Prayer: ASKING FOR GOD’S PRESENCE IN EVERYTHING

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Romans 8:26

In the prayers we pray, we ask for many things. We pray for a sick brother, for a dying mother, for a struggling newborn, for help with our troubles, for inspiration, for strength, and for many other things. Most often we pray for ourselves and our immediate needs. St. Francis of Assisi reminds us that in all the things we are praying for, we are praying above all else for God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. St. Francis wrote: “The heart of prayer is not asking God for something, but asking for the presence of God in everything.” When we ask for “daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer, we are asking for more than those things which provide for our earthly welfare. We are asking for Him, for Almighty God’s presence as we receive and partake of these gifts thankfully.
Many people are so often disappointed when their prayers go unanswered or the answers are other than they wanted. Yet God tells us that His presence is enough. In Psalm 46, God tells David: “Be still, and know that I am God.” This simple instruction is so often misunderstood. David was dealing with many concerns, fears, and needs. In his fear and worry, David was addressing all these to the Lord in his prayers. David had prayed and prayed and it seemed as if the Lord was not answering David according to His needs. God’s response, God’s answer to David’s needs, his worries, and his fears is for him to “be still, and know that I am God.”
How does David hear God’s answer? What does it mean for David in the face of all his needs, all his fears, and all his wants and prayers? What is it that David heard and we should hear in these simple words of God?
God is telling David and us, “IT IS ENOUGH THAT I AM YOUR GOD WITH YOU.” IN ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU WANT AND NEED, WORRY ABOUT, AND FEAR – IT IS ENOUGH FOR YOU TO BE CONFIDENT AND AT PEACE – THAT I AM GOD WITH YOU AND FOR YOU.
St. Francis reminds us in our prayers we are asking for what God told King David was enough: THAT HE IS GOD AND HE IS WITH US AND HIS PRESENCE IS ENOUGH.
This is reflected in Jesus teaching us to pray – THY KINGDOM COME – be with us, first and THY WILL BE DONE – among us as it is in heaven, second, and then GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD.
In our life as Christians, we pray for what God gave us in baptism, the presence of God in everything, because it was and is by the presence of Jesus Christ in them, that He can fill them with His grace and life which will perfect us and all things for us. Our new life was born of God’s presence in the waters of Baptism, our new life is nourished on God’s real presence in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. Our new life of faith grows and is strengthened, as the Lord’s presence comes to us in and through His Word.

- pmwl

because of the engagement ring of faith ...

An excellent excerpt from ‘Through the Son, Our Lord’: God as Mercy and Love in Martin Luther’s Theology   by Oswald Bayer  - 

“Luther speaks impressively about the ‘happy exchange,’ [Freedom of a Christian] about a transfer, and uses this biblical marriage metaphor, and the way it is used, to characterize the mystique of the bride.  This is expressed paradigmatically in On the Freedom of a Christian, section 12: faith ‘binds the soul with Christ, just as the bride with the bridegroom.  By means of this secret (as the apostle teaches [Eph. 5:32]) Christ and the soul become one flesh.’ [WA 7:54.3f.; cf. LW 31:351]

 ‘Since Christ is namely God and human in on and same person, who not only has not sinned, not died, and is not damned, but instead neither can sin, nor die, nor be damned, and because his righteousness, his life, his salvation is unconquerable, eternal, almighty—because, I say, such a person become one with the sins of the bride, her death and her hell because of the engagement ring of faith, and in fact makes them his own, and acts in no other way than as if they are his own and as if he himself had sinned – going through great exertions, dying, and descending into hell – so that he could overcome everything and, because sin, death, and hell could not swallow him up, everything therefore is swallowed up in him [“absorbed,” 1 Cor 15:54] by means of a battle between two that awakens astonishment.  For his righteousness is spread out over the sins of all, his life is stronger than every death, his salvation is more invincible than any hell.  In this way the believing soul is freed from all sins by the dowry; its faith in Christ, its bridegroom, is safe in the face of death, and is protected from hell, because the eternal righteousness as well as the eternal life and salvation of its bridegroom Christ are all given to it as gift.  Thus he creates himself a magnificent bride without spot or wrinkle, since he purifies her in the bath with water through the Word of life [Eph. 5:27, 26], that is, through what is worked through faith, which comes through the Word, through life, through righteousness, and through salvation.  Thus he betroths himself to her in faith, in mercy compassion, in righteousness and judgment, as it is stated in Hosea 2[:19-20].’  [WA 7:55.7-23 (Translation of the Latin version)] ” 

pg. 225-226

pmwl

In Changes that humble you

As you deal with the changes and reverses of this life that often come at a time not of your choosing, let God's Spirit lead you in Christ, remembering these words of wisdom from the Book of Sirach:

Accept whatever is brought upon you, and in changes that humble you be patient.  For gold is tested is tested in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.  Trust in God, and He will help you."

