A Prayer on May 21

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for making us alive and saving us through the precious blood of your Son. We praise you for your incomparable grace, for atoning for our sin, and making us righteous in Christ. We thank you for saving us from the judgment to come, not because of anything we have done or any good in us, but only because it pleased you. Thank you for putting our sin to death with Jesus, and raising us to new life in Him. And we look longingly towards the day of His return, when we will be together with you forever. We pray that when you do return to judge the world, that we will be found ready. Keep us from stumbling and present us blameless before the presence of your glory with great joy. To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

We pray for those who have been deluded by the cult of Harold Camping, who have put their hopes in a man acting directly contrary to your clear, unambiguous word. Have mercy on them, and grant them repentance and knowledge of the truth. Allow us, your church, to be instruments of grace to them, pointing them to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let us not join in the inevitable mocking, but let us proclaim the truth in love.

And we pray for the mockers, the scoffers, and all those who are still in rebellion against you, our Creator and Sovereign. You are not slow to keep your promise, but patient, not wishing any to perish, but all to come to knowledge of the truth. They presume on the riches of your kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that your kindness is meant to lead them to repentance. But because of their hard and impenitent heart they are storing up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath when your righteous judgment will be revealed. We pray that you would grant them repentance and knowledge of the truth, that you would open their eyes to your glory and let them flee from the wrath that is to come into the safe shelter of the blood of Christ.

Amen. Come Lord Jesus.

On Interfaith Prayer Services

In America, one of the more common methods of promoting unity is to hold something known as an "interfaith prayer service". These were particularly common following 9/11 (for anyone from the Obama administration reading this, that was the day when... oh nevermind, you wouldn't be interested), when people of all faiths were called to set aside their differences and call out to God together - Christians, Jews, muslims, whatever Apu is, etc. Sometimes an interfaith prayer service will be called for a community, a college (by the 'interfaith council'), or in extreme circumstances, the whole nation. Annually, there is the National Day of Prayer (apparently it's this week - as usual, Dan Phillips offers an outstanding take on it), in which all Americans all axed to take time to call out to God on behalf of the nation.

My question is, should Christians participate?

Consider for a moment what these events are saying. The fundamental assumption central to an interfaith prayer service is that we all worship the same god and what we believe makes no difference at all. The whole concept necessarily assumes that all prayers are equal, that they are simply generic petitions to generic deity/energy field/life force/gaia. Without this assumption, the entire idea is patently absurd. What business would a Jew and a muslim have praying together, or a Christian and a mormon, or a hindu and a j-dub? If any of those faiths are true, all others are necessarily false (well, hindu and mormonism might be compatible), so why would we think their prayers are of any value?

Frankly, the idea of a Christian claiming that his faith is no different from any other should be nauseating. How dare we set aside the exclusivity of Christ in order to pretend that Islam is just as valid and their prayers are just as effectual? How dare we give false witness to those of other faiths and undermine the gospel by pretending that [generic belief or moralism] is no different than salvation through the death and resurrection of the Son of God for his church? How can we profane the blood of Christ by declaring it to be of no more worth than... whatever it is hindus do?

Can you imagine Paul participating in an interfaith prayer service in Corinth or Athens? Sure, his spirit was provoked within him by all the idols, and he risked his life to confront their pagan idolatry, but maybe for one day he could lead a generic prayer to generic deity, because it's all really the same anyway. Right.

Or maybe Jesus would be willing to participate in one. Perhaps after saying this:

"If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."

...he could have extended the invitation. Now let's pray together, because our prayers all go to the same place, right? Right. Yeah, I can totally see that happening.

So here's the challenge: provide one scriptural justification for Christians participating in an interfaith prayer service. Surely if one exists, my Biblically-knowledgable readership (at least a dozen strong!) should be able to find it, no problem. Perhaps an example of such a service in scripture would suffice?

I could only think of one scriptural example of an interfaith prayer service. You can find it in 1 Kings 18. How'd that work out?

Dual Conviction

In the past few weeks I've been convicted in two major areas where I've been a slacker. First, yesterday at church the sermon (by guest preacher Crawford Loritts) was based on 1 Thessalonians 5:17. No doubt you can figure out where this part is going. Anyway, what really hit me more than anything was in the introduction, when he made the point that prayer is an acknowledgment of our total dependence on God. There is an inverse relationship between prayer and sinful, self-satisfying pride; the more prideful we are, the less we will pray.

The second area I've been really challenged in has been the study, and especially memorizing, of scripture. As my incredibly awesome wife has described, the importance of scripture memory has been hammered home to her, and she's been doing an incredible job of it (in just the past few months, she's memorized Hebrews, 1 2 and 3 John, several Psalms, and is now working on Colossians). So I've been inspired by how quickly she's been able to do this just by working at it in a disciplined manner. She's quite amazing, you know.

But what really brought the point home was seeing this. Adorable kid, and absolutely convicting. Just by listening to the same chapter every day for a few weeks, he was able to recite it basically word-perfect. And he's only four! I don't know how many times I've heard people use the excuse that they just can't memorize scripture (yet learning song lyrics or fantasy football stats never seems to be a problem) - well, this just blows that excuse completely away, doesn't it? As for me, I doubt anyone who's known me longer than a few minutes would ever buy that excuse from me anyway. No, the reason I haven't memorized long passages or whole books like that is sheer laziness.

So guess what I'll be making a lot more time for from now on.