A Framework for Personal Prayer According to Tim Keller

On Sunday evening in church we listened to a Tim Keller podcast on personal prayer. Towards the end he gave a framework for personal prayer for anyone who was struggling with it.

Tim suggests 3 things for sure and a 4th if God blesses: Bible Reading, Mediation, Prayer & Contemplation.

Bible Reading:

1. Take a passage or paragraph and read it 3-4 times.

2. Then make a list of every thing it says about God (Father, Son & Holy Spirit)

3. List anything that it tells you about yourself

4. List example to be followed, commands to obey or things that need to be avoided.

Mediation:

Then choose one or two thing that you think were most important or the best thing that you learned from the reading. Keller says that mediation is talking to yourself about God, in the presence of God (Psalm 103).

Keller recommends 2 ways to meditate upon the passage:

The Shorter Way

Ask yourself how you would be different if this truth was explosively alive in my inner being? Secondly, ask why is God showing me this passage today? What is going on in my life that i need to learn this truth?

The Deeper Way

ACTS= Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving & Supplication

Adoration: What can I praise God for in this truth?

Confession: What false attitudes, behaviour emotions or idols come alive in me whenever I forget it?

Thanksgiving: How is Jesus Christ or the grace that I have in Jesus Christ the key to help me overcome the sin that I have just confessed?

Supplication: What do I need to do or become in light of this?

"Read a text and begin to mediate on it until the Holy Spirit starts to preach to you"

Tim Keller

Prayer:

Begin to talk to God about the things that the Holy Spirit has been revealing to you during the mediation.

Contemplation:

If God blesses, bask in his presence, adoring him and thanking him for what he is showing you and doing in your life.

Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you and to set the agenda.

The Two Hands of Christianity

While preparing for Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 4:17 - 24, I came across this quote in Klyn Snodgrass NIVAC on Ephesians:

"Christianity is a religion emphasizes on the one hand the futility and distoration of humanity without God and on the other hand the value of humanity in God's eyes with God. Christianity invites us to recognise we are vile, but it also invites us to desire to be like God. It knows that human beings need a redeption they do not deserve, but also God thinks that they are worth redeeming. Only in facing the painful truth about ourselves is there hope for healing."

Jesus is .....

I shared this today at a wedding. It is based on Eugene Peterson's translation of 1 Corinthians 13.

"Jesus never gives up.

Jesus cares more for others than he does care for himself.

Jesus doesn't want what he doesn't have.

Jesus doesn't strut.

Jesus doesn't have a swelled head.

Jesus doesn't force himself upon others.

Jesus isn't always "me first".

Jesus Doesn't fly off the handle.

Jesus doesn't keep score of the sins of others.

Jesus doesn't revel when others grovel.

Jesus takes pleasure in the flowering of truth.

Jesus puts up with anything.

Jesus trusts God always.

Jesus always looks for the best.

Jesus never looks back.

Jesus keeps going to the end."

He is the most beautiful person who has ever lived.

What are we holding on to?

Looking over the recent events on the news is very depressing and heartbreaking. Maybe some people are looking at the personal crisis they are experienceing in their own lives and wondering, "How can I go on?" I have always found the conversation that takes place between Sam & Frodo in the 'The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers', helpful :

Frodo: I can't do this Sam.

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. Like is like in the great stories Mr Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how can the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too young to understand why. But I think, Mr Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories, had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Frodo's question is a good one. What are we holding on to, whenever shadows cast themselves over our stories? I often turn to Romans 8 to remind myself what I'm holding onto,:

"For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against it's will, all creation was subjested to God's curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay."

This is the hope that I'm holding onto, and on the really bad day's maybe I discover that this hope is holding on to me.

Chocolate Indulgence versus God Indulgence

I'm not really into the whole lent thing...I have my reasons which I'm not going into here. But this year for the first time I'm giving something up... actually I'm giving up 3 things; chocolate, crisps and fizzydrinks. (I really don't eat much crisps anyway, but I know that in the absence of chocolate I would eat more.).

This is not for diet reasons...although I could lose a few stone, but I want to use these 40 days as a spiritual discipline. During the next 40 days, by removing these comfort foods from my life, I want to learn to comfort myself in the Lord more than I have been doing. I want to learn my soul to quieten itself, so that I can learn again to hear its longing after God, "As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God." Ps 42:1

But the discipline is not ultimately about hearing the panting of the soul, it is more so about attuning my soul to listen. Listen to what? Listening to a song that is being sung over my life every day and every night. Psalm 42 goes on to speak to us, "By day the LORD commands his love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life."

