Joy Gascoigne from Grimethorpe Pentecostal Church spoke tonight on the subject of prayer. Prayer is a mark of God’s people, His plan that His kingdom operates through prayer. When we pray, we should expect God to answer.

Luke 5:16 shows us Jesus as a praying man, who often withdrew to solitary places to pray. He prayed with HIs disciples as well as on His own; He prayed in all situations at all times. He was a busy man, but He made time for prayer. People who want to pray must find a time and a place to pray. Like Jesus, we must pray for other believers (see John 17), but we must also learn to pray as He did: sincerely (being genuine and honest, not putting on an act – see Matt 6:6), praying with faith (see Matt 21:22) and with forgiveness (Matt 11:25).

Praying with faith means accepting that God’s answers can be ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘not yet.‘ It can be difficult to wait for God to answer at times, but we are not at the end of the story yet. Praying with faith means we trust God even when we cannot see His answers yet. Forgiveness is essential to seeing prayer answered. A lack of forgiveness creates a road block in our relationship with God and stops progress. It limits our access to God. Forgiveness is not a feeling, but a choice, a decision of the will which will always open the door to God’s blessing.

Prayer is essential. We need to pray.

Garry continued his series looking at the prayers of the apostle Paul by focusing on Eph 1:17-20 where Paul prays for God to give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they may know Him better. Wisdom is obviously important in life as the book of Proverbs makes clear; the words of the wise ‘prod us to live well… like nails hammered home, holding life together.’ (Eccl 12:11, The Message.) We all need to live as wise not unwise (Eph 5:15-16), but wisdom is more than mere knowledge. In John 4:35, Jesus talks about opening our eyes to see the fields ripe for harvest; this is knowledge, but wisdom is recognising that we must harvest now as a result of this situation.

James talks about different sources of wisdom and the difference between heavenly and earthly wisdom. (James 3:13-17)  Wisdom starts with a right fear of the Lord (Ps 111:10), where we put God first, trust His word and rely on His Spirit. Natural wisdom obviously has its limitations, since it neglects the spiritual dimension.There is also a demonic source of wisdom which is completely opposite to God’s ways. We learn spiritual wisdom by meditating on God’s words (Ps 119:97-99, 2 Tim 3:14-15). God HImself gives wisdom at times (see 1 Cor 12:7-8, James 1:5-6).

The spirit of revelation which Paul prays for has a substantial crossover with wisdom. God reveals HImself (see Gen 35:7, 1 Sam 3:21, Is 65:1) and makes known His ways to us (see Matt 11:25). Paul believes that this revelation will lead us to know God better; an ever-deepening knowledge of God is what we all need (see Phil 3:10).Natural knowledge and revelation are useful, but often, God speaks to us to show us things that we could not know without divine revelation (as happened to Joseph when interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams, for example.) Words of knowledge are this kind of revelation (1 Cor 12:7-8) which we see frequently in the Bible (Dan 2:18-19, Amos 3:6-7). Paul prayed for the Ephesians to receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they could live better, more effective lives. This same Spirit is available for us too to give wisdom and revelation/ knowledge so that we know God better, experience more of Him at work in us and so we can be aware of what He is doing.

Our household object for today is the fireplace and our Bible passage is Genesis 18:27-33.

When I was a child visiting my grandparents’ house, the open fire in the living room was both cosy and inviting. Fire produces both heat and light, but as it burns, it produces smoke and ash; it consumes everything, turning it into grey powder. As an adult, I discovered making fires was not as easy as it had looked as a child, and that fire had both advantages and disadvantages.

Abraham, in the passage for today, recognised his lowliness (‘I who am but dust and ashes.’) We recognise our lowliness and mortality when in the Ash Wednesday service and funeral services we say ‘remember that you are but dust and to dust you shall return.’) Far from being morbid, such honesty is necessary if we are to grow spiritually. Humility and repentance are at the heart of our faith journey; when we approach God in this way, acknowledging the purifying effect of His fire, we will also know the warmth of His love and mercy.

Last week we had a flurry of snow in our area, just enough for children to have a snowball fight and to build snowmen. My grandchildren built a snow woman called Sheila and her baby, Melody (named after their baby sister.) To build a snowman, you need to roll several ‘balls’ – two for the body and one for the head and then sculpt them together. Apparently last week’s snow was ideal for this, rolling and compacting well.

Sin is rather like a snowball. It starts innocently enough, so we suppose, with a fleeting thought. If we dwell on that thought, however, it soon becomes more of an obsession than a thought: this is what happened to Saul, whose irritation at the song ‘Saul has slain his thousands but David his tens of thousands’ (1 Sam 18:7) soon blossomed into irrational paranoia and hatred and then led to murder. (1 Samuel 22:17) James describes it in this way: ‘each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.’ (James 1:14-15)

How do we avoid becoming like Saul, enmeshed in sin, going from bad to worse? We have to be ruthless with sin (Paul tells us, ‘do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³ Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.’ Rom 6:12-13) and refuse to let it snowball, confessing our sins and receiving forgiveness. We have to test ourselves, Paul says, (2 Cor 13:5), and ask God to search us and know us so that we can be led in right paths (Ps 139:23-24).