Crossroads Bible Fellowship

This is a great post by Ligon Duncan on how to pray for your leaders. I appreciate it because it gives a good focus that I would love for people to pray for me. If you do not attend Crossroads, consider praying these things for those pastoring you.

Here is the introduction to whet your appetite.

Because I have a congregation that loves me more than I deserve, I am often asked by them: “how can I pray for you?” I’ve tried to put some thought into how I answer that question. So, maybe these ideas will help you pray for your pastor, or tell others how they can pray for you.

Pray -

1. That [your pastor] would know and love the living God, would have a saving interest in Christ, being purchased by His blood, and thus would be bound to the Lord by the indissoluble bond of the Holy Spirit.

2. That [your pastor] would know, embrace and ever more deeply understand the Gospel and be shaped by it in life and ministry.

I ran into a great quote today by Keller on the topic of prayer and I wanted to share it with you.

“Jesus always gives you what you would have prayed for if you knew everything He knows.”

Michael

Maybe we need to back up a bit and give a simple definition of meditation as we continue. Here is Keller’s definition or summary of what meditation actually is.
“Meditation on the Scriptures is pondering, relishing, imagining, applying and rehearsing God’s truth until it becomes real to the heart and permanently affects your attitude and behavior.”
From Gospel Christianity Course 2 page 32.

How does that do for a start? We often think about meditation as thinking on Scripture, turning it over in our minds like a cow chewing its cud. I think that is a helpful way to think about it, but I think Keller has helped us to go a bit further. What I like about this definition is the stated goal of meditation. We should meditate so that…
1.    Truth becomes real to my heart.
2.    My attitude and behavior are affected permanently.
What great goals! The first is more of a tasting of God and His goodness in Scripture and the second is that the truth of God changes us. It has to! My life will be different.

Now, Keller connects meditation to prayer and reading in the following way. He calls meditation a “middle practice which bridges between reading and prayer.” I think his point is this. As I read, it becomes difficult to pray over what I have just read unless it becomes part of me. If I meditate like we described above, that will inform and change my prayers.

Personally I struggle with prayer if I am not reflecting on some part or aspect of Scripture. When I pray and do not think about Scripture, I tend to say the same things and fall into the same ruts. How many times have you prayed and afterwards noticed that you said the same things that you had the day before? This happens often to me when I pray to thank God for my meals. I go into default mode and often did not think about what I was saying. I was on auto pilot. This is why Scripture helps my prayers. If I have been meditating on some portion of Scripture, I am thinking about and affected by many things God is saying, so I can pray about those things.

If these things are something you have struggled with in the past or still struggle with, I would suggest the following messages by Don Whitney. I have listened to them over and over and they have helped me to think about meditation and prayer through Scripture in a very healthy way. Check out these three messages here.

Back tomorrow with more if God desired me to be. ☺ James 4:13-17
Michael