

Honesty says that I waste a good chunk of time during each day. This is actually squandering time on frivolous actions; seriously we do, all of us do … everyday.  I don’t think it is necessary for me to list the most common ways we foolishly waste time. I am challenging you to examine your daily routine, each step of it. God has given us 24 hours in each day and there is ample time to drink from the fountain of life within that 24 hours. If you are still unsure whether you can find that time for His fountain, here is the sure fix:  Make it a higher priority!

Thomas Brooks gives us another one of his objections to those who have convinced themselves that they do not have time in the day to spend in private communion with their God.

It is ten to one but that the objector every day fools away, or trifles away, or idles away, or sins away, one hour in a day, and why then should he object the want of time? There are none that toil and moil and busy themselves most in their worldly employments, but do spend an hour or more in a day to little or no purpose, either in gazing about, or in dallying, or toying, or courting, or in telling of stories, or in busying themselves in other men’s matters, or in idle visits, or in smoking the pipe, &c.

And why then should not these men redeem an hour’s time in a day for private prayer, out of that time which they usually spend so vainly and idly? Can you, notwithstanding all your great worldly employments, find an hour in the day to catch flies in, as Domitian the emperor did? and to play the fool in? and cannot you find an hour in the day to wait on God in your closets?

There were three special faults whereof Cato professed himself to have seriously repented: one was, passing by water when he might have gone by land; another was, trusting a secret in a woman’s bosom; but the main was, spending an hour unprofitably. This heathen will one day rise up in judgment against them who, notwithstanding their great employments, spend many hours in a week unprofitably, and yet cry out with the Duke of Alva, that they have so much to do on earth, that they have no time to look up to heaven. It was a base and sordid spirit in that King Sardanapalus, who spent much of his time amongst women in spinning and carding, which should have been spent in ruling and governing his kingdom. So it is a base sordid spirit in any, to spend any of their time in toying and trifling, and then to cry out, that they have so much business to do in the world, that they have no time for closet-prayer, they have no time to serve God, nor to save their own precious and immortal souls.

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Brooks, T. (1866). The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks. (A. B. Grosart, Ed.) (Vol. 2, p. 203). Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert.

God Takes our Prayers All the Way Across the Pond and Beyond

I grew up in a small country town and know a little bit about ponds and lakes. They are fun places to be adventurous. One favorite past-time at ponds and lakes was skipping rocks across the top of the water. The more flat the rock, the better the skip. The skip is judged by how far it goes. Distance was the goal, really the only goal in the game.

A life of prayer stretches across the pond, all the way across the pond. When we pray for a situation, mission work, or and individual how far do you see God’s involvement in that for which you have prayed? The truth is, God uses our prayers to stretch farther than we can imagine, in our lives and in the lives of others. God uses prayer to bring grace into other areas of our lives and He does the same for those whom we pray for. Like most of (nearly all) that God is doing, we don’t see His hand orchestrating the symphony of creation. We just know He is doing it.

The life of prayer–of communing with God, is a walk with the Divine that opens infinity. Sound a bit crazy, or too theological? It probably does to those who have never considered the magnitude of what Christ accomplished at the cross, resurrection, and His ascension. The limitations we put on ourselves, in fact, the limitations of all creation do not apply to the One who created all things. We know this to be a fundamental truth, but do we bring it home, into our prayer closet? I challenge you to contemplate the invitation described by Jesus in Matthew 6:6. That invitation is an invite to commune with the Eternal Father, and so it is an invite to step into His realm. Sit with the Sovereign One, the Infinite One. Go ahead, remove the walls of impossibilities of prayer. This is the living God whom you are communing with, and He has invited you to inquire of Him.

Go ahead and shut the world out by closing the proverbial closet door. Accept the invitation from your God, the Infinite One. Jesus has made it all possible.

Legitimate Reason or a Convenient Excuse: Know the Difference?

