Author Archives Jbeard

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.  Romans 5:1-2 (NLT).

I like that translation of these scriptures. “… because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.”  The Gospel is what HE has done for us.

Yesterday’s post was a reminder that when we pray that we should not rely on our own goodness and spirituality to be accepted by God the Father. No problem with that statement, right? I sure am glad that my acceptance with God is not based on my goodness and how good of a Christian I am. That would be total and complete failure … for you, me, and everyone else. This is why the Gospel is liberating. This means that if we have put our faith in Jesus Christ for reconciling us with God, then my goodness and spirituality are not included in the equation of being accepted and loved by God. I could write and preach on this simple truth for days, even weeks, because all that I am and live by, and live and die for, hinges on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1-2 is liberating news. It is ALL because of Jesus Christ our Lord.

How could this simple truth of the Gospel be offensive in our prayer life?

When you pray:  If you are not conscious that the Gospel is How and Why you are able to pray, then you are at the least taking the Gospel for granted, and at the worst–feeling good about you’re current Christian walk and that the Father must be pleased (and proud) with your efforts enough to listen to your prayers. The latter is self-righteousness, and the former is irreverent and a low esteem of the Gospel. Either mindset makes your prayers offensive to God. Seriously offensive to God.

Are you offended by that last paragraph? Hang on and keep reading.

Every time that you enter your devotional time with God you should be keenly aware that you are relying on and approaching the Living God in Christ’s righteousness, that is, because of the Gospel. If you are not consciously minded of this absolute truth when you are in time of prayer, then you are not aware of your unworthiness apart from the Him. If you are not aware of your own unworthiness, then you’re not throwing yourself on the righteousness of Christ as your robe of acceptance before the Throne of Grace.

Is that tough to swallow?

I’m not saying that you should beat yourself down and remind yourself of all your foolish sins and selfishness before you talk to God. I am saying that you should be mindful of HOW you are able to approach Him. Perhaps we should put the phrase–“In Jesus Name” at the beginning of our prayers rather than at the end. If we did this we might be more mindful of Whose righteousness we are relying upon. What I am saying is, if you’re not mindful of the Gospel when you pray, then you’re not mindful of the depravity of your sin and how and why it offends God. The reason that you are conscious of Christ making you worthy in prayer is because you are well aware of your wretchedness apart from Him. You and I must be mindful during prayer that it is the Gospel that makes prayer possible.

Did you get that? I know my desperate dependence upon Him because I know my desperate condition apart from Him. Another way of saying this is: When I pray, Christ Jesus covers me in His glory. The alternative is that I am attempting to pray covered in my own glory.

As you can see, this ground-level lesson on prayer isn’t just for the Christian who is learning about prayer. It is for every Christian all of the time. Throughout Church history the saints whom we’d call Giants in Prayer were those who were always aware of their desperate dependence upon Christ Jesus during their times in prayer, as well as before and after they stepped out of the proverbial prayer closet.

O’ Spirit of the Living God, keep me mindful of my unworthiness that I may cling with spiritual white-knuckles to the robe of my Savior. I know that there is nothing in me that makes me worthy to pray. I know that Christ Jesus has made me and keeps me wholly acceptable of grace and mercy. The eyes of the Lord are upon the just–those who are justified by Christ, and His ear is open to their prayers. The Father delights in me because I am in Christ. Yes, Christ in me; Christ before me; Christ behind me; Christ beside me; Christ upon me; Christ is my all in all. He enables me to approach with full confidence of faith and know that I am in the presence of God. To Christ, God the Son be the glory forever and ever. Amen!

“The Gospel is the difference-maker, all the difference in heaven and earth.”
– [from the book:  A Reason to Pray at Mountainview]

Until a Christian wins the battle over guilt, shame, and regret, over the image of being unworthy to be heard by the Father, the promises and benefits of prayer will be like a far distant country. The child of God must learn to embrace and live by faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is then that prayer is a delight. That is why the child of God must learn to preach the Gospel to himself. The child of God must continually remind himself of the freedom that is in Christ, because of Christ, and secured by Christ. Guilt, shame, and regret will smother any other attempt at liberty and acceptance with God.

The Gospel is why God listens to prayer. Meaning, it is because of who Jesus Christ is and what He did. It has nothing to do with a person’s piety or religious goodness. If you have been persuaded that God will not listen to your prayers because you are not good enough for Him, you are right. God does not listen to you because you’ve earned His favor. IF … you are expecting the Father God to accept your prayers because of your own goodness and merits, you’re sadly out in left field. He NEVER listens to prayer because we are worthy to be heard. Why? Because we’re not worthy to be heard. Seriously, is your heart pure enough—from selfishness, pride, coveting, and … the list can go on and on—to earn God’s favor? If that were the case, then Jesus didn’t come to die for you. You don’t need a Savior to forgive you. You’re up there with Him, self-righteous and sinless. Okay, I’ve made my point, haven’t I?

