Discipleship Done For Me

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.  By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.”  (John 15:7,8 ESV)

The promise of the first half of this promise seems too good to be true,  like  a magic formula to unlock endless power and influence.  And yet there it is: God will do stuff for us, if we would simply ask from a place of abiding in Christ and letting his words abide in us.

Certainly it is this abiding business that tempers the things we would ask for by aligning our requests with fruitful, eternal things rather than silly distractions like fame and fortune.

Still though, too often I approach prayer backwards by asking myself, “What would be a good, Godly request that He would surely answer and therefore prove that I am a good Christ-abiding citizen of the Kingdom?”  Ha!  How manipulative I so easily lean.  No, first comes the abiding, then the asking.

The other curious, naturally religious tendency of mine is when I try to imagine good prayers that surely God would answer, they are typically external prayers: requests for someone’s health, for someone’s salvation, for the success of some ministry.

Surely there is a place to pray prayers like this.  But what God is after is His glory.  And according to this passage, His glory is simply me bearing fruit.  It seems Christ is calling me first to pray internal requests; prayers that when answered bears fruit in my life …love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control (Gal 5:22,23).  Then, as John 15:8 points out, it is this fruit that proves I’m a disciple of Christ.

It is mind bending enough to think that God will do stuff for me.  But it is a holy mystery that the evidence of my discipleship is fruit that is ‘done’ for me.  When I think discipleship, I  often think gritting teeth and will power to do the right thing.  But here it is: my responsibility is to abide; God’s responsibility is making me bear fruit.

Nice.  But practically?

This morning, while still lying in bed, I prayed prayers of determination to not waste any time today on iPhone games.  A few hours in and I failed.  But then taking time to work on my John 15 memorization, my prayer of response was hi-jacked by a divine command to simply remove the offending app from my phone.  I considered.  I wanted to keep the option and figured I could control the app usage.  But clearly, what really is there to control?  Why keep the option to be fruitless in my life?  And so, I obeyed and deleted the app.

Frankly, this is a little embarrassing to write.  But I must give credit where credit is due.  Maybe there are people out there who can will-power themselves to do the right thing.  But I can’t.  The words of Christ abiding in me brings such clarity that bearing fruit — in this case, self-control — becomes the most natural thing ever.  Naturally divine, in the same way any healthy fruit-bearing tree gives glory to a God of sweet generosity.

Gain in Worship

“…in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.”
-Psalm 5:3b

I sit. I read. I daydream. I memorize. I daydream some more. The opening words of the Psalm slowly sink in. “What is my path? In what do I invest?”

I have made my sacrifice. I long for an answer. I wait and watch.

My wife pops in, having read an email: one of our colleague’s homes is flooded; our meeting scheduled for this afternoon might not include him. She pops out.

Returning my focus to prayer, I realize I don’t need to watch any longer. The loving, right answer has been given. Somehow it is consistent with everything else I hear when I pause long enough to listen.

“Invest in any work, any ministry you like but realize you will face disappointments, set-backs and loss. Learn to excel in worship and all will be gain.”

The Glory Category

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Ephesians 3:20-21

I have recited theses final lines of Paul’s prayer several hundred times.  It is an amazing prayer conclusion; a lot more colorful than the typical, “In Jesus name, amen.”  It is good to be reminded that God can do more than we can imagine.  It is startling that the power source for this unimaginable activity is at work within us.  These are verses that are rightfully used to uplift when things are not going our way.

But until this morning, the essence of this passage has escaped me.

The question we need to be asking is, “In what way is God seeking to do more than we can imagine?”  It is not that I am trying to restrict God or our understanding of Him.  But unless we ask such clarifying questions, we are stuck with only vague notions of God doing abundant things, beyond our imagination.  Or, if we do imagine something specifically amazing for God to do …is it really in line with His program?

It is the repeated word pairing, “to him,” that reveals the essential meaning .  But of course!  Taking a second look, we see that the words between the two “to hims” are really secondary in meaning.  Collapsing those words out, we are left with ” Now to him … be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus…”

To him be glory.  How simple.  How obvious.  The category in which God seeks to do far more abundantly than all that we can ask or imagine according to the power at work within us — is the category of bringing him glory.

