Cell 4 – Letter to the seven churches (part 1)

 Text: Revelation 1

Icebreaker: What comes to mind when you hear that we will have a message or cell about Revelation? (or) What would be your reaction if God showed up to speak to you?

Introduction: The book of Revelation is taboo for many people, and because of that it is misunderstood and many Christians just don’t read it. With the help of the Holy Spirit, and an understanding of the background to its writing, we can see how it made sense to those who first read it, and can discover how what God spoke to them then still has relevance to us and to our every-day lives with Christ now. 

Today we start our series about the seven churches of Revelation. These churches were located in Asia-Minor, which is now part of modern-day Turkey. So that we are prepared to jump into hearing about the seven churches themselves,  we first need to understand what was happening with John, the Apostle who “wrote” the letters to them, by recording what Jesus gave him to share. Knowing that although John wrote the words, it was Jesus who inspired and gave them, is a valuable lesson to us all about how we come to have the scriptures. 

1. John was in exile when he received the Revelation

The Apostle John was exiled on the island of Patmos, (near the coast of Asia Minor/Turkey)  which in his time was a Roman penal colony. John’s “crime” was to proclaim the gospel; the Roman Emperor was mercilessly persecuting Christians with the aim of destroying Christianity.  So, we know that John was in a prison when Jesus spoke to him and gave him the Revelation. 

This is a good reminder for us that God can speak to us whatever “prison” we find ourselves in and that even in the hardest circumstances, God can deliver His message to us and through us. It’s worth noticing that this message was not a message that would particularly comfort John in his distress;  this message was for others, and John was the one to receive it and to make sure that it was written down and passed on to God’s people. This message was very important and John’s circumstances were not a barrier to him being used by God to receive and share it. 

2. God gave words to the seven churches that would spread into the world.

These particular seven churches may have been chosen to receive Christ’s apocalyptic message because, geographically, they were located along an established circular trade route, which brought together the most populous and influential parts of the province. Once the apocalyptic message was given to the churches in these prominent cities, the message would spread to the Christian communities in the rest of the province through those who would visit for trade or through those who would journey to other places for trading.  It seems that God had a strategy in speaking to these seven churches which would help the growth of Christianity around the world. 

The seven lampstands that we read about represent the seven churches and we hear how Jesus, who was “One like the Son of Man” (v13), was moving amongst them in John’s vision.  Jesus came as the ‘Light of the world’ and commissioned us to be the light of the world. We are not the light itself, but we reflect the Light of Jesus into the world.

We can ask ourselves are we open and attentive to the Spirit in a way that means God can use us to receive from Him, not necessarily for the benefit of ourselves, but for the benefit of others, as John was here?

3. We cannot stop! 

Today nothing remains of the churches that were named in the Revelation given to John. Persecution has been an ongoing threat to Christianity in Asia Minor, particularly since Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453. Estimates place the current number of Christians as being about two percent of Turkey’s population. God’s strategic use of churches to share the gospel message continues today, particularly in places where there is severe persecution of Christians, but wherever we may be living, as the church we are called by Jesus to “make disciples” that His glory might be known. 

This is a privilege and a responsibility that we cannot ignore - now we are carrying the message and speaking of the power of Jesus to save in this time and place as the seven churches of the Revelation were called to do in their time. 

Conclusion:

Although the seven letters in Revelation are tailored to the named churches, these churches and their stated deficiencies can symbolize all churches and Christians in one respect or another and so the instruction given to Revelation’s congregations, is a valuable source of God’s word to Christians and churches today.

Localities of the 7 churches:

Cell 3 – Where is our hope?

 Text: Proverbs 3.5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight”.

Icebreaker:  Every day we make many decisions. What kind of decision-maker are you? Do you decide quickly? Do you find it difficult to make decisions? Do you sometimes find it hard to know what the right decision is?

Introduction:

Often when we make decisions, we are relying on our own understanding. The difficulty with this is that human understanding is always subject to error. What appears to be the right choice may be the wrong choice. What appears to be solid and a source of hope may be revealed instead, to be a source of deceit. The Lord sees the bigger picture and He always knows what’s best for us. The point here is that we need to recognize our own limitations. Many times we desperately seek for hope, but in the wrong places. Today, the big question is, ‘Where are you seeking for hope?’ 