You can agree with the thoughts that you are unworthy, because you are unworthy. You have God’s favor solely because of Jesus Christ. Everything is because of what Jesus Christ did at the Cross, the Grave, and is doing in His present-day ministry at the Right Hand of Power. It is solely, completely, and wholly by and through Jesus Christ that God the Father desires to hear you pray. Get this truth and every time you prepare to talk to the Father remember … JESUS. It’s all because of Him that you can pray with freedom and assurance that the Father is listening and is with you.

Doesn’t this take all the weight off of you?  If you and I had to wait until “WE” were ready–spiritual enough; good enough; religious enough; pious enough–to be received by the Father, phew … we’d never pray.  By the way, isn’t this the reason WHY Jesus came; to fix our relationship with God; to enable us to be accepted before God?  Our relationship with God is secure because it is secure in Christ Jesus. We cannot rely on anything else to secure our relationship with God.  So remind yourself of the Gospel–What and Who Jesus Christ did and is. That settles the issue of worthiness to approach The Throne of Grace.

The next blog post will take this simple, essential truth to the extreme place in our prayer lives that Christ put it.

Father, forgive me of ever looking to myself to decide if I can talk to you and bring my prayer requests. It is not of me, but of God the Son, my Redeemer. Thank You, Jesus, for clothing me with Your goodness and righteousness so that I am accepted and enjoyed by God the Father. In His righteousness I stand and live. All of my prayers, Father, are in Christ, in His Name and not my own. Therefore, Christ gets all the credit for my ability to pray right now, and for all the grace that You give me.  Amen.

He [Mark] had dozed off in the chapel praying for his family and to ask God … again … for forgiveness, something that he has never been able to accept from God. And again he found that neither medication, sleep, nor a religious setting was strong enough to quiet his soul and to remove the shame that kept him enslaved to his past sins.

“I guess it’s only right that God wouldn’t hear me, and I guess that it would only be right to let me die. I know that I deserve to, I just hope …”

Mark Terrell’s life is fictional, but his problems and spiritual condition are non-fictional for many people. In my novel, A Reason to Pray at Mountainview, Mark found himself in a hospital where he received two diagnoses: a life-threatening physical illness and a faith that was on life-support. Sometimes it takes a physical crisis to get a person to stop and examine his/her heart and life. In Mark’s case the immediate crisis put a spotlight on the condition of his relationship with his God and forced him to the proverbial end of his rope. With nowhere else to hide Mark turned to the God and Savior that he had once walked with and enjoyed, and hoped he was still loved.

The Father God whom Mark once trusted now seemed a thousand miles away. Why? What was the root of this broken fellowship? A few years earlier Mark had embraced sin and listened to the voice of pride encouraging self-righteousness, which in turn pushed him away from his God and Savior. Mark’s devotion to God was a thing of his past and he feared that it was gone forever. The fellowship with the One whom he needed most had dried up and become lifeless.

Mark went to the hospital chapel with a desperate hope that God would hear his cries for help. He was desperate and his prayers echoed those of the Psalmist from Psalm 119:176:

I have gone astray like a lost sheep; Seek Your servant,

Have you ever felt like Mark, like you have strayed from the Father God, and wondered how you can return and have the fellowship between God and you restored?

Mark is not an isolated prisoner to the past. Is there any Christian who has not found themselves confronted with a past that tries to condemn and even break them? Perhaps you, or someone you know, have a past that is haunting you and deterring you from praying and enjoying a life with Jesus Christ. The effects of a broken spirit reach further into our lives than our prayer lives. Like poison that slowly moves through the blood stream, it eventually touches every part of who we are and how we live. Depending on the progress of the poison and the spiritual support around the individual, it may be difficult to stop the spiral slide and turn around. If our past is haunting us, we may find ourselves on a path similar to Mark Terrell—a path of despondence, even depression.

This post isn’t about “getting saved,” but to the Christian with a weak and beaten down spirit. Such a weak spirit struggles. It struggles in every aspect of your faith and living it before God and man. It drains the life out of prayer, and/or avoids prayer altogether. Pain from a weak and injured spirit from the past, sin from the past, whether the past is yesterday, a year-ago, or 15 years-ago, fellowship with the Lord is affected, negatively. Just as in Mark’s life, deliverance is in front of us every day, but it is often too difficult to see and believe when you’re beaten down. Can you relate to Mark’s condition? But …

• Can you believe that Jesus Christ, by what He accomplished at the cross, can break any stronghold and deliver from any pit?
• Can you believe that Jesus Christ conquered all powers of darkness and despair?
• Can you believe that there is no foe that can stand against the King, Jesus the King?

