What I learned in a prayer class about…Praying in the Spirit, Part 3

In my sophomore year of Bible college I took a class on Prayer, and we had to pray for 30 minutes every day.  30 minutes!  That sounded impossibly long.  My history with prayer as a child and teenager, for the most part was those 5 minute or shorter prayer sessions, where I did all the talking, just like the spouse I mentioned in the previous post. 

But those daily 30-minute prayer sessions were now an assignment for class.  We had to pray, then record how long we prayed, and we would turn it in for a grade.  Seriously.  Of course, we could lie about how long we prayed, or if we prayed at all, but that would take serious guts, to lie about prayer. 

So the first day I found a secluded spot on campus to pray.  I brought my Bible, a notebook, and my watch.  I started praying. I prayed for all my family and friends. I prayed some verses from the Bible.  I wrote in the journal.  It was going great.  That 30 minutes all of a sudden seemed doable. I though to myself, “What was I worried about? I can pray for 30 minutes.”

I prayed for some more people I had forgotten.  And then I prayed more.

Soon I started having that familiar desire to look at my watch and see how much time was left.  But I felt a tension about that. Part of me didn’t want to look down at my watch. 

You know how you feel when you’re having a conversation with someone, and they look at their watch?  It’s a context clue that they are ready to be done with this conversation, and that can be awkward, especially when you’re not ready to be done.  You thought the conversation was going really well, and now you doubt yourself, wondering if they don’t think you are worth their time, or if you said something offensive, or maybe they don’t like you as much as you like them.  Likewise, you don’t want to be the one caught looking at your watch because you don’t want to offend the person you’re talking to. 

Now imagine you’re talking to God, and you look at your watch.  Of course God is going to see you looking at your watch.  And you will have just sent an obvious message “I want to be done with this conversation, God.”  Yet if we’re honest, we sometimes want to be done with a prayer time.  Have you ever been listening to someone pray, whether in church or before a meal, and you felt that tension of wanting the person praying to hurry it up so the prayer time could be done?  Some people pray super long prayers, and you want to track with them and pray in agreement with them as they are praying, but you are also struggling, wanting it to be done.  It is a tension.

There I was praying by myself, and I eventually got to the point that I felt was a long enough time that I was in the clear to check my watch without being offensive to God.  I glanced at my watch, and I was flabbergasted by what I saw.  Do you think 30 minutes went by?  No.  40 minutes?  No.  Only five minutes went by!  How could that be? It seemed I had been praying far longer than that. 

What I learned is that just as improving at human communication takes time and practice, so learning to pray in the Spirit takes time and practice.  But know this: praying long prayers does not guarantee that you will have prayed in the Spirit.  Praying in the Spirit is about heart posture, about acknowledging God with you and in you.  It might take time to practice praying in the Spirit like that.

Little by little as the days and weeks went by in that Prayer class, I learned I could pray longer and longer.  In other words, I learned I could increase communication with God, but it took practice.  Very much like just about anything that we want to learn and improve.  You want to do 50 pushups in a row?  Starting January 1, do pushups every day and add one per week.  By the end of the year, you’ll be able to do 50 pushups.  Prayer is no different.  We can practice praying longer.

One suggestion to increasing how long you pray is using prayer lists.  Paul says in Ephesians 6:18-20 that he wants the people to pray for him so that he might declare the good news of the Gospel.  Pray for people.  Pray for all the people in your life.  Pray for missionaries.  Make a list and pray for people.

But more than praying through lists, we were built to commune with God, and we’ll talk about praying in the Spirit that is communing with God. 

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To-Do Lists and…Praying in the Spirit, Part 1

There was a husband and wife who were having marital difficulties.  One of the spouses would wake up in the morning, lean over to their spouse and start listing what they wanted the spouse to do that day.  The list wouldn’t take long to recite.  Maybe five minutes at most.  Some days less.  Some days they would forget, and just go about their day.  But if they didn’t forget the list, after they finished the list, they would say, “Ok, Good talk,” and then start their day, never again talking with the spouse.  But they were committed to that morning list.  Most days. Thus when they inevitably went to marital counseling, they said in all seriousness to the counselor, “But I talk with my spouse every day.  Well…most days.” 

