Prayer Causes Things to Happen

H/T to my friend Daniel Denomme for sending me this. 

Stott Reflects on Prayer

Men and women are at their noblest and best when

 they are on their knees before God in prayer.

 To pray is not only to be truly godly; 

it is also to be truly human. 

For here are human beings, 

made by God 

like God and 

for God, 

spending time in fellowship with God.

So prayer is an authentic activity in itself,

 irrespective of any benefits it may bring us.

 Yet it is also one of the most effective of all means of grace.

 I doubt if anybody has ever become at all Christlike 

who has not been diligent in prayer.

--From "Your Confirmation" (rev. edn. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1991), p. 118.

Still Hour or Communion With God by Austin Phelps: A Review

Often does monotony in prayer steal its zeal. Thanklessness bring a joyless heart. Forgetfulness in our access to the Father solely through Jesus' blood bring ingratitude and dishonour. When the wisdom from this 14 chapter prayer purifier is practiced one's low prayer-life can be instead revitalized. The objective look Phelps has in his evaluations throughout each chapter refines the naive and brings illumination; particularly his chapter on idolatry in prayer. Phelps directs his admonitions to Christians with an universal appeal. This past summer I had the pleasure to go back to this favourite of mine; it led me to seek forgiveness in my lacking. No matter where your relationship is with Christ, the pump needs continual priming. Although a percentage of his language in its distinguished caliber can be diverting, his writing is penetrating nonetheless. He helps in pealing off our anti-Christian prayer methods by giving biblical tips and resolutions for approaching the King of Kings.

Phelps, Austin. The Still Hour or Communion With God. Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1860. 

*Since it's Public Domain you can access the book online here for free. 

Stott on Private Speaking in Tongues

What, then, about the contemporary practice of private tongue-speaking as an aid to personal devotion? Many are claiming to discover through it a new degree of fluency in their approach to God. Others have spoken of a kind of 'psychic release' which they have found liberating and which one would not want to deny them. On the other hand, it needs to be said (from 1 Cor. 14) that if Paul completely forbids public tongue-speaking without interpretation, he strongly discourages private tongue-speaking if the speaker does not understand what he is saying. Verse 13 is often overlooked: 'He who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret'. Otherwise his mind will be 'unfruitful' or unproductive. So what is he to do? Paul asks himself. His reply is that he will pray and sing 'with the Spirit', but he will do so 'with the mind also'. It is clear that he simply cannot contemplate Christian prayer and praise in which the mind is not actively engaged.

--From "Baptism and Fullness" (London: IVP, 1975), p. 113. Rest with Christ JRW Stott.

Prayerful and Prayerless: A Conversation*

Prayerless: I understand that you believe in the providence of God. Is that right?

Prayerful: Yes.

Prayerless: Does that mean you believe, like the Heidelberg Catechism says, that nothing comes about by chance but only by God's design and plan?

Prayerful: Yes, I believe that's what the Bible teaches.

Prayerless: Then why do you pray?

Prayerful: I don't see the problem. Why shouldn't we pray?

Prayerless: Well, if God ordains and controls everything, then what he plans from of old will come to pass, right?

Prayerful: Yes.

Prayerless: So it's going to come to pass whether you pray or not, right.

Prayerful: That depends on whether God ordained for it to come to pass in answer to prayer. If God predestined that something happen in answer to prayer, it won't happen without prayer.

Prayerless: Wait a minute, this is confusing. Are you saying that every answer to prayer is predestined or not?

Prayerful: Yes, it is. It's predestined as an answer to prayer.

Prayerless: So if the prayer doesn't happen, the answer doesn't happen?

Prayerful: That's right.

Prayerless: So the event is contingent on our praying for it to happen?

Prayerful: Yes. I take it that by contingent you mean prayer is a real reason that the event happens, and without the prayer the event would not happen.

Prayerless: Yes that's what I mean. But how can an event be contingent on my prayer and still be eternally fixed and predestined by God?

Prayerful: Because your prayer is as fixed as the predestined answer.

Prayerless: Explain.

Prayerful: It's not complicated. God providentially ordains all events. God never ordains an event without a cause. The cause is also an event. Therefore, the cause is also foreordained. So you cannot say that the event will happen if the cause doesn't because God has ordained otherwise. The event will happen if the cause happens.

