“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”- Ephesians 5:14 “There is no short cut to achievement. Life requires thorough preparation- veneer isn’t worth anything.”- George Washington Carver During my undergraduate years at Concordia- River Forest, I spent my summers practicing with the Ashburn Lutheran Church softball team. Actual […]
“Wherever the soul of man turns, unless towards God, it cleaves to sorrow, even though the things outside God and outside itself to which it clings may be things of beauty.”- Augustine, Confessions As Timothy Keller begins Chapter 12 of Prayer, he states that another reason for the primacy of praise is that it has great […]
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know that this love surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the […]
“Praise the Lord, my soul; and all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”- Psalm 103:1-2 Timothy Keller continues Chapter 10 of Prayer by exploring the relationship between meditation and our mind/heart. He notes that when Psalm 1 calls us to meditate, it uses […]
In Chapter 9 (“The Touchstones of Prayer”) of his book Prayer, Timothy Keller writes about twelve touchstones of prayer. Pastor Keller states we can use those twelve touchstones to “judge the relative strength and weakness of our prayers for honoring and connecting us to God.” The first four touchstones are clustered under the heading “What […]
“That we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command.”- Thomas Cranmer “For my heart’s desire unto Thine is bent; I aspire to a full consent.”- George Herbert Timothy Keller continues his discussion of the Lord’s Prayer in Chapter 6 of Prayer by considering the next two […]
In today’s blog, Calvin’s second rule, or principle, of prayer is presented and discussed. 2. Spiritual humility. Calvin described his second rule for prayer as “the sense of need that excludes all unreality.” This spiritual humility includes both (a) a strong sense of our dependence on God, in general, and (b) a readiness to recognize […]
At the end of Chapter 6 of Prayer, Timothy Keller shares one final exercise Martin Luther advocates before we pray free-form about the things on our hearts. Following meditation on Scripture, Luther suggests praying through each petition of the Lord’s Prayer. As we do so, we are to paraphrase and personalize each petition using our […]
Timothy Keller concludes Chapter 6 of Prayer by expanding on Luther’s four strands of meditation on a text from Scripture: instruction, thanksgiving, confession, and prayer. 1. Instruction. We begin by discerning the instruction of a text. Luther called this the “school text” part of meditation, where we interpret the biblical passage by distilling its essential […]
“Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven.”- Lamentations 3:41 “He [Martin Luther] speaks with the great reverence of one who speaks to his God, and with trust and hope of one who speaks with his father and friend.”- Veit Dietrich, friend of Luther Timothy Keller continues Chapter 6 of […]
“The Bible does not present an art of prayer; it presents the God of prayer.”- Edmund Clowney, “A Biblical Theology” Timothy Keller concludes Chapter 4 of Prayer by emphasizing that God must be the starting point of prayer. Otherwise, our own perceived emotional needs drive our prayers, becoming our sole focus. We should, Pastor Keller […]
“There is no one who calls upon your name, who raises himself to take hold of you.”- Isaiah 64:7 As Timothy Keller continues Chapter 2 of Prayer, he states that in ancient times people appealed to a great man by taking hold of his cloak. Similarly, St. Paul sees prayer as a way to get […]