The Poiema Blog lives! I hope this becomes a way for us to stay connected as ONE body. I would love to hear what God is saying to you, maybe through a sermon, a friend, or in your personal time with God. My goal is to post upcoming sermon titles and summaries on Wednesday or Thursday each week so you can prepare to get the most out of each sermon. I would like to integrate your responses into my sermons as much as possible as we chat about passages and topic beforehand. I would then like to spend the first few days of the week chatting about the sermon, answering questions you may have, discussing controversial issues, or talking about how we can follow Jesus together. Anything goes. No question or topic is out of bounds. People outside the Poiema community are welcome to join in the discussion too. Let's blog!
pastor john
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Poiema Blog
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8 comments:
Just wanted to be the first Non-Pastor John blogger! Sweet idea by the way....
Glad to have you on board. Check out the "Perfect Imperfection" blog and comments as well.
hi pastor john! welcome to the blogging world. i'll be posting comments soon!
Look forward to hearing from you oh great white diabetic!
Dear Poiema,
I have a burning question that I have been wanting to ask you . . . Prayer . . . Why do you pray? If God know what the future holds then why? I know the main foundation of prayer is that it is our way of talking with Him, communing with Him and keeping that intimate relationship open. Though where I seem to falter is when a person is ill and people gather in pray what good are we actually doing. If God is all knowing then wouldn’t he already know if that person lives or dies, does God ever take into consideration our prayers and our wishes? And if not then why do we pray for other people and ourselves?
This is a very good and highly practical question. I think we have to begin by asking "what is prayer?" At its core, what is the essence of prayer? Thoughts?
pastor john
Pray at its core is to worship God and to meditate on Him and what he does for us. I believe in miracles and I believe that pray can help. It is God’s will that we pray and keep the faith by praying for the hungry and the poor. Maybe praying is not so black and white but a middleman to be with God and to do God’s will.
I agree. Prayer is fundamentally our life line with God. Prayer is the means by which our soul communes with Him. This is why the Lord's Prayer (a model prayer outline in Matthew 6) focuses on our union with God and submission to Him. Sometimes it is easy to reduce prayer to communicating our wish list to God. We can start to think that if God doesn't answer a particular prayer as we would like, then He must not be listening, doesn't care, or that our prayers are meaningless. I find it interesting that Jesus promises that God answers every prayer with a resounding "yes" (see Matthew 7:7-11). The challenge for us to receive His answer, even when His "yes" doesn't match up with ours.
The longer I walk with God, the more I understand that His will and purposes are best for me. Therefore, even when I don't get the "result" from prayer that I might have desired, I know that my prayers are always effective in drawing me closer to the Lord and cultivating God's will in my life.
Much more to say on the topic. I'll stop for now.
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