David Mathis at the Desiring God Blog has some great thoughts about the intersection of discipline and spontaneity in the Christian’s prayer life.  God has created each of us very differently.  Some of us are very disciplined people who love to check things off of lists and who do not thrive on change.  Others are more spontaneous, leaving plans and routines in favor of the unknown.  Both types of people have strengths and weaknesses, which is something we would all do well to remember when friends and family members who are wired differently get on our nerves.

My post is already longer than David’s (and not as good), so I’ll leave you with the encouragement to read his thoughts.  Enjoy!

My wife informed me earlier this week that you can purchase both books on Amazon for $9.99 or use the coupon code on Case’s website to get them for $4.82 each.  Even better, Andrew has made PDF versions available for free. Check out his website to read more about the books and the three options for acquiring them.  If you are interested, I would encourage you to purchase or download a copy and begin reading and praying more biblically for your spouse this year.

Aaron Hendrick, who leads our worship team, pointed me to some of Spurgeon’s great thoughts that can be found in his famous devotional, Morning and Evening.  Here is what he said on Colossians 4:2 (“Devote yourselves to prayer”):

“A prayerless soul is a Christless soul.  Prayer is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus.  It is the breath, the watchword, the comfort, the strength, the honor of a Christian.  If you are a child of God, you will seek your Father’s face and live in your Father’s love.  Pray that this year you may be holy, humble, zealous, and patient; have closer communion with Christ, and enter more often into the banqueting house of His love.  Pray that you may be an example and a blessing to others, and that you may live more to the glory of your Master.  The motto for this year must be:  ‘Devote yourselves to prayer” (4).

But we cannot rest satisfied.  We want to see God do more than what he has already done.  So why hasn’t he done more to this point, even though he has done so much?  Consider James 4:1–10:

^“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”

James is clear:  we do not have because we do not ask.  As you pray and fast with us:

1. Ask God to show you the motivations that lie behind why you pray for certain things.  Is it to spend it on your passions, or to see Jesus glorified?

2. Ask the Lord to change your desires from being a friend of the world to being his friend.

3. Remember that God accepts us by grace and through faith – not by our performance and through our continued spiritual success.

4. Submit yourself to God and resist the devil (“the adversary”) in every area of your life.

5. Humble yourself before God and ask for his will to be done in your life and in our church.

6. Pray for God to do BIG things at New Life in 2010.  Pray specifically and pray with faith that he will answer!

Last night, we were reminded in John 1:1–14 that our response to the Savior who came into the world is to be stewardship, witness, and incarnational ministry.  If you didn’t get to hear the message, you can listen to it here.

For effectiveness in ministry, we need to God to move powerfully.  I encourage you to pray Ephesians 3:14–21 for yourself, our church, and our community this week:

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

God is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, because his power is limitless.  Ask God to do great things as you fast and pray!

Way back in 1995 (some of you were in pre-K), John Piper wrote a great article called, “What Should We Pray For?”   Hopefully, Dr. Piper’s suggestions will serve to help you form the content of your prayers during our 40-Day Challenge.

Also, we would love to know what God is doing in and through you during our 40 days of prayer and fasting.  Email aaron@newlifecs.net with your stories!

Then I began to consider our city and how the unbelief of others impacts God’s work.  The Lord reminded me of Mark 6:1–6:

“He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.  And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, ‘Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands?  Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him.  And Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.’  And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.  And he marveled because of their unbelief.  And he went about among the villages teaching.”

As you fast and pray over the next several weeks, pray that we would believe that all things are possible with God.  I have been convicted of my own unbelief during our 40-Day Challenge.  But don’t forget to pray for the unbelief that exists in the people of our city that we are trying to reach.  We want to see God do mighty works here, and we do not want College Station to be a modern-day Nazareth.

How have your times of prayer and fasting been so far?  I don’t ask this question to make you feel bad if you haven’t prayed specifically or fasted at all to this point.  Rather, I pose the question to encourage you in these spiritual disciplines, which I believe will cause you to hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt. 5:6).  The 40-Day Challenge is designed to spur you on toward good deeds (Heb. 10:24) and to encourage you to seek God’s empowering and blessing for Gospel-centered ministry.

I want us to believe that God desires to do great things in our city just as he did in Corinth.  Consider Luke’s account of the words Jesus spoke to Paul about Corinth:  “And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision:  ‘Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you or harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.”

Amen.  Let’s pray and fast for our city, asking the Lord to send us out to proclaim the Good News of Jesus to his people.

We learned on Sunday evening that unbelief is the reason we don’t pray and the reason our prayers are ineffective.  We hope these messages will help you as you fast and pray over the next several weeks for God to move through New Life in 2010.

1. In order to grow in prayer, you must pray. Whitney:  “Andrew Murray, South African minister and author of With Christ in the School of Prayer, wrote, ‘Reading a book about prayer, listening to lectures and talking about it is very good, but it won’t teach you to pray.  You get nothing without exercise, without practice.  I might listen for a year to a professor of music playing the most beautiful music, but that won’t teach me to play an instrument” (71).

2. In order to grow in prayer, you must meditate on Scripture. Whitney quoting William Bates:  “What is the reason that our desires like an arrow shot by a weak bow do not reach the mark? But only this, we do not meditate before prayer…The great reason why our prayers are ineffectual, is because we do not meditate before them” (73).

3. In order to grow in prayer, you must pray with others. Whitney:  “One fellow Christian may give biblical reasons to the Lord why a prayer should be answered.  Another might show us how to pray through passages of Scripture.  By praying with a faithful intercessor we might learn how to pray for missions” (77).

4. In order to grow in prayer, you must read about prayer. Whitney:  “Read the lessons learned by veterans of the trenches of prayer and let them sharpen your weapons of the warfare of prayer.  ‘He who walks with the wise grows wise’ is the teaching of Proverbs 13:20” (77).

Over the next 40 days (from December 7^th to January 16^th), we are committing to fast and pray together for God to move in our church and in our city.  You may fast and pray alone or with others and for shorter or longer periods of time over the next 40 days.  What we do ask is that you would fast and pray for the glory of God.  While we are still immature in so many areas and while there are still lost men, women, and children in our city, we cannot rest satisfied.  Like the persistent widow in Luke 18, let’s pray without ceasing, expecting God to answer the prayers of his children.