Prayer Power: Life is Tough

Recently, a desperate man entered a check cashing store looking for money. According to Robin Roberts of  Good Morning America, the robber planned to make a withdrawal using his loaded gun. But he hadn't counted on a tender hearted teller who started praying on the spot. Less than a hour later, clerk and thief were on their knees together, asking God to help them in their troubles.

In his book Prayer Power, Peter Lundell says, "Hardship is probably the most common tool God uses to grow our character." Although I've never stared down the barrel of a gun like Angela Montez (the clerk), I sometimes feel life is making more withdrawals than deposits! But how do I respond?

To be honest, sometimes I grumble and gripe. Character growth takes time and practice. But Lundell is right, hardship a the common tool found in the hands of God. So, instead of resisting difficulties, the best response is to rejoice.

Rejoice? I've got to be kidding, right?

But that's what the Bible says:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2-4)

In other words, when life hurts it also provides opportunity for growth. Learning to worship in the midst of every circumstance can be the pathway to inexplicable intimacy with God. Lundell calls it praise power.

Angela Montez told reporters that she felt God's presence during the robbery.  If you are like me, you'd rather feel God's presence in church! But that's the whole point isn't it? Life is all about connecting to God, whether we are in church, in our car, in in the midst of a stick up! God is a breath away. Every experience is an opportunity to grow closer to Him.

Gettin' Real,
Melodie
Everyone who comments either on the blog posts, through personal email to me, on my facebook, or on my Twitter will be entered into a drawing for a free copy of Prayer Power. At the end of the series I will congratulate the winner.

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Prayer Power Series: Are You Hungry?

I’ve never been a morning person. Even so, I get up at 5:00 every morning to write. Why? There’s only one answer: I am hungry to write. If I want to write, I must get up and do it before the demands of my children call me away.

What hungers drive your life? What do you love so much that you will do no matter what? Perhaps it’s your job, or your family, or a TV show. Maybe you love to read, or golf, or play an instrument. Or maybe, like me, you just love to eat!

Have you ever thought of being hungry for God? I admit, some days I struggle to give God even the slightest thought. Others, I am consumed by him. Either way, I need to connect with him every day. Why?

Colossians 1:16 says that all things were created by God and for God. So, if we were made by him and for him, then doesn't it make sense to connect to him on a regular basis? We need God. We are pre-programmed with a God-search in our hearts and minds.

Each day is a new gift. When we slam off the morning alarm, stumble to the shower, and race to coffee and toast, we are experiencing fresh compassion, newly baked in the oven of God's unending love. (See Psalm 118:24 and Lamentations 3:22-24.) Usually, we blast through our day completely unaware of the mercies extended to us.

In his book Prayer Power, Peter Lundell discusses the importance of developing a hunger for God. "Hunger for God," he says, "is that deep desire to know and experience more of God...[it] is a lot like hunger for food: we can wish for a snack or starve for a feast. I found that the hungrier I was, the more of God's presence I felt." (p17)

I've also found this to be true. However, the difference between physical hunger and spiritual hunger is that the physical results from a lack of nourishment. Spiritual hunger, on the other hand, grows greater as the nourishment grows greater. The hunger itself is gratifying. As we feast upon our Savior's blessings, we find both a satisfaction and a craving for more. This paradox can only be explained through communion with God.
If you want to develop a hunger for God, the best place to start is in the Bible. Check out the book of Psalms. There, you will find raw emotion, anger, love, passion, and longing. All of it drives the reader to find answers and satisfaction in the God.

Today, I pray that God makes you and I hunger for him. It's a craving that satisfies!

Gettin' Real,
Melodie
Everyone who comments either on the blog posts, through personal email to me, on my facebook, or on my Twitter will be entered into a drawing for a free book. At the end of the series I will congratulate the winner.
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Win a Free Book from Get Real

In my last post, I discussed a Peter Lundell's new book Prayer Power: 30 Days to a Stronger Connection with God. This is a great resource for helping anyone develop a closer daily relationship with God. Over the next few weeks, I am going to create a series of posts springing from Lundell's book. Reading the book will not be necessary in order to understand or enjoy the posts. However, I will be offering an opportunity to win a free copy. Everyone who comments either on the blog posts, through personal email to me, on my Facebook, or on my Twitter will be entered into a drawing for a free book. At the end of the series I will congratulate the winner.

By the way, Congratulations to Bill S who won my last drawing for a Starbucks gift certificate. Bill, I am still waiting for you to email me your physical address so that I can send you the gift card.

Check back soon for my next entry about getting hungry for God. Don't forget that you can subscribe to Get Real and have it delivered to you personal email account.

