Systematically memorizing Bible verses and meditating on them is the most powerful of Spiritual disciplines.

Let me explain that statement a word at a time.

Discipline: Our flesh hates to memorize the Bible, the devil for sure doesn’t want us to do that which would totally handcuff him from working in our life, and the world’s opinion of the Bible is half a step below Estops Fables. Besides that it takes major effort and concentration to memorize anything, let alone the Bible. Very few Christians memorize a verse a week and review them so as not to lose any that they have already memorized. Those who do memorize at least one verse every week have to exert great discipline to make it happen.

Powerful: During our lifetime what we want is to grow in our character to be as much like Jesus as is possible so when we get to heaven we will be like Him, and be able to enjoy Him and He us for all eternity because we are alike. Nothing facilitates growth in our character and spirit as much as meditating on memorized scripture, nothing.

Systematically: What helps us successfully accomplish something as difficult as memorizing the Bible is to have a plan and a system that we stick to until it becomes a habit. Start with a goal such as memorizing 50 verses for the year, and to review them regularly so that they are never forgotten. There are several lists of the most important 100 verses to memorize or the most important 500 verses or even the most important 1000 verses. A 20 year goal of memorizing 1000 key verses in the Bible and review each one at least monthly is a totally achievable goal that would transform anybodies life.

I presently have 600 verses memorized, and I review 100 of those verses each day so that I get all 600 reviewed each week. It takes me about 30 minutes each day to do that. In terms of results, that is about the most profitable 30 minutes of my day. I am convinced that the character and spiritual growth is tremendously impacted, but also the strength of my mind is also greatly enhanced. As I get older I want my mind to stay sharp and strong, and exercising it the way I do each day for 30 minutes I am sure does more for my mind than my 60 minutes on my stationary bike does for my physical body.

Today was one of those days that was just plain fun, relaxing, and renewing. I slept in a bit, Patty brought me coffee in bed, and I did my Bible reading propped up in bed. Then I went out and built a fire in my shop where the 1969 mustang is that I am restoring with my grandson Isaac. He showed up and we worked on it until 4:00 pm. We got a lot done on it and I came in and ordered a new floor pan and a couple of other sheet medal parts that were pretty rusty. It should be in good shape when we get those parts welded on. I didn’t read any news about COVID, shutdowns, election fraud, Kate Brown, or Joe Biden today. Patty announced that she is cooking me a steak tonight for dinner and I am planning on watching the Mandalorian and baby Yoda on TV with my grandson Courage tonight. I think I will sit in my hot tub for 30 minutes before I go to bed tonight, right after I ride my stationary bike for an hour at the same time watching some podcasts by some good preachers on prophecy. Wow, doesn’t get much better than that.

The last 10 months have been very frustrating trying to Pastor a church in the midst of shutdowns, freezes, restrictions, masks, spooky people, irritated people, and opinionated people. Dealing with all the information that seems to change hourly, and trying to figure out what is true and what is false. Trying to figure out what is the right thing to do. Trying to figure out how to maintain unity and a loving environment when there is such extremes in opinions and both sides think the other side are either stupid sheep or murders. Living and ministering with this heightened pressure has been exhausting, and I have found myself praying, “come on, Lord! Fix this thing, PLEASE!”

Tonight I listened to a missionary speak who ministers in a country where they meet as a church “underground,” where if they get caught meeting together they will go to prison, where secret agents will sneak into their services and pretend to be one of them and becomes a mole who informs on them to the police.

As I listened I realized that this person was struggling to minister far beyond what I was experiencing. The missionary didn’t seem depressed or exhausted by what was going on, in fact they seemed rather positive, excited to be able to serve.

As I continued to listen as they finished giving their report I felt duly chastised by the Lord for my wimpy attitude of late.

A number of years ago I realized that I had so many interests that I would fail to do anything super well because I was to fragmented. I needed to do some serious cutting out of my life some activities so I could be successful in one or two areas. I decided to write a purpose statement for my life that would zero in on what I wanted to accomplish. I came up with this; “I will be a man devoted to prayer, and I will convince as many others to be devoted to prayer as I can.” I am sure that if I want to accomplish the maximum possible in my lifetime this is the route I need to go.

