Will Davis Jr.'s Blog, page 33

Bible Mining 101

Here’s this week’s entry from Pray Big for Your Life.

You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to effectively pray God’s Word. In fact, all you need is the simple, childlike faith that God really will speak to you through the Scriptures and a system that gets you in the pages of the Bible on a regular basis. Here are a few suggestions for making reading and praying the Bible a regular part of your life. They represent the system I’ve used since the early 1990s, but they’re not inspired. Don’t be legalistic or rigid with them. Use them as guidelines. The more time you spend with God in his Word the more you’ll begin to discover your own system for mining its treasures.

Have a regular time for prayer. If you delay your daily praying until you have time for it, it won’t happen. Prayer needs to be as important in your routine as eating, sleeping and personal hygiene. Set a time to meet with God—5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever—and then be ruthless about protecting it.

I read and pray in the morning. I’m able to protect my calendar, so I rarely schedule anything that might keep me from having my early prayer time. Occasionally, when I’ve had a particularly hard day and need some extra prayer, I’ll throw in another few minutes at night.

There’s no right or wrong time for prayer. Do what works best for you. Just be faithful to pray every day. That’s the point.

Have a regular place. If possible, have a specific place where you meet with God. It could be at your kitchen table with a hot cup of coffee, in a cozy chair in your living room, or at an office desk. But when it comes to prayer, familiarity breeds intimacy. You don’t want new sights, sounds and settings distracting you from your conversation with God. As best you can make it, you want your place of prayer to be protected and free from interruptions.

Give yourself some grace on this one. You’re not always going to be able to have interruption-free times of prayer. Phones are going to ring; delivery men are going to knock on your door; babies are going to cry and children, spouses or roommates are going to demand your attention. Be patient with them and trust that God won’t check out even if you have to for a few minutes.

Have a regular system. I believe that it’s good to know in advance where you’re going to read in the Bible. The 66 books of the Bible offer literally countless pinpoint prayers that we can be praying for ourselves and our loved ones. If you can, you want to have a reading plan that gets you all the way through the Bible in a year. But don’t force it. Be open to the Spirit’s guidance on what to read.

I read from two different Bible translations in my prayer times, and I read different sections of the Bible in each of those translations. I try to read through the Bible at least once a year, if not more frequently. That works for me, but do what’s best for you. I also read and pray through part of the Psalms every day. I have found the book of Psalms to be my best source for pinpoint prayers, so I typically pray through a few chapters of it each day. When I finish the last chapter, Psalm 150, I just take my bookmark and put it back on Psalm 1 so I can start over the next day. Praying the Psalms never gets old. My life and the lives of those I love have been greatly impacted because of the powerful pinpoint prayers I’ve been able to pray from the Psalms.

When you read, look for statements that say what you want to be true in your life. This is the most important part of finding pinpoint prayers in the Bible. You have to read with your spiritual eyes open. As you read through the verses of a particular chapter, don’t be in a hurry. The goal is not to just get to the end. You’re looking for treasure. You’re looking for verses that jump off the page at you. You’re looking for promises that connect with your passions.

As you read, listen for the gentle nudge of God’s Holy Spirit. Ask him to speak to you through the text. Occasionally you’ll hear him say, “I want to do this in you,” or “You need to pray this verse for your life.” When you sense that leading about a particular verse, you’ve just discovered one of your very own pinpoint promises. Right then, stop and write your initials next to that verse. Then, every time you read that chapter or open your Bible to that page, you’ll be reminded to pray God’s Word back to him. You’ll be reminded to ask God to do in you what his Word says.

Let me give you an example. This morning, in my own prayer time, I was reading through Psalm 91 in the New International Version. As I was reading and trying to listen to God’s Spirit, verse 15 hit me particularly hard. It says, “He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.” I immediately wanted to start praying that verse for my life.

I’m in a season right now where I really need my prayers to be focused and pointed before God. I desperately need to know that God hears me, that he will answer me, and that he will protect me in times of trouble. I’m not so concerned about the “honor” part, but I would be thrilled if God would honor his name through me. I took my pen and wrote my initials (WDD) next to that verse in my Bible. Now, whenever I read Psalm 91, I’ll be reminded to ask God to hear me, to answer me and to be with me in trouble. I’ll remember the particular season in my life when I needed assurance that God was hearing my prayers, and that he gently whispered to me through some 3000-year-old words that he was.

