So do not worry, saying "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6.31-34)
When Jesus tells his disciples not to worry, it's not good advice - it's a command. And it comes from the One by whom everything in the universe is sustained and held together (Colossians 1.17).
Stop and think about that for a moment.
Now ask yourself this question: do I trust Jesus enough to obey his command?
In another place Jesus says of himself, "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full" (John 10.10). The 'they' is those who belong to him. So, when Jesus teaches us how to live, our trust must be that this is so that we may live the best life possible. ("Real life, God's way", as our church strapline puts it.) It's good for us and those we love when we follow what he teaches - really good.
Notice, though that Jesus is not saying, "Don't worry, be happy." (That was Bobby McFerrin.) As many people realise - not just Christians - you don't get to be happy by pursuing happiness, anyway.
Rather, Jesus teaches us to make our heavenly Father's priorities our priorities. Pursue what's on our Father's heart for his people and his world and align our lives with what he desires. Everything else follows from that.
That's true for us as individual believers and it's true for us corporately as a church.
We might face seasons - including this one - when we are tempted to worry about the future. There are lots of unknowns connected with the Open Church Project - as with other things in our life together. The word from Jesus is to trust our Father and make his priorities our own.
When praying about the OCP, ask the Lord to help us, above all else, to 'seek his kingdom and his righteousness' and to grow in our trust of him, for he is good.
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Saturday, 9 April 2011
Simple trust
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6.8)
Praying is simple but we can make it very complicated. It's so easy to think that if we just get the words right or pray for long enough then we'll get God to hear us: and if we get the words wrong, or don't use special religious language, or don't exhaust ourselves praying, then our prayers 'won't be heard'.
Jesus tells us not to think or to act like that - at all. As always, he brings us back to relationship. We have a heavenly Father who is trustworthy and who knows what we need before we ask him - not a remote deity who's waiting for us to get our prayer technique right before he listens.
So when praying about the Open Church Project - or anything else - let's simply tell our Father what's on our hearts - in our own words. (That includes questions, worries, anxieties - anything. It's best to be honest since he knows it all anyway!)
We really don't need special prayers to do this - if you can talk (out loud or in your head) you can pray.
Oh - and let's remember too, that the Father is concerned with what we need - which might sometimes be rather different to what we want (or think we want). As we grow to know him more by spending time talking with him, we will be better able to distinguish between the two.
A couple of prayer points for the Open Church Project: pray about our Partnership Project in Rwanda - that we honour the Lord in how we give to that; pray for continuing discussion among the OCP team and the PCC as we look at how the Project might go forward (following a good meeting this week with Chris, our external project manager, and Mike, the quantity surveyor).
Praying is simple but we can make it very complicated. It's so easy to think that if we just get the words right or pray for long enough then we'll get God to hear us: and if we get the words wrong, or don't use special religious language, or don't exhaust ourselves praying, then our prayers 'won't be heard'.
Jesus tells us not to think or to act like that - at all. As always, he brings us back to relationship. We have a heavenly Father who is trustworthy and who knows what we need before we ask him - not a remote deity who's waiting for us to get our prayer technique right before he listens.
So when praying about the Open Church Project - or anything else - let's simply tell our Father what's on our hearts - in our own words. (That includes questions, worries, anxieties - anything. It's best to be honest since he knows it all anyway!)
We really don't need special prayers to do this - if you can talk (out loud or in your head) you can pray.
Oh - and let's remember too, that the Father is concerned with what we need - which might sometimes be rather different to what we want (or think we want). As we grow to know him more by spending time talking with him, we will be better able to distinguish between the two.
A couple of prayer points for the Open Church Project: pray about our Partnership Project in Rwanda - that we honour the Lord in how we give to that; pray for continuing discussion among the OCP team and the PCC as we look at how the Project might go forward (following a good meeting this week with Chris, our external project manager, and Mike, the quantity surveyor).
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