Prayerless: So what you are saying is that answers to prayer are always ordained as effects of prayer which is one of the causes, and that God predestined the answer only as an effect of the cause.

Prayerful: That's right. And since both the cause and the effect are ordained together you can't say that the effect will happen even if the cause doesn't because God doesn't ordain effects without causes.

Prayerless: Can you give some illustrations?

Prayerful: Sure. If God predestines that I die of a bullet wound, then I will not die if no bullet is fired. If God predestines that I be healed by surgery, then if there is no surgery, I will not be healed. If God predestines heat to fill my home by fire in the furnace, then if there is no fire, there will be no heat. Would you say, "Since God predestines that the sun be bright, it will be bright whether there is fire in the sun or not"?

Prayerless: No.

Prayerful: I agree. Why not?

Prayerless: Because the brightness of the sun comes from the fire.

Prayerful: Right. That's the way I think about the answers to prayer. They are the brightness, and prayer is the fire. God has established the universe so that in larger measure it runs by prayer, the same way he has established brightness so that in larger measure it happens by fire. Doesn't that make sense?

Prayerless: I think it does.

Prayerful: Then let's stop thinking up problems and go with what the Scriptures say. Ask and you will receive. You have not because you ask not.

*Thanks to DesiringGod for posting this on their website about 15 years ago. Really enjoyed it.

February 14, 1996 | by John Piper | Topic: Prayer

Impelled Prayer with God

Let a man define to his own mind an object of prayer, and then let him be moved by desires for that object which impel him to pray, because he cannot otherwise satisfy the irrepressible longings of his soul; let him have such desires as shall lead him to search out and dwell upon, and treasure in his heart, and return to again, and appropriate to himself anew, the encouragements to prayer, till his Bible opens of itself at the right places - and think you that such a man will have occasion to go to his closet, or come from it, with the sickly cry, "Why, oh! why is my intercourse with God so irksome to me?". Such a man must experience, at least, the joy of uttering hopefully emotions which become painful by repression.

Austin Phelps, "The Still Hour: Communion with God", 1859 (Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth Trust, reprint 1974): 38. 

God I Wanna Be Your Man...

A lot of you folk hate country music, I get that. But this isn't your blog, so you can tell me in the comments how lame and cheesy you find this song. But this is one worth a listen. I'm posting the lyrics just for those who have a hard time translating American. It's by Chris Young - The Man I Want to Be.

God I'm down here on my knees
Cause it's the last place left to fall
Beggin' for another chance
If there's any chance at all
That you might still be listenin'
Lovin' and forgivin' guys like me

I've spent my whole life gettin' it all wrong
And I sure could use your help just from now on
I wanna be a good man
A do like I should man
I wanna be the kind of man the mirror likes to see
I wanna be a strong man
And admit that I was wrong man
God I'm askin’ you to come change me
Into the man I wanna be

If there's any way for her and me to make another start
Could you see what you could do
To put some love back in her heart
Cause it gonna to take a miracle
After all I've done to really make her see

That I wanna be a stay man
I wanna be a brave man
I wanna be the kind of man she sees in her dreams
God I wanna be your man
And I wanna be her man
God I only hope she still believes
In the man I wanna be

Well I know this late at night that talk is cheap
But Lord don't give up on me yeah

I wanna be a givin' man
I wanna really start livin' man
God I'm askin’ you to come change me
Into the man I wanna be


It's God's help we need. I'm not sure what god he's singing to, but I know what God I'm praying this one to. Sometimes country says it all...

Preparing for Revival: Part I

Every month I receive a sermon of C. H. Spurgeon in the post through Bathroad Baptist Church's ministry (Spurgeon Ministries). If you haven't heard of this impacting ministry I encourage you to jump on the bandwagon and support it. This past week I spent some of my morning reading time going through February's sermon, entitled "Preparing for Revival". It's a delightful and straightforward message expounded from Amos 3:3 on walking with God, in agreement with God, whilst casting off all that offends God.
From this sermon I am compelled to share 2 points pertaining to the church as it desires to see God's work of revival within the people Christ died for. The first point he stresses is conducive to the member's prayer life corporately and in private:

