I’ve just come across a challenging article from the Seeking Disciple entitled Avoid Selfish Praying. I would strongly recommend you read this.

“This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend”

This got me thinking as recently I have struggled with my Bible reading and prayer times. It seems to be so much easier either to watch TV or go on Twitter or generally surf the net. Yet the writer of the hymn speaks of how he could gladly (note not reluctantly or because I ought to, but gladly) spend time with his Friend. Could I honestly say that? And if not why not?

Now I know that “the flesh is weak but the spirit is willing” and that we face spiritual battles when praying and reading Scripture. However I want to know the joy of this as opposed to it being stale and routine. Not the “I must read my Bible, I must pray” sort of thinking but the joy of being with Christ.

Interestingly I also then came across the following Spurgeon quote on GraceQuotes:

“I bear my testimony that there is no joy to be found in all this world like that of sweet communion with Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon”

The song “What a Wonderful Saviour” has been in mind today and my prayer is that I might know that wonder afresh and the joy of spending time in communion with Christ.

In the light of that I came across an interesting article entitled prayer draws me closer to God a couple of weeks which contained the following interesting quote:

It was the prayer life of Jesus the caused His Apostles to come to Him and ask Him to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1). The Apostles never asked Jesus how to exegete the Scriptures (though He did them this as we see in Luke 24:27) but they did ask Him to teach them to pray. I find that remarkable. In our day people would ask Jesus how to do miracles or how to teach to draw crowds but the Apostles wanted to know how to pray

There most have been something special about Jesus’ prayer life to get this response. Perhaps we need to ask Him the same question too?

Likewise in Nehemiah 1 we see a similar situation. Nehemiah was told of the plight of Jerusalem and he spent some days mourning and praying before God. Then eventually in verse 5 he began praying about Jerusalem and confessing the sins of the nation.

Both Ezra and Nehemiah could have prayed their prayers of confession immediately. They chose not to but instead to mourn and ponder the sin that God’s people had committed. And after that they both prayed powerful prayers of confession.

Perhaps there is a lesson here to be learnt about the importance of preparing ourselves to do serious business with God. Maybe in preparing both men really were able to grasp and appreciate the graveness of the sin and this influenced their prayers of confession accordingly.

I expect that at some stage whilst I’m on the web I will get told by Firefox that there are some new releases of the various plug-ins that I use which I need to download and install. I might even find that Firefox have released an updated version of their browser which upgrades itself automatically. And finally if I decide to use my email software I could find that it is automatically upgrading itself.

Any computer security expert will tell you that it’s essential to ensure that you do all of the above if you want to keep your PC protected. And whilst I 100% agree with that to be honest it can be very time consuming, especially when your computer starts to get older and slower. However it is certainly worth investing the time.

I wonder though do we put as much time and effect into protecting our souls as we do our computers? Do we consider prayer, Bible reading, worshipping God, confessing our sins and attending church to be important activities or do we only do them if we have the time or feel like it? They need to be disciplines that we all undertake daily.

I would never neglect or undervalue the importance of protecting my computer but to my shame I have not always shown the same commitment to protecting my soul.

“Dear Lord help us to see the importance of protecting our souls and to never neglect spending time in your presence. Amen”

Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)

Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds with men who are evildoers; let me not eat of their delicacies. (Psalm 141:3-4)

We had a similar case earlier this year when a nurse was suspended for offering to pray for a sick patient but thankfully in in that case common sense prevailed and she was re-instated.

I find it difficult to understand that someone could complain about this behaviour. However I expect in these days of political correctness this may not be the last we hear of these sort of cases.

Paul told Timothy that those who wanted to live a Godly life would face persecution and situations like this may well fall into that cateorgy. Jesus told his disciples that they were blessed when others persecuted them and I hope that Olive Jones will know the reality of God’s blessing this Christmas.

More details on this story can be found here.

This song was of course based on Philippians 4:4. Normally when we are reading that section of Paul’s letter after we have read that verse we race onto verses 6 and 7 which encourage us not to be anxious about anything and present our requests to God and know his peace guarding our hearts and mind.

These are of course very encouraging verses and ones worth pondering regularly. However if you are anything like me you miss a very short sentence in verse 5 which reads:

“The Lord is Near.”

Today whilst looking at Internet Monk I came across a short talk written by Chaplain Mike Mercer who is one of the current guest contributors on that site at the moment. He said that this phrase was important in how we understood the text in Philippians 4:4-7 and that it changes the whole nature of the text.

Mike said the following concerning the meaning of the text:

What does it mean? There are two primary possibilities: (1) the Lord’s return is imminent, or (2) the Lord is near at hand (present to help).

Once we start to consider this then it helps us to gain a greater understanding of this famous passage. The whole talk can be found here.

“Today Father, fill us with your love so that we may do those things which will be pleasing to you, so that our lifes may be a witness to your praise and glory.”