1. What does it really mean to trust and have hope in God’s way?

Trusting in God means that we are leaning away from our own understanding and towards God’s by acknowledging and following His path. It means actively pursuing God’s will for your life and doing things God’s way instead of your way (if your way is different). It is being teachable and being willing to say to God “OK, I don’t understand, but I know You do so I’m going to go Your way.” It is living with active confidence in the truth that God always does what is best even when it doesn’t seem so to you.

Hope (Hope in the original Greek is the word Elpis = ἐλπίς) can be defined in two ways:

1. Joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation (Strong’s Concordance)

2. An expectation that God will intervene. (Bible dictionary Vida Nova).

So we have trust and hope, in the way God commands, when our joy, expectation, vision, obedience and life reflect Him and His will for us.

2. What if people had the same hope and expectation in God, that they have in the COVID vaccine?

I see a world mobilizing, planning and blindly relying on the function of a vaccine that is the hope of millions of people. But what if we had the same hope that God is real and has real impact in our lives? How different would the world and our lives be? Of course we pray that the vaccine will help the situation, but it is not where we should be placing our hope, only God can give us hope of a better future.  

3. To have Godly HOPE is to never forget the truth about who we are.

We cannot forget who we are, the truth and purpose of our lives. If we do, we might end up living like we will never die and dying like we never lived.

You were made for so much more than this. So much more than earthly life. Everything begins on this side of eternity, but we shouldn’t be so focused on this life, and today, that we forget that there is a life to come, beyond this one. 

Conclusion: 

The following poem was written by an American soldier that gave his life to Jesus one day before he died in the war. Listen and reflect on it. 

 

"Lord God I have never spoken to you

But now I want to say, "How do you do?"

You see, God, they told me You didn't exist

And like a fool I believed all this.

Last night from a shell hole I saw your sky

I figured right then they had told me a lie

Had I taken time to see the things you made

I'd have known they weren't calling a spade a spade.

I wonder, God, if you'll take my hand

Somehow I feel that you'll understand

Funny I had to come to this hellish place

Before I had time to see Your face

Well, I guess there isn't much more to say

But I'm sure glad, God, I met you today

I guess zero hour will soon be here

But I'm not afraid since I know

 you're near

The signal!

Well, God, I'll have to go

I like You lots, I want you to know

Look now this will be a horrible fight

Who knows, I may come to Your house tonight

Though I wasn't friendly to You before

I wonder, God, if You'd wait at Your door

Look, I'm crying, I'm shedding tears

I'll have to go now God goodbye

Strange now, since I met You, I'm not afraid to die"

Cell 2 – When God does the impossible

 Text: Matthew 17.20 “He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

Icebreaker:

What words do you use to describe the challenges that you face in life? Maybe you call them giants, hills to climb or mountains to be moved? The good news that we’ll hear today is that Jesus will help us to face and overcome those challenges because in Him, even our little faith becomes a powerful force. 

Introduction

One of the greatest challenges Jesus continually gave his followers was to have faith. He knew that having faith held the power to make amazing things happen. Peter had a little faith and walked on water (Matthew 14:29). A woman who suffered from bleeding had a little faith and was healed after 12 years without hope (Matt 9:20-22). A little bit of faith enabled the blind to see (Mark 10:46-52) and brought the dead back to life (Hebrews 11:35).  

How can we tell when there’s an absence of faith in our life? We stop believing that the impossible is possible with God, and we settle for living a ‘small’ life,  confined by our feelings and by what we can see around us.

If today, we want to go deeper in our relationship with the God of all things impossible, it is necessary that we take the following 5 steps: 

1. Acknowledge your mountains

If we are going to let God move these mountains, we need to acknowledge that they exist. We can’t pretend that the mountain that is dominating our life is not real, or that it does not produce feelings in us– we need to name it and acknowledge it for any kind of emotional healing or journey of peace and health in Jesus to begin. God wants us to be honest with Him about our mountains. 

The thing I’ve been learning is that the mountains I need to move in my life aren’t necessarily the circumstances I see in front of me. My biggest mountains are usually inside me: fears in relationships, doubts about whether I can change, disappointing moments when I tried to have faith but still suffered defeats in my life that didn’t only impact me but also had an impact on friends and family around me.

If I am going to let God move these mountains, the first step I need to take is to acknowledge that they exist.

