Thoughts From the PR - March 2012

“Pray without ceasing” – 1 Thessalonians 5:17

A few years ago a friend posed a question to me. 

Is it possible, in the midst of a normal work schedule while giving your mind and attention to everyday tasks, to honestly put all your energies, mental and physical, towards prayer? I've been meditating on this a lot lately and I've been asking the Lord to give me the grace to enter into what I've been calling the ‘prayer of total’; all that is within me communing and fellowshipping with God all the time. Is this realistically possible in this life? 

I guess I’m banking on Jesus’ promise that all things are possible for Him who believes, but I’ve also been considering phrases like Ps 16:11 “I have set the Lord always before me” and 1 Chron. 16:11 “Seek His presence continually”. 

The reality is the Lord is calling us to a fellowship with His Holy Spirit that is day in and day out, even that it would be no longer we who live but Christ Himself who lives in us. 

Paul puts it like this in 1^st Corinthians 15: “I die daily”. 

I guess my exhortation to us as a body, myself included, is to fix our eyes on Jesus and set our mind on heavenly things with a determined zeal and a love that will not be deterred until Christ is formed in our inner man as we see Him as He is. Until love is completed, our fellowship unbroken, and our prayer ceaseless.

-Ian

Thoughts from the PR - January 2012

“Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” Luke 14:33

I've been prayerfully reading through the gospels and noticing that Jesus says some pretty crazy things. How can someone renounce all that they have and what does that even mean? And why would He say that? The word for renounce means to “surrender claim to” or “give up”. I don’t think Jesus’ immediate application of this verse is for us all to become ascetic hermits or move into a monastery (or a house of prayer as the case may be). As I was meditating on this I was struck with how badly Jesus wants us to surrender our entire being to Him. To surrender all of our time, energy and resources to be used however He sees fit. In context Jesus says this after a parable about a man that began to build but didn't have enough resources to finish because he didn't plan in advance what it would take. The question is, do we really know what Jesus is asking of us in the long run and are we willing to go all the way, no matter what? We need to see ourselves as stewards of His talents of time, energy and resources that He has entrusted to us. He is searching for lovesick worshipers desperate to give up all they have if only to have a little more of Him.

Ian