by Bret Capranica | Sep 12, 2009 | Featured Articles, Prayer
Using the Word Where does the Bible fit into your concentrated time of prayer? For me it must be integral if my prayer life is to remain fresh. Connect the word to your prayer time. While my “quiet time” might appear to be segmented (if I listed what I do) into sections of Bible reading and then intercession, it really isn’t the case. My time in the Word (I currently use the Discipleship Journal plan, reading through 4 sections a day), is the platform for and springboard to all I pray about and for. I generally write down a verse or two into my journal from my reading, and spend a few minutes meditating and praying through it. I often write what I’m praying, which keeps me concrete in my thoughts (and often awake). I may glance over all the verses I have written down and think through how the totality of them tend to address my heart and life and write a response. This is usually a time for confession of sin and pleading for greater insight and application. When it comes to my times of intercession (which I will write about tomorrow), I generally have a few passages assigned to the topics I have arranged around my intercessions (again, more tomorrow). I will read one of these sections and use it as the basis for my time of intercession. D. A. Carson’s book on the prayers of Paul is a real help here and a huge stimulus in my thinking on prayer. Connect what you heard from sermons to your prayer time. I take my sermon notes in...
by Bret Capranica | Sep 10, 2009 | Featured Articles, Prayer
So, what do you do when you actually get to the point when it’s time to pray? What do you say? How do you stay focused without being so rigid that your prayer life feels little more than sitting on Santa’s knee telling him what you want for Christmas? Worship. By worship I don’t necessarily mean singing or listening to “worship music” (however that gets defined). I do mean spending a healthy amount of time seriously considering, rehearsing, and enjoying who God is. Thinking again about Christ and why He died and rose from the dead. Considering what are the very powerful implications of the Son of God dying in my place. I need to linger longer in worship. In fact, one of the greatest men of prayer I have ever known, caught my attention when he said in a lecture on prayer, that later in his life he found himself spending more time worshiping than asking. For him that did not mean sitting cross-legged and humming choruses from the 1970s. It was not some form of Christianized yoga. It meant reminding himself (primarily by means of reading the Scripture) of who God was and how His character was being expressed in his life. This shouldn’t be rocket science. Jesus informed the disciples that the opening elements of how they should pray should be comprised fundamentally of worship – hallowing the name of “God our Father.” Perhaps this was Job’s greatest challenge as well as He begged God for an answer to the reason behind his life-wrenching trials. By the end of the book, Job’s hand is over his...
by Bret Capranica | Sep 8, 2009 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Prayer
I want my prayer life to grow and be more and more significant. Here are a few steps and thoughts I’m pursuing to deepen my pursuit of the Lord in prayer. Commitment. I’m assuming a time set aside for significant prayer. Some don’t go along with this. However, I think there is enough example from the life of Jesus (who withdrew often for concentrated times of prayer), or Paul who called us to devote ourselves to prayer (Ephesians 6; Colossians 4:3). The psalmists and their very intricate prayers suggest that they lingered long and often in significant times of supplication. Thus there should be a heart-driven commitment to regular times of personal concentrated prayer. So how can we learn to develop a more significant time of concentrated prayer. Disable Distractions. The internet. Umm, if you’re reading this, you’re using it. I find that this has become one of the single greatest distractions to good use of time in general and significant prayer specifically. I can literally Twitter my time away in the morning and lose time for significant prayer. I love to read the news and my iPhone makes it and e-mail continually accessible. Going off-line – putting my very portable laptop and handheld out of reach keeps the internet from being a prayer killer. Other reading material. The place where I pray is also the place where I do most of my significant reading. I am attracted to good books and I can quickly spend an hour reading through one of the myriads of books stacked around me and my place of prayer. It is a discipline to keep only...
by Bret Capranica | Aug 13, 2009 | Prayer
Check out this new site that uses content from the devotional commentator, Matthew Henry, to help enhance your prayer life. Matthew Henry.
by Bret Capranica | Aug 11, 2009 | Featured Articles, Pastoral Ministry, Prayer
Here again are a few notes I took while on a recent planning retreat from John Piper’s Brothers We Are Not Professionals. This time on how ministry itself can quickly become an enemy to our primary priorities, namely, prayer: Chapter 9 – Brothers, Beware of Sacred Substitutes 59 – Ministry is its own worst enemy. It is not destroyed by the big, bad wolf of the world. It destroys itself. 60 – Charles Spurgeon put it like this: “Those incessant knocks at our door, and perpetual visits from idle persons, are so many buckets of cold water thrown upon our devout zeal. We must by some means secure uninterrupted meditation, or we shall lose power.” Without extended and consecrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers up and bears no fruit. Without extended, concentrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers. And when the ministry of the Word declines, faith (Rom. 10:17; Gal 3:2, 5) and holiness (John 17:7) decline. Activity may continue, but life and power and fruitfulness fade away. Therefore, whatever opposes prayer opposes the whole work of ministry. 61 – But the apostles would not yield to the temptation. This must mean that prayer demanded a large part of their uninterrupted time. If they had thought of prayer as something you do while washing dishes or cooking (or driving a car between hospitals), they would not have seen table-serving as a threat to prayer. Prayer was a time-consuming labor during which other duties had to be set aside. 62 – So the apostles were saying: No Matter how urgent the pressures upon us to spend our time...
by Bret Capranica | Aug 7, 2009 | Prayer, Southern Baptist Issues
Dr. Ronnie Floyd, Chairman of GCR Task Force from Ronnie Floyd on Vimeo. This past June, the Southern Baptist Convention launched what some have touted to be one of the most historic of movements: the Great Commission Resurgence. Time will tell what the new GCR Task Force will recommend. As they do their work, the GCR team has put together a web-site calling people to pray for a/the Great Commission Resurgence. According to the site: Why We Need A Great Commission Resurgence: The churches of the Southern Baptist Convention are yearning for a new day of Great Commission awakening and commitment. They sense both a need and a rare opportunity to come together to reclaim the missional vision that brought us together from the first. A new generation of Southern Baptists is ready for deployment in the service of the Great Commission ““ and waiting to see if Southern Baptists are ready to send, support, and propel this generation out to the nations. Will we do what it takes to send those God is calling? Many of our churches ““- perhaps 70% “” are plateaued or declining. They need a Great Commission Resurgence starting right where they are. A Great Commission Resurgence has to start right at home. Southern Baptists have much work to do reaching America in a multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual era. We need a Great Commission Resurgence that will make us do whatever it takes to reach America with the Gospel. Southern Baptists need a Great Commission Resurgence that will reorder our priorities, refocus our vision, reclaim our mission, and set our hearts on seeing the nations...
