Spiders And Sin

  Imagine for just a moment a scenario. As you walk into one of the rooms of your house to pick up your baby, you see a spider between you and your child. As you look closer, you realize in horror that it is a black widow spider. This poisonous spider is now moving closer to your child. What do you do? Hopefully you won't run away screaming or freeze in terror. You wouldn't want to scoop up the spider and let it play with your child. The best thing to do is to stomp on the spider and crush it to death. No mercy, no kindness, just a swift and gruesome death. You don't take chances with deadly spiders.

   While it is considered wise not to make pets of poisonous creatures like black widow spiders, yet when it comes to something more dangerous in the spiritual realm, people are very foolish. Sin is a poison. It is destructive, deadly and life threatening. Consider what is the destructive force of sin. Pornography devastates marriages, your spiritual health and countless lives. It is a black poison. Anger can destroy families, friends, and businesses. Gossip can destroy a whole church. Pride ruins souls and leads them into hell. I could list many other examples like drunkenness, gambling, slander, and laziness, but I think you get the point. Sin is destructive like a hurricane or a deadly poisonous spider. So don't take chances with deadly sin, kill it quickly.

  The truth is people by nature like sin. They make it their pet and invite it into their homes. People cuddle and feed their pet sins. Even when it bites them, people will often return back to their poisonous pet. Yet in the end their pet sins will destroy them. Even as Christians we can make a pet of our sins. Instead of seeing sin as some poisonous spider, we see it as if it was some harmless puppy or kitty cat. We may play with sin and dabble in it a little. We know it is dangerous, but our sinful flesh is strong and still wants us to hold on to the sin. We need to look at sin not as a nice puppy but a poisonous spider. We should become sin-crushers.

     This is what God calls us to do. In Colossians 3:5, we are told to "Put to death what belongs to your worldly nature."  How do we deal with sin? Put it to death! Don't have mercy on it. Killing sin is painful, difficult and dirty work. It isn't easy to kill what your flesh loves. But why would you want to keep something more dangerous than a black widow spider in your life?

  Killing sin is hard but thankfully God has given us some weapons to help us finish the job. We don't kill sin in our own strength. The Spirit of God lives in His people to give them the power to stomp on their sin. So we should pray about specific sins, calling on God to help us kill them. The Spirit uses His word to renew us and help in the fight. It is not enough to kill sin, but we must "put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, accepting one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a complaint against another." Col 3:12-13. And even when we fail, there is forgiveness and grace through Jesus Christ.

 There is not enough space here to get into all the details of putting to death sin. But I hope you will see sin for what it is, a poisonous and deadly thing, and deal with it ruthlessly in God's power by stomping on your sins.

Brad

Beef Up Your Prayers

Are there times when your prayer life is a little thin?  When all you can say are vague requests to bless so and so or be with Grandma? What can you do to put some meat on the bones of your prayers? Studying the Lord's prayer is a good place to begin, but it is also most helpful to look at the prayers that Paul recorded for us in some of the letters he wrote to churches. Paul's prayers help us to know what to pray for others and for ourselves.

Now I would first say that when praying for others we need to know if that person is a believer or an unbeliever. If the person is an unbeliever, there really is only one prayer for them. It is to pray for the salvation of this unconverted person. So if an unbeliever is sick, I will pray that this sickness would be used by God to show this person the disease of sin in their hearts and the healing that is found in the great Physician Jesus Christ. It is best not to pray that God would comfort them or heal, unless this situation would lead to their salvation. For what good is it if a person lived to 100 years old and then died and entered the fires of hell?

 One of Paul's prayers for the church is found in Colossians 1:9-14. While Paul did not plant this church he deeply cared for this church. He prayed regularly for those whom he never met. Lets look at a few aspects of what Paul prayed for this church.

1)  Knowledge and wisdom

Paul prayed that God would fill them with the knowledge of His will. Paul wanted God to teach the Colossians the great truths of the Word of God. God's word reveals His will for us. But we need Him to teach us these truth for we cannot understand them apart from His Spirit. There are many hard truths to understand. It is easy to mistreat or misunderstand God's word. One doesn't became wise and discerning over night. Being able to correctly handle the word of God doesn't come in an instant. We need to pray desperately that God would make us and others understand His word as He intended. But more than praying that the Colossians would understand God's word, Paul prays that they would have the wisdom to apply it to the many and varied situations that they would come into. Knowledge or understanding of truth is not enough. We need the skill to bring the truth to bear on the situation at hand.  All this teaches us the importance of the scriptures in our sanctification. God uses His word by His Spirit to conform us into the image of Christ. We need to read, study and meditate on His word if we hope to grow as Christians.

2) A fruitful life of holiness

This request flows out of the last two. A right theology and a right understanding of how to apply it should lead to us living a life that pleases God. We need to put our theology to work. Paul desires that they should live a godly life; a life filled with the fruit of the Spirit. A life in which we serve others with our spiritual gifts. Evangelizing the lost, giving our money to the cause of Christ, and praising and thanking God are all ways in which we can bear much fruit. All Christians will bear some fruit, but our desire should be that we and others should bear much fruit.

