Prayer | Thoughts Along The Journey

Worth the read … encore

Posted on October 16, 2019 by wtdavid

I have been working my way through the three volume work of William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour. It’s Gurnall’s meditation on Ephesians 6 and the armour of God. A modern version of this work has been published.

As promised, over the next few weeks, from time to time, I will share quotes from Gurnall’s work. I hope these quotes might be of encouragement and challenge to each of us. As well as to convince some of the benefit of ploughing through the 900 pages!

Here’s a quote that would strengthen our hearts as we look forward to the World Team Day of Prayer tomorrow and Friday:

“When Satan badgers you with trivial inquiries, do not try to reason with him. Answer him with your present position in Christ and His sure work of grace in your soul. Never forget that the simple truth of the gospel reduces all the intricacies of Satan to a worthless heap of lies … Still another way to fortify yourself against Satan is to preserve the hope of your salvation, which is promised through Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Record God’s special visits to you in the memory book of your heart. Paste in keepsakes of the occasions when He declared a holiday and came to you in festive robes of mercy, holding forth the scepter of His grace more familiarly than usual. Keep old receipts written in His own hand for the pardon of your sins. ”

Filed under: Gospel, Prayer | 3 Comments »

An open account

Posted on August 30, 2019 by wtdavid

Ron (WT Europe) gave a talk at the recent WT Europe Area Conference on: The Weight of Eternity. I thought this short quote from William Gurnall’s book, The Christian in Complete Armour, shared a little glimpse into what he said during his talk.

“Finally, the Christian ought to rely on divine strength because this plan results in the greatest advancement of God’s own glory (Eph. 1:4, 12). If God had given you a lifetime supply of His grace to begin with and left out to handle your own account, you would have thought Him generous indeed. But He is magnified even more by the open account He sets up in your name. Now you must acknowledge not only that your strength comes from God in the first place, but that you are continually in debt for every withdrawal of strength you make throughout your Christian course. When a child travels with his parents, all his expenses are covered by his father – not by himself.

Likewise, no saint shall say of heaven when he arrives there, ‘This is heaven, which I have built by the power of my own might.’ No, the heavenly Jerusalem is a city ‘whose builder and make is God’ (Heb. 11:10). Every grace is a stone in that building, the topstone of which is laid in glory. Some day the saints shall plainly see how God was not only the founder to begin, but the benefactor also to finish the same. The glory of the work will not be crumbled out piecemeal, some to God and some to the creature. All will be entirely credited to God.”

Filed under: Declare His glory, Eternity, Prayer | Leave a comment »

Worth the read?

Posted on August 13, 2019 by wtdavid

I have been working my way through the three volume work of William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour. It’s Gurnall’s meditation on Ephesians 6 and the armour of God. Here is what David Wilkerson (if you are not too young to remember that name) wrote in the preface: “A very godly friend gave me a copy of Christian in Complete Armour … At first I put the book aside. It was too long, too wordy, and written in 17-century English. Out of curiosity, I scanned the first twenty-five pages. That is all it took to bring me to my knees. Gurnall, the pious Puritan, had touched something deep within me. His were such probing, scorching, searing words that they shook my inner man. I devoured the entire book with great zeal.”

A modern version of this work has been published. Over the next few weeks, from time to time, I will share quotes from Gurnall’s work. I hope these quotes might be of encouragement and challenge to each of us. As well as serve as a way to convince some of the benefit of ploughing through the 900 pages!

“Secular reason sees a Christian on his knees and laughs at the feeble posture God’s child assumes as his enemies descend upon him. Only divine insight can perceive what mighty preparations are actually taking place. Yet just as an unarmed soldier cannot achieve the military exploits of a well-equipped infantryman, so the carnal Christian cannot hope to do the exploits for God which the committed Christian can expect through prayer. Prayer is the main line that leads straight to the throne of God. By it the Christian approaches God with a humble boldness of faith, takes hold of Him, wrestles with Him, and will not let Him go until he has His blessing.”

Filed under: Prayer, Spiritual Warfare | 4 Comments »

Up, in and out

Posted on July 18, 2019 by wtdavid

I was talking today with a young church planter from Asia, working with a national organization in country. He had just returned from facilitating a training session on launching and building discovery Bible groups or small house churches. National pastors, Christians in professional jobs and students attended this training.

I asked him how he helped these different groups of people to adopt or own the idea of small groups that multiplied themselves in a given area. His response was simple and straightforward: “Up, in and out”.

Jumping off from Acts 2:42, he shared that his goal was to lead people to first begin by praying (‘up’) to God about whether He wanted them to move in this direction. I found that so refreshing that he shared an idea, and then let the participants be convinced by God that this would be the direction in which they should now go. Then the current group (‘in’) would solidify their own fellowship and community through time spent together in ‘teaching, fellowship, and prayer’. This would then lead the group members to move towards others (‘out’) and offer an opportunity to others to look into the Bible and discover God together.

I know I may have heard this phrase before, but it had a fresh ring to it this time, coming out of the mouth of a brother in Christ from another culture and country. Prayer, fellowship, and outreach. This is part and parcel of our life and ministry.

Let’s learn fresh ideas together and then turn to God to see if and how He wants us to apply them.

Filed under: Community, Prayer, Training | Leave a comment »

He mentions my name

Posted on July 5, 2019 by wtdavid

I remember playing for our university football (that’s ‘soccer’ for those from North America) team. Each day before a match, the coach would post the starting players for the next day’s game. It was always a bit of a traffic jam in front of the posted sheet as everyone on the team wanted to see if ‘his name was mentioned’. It was always a disappointment when you looked at the list, knowing you had been ‘mentioned’ the previous week, only to find that you were not ‘mentioned’ this week.

Mark Jones, in his book: Knowing Christ, makes this statement: “Since Christ ‘always lives’, he always intercedes. There is no Christian alive who has not had Christ mention his or her name to the Father.” Every time, we look up to God, we can be certain that our name has and is being ‘mentioned’. We are His, and because of that bond, Christ ever lives to plead our need, and speak of us before the Father.

Multiple applications came to mind as I mulled over the notion of the intercession of Christ on our behalf:

When I walk out my door to reach, invest, or equip another, I do not go out alone. Christ is interceding for me, for His glory, that hearts might be opened, that faith might be deepened.
My worth is not dependent on my ‘output’. My status as a child of God has been settled forever in heaven, and this frees me to engage others from a heart that knows it is loved.
It is not just myself and others who are interceding in prayer. Jesus Christ is interceding before the Father on our behalf. To put it in colloquial terms, this just takes prayer to a whole new level.
Though I may grow weary in prayer, Jesus ‘ever lives to plead our need’. It is the divine hand that reaches out and picks us up in the midst of our exhaustion to let us know that when our strength comes to its end, His strength is only just beginning to be manifested.

Your ministry week may have been tough. So, may the knowledge that Jesus Christ ever lives to intercede for us before the Father strengthen and encourage your weary heart and mine!

Filed under: Identity, Prayer, Value | 3 Comments »