Tauranga House of Prayer
Archive for the ‘Biblical Studies’ Category
A Paradigm of Leadership Motivated By the Beauty of God
by Stefan Miller
Great leaders have an uncompromising, narrow, overshadowing passion that drives everything they do and are about. David was that kind of leader and was dominated by one singular vision.
One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. (Psalm 27:4)
David truly desired just one thing. Psalm 27:4 wasn’t poetic language to him. Nor hollow lifeless words. The superior pleasure found in fellowship with God is tangible and real and was the longing that dominated the entirety of his life. He knew that the beauty of God alone is what satisfies the human soul to the uttermost (Ps. 37:4). And his unflinching resolve to pursue depth in this reality set his people aflame and ultimately reformed an entire society around this singular devotion. Literally, tens of thousands of his followers were released and funded to give themselves full time to the occupation and ministry of adoration of the beautiful God (1 Chronicles 23-25).
The reason why David’s vision succeeded in leading and impacting generations for the glory of God was that David lived it out himself. Most Christians today accept David’s “one thing” heart cry as good and valid and yet few people actually buy in and live a “one thing” lifestyle. Like the culture around us, our lives are given to a multitude of things. The one thing reality eludes us.
And yet David walked in it and spent himself on pleasure in God’s beauty, with abandonment and without compromise. That’s what made him “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Sam.13:14; Acts 13:22). It was his obsession in adolescence. It was his steady passion through trial and opposition. It was his devotion in adulthood. And at the end of his life it inherited his wealth, resources and time to pass his vision on to future generations (1 Chronicles 23-25). It consumed him constantly and unswervingly. And that is why it consumed those he led.
David was great because his passion was the one thing that matters. David was a great leader because his vision for his followers was his vision for himself.
Prayer, Power and the Life of Daniel
by Stefan Miller
The power-bases of the nations are not located in capital cities or national parliaments. It rests in the hands of the praying church. This is one of the foundational reasons why God is establishing an unprecedented prayer movement in our generation. The life and message of Daniel is therefore radically relevant right now.
The book that bears his name paints a vivid picture of the interplay between prayer and the dispensing of God’s power to govern history and alter the destiny of nations. There are four things about Daniel that make his lifestyle vital for us to follow as we eagerly seek the in-breaking of justice, righteousness and salvation in the nations. They are (1) His grand vision of God, (2) his identity before the Lord, (3) his spiritual insight and (4) his heart posture. These four things formed a man whose prayers caused angels to move, demons to tremble, ungodly governments to topple and wicked legislation to bow down.
1. Daniel knew a great God. He had a glorious vision of the sovereign God who is not only involved in the course of world history but reigns over it; subduing nations and exalting others in their place (Dan. 2:21). Daniel knew many powerful rulers. But His God had authority to direct the very hearts of kings (Dan. 4 cf. Pro. 21:1), including presidents, prime ministers and legislators; and sustain them in their course or tear them down in a breath (Dan. 5:23). God’s irrepressible power to act was the rock solid reality that empowered Daniel in prayer. If we would pray great prayers that carry great weight and alter real circumstances – personal or national (e.g. the overturning of legislation permitting baby slaughter in the womb) – we must know and have confidence in a great God (Eph. 3:20).
2. Not only did he have deep understanding of the Lord, he also knew his own identity in the eyes of heaven. Daniel persisted in prayer because he was confident in love. His assurance that mountains would be moved when he spoke weak words (Dan. 9:23; 10:12) rested in his assurance that he was beloved and highly esteemed (Dan. 9:23; 10:11, 19). We will have the same courage and longevity in prayer only when we comprehend the immeasurable pleasure in God’s heart towards us (Eph. 3).
3. Also, Daniel possessed acute insight about the context he lived in. He knew the times and the seasons that had been decreed by heaven and he was able to pray with insight into God’s purposes (Dan. 9:2). Our context, at the end of the age, urgently demands insight for our generation. The Lord is calling His people to partner with Him in prayer; to agree with His ways and bring to pass His purposes on the earth (2 Pet. 3:12; Rev. 8:3). Like Daniel in his day, our prayers will alter circumstances to the degree that we possess the knowledge of God’s will from His word and are filled with His desires (Dan. 9:2, Jer. 25 cf. John 15:7, Ps. 37:4).
4. Lastly, Daniel lived with a life posture of sobriety and humility before the Lord. Daniel’s dependence and sobriety – fasting, mourning, and steadily seeking the Lord (Dan. 1:8, 6:10, 10:2-3 etc.) – was his lifestyle for 70 plus years. He was persistent. He had a history in prayer. I wonder if many in our day have swallowed a sub-biblical (mis)perception of God’s sovereignty that has led to less constancy and urgency in prayer instead of more. This was not so with Daniel (Dan. 6:10; 9:2-3). And it must not be so with our generation. To those given wholly to God He has delegated true power and authority to affect the course of history under His sovereign leadership (James 5:16-18). Praying for Daniel’s in our time who will give God no rest until righteousness prevails, injustice is abolished, and the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.
Self-Denial is ALL About Gaining Christ
Often the most familiar passages are the most misunderstood. So it is with Mark 8:34-36.
