Papa “J” Says

One thing we teach our children to do faithfully is to look both ways before crossing the street. But just as dangerous is a need to look up at the Creator, rather than always looking down at our fallen ways of life! And this we seldom do.

Prayer is not some magic mumble jumbo and prayer is not to ask then sit back and wait for a cloud burst! Prayer is the first step of a plan to reach an ultimate goal. James 2:20, explains to us that we are foolish to consider asking God for something if we are not willing to work for it. The truth is that when we put forth the necessary work to reach a goal in prayer, our faith in God will increase and that is the purpose. Some might say that we are helping God out, or interfering with His best for us, all of that kind of thinking is what the pig farmer calls “hog wash”. God is a lot more interested in the opportunity to increase our faith in Him. He does this by opening our eyes to a path of direction a direction that we must walk. Proverbs 16:3 and 16:9. So we need to be actively involved with God. Our prayer points to a need or purpose and He in turn, points our feet in the right direction and our faith in Him grows. There is a song that says something like; My faith has found a resting place, but truly; faith should never take a holiday.

1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 14:20-25 There are so many references to this passage of scripture running through my mind here that I do not know where to begin, but lets go to the book of Hebrews for a start, Hebrews 6:1-8. Here the writer is exhorting his readers to grow up and be mature in their walk with the LORD. Many of us seem to cycle like the rodent on a treadmill over the elementary principles of faith in Christ.

This has a lot to do with being misguided in our understanding of spiritual things. We work for the LORD, we fail, we repent and we go at it again and again and again. Soon we are all washed out spiritually. We feel the shame, many walk away and never return to faith. Verses 7 and 8 talk to us about the farmer who expects fruit for his labor, but if he produces thorns he feels rejected or cursed, we should be reminded to take heed to this as we are workers too.

So we really need to focus on becoming spiritually mature in our dealings with the spiritual needs of the church. All of the nine spiritual needs listed in chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians have the potential to destroy someone because of supernatural power used inappropriately. If you've been in a church for very long, I am sure you've seen people become discouraged and walk away. Paul uses the spiritual need of tongues as a primary example of this destruction. This is not a problem that just surfaced in the church, it was an ongoing problem even in the temple during the Jewish dispensation. Isaiah 28:11-12 and Isaiah 33:17-18.