This Lent is not about depriving myself, it is about learning again to nourish my soul in God. It is not about removing from my life foods that I enjoy, it is about feeding upon the One who gives me infinite joy.

The Centrality of the Word

In the early church the ministry of the word had a central place in its life. In Acts we read that, " They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." Acts 2:42

Because they devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostles, the little church became strong. When persecution came, the little church endured. When famine arose the little church knew how to respond. When false teachers stood in their pulpits, the little church knew how to recognise them. The Scriptures nourished and sustained the church in spite of the hostile environment that she was planted in.

In the New Testament we have the Apostolic teaching. The Church today needs to devote itself to reading, obeying and upholding the teaching of the New Testament. If the Church is to grow (numerically and Maturely) it needs a strong diet of the Word.

It is possible for us to be a church without buildings, ordained ministers, music and even without the sacraments. But it is impossible to be a church without the preaching of the gospel. The gospel tunes us into the presence of Jesus among us, "You were included in Christ whenever you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation." Eph 1:13

The Scriptures must be central in all that we do whenever we come together. John Calvin said, "The Church is seen where Christ appears and his word is heard."

Goblins and the Call

After 4 years of pastoral ministry, I have despaired as I have watch people travel into dark places. Places that seem to have have no way out. At times it is easy to stop trusting God, because if God was so 'faithful and true' then surely he would never have led me into this dark and unexplainable place. The call to follow Jesus can be difficult and at times it will leave us wondering if he really is in control.

Tim Keller, wrote the following in his latest book, 'King's Cross'. It has given me a metaphor for following the call of Jesus into dark places:

About 150 years ago George MacDonald wrote a children's book called 'The Princess and the Goblin.' Irene, the protagonist, is eight years old. She has found an attic room in her house, and every so often her fairy grandmother appears there. When Irene goes to look for her she's often not there, so one day grandmother gives her a ring with a thread tied to it, leading to a little ball of thread. She explains that she'll keep the ball.

"But I can't see it,", says Irene.

"No. The Thread is too fine for you too see it. You can only feel it." With this reassurance, Irene tests the thread.

"Now, listen," says the grandmother, "if you ever find yourself in danger... you must take off the ring and put it under the pillow of your bed. Then you must lay forefinger...upon the thread, and follow the thread wherever it leads you."

"Oh, how delightful! It will lead me to you, Grandmother, I know!"

"Yes," said the grandmother, "but, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too." A few days later Irene is in bed, and gobblins get into the house. She hears them snarling out in the hallway, but she has the presence of mind to take off her ring and put it under the pillow. And she begins to feel the thread, knowing that it's going to take her to her grandmother and to safety. But to her dismay, it takes her outside, and she realizes that it's taking her right toward the cave of the gobblins.

Inside the cave, the thread leads her up to a great heap of stones, a dead end. "The thought struck her, that at least she could follow the thread backwards, and thus get out.... But the instant she tried to feel backwards, it vanished from her touch." The grandmother's thread only worked forward, but forward it led into the a heap of stones. Irene "burst into a wailing cry," but after crying she realizes that the only way to follow the thread is to tear down the wall of stones. She begins tearing it down, stone by stone, Though her fingers are soon bleeding, she pulls and pulls.

Suddenly she hears a voice. It's her friend Curdie, who has been trapped in the gobblins cave! Curdie is astounded and asks, "Why, however did you come here?"

Irene replies that her grandmother sent her, "and I think I've found out why."

After Irene has followed the thread and removed enough rocks to create an opening, Curdie starts to climb out of the cave - but Irene keeps going deeper into the cave. Curdie objects: "Where are you going there? That's not the way out. That's where I couldn't get out."

"I know that," says Irene. But this is the way my thread goes, and I must follow it." And indeed the thread proves trustworthy, because her grandmother is trustworthy.

Following the call of Jesus is like following the grandmother's thread. Although we may never understand why the call leads us into dark and unexplainable places, although we may feel confused and frightened, we follow because the one at the end of the call is 'faithful and true.'

Psalm 37 vv 23 - 24 reads, "The LORD makes firm the steps of those who delight in him; though they stumble, they will not fall, for the LORD upholds them with his hand."