3) Knowledge of God

As we know God's word better we will learn more about Him. As we walk with Him in holiness, we will come to know Him in a more practical and experiential way. Knowing facts about God is not enough, we must have a deeper relationship with our God. According to 1 John 1;13, a mature Christian is one who knows "him who is from the beginning."

4) Strength

Paul knows that a fruitful and godly life lived with God is more than we can manage on our own. We need God's power to help us to live this way. So Paul prays that God would strengthen them with His almighty power. This power is infinite and never diminishing. That power is always there for His people. Paul asks God that He would strengthen His people with this power so that they can live in a manner worthy of the Lord and so that they may continue to live in this way till their earthly life is done. We persevere because God ,with His almighty power, holds us in His hands and will not let us go. We should always be praying for God's power to help us live for His glory.

5) Thankfulness

We should always be thankful. We have been taken out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. God has redeemed us from slavery to sin and the devil. God has forgiven us all our sins through Christ. He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings. We have a glorious and never ending inheritance that can never be taken away which is in heaven for us. Besides this, every moment and situation of our life God is using for our good. Even the most terrible situations are for our good. We can indeed always rejoice and be thankful to God.

I hope and pray that this will help you to beef up your gaunt prayers for the glory of our King and His kingdom.

-Brad

The Heart of Prayer

When we grew up, we always had a prayer to say before and after meals. We were required to say these prayers till we were a certain age. So when we had children, we required each of them to pray before and after meals as well. But, a few weeks ago we decided that we would not require them to say their prayers. If they wanted to pray, we would of course encourage them to do so.  Why would we break with this old tradition?  It comes down to understanding what prayer is.

  Prayer is part of our worship. John 4:24 says, " God is spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." Worship that pleases God comes from the right heart attitude and in conformity to the truth in God's word. We can't worship God simply as we please. True worship is not in outward actions only but with a heart that loves and fears God. This applies to prayer as well. The content of our prayer should agree with the Word of God. Our hearts need to be engaged when we pray. This means that quickly speeding though a prayer is wrong. Mindless praying the same old words is wrong. You can repeat the most beautiful prayer, but if you don't mean it, it isn't praying. The Heidelberg Catechism says this about a prayer that is heard by God; " We must from the heart call upon the one true God only, who has revealed Himself in His word for all that He has commanded us to pray." It goes on to say we must have a humble heart knowing our unworthiness and that God will hear us because of the worthiness of Christ. Praying without thought or out of mere habit dishonours God. Let me give an illustration to show this. Imagine that I came home from work and walked into the kitchen. My son comes up to be with a sullen look on his face and a piece of paper in his hands. Before he begins to read the paper, he looks up at his mother. She gives him the do-as-your-told-look. So he begins to read with a sigh. "Dad, I love you. You are a great Dad. Thanks for working so hard for us. Could you give me a new bike for my birthday? Oh and Dad, I am so sorry but I broke your favorite fishing rod today. Please forgive me." Then he walks away.  Is this love? Will I be impressed? Will I listen to his requests? No, we know this kind of communication is not right in our human relationships. So why would we communicate to God like this? We cannot make a person pray--we can only make them say prayers. True prayer flows out of a heart that has been born again. This is why we stopped requiring our children to say their prayers. They were not praying. They just said the words as fast as they could. We were not teaching them to pray, but only the habit of prayer.

  Our children will still learn what it is to pray. We will teach them from the Lord's prayer how and what they are to pray. As we read and explain the Bible to them, there will be times when we can teach them about prayer. Perhaps one of the best ways they can learn to pray is from our prayers. When they hear our prayers, they will see prayer in action. We have a great responsibility to pray with depth and passion. With God's grace they will learn these truths from us.

Lastly, I would say that if you want to teach your children to say prayers, you have the freedom to do so. Just remember what true prayer is. The heart of prayer is the heart. A heart redeemed and made new by Jesus. A heart where the desires, emotions, and thoughts are poured into our prayers.

-Brad-

With Thanksgiving

 

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." -Philippians 4:4-7

 

It is so easy to be anxious--to not think on the fact that God is our ever present help. He is the one through whom we can give grace and love to our children. There are many days where, as I'm struggling with impatience, frustration, and selfishness that I'm just breathing out prayers to God to give me strength--to give me the grace that I need. But, as the text says we're to make our requests through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Even in the difficult moments. Even when you can get nothing done because your child is clinging to you and whining because he or she is not feeling well. Even when you're trying to potty train and the puddles keep appearing--right after you've put him or her on the toilet and they 'were done.' Even when your child shows a lazy, rebellious attitude. Let us make those requests but let us also give thanks in those situations--that they are opportunities to serve. Opportunities to show love and grace. Opportunities to disciple a child and point them to Christ.

 

~fenna