The Importance of Praying Mothers

Often prayer is learned in the dark times, in the times of trouble, when our hearts yearn for something which urges us to fall on our knees in prayer.  So it was with Hannah, who was burdened with barrenness, which caused her intense grief.  Every year Hannah and her husband went to worship the Lord at Shiloh.  Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord, nothing seemed to ease her pain.  Then, one day she made a vow to the Lord; she promised that if God would grant her request by giving her a son she would give him back to God all the days of his life.  Then Hannah continued to pray, her lips moved but no voice was heard, her heart may have been filled with so much grief that she could not speak, in fact, Eli thought she was drunk.  

Hannah was persistent in pouring out her heart to the Lord.  In explaining this to Eli, he blessed her by wishing that God would grant her request.  It is then we see a change in her disposition, she went and ate and her face was no longer downcast.  Hannah received a Word of the Lord from Eli and it changed something inside her.  Her grieving was over.  In the course of time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son, she named him Samuel, who came into the world and was given an existence as a direct result of prayer! It was no wonder that he became a great man of prayer for it was modeled to him by his mother!   

Samuel was the miracle child given to Hannah and he grew up to be a great prophet who served the Lord faithfully.  Samuel heard the Lord’s voice at a young age. Would a worldly home, with worldly surroundings, separated from the church, with a worldly mother have produced a praying man such as Samuel? Would such influences in early life have produced such a praying man?  Samuel knew God in boyhood and as a result he knew God in manhood.  He recognized God in childhood, obeyed and prayed.  The result was that he recognized God in adulthood, obeyed and prayed.  If more children were born of praying mothers, brought up in direct contact with a praying church, and reared under praying environments, more children would hear the voice of God’s spirit speaking to them, and would more quickly respond to the voice of God in their lives.   

If we want praying people in our churches, we must have praying mothers to give them birth, praying homes to color their lives, and praying surroundings to impress their minds and to lay the foundations for praying lives.  Praying Samuel's come from praying Hannah’s.  Praying priest’s come from praying churches.  Praying leaders come from praying homes.  God raised up in Samuel a leader who could pray, who knew the worth and the place of prayer and a leader who had the ear of God.  As women, let’s commit to growing in our personal prayer lives so that we can see our children grow up to be Samuel’s!

You can read this great Bible story in 1 Samuel 1.  

Reference:

The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds on Prayer. 

Do I have a double life?

I’m sure we have all heard stories of a woman who is happily married to a great husband who goes to church with her each week.  He has a good job making good money, is a good father to their children and life just seems perfect.  Until his secret comes out – he has either been addicted to porn for years, or has a mistress on the side or a drug habit…whatever…the story can change from situation to situation.  How can this be?  How can someone live such a double life?  Yet, many Christians do exactly that! 

Unfortunately, I have known far too many Christians who live a double life.  They are at the bar on Friday nights doing whatever they please and less than 48 hours later you can find them in Sunday school.  Although it may seem that they have the best of both worlds, is this possible?  Can a person truly be at peace with God and themselves if they are living two very different lives?  Most of us probably don’t live a double life to that extreme, but we probably have a divided life. 

Tozer writes, “One of the greatest hindrances to internal peace which the Christian encounters is the common habit of dividing our lives into two areas, the sacred and the secular.”  Most Christians have divided their lives into two categories and many try to keep these areas apart from each other.  The problem is that God did not design us to live this way.  He desires us to live a unified life, not a divided life. 

We live in a physical world; we work at physical jobs, live in physical houses and drive physical cars.  Yet we are children of God and have the Holy Spirit living in us and are to enjoy fellowship with Christ.  In order to help us live with this dichotomy we have developed spiritual activities such as prayer, Bible reading, worship, church attendance or attendance at a small group. Those are the things that we label spiritual activities.  Yet just because you are doing these so called spiritual activities, doesn’t mean God accepts them.  The key is your heart, are you doing them to glorify Him, to serve Him and out of love for Him?

Then there is the other side, the ordinary physical activities of life such as eating, sleeping, working, taking care of our bodies and performing the duties of being a wife and mother or husband and father.  These we do begrudgingly, thinking that they are a waste of time and energy.  We would rather do more “spiritual things”. But is this so? 

Most Christians are caught in the trap of living between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this world, trying to find a balance between the two and as a result having no peace in either.  They just end up confused and exhausted.    Yet is this necessary?  Are we supposed to live between these two worlds?  What did Christ model?  He slept, He ate, He spent time with friends, He did ministry, He went to synagogue, He prayed…

Jesus also lived in complete obedience to the will of the Father (Heb. 10:7; Jn. 14:31; Jn. 12:49; Mt. 21:4). Jesus lived in a human body and never once performed a non-sacred act.  Paul gives us some insight into this by teaching us to do everything to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).  This opens us up to connecting the spiritual and the physical in our world.  Could it be that the very way I live my life (including the physical) can bring glory to God…yes!!!

