Theme of the Week: The Discipline of Devotion
Bible Verse: Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 ESV
Scripture Reading: Joshua 1:6-9; 1 Timothy 6:11-12, 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
As my personal understanding of the interior life has developed, I have learned that apart from the well-known Scriptural calls to prayer, there are two great human reasons we ought to pray.
The first is because of what prayer does to our character. Prayer is like a time exposure to God.
Our souls function like photographic plates, and Christ’s shining image is the light. The more we expose our lives to the white-hot sun of His righteous life (for, say, five, ten, fifteen, thirty minutes, or an hour a day), the more His image will be burned into our character — His love, His compassion, His truth, His integrity, His humility.
As we have seen, this was true of General William Harrison, who maintained a disciplined devotional life for over seventy years. People say his presence brought a distinct sense of Christ.
The second corresponding reason is that prayer bends our wills to God’s will. E. Stanley Jones, the world-renowned missionary and man of prayer, explained it like this: If I throw out a boathook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God1.
What tantalizing personal benefits are offered by time spent in the presence of God in prayer!
What tantalizing personal benefits are offered by time spent in the presence of God in prayer!
Why do so many men fail in personal devotions and prayer?
Partially for the same reason they attend church less and read less: they are not as spiritually sensitive and open as women. Also, more men are dominated by the time-crunching production ethic of the marketplace, which makes them feel galaxies away from meditation and prayer. But most fail because they simply do not know how to go about cultivating the disciplines of the interior spiritual life.
1 E. Stanley Jones, A Song of Ascents (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979), p. 383.
Taken from Disciplines of a Godly Man by Kent Hughes, Copyright © 2001. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org
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