“If anyone would come after ME, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow ME. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:34-36)
There are three textual reasons to believe that Jesus meant much more than just “Quit sinning” (as the statement is all too often reduced to meaning).
- The command to “DENY” yourself was logically connected to the statement “follow ME.” He is pointing the fact that HE is the chief end of self-denial. That is, in Him we find pleasures that are superior to the fleeting inferior pleasures of this age (which is the grounds from which God demands all men to repent from). When we understand “denying ourselves” to mean nothing more than “quit sinning” we diminish the glory of Christ and the weight of this gutsy appeal. HE declares HIMSELF to be the sole reason to “lose” anything, “forfeit” anything or “deny yourself” anything because HE declares HIMSELF to be infinitely more valuable than any of those things. In other words, self-denial isn’t for the sake of self-denial but for the sake of “following” Him and “gaining” Him. JESUS makes HIMSELF the center and reward of His own appeal to embrace self-denial.
- He connects “LOSING” something to “GAINING” something. This is the crux of the statement. There is clearly personal gain involved in Jesus’ logic; our gain; gain that stuns our hearts, bends our minds and transforms our behavior; gain that, then as a result, brings HIM gain – for when we ascribe supremacy to Him and not to that which is inferior to Him, He is powerfully and profoundly glorified. Jesus commands us to give up that which is inferior up to gain that which is superior; to gain that which is far more valuable than that which is being lost. He calls us to a sort of “sanctified selfishness” wherein we resist the inferior pleasures of sin (denying ourselves) ON THE BASIS that He promised us the attaining of that which is infinitely and eternally “more fair” (following Him and gaining life).
- He says “What does it PROFIT a man…?” He is appealing to our desire for personal gain. The exhortation is centered around this reality. He’s saying that engaging with the pleasures of sin – even to the most satisfying degree imaginable, like gaining the world – will result in utter loss: death. Thus we must conclude that Jesus’ call to self-denial is deeply rooted in His confidence in His supremacy and thus His confidence in His ability to satisfy our souls; it’s rooted in a call to “PROFIT” by “GAINING” that which is better than that which we are “LOSING;” which is nothing short of HIM.
Let us not reduce the call to self-denial to nothing more than a method of sin management. And let our appeals to self-denial and our attempts at self-denial fall under the liberating shadow the soul satisfying supremacy of Christ.
“That man is no fool to give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” – Jim Elliot
Five Reasons to Emulate King David
Here are five reasons why I want to emulate King David in my life:
First, David’s great obsession was to have present tense intimate communion with God. The primary way David pursued this was through studying God’s emotions and attributes. No one in Scripture wrote more about God’s emotions or attributes than David. To the degree that I set my heart to see and understand what God is like and what He feels is the degree that I will live with a satisfied heart. David knew that being King could never meet the great need of his heart: the need for consummate joy. David knew that encountering God’s emotions and attributes was the fountainhead of all authentic joy.
Second, David understood the invincible power of gratitude that flowed from encountering God’s emotions and attributes. The Psalms abound with commands to “give thanks to the Lord.” In Psalm 118 the command is followed by the statement: “for He is good and His mercy/lovingkindness endures forever.” I want to live with the power of gratitude resting on my heart. With so many reasons to embrace bitterness, depression, anxiety and shame David gives me reason to believe that thankfulness is something to seek with all my might. And he tells me that it’s birthed, nurtured and sustained through encounter with God.
Third, David sought to walk in complete obedience before God in every area of his life (dozens of Psalms communicate this zeal). While he fell tragically short of that obedience on a consistent basis, it was clearly the focus of his life; yea even obsession (as many of the Psalms reveal). In an hour when compromise and perversion abounds, David is a signpost of how to live before God.
Fourth, David sought to walk in complete obedience so that he could experience greater depth of personal joy. His pursuit of obedience wasn’t religious externalism. It wasn’t just abstinence. It wasn’t merely behavioural change. David understood that purity of heart made him susceptible to the Holy Spirit which in turn maximized his joy. David’s pursuit of personal holiness was driven by a fierce determination to feel the greatest degree of personal pleasure possible. The reality of the superior pleasures of God to the inferior pleasures of sin took hold of David and consumed him; to the point where everyone from his family to the “drunkards” on the streets mocked him because of his focus and consecration. David understood that his will was no match for the powers of sin and that apart from a greater pleasure to take the place of the sin he was engaging in he’d never get free from it.
Fifth, David’s highest vision for his city and his generation was for the establishing of what he called “a dwelling place;” or, in other passages, “a resting place.” David understood that God was “great” and therefore “greatly to be praised.” And he understood that if God was praised, God would “inhabit the praises of His people” (Ps. 22:3) in great power. So, in order to establish a place where God could dwell with and rest with His people in an inhabiting way, David financially released 4,000 musicians and 288 singers to minister to the Lord incessantly. I want to give my time, my best energy and my money to see men and women established in this same ministry in the cities of the earth that God might dwell in our midst in a manifest way. David presents us with some of the most important truths concerning the historic visitation of God’s manifest presence; that is, how it’s invited, honoured, fostered and stewarded.
