Seeking and expressing

I’ve always liked stories and analogies.  You can speak a sentence of truth to me, and I’ll hear you.  Relate that same truth in a word picture or in a story, and I will understand you.

I think that characteristic is what draws me to the psalms, especially ones that David wrote.  While he wasn’t afraid to express his raw emotions, he was also rather creative in communicating how his circumstances were affecting him.

Read the psalm carefully, looking for David’s word pictures:

Psalm 61:1-4

God, hear my cry; pay attention to my prayer.
I call to You from the ends of the earth
when my heart is without strength. 

Lead me to a rock that is high above me,
for You have been a refuge for me,
a strong tower in the face of the enemy.

I will live in Your tent forever
and take refuge under the shelter of Your wings.

Since his heart is without strength, David is figuratively looking for a refuge, a safe place for shelter.  In just a few lines, David describes his heart’s refuge in three distinct images.

Lead me to a rock that is high above me.  In any military campaign, the high ground has strategic advantage over any enemy.  The attacker has to contend with lousy sight-lines and little cover; whereas the one who controls the high ground is safe from many attacks and can readily defend against most others.

A strong tower in the face of the enemy.  A tower was the best defended position in the city.  Not only was it elevated, but it would also house supplies and weapons to keep it defended.  The most important people took shelter in the tower when an enemy launched a full-frontal attack.

I will…take refuge under the shelter of Your wings.  Clearly, this is a metaphor – David isn’t advocating that God has feathers.  However, the image that comes to mind here is quite powerful.  Under the protection of a parent’s wings, the young birds are protected from all sorts of outside influences.  They are kept safe and have a special nearness with the one who is providing the protection.

David uses all three descriptions to explain the kind of refuge for his weary heart to find in God.  Each of these images can grab our attention in ways that a normal, straight-forward statement cannot.  By using these very descriptive words, David is able to express exactly what he needs and clearly relay that to us. 

What metaphor would you use to describe your relationship with God when your heart is without strength?  How could you communicate your desire to know Him when times are difficult? 

Evaluating our relationship with God in these picture-driven words can help us express our feelings to God, and potentially draw in others.  I encourage you to give it a try.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Tired hearts

As Jesus was dying on the cross, His final cries to the Father found their root in psalms that David had written.  A psalm has the distinction of being both poetry and a song.  When David wrote a psalm, he was not afraid to bear his raw feelings, thoughts, and fears to God.  David’s topics ranged from great celebration of what God accomplished all the way down to personal, deep feelings of despair. 

It’s during one of those low times that David wrote the following psalm.  Although his circumstances were dragging him down and he felt like his own heart was without strength, David clearly believed that God was able to handle his difficult situation.

Psalm 61:1-4

God, hear my cry; pay attention to my prayer.
I call to You from the ends of the earth
when my heart is without strength.

Lead me to a rock that is high above me,
for You have been a refuge for me,
a strong tower in the face of the enemy.

I will live in Your tent forever
and take refuge under the shelter of Your wings.

David’s request is as simple as it is profound – Lead me.  David sought God’s guidance and direction to see him through the trial in front of him.  When we find ourselves in trouble, our first inclination usually isn’t a desire to be told what to do next.  We want to find our own way out, and if we can’t find a path…then we figure it’s time to blaze one.  So how is it that David is able to muster the response of actually wanting God to lead him? 

The answer is found in the verses immediately following his request.

David can confidently ask God to lead him through his present problems because he remembers how God has provided for him in the past:

for You have been a refuge for me,
a strong tower in the face of the enemy.

David recalls the previous times when God was both his rescuer and his strength.  Essentially, he’s telling God “When I relied on you in the past, you came through; so I trust you to lead me now.” 

What’s also interesting is that as he remembers his past experience with God, David’s trust isn’t limited to his immediate problems.  He’s already committing his future to being under God’s protection.

I will live in Your tent forever,
and take refuge under the shelter of Your wings.

Based upon God’s history, David trusts Him with the present issues as well as any future ones that he can’t see yet.  This is an excellent example for us.  When we struggle with letting God lead us through today’s trial, all we have to do is remember the times when God has previously protected and defended us.  Keeping that in mind makes sure that we aren’t overwhelmed when the low times come and our hearts are without strength.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Prayerful conclusions

When I started this journey to discover how to pray, I had no idea where it would lead.  I began with the premise that if becoming like Jesus is the Father’s aim for us, then if we want to learn to pray…we should pray like Jesus did.

