This session was led by Ron Shaw, the Director of Spiritual Life at MTW. He is just an awesome unassuming type. When he speaks you just believe him. And we he tackles a subject like prayer you know that he practices what he preaches. But I digress. Let’s move on to this wonderful topic of prayer.
Ron started the session by stating,
“Prayer is the practice of the resurrection of Jesus. Prayerlessness is the denial of His resurrection.”He followed this by quoting Martin Luther,
“Prayer is the real calling of all Christians.”Ron then pointed out what John Calvin thought about prayer. He stated that although most people think that the central doctrine that captured Calvin’s interest when he wrote the Institutes of the Christian Religion was predestination. However, Calvin only devoted twelve pages to the doctrine of predestination. In fact, John Calvin saw prayer as central to the Christian faith. In his chapter on prayer he devoted 70 pages to this topic; the chapter was entitled “Prayer, which is the Chief Exercise of Which, and By Which We Daily Receive God’s Benefits.”
Again, if this is important to these guys (Luther and Calvin) then I need to pay attention as well.
Ron then made this observation. He said,
“A lot of Christians live as functional atheists.”He further explained that we live as if everything depended on us. He continued,
“When I want to be in charge, that’s unbelief expressing itself.”Instead of relying on a divine God, we often rely on a divine “me”.
Ron made some interesting observations about the Great Commission.
He said,
“Think about it. The fact that God uses people to propagate His Kingdom is absolutely absurd.”He is right. He reminded us that we are called to leave the culture, language, and relationships that make us who we are, humanly speaking. We are called to go to a country, culture, and language that are completely new and foreign. Throw in a very wise enemy in Satan, the depravity of the world, and our own inadequacies and troubles and you have a set up for failure – dismal failure. That is a failure in human terms. However, we know that missions is a miraculous work and that it can only impact the world when God is doing His thing. So how do we as Christ’s fools accomplish the impossible? We do it through prayer. As Oswald Chambers states,
“Prayer does not just fit us for the greater works, prayer is the greater work.”
Well how do we know that Jesus wants to do this incredible impossible Kingdom work through prayer? He tells us so in John 14:12-14.
“Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father. Whatever you will ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it.”Ron explained these verses for us. He said that in verse 12, when Jesus talked about greater works, He wasn’t talking about greater miracles. He was in fact talking about works that would have greater influence and impact in the world. We can see this all through the book of Acts. Second, Ron pointed out that in verse 13, Jesus told us that He would answer whatever we ask. He was not telling us to prayer for selfish temporal things, but Kingdom eternal things. Lastly, Ron reminded us that verse 13 also described the goal of prayer – that is to glorify God.
So why does God what to advance His Kingdom through prayer? Ron stated,
“In a mysterious way God has inseparably connected the progress of the Gospel and the expansion of His kingdom and church worldwide to the intercessory prayers of His people. Yet in doing so He has not given up an ounce of His sovereignty or put His eternal purposes at risk.”Basically prayer acknowledges our dependency on God. Our asking is infinitely more powerful than our action. Finally Ron suggested that God’s passion is His own glory – if something is done for the Kingdom that I do in my own strength then I receive the praise, but if something is done that only He could do then He is praised. Ron finally ended his thoughts on this subject by quoting Augustine,
“Without God we can not. Without us God will not.”
So how are we to pray? Basically we need to pray in faith. We need to pray boldly – as bold as the cross. And we need to pray large – as large as God. If God created the universe out of nothing then we can pray confidently for small and large things.
Lord, give me the desire to pray, the dependence on You, and the belief to pray for bold and large things for Your Kingdom and Your Glory.
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