2. Deal with denial

Do you believe that the mountain can be moved? Don’t deny it if you don’t – but run to God instead. Remember the story of the man who came to Jesus to ask for healing for his son (Mark 9:24). In one moment he confesses his faith that his son can be healed, but he also realises that his faith is small and says “Help me with my unbelief”. This is the amazing love of Jesus,  that allows us to be honest so that we can say to Him “I believe, help me with my unbelief”. We have to remember that it doesn’t help to ignore or to try to hide something or to pretend that it isn’t there – denying reality keeps us trapped. 

3. Don’t be afraid of the difficult facts

In the Old Testament Abraham received a word that He would have a son, but when he heard that, he wasn’t able to think beyond the fact that he was really old to have one and so was his wife. Frankly he thought that it might be impossible, but even with that thought he expressed His faith in God. At the right time, God kept the promise and showed Abraham, and all of us who read his story,  that by God’s word the impossible will happen. Don’t put facts before faith, God can do what He plans and desires, no matter what the facts of a situation are. 

4. Ask God for help

We are becoming a generation that murmur and complain to God, to our friends and on-line, but who rarely ask for help. Do you know that there is a difference between the two? Complaining and asking for help are two very different things. When we complain we are simply rehearsing the problem over and over again. When we ask for help we are recognising that something needs to happen to change the situation. 

Are you committed to your prayer list? Let’s pray and seek until we hear His voice in every situation!!!

5. Decide to walk by faith and in obedience instead of by feelings.

Feelings are a roller coaster and our hearts are deceitful, so we shouldn’t walk based in what we feel, but in what the word of God says to us. We should be a people who walk in accordance with His word. When we do that, miracles happen according to His will and purpose. Sometimes we might not be able to feel anything or sometimes we can be overwhelmed by a complicated combination of feelings and that’s why it’s so important that we walk by what we know in Jesus because He will always tell us the truth.  

Conclusion:  Today is a new opportunity to seek God as never before! Would you like to go an extra step in His direction today? Let’s surrender everything to God and pursue Him. It might seem difficult today to even have a tiny bit of faith, but God can change that if we are honest – He is able to do the impossible. He is able to transform us, transform our situation and he can fill the emptiness that is in us with the peace and joy that can only come from knowing Jesus. 

Connect Group 1: Fire (2021)

Text: Leviticus 6. 8-13 and Romans 12.2 

Icebreaker: If you want to make a fire, what will you need? What does a fire need to keep burning?

When I arrived in Guernsey in 2011, some things were very different for me, but in the house where our family went to live, the wood burner was the most unusual and amazing discovery. Our neighbour was an expert in keeping the fire burning, and one phrase was key in what he told us about how to have a fire that was good, warm and successful: “Luiz keep putting more wood on the fire, renew the logs Luiz”, this is what he used to say. Two key things for us today are that we also need to use fresh fuel in our lives and we need to allow God to renew our minds. We can’t allow that spiritual fire to go out, so, if we want to keep the fire of God burning brightly inside of us, we must understand a few things:

1)An action and a willing attitude is required to start a fire

The first law of Newton in Physics is that “an object in rest will stay in rest unless an unbalanced force acts upon it”. This is also true in our spiritual life, everything will stay the same, unless we make a start, and begin to act in a way that changes the forces that are at work within us. Something that is very common in the world today is that we keep doing the same thing and expecting different results from that action, but if we want the fire of God to burn within us, we cannot just keep being as we are now and expect something different to happen. We are responsible to start the fire, RECOGNITION is just the first step to making IGNITION possible!

2) You must keep burning! Put fresh wood on the fire every day! Renew your mind!

God gave an order to Moses -  every morning,  to keep the fire burning,  fresh wood must be put on the altar. It’s the same in our lives.

Recently I read a story about a woman called Martha, who was one of the first people to get electricity in their home in Ireland. The story said that Martha had wanted electricity for a few years and so, when it became available, she paid a lot of money to have it installed quickly, in order to be one of the first people to have it in her village. In the past she had complained that often she was left in darkness because by the time she realised that she needed a candle, it was already dark and it was very hard to find anything in an old stone house that only had a few small windows. So, the company installed the electricity, and her house became an attraction in her village.

Three months later, the electricity company sent an Engineer and the Customer Service Director to talk to Martha to check if there was a problem with the electricity at the house, because she had used so little energy that they could not even charge her for it.