Surprisingly, Jesus spoke a lot about prayer.  He covered a full range of topics – from praying for enemies to what it would be like for His disciples to pray “In Jesus’ name”.  Jesus warned us about praying with the wrong motives, said that how we forgive others will affect our own prayer life, and told us to watch out for leaders who make long prayers for show.

However, there were two qualities of How Jesus prayed that stood out even more than What Jesus taught about prayer.

The first major observation was that throughout the gospel accounts, we found that He was heading off to quiet places to spend time with the Father in prayer.  Whether the crowds were large, or it was only Him and His disciples…Jesus set aside chunks of alone time for prayer. 

Matthew 14:23 After dismissing the crowds, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray.  When evening came, He was there alone.

Mark 1:35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He got up, went out, and made His way to a deserted place.  And He was praying there.

Luke 5:16 Yet He often withdrew to deserted places and prayed.

Luke 6:12 During those days He went out to the mountain to pray and spend all night in prayer to God.

The second major observation was found in Jesus’ main focus when He prayed.  From the beginning of His model prayer to His ‘High Priestly’ prayer found in John 17, we found that Jesus was consistently focused on the Father.  His primary concern was the Father’s plan and the Father’s glory.  Jesus’ aim was to increase the Father’s glory – which means to enhance the Father’s reputation and honor in the world, and this was primarily achieved as Jesus completed the mission that the Father gave Him to accomplish.

If we imitate Jesus in these two ways, we are guaranteed to grow closer to the Father.  We become what gaze at.  Therefore, spending chunks of our time focused on the Father’s desires and glory will certainly lead us to act, think, and relate like Jesus.

Lastly, as Jesus was dying on the cross, His final cries to the Father found their root in Scripture.  I find it extremely interesting that when everything was a bad as it could get, Jesus’ prayers were direct quotations from two different Psalms.

This final observation will direct our next steps after this study on the Prayers of Jesus.  If we are going to pray like Him when it seems like everything goes wrong, we need to be prepared.  As such, we’re going to look at a couple of psalms and find some spiritual truths that we can grab on to.

For now, though, our best course of action is to purposely dedicate some time with the Father to focus on His glory and His mission.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Staring death in the face

Recognizing that the time had come make the payment for humanity’s sins, Jesus said one last prayer to His Father.

Luke 23:44-46 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three, because the sun’s light failed.  The curtain of the sanctuary was split down the middle.  And Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I entrust My spirit.”  Saying this, He breathed His last.

This is Jesus fully trusting the Father all the way to the end.  Staring death in the face, Jesus’ confidence in the Father’s provision and plan never wavered.  It wasn’t enough for Jesus to suffer through beatings.  It wasn’t enough that He was nailed to a cross and hung there for six hours.  As brutal as Christ’s suffering was, our sin-debt would not be paid unless His death occurred. 

But why must it be death?  Why couldn’t the Father accept some other form of payment?

We were made for relationship with God.  We were created such that God was both our purpose and our fuel.  However, our rebellion separated us from the source of life.  Justice would expect that for the choices a person makes, that person should experience the natural consequence of his or her actions.  Since we cut ourselves off from our one source of life in all the universe, the natural consequence for our rejecting our Creator…is death, a complete separation from God.

However, God chose to be merciful and delayed the natural consequences that we deserved.  Although our physical bodies were now corrupted and we would experience physical death, God allowed for a substitute to take our place so that a person’s spiritual death (eternal separation from God) would not occur.  Israel’s sacrificial system was a foreshadowing of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice.

Jesus summed it up like this:

John 3:16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus knew that His death was to be a substitute for ours.  His sacrifice took the natural consequences of what our sinful choices warranted.  But it had to be death…because that’s what we deserved. 

Earlier, Jesus quoted Psalm 22 as He dealt with the conflicting emotions of despair and hope.  Jesus’ last words, His last prayer – Father, into Your hands I entrust My spirit – underscored His complete trust in the Father as He completed the sacrifice, and His words find their source in Psalm 31. 

Psalm 31:1-5 Lord, I seek refuge in You; let me never be disgraced.
Save me by Your righteousness.
Listen closely to me; rescue me quickly.
Be a rock of refuge for me, a mountain fortress to save me.
For You are my rock and my fortress; You lead and guide me because of Your name.
You will free me from the net that is secretly set for me, for You are my refuge.
Into Your hand I entrust my spirit; You redeem me, Lord, God of truth.

All the way to the end, Jesus was trusting the Father.  Because of His death, our opportunity for relationship with the Father has been restored.  Eternal life is available to anyone who believes in Him, which means that you understand who He is, why He died, and you trust Him when He said that He will give you eternal life.