So the first part of my purpose statement I have been accomplishing fairly well. I spend about an hour praying every day, and I have seasons where I spend up to 8 hours praying, usually during our church’s 5 day prayer events four times a year. I struggle with the discipline of prayer like everyone else. I fall asleep while praying, my mind wanders over to fishing or hunting, I get bored, and it becomes a grind to stay at it faithfully. The thing that helps my private prayer life stay alive and energized is the corporate prayer times that I attend during the week and then these quarterly 5 days of prayer that go 10 hours each day really launch me into a prayer attitude and faithfulness.

The second part of my life purpose of convincing as many other people as possible to become devoted to prayer has been less successful and at times down right discouraging. I get so much “push back” from people who are wanting to justify their own lack of prayer, and to get me to quit making them feel guilty for their less than fully devoted prayer life.

I am convinced that my struggle is not really with people, but with the demons that follow them everywhere they go or riding on their shoulders. These demons know that they can’t stay connected to people who pray more than token prayers so they talk non-stop to them with all the reasons and excuses why being devoted to prayer is for others, especially corporate prayer. They hear them in their own thoughts which they think are their own thoughts and wisdom coming right straight from them.

Sometimes as Roscoe sits on my lap and gives me this look, I wonder what goes on in his mind. Is he capable of having an opinion, and if so what’s his opinion of me. I guess that is kind of dumb wondering if a dog likes me or not. Sometimes I wonder that about people in my life, people in our church, do they like me? What do they think about my preaching, my teaching, do they like my new shirt, and I wonder if they think I am fat or just a little overweight. I remember as a kid pulling pedals off of a flower one at a time saying, “ she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me not. . .

One of the great warnings in the Bible is living life to please people rather than God.

Matthew 6:1 Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.

Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men,

Ephesians 6:6-7 not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men,

I have often thought how much easier it would be to be motivated by the desire to please the Lord if I could just hear His voice. God the Father spoke audibly from heaven when Jesus was baptized and said, “this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”. Wow, how cool would that be to hear God’s booming voice from heaven say that to me!

David Brainard, a missionary to Native Americans in the very early years of our country was in the habit of praying three and four hours each day for those that lived around him who he was trying to reach with gospel. He once said that the more he prayed the more sensitive his heart became to the pleasure of God in him. David Brainard was known for the incredible sacrifices he made to live with the Indians, the hours he spent on his knees in the snow praying, the hours he spent working to serve and to help those he was trying to reach, and everything that he left behind to live where he lived.

He once commented that what others called sacrifice was very enjoyable to him when he sensed the pleasure of God in him for doing what he was doing.

The more I pray the more sensitive my heart becomes to the pleasure of God in me, that motivates me to pray sacrificially.

Philippians 4:6-7 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The promise in these verses is amazing, a peace that is incomprehensible! With the Covid thing going on, shut downs, partial shutdowns, stupid masks, a news media bent on overhyping everything about this virus to the point that people are filled with fear, the election, all the unknowns about the future, the economy, and on and on, peace – total freedom from anxiety seems impossible. But total freedom from anxiety is exactly what is promised, that sounds so nice!

Everybody prays to some degree but it doesn’t result in much. A husband and wife talk to each other as they live together in a house, raising their kids, going to work, to church, and other activities, and doing their chores in and around the house. But the talk is impulsive and unplanned, short, on the move as they pass each other, often problem oriented, and it doesn’t result in very much growth in intimacy with each other. That is pretty much the description of the average persons prayer life. If I really want to have a time of real communication with Patty we plan a date together at a restaurant, a drive together, or even a planned time of conversation at home. One of the key ingredients is time, another is freedom from distractions and interruptions, and the main thing is an unspoken commitment to enter into the conversation with attentiveness and thoughtfulness.

In order to experience the kind of peace that is beyond all comprehension the praying we do needs to be more than short, on the move, convenient, prayers that lack focus, thoughtfulness, and attentiveness to our own thoughts. So it is not surprising that anxiety, and depression are very high right now in most people’s lives even if they are Christians and “pray.”

Four times a year we have a “Five Day Prayer Event,” at JBC, and I usually pray over 6 hours in each of the five days of prayer. We pray from 5:00 to 10:00 am and 5:00 to 10:00 pm each day with a 15 minute break each hour for people to come and go. We have been doing these prayer events for about thirty years and I have participated in almost every one of them. So I can say without any hype or hesitation that they are a major source of peace for me.

