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Bible Readings for Tuesday, June 14th, 2011 – The Week of Pentecost *Click on each bible passage to expand the text. Psalm 104:24-35 24. O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

25. Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great.

26. There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.

27. These all look to you to give them their food in due season;

28. when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.

29. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.

30. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.

31. May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works–

32. who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke.

33. I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.

34. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the LORD.

35. Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the LORD, O my soul. Praise the LORD! Ezekiel 39:7-8, 21-29 7. My holy name I will make known among my people Israel; and I will not let my holy name be profaned any more; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.

8. It has come! It has happened, says the Lord GOD. This is the day of which I have spoken.

21. I will display my glory among the nations; and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them.

22. The house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God, from that day forward.

23. And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt treacherously with me. So I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword.

24. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them.

25. Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for my holy name.

26. They shall forget their shame, and all the treachery they have practiced against me, when they live securely in their land with no one to make them afraid,

27. when I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies’ lands, and through them have displayed my holiness in the sight of many nations.

28. Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God because I sent them into exile among the nations, and then gathered them into their own land. I will leave none of them behind;

29. and I will never again hide my face from them, when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord GOD. Romans 8:26-27 26. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

27. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

We Don’t Know How to Pray

Romans 8 26. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

We don’t know how to pray? What does that mean, number of times a day, length of the prayer, the words of the prayer? What is it we “do not know” about God’s will regarding proper prayer?

Proper Prayer According to God (Mt 6:5-13) Don’t pray publicly. Pray alone in private. God already knows your heart. Don’t use words. Empty and repetitive words don’t mean anything. Why use words when God already knows what you’re going to say? But, if YOU need to use words, use these words: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.a Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Whoops. I guess we’ve been “doing prayer” wrong!

If God intended for prayer to be an intimate, revelatory experience committed in privacy where nothing is left hidden before God, how in the world have we arrived at this point?

No single group of people displays more symptoms of “not knowing prayer” than Colorado Springs’ evangelical community. Let’s see how they do against a checklist of Mt. 6:5-13:

Shall we review Pastor Ross Parsley of New Life Church’s performance? First, let us revisit the text of Mt 6:5-7

Matthew 6 5. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Don’t pray in public, especially in the synagogues (church) : Missed the mark.

: Missed the mark. Pray in secret, alone : Missed the mark.

: Missed the mark. Don’t heap up words thinking God will hear you because of them : Missed the mark.

: Missed the mark. If you have to use words use the Lord’s Prayer: Missed the Mark

Also, does anyone else find it ironic that the Evangelicals love to say “In the name of Jesus”, or “by the name of Jesus”, and in reality his name never was Jesus?

His name is Yeshua. If Evangelical Christians are going to put such weight and importance on words, don’t you think we should use the correct words?

What Prayer Really Should Be

The most important thing we need to realize about prayer is:

Prayer is never for God’s sake.

You aren’t ever going to “change God’s mind” about anything. To think you can petition God to act for you is absurd. God is waiting for you to act for yourself, and then God will act in your life!

Prayer is for you, and you alone.

Prayer is an act of the most intimate communion with the spirit of God, who with its “sighs too deep for words” can know and express things within us that we could never, no never vocalize or illustrate in the entire course of our lives.

Through the spirit, we confess. Deep, revelatory confessions.

Confessions of gratitude.

Confessions of missing the mark.

Confessions of guilt.

Confessions of grace.

Confessions of love.

Confessions of mercy.

Confessions of need.

All without the awkwardness of the spoken word. All in private. All with God.

Because God already knows your heart.

Prayer helps you know yourself.