That is why today is a Good Friday.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

From despair to hope

While Jesus hung on the cross for six hours, whether He felt like time passed quickly or agonizingly slow…there’s no indication in the Biblical text.  What we do know is that the Romans were experts in torture and the administration of pain.  Death on a cross didn’t come from having your hands and feet nailed to wood.  Instead, a person died slowly as their body weight pulled against the nails, making it difficult for the victim to breathe.  Over the next few hours, they would fight to keep upright in order to continue breathing, but as their strength failed, they would slowly suffocate.  Additionally, any trauma or blood loss both before and during crucifixion would lead to cardiac collapse as the heart muscle was no longer supplied with oxygen-rich blood.  This type of death sentence was so horrific, the Latin word for “cross” eventually became the root word for word “excruciating” in an attempt identify the level of pain one would endure while being crucified.

As the sins of humanity were placed upon Jesus, He experienced the worst of everything He had endured.  As great as the physical torture was, we can only guess at the magnitude of His spiritual torment.

Matthew 27:45-46 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over the whole land.  At about three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

As the end of His life neared, Jesus’ cry to the Father, His prayer at the moment was the beginning of Psalm 22.  The first half of that prophetic psalm tells us so much about how Jesus felt while He endured the horrifically painful events of the cross.  However, the text also transitions from the agony of the moment to a complete reliance on God the Father.

What began as a cry of anguish has ended in a shout of praise.

Psalm 22:25-31 I will give praise
in the great congregation because of You;
I will fulfill my vows before those who fear You.
The humble will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the Lord will praise Him.
May your hearts live forever! 

All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord.
All the families of the nations will bow down before You,
for kingship belongs to the Lord; He rules over the nations.
All who prosper on earth will eat and bow down;
all those who go down to the dust will kneel before Him –
even the one who cannot preserve his life.
Descendants will serve Him; the next generation will be told about the Lord.
They will come and tell a people yet to be born about His righteousness –
what He has done.

Jesus was absolutely focused on His purpose.  His death didn’t just happen to Him, rather He chose to take the punishment for humanity’s sinful betrayals. 

As Psalm 22 transitions from despair to hope, it ends with the assurance of what Jesus’ mission would accomplish.  He most certainly was thinking about the future generations, of those He prayed for in the garden – the ones who would eventually believe the apostles’ message.

We are among those who were yet to be born and have now been told about the Lord.  Keeping Jesus’ purposeful sacrifice in mind, let’s continue the mission and tell the next generation what He has done!

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Not alone

Both Matthew and Mark both record that at the end of His crucifixion, Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1.  It’s likely that by His statement, Jesus was also a referencing the Psalm as a whole.  We have a similar practice when we refer to the First Amendment and only reference “our right to free speech”…but in reality we are quoting more than just those five words.

Taking a continued look at the psalm which Jesus quoted near the end of His six hour crucifixion, we see many predictive parallels between David’s feelings about the oppressive situation he was writing about and the crucifixion of Jesus 1000 years later.

As you read this section of Psalm 22, read it slowly – and do your best to feel as they felt, see what they saw, and think like they thought:

Psalm 22:12-28 Many bulls surround me; strong ones of Bashan encircle me.
They open their mouths against me – lions, mauling and roaring.
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed;
my heart is like wax, melting within me.
My strength is dried up like baked clay;
my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
You put me into the dust of death.
For dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has closed in on me;
they pierced my hands and my feet.
I can count all my bones; people look and stare at me.
They divided my garments among themselves,
and they cast lots for my clothing.

With the whole world against Him and His body slowly failing, there was no physical reason to have any hope.  It’s times like these that feelings of despair start to settle in deep within us.  Jesus fought against these feelings by taking His focus off of the torment pressing on Him and seeking the Father:

Psalm 22:19-24 But You, Lord, don’t be far away.  My strength, come quickly to help me.
Deliver my life from the sword, my very life from the power of the dog.
Save me from the mouth of the lion!
You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen.
I will proclaim Your name to my brothers;
I will praise You in the congregation.
You who fear the Lord, praise Him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor Him!
All you descendants of Israel, revere Him!
For He has not despised or detested the torment of the afflicted.
He did not hide His face from him, but listened when he cried to Him for help.

My favorite line in this section – For He has not despised or detested the torment of the afflicted – contains so much hope and such a greater perspective.