However when they got there the surprise was even bigger! When they asked what and where the problem was, she said that there wasn’t one, saying instead that the electricity was great and that she loved it! Confused, they asked why she wasn’t using it if was so good, and her reply left everybody amazed. She said: “When I don’t realise that dusk is coming and miss the light completely I can turn on the lights and find my match and candle very fast, then I can light it up in a secure and quick way and then I can turn the lights down for the rest of the night”.

 

This story reminds us that sometimes, like Martha, we want “new things” and we are prepared to pay the price, or verbally commit to doing things differently in order to respond to the present world. But, when it happens and the ‘new’ arrives, we prefer to stay the same, remaining in our ‘comfort zone’ instead of experiencing the renewal that would lead us to finding new ways to live. God will send the fire, but if there is no RENEWAL on His terms, and in His way, the fire will die down and then go out.

To keep our  passion for God burning, and to keep the closeness of God that moves us, we need to put fresh spiritual wood on the fire every day! This wood will be our prayers, our reading of scripture, our worship, and our time with Him and around Him. We need to keep refueling the fire in this way every day.

The Bible tells us that Moses was instructed to make sure that new wood was added every day to the fire on the altar. This wood must be fresh wood, because old wood would dampen down the fire. It is the same for us - stale religiosity cannot keep the fire that is inside of us burning, so we must put fresh things in front of the Lord! Don’t offer the old (even yourself), but make a new offer of everything that you are and have, to God each day, just as His mercies to you are fresh and new every morning! In this way, you will become living sacrifices, living life in all its fullness for God’s glory!

3) Fire from yesterday was good for yesterday, but today you need to refuel the fire. 

A mistake that the people of God often make, is to think that the fire of yesterday will keep them warm and keep burning today! That’s impossible; it’s like saying that because you ate yesterday, you don’t need to eat today! Whilst it is good to recall what God has done in our lives, and good to give that testimony, it is also possible to spend too much time looking back and not enough in the present, to see what God is revealing and doing today. 

In the reading from Leviticus the priest must clean the ashes out every day. Relying too much on what is past, is to leave the ashes in the grate, and ashes cannot become a fire. Clean the ashes out today and refuel the fire of God that burns within you. 

Your time, experience, gifts, works and everything that you offered to God yesterday was good for yesterday, today is a new day with Him, and so there is a new opportunity to offer yourself to God and to allow God to be glorified through you! 

Today is a time to gather fresh wood,  so that the fire of God does not go out in our life.

Conclusion: 

I don’t know how your life is today, maybe the fire of the Holy Spirit needs refuelling in your life, or maybe the fire needs to be rekindled! The only thing that I know is that if you feel full of ashes, God brought you here today because He wants to change that situation and put a new fire inside of you! Today is time to be in a loving relationship with God again! Is a new time in our lives, do you want that? Let’s pray

 

Cell 35 – Mary understood, do you?

 Text: John 2.5

Icebreaker: How do you feel when someone listens to your advice and as consequence has a good outcome?

Imagine an amazing wedding party, with many people invited and a Brazilian barbecue for everyone! Now imagine that the couple invited everyone for 3 days of partying, and the best part is that they will provide food and accommodation for all the guests!

Now imagine that in the middle of that wedding party they discover that they have run out of food and that there is no more meat for the barbecue. How do you think they would feel?

In the story that we read today, we can see a similar pattern, but this story does not end with shame and regret, but rather with joy and with the revelation that Jesus can transform everything in our lives. Mary, the earthly mother of Jesus, knew that He could transform the shame of something that was lacking, into something that would surprise everyone. She had 3 attitudes that put Jesus at the centre of that wedding, and as consequence of that, a great miracle happened. If we want to see the same thing happening in our lives, we need to understand that:

1) In Jesus we will find all that we need  

When Mary told Jesus that they didn’t have wine, Jesus said that wasn’t His time yet, but Mary understood the amazing principle that “NO ONE WILL EVER LEAVE JESUS’ PRESENCE WITH A NEED!” Even when Jesus said that it wasn’t His time, she didn’t give up, because she knew that just one word from Jesus would be enough to change that wedding celebration forever. Today the same Jesus is powerfully and lovingly PRESENT with us. Remember that no one ever left His presence with a need! Would you like to have more of Him? Invite Jesus to the area of your life where you know you need Him most in this moment – what is it that you need His power and love to act on?