If I treat my husband with respect, serve my family, take care of my body through good eating, sleep and exercise habits – it can bring glory to God.  When I keep my house clean, invite friends over for dinner, plant a garden and shovel my driveway - I can bring glory to God.  Paul even mentions that eating and drinking can bring glory to God (or not). Now, I need to watch my motivations because I can do all these things to bring glory to myself. 

Every act of our bodies has the potential to bring God glory.  We cannot divide our lives into God’s Kingdom and the Kingdom of this world; we must live in such a way as to bring constant glory to God.  Let’s live as every act is a sacrament.  If we are completely consecrated to God then the attitude we have when folding laundry and making supper for our families matters.  These aren’t mundane activities; they can bring glory to God. 

There is no dilemma between the sacred and the secular.  Everything we do can be an act of spiritual worship to our Lord.  This will take a change of mind, a new perspective yet it brings much freedom and hope.  We must keep reminding ourselves that the mundane matters, our simple deeds are noticed by God and can bring Him glory.

God intends for us to live our lives in such a way that they are pleasing to Him (Rom. 12:1-2).  Each person has a different calling, some to the workforce, some to full-time ministry, others to the home.  It isn’t what you do that determines the sacred or secular but rather WHY you do it and for WHOM you do it for.  Once again, motive is everything.  If you do your tasks for the Lord, they are not common, they are acts of worship.  Don’t get sucked into doing them for your own glory! 

Think about how you spend your recreational time, how you eat or exercise, and the time you spend with the Lord reading the Word or in prayer as well as how you treat your spouse and kids.  Do these activities bring glory to God?  They can! 

Do you REALLY want to be filled with the Holy Spirit?

There are many good intentioned Christians out there who are searching for experience after experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit.  It’s like the Holy Spirit is some sort of spiritual drug that they can tap into and get high on for a few days or maybe even a week or so.  They hunger for signs and wonders and the power that comes from the Holy Spirit. 

Don’t get me wrong, the Bible clearly teaches the importance of Christians being filled with the Holy Spirit and every Christian can have an abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin in our lives (Jn. 16:8-10), He gives us spiritual gifts for the edification of the church (1 Cor. 12:4-7), He transforms us into the likeness of God (1 Cor. 6:11), He bears good fruit in our lives (Gal. 5:22-23) and the list goes on and on.  The necessity of the Holy Spirit is not to be debated but rather I question the intentions of those who are seeking to be filled by Him for some sort of spiritual high.  Sounds a bit self-focused to me. 

It almost seems as though some people have a sort of romantic infatuation with the Holy Spirit.  They have this deep inner desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit but do they really know what it will cost them?  Here are some questions the inquirers should ponder before deciding if they truly want to walk this road:

• Are you willing to give complete control of your life to God?  (Luke 9:23-24)
• If the Spirit is in charge of your life, He will expect unquestioning obedience in everything; He will not tolerate your personal selfishness (self-love, self-pity, self-seeking, self-confidence, self-righteousness, self-ambition, self-defense).  Are you willing to give these things up? (Rom. 12:1-2)
• The Spirit will be in sharp opposition to the easy ways of the world.  Are you willing to do things the hard way? (Matt. 7:13)
• The Spirit will take the direction of your life away from you; He will demand that you do things His way.  Are you OK with this? (Luke 22:42)
• It will mean taking the road of rejection and loss for if we fully cooperate with God He will take away the natural comforts which have served us so well and put us where we can receive no help except from the Comforter Himself. Are you ready for this? (Matt 10:34-39)
• He will take us on a path of undergoing an inward death.  As we die to self over and over again and rid our hearts of sinfulness this opens all areas of our heart to be filled by Him.  Are you still willing to walk this path?  (John 12:24)
• The Spirit will test you, discipline you, chasten you, (Rev. 3:19) strip you of borderline pleasures yet through it all will wrap in you a love so vast, so mighty, so all-embracing, so wondrous that your very losses will seem like gains and your small pains like pleasures…are you still in?

The filling of the Spirit is not for the faint of heart, it’s not some casual “experience” to seek after.  The filling of the Spirit is to empower us to live a lifelong walk with Him in holiness, being directed and taught and empowered by Him to do the work of God and bring Him much glory (Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 2:4-5).  It's not about me getting some sort of spiritual experience but about God's Kingdom being advanced.  This requires that we meet certain conditions such as living in the Word of God.  I’m not talking about mere Bible study or a causal reading of His Word but rather meditating on it day and night (Ps. 1:2); feasting on the Word, loving the Word, digesting the Word day and night.  This will also require making our hearts a dwelling place for the Holy of Holies, a clean sanctuary for His habitation (Ps. 51:10). 

Being filled with the Spirit is not a special, deluxe edition of Christianity but rather the normal state for every redeemed man and woman.  This is the standard we are called to.  So…the question remains, do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit?

References: God’s Pursuit of Man – The Spirit-Filled Life  by A.W. Tozer.