This marriage would not survive long, would it?  Obviously not.  But I’m not talking about marriage.  I talking about prayer. 

In this our final week in the Armor of God blog series, we look at Ephesians 6:18-20, and it’s all about prayer.  After telling us to stand firm by putting on the full armor of God, and then after describing each piece of the armor, now Paul has one more important instruction for us in the spiritual battle we all face.  He writes,

“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.”

That first phrase, “pray in the Spirit,” is curious.  How do we pray “in the Spirit”?

Paul has already said earlier in this letter in Ephesians 5:18 that we need to be filled with the Spirit.  But he leaves room open for precisely how we are filled with the Spirit or how we pray in the Spirit.  Is it something that you can make happen, like turning on a light switch on the wall?  Paul doesn’t quite tell us.  It’s almost as if he assumes that the readers of the letter already know what praying in the Spirit means, so he doesn’t have to explain it again.  I’m thinking, “I wish you would explain it again, Paul.” 

Clearly Paul wants the readers of the letter to have a close association with the Spirit.  He does not want us pray without the Spirit.  When we pray, the Spirit is to be involved, and we have a responsibility to welcome the Spirit into our time of prayer.  We know that the Spirit lives with us.  Paul wrote that previously in 1st Corinthians, when he says in 6:19-20, that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, so honor God with your body. 

I think what he is getting at here is a posture of heart and mind, such that we not only intellectually know that the Spirit is with us, but we also invite and welcome the Spirit in conversation.  It is one thing to say, “It is a theological fact that the Holy Spirit lives in us.”  It is quite another thing to say, “Holy Spirit, I welcome you in this conversation.  How are you doing, Spirit?  What is on your mind?  Speak to me, and I will listen. Convict me of the things I need correction for.”

Acknowledge the Spirit, the other reality that is going on beyond what is visible.  As we’ve seen over the past few months, the Armor of God teaching has heavily emphasized dependence on God as we battle temptation and the pressures of the world, the flesh and the devil.  Praying in the Spirit involves dependence on God, a posture of heart and mind that recognizes the strength is not in us. 

In the Lord’s Prayer, for example, we pray “Let us not into temptation, but deliver from evil.”  When we pray a prayer like that, or even when we recite that specific prayer, we acknowledge our awareness of the presence of God’s Spirit alive in with us and in us.  We are crying out, “Help!”

Paul wants us to have that kind of receptive, welcoming approach to praying in the Spirit. 

But perhaps you might not be accustomed to that kind of prayer. In the next post we’ll learn more about how to prayer in the Spirit.

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Why I don’t like the phrase “Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us” – Praying in the Spirit, Preview

Have you ever heard that phrase, “Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us”? Frankly, I don’t like that quote.  Well, to be precise, I don’t think the quote is nuanced enough.

The quote is attributed to Danish Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), whose work I generally appreciate, that is, when I understand it, which is not always the case.  Kierkegaard wrote, “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”

To that, I say both true and false.  It seems to me that prayer may or may not change us, and it may or may not change God.  I suspect most people agree that prayer may or may not change us, depending on our heart posture when we pray.  If we are humble and teachable, then perhaps our time of prayer might shape us.   What I wonder, however, is what most people think about my claim above that prayer may or may not change God.

Kierkegaard said “the function of prayer is not to influence God.”  I disagree.  I think many of us, when we pray, are doing precisely the opposite of what Kierkegaard states.  When we pray, we are trying to influence God.  We want God to give us what we want.  That’s why we’re praying in the first place.  That’s not always why we’re praying, but it is often why we’re praying.  We call that kind of prayer, supplication.  In supplication, we are asking God to give us something.  We want to influence God, and we believe he can be influenced.