2) ‘Do whatever He tells you’

Mary understood this great principle! ‘Do whatever He tells you’ goes beyond just a simple instruction. Mary had a radical trust in Jesus, and she knew that He was good and powerful, and that He would always do what was best for her. My question to you is: Are you doing whatever He tells you? Are you obeying His direction in your life? Because if you do, you will have an amazing life!!! Jesus turned the ordinary water into extraordinary wine - what is ordinary in your life that could become extraordinary through the power of Jesus? Remember that Jesus will never force us, He is gentle and loving! He asks, but if we don’t want to say ‘yes’, He will respect our decision.  Today decide to do whatever He tells you!

3) She allowed Jesus to do everything! (She was quiet, stepped back, and let him work.)

Mary trusted in Jesus, and she brought the situation to His attention, but then stepped back to allow Jesus to work in His own ways and on His own terms; after that she allowed Him to receive all the glory and honour. Many times we seek God or we do something, but we never really allow God to be the Lord, and the one who is in control of our lives. Many of us (if not all of us) are always trying to help Jesus to do what He wants, and sometimes we want some of the recognition for the great action of God in people’s lives. What about you? Who drives your life? Who receives all the glory? Would you like to know more about how to let Jesus drive your life, so that He will be the motive for everything you do, and so that you can give Him all the glory?

Conclusion: 

Mary was a great woman, and the most amazing fact about her is that she understood that Jesus is the Lord, and He can change everything that is not right in our lives. Jesus wants to transform the water in wine! Will you allow him? Let’s pray.

Connect Group 34 - Our life – our mission

 Icebreaker: Could you introduce yourself in 10 seconds? (Take a clock a let’s go).

Text: Luke 1:26-38

Introduction: 

During the Second World War, Queen Elizabeth (who was then a princess) said: “I am a princess, this is not what I do, but who I am. There is no holiday or time off, I am a princess because of the people and for the people”. What a powerful statement to make! It’s so nice to hear, especially when it comes from a princess who would one day be Queen. It shows that beyond her title, beyond the situation she was facing, and despite the social pressure of that time, she was someone who was coherent and who understood who she really was. Princess Elizabeth served in WWII, and was trained in London as a mechanic and military truck driver at a time when other heads of state in Europe fled to places of safety.

People who’ve left an impact on the world understood that they were in the world, but understood too that they were not part of the world. They were Christians and that was, and is, enough. They weren’t Christians only on Sundays or religious holidays, but lived out their faith in their character and their identity – living as sons and daughters of God.

We need to stop with this plague of separating our lives into compartments where we say  ‘Now I am Christian’, then ‘Now I am lay person’ then ‘Now I am only a student’, or ‘Now I am working.’ You are one person under God’s guidance, and that’s it. So be it.

If we read the text of Luke again, we will be able to see that Mary said ‘YES’ to God’s plans, but she didn’t say it because everything was perfect and it would be a dream come true for this to happen to her, but rather, because as God’s child she understood that God’s plans are always what’s best for us.

Let’s see what she went through, so that we can learn how we can react, in God’s way, when we face the future that is ahead of us:

1) She didn’t say YES because it would be easy.

Look at what the text says about her first reaction to the angel

- Troubled (with what the angel was saying – she was trying to discern).

- Do not be afraid (the angel said) - probably she was afraid or else the angel wouldn’t have said it.

- By the way, you are pregnant, and you will name the baby  ‘Jesus’ (the angel said).

Mary said, ‘Yes’, despite knowing that:

- according to the law, young women who were legally engaged but found to be pregnant by someone other than their betrothed were to be stoned to death. (See Deuteronomy 22.23-24) 

- She said ‘YES’ despite knowing that many women died in childbirth. 

- She said, ‘YES’, despite knowing that it would mean the end of the dreams she had for her wedding day,  

- She said ‘YES’, despite knowing that it would probably lead to Joseph calling off the marriage. 

- She said, ‘YES’, despite knowing that she might become an unmarried mother.

-

She was young and unprepared but still said ‘YES’ because she understood that God’s plans would always better than her plans; God’s will may never be the easiest way but His will is always the best way. 

2) Sometimes God’s plans and direction seem impossible

Look at what the Angel said to Mary: ‘Your son will reign forever, and your cousin Elizabeth, who is old and has never been able to conceive, is indeed pregnant.

