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The Real Lords Prayer

 

 

They went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.” And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.” (Mark 14:32-42, NRSV)

Prayer is a vital part of our lives and for centuries upon centuries we have be praying to God for help, guidance, strength, and maybe ultimately just to vent. Prayer is also very much not what we think it is. For some it is to clarify what we desire to God, for some to grow closer to God, but let’s look at the greatest example of what prayer really is, Jesus.

Jesus was a prayer warrior, he was constantly going off to be alone with God and to pray. This scripture example above is just one of the many examples in the Gospels of the life of prayer that Jesus regularly invested in. What’s important about this is that he was frequently active in prayer.

This moment in Mark 14 is a moment of desperation, of pain, but ultimately Jesus is scared. Jesus who is our Savior and Lord of the world, everything in the world is here because of Him and yet in this moment he is desperate, scared, and praying to God for assistance, except Jesus knows what prayer is about. It’s another opportunity to glorify God which is why even in his fear Jesus responds to do God’s will.

See this is what we don’t like about prayer. We don’t like that we can’t just get our way. Admit it, there have been times in your life when you wanted something to happen or something not to happen and you to go in prayer pleading with Him to let it be as you desire, but we can’t control God.

Prayer is about a relationship about the need to invest in more than ourselves. Jesus knew that prayer was a lifestyle, not something we grab onto when things go wrong. The power of prayer is not in that you can make God do things, but that in prayer God is always with us no matter what happens in our lives. Through the good and the bad God is present, always.

Prayer is a gift of presence and a holy gift given to us by God himself. No matter what happens God is always with you, comforting you, encouraging you, and supporting you to live a life that is far better than one we can do on our own.

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Requirement of New Life

This is a post that was originally written by myself and shared on Youthworker Movement. 

When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this observance?’ 27 you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed down and worshiped. (Exodus 12:25, NRSV) 

We like order, control, but essentially we like having things OUR way. We really like things our way, and we resist like the dickens anything else. When the operative word, “change,” is uttered any sense of the word we tend to clam up and resist, and yet we have this quandary of the lesson that we get in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

To have new life, something must die.

Ouch.

New life in Christ is amazing, but bad things had to happen for that new life to happen. Jesus had to die for us to live. Really think about what this means for our lives now. For us to live into that new life we have to consider that some parts of our lives do not belong. You can’t give your heart to Christ and the world, you can only serve one master.

So what does that mean for our lives?

It means that there is nothing in our lives that doesn’t connect to our deep faith in Christ. That is what it means to be a disciple to constantly point to our savior, if we are not doing that then why are we following Him. I mean seriously, this is what discipleship is and what it looks like. Things have to go aside and Christ has to reign in our lives. Christ’s love and grace gives understanding of what we truly need and everything Christ passing over us because we don’t need it.

We just need Christ, and Him alone.

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Sitting Outside

I really like working in the community in which I serve. Let me be clear in what I mean. I love to once a week work remotely at a location in the community of Fort Worth. It always brings a feeling of blessing. Today I am sitting outside Central Market in Fort Worth. Each Thursday I come to a remote location from at 4:00 pm to work for awhile outside the church, but also invite students to come by if they want to hang out.

It’s a win win for me because I get to experience the beauty of God’s creation, connect with the community and connect with youth at Arlington Heights UMC.

Today as I sit outside Central Market I am reminded of the fact that Jesus did this a lot.

Rarely did Jesus stay in one place for an extended period of time, but kept connecting with people in all communities of the region he lived in at the time of his ministry. Jesus and the Disciples were constantly moving from place to place with the sole purpose of connecting people to God’s Kingdom. Not only that but Jesus would be teaching to His disciples or hundreds sometimes thousands of people of this important connection.

I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of time in the office, maybe I’m spending too much time there.

Maybe I need to be going from place to place connecting people like Christ did.

It’s worthy of reflection at least.  We will see where it leads me and where it leads us.

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What are We Becoming?

22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves[a] in a mirror; 24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.

I love this passage and advice from James, the brother of Jesus. Today I present to you this passage, but also this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character.  Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping we are becoming.”

So what are you becoming? What are we really doing in our lives?

What are we really becoming?

 

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Didn’t Pivot

Jesus calls us to abide in His love. To abide means to accept, but it’s more than that because in that acceptance we live in that love, we extend that love because being in it and of it. The love becomes a part of us.

So if we are not doing this more often then are we abiding in Christ’s love?

Additionally in the video they saw that Sara deserved to have this homerun. Effectively we are Sara and we in life didn’t pivot just right and because of that we are broken. Jesus responds to that brokenness in all of us and gives us a home run of our own. He gives us His love.

The coolest part though is that if you don’t abide in that love and share it Jesus doesn’t take it away. It’s still yours, and there is nothing you can do or cannot do that will cause Jesus not to love you.