Month: January 2019

[Read Luke 18:1-8 for context]

Today’s verse is from Luke 18:7 and says:

And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?

This verse is part of a parable that Jesus shared with his disciples.  A parable is a simple story used to make a point about an important topic and Jesus used many of these short stories to help His audience better understand what was on His heart.

In this parable, He is trying to drive home the point that we need to pray a lot and that it is good to pray about the same things over and over.  Verse 18:1 says the point of the parable was to “show them that they should always pray and not give up”.

The subject of the parable is a widow who pleads to a Judge for justice against her adversary again and again.  The judge initially refuses but eventually gives in so that she will quit bothering him.  Jesus was making the point that we need to plead to God frequently through prayer for the things we want.

I believe God has at least two goals in asking us to pray for the same thing over and over:

First, God wants us to come to Him in prayer frequently and He understands that it is easier for us to pray the same thing.

Secondly, we know that God wants all of the glory and one of the ways He gets the glory is for us to pray about something over & over and then have that prayer answered.  On the other hand, if we get a positive outcome without praying for it, we would not likely be as quick to give Him the credit.

That’s another “simple” answer from the Bible….pick some things to pray about and repeat your prayers day after day.  But most of us aren’t that disciplined yet so let’s go through some questions to help us move in the right direction.

Questions:

• Do you have anything that you pray about day after day? Please share if you are comfortable doing so.
• Share an example of an answered prayer in your life or in the life of someone close to you.
• Do you agree with the two reasons above about why God asks us to pray frequently about one topic – that is, He wants us to hear from us frequently and He wants all of the glory.
• Why is it difficult for us to 1) pray consistently in general and 2) pray for one thing over & over?
• What are some strategies we can incorporate to improve our track record with prayer?

Today’s verse is from Phillipians 4:8 and says:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things and the God of peace will be with you.

Many of you are familiar with life coach Tommy Newberry who wrote a book called the 4:8 Principle which is based on this verse.  His premise is very simple – we can only consciously hold one thought in our head at a time so we should intentionally choose to focus on the positive things in life in order to find God’s peace.

So if it is that simple, why do we find ourselves so often focused on the negative things in life like self-doubt, criticisms of others, grudges, gossip, and conflict.  Paul knew how weak we are and understood our tendency to focus on the negative which is why he spelled it out in such clear language.  God inspired Paul to write words because He truly does want us to have the Peace that only He can provide.

Psychological experiments have proven that it is impossible to suppress thoughts.  In fact, trying to suppress them actually causes those thoughts to rebound more prominently into our minds.  But we can choose to think about a particular thought which then crowds out all other thoughts as long as that remains our focus.  If we’re thinking about something that is excellent or praiseworthy, it is not possible to simultaneously hold a negative thought in our mind and, in the process, God’s peace will be with us.

It has been said that running a marathon is simple but not easy.  This means that there is nothing complicated about running 26.2 miles but it takes a lot of hard work and effort.  Maybe this is a good way of thinking about focusing on the 4:8 Principle – it is both simple and hard at the same time.  Below are some questions to help us move in the direction of focusing more on things in life that are excellent and praiseworthy.

1)      Do you agree with the marathon analogy?  That is, do you think this concept is simple even if it is hard to employ consistently?

2)      What are some negative thoughts that you or others you know struggle to get out of their minds?

3)      How does focusing on the negative hurt us or keep us from being our best?

4)      What are some things that are excellent or praiseworthy that you can choose to intentionally focus on more frequently?

5)      If you were teaching this concept to someone else, what are some strategies you would recommend to increase their chance of succeeding?