God calls us to accept His will, even if seems impossible, but He will always send glimpses of miracles to transform what seems impossible into possibilities. So, keep your eyes open to see and dream with what God is doing in you and around you. 

Remember the boy with 5 loaves and 2 fishes in the Bible story of John 6.9? He gave what he had to do what seemed impossible, which was to feed 5,000 people. But in that moment of decision and giving, was the seed of a great miracle.

Remember that for God nothing is impossible. Remember what he already did in your life and in the lives of those around you and let that influence your thinking and expectancy of what God can do. 

3) God wants to reach all the families of the earth through you. 

I know that might not sound real, but it’s true. 

Evan Roberts led the Welsh Revival. He started when he was 17 years old, and at the height of the outreach of the movement he was 24 years old. The Welsh Revival won, and deeply influenced, millions of people around the world.

The Welsh Revival is important for many reasons, but I love three of them:

1. It was the first great revival that was documented on TV and in the newspapers. 

2. For the first time women had a distinctive and main role in a church movement. 

3. The revival reached millions, and was the catalyst that started many other revivals. 

Today God is asking us not to focus on the difficulties, or on what we don’t yet have, but to look at Him. He doesn’t ignore our difficulties and problems but He wants to move us beyond them so that He can use us.

Everyone has a mission that God has planned for their life, don’t despise a small beginning because nothing is small with God – are you willing to say ‘YES’ in obedience, even if you can’t see too far ahead and you have questions about what God will do? Let’s ask God to do His work in us and through us today! Would you like that?

Conclusion: God is looking for men and women who are open to Him and to what He wants to do through them. Are you one of them? Would you like to be used in a powerful way and see things that not many people do? So be prepared to do things that no one else does as well! Let’s pray!

Connect Group 33 – Lord teach us how to pray

Icebreaker:  Think about a conversation that you have had recently with someone who you are close to – it could be a friend or a member of your family. What kind of conversation was it? Were you relaxed or frustrated when it was taking place? Did you do most of the listening or most of the talking? How did it leave you feeling afterwards?

Introduction: All of those questions that I’ve just asked you could have been questions that I asked of how it was last time you prayed. Prayer is an on-going conversation with God, where we talk and listen;  where, depending on what we are praying about, we can be very agitated or very calm, and can indeed move through a range of thoughts and emotions. Prayer always leaves us with something too - this can be anything between a deep sense of calm and peace, to a deep sense of not having understood what God wanted to say to us in that moment. It is a vital and essential part of our relationship with God, and yet many of us struggle with it and have times where we may feel that our prayers are unheard or unanswered. 

There seems little doubt that this is why Jesus taught so much about the prayer that was at the heart of His relationship with His Father. The disciples saw the aliveness of His prayer-life, and even asked that they be taught to pray as He did, because they could see how important it was to Him. Here is what Jesus said to them in reply to their question:

Text: Luke 11: 1-10

The spiritual discipline of prayer is a life-time journey for us, and because of that, it takes commitment and determination, it takes passion and a desire to be in sync with God’s will and his desire for our lives – things that are rooted in the gift of the Holy Spirit. There is so much that we could say about prayer but there are 3 things that we can see in Jesus’ teaching here:

1. Prayer has many faces and we need all of them

The first part of today’s text contains words that may be very familiar to us, even if we didn’t grow up believing in Jesus and in fact if we grew up in the church they may have been a form of words that we said every week as part of worship, (although I am not certain that Jesus ever really intended that they would be used in that way.) What Jesus is teaching here is that prayer does not have one face, but many faces and His teaching  gives us a helpful signal about what they are. He begins with praise, with giving the Father His rightful place in our lives as Lord and Master. He continues with a prayer for daily needs to be met by God, which is followed by prayer focused on the two sides of forgiveness– a prayer that comes from our understanding that we have much to confess and to be forgiven for; also that this understanding should be actively at work in our relationships with others. Finally there is a prayer for help in our struggles.

When I look honestly at my prayer-life, I know that too often I skip straight to the help bit, or even to praying for the struggles of other people, without making very much time for anything else. Is that true for you too? Does there need to be more of a balance of focusing on how awesome God is, and worshipping Him in prayer more deeply when you pray?

"Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference." - Max Lucado

2. God calls us to persevere and to be bold in prayer

I love the image that comes in the illustration that Jesus gives here, of the man banging on the door of his neighbour and asking for blessing, even though it isn’t a convenient time! Sometimes people wrongly get the picture from this part of the text that we are like annoying kids saying to God “Dad, Dad, Dad, can I have….. please can I have…. Go on Dad, let me have…..” over and over again until God, like a harassed Dad, gets fed up of us asking and lets us have whatever we want, for a quiet life. But this isn’t what it means. 

To understand what it does mean, we have to start from the place where we should always start – with God. He loves us, he knows that we are living in a broken world, He knows that we have troubles and struggles and concerns and He wants us to rely on His love in a way that makes us unafraid to pray about those things. He wants us to keep praying with a perseverance that comes from our confidence in His goodness, rather than from our desire to have our own way. At the beginning of Chapter 18 of Luke’s Gospel,  Jesus taught His disciples that they should pray and never give up – this is the perseverance in prayer that we are working towards as we learn to pray. 

 

The Bible also tells us that the Holy Spirit within us helps us to pray even when we can’t find the words, and that Jesus intercedes for us, bringing His concerns for us to the Father and acting as the ultimate Advocate for those who believe in Him. Those two truths, mean that we can have confidence and boldness to do what is really unimaginable when we stop to think about it  – which is to come right close to God and tell Him what is in our heart and our minds. Even more amazing is that God knows us so well that he knows what our hearts and minds are full of – and yet He wants us to come, because He knows that our relationship with Him will grow in the way He longs for,  when we are talking and listening to Him. 

3. Is there such a thing as unanswered prayer?

In the final part of the text Jesus talks of asking and receiving, seeking and finding and knocking on doors that will open. This too can be easily misunderstood;  this does not mean that we have a ‘genie of the lamp’ God, who will grant all our desires and wishes, or who is at our command. 

How many times in your life have you prayed and prayed for something to happen or not happen and it seems that the prayer has not been answered? This happened recently to someone close to me. A Christian friend of theirs is suffering from an aggressive form of cancer – for over 12 months there has been persistent and bold prayer for healing , until this week, the person sent a message to say that their life is coming to an end. At every turn, when we prayed for things to change or get better, or for them not be as bad as we feared, things didn’t get better.  At these moments, it seemed that our prayers had gone unanswered, but actually that isn’t true. God has answered, He has made it clear that although our hearts were set on this person being healed, in some kind of temporary way in this life (because we know the path that we all have to take one day) , that their time here is coming to an end, and although that is desperately sad for their family and friends, this person will soon know total healing, beyond anything that is possible in this life.

Is it easy to take that? No it isn’t! Our desire was for healing in this life – but the truth is that human death is the reality of living in this broken world, and a life that goes on beyond that moment is the reality of living beyond this life. God had answered our prayers for healing, before we even asked them, by sending Jesus to conquer death. The prayer for healing in human terms has been met with the truth that God knows best, and that He is in control even though it isn’t what those of us who were praying for this person wanted. 

When we see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, His prayer is so fervent and so passionate – He says to His Father, if I don’t have to go through this horror, please let is pass me by, but what He says next is the key to our prayer-life growing and maturing – He tells God that He will obey His will, even if it means that He has to pass through this suffering that He would rather not face. When we pray, we need to grow in our acceptance that sometimes the deepest prayers of our hearts are not in sync with God’s will and purpose and that this will mean that they are not answered in the way that we would like. 

No prayer eventually goes unanswered, but when the answer we get is not “Yes”, it’s tempting to think that we haven’t been heard, or that we didn’t pray passionately enough for whatever it is we have asked. God may say to us – “I want you to pray some more about that”, He may say “No, that’s not what I have planned” or even “Not yet” but he does not leave us without an answer if we are open to hearing it. As we grow and mature in the life that we have through the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, we will become more ‘tuned in’ to God’s will and our prayers will become increasingly in sync with that. 

"The reality is, my prayers don't change God.  But, I am convinced prayer changes me.  Praying boldly boots me out of that stale place of religious habit into authentic connection with God Himself." - Lysa TerKeurst

Conclusion:

Prayer is a life-time’s work. We can grow and mature through the power of the Holy Spirit, but we have to do our part by laying aside time to pray, by focusing on and worshipping God first,  before we present our requests to Him, and by listening to answers even when they aren’t what we wanted.  Do you want to ask God to help you to do that today? Let’s pray……