Do you really believe God answers prayer?

I live in Illinois, and so I knew President Obama as my U.S. Senator before I knew him as my President. Based on his own words, some of his political positions and some of his political actions over the years, I have never believed that Mr. Obama is a true Christian (contrary to his public profession).

Like many Christians, I am troubled by some of President Obama’s political decisions. However, unlike many of my fellow believers, I reject the divisive, mean-spirited, almost-racist rhetoric of some of the loudest mouths on the Right (Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, et al.), and I reject the hostile and oppositional methods that flow from that kind of rhetoric.

I read that “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will” (Prov. 21:1). So, why don’t we Christians pray like we believe that's true? Rather than complain (like so many conservatives are doing), let us pray wholeheartedly for President Obama’s salvation. I believe the Lord Jesus can give him a new heart, and I believe a new heart in our President will result in a new way of thinking and a brand new worldview.

Do you believe God will do that, if we pray?

Spiritual Pride

“There is no sin so much like the devil as this…”

Read the entire quote, here.


HT: Ray Ortlund

Shout for joy!

Shout for joy to God, all the earth;
sing the glory of his name;
give to him glorious praise!
Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!
So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.
All the earth worships you
and sings praises to you;
they sing praises to your name.”
(Psalm 66:1-4)

I was glad to read this post by Justin Childers.

Now, I just wish I had the courage to actually put it into practice! Childers mentioned that prideful people do not shout. Timid and self-conscious people do not shout, either. So, whether overly-conscious of self or overly-conscious of others, either way, we keep our praise of God in check. May God free us to praise Him.

Also, follow this link to my church’s online sermons page. Find and listen to the message from Dr. Craig Williford, President of Trinity International University in Deerfield, IL, who was our guest preacher today. Dr. Williford preached on “Trusting In the God You Don’t Expect” from the book of Habakkuk. This was definitely God’s word to me today.

To tell you the truth: After hearing this message, I felt like shouting...although I didn’t dare (Pray for me!).

Around the blogosphere

With my mind filled with thoughts and concerns over life, work, ministry, vocation, etc., I have just not been in the mood this Fall to write or read a whole lot. However, I have been browsing the blogs. Here are a few things I have come across in the past couple of days that I think you will find helpful and edifying:

Three video clips featuring Dr. Don Carson:

How do I know God exists?

How do I know God exists? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

How can God allow suffering and evil in the world?

How can God allow suffering and evil in the world? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

How can God be loving yet send people to hell?

How can God be loving yet send people to hell? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

At the same site, I also found these clips:

Hasn’t science disproved God?

Hasn't Science disproved God? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

Don’t other religions lead to God?

Don't other religions lead to God? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

You can view all the “A Passion for Life” videos here.


Kevin DeYoung writes a good word the church needs to heed, titled, “Divorce and Remarriage: A Smokescreen and a Fire”

Finally, the Texas Department of Corrections has a website with the last words of over 400 death row inmates just before they were executed. It is sobering to read just a few. It brought tears to my eyes.

Great, fatherly advice

By far the best advice I have received this year came from a dead man. I found it in the words of the late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) to his daughter, Elizabeth, in a letter he wrote to her in 1948. In answer to her questions about how she could know whether or not it was the will of God for her to be an overseas missionary, Dr. Lloyd-Jones had this to say:

The one vital, all-important thing is to know the will of God. It is not as easy as it sometimes sounds. I was for over two years in a state of uncertainty and indecision before leaving medicine for the pulpit. But in the end it was made absolutely and perfectly clear and mainly by means of things which God did.

These are the rules which I would advise you to observe:

1. Never speak to anyone about it. Don’t tell people what you are feeling and discuss it and ask for advice. That always leads to still more uncertainty and confusion. Make an absolute rule of this at all costs. Say nothing until you are absolutely certain, because we are all subject to self suggestion.

2. Do not even think about it and discuss the pros and cons with yourself. Once more this leads to auto suggestion and confusion.

3. In meetings, etc. do not start with the thought in your mind, “I wonder whether this is going to throw light on my question or help in any way?”