This truth brings my imagination and therefore my prayers into focus.

Yes, Lord God, be at work in power within me and in my family — but do so only for your glory.  Amen.

Praying what we ought

“Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
Romans 8:26 (ESV)

There is a presupposition to this prayer that I had never before realized. It is important to know what to actually pray for. Moreover, it is our weakness that keeps us from praying for the right things.

Instead, I used to view a better prayer as one that is more eloquent, more earnest, more sincere.  Maybe content is more important than form.  Maybe I need to be giving more thought about praying for the right things.  Maybe I need to be praying more about praying for the right things.

So then, Father, may I know what to pray for. Teach me. And so I see, praying becomes less and less about me. Your good will be done. Amen.

Praying for Paths

“Lord, show me the path!” I cried. My mind rocketships in too many directions at once. Daydreaming is what I do best. But accomplishing is the challenge. More specifically, deciding what to accomplish is the real challenge for me.

“Please Lord, show me the path!”

“All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness” –Psalm 25:10

Be at peace, oh my soul.  Work out of love, faithfully, and the path will be surely the Lord’s.

Preserve from What?

Psalm 25:21 “May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.”

I thought I had thought this verse to death.  But in a moment of intense awareness of my own short-comings, I cried out the verse that has been floating on my heart’s surface: “May integrity anduprightness preserveme, for I wait for you.”

Whoah, that drew me up short.  Until now, I had assumed that in praying this Psalm, I was asking for preservation against outside forces:  bad people out to get me;  the world’s corruption out to tempt me.  But if I see myself as potentially my own worst enemy, well then it certainly makes sense that I would pray that integrity and uprightness would preserve me from myself.

These are interesting layers of depth: praying to be preserved from both internal and external forces.  Looking through both layers at once,  both internal and external forces become indiscernable.  Maybe my propensity to give in to temptation isn’t so different from viruses floating out there waiting to infect me.  Maybe my inclination to be self-centered isn’t so different from the materialism out there messing with people’s motivations.

They’re all the result of fallen humanity; all part of the kingdom of darkness.

It is a scary thought to know the enemy has infiltrated so close.  It is also a simplifying thought.  Crucifying my sinful nature with Christ suddenly no longer seems such a personal loss.

I’ve only got one battle to win: that of waiting on God.  Then He’ll provide that integrity and uprightness I am so desperate for.  Then, everything will be okay – both internally and externally.

Preservation Ingredients

Psalm 25:21  —  “May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.”

Integrity and uprightness are always good.  But it seems they are not enough for self-preservation.  The world is rough and will take shots at even the most upright people.  “I can’t believe such a bad thing would happen to such a good person!”

Here, the added ingredient of waiting for the Lord activates integrity and uprightness as a force for being preserved.

As the second to last verse in the Psalm, the theme of waiting on the Lord has appeared already several times throughout this prayer/song.  So it appears here as a closing, summary statement.  Throughout the Psalm, we are on the brink several times of deseperation, of being overwhelmed by either outward forces or by personal sin.  But somehow after all tumult of the prayer, the matter seems settled here with this statement/request: “May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.”

Though there are many repeating themes throughout the Psalm, this is the first direct mention of integrity.  The only other mention of uprightness is in reference to God:  “Good and upright is the Lord, therefore he instructs sinners in the way.”

It seems almost obnoxious that we should finish this prayer, declaring our integrity and uprightness, especially when uprightness is only attributed to God.  Not only so, but we also confess several times in this Psalm how great is our need of forgiveness.

David gives us clues to the possibility of such a claim throughout the Psalm by examining God’s character.  In this prayer, most statements of God’s character describe how He is faithful to direct people; people who are sinners, who are humble, who fear him; basically, people who wait for him.

So it is with confidence that we can declare our integrity and uprightness before the Perfect God because we know that He loves share His character with His people.  The confidence comes from a certaintity of God’s ability and willingness to instill His very own traits within our souls.

So, perhaps it isn’t correct to understand self-preservation as requiring the three ingredients of integrity, uprightness and waiting on God.  Rather, there are only two ingredients: integrity and uprightness.  But these two ingredients are only reaped when harvested through waiting on God.