In my Bible, I have literally hundreds of verses marked with the initials of my wife and kids, my church, my hometown and our country. My Bible has become more than my prayer guide; it’s my prayer script. I never have to worry about what I’m going to say to God about a certain subject. The answer is always right there in his Word.

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Seeing the Kingdom

Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again

he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3

The Kingdom of God is all around us. No matter where you are in the world, the Kingdom is there. It’s here with me now, and it’s there with you.

Seeing the Kingdom however, can be a bit of a challenge. Sin, weariness, our own personal distractions and the obvious headlines that tell us the Kingdom isn’t here—all those things work together to blot out our vision of God’s Kingdom.

But it’s there nonetheless, and we need to learn to see it.

Jesus told Nicodemus there was one major requirement for seeing his Kingdom—being born again.

I used to think that Jesus meant Heaven—that the only way to see Heaven (God’s Kingdom) was to be born again. That’s certainly true.

But Jesus meant more than that. Jesus also meant that when we’re born again we gain a different set of eyes, we get a different kind of vision. In other words, we can see the Kingdom.

In the same way that putting on night vision goggles allows soldiers to see in the dark, being born again allows us to see God’s Kingdom through the darkness of this world.

Are you born again? Do you have a relationship with Jesus? Then you can see his Kingdom. Look around. Learn to spot the signs of God’s Kingdom around you. They’re everywhere. And once you start to see them it will forever change the way you live.

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Latter Glory

 

“The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,” says the LORD of hosts. Haggai 2:9

The house the prophet speaks of is the Temple in Jerusalem. The original had been Solomon’s gorgeous, massive and amazing Temple he built under his father, King David’s, instructions.

That Temple was destroyed when Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586 BC. A smaller, much scaled-back version was rebuilt by Zerubbabel and the exiles that returned with him to Jerusalem after the exile.

The priests who remembered the glory of Solomon’s temple wept when they saw this new one. It simply didn’t measure up.

And then Haggai said this—the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former. What did he mean? How could he possible say that? There was no comparing the two buildings. How could the glory of the second Temple ever exceed that of the first?

It’s simple—Jesus walked in the second one. The first Temple, even in all its glory, never saw the footprints of God. But the second one did.

Jesus walked there, taught there, cast out the moneychangers there and lived as the fulfillment of the Law there. That’s greater glory indeed.

The bricks and stones of the first Temple saw feet of Solomon and his priests, but they never saw the feet of Jesus. The second Temple, although much less significant in the eyes of men, did.

The same principle of latter glory of true for us.

When we follow Jesus, whatever we used to be ceases to exist. Whether we were infamous or famous, rich or poor, a somebody or a nobody is no longer relevant. Our former “glory” is gone.

Jesus fills us. Jesus’ Spirit consumes us. We become living Temples of God. And like the second Temple in Jerusalem, our latter glory far outshines whatever we were before.

Because like the second Temple, Jesus is there. Yea God.

 

 

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Born Again

Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is

born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3

Ok, I need to make a point of clarification: some high points are higher than others. Consider Mount Rainer. It stands over 14,000 feet tall and is one of the most recognizable peaks in the continental US. It’s a true high point.

But then consider Denali (a.k.a. Mount McKinley) in Alaska. It soars to over 20,000 feet above sea level and absolutely dwarfs a mountain like Rainer. Both are high points, but one is a really high point. I guess we could say that it is a high point among high points. (Am I getting carried away here?)

Well, this verse is like that. Of all the high points or crescendo moments in John’s Gospel, this is clearly one of the highest. This statement by Jesus is one of the standout moments in all four Gospels. It packs an eternal-truth punch that cannot be ignored. It is absolutely foundational to Christian thinking. What’s it saying?

As only he could, Jesus reduced the realties of eternal life to one simple metaphor: birth. He compared inheriting salvation to birth–but not physical birth, spiritual birth.

Now if that’s confusing, don’t panic. The man to whom Jesus originally spoke these words was a religious leader and thinker, and he didn’t get it at first either.

There may be a gestation or incubation period. That’s the time when God is wooing you and you begin to realize that there’s more to Jesus. You investigate, you pray, you talk to friends and religious leaders, you may even go to church.

That’s where Nicodemus was in his process. He was exploring.

But there always comes a moment where the incubation ends and the Holy Spirit comes crashing into your reality. Jesus called it being “born again,” or born “from above.”