I don’t know enough about Kierkegaard to surmise why he felt that the purpose of prayer was not to influence God.  Maybe he had a deterministic streak in him, which means that he believed that the future is determined, God knows what the future will be, so it is irrational to pray supplicational prayers in which we attempt to influence God in any way. In other words, some people believe it is impossible for prayer to change anything, because everything is already determined.  But maybe Kierkegaard was trying to help Christians think about their own hearts and minds, and not view God as some kind of divine Santa Claus who we send our wish lists to.  If so, I would agree that.

I conclude that the phrase “prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us,” is not nuanced enough for me because I see a very different description of God and of prayer in the Bible.  That description of God and of prayer is what we are going to study this week in the final sermon in the Armor of God series.  In Ephesians 6:18-20, Paul teaches about prayer, and how vital prayer is to spiritual warfare.  Prayer matters. But how?  We’ll talk about it next week.

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You can have victory over temptation – Sword of the Spirit, Part 5

I started this week talking about Tolstoy’s short story, How Much Land Does a Man Need. Read that post here. The main character of the story, Pahom, is hiking around land for sale. As he hikes, he stakes out the land. He has from sunup till sundown to make it back to his starting stake, and everything inside his circle of stakes he will be able to purchase very inexpensively. Pahom stakes out a huge tract of land.  But he had gone so far out, that after a long day of walking many miles, he needed to run the last few miles to make it back in time. He had to overexert himself. 

As he made it back to the starting stake, with the sun going down, he reached his hand out, touched the stake, and fell on the ground.  Not just from exhaustion.  He fell on the ground not in joy, not in relief, not in excitement.  He fell dead of a heart attack.  

In the end the only land he received was that space needed to bury him. Temptation buried him.  But temptation does not need to bury us.

As we have seen this week in the story of Jesus’ battle with Satan from Luke 4, we can fight temptation with the Word of God, and we can fight it by depending on the Spirit to fill that emptiness. 

Jesus shows his deep inner contentment when demonstrates that he knows, trusts in and employs the Word of God. Jesus is not using the Word of God like a magic spell, but as truth he chose to understand and put into practice in his life.  It brought him strength and victory because it was a reminder of truth, of his purpose. 

Like the Helmet of Salvation, remember you are saved for a purpose.  Jesus could have used his own power to defeat Satan’s temptations, but instead he is an example for us as to how we can rely on God’s Word. If we defeat temptation by relying on God’s word, it will not be on our own power. 

That’s why it is vital to know the Word. Know the heart of God that flows through his Word. Then we will see that victory over temptation is possible. 

Jesus shows us the way.  This passage magnifies Jesus.  Look at how he defeats Satan!  I think we should read this passage with exuberant joy for the victory we see here, and for the victory that is possible in our lives. 

It reminds me of a soccer game my freshman year of college.  I was on a very good soccer team that year.  I recently reviewed stats about the entire program history of my college men’s soccer team, and that year, 1992, my freshman year team, which went to the National Tournament, still holds the school record for most goals in a single season with 87. 

That year I’ll never forget we played a non-league game against Washington College, a NCAA Division 3 school located on Maryland’s eastern shore.  We were not an NCAA Division 3 team.  We were in a much lower Christian college division.  So this was a big deal to be playing an NCAA Division 3 school.

The game was a fight, and in the end we won 3-2.  As the game finished, many of the team and the coach were pointing out all the ways we should have won more convincingly and how it shouldn’t have been so close.  It was a somber attitude on the sideline during our end-of-game meeting.  It didn’t feel like a win.

I, however, was ecstatic.  We had just beaten a Division 3 school!  Not their JV squad.  We beat their varsity squad!  I looked at one of the older players, and it turns out we were thinking the same thing.  We started jumping and high-fiving realizing the significance of this.  We won!

In the same way, Jesus won!  He defeated Satan soundly with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.  Jesus shows us there is hope for our victory over temptation as well. 

What areas are you struggling in?  How can you study God’s Word and his heart and the actions of Jesus that relate to the area you are struggling in?  Share your struggle with someone.  Ask them to memorize Scripture with you.  When I was in college, a friend of mine memorized a packet of topical verses together.  We met once per week and would recite them, adding one verse per week.  I was amazed at how God’s Word filled my mind throughout the week, and how what I was memorizing related to my life so frequently. 

