Matt Chandler here explaining the difference between a moralistic interpretation of the story of David and Goliath and a gospel-centered approach.

For more information on The Gospel Project, check out the website.

That’s not the purpose of this post.

Instead, think about the question itself. It’s debatable what led to their question; maybe it was some kind of spiritual jealousy: “John’s disciples have a special way to pray – we want one, too!”

Maybe it was an effort to get Jesus to tell them some kind of perceived secret He was holding onto: “What is it you do out there, all by yourself? We want to know what’s going on! Let us into the loop!”

Or perhaps it was just good curiosity springing from a genuine desire to pray. We don’t really know. But the fact that we don’t know the true intentions of the disciples actually only serves to make the request, and what happens after, all the more encouraging for me because I certainly know what it’s like to have mixed motives in prayer. Maybe you do too.

- We pray to get God to do things for us.

- We pray more about our own comfort than for the good of others.

- We struggle to pray with confidence because in our hearts, we don’t really think God will answer.

- We have no idea what to pray for. In fact, our hearts are so deceitful we often find ourselves praying in a contrary fashion to the will of God.

Given our weakness (and I’m lumping you in here with me now) in prayer, here are two ways that this request can encourage us in prayer, and then a simple point of action that flows from it:

1. Prayer is a learned skill.

These disciples asked Jesus to teach them something. That means that prayer is learnable, perhaps even as learnable as trigonometry or changing a tire. If it’s learnable, it means that it’s not necessarily natural. So our inability to pray isn’t something we have to just live with. It’s something that can change.

2. Jesus wants to teach us the skill.

This is the fifth time recorded so far in the book of Luke that Jesus has been praying. In fact, the book records Jesus praying at most of the big events of His life. So the disciples asked Him to teach them. Now often when someone asks Jesus a direct question, He will answer them with a parable or a seemingly unrelated teaching. He’ll force them to think about the heart of their question, taking them to a deeper level emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. But here?

Here Jesus answers them. Straight out. Jesus wants to teach us to pray.

So here, I think, is one simple action point, given the above things are true:

We should practice.

I have fallen into a sort of grudging acceptance for the poorness of my prayer life. I guess some people have it, and some don’t, I tell myself, as if praying is like shooting a beautiful jump shot from beyond the three point arc. But if prayer can be learned, then there’s nothing wrong with actually practicing. That’s how you get “better” at anything – you practice.

And evidently, the disciples practiced. It’s funny that this same group of followers, here so inept at the practice of prayer, are praying all the time in Luke’s companion volume, the book of Acts. Here they’re not asking to be taught any more; here they have learned. And here, the Holy Spirit is at work in incredibly powerful ways as they prayed.

They must have learned after all.

So today, I’m telling God about my prayerlessness. I’m asking Him to help me practice. Like a 4-year-old who wants his father to help him throw a ball the right way, I’m going to put myself to the work with the ready assistance of my dad. And, like that Father, I believe God is not going to berate me for my inabilities, but to encourage me to keep going.

Because you don’t throw a 90-mph fastball overnight.

His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
– Genesis 37:8

Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James
- Jude 1a

There is a lot wrapped up in this simple greeting, the opening line of Jude’s epistle. Jude is the brother of James, by which he means the James, James the apostle, the brother of Jesus. So this Jude is the Jude who is the brother of Jesus. But he doesn’t identify himself as such. He calls himself James’s brother but Jesus’ “servant.”

Jesus’ kid brother doesn’t say, “I’m Jesus’ kid brother,” but “I’m Jesus’ servant.” Again, so much is there…

Keep reading.

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For me, I’m going to try something different. Last year, I used a chronological Bible to read the whole thing through in one year. While I found it really beneficial and encouraging, there was one thing that bothered me. I was in my daily reading finding myself in an entirely different part of Scripture than what was being preached at church on Sundays and then discussed in our community group on Wednesday evenings. While variety is good, I found myself thinking about how much I would enjoy having all areas of life be centered on a few key verses each week.

