Last week, I had the privilege to share the gospel with a group of people at our Daily Rest. This is what I told them…

I’ve discovered over the years that when you talk to people about spiritual things, you’ll find that some of them have no interest in religion or God. When you ask them why that is so, they often respond with, “Christianity has too many rules and regulations, too many do’s and don’ts. I just want to be free and not tied down to anything.” What you always find as you probe further into their lives, is that the reason they don’t worship God is because they are worshiping someone or something else.

You see, that is the way we are wired. We will worship someone or something. If it isn’t God, then it will be something else. And that something else will be the thing that we serve, the thing that we are a slave to.

That leads us to a question that we all have to ask ourselves, “Why would I want to worship God?”

For Christians, the answer to that question is the Gospel, which literally means The Good News. A challenge I have found is that explaining the Gospel can sometimes seem complicated or mysterious. However, a few years ago, I heard the Gospel explained in 12 words, actually 3 four word phrases. Here it is…

We lost it all,
He did it all,
We get it all.

Pretty simple, easy to understand, and remember. Although some detail about each phrase helps to make sense of them. Then when you say those 12 words, it answers the question of why we would want to worship God.

We lost it all. We know from the Bible that when God created the heavens and the earth, he also created the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. God’s creation was perfect, including these two people. They were given a perfect creation to enjoy. God had just one law for them. There was a tree in their garden and they were not to eat the fruit from that tree. Well, if you are familiar with the story, we know that Adam and Eve ate from that tree and broke God’s law. As a result, because God is perfect and a just God, there were consequences for doing what they did. Adam and Eve were no longer perfect, they could get diseases and die, and in fact the entire creation was no longer perfect. We live in a broken world and we are broken people. We literally lost it all, in fact we lost perfection.

He did it all. Fortunately God had a plan, because He wanted mankind to be able to be with Him in heaven one day. His plan was to send His son, Jesus Christ to earth, to live a perfect life (in fact Jesus is the only person that has ever lived a perfect life) and to die on a cross. In three days He was brought back to life to prove that He, Jesus is God, and then sometime later ascended to heaven, where He waits for us. So, what is the “all” that Jesus did for us? Well, when He died on the cross, He didn’t just die physically, He also took on the punishment for all of the broken laws of God (we call that sin) that all of mankind has committed, past, present, and future. That is the Good News, in fact it is great news, because He did the impossible, something that we cannot do for ourselves.

We get it all. Since Jesus did the hard part, the impossible part that we can’t do, we only have to respond to get it all. This is the easy part… There are just a few simple things that we need to do to obtain eternal life with God. First, we need to acknowledge that we are not perfect and have broken God’s laws, i.e. sinned and we have to tell God we are sorry. When we see sinful things in our lives we have to tell God that we are going to turn away from them with His help. Second, we need to acknowledge that we need a Savior, and that Jesus did it all for us. Finally, we need to take a look at the thing or things that we have been worshiping and say to God that we will no longer worship them, but we are now going to worship Jesus.

That’s the Gospel. We lost it all, He did it all, we get it all.

For those of us that are Christians, we know that it isn’t about rules and regulations, about do’s and don’ts. We have realized the amazing thing that Jesus did for us, something that is impossible for us to do. Because of that we love Him and worship Him and we want to serve Him.

If you aren’t a Christian, I would suggest that you take a look at the thing or things that you worship. Is there anything that you worship that is greater than what Jesus did for you? When you worship things of this world, they are like the mist, here today and gone tomorrow. Only God is eternal, only Jesus can save. Something to think about…

We lost it all, He did it all, we get it all.

Praise God for the Gospel.  Lift up your prayers of thanksgiving to Him for what He did for you.

Psalm 66:18 (NASB)
18 If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear;

Psalm 66:18 (MSG)
18 If I had been cozy with evil, the Lord would never have listened.

Psalm 66:18 (ESV)
18 If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

Psalm 66 is a psalm about answered prayer. When you get to verse 18, it clearly tells of a condition for which God will not listen to our prayers. The NASB translation uses “regard”, which is better understood when you read the Message or English Standard version.

It has taken me a lot of years to understand the connection between known sin in my life and God’s willingness to listen to my supplications. It is so easy to not see the sin in our lives or to deceive ourselves into thinking that it really isn’t a sin.

What has made the difference has been accountability from other men in my life. It seems that it is easy for women to seek out other women that they can be accountable to, yet for many men (me included) it is easier to be an island. Easier to rely on my own counsel.

If you dig deep into the lives of the great men of God over the centuries, more often than not, they had other men in their lives that could hold them accountable. Even Jesus, who was fully man and fully God, sought out the counsel of His Father. It is how God wired us. We need others that we trust to speak the truth that we often won’t or don’t want to see in ourselves.

We live in a society today that lives on false beliefs and half-truths. We need partners that can bring our lives back into focus and on the right track.

When we do, it makes our prayer lives so much more fruitful.

Psalm 136, like many Psalms, is a prayer. It is also a responsive reading that was probably used by Israel to praise and remember God and the great things that He did. Remembering what He has done in our lives is what draws us into true worship. Without that, it is an impersonal relationship.

Every verse ends with the following phrase, “For His lovingkindness is everlasting”.
This Psalm has 26 verses, but is segmented into 5 different categories and ends with a final praise.
• The Creator 1-9
• The Redeemer 10-12
• The Shepherd 13-16
• The Conqueror 17-22
• The Deliverer 23-25
• Final Praise 26

During your prayer time this week, use the format of this wonderful psalm and come up with the specific praises that He has done for you. Make this a personal psalm that you can pray with each praise ending with “For His lovingkindness is everlasting”.