Make these words, these ideas, these ways of Jesus, a more focused activity of your life.  Stand in victory with Jesus, wielding the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

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How to use scripture to fight temptation – Sword of the Spirit, Part 4

I believe we need to have a balanced approach to studying the Word.  We need community study where we can study and discuss it together.  We need Sundays where we hear the word from preachers and teachers.  And we need personal study.

Psalm 119:9-11, for example, says, “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

Is there a certain area of your life where you are regularly tempted?  Create a game plan to attack the temptation when it arises.  Step 1 – choose a small portion that addresses the temptation.  Step 2 – memorize it.  Step 3 – Review it over and over.  Have it ready to go. Step 4 – Employ it against temptation.  When you do, do not think of it as a spell that magically rescues you.  Instead think about the word of God, meditate on it.  Look for ways might have addressed it.  Look for ways other Christians have victory in this area.

Let me give you a couple examples:

Do you struggle with speaking out of anger?  Hurt others with your words?  What are some scripture verses you could memorize that specifically address anger?  So that when you are feeling that desire, that temptation within you to be angry, you can go back to that Scripture, quote it, and fight temptation?  How about 1 Peter 3:8? “Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.”

Do you struggle with lust? Pornography? How about Philippians 4:8? “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

How about gossip? Slander? Talking about other people makes us feel better about ourselves?  Proverbs has a bunch.  How about Proverbs 11:13? “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret.”

Is jealousy strong in you?  Discontentment?  Manifest itself with overspending?  How about Hebrews 13:5? “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’”

But know this, quoting Scripture like Jesus did is not a Harry Potter magic spell that wipes out the temptation and makes life easy. 

It can take practice.  You will likely fail sometimes. The temptation can be strong. The temptation might be within you (flesh, pride of life, lust of eyes).  You may be fighting yourself.  You might be fighting a tough battle that may go on and on multiple times over multiple days, months and years.

Keep fighting.

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What we can learn from Jesus’ battle with Satan – Sword of the Spirit, Part 3

Temptations pull at me.  I struggle with the empty self.  It is very easy to desire a new car to replace our 2010.  It often feel discontent about my car. But that car continues to get me around.  It is super difficult to know when the right time is to pull the plug and get a new vehicle.  I don’t know the answer to that.  What I do know is that that car regularly reminds me of my struggle with contentment. 

When we are tempted it is not exactly like what Jesus encountered, because Satan doesn’t actually walk up to us.  I’m talking about the story in Luke 4. Though Satan might not manifest himself to us, the temptation we experience is still very real temptation.  The emptiness within us can be powerful.  We can want to fill that emptiness with food, sex, clothing, videos, money, experiences, or addictive substances.

That’s exactly what Satan was hoping to attack in Jesus. Jesus’ human side.  Look at the first temptation in Luke 4, verse 3, “The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.’”

We know Jesus was hungry.  You know how you feel when you skip a couple meals.  In reading accounts of people who have been shipwrecked, for example, and they have to survive in the wild, they talk about extreme hunger.  They fantasize about eating shoe leather.  Anything.  The hunger is deep. But Jesus has been fasting for 40 days!

Jesus is faced with a powerful temptation to use his supernatural abilities and not just live in his humanity, depending on God.  But he chooses to counter the temptation with truth.  Jesus was content with God alone, content to serve the mission God had given him, and no temptation was going to sway him.  Dependent on the Spirit, he pulls out the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, to resist temptation.  Look at verse 4, “Jesus answered, ‘It is written: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”’”  What a great verse about the power of the word of God!  

Jesus who was the Word, knew the word of God, and he employed it to his advantage.  He is quoting Deuteronomy 8, verse 3.  He slashes the temptation with the truth of God’s word.

Satan keeps trying.  Look at verses 5-7, “The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.’”

