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Category: Christian Social Witness

Christian Social Witness has increasingly become about SOCIAL MEDIA platforms & sharing live preaching & local Bible studies virtually. Stories in this category address 21st c. Christian issues of communication. Here’s where I need your help:
Would you email Roger@talkofJesus.com and tell us how, when & especially where you TALK to others online? Thanks for your COMMENTS & ideas. – Roger

Prayer: Begin with God

To begin, let us get over how selfish we are, even by our prayers for loved ones.

He IS God! and I am not.

What is prayer, anyway? (Think about it. What is a prayer? Why would you even bother to pray?)

Prayer is many things. Most of our mind and flesh would relegate prayer to a single context (a selfish context, I might add) called petition. We have a prayer request or petition to bring before God.

However at its most basic level, prayer is a communication between a mere mortal and the Immortal Almighty God.

Do you believe in God? Do you believe that God IS, has been before time as we know it and will be forever beyond our timeline to the infinite?

God is NOT finite. God is NOT in everything.

God cannot be defined or placed into a box of definition or a time observable in the laboratory of life.

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” – John 4:24

“I who speak to you am he.” – John 4:26b

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. – John 15:26

And we do not require any mediator between sinful man and a Holy God other than Christ Jesus! He IS the Very Living Person of the Trinity of Almighty God, sent as Perfect Adam and Perfect Sacrifice for our sins.

WHO are you and I praying to? IS God a man (or woman) like us? Certainly not! Is any mediator or example required of any man (or woman) other than Christ Jesus?

NO!

No holy mother, no living lama, no prophet, no priest, no ancestor, no spirit, no angel, no law. Yet as servants of our Master, Christ Jesus, we must obey the scripture, as our Lord has spoken and commanded.

No intercessor other than Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit is required! Christ our Lord who warned: “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.” – Matthew 24:11 KJV

Worship only God; because the ransom paid for our sin on the Cross by our Savior and Redeemer, Christ Jesus, Who IS and was and will return on the clouds as King to rule in His righteous love: over all mankind, all angels and all creation – the Perfect price of your soul you cannot afford; no ransom for the dead will bring resurrection to the darkness of a soul buried in sin.

So I ask you again of your prayer: Do you believe in God?

Do you believe that Jesus Christ IS the resurrected and living Son of God, Who lived and died for our sins as a son of man (technically, Mary)? And do you believe all Jesus said, including His promise of the Holy Spirit to intervene with God our Father (a more loving Image than that of God the Judge of all righteousness)?

Do you think of God as a Person?

Then as Jesus instructed, let us first bow down humbly to Him as our Lord. Let us worship the Lord first, before all of our selfish petitions and requests.

And he said unto them, When ye pray, say,

Our Father which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done,

as in heaven, so in earth.

Luke 11:2 KJV

Should our pattern for prayer not resemble the outline of scripture?

Even the Commandments begin with four concerning God, followed by six for the actions of man. And did Christ our Lord not give a ‘greatest commandment,’ even prior to our oft’ repeated golden rule, as prerequisite prelude of worship of the Lord our God?

Matthew 22: 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.

Therefore let us worship the Lord our God, before we presumptuously approach the Throne of Glory with our lowly petitions and requests for our daily wants and needs, which our All-knowing and loving God does know.

Let us tell the Lord His worth: even before we ask, even as we ask, even as He does not answer, God – our loving God who sacrificed His only Son Christ Jesus on the Cross for our sin – our loving Father for this prodigal of the flesh: He hears our prayers.

He would have us ask, once we bow down to His Will and His ways, which are Higher and more knowing than our own sinful ways.

Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Pray, and the Lord will listen; for His heart is kind and gentle for those who love Him.

Christ Jesus IS Lord.

Ask Him and ask me; for I will also pray for you, as you pray to God for your own needs.

Pray also for me. (And next time we will talk about our petitions of prayer.)

To be continued…

January 30, 2015
Prayer Warrior?

NO! I am no prayer warrior. So what did I do? I doubled the size of my prayer list.

I identify with Simon Peter.

… he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” – Luke 5:8b

I understand the great remorse and unworthiness expressed by Saul of Tarsus found in Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth:

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 1 Corinthians 15:9

He is the same Apostle who instructs the church at Thessaloniki: 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. – 1 Th 5

and

25 Brothers, pray for us.

No. I am no ‘prayer warrior.’ Look at my life and see how ineffective my many fervent prayers have been in the lives of those I love most, even in my own family, even in our marriage bed. God’s great silence seems more than, ‘Not yet.’ Job’s call of ‘answer me’ seems unheeded in my life. Though I await the storm clouds billowing and the Voice of Righteousness to ask me, ‘Who are you to ask this prayer of me again and again and again?!’ – though I cower beneath the broom tree and hide in the press of life’s defeats, I pray. I pray for these and I pray for me.