And that’s literally what it is—it’s being birthed from heaven by the Spirit of God. And as the physical birth gives life to you body and soul (your subconscious), spiritual birth gives life to your spirit.

Being born from above or born by the Spirit is something completely beyond our capabilities to manufacture. We simply can’t do it, and for all of Nicodemus’ religious efforts, he was still missing what he needed.

A relationship with God begins in earnest when we are birthed from above by the mighty, loving and filling Holy Spirit. That’s what it means to be born again. And that’s when we’ll begin to see the Kingdom.

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Will’s Letter to ACF, May 13, 2014

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Abstain

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from

fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. 1 Peter 2:11

Rather than giving in to the pull of our flesh, we need to fight it. We need to keep the desire of our minds and our lusts at a distance. Don’t embrace them and don’t flirt with them.

Peter uses the word abstain to describe what we should do with fleshly desires. The word literally means to keep something at arms length.

It’s how you might hold a dead rat that you had to remove from your attic. You wouldn’t cuddle it or hold it close. You’d keep it as far away from you as possible.

And so we should with lusts. Paul tells us that they wage war with our souls. Lust is not your friend. It’s an enemy and it will kill you. So treat it accordingly.

Why should we fight the gravitational pull of sin and lust? Why shouldn’t we just dive headlong into our lusts and let them carry us away?

Simple—we’re strangers and aliens. This world (and its lusts and cravings) is foreign to us. It no longer represents what we’re about, whom we love or what we need. And so we should fight the desire to be engulfed by its pleasures.

Today, as you go about your day, think about the fact that you are an alien here. This world is not your home. Don’t give in to its false promises.

Abstain.

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Amen, Amen

Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you,

unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3

We say Amen at the end of prayers and at the end of statements we agree with. Jesus said Amen at the beginning of his sentences.

The truly, truly phrase used by Jesus to Nicodemus is one of the most common and most significant phrases in John. If you grew up reading the King James Bible, it’s the phrase verily, verily.

The word translated truly or verily is basically the word amen. It means, this is true or this is a truth. Jesus would use this phrase at the beginning of sentences, not to attest to their veracity, but rather to attest to their significance.

It would be like a parent kneeling down, gently grabbing a child by both shoulders and saying, “I want you to listen very carefully to and remember what I’m about to say.”

Or, in today’s language, it would be one of those “You’re gonna want to tweet this” statements.

And John’s Gospel is filled with them.

Question: Were Jesus to look you in the eye and begin a sentence with Truly, truly, what would he say next?

Here’s what I want you to think about the rest of today. Just fill this in:

______________ (your name), truly, truly, I say to you: ______________________________________________________________________________________.

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Finding Buried Treasure

Here’s this week’s entry from Pray Big for Your Life. 

 

Chapter 3

Finding Buried Treasure: Mining God’s Word for Pinpoint Promises

 

In 2007, Willie Joe Wright, Cynthia Wright’s husband of many years, died suddenly and tragically during heart surgery. Cynthia was obviously devastated. After Willie Joe’s funeral, Cynthia took his Bible–he had been a strong Christian and a deacon in their church–along with several other sentimental keepsakes, and set them on a shelf in the garage of their home in West Palm Beach, Florida.

On a Thursday morning in March of 2008, Cynthia left her house earlier than usual to take her granddaughter to her ballet lesson. Not fifteen minutes later, she got a call from a panicked neighbor telling her that her house was engulfed in flames. By the time she got back to her home, it was gone.

Everything had been taken by the flames; everything, that is, except Willie Joe’s Bible. According to police reports, the fire burned the cover off of the Bible, and left it open to a picture of Jesus. The firefighters who worked the scene were so moved by the Bible’s miraculous survival that they took a picture of the Bible amidst the charred ruins and asked Cynthia for permission to hang it in their firehouse.

In the picture, the bright, colorful image of Jesus stands out in vivid contrast to the charred ruins around it. Cynthia knows that God was sending her a message by allowing the Bible to survive. She knows that whatever happens to her—the loss of her life partner or a devastating house fire—God is going to be looking out for her. She’s got his Word on it.[i]

Standing on the Promises

When it comes to surviving the fires of life, the Bible really does offer our best hope and inspiration. When it comes to navigating through the storms of life, the Bible really does provide our best instruction and guidance. And, when it comes to knowing how to pray for ourselves and others, the Bible really is our best prayer script.

King David knew all about the power of God’s Word for guiding him through life. Over a thousand years before Christ, he wrote:

How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word, (Psalm 119:9).
My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word, (Psalm 119:28).
I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes, (Psalm 119:99).
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path, (Psalm 119:105).

It would have been difficult for David to overstate the importance of God’s Word in his life. And remember, David didn’t have a Bible. He had the Law of Moses and some of the early recorded history of Israel. But he didn’t have the fully revealed Word of God and he didn’t have the Holy Spirit living in him and teaching him about what God had said. And yet, David still knew his best guide for his daily life, thoughts and prayers was God’s Word.

What was true for David is even truer for us. We have the complete Old and New Testaments. We know the promises to Israel through the prophets and the hope of sinners given through Christ. We know that God has opened up his family to all people—Gentiles and Jews—who believe in his Son. Christians also have the Holy Spirit living in us. He’s teaching, guiding and praying for us all the time; and, the number one tool the Spirit uses in his work in us is God’s Word.

If you’re looking for the best available resource to add fuel to your prayers for your life, then look no further than the Bible. It’s all you need. In the remainder of this chapter, you’ll learn how to read the Bible, not just for content’s sake, but as a guide to your praying. In the next few pages you’re going to learn how to mine God’s Word for his endless and priceless promises for your life.

 

[i] Bible Survives Devastating Fire, http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/florida/news-article.aspx?storyid=104722

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The Scapegoat

But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make atonement upon it, to send it into the wilderness as the scapegoat. Leviticus 16:10

This verse is part of God’s instructions to Moses about the Day of Atonement. The priests were given careful directions about how and when to appear before God, and how to secure atonement for their own sins and the sins of their people.

The high priest was to come before the Lord with two goats. One was to be killed as a sacrifice and the other was to be designated as a scapegoat.

The priest was instructed to lay his hands on the scapegoat and confess the sins of Israel over it. In this process God would transfer to guilt of the nation, at least symbolically, to the goat. Then he was to take the goat outside the camp and release it into the wilderness and left alone.

Jewish priests repeated this process annually for centuries as part of the Day of Atonement. The imagery is a vivid picture and precursor to what God would do in Jesus.

Jesus was God’s scapegoat.

On the cross, while Jesus was suspended between heaven and earth, God laid on him all the sins of humanity. Jesus, who was inherently innocent, became inherently guilty for us.

He was sent out into the wildness of isolation from God to die alone in our sins. It was a fate worse than any other person in history has ever experienced and one that hasn’t been repeated since.

There’s no need to.

The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! Hebrews 9:13-14

Our sins are forgiven. Our debt to God is paid. Our shame has been removed. Jesus was God’s scapegoat for you and me.

Praise his name.

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A Good Start

Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher;

for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him. John 3:2

Nicodemus didn’t get it exactly right about Jesus, but he was close. And for a guy who could have been very proud and arrogant, Nic got off to a really good start.

Nicodemus didn’t confess Jesus as God’s Son, but he gave him a ton of credit given that his colleagues were rejecting everything about Jesus. Nic humbled himself by going to Jesus and openly acknowledged that God’s hand and power were on him.

Again, that’s a really good start.

When we deal with people who don’t know Jesus, we need to acknowledge it when they get off to a good start.

I don’t know about you, but I have been guilty of making salvation an all-or-nothing deal when talking to unbelievers. I’ve often failed to give them credit for the huge steps they’ve taken for even being open to Jesus as someone of significance. And instead of acknowledging their good start and encouraging them to keep looking into Jesus, I’ve criticized their lack of insight.

Nicodemus didn’t get it immediately with Jesus. Few people do. And unless we’re trying to chase people away from Jesus, we need to be okay with that.

One of the things that twenty years of dealing with all sorts of atheists, agnostics, skeptics and explorers at ACF has taught me is that salvation is often a process. Sometimes it ends in a crescendo moment, but not always. Sometimes people just quietly come to believe in Jesus, and that process is very gradual.

Nicodemus was one of those people. When we first meet him in John, he’s not sure what to think of Jesus. But by the end of the Gospel, he’s all-in.

Friends, we don’t need to be threatened by people whose Jesus-theology isn’t fully baked. Don’t write them off. Rather, encourage them. Pray for them. Tell them to keep digging.

Good starts matter.

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