Invitation to support in prayer

Well, we are one step closer to your departure on the 3rd of May. 

One of our greatest concerns is for your prayer support. If we are to accomplish this mission, we can't do it! It must be the work of the Holy Spirit in and through us. 

Although we are not regular missionaries, needing to raise support for both ministry expenses and a salary, we have set up a site to be used if we fund future trips. The one thing we can't afford to do too often is the airfare, about $3600 for this trip. The LORD provided as usual. If you wanted to support this time around, we need $2.25 a day for insurance.

But if you would like to be part of future endeavors, please feel free to give $1 at the following link. That will place you on our mailing list and give us the assurance that you are praying for us. We will be able to send you regular updates as our time in Okinawa progresses. 

Here is our personal link.
http://web.nazarene.org/goto/Stan-Bev_Arnold

Again, we need your prayers.

Stan & Bev

Radio Repeaters

1 John 5:14-15

          Radio Repeaters are devices that receive a radio signal that is weak and then amplify it and send it out again. Sometimes they transmit on the same frequency that they received. Sometimes they send it out on a different frequency. The content of the signal doesn’t change. What they received they send out. Repeaters extend the range of the original signal. As an example, most police and fire services use repeaters to be able to communicate across their large geographic area.

          Effective prayer is very much like a repeater system. We get so close to the LORD, listening to His every desire, and then we transmit that desire back to Him in prayer. We end up praying His will in a situation. And He knows what is best for us. He has our greatest good on His mind. So when we pray according to His will, the best outcome is guaranteed. He always wants us to join Him in what He is doing. He wants us to join His bandwagon.

          This is the confidence we have. Our prayers can be answered when we pray what He wants us to pray. But one of our biggest struggles connected to prayer is our own selfishness and shortsightedness. We want what we want and we want it now. There is so often little actual flexibility in our prayers. We so often don’t bother listening, tuning in to His frequency, before we pray. We just let it rip.

          John tells us we can have confidence when we pray. We can know we have eternal life and we can know that our prayers will be answered. Pray His will! Take time to get in His presence, silent enough to hear His heartbeat, then pray what He tells you to pray. But we don’t like having to slow down and listen. We must still our trembling heart. We must fight our urge to rush in and ask. We have to submit our will to His will. We must surrender.

          Some have taken these verses and transformed God into a winning slot machine or internet marketplace. In goes the prayer and out comes the answer. They string together verses to suit their fleshly desires and then claim that their fleshly desire is God’s will. And since it is God’s will, at least in their warped mind, they twist God’s arm until they get their answer. Some TV preachers are famous for this kind of manipulation. They get the money rolling in from viewers, buy the corporate jet and MacMansion, and then they say, “See, it works.” God didn’t answer their prayer. Guilt inducement and manipulation did.

          One of my professors in college years ago said something that has stuck with me. He said that if the Gospel being preached didn’t work among the poorest people in the world, then there was something wrong with the Gospel being preached. If the prosperity teaching wouldn’t work in the slums of Calcutta, it wasn’t true.

          God does not run a Ponzi scheme, taking wealth from one per and passing it on to another using manipulation. He is not behind those preachers and their teaching. Their judgment is waiting for them. They have stored up wrath for the day of judgment.

Answered Prayer’s Secret Formula

1 John 3:21-22

          Millions of people around the world love to gamble. It is part of their lives. They arrive at the airport late banking on their charm to get them onto the plane in time. That is a gamble. Some do it with their money as they “invest” in the stock market. Some buy lottery tickets in hopes of the “big” win. Some go to casinos and try their hand at many different forms of planned losing, not their plan but the casino’s plan.

          Some people think prayer is like gambling, never knowing if an answer will come. Their view of prayer is like putting money into a big slot machine and pulling the lever. They pull the lever (pray) and then wait to see if their fruits line up (feel something) and the answer drops into the tray (get what they wanted). This concept of prayer is so shortsighted and misguided. It leaves people empty and wake. It demeans their concept of God and of themselves.

          John has a very different concept of prayer. He says we receive what we ask of God. We can get our prayers answered. Yippee! But there are some catches. John has been talking about walking our talk, loving each other with the same “lay down your life” kind of love that Jesus demonstrated. When this kind of love is present and known, our lives radiate the love of Christ toward others. We can know that our relationship with the LORD is solid and secure because we love each other.