Gettin' Real,
Melodie
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Gamevance Ads Aren't From Me

In my previous post, a couple of words were highlighted in green and underlined. When a reader clicked on these words, a Gamevance advertisement popped up. I did not add those advertisements to my blog. Although I did visit the Gamevance site once this week, I did not play any games. I am not a user of this service and do not endorse any of their products. I don't know how the links were attached to my blog and  have sent them an email to complain. I will attempt to take of the links, which may result in the same content being emailed out. I apologize to anyone who was inconvenienced.
Thanks,
Melodie

Connecting with God

Sometimes we treat prayer like a giant, intimidating mystery. In one sense, this isn't a bad thing. God is the Creator of the universe. From his perspective, we are smaller than ants viewed from the top of the Eiffel Tower. That he stoops to get involved with our lives, that he invites us to join our hearts with his, this is a great mystery. Even so, he's hasn't fogotten that basically, we are just little walking dust piles. So, he's made prayer attainable for anyone. Even a small child can pray. If we really want to connect with God in our everyday lives, we need to converse with him throughout the day.

Yes, but how? First of all, just talk. God isn't standing beside the door of Heaven with a cosmic shotgun waiting to blow away anyone who dares try enter without the magic words. If we want to connect with God, we just start. He is listening. We don't even have to speak out loud. He can hear our thoughts. In fact, he hears them whether we are praying or not. So, we might as well use them to connect with him. It's all a part of getting Real with God.

Think there must be more to it than that? You're right. Talking to God as we go along is a vital part of a great adventure. God wants to commune with us on levels we don't even know exist. He wants to invade our day and annoint it for use in his Holy Kingdom. He wants to transform our hearts and sanctify even the smallest moments: the drive to work, the trip to the grocery store, washing dishes at the sink, story time with the kids. All of these can be connected to The Divine. So, just talking is only the beginning. There's more.

Peter Lundell has been pearl diving in the ocean of mystery. His well, written book Prayer Power: 30 Days to a Stronger Connection with God is loaded with little jewels brought up from the depths of God's heart. I'm going to do a series of at least six posts based upon gems of wisdom found in this book. In the meantime, I encourage you to pick up a copy of your own. Next time, I'll tell you how to win a copy from me.

Gettin' Real,
Melodie

Gettin' Real with Jesus

In his blog post The Call to Follow Jesus, Nathan Crietz asks, "What aspects of Jesus’ relationship with His twelve closest disciples were meant to be universal to all of Jesus’ disciples?” In other words, when Jesus challenged the twelve, was he also challenging us?

He points out that while followers of Christ face vastly different lifestyles from that of the twelve disciples, the call for radical discipleship remains the same.

I've invited Nathan to be a guest blogger today. I've picked up his blog a few paragraphs in. Enjoy!

The Call to Follow Jesus
By Nathan Creitz
GroupLife Coordinator at Grace Community Church
Student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Author of  The ChurchEthos Blog

Boston

...We know that some things are probably going to be a bit different two thousand years later in our modern society. Most of us aren’t going to be asked to abandon our businesses, leave our families for months and even years on end to travel the dusty countryside and not know from one night to the next if we are going to be sleeping in a random person’s home or sleeping outside with a rock for a pillow.

On the other hand, in many of our churches today, the most that people are asked to commit to by church leaders is to attend a large gathering for one hour a week and tithe so that we can pay the light bill.

Radical discipleship for us today doesn’t really look like either of the above scenarios. We often consider the relationship that Peter, James and John had with Jesus, but we forget about Lazarus, Mary, Martha, Bartimaeus, Susanna and Joanna. These were men and women whose lives were transformed by their encounter with Jesus but it didn’t compel them to be with Jesus every minute of the day. More importantly, it didn’t compel Jesus to ask them to have the same relationship with Him that the Twelve had. In other words, they weren’t invited to spend the next 2 or 3 years wandering around with Jesus.

Of course, church leaders today aren’t promoting that sort of commitment anyway. Today, it is more common to bend to the lowest common denominator. A weekly service, a challenge to give to the church and to the needy, a 15 minute quiet time, and be a good father, mother, husband, wife, and don’t cheat on your taxes. We don’t do too good a job asking people to go deeper in their commitment because we don’t really know what that means.

Oneness

So what was it about Jesus’ relationship with His twelve closest followers that we are meant to continue today? When Jesus’ prayed for His disciples in John 17, He asks the Father that He protect them (from stumbling?) “so that they may be one as We are one.” Then, for all disciples, He prays the same thing: “May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You. May they also be one in Us, so the world may believe You sent Me.” (17:21) A relationship with God and with each other takes time. It takes sacrifice. It takes love. Certainly, in my marriage, I don’t leave it at one hour a week. Relationships take effort and we are asking way too little if all we are asking is a couple of hours a week.

