Category: Quotes

On Prayer: The Chief Exercise of Faith

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals, Quotes5 Comments

Over the years I’ve found much of what I’ve read about prayer to be unhelpful. Here’s why: Prayer is usually considered under the heading of ‘spiritual disciplines’ which makes it the spiritual equivalent of running on a treadmill or flossing your teeth, neither of which are attractive to me. Viewing prayer purely as a discipline drags the whole business back into the world of law, and law can never impart life.

I awakened to this when I discovered a description of prayer that warmed my heart with a fresh desire to pray. Calvin describes prayer as

“the chief exercise of faith by which we daily receive God’s benefits.”

Then he offers this compelling picture:

“We dig up by prayer the treasures that were pointed out by the Lord’s gospel, and which our faith has gazed upon.”

Imagine walking over a field where vast treasure lies buried. To make these riches your own, you need two things: a map and a spade. Scripture is your map, and prayer is your spade.

I find this picture helpful because it delivers prayers from the austere world of law and discipline and brings it into the realm of the gospel and promise, where it belongs. Prayer is more than a duty to be fulfilled; it is a gift to be enjoyed. There is a world of difference between ‘having your quiet time’ as a spiritual discipline and drawing near to God to possess what He promises to you in Christ.

Since prayer is “the chief exercise of faith by which we daily receive God’s benefits,” it follows that the primary gifts you will receive go far beyond ‘answers’ to items or needs on your prayer list. Prayer is the means by which you lay hold of all that God has promised in your own life and in the lives of others for whom you pray.

Question for Reflection

  1. What do you think about prayer?

Resources

Colin Smith, Jonah: Navigating a God-centered Life, 62-63.

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On Total Surrender

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals, QuotesLeave a comment

You don’t follow Jesus like you follow someone on Twitter, where you are free to take or leave their thoughts at your leisure. Following Jesus is not letting Him come into your life to be an influence, even if it’s a significant influence. Following Jesus means submitting to Him in all areas at all times regardless of whether you agree with what he says or not.

Questions for Reflection

  1. Do you agree with Greear?
  2. Have you fully surrendered your life to Jesus?

Resources

J.D. Greear, Stop asking Jesus into your heart, 81.

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On Sermon Preparation

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Pastoral, Preaching, Quotes1 Comment

So it comes to this. The preparation of sermons involves sweat and labour. It can be extremely difficult at times to get all this matter that you have found in the Scriptures into this particular form.

It is like a potter fashioning something out of the clay, or like a blacksmith making shoes for a horse; you have to keep on putting the material into the fire and on to the anvil and hit it again and again with the hammer.

Each time it is a bit better, but not quite right; so you put it back again and again until you are satisfied with it or can do no better. This is the most grueling part of the preparation of a sermon; but at the same time it is a most fascinating and a most glorious occupation.

It can be at times most difficult, most exhausting, most trying. But at the same time I can assure you that when you have finally succeeded you will experience one of the most glorious feeling that ever comes to a man on the face of this earth.

To borrow the title of a book by Arthur Koestler, you will be conscious of having performed an ‘Act of Creation’, and you will have some dim understanding of what the Scripture means which tells us that when God looked at the world He had created He saw that ‘it was good’.

Questions for Reflection

  1. How do you feel about your own sermon preparation?

Resources

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 90.

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On The Common Beliefs of Teenage Americans

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Pastoral, Practical, Quotes2 Comments

Christian Smith, professor of sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame, oversees a continuing studying of the religious beliefs of teenagers called the National Study of Youth and Religion. After interviewing hundreds of teens about religion, God, faith, prayer, and other spiritual practices, Smith and his colleagues have identified the common beliefs that the average teenager holds:

The Common Beliefs of the Average Teenager

  1. A God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.
  2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
  3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
  4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
  5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

Smith has termed this system of beliefs “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” (MTD). He clarifies that MTD is not an official religion but that it is simply a colonizing of many established religious traditions and congregations in the United States. The implication of all this is that the philosophies of MTD are dominating our churches, pulpits, books, and counseling and coaching sessions.

Question for Reflection

  1. Do you agree with Smith’s list?

Resources

Scott Thomas and Tom Wood, Gospel Coach: Shepherding Leaders to Glorify God, 40-41.

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Looks are Deceiving

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals, Quotes5 Comments

While reading for an upcoming sermon over Matthew 23, I came across the following application to the two woes pronounced on the scribes and Pharisees in verses 25-28 that challenge our current model of and participation in church.

Looks are Deceiving

Avoid looking pious while living lives of greedy self-indulgence. The fifth and sixth woes describe a life of hypocrisy and typify much of Western Christianity, building huge luxurious churches whose members on Sunday look worshipful while they live lives of extravagance.

The members live above their means, yet give little to God in terms of both time and money. It has been estimated that only 25 to 30 percent of the average [members in an] evangelical church are actually involved in that church’s ministry. The rest attend regularly but live self-centered lives.

There are only two possible destinies for them: to squeak into heaven “as one escaping through the flames” (1 Cor 3:12–15) or to have Christ say, “I never knew you” (Matt 7:21–23). It is a terrible thing to play games with one’s eternal destiny!

Question for Reflection

  1. What in your mind is worship? Is worship attending service? Serving God? Or a mixture of both?

Resource

Grant R. Osborne, Matthew, vol. 1, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 859.

On Personal Bondage

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals, Quotes2 Comments

At its most basic level the Bible teaches that bondage to sin is deeply personal. It is not only a cosmic or social reality that exists “out there,” but also an inward imprisonment. As Jesus declares, “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg explored the implications of this text in a way that might surprise our democratic ears:

There is no natural freedom [according to the Bible], and making choices does not yet guarantee our freedom. In John 8, we have this conversation between Jesus and his Jewish partners who are proud of being freeborn and not slaves. Jesus tells them, “If you sin, you are a slave. You will be free when the Son makes you free.”

Pannenberg goes on to explain:

Christian proclamation should have criticized the Western ideology of freedom by telling the public that having choices doesn’t mean freedom. The alcohol-addicted person or the drug-addicted person is also making choices. The problem is that he or she always makes the same choice – to take the drug or drink the bottle – again and again. Having choices doesn’t yet guarantee freedom.

Even though we don’t sense that our freedom has been compromised, Jesus said that it has. Under sin’s dominion this virus affects everything we do. In fact, it affect every aspect of who we are.

Questions for Reflection

  1. Do you believe Pannenberg that having choices doesn’t yet guarantee freedom?
  2. Do you believe sin not only affects what we do, but also who we are? If so, how does that affect our surroundings and what we believe ourselves to be?

Resources

Kelly Kapic, God So Loved, He Gave, 37.

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