Yet again, dear friends, are we agreed this day as to our utter helplessness in this work? I caught a good sentence the other day. Speaking with a Wesleyan minister, I said to him, "Your denomination during the past year did not increase: you have usually had a large increase to your numbers. You were never so rich as now; your ministers were never so well educated; you never had such good chapels as now, and yet you never had so little success. What are you doing - knowing this to be the fact, what are you doing? How are the minds of your brethrren exercised with regard to this?" He comforted me much by the reply. He said, "It has driven us to our knees: we thank God that we know our state and are not content with it. We have had a day of humiliation, and I hope," he said, "some of us have gone low enough to be blessed." I do fear me that some of us never do go low enough to be blessed; and when you and I pray to God with pride in us, with self-exaltation, with a confidence in our own zeal, or even in the prevalence of our own prayers of themselves, we have not come low enough to be blessed. A humble church will be a blessed church; a church that is willing to confess its own errors and failures, and to lie at the foot of Christ's cross, is in a position to be favoured of the Lord. I hope we are agreed, then, with God, as to our utter unworthiness and helplessness, so that we look to him alone.

Pray For Christchurch, New Zealand

Pray for Christchurch, New Zealand. 

Tuesday Feb 22 - 6.3 magnitude Earthquake

For more info click here.

More Recommended Blogs

Here's a second recommended list of blogs that are worth your while:

Between Two Worlds - Mr. J. Taylor
For the Love of God - Dr. Carson
Rear-view Mirror - Mr. I. Clary
Heavenward - Pastor Scotty Smith

Specifically the fourth selection has become a recent favourite and a blessing to my soul. 

My Grace is Sufficient pt 2

But he said to me, 
"My grace is sufficient for you,
For my power is made perfect in weakness."
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses,
so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

This is a continuance of thought on God's grace to John Bunyan
through the reflection and application of this passage of Scripture.

"Therefore I still did pray to God, that he would come in with this Scripture more full on my heart; to wit, that he would help me to apply the whole sentence, for as yet I could not: that he gave, I gathered; but farther I would not go, for as yet it only helped me to hope there might be mercy for me, "My grace is sufficient"; and though it came no farther, it answered my former question; to wit, that there was hope; yet, because "for thee" was left out, I was not contented, but prayer to God for that also. Wherefore, one day as I was in a meeting of God's people, full of sadness and terror, for my fears again were strong upon me; and as I was now thinking my soul was never the better, but my case most sad and fearful, these words did, with great power, suddenly break in upon me, "My grace is sufficient for thee, my grace is sufficient for thee, my grace is sufficient for thee," three times together; and oh! methought that every word was a mighty word unto me; as my, and grace, and sufficient, and for thee; they were then, and sometimes are still, far bigger than others be."


Extracted from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners by John Bunyan, section 206 

My Grace is Sufficient

Listen to how the God brought this old servant to the Lord in prayer.

"But one morning, when I was again at prayer, and trembling under the fear of this [Whether the blood of Christ was sufficient to save my soul], that no word of God could help me. That piece of a sentence darted in upon me, "My grace is sufficient." At this methought I felt some stay, as if there might be hopes. But, oh, how good a thing it is for God to send his Word! For about a fortnight before I was looking on this very place, and then I thought it could not come near my soul with comfort, therefore I threw down my book in a pet (a sulking in an upset childish manner). Then I thought it [God's grace] was not large enough; but now, it was as if it had arms of grace so wide that it could not only enclose me, but many more besides."

- Extracted from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners by John Bunyan, section 204. 

Promises - A Selection of Sweet Delights to the Soul: The Peace of God

If you've just joined in, this is the fifth installment of the series on A Selection of Sweet Delights to the Soul. Feel free to feast yourself in what God promises for those who love him in Jesus Christ from these previous posts. Today's will be looking at the peace of God.

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 
Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.
The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, 
but in everything 
by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving 
let your request be made known to God.
And the peace of God,
which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:4-7

These words may be hard to read, not just because it's ESV, but because of what the text is asking.
That is: to rejoice.
Try reading the above passage again.

