Jan 18 2007

Prayer #10


Things that are good but are not prayer

First, may I say that I don’t believe that all communication with God is prayer. Meditation is good and useful but it is not prayer. Thinking about praying is not prayer. Have you ever heard some church member say to someone who is sick or has some other problem “I’ll be thinking about you”?  I would rather you pray for me than to think about me.   I don’t believe that all verbal communication with God is prayer.

Praise is the natural outpouring of the believer who contemplates the person of God our Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Praise is commanded over and over in the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments, but praise is not prayer. 

Thanksgiving is also commanded, and every person alive has much to be thankful for, but thanksgiving is not prayer. Praise and thanksgiving ought to accompany prayer but they are not prayer. 

Quoting verses of scripture to God is not necessarily prayer. Of course one could quote a prayer or read one from the Bible and if it was heart felt and it expressed your request to God that would be fine. But as a general rule, quoting verses to God is not prayer.

Listening to someone else pray is not prayer. It is not accurate to say “we prayed for you” when one prayed and scores more listened to him pray. Yes, you can pray along silently as someone else prays aloud but the likely case is that most are just listening.

 I challenge you to take the time to study the great prayers of the Bible. Prayer was always asking and everything else was along with, or in addition to prayer. The Lord’s Prayer that we learned as a child is all asking. Paul’s prayers for the churches to whom he wrote were all asking. Jesus prayers were all asking. Yet in spite of this plain truth, many teach that it is selfish to ask and that we should not ask in prayer.

From the first time supplication is mentioned in the Bible to the last time, it almost always in conjunction with prayer. Most often the order is “prayer and supplication”. So prayer is different than supplication. The primary meaning of the word translated in English as supplication focuses on the need of the supplicant, or the state of being needy. Prayer verbalizes that need. In my best judgment this would be an example of prayer and supplication. I say to God “Please save my neighbor, I don’t want him to go to hell. I want to see him have the same peace and joy I have as your child. Please save him for your glory”. I prayed when I asked God to save my neighbor, the rest was supplication. 

We should give praise to God, we should give thanks in everything, and we should in supplication express our neediness and the desires of our heart. But we must also ask God for what we want from Him if we intend to get anything.

The Bible kind of prayer is asking! And everything other than asking is not prayer. If you want something from God, Ask!

Grace and Peace, 

Royce Ogle              

Jan 15 2007

Preach Christ!


“And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (1 Corinthians  1:1-5) In these 5 verses Paul summarized his ministry to the people of the great city of Corinth. There were many disciples there as a result of his message and method of ministry. And, we find by reading the other of Paul’s epistles that where ever he preached, his message was exactly the same, “Jesus Christ and Him crucified”. 

I fear that in most of our churches we are busily learning the nuances of prayer, going to conferences to discover our spiritual gifts, attending lectureships to try to learn some way to do ministry in more effective ways, and in so doing neglect the simplicity of plain gospel preaching depending completely and utterly on the God of heaven for any result. Again and again I am struck by the profound, but very simple message that Peter, Paul and others preached. It was the kind of preaching that got results. When was the last time you heard of well over 3,000 baptisms in a day? I hear lots and lots of great preaching by almost any measure, but not much on Christ and Him crucified. 

You see, it is one thing to preach Him and quite another to preach about Him. It is a good thing to know about Him but a far better thing to know HIM! We often lose sight of the fact that our mission is to call men to repentance and faith in Jesus. Ours is not a mandate to bring men to church. We are not commanded to urge men to better conduct. Our only mission on earth is to make Christ known to men and women. We are to preach Him!  Paul said in chapter one of 1st Corinthians in verse 24, “Christ the power and wisdom of God” and in the last half of verse 30 he said “who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption”. Do you want power in your ministry? Preach Christ! Do you want wisdom from on high when you speak? Preach Christ! Do those to whom you preach need righteousness? Preach Christ! Do they need sanctification? Preach Christ! We proudly wear the name “church of Christ” but what are we known for? You fill in the blanks. I want to be known as a man who preached Jesus Christ and everything else was to lead men and women to him.

 Power, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, eternal life, resurrection, hope, peace, love, mercy, justice, compassion, unselfishness, service, forgiveness, assurance, confidence and any other good thing you can imagine that might make a person fit for heaven and good for living on planet earth are found in the person, Jesus Christ our Lord. May we earn a reputation of being crazy about Jesus!  Grace and Peace,

Royce Ogle

Jan 12 2007

Prayer #9


Public and Private Praying

Luke 18 records a wonderful lesson on prayer. Two men went to pray, one a lowly sinner and one a religious fellow. The religious fellow prayed long and loud and reminded the Lord of what a fine Christian he was. On the other hand, the sinner would not even raise his head he had such humility and shame, and prayed a very short prayer. Only 6 words!, “God be merciful to me a sinner”. Jesus said of this sinner that he went home saved!

How many times have you heard a Pharisee kind of prayer on Sunday morning at church?; Long and loud, asking nothing and expecting nothing, except the praise of those who are listening. Jesus had something to say about public praying.

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” (Matthew 6:6)

I have often heard some well intentioned person say after a public prayer, “that was a beautiful prayer”. Prayer is to get things from God, not to be pretty in the ears of the hearers. I know that personally I have to guard against praying to “be heard of men” when I am asked to pray in public.

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Jan 11 2007

Welcome to the new home of Grace Digest


After several weeks of frustration with blogger, especially the Beta version, I decided to move. I am one of those who does not like change, learing a new system, but I decided after some research to come to WordPress. Hopefully I will be able to import gracedigest.blogspot.com here very soon.

I appreciate you guys and gals reading my stuff and for your kind comments over the past several months. Any suggestions you have about how to improve this blog will be appreciated, especially if you have WordPress experiance.

Grace and Peace,

Royce Ogle