Satan powerfully directs this next temptation at a different kind of hunger Jesus felt.  The hunger for position and power.  Jesus knows he has ultimate power, and he can easily put Satan in his place.  But those temptations are strong.  They latch on to our empty selves and attempt to deceive us into believing we need power, that we need others to know we have that power, and that we can do a better job than those currently in power, and we deserve to be in power. 

Jesus again pulls out the Sword of the Spirit and destroys this second temptation with the truth of the Word of God.  He says, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”  That’s another verse from Deuteronomy. 

Jesus knew the Word!

Guess what?  So does the Devil.  What the Devil does next is genius.  Look at verses 9-11.

“The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down from here. For it is written: “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”’”

Now the devil says, “Ok, you want to use the Sword of the Spirit? Two can play at that game.”  It’s a sword fight!  And the Devil whips out Psalm 91. 

The Devil is prodding Jesus’ humanity, trying to poke at the empty self that all the rest of us humans have. In this third temptation he attacks our innate human desire for legitimacy.  “Are you who you say you are, Jesus?  Or are you a fraud?”  We want to be respected, known as legit, as substantive, as smart or funny or capable or responsible.  For most of us, the empty self tells us we are never good enough, never going to match up. 

But Jesus isn’t like the rest of us.  He has no empty self.  He knows who he is.  He understands his mission.  He knows his mission might not be easy.  He knows he will never complete his mission by accepting Satan’s offer to complete the mission with ease.

Jesus counters Satan’s blow with more Scripture in verse 12: “Jesus answered, ‘It is said: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”.’” 

You know what I love about this answer?  It’s almost as if Jesus is saying, “Okay Lucifer, you know that Scriptures, I’ll grant you that.  But I’m going to take you down with one book of the Bible.  All I need is one.” Jesus in all three of his Scripture quotations has not left the book of Deuteronomy. 

Jesus, the Word of God, was passionately committed to study the Word of God in the Scriptures. By studying them, he understood what they meant, what their context was, and the heart behind them.  Jesus defeats temptation with the truth of the Scriptures.  Have you given yourself to a passionate commitment to know the Word of God?

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What is the Word of God? – Sword of the Spirit, Part 2

Typically we Christians equate the word of God with the Bible.  And we Christians do believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, as Paul writes to his young ministry partner Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is God-breathed.”  Certainly, God has communicated his word in other ways as well.  We read in John chapter 1 that Jesus is the Word.  That doesn’t mean Jesus is the Bible.  Jesus is far more than the Bible.  Jesus is God who took on a human body, and in Jesus’ life example and teachings, we can view “read” the word of God so clearly.  Also the Spirit of God still speaks.  But we certainly emphasize that is through the Bible we can hear the Word of God. 

The writer of Hebrews tells us that “The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

That verse gives us a very visual image of the offensive power of the Word.  It’s like a scalpel that God uses to do soul surgery on the innermost parts of our lives. 

Sword. Scalpel.  The writers of the New Testament really liked to use the imagery of sharp blades to describe the Word of God.  How then do we use the powerful sharpness of the Word of God to defeat discontentment and temptation? (Which we talked about in the previous post.)  We need to learn from the master.  

It probably comes as no surprise when I say that Jesus, who was the Word of God, was also very knowledgeable about the Bible, which in his day was only the Hebrew Bible, which we call the Old Testament. 

Open a Bible to Luke chapter 4, verse 1. As we think about how the Word of God is a powerful weapon to help us fight discontentment and defeat temptation, what we will read in Luke is that Jesus was at a place in his life where he had every reason to be discontent. And Satan knew it. Satan knows when we are discontent. In that moment he can strike with a temptation that is strong, attacking our weakness.  Satan lashes out at Jesus.  How will Jesus respond?

At this point in the story of Jesus, he is only beginning his ministry years.  Jesus has just been baptized by John.  You would think Jesus would take over the reins of the ministry from John and start preaching to the crowds right there.  But no, Luke tells us Jesus went away all by himself.  We read this in verses 1-2,

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.”