So this year, I’m going to do something new and try to integrate my personal devotion time with the community of faith where our family worships. I think this makes sense for a few reasons:

- It is anchored by the belief that there is something vitally unique and important about the preaching of the Word in the context of God’s people. This will hopefully list up that time of preaching in my mind and heart to the place it should be.

- It will allow me to meditate more fully on a single text each week and ask the Holy Spirit to deeply affect me with those truths.

- It will focus my mind and my heart in a single direction for a sustained period of time.

- It will aid my Scripture memory, allowing me to choose a single key verse from the weekly passage to continue to practice each day.

If any of the above reasons resonate with you, then maybe you’ll want to join me. Obviously, this approach will work more cleanly if you’re in a church that practices systematic expositional preaching because you’ll know what’s coming week after week. So if you’re interested, here’s what I would suggest as a starting point:

- Contact your pastor or church office to see if you can get an outline of the upcoming texts.

- Buy a journal so that each day you can reflect deeply on the single passage that you are reading over and over again.

- Buy a commentary on the book of the Bible you will be in for the beginning of the year so that, once you have read the text several times, you can dig in further and study it in greater depth.

Here’s to 2012 – another year of studying, meditating on, and internalizing the Word of God, and putting into practice the belief that the community of faith is vitally important to the people of God.

His heart was beating fast now, though he didn’t really understand why. But he had a growing sense that things in his life were coming to a head. A culmination. Something was getting ready to happen.

The branches are low enough. I could do it, you know. I could…

Never before had he been so upset to be short, and he had been upset about it plenty. There were the calls and nicknames from the boys when he was growing up, but then he had showed them hadn’t he? He was the one who had the important job now. He was the one they had to be nice to because he was, in large part, in control of their livelihood. He had proven his importance and put his thumb of authority down on top of those same people who had made up those silly songs about his height. He had more money, more power, and more prestige than any of them had. But now, there was this whole issue of height. He simply couldn’t see, but he wanted to. He wanted it more than anything he had wanted in a long time.

It’s the only way, right? If I want to see, I’ve got to climb. I can’t push through this crowd.

His feet were twitching now. He was moving back and forth, a kind of nervous dance. He knew his anxiety and excitement weren’t logical. Who was this he wanted to see so badly anyway? A teacher? A magician? A miracle worker? Or was he something else. It was this thought that had made the well dressed but small man consider the unthinkable.

What would people think? I’ve got a reputation to think about it. I’m sure they would make up whole new songs about me now. The short man climbing a tree. Foolishness. Right?

Foolishness, of course. But then again, not much in his life made sense any more. He no longer was satisfied with the accumulation of more and more wealth. The pursuit of power over others seemed more and more empty. He had been asking questions, at least in his own mind, that were of a foreign sort. His life seemed devoid of meaning, and he was looking… for something anyway. And now, in his robes, he was standing on the edge of the road, looking into the distance. Jesus was passing through, and the tax collector couldn’t shake the idea that this mysterious man walking through Jericho was was he was looking for. The only way for him to see Jesus was to go up. To climb.

To climb or not to climb? To risk or not to risk? The tree is right there. I know I could get high enough.

He took a tentative step forward. Then another. Then he grabbed hold of the low branches and swung a leg up. He looked around briefly. The crowd was coming, the noise growing louder. Up and up and up. His heart beat faster and faster and faster. Still he climbed. He was sweating now through the weight of his clothes. They were right below Him now, teeming with excitement. The leaves got thicker as he edged forward… and then he saw Him. And something burst inside of Zaccheus. He froze, straddling a branch of the sycamore tree. It was a feeling like he’d never experienced, for to his great surprise, the man wasn’t looking at the crowd. He wasn’t glad-handing the people around Him, nor was He looking forward where He was going.

He was looking into the tree. And for a moment, Zaccheus was crushed.

Great. He’s looking up here. Now everyone else is looking up here, too. Here it comes – the jeering and mocking, just like when I was a kid.

“Come down, Zaccheus.”