          So if we are in right relationship with God we receive. John puts two conditions on this receiving. The first is that we obey His commands. We can’t expect the LORD’s blessing in our lives if we are in rebellion against His authority. For John’s audience, they had a problem with loving each other. That was their Achilles heel. Ours might be different. But loving each other is never optional. We might not have a problem loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. But I can bet we have problems in other areas. I know I do.

          John also focuses on our choice to do what pleases Him. This is where most of us get off track. We need to be praying for what He wants, not what we want. But this means we must be in tune with what He wants. If we ask for what He wants the results are guaranteed. That is the secret to prayer. Never pray anything that He doesn’t direct you to pray and expect a positive answer. But you can always pray what He directs you to pray and expect a positive answer.

          We must do what pleases Him, and this includes the prayers that we pray. No plastic, rote prayers will do. They must be genuine conversations that grow out of our intimacy with Him and out feet in the world. We can wrestle in prayer about the injustices we see around us, the pain and suffering. But then we must, as the old-timers used to say, we must pray through. We need to pray until we are praying His will. And this is more than just saying the words, “Thy will be done.” I believe we can pray until things are resolved in our spirit to the point that we know we have heard from the LORD that the outcome for which we are praying is lining up with His outcome.

          When we are in this posture we would never pray for something that was outside what He wanted. No husband, at least one who wanted to live a peaceful life with His wife, would go out and purchase a new Harley without discussing it with his wife. No wife would purchase all new furniture with consultation. Spouses check with each other, discuss it until there is agreement, then action is taken. Independence is not a characteristic of a healthy marriage relationship. Why would we think our relationship with the LORD would be any less.

          So pray through.

In Trouble

Mark 14:37-40

      Have you ever gotten in trouble for what you failed to do? You were supposed to be doing one thing, and you did something else instead. The other thing might have even been a good thing, but you paid the price for failing to do the one thing.

      Sleeping while on guard duty is a serious offense, especially in wartime, and especially when the guarding is done near the front lines. If there is a possibility that the enemy could infiltrate the place being guarded, it can mean life and death. The lives of those being guarded is held in the hands of the one guarding. One failure can mean capture and death.

      The three closest disciples were given a simple task: watch. They were the ones charged with guarding. They needed to stay awake and stay alert. And it can seem like such a simple task. Unless of course you are sleepy, really sleepy. And then it is almost impossible to stay awake. Your eyes get so heavy, that even if you hold them open with your fingers, you begin to drift off to sleep.

      The worst hours for me are between two and four in the morning. If I don’t stay physically active during those times, I can feel myself drifting off. That urge to sleep can be very strong. And the disciples hadn’t had practice being on guard. Normally they would have been asleep like everyone else. It was the middle of the night.

      When working in Romania one of the strangest sights was seeing people awake and walking around the street in the middle of the night. We noticed it most when we were traveling to and from that part of the continent. They weren’t involved in any useful activity, at least not and obvious one. They weren’t police walking their beat. They seemed to be just ordinary people, up in the middle of the night, walking around. The contrast between their desire to stay awake and our desire to go back to sleep hit us in those moments. We had to stay awake, no matter what. We were driving. We had to arrive at our destination. But we wanted little more than sleep.

      The disciples failed. Then they are given and extra task while they wait for Jesus to finish His time of prayer. They were told to add prayer to their guard duties. And if they were like most of us, we tend to pray with our eyes closed, our bodies relatively still. Not the best recipe for success. Middle of the night, dark, cool, quiet, tired, eyes closed. Sleep sounds pretty good to me!

      Prayer is added because what they are being asked to accomplish seems to be beyond their capability at that moment. They need God’s help to stay awake. They have lost the battle between what the spirit wants and what the body is willing to give. Their bodies have run out of energy. They need more help than they are willing to admit.

      So next time you feel like your body is not cooperating with what your spirit desires, pray. You need the LORD’s help in that moment.

Winter Wonderland It Ain’t

Mark 13:18-20

      With Fall officially here, or at least in some parts of the country, some are getting ready for their ski vacations! Flying down those slopes and then sitting by the fireplace. Ahhhhhhh! Snow angels, slippery walks, snow banks, shoveling, ice skates, snow balls, snow forts, sleds and BenGay. We can bring up so many images and memories of this time of year. And with the cold temperatures predicted by the Farmer’s Almanac, who knows how it will turn out.