When David encountered God’s emotions (‘He is good and His mercy endures’) it filled him with gratitude (‘give thanks to the Lord for’). This gratitude motivated and sustained personal holiness. And the reward of personal holiness was abiding communion with God. To create the optimum context for abiding communion to take place on a corporate level, David fought to establish a dwelling place. This is why he’s one of my greatest heroes; one that I desire earnestly to emulate.
The promise of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers is a promise of glorious personal interior blessing with manifold external implications.
The first text of many that we’ll look at in this ongoing series to develop a holistic understanding of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is Ephesians 3:14-19 where Paul prays this:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
This passage is so precious for a number of reasons. First because it emphatically declares that God’s desire (as displayed through Paul’s intercessory cry) for His people is that they would be mature in love for Him; and secondly, because it explains how we grow into this maturity. These two subjects (i.e. God’s desire for us to be mature in love and the way in which we grow into it) are two of the most important subjects we could ever set our minds upon.
Before we move into the text, here’s an outline of the prayer. The progression of Paul’s prayerful propositions looks like this:
1. He prays that:
- We would be granted divine strength through the Holy Spirit
- In our inner-being/man
- According to the riches of God’s glory
2. So that:
- Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith
3. So that:
- Being rooted and grounded in love
- We would have strength
- To comprehend
- The boundless dimensions of the love of Christ
- That surpasses knowledge
4. So that:
- We would be filled with the fullness of God
The four times the word “that” is mention points to four main points: (1) prayer for our strength, (2) prayer for the indwelling Christ, (3) prayer for comprehension of God’s love and (4) prayer for our being filled with the fullness of God. So the prayer is a passionate cry for us to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit to receive the indwelling Christ so that we’d be able to experience God’s love so that we’d be able to receive the fullness of God in our beings.
The END objective in God’s mind for His people is that we would be filled with His fullness having experienced the infinitely boundless dimensions of the love of God towards us; that we would be strong in the power of the Spirit to feel and know God’s deep affections for us (note the two times Paul prays for “strength”). The MEANS by which this objective is met is the dispensing of the Spirit upon weak believers who lack the ability within themselves to experience this boundless love.
God’s highest vision for our lives is that we would be fervent in love (Matt. 22:37; Jn. 17:26; 1 Cor. 13:1-13; Rev. 2:2-5). And fervency in love is impossible outside of a personal experience of God’s fervent love for us. This was John’s point in 1 John 4:19 when he was explaining how “love is perfected.” He said “We love [God] because [we experience that] He first loved us.”
The baptism of the Holy Spirit that John the Baptist prophesied in Luke 3:16, that power that Jesus promised in Luke 24:49 and the outpouring that the disciples experienced in Acts 2 all were centered primarily around God’s esteem for the First Commandment and secondarily for the Great Commission. The completing of the Great Commission is primarily an issue of quality and secondarily an issue of quantity. And thus the completing of the Great Commission is rooted in the obeying of the First Commandment.
And this is why Paul is praying the way he is in Ephesians 3. He knows that none of us have the ability to conjure up love for God in and of ourselves. We need the power of the Spirit to love God and obey Him to walk in the First Commandment.
Look at how Paul prays: “God strengthen them!” The way we are strengthened is revealed in the next request: “Strengthen them in their inner-man by the Holy Spirit!” The impact of the ministry of the Holy Spirit on our inner-man is revealed in the next statement: “Root them and ground them in love!” The love that Paul is speaking about is the love of God for us. The impact of being rooted and grounded in God’s love for us is revealed in the next statement: “…so that they’d have the ability to comprehend that which they have no ability to comprehend – your boundless affections for them!”
To speak about being “endued with power from on high” or about being “baptized in the Holy Spirit and fire” is to speak about the God-given power that is injected into the human heart that enables it to experience God’s emotions towards us. To limit the baptism of the Holy Spirit to just powerful and effective ministry is to undermine so many breathtaking passages like Ephesians 3:14-19 where the purpose of power is the receiving and reciprocating of love.
God strengthens His people to experience His love and to reciprocate that love by gently breathing upon their hearts with the Holy Spirit (like He breathed upon the disciples in John 20:22) and by powerfully overwhelming their hearts in the life-altering baptism of the Spirit (like when He came like wind and fire in Acts 2). Both are precious and both are to be pursued and contended for. We need to cherish the gentle breath of the Spirit and the strength of the baptism of the Spirit in our pursuit of obedience. Because remember: The height of our obedience is displayed through our fleshing out of the First Commandment; and we can only flesh that out when we possess the divine provision of power upon our hearts to do so.
And here’s how this plays into the completing of the Great Commission and the reason why Jesus yoked ‘the promise of the power of the Spirit’ to ‘the sending of witnesses into the nations.’ Those who have received the ability to experience and reciprocate God’s love are those who will possess the inner inclination, motivation and desire to bear witness to the Gospel in the nations. And therefore I want to make this very clear: our lack of impact in the nations is a product of our lack of intimacy with God.
When we gain intimacy in our hearts through the power of the Spirit we gain impact in the nations through the power of the Spirit. Let’s contend for it and receive it.