And then he knew. He could never, in the days that followed, know exactly how he knew. It wasn’t quite a feeling, but something more. But as he scurried down the tree, he was absolutely convinced that though he was anxious, though he had climbed the tree, though he had wanted just one glimpse of Jesus…

He knew that Jesus had really been looking for him.

–

“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

It hurts a lot especially when I’m trying to throw around three kids who, by this time, have a near nightly expectation of a fairly rambunctious wrestling match in the living room.

It also hurts my pride a bit because this, along with other things, remind me that my body isn’t what it once was. Not that I’ve ever been on the cover of any magazines, but I am feeling a bit more rickety these days than I once was. My body, like everyone else’s isn’t getting better. It’s getting worse. It’s in a state of decay, and the tendonitis in my shoulder which flares every time I lift a little boy over my head is a constant reminder of that decay.

Now there’s a couple of things I can do here. One, I can mourn the loss of my youth which is rapidly fading away (or potentially already out the door). Such mourning might indeed push me into efforts to regain my youth which might encompass any number of things. Extra marital affairs, eating disorders, obsessive exercise – these all might come from such a spirit.

Or I can embrace what the Spirit seems to be saying. He seems to be telling me to rejoice in my tendonitis. Rejoice in the decay of the body. Praise God for this tangible reminder that what we have on this earth is temporary.

According to Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5, our bodies are like tents. And no one wants to live in a tent. They want a house.

So when the flaps start blowing in the breeze, when the rain drips through the ceiling, and when the temperature gets too cold for the canvas to keep out, we can look to the better home being prepared for us in Christ.

Thank God for tendinitis:

 ¹ For we know that if our earthly house, a tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ² And, in fact, we groan in this one, longing to put on our house from heaven, ³ since, when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. ⁴ Indeed, we who are in this tent groan, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life. ⁵ And the One who prepared us for this very thing is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment.

To my surprise, I’ve discovered that one of the most encouraging words in the New Testament is the word but. Especially in Paul’s writings, encountering the word but very often leads to some of the most remarkable, gospel-filled statements to be found in Scripture. Here are just a few examples offered for your encouragement today.

Read the rest here.

(HT:Z)

God helps those who help themselves.

God won’t give you more than you can handle.

Cleanliness is next to godliness.

We might as well be saying that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Not only are these things not in the Bible, but most of them are actually contrary to the gospel. I mean, do we honestly think we can handle the stuff of life?

Cancer?

Financial trouble?

Sexual temptation?

Who do we think we are?

The truth is, as anyone who has genuinely suffered will tell you, that God will often give you more than you can handle.

And He will do it precisely because you can’t help yourself.

Paul had more than he could handle. He had what he described as a “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12). Scholars debate what that thorn might be, but it seems to be some kind of painful, physical condition. Perhaps a recurring form of malaria he picked up on one of his island adventures. And it hurt. A lot.

So much that Paul begged the Lord three times to take it away. But God did not. Instead, he reminded Paul that the thorn was there in order to display the strength of God.

God will give you more than you can handle. And when He does, our choice is relatively simple: we can despair, or we can turn our eyes on the truth of the gospel, that God makes up for what we lack. That His strength is perfected in weakness. That God helps those who cannot help themselves.

We can’t handle the thorns. But gloriously, we follow a King whose strength is made perfect in our weakness.

In the 4th century, Georgia adapted Christianity as its state religion, and Katskhi Pillar became the site of a small church first built in the 7th century. The church that sits atop the pillar resembles the practice of the Stylites who were early Christian ascetics who prayed on top of wooden pillars. Following the lead of the much-revered Saint Simeon Stylites, who sat atop a pillar for almost 40 years, these pious Christians tortured their bodies and devouted their spirit to their religion.

Strange place to build a church, right? Completely separate from the world around it? Where people can go and not be bothered? No influence in the community or the wider world?

Strange place to build a church. But perhaps you don’t have to build a church on top of an inaccessible rock formation to have the same desire in your heart:

“I am not praying that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world” (John 17:15-18).