Insurance

Insurance.  We all have it.  We cannot live without it.  We have life insurance, property insurance, health insurance, car insurance.  Where I live you cannot drive a car unless you have insurance.  We have insurance to protect ourselves against disasters or unforeseen incidents that could bankrupt us.  We are so conditioned about having insurance that we treat the promises of God the same way.  We read the promises of God and we claim them for ourselves but we take out insurance "just in case God doesn't come through for us".
For example, God has promised us that our salvation is secure in Christ Jesus but we want to make sure so we follow certain rules that we think will make us holy.  Now don't get this wrong.  Those rules may be very important but they are not insurance.  Our salvation does not depend upon keeping those rules but rather we show that we have salvation by keeping those rules.  There is a big, big difference.  Are we totally trusting our God or are we trusting Him but with a "just in case" attitude?
Jacob trusted God but he saw nothing wrong with taking out a little insurance "just in case" Esau decided upon revenge.

Wait and See

Jacob had developed a "wait and see" attitude toward the promises of God. He had heard the promises from his parents but he spent his time scheming to get what God had already promised. We saw it with the birthright, the wives, the children, with his father-in-law. What is wrong with hedging your bets? Why not take out a little insurance just in case God doesn't come through. But are we any different? We have all the promises of God and all we need to do is to trust Him but we too take a "wait and see" attitude. God said but we will take out a little insurance. God says trust me in this but we find a way to cover things just in case He doesn't come through.

Wrestling

Sinclair Ferguson writes the following in his book Christ Alone:

"The struggles we sometimes experience in prayer, then, are often part of the process
by which God gradually brings us to ask for only what He has promised to give.  The struggle is not our wrestling to bring Him to give us what we desire, but our wrestling with His Word until we are illuminated and subdued by it, saying, 'Not my will, but Your will be done.'  Then, as Calvin again says, we learn 'not to ask for more than God allows.'"

Jacob spent his time wrestling and striving for what God has promised.  He only need to claim that promise.

Riddles

I love to give my grandchildren riddles.  They always ask me for a new riddle and they love when they have a riddle for me.
The Lord had a question for His two companions.  "Shall we hide from Abraham what we are about to do?"  Why should the Lord take Abraham into His confidence?  Christians are quick to quote Romans 8:28 saying that all things work together for good but do we know that in this life?  We have to trust the Lord that He is in control.  We can only understand this backward but we have to trust forward.
However, God told Abraham in advance what He would do and Abraham had to trust God that the Judge of all the earth would do the right thing.

Cop out!

What do we mean when we add the phrase to our prayers, "If it be Your will?"  Many times it is just a cop out.  Now before you jump all over me I know that the Lord prayed, "If it be Your will let this cup pass from me."  I also know that in the Lord's prayer we are taught to pray, "Your will be done."  However most of the time it is a cop out.  We have not taken time to learn what the will of God is.
I think of a small child making a request of his or her father.  The words come out, "But you promised."  The child never says, "If it be your will can we go to the park."
We need to lay hold of the promises of God and when we pray we say, "You promised."  Prayer of faith is asking God to do what He has promised in His word.  Finding out what God's will is takes time and effort.  We cannot or should not become lazy and say "If it be your will"  when we can find out the will of God by study and meditation on His word.

Questions

I was a teacher so I asked a lot of questions.  Most of the time the questions were used to direct thinking.  Jesus asked a lot of questions and His questions were not for obtaining information but for teaching.
Yesterday the pastor preached on Luke 7, the story about Jesus, a pharisee and a woman.  At one point Jesus turns to Simon the pharisee and asks him, "Do you see this woman?"
Simon might have responded, "Of course I see her.  She came into my house uninvited and invaded my party."
Jesus may have responded, "No Simon, do you really see this woman?"
Again Simon may have responded, "Yes I see her.  She is a woman of loose morals, the kind of woman I wouldn't have anything to do with."
Once again the question, "Simon do you see this woman?"
This woman was one for which Christ came to save.  She is not an intruder, she is not a statistic but a person.
The same question comes to us.  Do you see this man?  Do you see this woman?  Do you see this child?  We may say that we see a drunk, a drug user, a prostitute, a thief, a street person but do we really see that the person is someone who God loves.
Open our eyes Lord that we may see.

Why stop at ten?

When Abraham was interceding for Sodom he started at fifty righteous people asking God to spare the city if fifty righteous people could be found in the city.  When the Lord agreed Abraham knew that there was not fifty righteous people.  I have wondered why he immediately knew that there were not fifty righteous people in Sodom.  He then asked if there was forty five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty and finally ten.  Why did he stop at ten?
One explanation was that Lot's family consisted of ten people.  Lot and his wife, two married daughters and their husbands, two sons and two single daughters.  This sounds good but I don't believe that this was the reason.  Back in verse 25 Abraham said that the judge of all the earth would do right.  I think that Abraham finally came to accept that truth.  He could trust the judge of the earth to do the right thing and therefore he could accept the outcome.
Too often we do not accept the fact that God will do the right thing so we continue to bargain with God.  We act as if we know better than God.
Did Abraham stop praying for Lot and his family and for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah?  I don't think so.  Neither should we stop praying for the people or situations but our focus should change.  We are no longer bargaining with God but accepting the fact that the Judge of all the earth will do the right thing.

What is the issue?

As Abraham interceded for Sodom the real issue was not the saving of Sodom or even the saving of his family.  Earlier he had said, "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?"  The issue was the character of God.  Was God just in destroying Sodom?
So often the concern of our hearts in our prayers is for our needs or the needs of others but we need to back up and realize that the real issue is the character of God.  When we claim a promise we are saying that we can trust God to keep His word.  Our concern for the lost is not enough if we do not have God's glory as primary in our prayers.

Who sets the agenda?

How often you have met with a friend and one of you sets the agenda for your conversation?  Usually the one who starts the conversation sets the agenda.  When God met with Abraham it was God who set the agenda not Abraham.  God said, "Shall we hide from Abraham what we are about to do?"
When we come to God in prayer who sets the agenda?  Usually we have a list of requests that we run through quickly and then we are gone.  The agenda for our prayer time is our agenda not God's.  How do we go about changing this?  First, we need to listen to God.  We do this through Scripture reading and meditation.  Secondly, we need to know that it is not so much about our needs than about His glory.  Prayer is not about us but about Him.

Prayer

I am going to begin a new series later this month called Daring to draw near.  This is a series based on Dr. John White's book of the same name.  We will be looking a prayers of Biblical men and women such as Abraham, Jacob, Hannah, David, Daniel and more.

What is prayer?  Everyone can answer that, right?  Prayer is taking council with God on matters that are important to Him.  Therefore it is important to know what is the will of God.  In the Lord's prayer we are told to pray, Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven.  We need to know what the will of God is.  There will be prayers such as Hannah's where we are like a child crawling up on her daddy's lap and pouring out our painful heart to him.  Other times it will be a session of intercession for others.