All My Tears

Check out the lyrics to this song:

When I go don't cry for me
In my father's arms I'll be
The wounds this world left on my soul
Will all be healed and I'll be whole

Sun and moon will be replaced
With the light of Jesus' face
And I will not be ashamed
For my savior knows my name

It don't matter where you bury me
I'll be home and I'll be free
It don't matter where I lay
All my tears be washed away

Gold and silver blind the eyes
Temporary riches lie
Come and eat from heaven's store
Come and drink and thirst no more

So weep not for me my friend
When my time below does end
For my life belongs to him
Who will raise the dead again

It don't matter where you bury me
I'll be home and I'll be free
It don't matter where I lay
All my tears be washed away

"All My Tears" by Julie Miller

Prayer Questions

Have you ever asked yourself the question, "Why should we pray?" There are a lot of answers to that question, so let's narrow it down a little bit. Have you ever asked yourself the question, "If God is sovereign, why should we pray?" or , "If God is in control of all things, they're going to happen whether we pray or not, so what's the point?"

There are probably a few answers to that question too, but let's just look at one. Within His call to abide in Him, Jesus casts light on the issue in John 15 starting at verse 7:

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you
John 15:7

We could spend two or three additional blog posts examining this verse's teaching on prayer, but we're going to stay on topic and try to answer our question. Jesus tells us that if we abide in Him, we can ask whatever we wish and it will be done for us. What's more is that He doesn't just tell us to ask, he encourages it! So one answer to our question could simply be, "We pray because Jesus encourages it". After all, it's always a good thing to do the things that Jesus encourages, right? That's definitely true, but there's more to the answer than that. We can get closer to it if we rephrase the question to be, "Why does Jesus encourage us to ask for things that He will answer? Why would God work through this mysterious mechanism of prayer when He could easily just bypass the whole ordeal and accomplish His purposes without it?"

It's a good thing Jesus kept talking after verse 7:

By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples
John 15:8

We see in verse 8 that God is glorified when Christians bear fruit and prove to be Jesus' disciples. But what does bearing fruit have to do with prayer and why does that give God glory? Jesus said verse 7 before verse 8 for a reason. Let's look at them together:

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples
John 15:7-8

First let's connect bearing fruit and prayer. When we're abiding in Jesus and letting His words abide in us, we're going to be asking for things that Jesus wants. One of the things He wants is for us to bear fruit. Bearing fruit can be lots of things. It can be overcoming sin, doing good works, or becoming more like Christ. Regardless of what the fruit is, we're going to pray for it when we're abiding in Jesus. And, as Jesus promises, God is going to answer those prayers! Now why does that bring God glory?

Imagine if He bore that fruit without our prayers. We might miss something. We might think we overcame that sin because of our efforts or did those good works because we're a good person. We might not give credit where credit is due. Now if we had been praying for bearing fruit, we'd only have one explanation for it: God did it! When we pray and God answers, we remember that God is the one working and praise Him for it, therefore giving Him more glory than if He worked without our prayers. So, we've discovered why Jesus encourages to pray to our God that doesn't need our prayers. When we pray and He answers, He gets glory! More glory than if He worked through some other means. God is a giver, and our prayers let us see how great a giver He is!

Funkytown

God did a pretty big number on me this past month. Although it wasn't the most enjoyable experience in the world, I'm glad that through whatever means possible, He's looking to secure my eternal joy. It started with this statement from Jesus:

"Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you"
John 6:27

As I thought about this verse, my first reaction was, "Ok, so I probably shouldn't labor for things that won't last because they're ultimately going to perish. Instead, labor for that which will last forever". From that thought came the all-important question, "What is the food that endures to eternal life?"

So, I casually asked God to answer it and went on my merry way. It's funny how He will answer our casual and even half-hearted requests sometimes more dramatically than our earnest ones. Looking back, it's pretty foolish to ask that question half-heartedly. God's serious about eternity and He's serious about what food we're laboring for.

Back to the story, as the days and weeks went on, I descended into something that's hard to describe. You could call it multiple things (a mini depression, doubting God, burned out, homesick), but I don't know if any of them hit the spot. I guess the best description would be to say that I was in a funk. I was unaware at the time, but God was answering my prayer.

At the climax of my funk, I turned back to John 6 to revisit my original question about the food, "What is the food that endures to eternal life?" In my Bible, Christ's answer is about two inches below verse 27:

"I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst"
John 6:35

These glorious words rocked my world. Let me explain.

Through the funk, I realized I had been looking to many things for my satisfaction, but they were not the right things. You may expect me to say that these wrong things were working at Microsoft or sports or something tangible like that, but I don't think it was those. The perishing food that I'd been seeking was much more subtle. It was food like the praise of men and what people think of me. And even more subtle, it was food like my listening to sermons in the car or my listening to worship songs or even my reading the Bible every day (a quick side note: sermons and worship songs are great and reading the Bible every day is imperative to our relating to God. You'll understand what I mean as you keep reading).

See, none of these things are bad (and the sermons/songs/reading the Bible are quite good), but when we look to them by themselves for our satisfaction, we're prone to lose sight of Jesus, our bread of life. In other words, if we're standing on these things on their own for our joy, and not using them as a means of seeing, loving, relating to, and partaking in Jesus, we've become idolaters. We've elevated our own piety or discipline or religiosity above our Savior. God used my funk to strip away the perishing food in my life and turn me towards loving the Person of Jesus.

I'm not the slightest bit perfect, and it will take all eternity to love Jesus as I ought, but I'd like to ask you, what are you standing on? Where are you going for your food? Are you standing on the person and work of Jesus as your rock? Is He (not your church attendance, your career, your ministry, your relationships, your entertainment, your fun, your money, your piety, your morality, or your leisure) your bread of life? Nothing else will endure beyond this life, and nothing else will deliver lasting joy.