Be with God

“Satan dreads nothing but prayer. His one concern is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, he mocks our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.” – Samuel Chadwick

This has been a prayerless blog.

Despite my saying over and over again that if I were to write I would need to be bathing every post in prayer, it has been prayerless.

Despite my confessing every week, for the past ten weeks, it has remained prayerless.

We like to comfort ourselves with thinking that confession and acknowledgment of sin is a step in the right direction. Peace, peace. When there is no peace. But without repentance, it is death.

I can hear a line from When Harry Met Sally run through my head, ‘You’re right. You’re right. I know you’re right.’ It’s one thing to know it in our heads, intellectually, and to profess it with our mouths; but knowledge is worthless if it’s not believed in the heart, and therefore lived out in our lives.

As I typed those word, ‘knowledge is worthless’, I immediately could hear a chorus we sang in elementary school: ‘knowledge is power’.

‘Yo! Hey, you! Hey, listen to me!

You have got the freedom to choose what to be.

Use your opportunities and don’t be a fool.

Because you have the right to stay in school!

Knowledge is power. I know what I know.

The more you learn the farther you’ll go.

When you get an education, you’ll be taking a stand.

Because knowledge is power. Grab it while you can. Yo!

Yo! Hey, you! You say the you’re free?

Then use your freedom wisely, and then you will see.

You can have a better life, it’s all up to you.

Because you can make the choice to stay in school.’ - Knowledge is Power by Teresa Jennings

Which is it? Is knowledge in itself worthless, or is knowledge power?

Unless I believe in my heart the knowledge to be true and reliable, it will not influence, or empower my behavior, my life; at least not for long.

When the rubber meets the road, do I believe in my heart that prayer matters? Do I believe in my heart that prayerlessness is practical atheism? Do I believe that in order for my writing to be a ministry, a good work - not a filthy rag, to be glorifying God, to be pleasing and acceptable in His sight that it needs to be bathed in prayer? Or is it really about just doing it, just getting it done?

My lack of prayer is sufficient evidence against me. I am a hypocrite. But thanks be to God, I am a hypocrite with hope.

“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” II Corinthians 7:10

Confession is nothing without repentance. It is meaningless without turning. It is vanity without a changing of the mind, a changing of the heart, a changing of behavior. Confession without repentance is death.

“Immediately the father of the child cried out with tears and said, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’” Mark 9:24

“Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.” Psalm 139:4

“I the LORD search the heart and test the mind” Jeremiah 17:10

God’s answer to help the father’s unbelief was already seen in his belief to simply ask for help. God already knew his heart and was at work in it. God was already helping him before he even knew to ask for help.

Do you see how it is all the grace of God?! God gave me faith. He made me believe. God gave me knowledge of my lack in faith. He made me see the areas of my unbelief that remain. God gave me faith to ask for more faith for the moment at hand. He made me believe enough to ask for more. We will not ask for help if we do not believe we will get it.

Come to Me! You do not have to do this on your own. You cannot do this on your own. It is sin to try to do this on your own. It is rejection of My love. It is refusal of My provision. It is rebellion of My way. Come to Me, abide in Me by being ceaseless in prayer.

“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to His teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to Him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” – Luke 10:38-42

‘DOING things for Him had taken the place of BEING WITH Him.’ -To Seek and Save by Sinclair Ferguson

I’d read this Monday February 27th. I was lamenting all that I had not been able to DO for Christ due to illness, but rejoicing that I was once again able to be WITH Him.

“But He said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it!’” – Luke 11:28

‘God’s providential dealings with us are varied, sometimes painful and often mysterious. But the circumstances He sends us are not the measure of His blessing. His providence is not the rule by which we live. What, then, is? We HEAR God’s Word…hear, not read. …listen and pay attention… Listening is…an activity…in which we place our lives under the authority of someone else’s voice and obey it.’ - Sinclair Ferguson

I’d read this Thursday March 2nd. I was sinfully murmuring and complaining about all that I am not able to DO for Christ due to my physical limitations, and pleading with the LORD to silence all the other voices battling for authority.

There is another difference between worldly grief which leads to death and godly grief that leads to repentance and live.

There's a corporate aspect to godly grief, because our sin, especially our remaining in deliberate sin, harms the Body. While worldly grief is self-focused; and believes their sins don't do harm to others.

“confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working/The effective prayer of a righteous person has great power.” James 5:16

Last Tuesday, March 7th, I asked my prayer partner to ask for the Spirit’s power in taking my thoughts captive to obey Christ. I was so physically and mentally weary that it was overflowing into spiritual weariness, and my thoughts were running wild. My mind was plagued with accusations of the Accuser, my flesh, and Christians from my past that I am not DOING enough. Weakly I’d try to do as Jesus did in His wilderness temptation and quote, ‘ONE thing is necessary.’ But I had been so beaten down with old wounds torn open, and I found I myself doubting. Too tired to strike back with the Sword, I heard, listened to, paid attention to all the other voices. I needed my Aaron and Hur.

“Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.” Exodus 17:11-14

Wednesday, March 8th, I was taking my thoughts captive by the power of the Spirit to hear, listen to, pay attention to God’s still, small voice enough to receive His Word about worldly grief versus godly grief. I confessed to my two prayer groups that morning and afternoon that I had been confessing sins but not repenting from them; and that I was greatly discouraged.

Thursday, after sharing with a few more faithful warrior sisters, the heaviness and weariness began to lift.

Friday I pulled out a book that I had kept thinking I should pull out and read again as I watched myself spiral downwards, Spiritual Depression by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

‘The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why are thou cast down’ – what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’ – instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God’.’

I had first read this book when I was not in a depressed state. And as I watched myself spiraling downwards, I kept hearing in my mind his call to take myself in hand, address myself…instead of listening to myself to speak to myself.

I also kept hearing in my mind Paul’s call, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” (II Corinthians 10:3-6)

The thing is, it is not good for man to be alone. It is not good for the Christian warrior to be alone in the midst of battle, especially fierce battles against long-held strongholds like the Accusers assertions about DOING enough.

We are God’s army. When we see a fellow soldier injured, we rally around him to protect him from further harm. We work together to get him patched up enough to get him to safety and medical attention. We strengthen him in the LORD as Jonathan did for David. We bring him to our Refuge, our Great Physician, our Wonderful Counselor.

We do not join the enemy and hurl even more attacks on him. We do not abandon him in the field. We do not look to our own wellbeing. This is not the moment to tell him to strengthen himself in the LORD as David did. Eventually he may be in such a place to strengthen himself in the LORD, and we should pray for that.

"And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And He said to them, 'My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch/keep awake.' ... And He came and found them sleeping, and He said to Peter, 'Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.' ... And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy... And He came the third time and said to them, 'Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough...'" Mark 14:33-34, 37-38, 40-41

- Soli Deo gloria