God doesn’t hide from us when we hurt.  The Father doesn’t abandon us when we are in pain.  He won’t throw up His hands in frustration because He doesn’t know what to do with us next.  The Father did not leave David or Jesus in their darkest hour.  And God won’t leave us, either. 

We are not alone in our affliction.  When all else is crashing in, God is listening for our cries.  We can look to Him for rescue, just like Jesus.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Feeling abandoned

After Jesus was betrayed…He was arrested, falsely accused, slapped, spat on, beaten, repeatedly mocked, savagely whipped, crowned with thorns, and had three metal spikes viciously hammered into his wrists and feet.  After all that, He spent approximately six hours suffocating to death on the cross.  For the last three hours, thick clouds covered the land and blocked the light of the sun.

Matthew 27:45-46 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over the whole land.  At about three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

After all the torture He had endured, Jesus cried out in agony to the Father.  However, these weren’t mere grunts and gasps.  Instead, Jesus was quoting Scripture – the opening line from Psalm 22.

Think of the kinds of words that come out when we are at our most painful moments.  Of the things Jesus could have said while on the cross, why would He quote Psalm 22?  Although it makes sense that Jesus felt forsaken by God, as this was the first time that He had ever been spiritually separated from the Father, we find that even in His last moments, Jesus was still giving us a view into His relationship with the Father.

Psalm 22 is a prophetic Psalm written by David roughly 1000 years before Jesus was born.  Although David wrote the psalm as an outpouring of his own situation, God the Holy Spirit clearly superintended David’s writing to foretell the suffering Jesus would endure.  Reading through, we can clearly see why Jesus identified with David’s writings:

Psalm 22:1-11 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Why are You so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning?
My God, I cry by day, but You do not answer, by night, yet I have no rest.
But You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
Our fathers trusted in You;
they trusted, and You rescued them.
They cried to You and were set free;
they trusted in You and were not disgraced.

But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by men and despised by people.
Everyone who sees me mocks me;
they sneer and shake their heads:
“He relies on the Lord; let Him rescue him;
let the Lord deliver him, since He takes pleasure in him”

You took me from the womb, making me secure while at my mother’s breast.
I was given over to You at birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.
Do not be far from me, because distress is near and there is no one to help.

In His worst agony, even when He felt totally abandoned, Jesus still sought the Father.  Even when it felt like His cries of pain and anguish went unanswered, Jesus reminded Himself of the Father’s track-record of rescue, freedom, and help by finding a connection in the Scriptures.

Whenever we wrestle with the same feelings of betrayal, abandonment, or fear...our best refuge is to seek the Father and remember His goodness.  Just like Jesus, we too can trust Him when everything and everyone is against us.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Prayer, submission, and action

After Jesus finished His ‘High Priestly Prayer’, they came to the garden where Jesus was later betrayed by Judas.  Although Jesus took Peter, James, and John from among the eleven to go pray with Him, Jesus ended up separating even further away to pray alone.  When we previously looked at this passage, we observed that in His last moments before the cross, Jesus desired to spend time in prayer alone with the Father.  However, when reading the passage this time, focus on the content of Jesus’ prayer:

Matthew 26:36-44 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and He told the disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”  Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.  Then He said to them, “My soul is swallowed up in sorrow – to the point of death.  Remain here and stay awake with Me.”  Going a little farther, He fell facedown and prayed, “My Father!  If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.  Yet not as I will, but as You will.”

Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping.  He asked Peter, “So, couldn’t you stay awake with Me one hour?  Stay awake and pray, so that you won’t enter into temptation.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, Your will be done.”  And He came again and found them sleeping, because they could not keep their eyes open.

After leaving them, He went away again and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more.

Jesus’ prayer is the pinnacle example of submitting to God’s will in prayer.  We are only getting snippets of what He prayed to the Father; the full prayer must have been agonizing and heart-wrenching.  Jesus wrestled with accepting the task in front of Him.  He knew it would cost His life, with all the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual torment coming first.  It is one thing to know that a tragic event is coming, it is something different to knowingly be right on the cusp of that event. 

In raw honesty, Jesus even asked if there was an alternative…some backup plan that the Father may  have for completing the mission, another way to remove the guilt of sin from the entire world.  And yet, Jesus was willing to submit His anxious desires because He trusted that the Father’s plan – however painful it would be – was better than His own longing to avoid the imminent pain of the cross.

Matthew 26:45-46 Then He came to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting?  Look, the time is near.  The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.  Get up; let’s go!  See – My betrayer is near.”