But relationships aren’t scripted either. That’s why we can’t say that a disciple is more committed if she shows up at the church building 10 hours a week rather than 3 hours a week. We need to help people “practice the presence of God” and show a willingness to get together with other believers. Invite a couple over for dinner. Meet someone for coffee. Volunteer together at the homeless shelter. Gather for Bible study and prayer at someone’s home. Be consistent. Be available. Do it because you love your family and want to know how to pray for them.

The universal call to discipleship may not look exactly like the Twelve, but it is every bit as radical and transformational. It affects how we work, how we play, and how we live. For some, it may involve more time than we are currently giving, but for others it may simply be the quality of time spent that needs to change. The most important thing is that we are in relationship with God and with the Body and Jesus prayed that we would all be One. Oneness won’t happen with the back of someone’s head, it happens face to face.

Thank you, Nathan, for helping us Get Real in our walk with Christ,
Melodie

To read more from Nathan, check out his blog ChurchEHTHOS, which exists to encourage "thinking Christianly about the habits and customs of the Church and about our reputation with the unchurched."

Are Young Adults Active in Your Church?

Young adults aren't sticking with church. So reads the August 8 online edition of USA Today. The article reports that currently seven of every ten Protestant churchgoers leave the church by age 23. Seven out of every ten!

The 18 to 30 year olds who were surveyed, attended church regularly during their teen years. Few saw church members as caring, welcoming, or authentic. Most said church members were judgmental, hypocritical, or insincere.

Astounding.

True, people in their late teens and early twenties are highly idealistic in their expectations about many things, including their views on how a true Christian should behave. Our current culture is highly relativistic, and the newest generation of adults has been consistenly fed the lie that any reference to sin is categorically judgmental and unloving.

Clearly, the truth cannot be altered in order to accommodate an over-sensitive worldview. But this reality does not solve the problem. Knowing we are sometimes unfairly labeled by our culture does not absolve us from the responsibility to be above reproach in our attitudes.

The statistics quoted in the article come from several sources. The numbers do not represent a few disgruntled folks who don't want to repent, so they lash out. They aren't referring to a few people on the outskirts of Christianity who are making judgments about something they know nothing about. Nearly 70% of our churched young adult population feels unloved at church. Teenagers are going to church looking for authentic, loving faith. They can't find it, so they leave!

Notice that judgmental attitudes are not the entire picture. Young people not only feel judged at church, they feel judged by Christians they percieve as hypocritical, insincere, inauthentic, and unloving.

They may have a point.

Why would I say that? Because it's Biblically sound. Jesus told us that people know we are his disciples if we love each other (John 13:35). Nothing undermines truth more hideously than a lack of love.

The love we Christians are to have must be REAL. This isn't "yeah but" love. You know what I mean, "Yeah, of course we have to love each other, but ..."

Followers of Christ are called to a deep, deep love. Christ defined it for us in the John 13:34. We are to love each other as he loved us. When we love each other like that, we show we are the REAL deal to anyone who may be quietly watching, regardless of their age.

In case we missed the point, Paul makes it clear in I Corinthians 13. He tells us that everything we say, everything we do, everything we teach, everything we give, and everything we sacrifice is worthless if not done from a loving heart. To keep us from giving a little non-committal nod of assent, he goes on to define Biblical love: patient, kind, not envious, not boasting, humble, not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered, not record-keeping, truth-rejoicing, protecting, hoping, trusting, persevering, and unfailing.

Later, the Apostle Peter said, in effect, "Great job in the obedience department guys. I'm glad you love the truth. It purified you and caused you to love each other sincerely. So, now that your love is real, love each other deeply. Make sure it comes from your hearts." (I Peter 1:22)

In other words, there is no competition between absolute truth and genuine love. Biblical truth will result in Biblical love -- sincere, deep, from-the-heart love.

When our churches abound in this kind of love, the truth about tough issues is more likely to be heard. If the person who is calling for repentance is obviously repentant, the listener is more likely to hear. If the person announcing the truth is doing so in love, the truth is more likely to be received. Strength is shown most powerfully when it framed in meekness.

Of course, there are no guarantees. Our job is to become like Christ and leave the results to him. After all, no one was more loving than he was, and he ended up being crucified.

Hmm, adds a whole new dimension to taking up your cross, doesn't it?

Gettin' Real!

Melodie