It is amazing though, that after all these prayer events that I have participated in, I still start each one with the same sense that I have when I go to the dentist. I go because it is important and I want to keep my teeth, but I don’t expect to have a lot of fun. Next Monday morning I will set my alarm clock for 4:20 am and when it goes off I will groan, not being very excited about getting up and heading off to prayer. But it doesn’t take very many hours praying together with about 20 other people in person and another 20 via Zoom, that I begin to feel a renewal happening inside of me, not only a calmness but a positive sense that life is good because God is in charge.

The Five Days of Prayer is December 7th to the 11th in the chapel, the building with the shake roof, and also on Zoom. Look on our website http://www.jbc.church for details on connecting to Zoom.

God hates the sin of pride.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

In the New Testament the definition of pride isn’t, “I am great, look what I have done,” but rather “I can do it all by myself, I don’t need you.”

The Trinity, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are one, but three personalities, they are a community within themselves. God made us so that on our own we are incomplete, we can’t function close to our potential by ourselves. We are like a hand, a foot, or an ear on a human body, separated from the body we are useless.

God has said that each of us are useless for Him if we are separated from our church family trying to be a Lone Ranger because of our pride. The same thing is true of prayer. We can pray by ourselves but the heavy duty prayer requests and needs will be met and accomplished so much better and faster by those who are praying together as a group. God made it that way, He made us interdependent. We have great power with others, we have amazing potential with others but our pride often messes up Gods best plans for us.

December 7th through the 11th is our “Five Days of Prayer”. We usually average 20 people in the prayer room each hour. It would be so cool to have 40 at this prayer event. We are using Zoom along with our in person praying. Make a goal when you read this, many have made a goal and have sent me a copy. Why don’t you do that!

Psalms 8:4-5 What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?
Yet You have made him a little lower than God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!

We were created by God in His image and likeness, and we were created with glory. The first time we sinned we lost that God given glory.

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

We have been craving glory ever since, and we are always seeking for ways to enhance our sense of worth and value. The problem is that we seek for glory from other people and it isn’t real or lasting, it does not meet our need for glory.

John 5:44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?

The opposite of receiving glory is to experience shame; we fear shame more than anything else in life. It is said that men fear failure more than anything else in life, but it is the sense of shame that failure brings that they fear. Certain people in our life have a way of shaming us with their words; we don’t like them much.

God is the one who gives glory, not people. God gives His glory to those who seek Him, to those who seek a growing relationship with Him, as the Bible puts it, ”To those who seek His Face”

The primary way to seek God’s face, to seek His presence is through prayer. We usually pray because we have a need, a problem, a concern that we want God to fix. We don’t realize that our greatest need is glory and majesty from God, and when we spend time in prayer because we desire more of Him He meets our greatest need.

Next week, December 7th through the 11th, is JBC’s ”Five Days of Prayer.” I am planning on praying at least six hours each of the five days. I am doing that because I want very much to see God work in our country, in our church, and in my life. Over the years of participating in these prayer events God has blessed me with a sense of self-worth and confidence that is not based on any accomplishments, it is not based on my perceived impressions of people’s opinion of me, it is based on a sense of God’s pleasure in me because of my wanting more of Him.

2 Thessalonians 2:7-8 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming;

”Lawlessness is already at work; only he who restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.”

Who is restraining lawlessness or the lawless one? I believe it is the church.

1 Peter 5:8-9 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith,

1 Peter 5:8-9 is all written in the plural, not singular. This admonition and promise is for the church to do together, not for the individual. We are to resist him together and when we do he flees.

James 4:7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Again, this is a promise for a plurality of people not a person by themselves, on their own.

Romans 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

You guessed it; this verse is also not written for the Lone Ranger Christian but for the army of God that fights together.

Matthew 18:18-20 Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”

Binding and losing are spiritual warfare terms, and this authority that is being given in these verses is not for an individual but to the church, the gathered together ones.

We exercise this authority by praying together in unity. We have be given enormous authority and power to hold evil at bay, but the army of God has been mostly AWOL. Church prayer meetings are typically the lowest attended events that a local church has.

We are living in a day where evil is advancing almost at will in our country. The anemic and half-hearted praying of most churches has little power to resist the devil and his plan to control our lives.

December 7th through the 11th JBC is holding a ”Five Day Prayer” event. We will pray from 5:00 to 10:00 am and 5:00 to 10:00 pm each day, Monday through Friday. There is nothing you can do to more effectively thwart the evil in our world than attend and participate in this event.