I pray that we can use this to draw into true worship and a closer relationship with our Lord.
Always praying for the glory of God,
Chris McKean

I was reading an article this week in the online magazine published by the PCA called “Flirting with Darkness?”. The author was discussing how our world develops wrong teachings and thoughts about Satan.

He quoted a famous statement made by C.S. Lewis about Satan. “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors.”

It made me think about the distortions that can creep into our society and even our churches. The New Testament has a number of examples of false teaching that the apostles dealt with in the early church. Examples can be found in 2 Corinthians, Colossians, 1 Timothy, 2 Peter, 2 John, and Jude to name a few. And it continues today. The worst are beliefs that are 90% truth, but the remaining 10% make the whole thing false. I’m sure we can all identify illustrations of false teaching in our society and in some churches.

So what does this have to do with prayer and what are we to do about it?

As followers of Jesus Christ we have a responsibility to read and understand what God has revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. One way to gain an understanding of scripture is to pray it back to God. What we then are able to understand about scripture tells us what we need to believe about Him. That distillation of the revelation from God about who He is and what He has done for us is our doctrine.

But doctrine has become a dirty word these days in many circles, probably because doctrinal documents are so closely associated with the various denominations within the church. Our denomination holds that scripture is inerrant and the very word of God. Our denomination also believes that the distillation of that word into doctrinal concepts can be found in the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is based entirely on scripture.

In generations past, especially during times of revival, believers would study the Bible, earnestly praying that God would reveal Himself to them. They would use documents like the Westminster Confession to pray over, so that they could discern God’s will and purpose. Too many Christians today, abdicate that responsibility to the Pastor of the church to teach them what they should believe via the sermon. In times past, exhortation of the Word was primarily worship; worship that encouraged Christians to study the Word even more deeply on their own.

Many in our church have a wonderful grounding of scripture and doctrine because they have a passion for God’s Word and study it every day. It shows in how they pray. If you want your prayer life to grow, use prayer in the scriptures to do that. You might even try praying over the Westminster Confession.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Chris McKean

Luke 18:1 (NLT)
1 One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up.

This verse contains two absolutes, “always” and “never”.

This reoccurring theme of prayer is throughout scripture. Jesus modeled his teaching of the disciples in the same way. He began His ministry with 40 days of prayer and fasting. He ended His ministry in prayer on the cross. And in between He was in constant prayer. Even the last night He was with his disciples, He spent it in prayer.

Sounds like something we need to pay attention to, don’t you think?

And yet, for all of us, prayer is not something that comes naturally to us. In fact, without the Holy Spirit, we cannot truly pray.

As we learn to “listen” to the Holy Spirit, God has given us prayers in His own language. When we pray scripture, we are literally praying the words that God breathed into the minds of the authors of the Bible. It is His language and it is good. It is not only good, but it is perfect.

The more you read the Bible, as you memorize verses that you constantly bring to mind, you are allowing the Holy Spirit to teach you how to pray.

My prayer is that I will be able to get to the point where I am “always” praying and “never” giving up. I’ve got a long ways to go. That’s why I cherish the Tuesday night prayer time, so I can practice with others.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Chris McKean

While studying Philippians, there have been two verses that have comforted me recently.

Philippians 4:6-7 (NASB)
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Easier said than done, right?

But if we practice the first verse, we get the benefit of the second one. I often notice that God requires something from us first before He gives us the blessing He promises.

Anxiety is rampant in our world today. But only because we either don’t know God, or we haven’t put our full trust in Him.

God tells us that when we begin to feel anxious, go to Him in prayer, letting Him know what is troubling us. Often we believe that the result of that is that God will now remove the problem. Rather, He tells us that in the midst of our troubles, He will give us the “peace of God”. Can you imagine how peaceful God is? There is nothing that can possibly cause Him anxiety and He promises to give us that. Amazing!

Thanks be to God for the “peace of God” that can guard our hearts and minds.

Come to prayer this Tuesday. If you have the peace of God, then come to rejoice and praise Him. If not, come in thanksgiving as you lay your troubles on Him. He will give you a peace that is not possible without Him.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Hebrews 4:9-10 (NASB)
9 So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
10 For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

In our hectic world today, the idea of Sabbath rest seems almost impossible to comprehend. Even Sundays can become days where we are so busy doing and being involved in commitments and schedules that it can leave us tired by the end of the day.

I know Pastors that set aside a different day of the week than Sunday as their Sabbath rest. It is a day resting in God. It is a day that God modeled for us as He rested on the seventh day after creation.

If we have an active prayer life, devoting ourselves to prayer as Paul discussed in Colossians could it be that we need a time of refreshment as well?

Colossians 4:2 (NASB)
2 Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;

I don’t think it means not praying one day of the week, but maybe our prayer focus should be on listening to Him, allowing the Holy Spirit to revive us. Paul also talked about this in Romans 8, where he said:

Romans 8:26-27 (NASB)
26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;
27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

The Spirit is willing to help us in our weakness, but we have to be willing to open our hearts and listen. Do you have a place that you go to that really calms you and you can experience true rest? Maybe it is a place in your home, a quiet place in your neighborhood, or even a memory that you can focus on that was a peaceful place or time. By going there we can experience a Sabbath Prayer, allowing God to refresh us.

Once refreshed, we are then ready to gather on Tuesday night to pray with renewed energy for God’s Kingdom. Come this Tuesday at 7pm as see what God has in store.

Always praying for the glory of God,
Chris McKean