40 days!  And he ate nothing.  When is the last time you went 40 hours without food, let alone 40 days.  In the desert?  Yet it seems the main purpose of Jesus’ time in the desert was to be alone and depend on God.  Jesus experienced his humanness, depending on God for supernatural care, and thus Jesus could fully feel his humanity.

Based on the end of the verse, it seems best to understand the focused temptation as happening at the end of the 40 days, when he was very hungry.

When we read that, we might assume that Jesus is extremely weakened.  Yet Dallas Willard says that Jesus is, if anything, at a place strength.  Strength?  How so?  Think about what Jesus has been doing for 40 days?  Jesus has spent 40 days with God, depending on God, Jesus is practicing spiritual disciplines.  Spiritual disciplines are habits, practices, training for the spiritual life.  During those 40 days in the desert, Jesus is practicing solitude, fasting, and thinking about Scripture.  Though they aren’t stated, he would have had lots of time for silent meditation and lots of prayer. 

But then at the end, the devil shows us to tempt Jesus. 

I wonder if, for Satan, this situation is new.  God in human flesh.  This IS very new.  He has never encountered God in the flesh. Yet, Satan has had, and continues to have in our day, victories over humans.  It happens all the time.  Here before him is what appears to be a human.  I wonder if he was testing the human side of Jesus.   

Satan gives it a try.  A very persuasive try.

In the next post we’ll learn how Satan attempts to tempt Jesus and how Jesus reacts!

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Why is temptation so powerful? – Sword of the Spirit, Part 1

Have you heard of the short story How Much Land Does a Man Need? by famed Russian author Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)? Tolstoy is famous for his mammoth works like Anna Karenina or War and Peace, as well as for his desire to live out Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. But How Much Land Does a Man Need is a very short story. James Joyce called it the greatest short story of all time.

In the story Tolstoy tells the tale of a peasant, Pahom, who progressively desires and gets more and more land. Each time he is excited about the new land thinking it will give him the kind of life he yearns for. But as time goes by, even as he does well for himself, each time he gets more land, he soon grows discontent with it. He wants more. Eventually Pahom finds out about some well-landed people who are willing to sell land cheap. One ruble per acre! So he travels to them, bearing gifts to impress them.  They love the gifts, and he says he is interested in purchasing land.  They like him and are willing to sell at the very cheap price he heard about, but they will only sell the land in a most unusual deal.

They give him the opportunity to purchase a parcel of land based on how far he can walk in one day. It is very simple. He has from sunup to sundown to walk as far as he wants, stake out the land, but he must return to his starting point by sundown. Sounds great, right?

There’s a catch. If he does not return to the spot of departure by sundown, he loses his money and the land.  Pahom is delighted!  So off he goes excitedly thinking he is going to get a steal. It should be very easy to get more land than he ever dreamed of.

I think about when I ran marathons around the city of Baltimore. I took me about four hours. You can cover a lot of ground in four hours.  You’re totally exhausted, but you’ve covered a lot of ground.  How broad an area do you think you could cover from sunup to sundown?  Ten square miles?  More? Less?

How do you think Pahom did? Think he went out too far didn’t make it back? Good guess. You’re close, but you’re wrong. He actually made it back. And in time.

Remember that what brought him to this amazing deal was a spirit of discontent that took root in his life.  Because of that, I think you will be surprised to hear the end of the story.

We are all tempted by many things. For Pahom it was more land and the promise of an easy life.  What is it about our inner desire that gives temptation its power?

Is temptation powerful in and of itself? No. Temptation is powerful because of something inside us. Some psychologists call this the empty self. We have an emptiness within us, and we long to fill it. We sometimes have an inner discontent. When we are discontent, it can be exceedingly difficult to defeat temptation.  But God gives us a powerful weapon to fight discontentment and defeat temptation. 

In our current blog series, we have been talking about the battle we all fight against temptation.  To be victorious against the temptation of the world, temptation from Satan, and sometimes temptation from within our own bodies, the apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 6:10-20 that we need to put on the full armor of God.  For the most part the armor is defensive, protective.  But this we examine an offensive weapon, what Paul titles, “The Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”  The Word of God is the powerful weapon to help us fight discontentment and defeat temptation.