Rejoice - what does that mean exactly? Macbook dictionary says
"to feel or show great joy or delight".
That is not easy. I believe Paul understands this. He, while writing this from prison, is still giving thanks to God. But, can we trust the words of a dying man? Yes - for God had carried his words along by the Holy Spirit. Paul tells the church of Philippi that they should be known for their reasonableness, gentleness, and forbearance with everyone. How often do we lash out at others due to our own worrisome attitude? Out of our impatience and ungrateful attitudes? When this happens, the question isn't "is my attitude based in sin?", but rather "which sin is my attitude coming from?". What are we told to do? In everything make your requests known to Jesus. Bringing the requests to God knowing that it is he alone that will help us weary sinners. Ask for help to turn from our sin to God. We are dependent on him. Present the requests thankfully, that through Jesus we can actually offer our requests to God! For Jesus our God intercedes amidst the Triune God-head, being our high-priest he brings our requests before the sacred throne. And when we have lifted our supplications and thanksgivings to the God-head, knowing they have been heard, there should be a peace in us. It is the peace that surpasses everything we will ever know on this earth. The peace of salvation which through Jesus is brought to destitute sinners and is guarded by the truth of his death and resurrection.
We sung these words in church yesterday and they are reminiscient of the compassion that Philippians 4 here exhibits:

"Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
and has shed his own blood for my soul."

So let it be.

Promises - A Selection of Sweet Delights to the Soul: God is For Us (pt 2)

How then should we approach petitions in prayer?
It is once we have left our sin with it's own motives and will for God's will: then we are prepared.

We can humbly approaching our great God by faith in Jesus Christ asking for whatever he puts on our heart.
James recommends where we should start in our petitions and his is reminiscient of Solomon's request:

"If any of you lacks wisdom,

let him ask God, who gives generously to all 

without reproach, and it will be given him.

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting,

for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea 

that is driven and tossed by the wind. 

For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;

he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." James 1:5-9

Direction and warning is what James is here proposing. As we ask through Jesus Christ our Saviour, to know that he has the power to accomplish all things, small and great. So we should not doubt. This is hard. We aren't signing a contract with God. We aren't pinky-swearing. We aren't even getting an audible response. What we get is the promise that he will be generous to the faithful who submit to him in and with what they need. They can be sure that his plan will prevail. Let us pray that in us the response would be,  "Your will be done in us." Let us not swim upstream when God doesn't respond how we would like. When we ask for what we want God to do, its easy for our sinful motives to slip right in. Our petition must be humble submission to his purpose: for Jesus to be glorified as we delight in him. So in this heart, we are laying the requests and embracing the results of his response. Praise him in good and bad. Knowing that with God he does not abandon his own but gives generously to all. It is the man who doesn't see the results he wanted and doubts that God did not answer, because it was not what he wanted. But James tells us that that man is double-minded. He is only looking to serve himself, while  at the same time seeking God to see if God will bow to his sinful wishes and/or intent. He isn't being faithful, but he is using God as a pop-machine. Let us rather default to come before the throne, by faith. Ready to embrace God's response with praise to Jesus. 

Promises - A Selection of Sweet Delights to the Soul: God is For Us (pt 1)

"If God is for us, 

who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own Son 

but gave him up for us all,

how will he not also with him

graciously give us all things?

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? 

It is God who justifies."Romans 8:31-33

Let this be no excuse to lash out, to pick fights, to hold the argument that "I hold the keys to the knowledge of God and you must submit to my divine inclinations." No, we as humans have sinful tendencies. We are prideful, and should be open to rebuke, to correction, and consideration of alternative views to our interpretation of Scripture and the Christian life. In gentleness, assessing what others say, and comparing their views with Scripture.

But in this passage we are given the hope that God will not abandon us. He in fact will give us everything we need. What does that look like? It's hard to say, but with a submissive attitude to the Lord, in humility and need asking him for provision, it could be just about anything. 

But if we hold sin in our heart - bitterness against another, hatred, irresponsibility, idleness, unrepentant sin - we are not acting as God's chosen people; we are then living in sin, and our motives are therefore tainted. 

It is once we have changed our heart's motives and submitted to God's will that we are prepared: ready to seek what is needed before him. We can biblically approach our holy God through Jesus Christ our priest, who is in heaven making our requests to God the Father for us. Let us ask then through faith in Jesus. For we have this promise from God that he will not hold back his hand from giving us all things.

(To be continued...)