And I will pray for you.

Just ‘Comment‘ and ask.

(I read & moderate all Comments. If you prefer not to post publicly, just begin your comment & prayer request, ‘Private.’ )

– Roger Harned, author & site administrator

To be continued…

January 28, 2015
The Defeat of a Nation, Birth of a King
Note: This is the fourth message in my 2014 Advent series.

Christmas, 1944, would be his last. His circumstances seemed dire, the cause lost and darkness descending on the faithful.

A Christian pastor had stood boldly in witness for Christ against the powers of evil.

When Visser’t Hooft, the General Secretary of The World Council of Churches, asked him, “What do you pray for in these days?”

Bonhoeffer replied ”If you want to know the truth, I pray for the defeat of my nation.”

source

It seems that in seventy years (since 1944), even 2014 years and many generations since the first Christmas, not much has changed. Names on the map change and nations once powerful are gone. God remains.

Many have died for Christ. Many have died as enemies of Christ, martyrs for hell opposed to God Almighty. These cannot prevail. Sin may have its day, but in Christ Jesus sin will not prevail.

What an odd prayer from a condemned man: I pray for the defeat of my nation.

Was it appropriate for a German opposed to Hitler and those who elected him? Was it appropriate for a Christian in Russia who opposed the atheists’ war against the church and the people of Russia, the Soviet Union, and now (once more) Christians of Russia, Ukraine and other Slavic cultures?

Is Bonhoeffer’s prayer appropriate for a citizen of the United States or a citizen of the United Kingdom? Is praying for the defeat of my nation appropriate for Christians in Iran, Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan? Should those subject to persecution in Pakistan, Egypt, China, Saudi Arabia or any other country where evil reigns and Christians are persecuted by word and by deed – should these pray for the defeat of their government?

A 2014 Christmas Letter from prison.

Isaiah 9:

6a For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder…

19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts
the land is scorched,
and the people are like fuel for the fire;
no one spares another.

The implications of Jesus Christ being our “King” goes far beyond an obligatory hour of power worship on a Sunday.

IF Jesus is our King, THEN He must be our Lord!

John 18

33 So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

… What have you done?”

36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”

37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

King Herod, who attempted the genocide of the baby Jesus and murdered so many in Bethlehem, also realized the potential power of the Messiah, the Christ; God With Us, Emmanuel.

Hitler understood that the power of Christians like Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer could defeat the evil extermination of his enemies. In addition to hanging Bonhoeffer in 1945, Hitler murdered untold millions, not only Jews but also ethnic Christians from many countries other than his own.

The God-opposed world watches the outcomes of the wars and battles funded by those who have little concern for righteousness. Russia and the U.S. will continue to sell weapons to men like Osama Bin Laden. Iran understands the threat of the imprisoned American citizen, Pastor Saaed Abedini. Are these dark days so different than Christmas, 1944, or the Christmas Herod murdered the babies of Bethlehem?

Yet China and the U.S. murder millions of babies every year in these current evil times.

What is our prayer for the leaders of these countries that murder babies and allow imprisonment of thousands fleeing from the evil that invades their homes, mosques, churches, towns and very livelihood?

Are the leaders of the nations not destined to fail when their outspoken actions stand in the Face of God?

And where, dear church, beloved brothers and sisters in the faith: Protestant, Catholic, Coptic, Orthodox Russian, Orthodox Greek, Lutheran (as was Bonhoeffer), non-denominational, Baptist and Anti-Baptist… where are you, beloved Christian, in witnessing for Jesus Christ in this crisis Christmas of 2014… in the time before even more refugees… even more babies in China and the U.S. and the world will suffer and die at the hands of evil men and evil women?
- Have you sent money to help?
- Have you stood against the same policies that exterminate babies that could bring on a healthcare holocaust of euthanasia (an Auschwitz shower for the old and dying) in the waning years of your own life?
- Have you stood up for marriage between a man and a woman?
- Have you stood for no divorce?
- Is your Christian marriage a witness for Christ?
- Have you stood for purity of your virgin children and opposed the raging tide of uncontrolled sex between the sons and daughters of our ‘christian homes?’
- Are you keeping your teens from being ‘in a relationship?’
- Do your christian children prevent abortion by not having intercourse?
Is there much barely covered and unspoken sin in our Christian homes, our christian broken families, our communities and nations no longer caring about Christ and Christmas? Of course, there is.

Is there excessive misuse of God-given money and God-given time in our Christian ‘households?’ Of course there is.

Why not confess your own sins. Repent once more and obey our King and Savior once more, Make Jesus your Lord again. Proclaim Him and obey your King.

Where is the church, this Christmas?

To be continued…
December 21, 2014