You can find the video here: https://www.facebook.com/RichlandNaz/videos/153322955980429/
Good morning – Just so everyone is reminded, but April is Autism Awareness Month, and I want to give a special shout out to my grandson Collin – today is World Autism Awareness day – Your my boy CJ, papa loves you!
The last couple of days, we’ve talked about sacred space and we’ve talked about sacred time. But what do you do in that space and time?
Today I want to talk briefly about prayer and meditation. Now I know that most if not all Christians know they need to be praying and meditating on God and His Word. The Bible tells us we need to be praying continually and meditating on God and His Word both day and night, that’s a pretty steep order.
So this thought about spiritual disciplines can be a bit intimidating sometimes. I really like how John Wesley talked about them, he called them Means of Grace.
You see it is through these Means of Grace, that God can actually do the work He needs to get done in our lives and through our lives. This is God’s plan – to work in us and through us to get His message, plan, will, all of the above – accomplished here on earth.
As we begin to process some of this, we begin to understand that we truly are the hands and feet of God. We are His solution to the problems here on earth – we are His hope on earth. But before God can work through us, He must first work in us to bring us to a place where His love can flow freely through us to those around us. That’s where the Means of Grace all come in. And today we’re talking prayer and meditation.
Prayer is one of those things we believe we should just completely understand it right away. I mean, you’re a Christian right? So you should understand all there is to understand about prayer right? Well, I wish it were that easy. Even the Disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.
Luke 11:1 (NIV) One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
If the ones who were closest to Jesus needed to learn how to pray, why wouldn’t we need to learn how to pray? We need to approach prayer with the same humility of the Disciples. And we need to approach the Means of Grace in that same humility.
So, what are the obstacles in your life that keep you from spending time with God in prayer? Prayer is simply communication with God. And communication with God is about both talking and listening, just like in any other line of communication we have. Sometimes we are vocal, other times we are silent, sometimes it’s both and then there are times where we don’t know how to pray – and the Holy Spirit living in us and through us prays on our behalf and we simply sit together with God and don’t need to say anything - we just know that He knows.
There are many examples in the Bible of people who had regular conversation with God. Abraham, Moses, David, Jonah, Daniel, and many others spent time in prayer communicating with God
So what should we say to God? Well I like to first look through the book of Psalms. It’s literally a book of prayer and worship. There’s praise in Psalm 145, confession in Psalm 32, some good laments in chapters 22 & 69, and there is even time for thankfulness and commitment to God in Psalm 25. Psalms is a great place to start learning about prayer and reading others’ prayers to God, it will help you get your bearings.
There’s also time and place for supplication. And supplication is just a big word for requests.
1 John 5:13-15 (NIV) I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
And let’s be clear about this. It isn’t like you jump up in Santa’s lap here and ask God for some things. You notice in this part of the Scripture it talks about asking for things according to the will of God. Folks, because of the fall of humanity and what we call original sin, the will of every human is distorted – it’s broken. When you come into right relationship with God, He begins to restore and basically line our will with His. In other words, if our will is not in the right place when we ask for something – I’m pretty sure the answer will be no.
I believe that God always answers prayers. And there are some times those answers may not get to us in the time we’d like. Read Daniel chapter 10 and t will be much more clear to you – this is an entire lesson in itself so we won’t go into detail. My point is this, god hears our prayers and He answers our prayers. Sometimes those answers may not be what we want to hear. Sometimes they are no, wait, or not yet but He still hears our prayers. And sometimes like in Daniel 10 we can see the answers to those prayers were stopped or stalled by the adversary.
So let’s look a moment at meditation. Because if prayer is communication with God, then meditation is communion with God. Basically it means just hanging out with God. The idea behind meditation is that you push aside all of the distractions, craziness and stress of the world and you rest in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
And let me say something here – I believe strongly and have a very strong opinion about. Some people have this outlandish idea that meditation is only a tool of some eastern mystic religions. NO IT’S NOT!!! Eastern religions have taken it and distorted it and made it into something it’s not supposed to be. Meditation is simply taking a moment in time, to focus on the attributes of God.
Joshua 1:7-9 (NIV) “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Lectio Divina is an ancient practice of meditating on Scripture. By focusing on a small passage or even part of a verse at a time you ask the Holy Spirit to begin speaking to you through the very words you are repeating. I have used this for quite some time and I believe that Jesus still disciples us today speaking through the Word of God to our very souls.
In meditation we can also focus on the character of God. We remember what God has done look at Deuteronomy 15:15, 1 Chronicles 16:12, 2 Timothy 2:8. And remember because meditation is a personal connection It’s going to look different for each of us. It’s important to remember that this meditation doesn’t empty your mind. Christian meditation fills it with the Spirit of the Living God, and it leads to communion or oneness with God.
Philippians 4:8-9 (NIV) Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
As Christians our goal is to become more Christ-like, to grow in relationship with God. We cannot grow deeper in Him if we are not talking, listening, and spending time with Him. This is what God wants the most, He wants to hear from us, He wants to hear our voice, He wants to spend time alone with each of us.