In searching for pictures for the previous post, I found this picture, and thought it was hilarious, so I had to post it. Enjoy!
Holy Family Church Batman
By
6 Ways to Pray Like a Leper (Luke 5:12-15)
By
Ever struggle with what to pray for and how to pray? Learn a few lessons from the leper in Luke 5:12-15.
This man is full of leprosy, which means he has an advanced case. When he sees Jesus approaching, Luke 5:12 says he implored Jesus, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, You can make me clean.” Here are six things we learn from this simple request:
1. Recognize our condition. You come as a beggar, a leper, a nobody. You are not making an exchange with God. You have nothing to offer. Anything God grants is strictly by His grace and out of His love.
2. Implore. The leper “implored” Jesus. The word is very strong. It is more than a request. It is more than a prayer. It is all out pleading, a tearful and earnest begging. When used all by itself, it can be translated, “Please!” This is not a half-hearted prayer. This leper knows his need, and is not afraid to ask. He asks with all his energy and emotions. This is what it means to implore.
3. Ask Jesus. The leper doesn’t turn to another leper. He doesn’t turn to one of the apostles. He doesn’t even turn to the priest. He knows that none of them can help. He turns to Jesus. When we pray, we must turn to God alone. Jesus instructs us to pray to the Father (Matt 6:9), but this does not mean that we cannot pray to Jesus.
4. Ask humbly. The leper says, “If you are willing.” Though he is imploring, begging, pleading for Jesus to answer, he does not make demands. Again, this is due in part to his stance as a leper. He is not in a position to make demands. Today, when some pray, it seems like they are making demands of God. Some Christians even have the audacity to command God. They think this is praying with faith. I’m not sure God sees it that way.
5. Ask simply. There is no long, wordy explanation of why the leper is where he is at now, no attempt to “soften” Jesus up by telling Him how great and wonderful and awesome He is, no repetition of the name of Jesus. Just a simple, straight-forward, honest request.
6. Obey. After praying, the leper obeyed the instructions of Jesus. Prayer is not an end in itself. You cannot pray and think you have done your part, so now God must do His. No, you must often seek to be an answer to your own prayer. This does not mean we answer own prayers, but neither do we pray, then sit back, twiddle our thumbs, and wait for God to act.
Do you want to pray like never before?
Do you what to talk to God like you talk to a friend? Do you want to see more answers to prayer?
If you have these (and other) questions about prayer, let me send you some teaching and instruction about prayer to your email inbox. You will receive one or two per week, absolutely free. Fill out the form below to get started.
Thanks for visiting this page ... but this page is for Discipleship Group members.
If you are already part of a Faith, Hope, or Love Discipleship Group,
Login here.
If you are part of the free "Grace" Discipleship group, you will need to
Upgrade your Membership to one of the paid groups.
If you are not part of any group, you may learn about the various groups and their benefits here:
Join Us Today.
Wanted: Dying Churches
By
Is your church struggling, shrinking, or diminishing in size? Do you show up every week, wondering which family has finally tossed in the towel and switched to another church?
Maybe your church is holding steady, as far as the numbers go, but you feel like nothing is happening in the way of evangelism, missions, and outreach. You want to do something, but you’re not sure what?
I would love to talk. Send me an email: jmyers AT tillhecomes DOT org
What will we talk about? As you may or may not know, I am writing a book called Close Your Church for Good. You can read some of the excerpts by clicking the tab above. The book is focused on helping churches move out of their building and into the community.
Most of the suggestions are fairly extreme and require a willingness to take risks. Of course, few of them cost any money, so we’re not talking that kind of risk. Several of the suggestions in the book are ones I have already done in various ways at various times. But several of the ideas are only that: ideas. Though I’ve heard of other churches that are doing similar things, I have never done them personally.
It has been making me feel guilty that some of the things I am writing about I have never actually done. So my wife, genius that she is, suggested last night that I post on my blog if there are any churches out there that might want to discuss trying some of these things happening in their own church.
The ideas are free. I’m free. And you could set your church free.
Rabbits Foot Religion
By
One of the blogs I read is written by one of my favorite New Testament scholars, Ben Witherington III. He recently wrote a post over at his blog, Bible and Culture, called Rabbits Foot Religion. Here is an excerpt:
The practitioner of rabbit’s foot religion is impatient. He wants an answer, indeed he wants an outcome right now! God however is not our cosmic bellhop and he does not exist to fulfill all the wishes of our materialistic little hearts. The health and wealth Gospel is a travesty of the real Gospel, precisely because it not only denies the value of suffering and the call of Christ to take up one’s cross and follow him, it also tries to manipulate God to give us ‘the desires of our hearts’, whether they are good for us or not. To these sorts of requests, God has an answer—-NO! A loving God, like a loving parent will not give us things that will spoil and destroy our Christian character. And by the way— NO is definitely an answer to prayer. The wrong sort of prayer.
I like it! Have you seen Rabbit’s Foot Religion in your own life or in somebody at your church?
More than Rice
By
Imagine if you were a young girl, ripped away from your family, and taken to a foreign country where you were repeatedly raped, 30 or 40 times per day, for months and years on end. How would you handle this?
Tragically, that is the story for millions of young girls around the world.
More than Rice by Pamala Kennedy Chestnut follows the story of one young girl named Gabriela from her abduction in Manila, to a brothel in Malaysia where she is housed with dozens of other girls who are forced into sex slavery. Like other books in this genre, many of the events in the book are painful to read, and will bring feelings of horror and shame at the thought of such things happening to young girls, some as young as 7 or 8.
The story is riveting, fast-paced, and worth reading. I do, however, have one complaint: The story has a happy ending…almost a fairy-tale ending. I know that is an odd thing to complain about. We should all want happy endings for these girls. But I just fear that it did not paint a realistic picture of what happens to the vast majority of girls who are trapped in sex slavery. Most end up as addicts, in prison, or in an early grave.
Of course, the happy ending is only because there were people who cared enough to get involved. So maybe that is the way to read the book. There are millions of girls living in nightmares around the world, but you and I can help rescue them if just do something. And that was ultimately the challenge of the book, as the last several pages include various statistics, organizations, and websites which will provide more information and help you get involved.
So if you want to learn more about the plight of these young girls, and what you can start doing to help rescue them, I recommend this book.
To learn more about Human Trafficking and sex slavery, check out some of these posts:Human Trafficking Posts
- Sex Slaves
- Would You Fight Slavery?
- Rescue Russian Sex Slaves
- Rescue Russian Girls from Sex Slavery
- Stop Her Nightmare
- Another Girl Rescued Today
- Girls for Sale
- Goal Reached!
- I Want to be a Prostitute
- $52,000 raised!
- 31 Million Sex Slaves
- Renting Lacy
- More Than Rice
- Human Trafficking Ring Busted
- The Other Big Game
- Sex Slavery, Planned Parenthood, and Your Tax Dollars
- How to Minister to Prostitutes
- Wisconsin Woman Held as Sex Slave in Brooklyn
- Coked-Up Whore
- Human Trafficking has Many Faces
- Into an India Brothel
- You Need a Girl?
- Human Trafficking Media
- The Son of God is Selling Children
- My Girls Raised $300 to help stop Human Trafficking
- Rape for Profit
- Human Trafficking Statistics
- Help Rescue Girls from Forced Prostitution
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- …
- 167
- Next Page »
Get Books by Jeremy Myers