Book of Sirach 2:4-6
Apocrypha -

When your own emptiness is painfully forced upon your consciousness

Please note that I have updated some the wording of this excerpt and edited it with bracketed additions[].

“By all the castings down of His servants, God is glorified, for we are led to magnify Him when again He sets us upon our feet, and even while prostrate in the dust our faith yields Him praise.
[For it is here that we gain a proper perspective of ourselves, who by our sin have reduced ourselves to dust.] It is here that we speak all the more sweetly of His faithfulness, and are the more firmly established in His love.
[The great champions of faith] could scarcely have been produced if they had not been emptied from vessel to vessel, and made to see their own emptiness and the vanity of all things round about them.
Glory be to God for the furnace, the hammer, and the file. Heaven shall be all the fuller of bliss because we have been filled with anguish here below, and earth shall be better tilled because of our training in the school of adversity.
The lesson of wisdom is, be not dismayed by soul-trouble.
Count it no strange thing, but a part of ordinary [living the faith] experience, [as St. Paul testifies of it in Romans 7].
Should the power of depression be more than ordinary, think not that all is over with your usefulness.
Do not cast away your confidence, for it has great recompense of reward.
Even if the enemy’s foot be on your neck, expect to rise and overthrow him.
Cast the burdens of the present, along with the sins of the past and the fears of the future, upon the Lord, who does not forsake His saints.
Live by the day, and yes, by the hour.
Put no trust in frames and feelings.
Care more for a grain of faith than a ton of excitement.
Trust in God alone, and lean not on the reeds of human help.
Be not surprised when friends fail you: it is a failing world.
Never count upon immutability in man: you may count on inconstancy without fear of disappointment.
The disciples of Jesus forsook Him; be not amazed if your [friends an even family leave and forsake you, for they never belonged to you and your life is not found in them.] [A]ll is not gone from you with their departure.
Serve God with all your might while the candle is burning, and then when it goes out for a season, you will have the less to regret.
Be content to be nothing, for that is what you are.
When your own emptiness [or nothingness] is painfully forced upon your consciousness, chide yourself that you ever dreamed of being full [or something more], except in the Lord [Jesus Christ].
Set small store the rewards [this world today]; be grateful for [the divine promises and works of God through His Word and Sacraments along your] way, [and] look for the recompensing joy hereafter [in the place Christ has prepared].
Continue with double dedication to serve your Lord when no visible result is before you.
Any simpleton can follow the narrow path in the light: faith’s rare wisdom enables us to march on in the dark with infallible accuracy, since [faith receives the hand] of our great Guide.
Between this and heaven there may be rougher weather yet. Nevertheless, it is all provided for by our Head, [Jesus Christ].
In nothing let us be turned aside from the path that the [Word of God] has urged us to pursue.
Come fair or come foul, the [life of faith is our station, and living the faith is our way] when we cannot see the face of God, [so that we might trust in Him all the more while dwelling] under the shadow of His wings.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Minister’s Prayer Book
John W. Doberstein - Pg. 226-227

The definitive work in justification is outside us, not inside us.

For those who seek to better understand what justification really is and why it has to be outside of us.

Excerpts from "CHRIST HAVE MERCY How to Put Your Faith in Action" Pgs 58-60
by Matthew C. Harrison, LCMS President.

I highly recommend this book to all!

Please note that all bracketed [] sections are my additions for further exposition, not by way of saying what President Harrison failed to say, but saying what I want the reader to grasp about the reality of our constant need for the salvific justification - completely other than and outside of ourselves.

"We are justified “for Christ’s sake,” not because we changed something within ourselves. It may be easy to conclude that we are better people under the Law because faith does create love and motivate good works. However, though we do grow in grace, no matter how we grow, “the Law always accuses us, always presents an angry God to us. ... Afterward, we begin to keep the Law …. In the flesh we never satisfy the Law.””