4. In other words, you must not try to anticipate God’s leading. Believing as I do that God does “call” very definitely, and in a distinct and definite doctrine of a call, and a vocation is distinct from “the need is the call” idea, I believe that Good will always make His will and His way plain and clear. With reverence, therefore, I say leave it to God entirely as regards purpose, time and all else.

All you have to do is to tell God that you are content to do His will whatever it may be and, more, that you will rejoice to do His will. Surrender yourself, your life, your future entirely to Him and leave it at that… You must not go on asking God to show you His way. Leave it to Him and refuse to consider it until He makes it impossible for you not to do so.

Also remember…that “to be” comes before “to do”. That is where we all fail. Our business is to make ourselves such instruments as shall be fit and meet for the Master’s use. He always tells such people how and where and when He wants to use them. You prepare yourself and He will then show you what He wants you to do.

[Iain H. Murray, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939-1981 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1990), pp. 177-178.]

Over the past few months, I’ve grown to believe that Dr. Lloyd Jones may have been on to something when he said, “Don’t tell people what you are feeling and discuss it and ask for advice”. Sometimes, unfortunately, talking to fellow humans can be a waste of time, because they just can’t understand. Sometimes, only God truly understands. Loneliness is one means by which God can teach us to be totally dependent upon Him. Connected with Dr. Lloyd-Jones’ excellent counsel that “to be” comes before “to do”, I learn that my main business is to spend much time alone with God in prayer, depending upon God’s Spirit as I submit myself to the word of God.

Understanding and responding to homosexuality

Café Biblia has posted a very useful and biblically-informed article on homosexuality. You may read it here.

“Sexual Detox”

Tim Challies just completed what I think is a very needful series of articles on “sexual detoxification”. As Challies explains it,

“My great concern with young men today (which is really more a concern for their young wives) is that they may perhaps inadvertently or perhaps intentionally pornify the marriage bed. They may bring impurity to the pure, selfishness to the selfless. Having given themselves over to pornography, they have had their whole perception of sexuality altered, shaped by professional pornographers. They may be imposing on their young brides the impossible expectation of a porn star. With the vast majority of young men having been exposed to pornography (at least 90% according to recent studies), with a large percentage of them having been addicted to it and with many enjoying it still as they enter into marriage, they need to have their understanding and their expectations reset according to the One who created sex.

“Many young men need a kind of sexual detox before they are equipped to be the kind of pure, loving, attentive, sacrificial husbands that God calls them to be. In this series of articles I hope to help young men reorient their understanding of sex, both in the big picture and in the act itself, according to God’s plan for this great gift.”

The series contains 5 parts:

Sexual Detox I: Pornifying the Marriage Bed

Sexual Detox II: Breaking Free

Sexual Detox III: A Theology of Sex

Sexual Detox IV: Detoxification

Sexual Detox V: Freedom

Update: Tim Challies has posted two online guides which can be downloaded free.

Sexual Detox: A Guide for the Married Guy

Sexual Detox: A Guide for the Single Guy

Out in the blogosphere

Below are the links to some posts I've come across in the blogosphere over the past few days that I found edifying. I hope you also find them profitable.

"The Happiest People In the World"

"What Is True of Him"

"What can be a greater honor than this?"

"How willingly do people go to hell?"

The best kind of laughter

Lately, this has been the feel-good video I turn to when I want a good, refreshing laugh.

Holding on

In 1 Peter 5:8, we find these words:

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

The past couple of weeks I’ve been reminded of this verse and the reality that believers in Christ Jesus have a real adversary. How easy it is to forget that we have to contend with a real devil—he is not a myth. Of course, I can’t prove anything empirically. I have no photos, no eyewitness accounts or DNA evidence that I can produce. Nevertheless, I know the devil is real for two reasons: 1) Because the Bible tells me so, and 2) Because of the kind of thoughts, feelings and emotions my wife and I have been experiencing.