After seeking time with the Father and submitting Himself to the Father’s plan, Jesus knew that it was now time to act.  The time for prayer and preparation had passed.  It was now time to fulfill the mission the Father had given Him.

This observation is especially instructive.  We absolutely must seek God’s will in prayer and then submit to God’s will in prayer…but let’s make sure we go out and do God’s will when we’re finished praying.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Praying for glory

After completing His last teachings on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus informed His disciples:

John 16:33-17:1 I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace.  You will have suffering in this world.  Be courageous!  I have conquered the world.

Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said:

Father, the hour has come.

What Jesus prayed next is commonly referred to as His ‘High Priestly Prayer’.  Since Jesus prayed this in front of His disciples, they would have heard Jesus’ exact desires and petitions to the Father.

Jesus knew what was going to happen that night in the garden.  He knew that His entire life, and especially the last three years, had led up to this night.  The hour of sacrifice had finally come.

In this prayer, Jesus prayed for Himself, the disciples, and all future believers.  He also made some significant statements and requests during this prayer.  The first part of His prayer is for Himself, but His words are not selfish…rather, they are focused on His relationship with the Father:

John 17: 1-3 Glorify Your Son so that the Son may glorify You,
for You gave Him authority over all flesh;
so He may give eternal life to all You have given Him.
This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God,
And the One You have sent – Jesus Christ.

Eternal life – which is both forever-lasting and of excellent quality – is only found in knowing God the Father, through Jesus Christ.  We were created to be in eternal relationship with God.  Jesus affirmed this to the disciples earlier in the night, when He said:

John 13:6 I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.

While Jesus prayed that the Father would glorify Him, Jesus’ aim was to use any honor the Father gave Him as an opportunity to reflect it back.  Glorifying the Father – enriching His reputation and advancing His agenda – was Jesus’ purpose in His life and ministry, and it continued to be his focus as He would head to the cross.

John 17:4-5 I have glorified You on the earth
by completing the work You gave Me to do.
Now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence
With the glory I had with You before the world existed.

Jesus begins His ‘High Priestly Prayer’ in the same manner He had previously instructed the disciples to pray:

Matthew 6:9 Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy.

Above all else, Jesus was concerned with the Father’s reputation and agenda.  This aim dominated His life and His prayers.  As such, Jesus’ prayer practice matched His prayer teachings, and His example instructs us to focus on God’s glory in the same ways.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

House of prayer (part 2)

Jerusalem was abuzz with news of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into town.  The next day Jesus shows, in dramatic fashion, that the nation’s idea of being religious was in need of reform:

Mark 11:15-17 They came to Jerusalem, and He went into the temple complex and began to throw out those buying and selling in the temple.  He overturned the money changers’ tables and the chairs of those selling doves, and would not permit anyone to carry goods through the complex.

Then He began to teach them: “Is it not written, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?

Note that when Jesus was correcting the people, He referred them back to God’s Word.  In this case, Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah.  The people present, especially the priests and scribes, would have instantly recognized Jesus’ reference:

Isaiah 56:1-3,6-7 This is what the Lord says: Preserve justice and do what is right, for My salvation is coming soon, and My righteousness will be revealed.  Happy is the man who does this, anyone who maintains this, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.  No foreigner who has converted to the Lord should say, “The Lord will exclude me from His people”…

…And the foreigners who convert to the Lord, minister to Him, love the Lord’s name, and are His servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it, and who hold firmly to My covenant – I will bring them to My holy mountain and let them rejoice in My house of prayer.  Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar, for My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

God’s plan for His temple was to include those from other nations.  Foreigners who submitted to the Lord didn’t need to worry about being excluded from fellowship with God just because they weren’t Jewish.  Instead, God makes this incredible promise to them:

I will bring them to My holy mountain and let them rejoice in My house of prayer.

God assures the believing foreigners that He will personally lead them to His temple, accept them and their sacrifices, and include them in the worship given by His chosen people, Israel.  This was a huge blessing for God to give to those born outside of His covenant with Israel.  As a result of this promise, there were many believing foreigners in Jerusalem at Passover.

With the religious economy the Jewish leaders had instituted within the temple complex, they were hindering the foreign believers from participating in worship at God’s house of prayer.  The Jewish leaders were standing in the way of God’s promise to foreigners – no wonder Jesus was flipping tables and chairs!

In our own church gatherings, do our religious activities point others toward God…or do we hinder others from meeting with God? 

If a foreigner came to us, would they recognize our church gatherings as God’s house of prayer, or something else?

Keep Pressing,
Ken