Thus justification is not a one-time event. God, “justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4:5). To be just, we must also always be “ungodly” under the Law. And the text that demonstrates this dual saint/sinner, justified/condemned, Gospel/Law nature of being a Christian is Romans 7, which is presented by the apostle Paul in the present tense: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing …. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand …. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through ; Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:19, 21, 24-25).
[Notice the constancy of sin in us, “the evil I do not want is what I KEEP ON DOING.”
This testifies to the constancy of our need for justification. There is never a moment in this life where we are not the “wretched man” in need of constant need God's eternal justification.  The more one strives against this reality the more entraped one becomes in their helplessness to free themselves from it.  Many do not like this truth because it is humbling and humiliating. Yet it is a truth that is constantly knocking at our door. We may ignore the knocking of our wretchedness for a time, but it is a truth of the Law dthat will kick in the doors of our lives and rightly rob everyone their treasured illusions and ideas of themselves as good people. Only then will we look outside of ourselves.]
We are justified [that is made holy and blameless, i.e. un-wretched, in God’s sight because of what God has done in Christ (Eph 1:3-14)], not because of something that has changed “within us.
Adolf Koberle’s book “The Quest for Holiness” demonstrates how perpetual attempts at self-justification occur along three persistent paths: attempts at perfecting the mind, the will, and the emotions.
In real life, it works out this way:
[Those seeking to perfect their mind, their thinking, their thoughts, i.e.] the intellectual, seeks to comprehend and define the divine.
[Those seeking to purify their mind, their speaking and their doing, i.e.] the moralist, strives to possess pure moral thought and action.
[Those seeking perfection of the inner self, i.e.] the mystic, seeks to empty himself of everything that is not “god” and seeks to feel god by his ecstatic presence.
All three of these are fruits from the same tree [of self-justification or a self-awareness of their justification apart from its forensic declaration of God’s Word in Christ].
All of this is the antithesis of, [the complete other and contrary to] grace. “For Christ’s sake” we are just.
The definitive work in justification is outside us, not inside us.
This work was performed by Jesus Christ, not us, and it occurred on Golgotha more than two thousand years ago. “It is finished!” Jesus cried out from the cross (John 19:30).
The apostle Paul explains: “In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19) [not to yourself or the world].
This act transcends all of history. It was justification for me and for everyone who ever lived before and after Jesus. Peter testifies, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
We are justified by grace through faith.
In justification (God declaring me not guilty) faith is passive; it only receives the gift.
• If salvation is by grace, then it is free and not our doing.
• If salvation is for Christ’s sake (because of His work), then its cause and source are outside of us, that is, apart from us.
• Faith is nothing in and of itself. It merely lays hold of Christ, His accomplished work, and the forgiveness of sin.
There is no stepping forward in the glare of the Almighty and pleading, “Look at my faith! I have faith. I have made a decision to believe.” If that were so, then justification would no longer be free and by grace. St. Paul writes: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this [faith] is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8-9). To plead that one has Christ is very different than to say that faith lays hold of Christ. No faith, no Christ. His promised grace is itself a gift, and because it is a gift, it is sure.
George Spenlein had been in the monastery with Luther for four years. In April 1516, Luther wrote to him because Spenlein was suffering under the weight of his own sin to the point of despair:
My dear brother, learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say:
• “Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I all thy sin.
• Thou has taken upon thyself what is mine and hast given to me what is thine.
• Thou has taken upon thyself what thou wast not and hast given to me what I was not:’
Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will I not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one. For Christ dwells only, in sinners. Theodore G. Tappert, ed. And trans., Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, Library .. of Christian Classics 18 (Philadelphia and London: Westminster Press and SCM, 1955), 110.•
There is no middle ground. Justification by grace for Christ’s sake through faith–or self-justification.
Wilhelm Lohe wrote, “Where there is a false security and the illusion of self-righteousness, there the gruesome air of death blows across deathbeds.” (Holger Sonntag, trans. Lohe on Mercy, (St. Louis: LCMS World Relief and Human Care, 2006).

- pmwl

Press On

A GREAT WAY TO BEGIN THE YEAR, THE DAY, THE TASK AND EVERY MOMENT!