Currently, except for weekly piano accompanying responsibilities that I have at our church and at our local area’s community college, I am unemployed. This current period of unemployment is the latest chapter in a saga that has gone on much too long. My personal story is no secret to those who have known me long and have known me well, but it is much too long to share in detail here (if you really want to know, talk to me in person, when you have an hour or two to spare). Suffice it to say, years of significant disappointments and unanswered questions have had negative effects on both of us, to the point that both my wife, Catherine, and I have been struggling with negative thoughts and feelings.

Believing in the sovereignty of God over everyone and everything, I know the circumstances that have come upon my family have come from the hand of a loving God, who is also my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ. However, I also know these negative thoughts and feelings that Catherine and I have been experiencing are not of God, but bear the unmistakable marks of our “adversary the devil [who] prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”, whom Jesus called a “thief” who “comes…to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).

The best book on trials and suffering that I know is the Bible book of Job. One thing we learn from Job is that it is possible for both God and the devil to be at work through the same events. Job’s story allows us in behind the scenes to see that the devil was at work in the catastrophic trials that fell upon Job. Yet, these same trials came about by God’s permission, enabling Job to correctly proclaim that “the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away” (Job 1:21). God had, in effect, taken away Job’s health, cattle and children. In the same way, even though the Bible teaches me that my family’s circumstances have come about by the will of God (God “has taken away”), it also teaches me that the discouragement, depression, doubt and despair that Catherine and I have experienced as a result of these same circumstances are from the devil.

It is no wonder then that Peter, speaking of our adversary, writes, “Resist him, firm in your faith” (1 Peter 5:9a). Why should believers need to be exhorted to be firm in their faith? Because our faith is the object of the devil’s attack. The devil seeks to undermine our trust and confidence in God and God’s word. That’s what the old serpent did in the garden of Eden; that’s what’s been happening to me and my wife. At first, I thought it was just me. Then I found out Catherine has also been having a terrible struggle that she’s been keeping to herself. It turn out both of us have been tempted to doubt God’s care and love. Both of us have been tempted to doubt the efficacy of our prayers because certain prayers have gone so long unanswered. We’ve both been tempted in different ways to give up hope. Our faith has been under attack.

But, I read this word: “Humble yourselves…under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7). So, this is what I will do, and will encourage Catherine to do: In humility, I will acknowledge that this current period of unemployment and the prior long years of career-related disappointments have come from the hand of our heavenly Father who loves us. I still don’t understand why, and I won’t pretend there is no anxiety about the future, but we have here in the text an invitation from our mighty God—a God who cares for us—to cast our anxieties upon Him. I won’t question God, because He knows what He’s doing; rather, I will choose to obey Him.

There’s something else we must do: “Be sober-minded; be watchful” (1 Peter 5:8). There is a devil, and he is real. Therefore, we need to be “sober-minded”—alert, aware and vigilant—and “watchful”, so that we do not fall prey to the enemy of our souls. The way we can obey God’s command in 1 Peter 5:8-9 is to purposefully, and stubbornly cling to God’s word. God’s word is true, regardless of what happens to us. His word is true even when we can see no evidence that our prayers are being answered. The Bible remains true even when the circumstances of life threaten to smother us to death. God’s word is true!

Maybe you find yourself in circumstances similar to me and my wife. I encourage you, as I encourage myself, to humble yourself under God’s mighty hand. God knows what He’s doing, and you can trust Him. God also cares for you. You can tell Him your concerns. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). Get alone so that you can freely pour out your heart to God. Finally, be alert and aware of the work of your enemy. Don’t take the devil for granted; he is real, and he will literally kill you, if possible. Misery loves company, so the devil doesn’t want to go to hell alone, and multitudes are following him to eternal misery. If the devil can’t get your soul, he’ll content himself with rendering you powerless and ineffective in the Lord’s work. Don’t let him do it! “Resist him, firm in your faith.” Stand pat on the word of God. “Let God be true though every one were a liar” (Romans 3:4).

Say, like the late Dorothy Love-Coates (1928-2002), “I’m holding on, and I won’t let go of my faith”. Enjoy this recording, and be encouraged.