In the next post, we’ll learn how.

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Sword drills in Sunday School class? – Sword of the Spirit, Preview

Did you participate in sword drills as a child in church? Yes, in church. But I’m not talking about swords with metal blades.  When I was growing up in children and youth Sunday School classes, we had sword drills with our Bibles. No, we didn’t slam each other with Bibles.  Here’s how sword drills worked:

All the students in the class would sit in their chairs with their Bible closed on their laps, and their hands at their sides or folded.  You were not allowed, yet, to touch your Bible.  The teacher would start the drill by calling out a scripture reference.  Book, chapter and verse.  Then the teacher would wait a second or two as we students were shaking with anticipation.  Why were we shaking?  Because as soon as the teacher said, “Go!” we were allowed to open our Bibles and frantically search for the reference.  You could hear pages ruffling and crinkling as we feverishly wracked out brains to remember the order of the 66 books of the Bible.  The first person who found the reference would shoot up out of their seat and start reading it.

Sometimes it was an everyone-for-themselves sword drill.  Sometimes it was girls versus boys.  Whoever found the verse first earned a point for themselves or their team.  I remember so deeply wanting to be first to find references.  We Americans can make a competition out of anything, can’t we?

I wonder if sword drills are still a thing.  Maybe you’re wondering, “Hold on a minute, Joel. Those Bible sword drills sound like a fun way for kids to learn the books of the Bible, but what is the connection between Bibles and swords?  Isn’t that a bit odd?  Didn’t Jesus tell Peter to put away his sword?”

Yes, Jesus did tell Peter to put away his sword, after Peter had cut off the high priest’s servants’ ear there in the garden as the people took Jesus into custody. There is no doubt in Christian theology that the church is never to take up arms in its pursuit of the mission of Jesus.  Yet there is a teaching that connects the Bible to swords.  That teaching is in the Armor of God passage that we have been studying for the past few months.  This coming week on the blog, I investigate the next piece of the armor, the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

How is the Bible like a sword?  Join me back here on the blog next week as we talk about it.

Photo by Casper Johansson on Unsplash

How to protect your mind – Helmet of Salvation, Part 5

There’s one more facet to the Helmet of Salvation.  Helmets protects the vital organs in our heads.  Primarily our brains, our minds, our thoughts.  Like wise, when we are saved in Christ, we have powerful truths protecting our minds. 

We humans can be pretty tough on ourselves and others, and that cruelty starts in our minds.  We humans can also believe lies about ourselves.  That we are flawed, that we are hopeless, that we are damaged goods, that we are not capable, and a whole host of other lies.  We can really struggle.  But salvation reminds us that we are loved, that God reaches out to us in Jesus, who became one of us, to rescue us. 

This is why Paul writes in Romans 12:1-2, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” 

Salvation helps us renew our minds because we are loved by God. When he saves us he gives us gifts Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

Dwell on the fact that God loves us, that he saves us for his mission to share that love with others, and that he gives us unique gifts to help us fulfill that mission.  God created you to do all of this, alongside others.  Paul also writes, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”  What wonderful news! 

From that foundation, we move toward mission, toward purpose, using our gifts and talents for him, wherever you happen to be in this life.  This is a heart posture, the Helmet of Salvation is for now, no matter if you are in school, working a job you love, or working a job you’re just doing to make ends meet.  No matter if you are retired, raising a family, or single.  You have purpose and can be on mission.  You are saved for that mission.

That brings us back to the renewing of the mind that salvation sets in motion.  The reality of God’s love for you that sets you on mission is the truth that helps us fight the devil’s schemes of discouragement, doubt and bitterness.  You put on the Helmet of Salvation and remember you are saved for mission. God is with you, he loves you, and he has gifted you for mission.  He has placed you in a community here to support you and work together with you. 

Who can you talk with about how you might grow in this area?  How can you look around at your current circumstances and see them as part of your mission and purpose?

Photo by Uday Mittal on Unsplash