      For those in our text, they hope for a very mild winter. If they must flee Jerusalem on foot, with small children, without being able to go home and get the warm winter boots or mittens, then they don’t want to have to do it in snow and ice. Remember, this is before SUVs and portable space heaters. When you got cold, you stayed cold. And cold can be deadly, especially if you are vulnerable.

      Our text says that this will be the worst distress that the world has ever seen. It must be pretty bad. The world has seen some pretty bad stuff. Just in the last decade or two the atrocities done by a few on so many has turned our stomachs. Millions have been starved, tortured, butchered, and raped by very evil people. But that is nothing compared to the time that is coming ahead. It will make number one on the top ten terrible days list. It will be the worst in all of time.

      It is so bad that the LORD Himself shortens the days. Because He cares about His children, He cuts the time. If He didn’t make it a shorter period of time, the text says no one would survive. Wow, it is going to be bad. His judgment is going to be fierce. Sin’s cost will be paid. The wrath He has held back for thousands of years will be released. No wonder He tells the people living in Jerusalem to get out without taking anything with them. You don’t want to be caught up in this kind of judgment.

      But the LORD is gracious. He shortens the time. He deals in measured judgment. A time will come when the exact price will be extracted for the rebellion of the human heart, for the rejection of His escape plan. He paid all the tickets, but some refuse to accept that ticket. They want to try to get on the plane without going through TSA security and without a valid boarding pass.

      The beginning of our text tells us we should pray about the timing. Why should we pray if the timing isn’t in our hands, but God’s? Prayer isn’t about changing God’s mind, but about changing our hearts. Prayer will prepare us for whatever is ahead. Prayer lines our hearts up with His. Prayer allows us to experience His peace in any and every circumstance.

Prayer’s Powers

Mark 9:28-29

      Sometimes we look at prayer as our last resort tool, the tool we pull out when we have tried everything else and don’t know what to do. We act like praying is equivalent to rubbing the magic lamp hoping the genie will materialize and grant us three wishes. The more we pray the faster the genie will appear. Or maybe that prayer is the lucky charm we carry in our pocket to protect us from evil. If we forget to pray, something bad will happen.

      Today we often pick up our ideas of what prayer is and does from movies and TV. But how could they possibly have any idea about the true nature of prayer? The vast majority are wacked out hedonist, interested only in their own success and pleasure. They ignore any restraint to their behavior and belief. They are “free” to do as they please. They can appear in movies toting machine guns and then speak against gun violence. Like so many in leadership in our society, they take no responsibility for their personal choices and the consequences of those choices on others or on society at large. So why do we trust what they say about prayer!

      The disciples had a problem. They were not able to cast out a demon, even though Jesus had given them authority to do so. When this man brought his son I bet the disciples thought this would be no problem. They had been given power and authority to do just this type of thing by Jesus. They had done it before. They certainly could do it again. But they couldn’t.

      So after Jesus accomplishes the task, they want to know what happened. Wouldn’t you! So they ask. What a novel idea, being direct.

      But Jesus gives them a short answer, or at least this is all Mark records. And the answer doesn’t seem to fill in too many of the blanks that I have. I’m not sure how the disciples felt. Whether it is by prayer or by prayer and fasting, this doesn’t solve the problem. Did you see Jesus stop and spend time in either activity before He began casting out the demon? Our text certainly doesn’t record that.

      Perhaps prayer was not the means of receiving power to accomplish the task, but receiving insight into the how to accomplish it. Jesus certainly would not need prayer. He has the power of all Heaven at His disposal. But the disciples were missing something. Perhaps they were out of intimate relationship with the LORD when they tried. Demon-casting had become routine for them. “Oh, that old thing. I can to that in my sleep.”

      Prayer is essentially about relationship. We have a conversation with the LORD to hear His voice, His direction, and receive the power to accomplish it. We share our worship, adoration, thankfulness, and concerns with Him in the process.  Prayer is about the flow of being, ours reaching out to Him and He reaching back.

      God’s working does not fit into neat little boxes. Prayer is not the magic bullet that takes out all the bad guys in our life. It is, instead, the means of relationship building. When we add His Word along with fellowship and service of others we round out the ways He can connect with us. And it is that connection that Jesus had in spades. The disciples needed prayer. So do we.