Your answers to the above bullet points are key towards sparking your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Deliverer. Can you believe? Can you trust in Him? I’m not saying perfect faith, or giant faith, or even steadfast, unmovable faith. The Lord knows that none of us are spiritual giants with perfect unwavering faith. It starts with a simple trust and faith.

Restoration. Jesus HAS BEEN and STILL IS in the work of restoration and reconciliation of broken and messy lives, because that is all there are in this world. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is what we need–yesterday, today, and forever! Amen.

Here are the 22 Themes of Psalm 119.  Write these out next to each section in the chapter. They can help steer your prayers for the section.

1-8 – Appreciation of the Law—literally: the Lord’s Torah (God’s instructions in the scriptures)

9-16 – Divine teaching of wisdom

17-24 – Expressions of lament

25-32 – A cry for help

33-40 – Prayers for a spiritual life

41-48 – Testimony and a matching lifestyle

49-56 – Comfort in crisis

57-64 – Illustrations of obedience

65-72 – God’s goodness

73-80 – Learning God’s will

81-88 – Life’s problems

89-96 – Opting for what lasts

97-104 – Appreciation of the Torah’s wisdom

105-112 – Come wind, come weather

113-120 – Making the right choices

121-128 – In God’s service

129-136 – Taking God’s side

137-144 – God’s ways are right

145-152 – Responses to crisis

153-160 – Prayers in a time of need

161-168 – A life that honors God

169-176 – Heartfelt wishes and claims

After reading those themes, how can anyone say that this Psalm isn’t relevant, contemporary, and applicable for today?

Let the Scripture be your guide in daily prayer and devotion. Let God’s word lead you to Him.

Psalm 119:68 (NKJV) — 68 You are good, and do good; Teach me Your statutes.

As promised, I want to share another way to use Psalm 119 as a guide in prayer and daily devotions:

The author of Psalm 119 set down a format for us. I have used this format for many years.  Did you notice in your Bible that this Psalm is divided into 22 sections of eight (8) verses? Did you notice that each section begins with a letter in the Hebrew Alphabet? The Psalmist used the alphabet as an acrostic to help people to learn and remember the poems and prayers.  For example, verses 1-8 begin with aleph; the next eight with bet, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the pattern is continued through verses 169–176, with taw, the 22^nd letter, and last letter, of the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, we have 22 sections /groups of eight verses.  All of them are prayers.

Each group of 8 verses has a theme, which is helpful because it enlarges the painting of the view of God. The theme can also help us see our need and our reliance upon God. The Word Biblical Commentary does a good job of summarizing each section. I will list each section and their theme in a coming blog post. I’d recommend writing the theme next to the Hebrew letter of each section in your Bible. It will help your mind focus in a direction of prayer for that day; that day of the month.

If you have a desire to commune with the Father but you’re struggling with what to do or how to stay focused and disciplined …

Here’s what to do:

Use an ink pen to number each of the 22 sections. Then, when you get alone to pray, open your Bible to Psalm 119 and look for the corresponding day of the month. You’ll have eight verses to read, meditate upon, and lead you in prayer. These sections glorify your God, remind you of your dependence upon Him, lead in you repentance, prompt to praise Him, stir towards good works, and much more.

For me, one of the most important things that this practice does is: get my mind focused on HIM!

I don’t know about you but my mind wanders, terribly. My quiet time is early in the morning and the first obstacle is getting the brain cranked up and functioning. A second thing it does is help me to be focused on the Lord. It helps me to keep my thoughts towards the things of His kingdom. This is not an easy discipline. Having a daily routine that begins in the scriptures helps me, more than that, it disciplines me.

I write in my two books the importance of marriage between scripture and prayer. This practice unites them. You can use this practice with any book or chapter in the Bible, and I encourage you to do that. I will be continuing this style of blog posting and I hope that it inspires prayer while teaching sound theology.

Let the scriptures help instigate prayer. Let it give you words to pray when you don’t know what to pray. Let His word help you to express your thoughts, feelings, burdens, joys, sorrows, fears, and confessions of faith. It is already laid out for you. The Spirit of God is inviting you to learn and commune with our Living, Loving, Saving God through His own word. He is showing us His will and invites us to bring it to Him in prayer. How incredibly awesome is that!

Psalm 119:18 (NKJV) — 18 Open my eyes, that I may see Wondrous things from Your law.