Sometimes when I talk to a Christian about his/her spiritual growth and ask about attending a local church or reading the Scriptures or even prayer, I hear objections. Some of the objections are legit. Others are … well, we all know them because we have them handy in our tool belt. For most of us the legitimate reasons are due to specific, temporal circumstances. But they are often used when they no longer (honestly) apply. How many times can you use the excuse that you couldn’t attend public worship with other believers because the dog barfed up throughout the house right before you walked out the door? Or because you woke up with a headache…again on a Sunday morning. There are legit reasons, but we better be careful not to allow them to be convenient excuses that hinder our spiritual growth and weaken our spiritual armor.

Even when legit circumstances hinder getting out the door to public worship, what about private worship? Thomas Brooks brings up a common objection some people use to why they don’t spend time in private prayer.

“We have much business upon our hands, and we cannot spare time for private prayer; we have so much to do in our shops, and in our warehouses, and abroad with others, that we cannot spare time to wait upon the Lord in our closets.”

Here is Brooks’ objection to this excuse:

What are all those businesses that are upon your hands, to those businesses and weighty affairs, that did lie upon the hands of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Daniel, Elias, Nehemiah, Peter, Cornelius?1 and yet you find all these worthies exercising themselves in private prayers. And the king is commanded every day to read some part of God’s word, notwithstanding all his great and weighty employments, Deut. 17:18–20. Now certainly, sirs, your great businesses are little more than ciphers compared with theirs. And if there were any on earth that might have pleaded an exemption from private prayer, upon the account of business, of much business, of great business, these might have done it; but they were more honest and more noble than to neglect so choice a duty, upon the account of much business. These brave hearts made all their public employments stoop to private prayer; they would never suffer their public employments to tread private prayer under foot.

I’ve made a note to myself: Know the difference between “A legitimate Reason” and “A Convenient Excuse.” I want to recognize when I’m using a convenient excuse on myself. I don’t want to fool myself, AKA deceive myself. Go ahead, ask yourself: “I am using convenient excuses to avoid developing a habit of prayer in my life?”

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Brooks, T. (1866). The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks. (A. B. Grosart, Ed.) (Vol. 2, p. 202). Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert.

How Much Does Satan Hate Us To Pray?

Every Christian knows that Satan does not like us to pray. A reasonable question would be, “How much does Satan hate the child of God to engage in prayer?” It should be obvious that Satan uses many devices and schemes to distract us from prayer, and especially to keep us out of the proverbial prayer closet. If you want to know how important something is to someone, simply take note in the amount of attention and labor the person put towards it. Or, how much someone works against it.

This applies to Satan. He works feverishly to keep the believer from going to the Throne of Grace and offering prayers unto the Most High God. To Satan, it must be highly … HIGHLY important to keep you out of the exercise of prayer with the Father God.

Thomas Brooks gives us five conclusions drawn from Satan’s great war against the exercise of serious prayer.

First, if it were not an excellent thing for a man to be in secret with God, Satan would never make such head against it.

Secondly, the more necessary any duty is to the internal and eternal welfare of a Christian, the more Satan will bestir himself to blunt a Christian’s spirit in that duty.

Thirdly, where we are like to gain most, there Satan loves to oppose most.

Fourthly, if there were not a kind of omnipotency in it, if it were not able to do wonders in heaven, and wonders on earth, and wonders in the hearts and lives and ways of men, Satan would never have such an aching tooth against it as he hath.

Fifthly, that God is highly honoured by this duty, or else Satan would never be so greatly enraged against it. This is certain. The more glory God hath from any service we do, the more Satan will strive by all his wiles and sleights to take us, either off from that service, or so to interrupt us in that service, that God may have no honour, nor we no good, nor himself no hurt, by our private retirements

Beware that the excuses that arrive to distract you or deter you from spending quality time in communion with your Heavenly Father are not from the Spirit of God. If you are tempted to pass on prayer time, realize where the temptation is coming from, and let that realization be fuel on your fire to get alone in prayer all the more. We have much to pray about, many persecuted brethren we need to lift up, and a world of souls who are spiritually blinded by our enemy. Let’s pray! It is a scourge to Satan and all his schemes and works.
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Brooks, T. (1866). The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks. (A. B. Grosart, Ed.) (Vol. 2, p. 197). Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert.