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In Ezekiel 8, the prophet was allowed to witness blatent rebellion in the form of idolatry at the center of Jewish worship. God responded at the end of the chapter with this statement, “Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them.”
What struck me is that God made the deliberate decision to not listen to his people. As a believer in the new covenant, it is hard to imagine a God who chooses not to listen.
God demonstrates his love for his believers is by listening.
It’s pretty amazing to think of how he chooses to listen to believers. He chooses to always be available. He is not a doctor who is always running late for appointments. Although he is always working, he is not too busy to give us his full attention.
It’s not just that he listens, but he also responds. Our community group has been intentionally spending more time in pray for the last month. Not surprisingly, there are new updates each week of how God responds. Last night was no different, and it seemed everyone had an update that related to our prayers.
That led me to wonder if our prayers effected the outcome. In other words, did our prayers change God’s plan? This is an impossible question to answer because only God could know the “what ifs.” What I do know is that we would not have been ready to recognize the activity of God if we had not prayed. By taking the time to pray, it allowed us to fellowship with God and find joy because we know that he heard us.
Many people in this world worship a god who is not the God of the Bible. They offer prayers, but are never heard. They have no hope of a response. Remember to pray for them.
Tonight at Community Group, we watched an hour of The Gospel of John (it came out in 2003, so it is not old and cheesy). In college we did an assignment for our Gospels class where we watched several different movies about the gospels. Then after college, The Passion came out and I went to see that along with everybody else. However, after the first hour of The Gospel of John, I have to say that it is the best movie about Jesus that I have ever seen. We could actually sit with the book of John open and follow the lines word for word. I am looking forward to watching the rest of the movie.
The scene where Jesus fed the five thousand got me thinking about Re:Hope’s situation in Scotland. Their church has found themselves in a similar situation that Jesus and the disciples were in. Re:Hope is praying for God to do a miracle and provide them a place to worship God on a regular basis. They do not have enough money to meet the asking price of the seller, just like Jesus and the disciples did not have enough food to feed the five thousand people. I was struck in the story about how Jesus responded to his Father with the food he had…
…He gave thanks. The story does not say he asked God to provide enough to feed everybody. Instead it only says that he gave thanks for what was provided, and then his Father provided for more than what he needed. This is not to say that God does not want us to bring our requests to him in the manner that Re:Hope is doing (that principle is found in the story of the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-8). The point of this blog is simply this: to bring our requests to the Father while giving thanks for what God has already provided.
“Does this mean that God will provide for our needs if we are thankful for what he has provided?” No, that is not the right deduction. God is the one who ultimately makes the decision to provide or not. The thing to remember is that God is also ultimately good. Thus whether he chooses to provide or not, his decision will always remain within the pattern of his character to be good. He makes decisions, according to his will, for the good of those who love him (Rom. 8:28).
It is my prayer that God would provide for Re:Hope, and give them a place to worship God together. However, whether he provides or not, it is remains my prayer that the people of Re:Hope would also give thanks for what God has already provided (I think they are doing this, but I am writing this just as a reminder). Although Re:Hope is the example I use in this blog, this is also the prayer I have for myself: that I would be thankful for what God has provided, and when I bring my requests to God I want to remember to be thankful for what I already have…even if it’s not much.
About twelve people from our church gathered on Friday night to read the Book of Acts out loud. We all were not completely sure what to expect. As the facilitator, even I wasn’t sure how it would come off since it was the first time I had led a Bible read through. By the end of the night, people would say things like, “Let’s do this more often.”
The people who came learned more in that three hours by simply reading the Bible together then I could ever have taught them in three hours. As we read, we were all continually impressed that the story of Acts is true, and the God we believe in authored and willed the events to happen.
I have heard from my professors that “the Bible is meant to be read.” After Friday, I would add that the Bible is meant to be heard. It struck me as I realized that in ancient times the high cost of producing a Bible generally meant that there was only one Bible in a congregration, and I realized that the the authors of Scripture wrote to an audience where they expected the Bible to be read out loud. It’s no wonder that Scripture is written so concisely and that it repeats its message over and over again. The authors of Scripture repeated themselves so their message would be memorable for those who listened.
I’m grateful that twelve people sacrificed their Friday night to spend quality time reading the Bible with a group of people. I’m grateful that God harvested an idea in my head that became such a huge blessing for other people. I pray there will be more opportunities to read the Bible out loud in a community.
Last Sunday, Pastor Neil Tomba challenged the congregation to read the book of Acts this week individually. When I first heard that, I figured most people would not attempt the challenge.
That night I remembered seeing a description on Dr. Garry Friesen’s page (http://www.gfriesen.net/) of a Bible Marathon. The idea is to read through a large chunk of scripture orally with a group of people.
When I suggested this idea to my fellow community group leaders, they jumped on board and were interested in making this happen. So, this Friday night, a group of people from the church is going to read through the book of Acts together in a tiny little apartment. I am hoping and praying that lives will be changed as a result of this experience of reading the Bible.
