Category Archives: Reblogs

Desiring God: Following Hard after God

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

 

Our desire for God is the fruit of a renewed heart; it is a dynamic of the Spirit.  I like what Tozer has said:

You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large.  Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know Him.   In our sins we lack only the power.  The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition.

Let me bring it to you in this way: we being in Christ, desire of God what Jesus desires of Him—His love, His fellowship, and His righteousness, etc.

Following Hard after God

With this desire, if indeed it is desire from God, we must pursue Him.  That is, we must take our desire and put it into action.  As Tozer has indicated in…

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The Biblical Meaning of Desire – Six Categories

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

Here is a biblical study of the term desire. I thought it would be beneficial, in my study of prayer, to get a thorough understanding of this term desire, since prayer has so much to do with it. The biblical meaning of desire is quite broad. In my study I found sixteen Hebrew and Greek words translated as desire, and have put them in the following six categories:

To delight in: Hebrew – chapets, taavah.  This term, as indicated by these two Hebrew words and their verses, convey the idea of delighting in, to be pleased with, satisfied with, and to incline toward.  Thus the meaning here is that when we desire a thing it brings us pleasure and satisfaction, and we are drawn toward it.  The desire could be for good or for evil.  Most of the references I found in conjunction with these words…

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9 Descriptions of Prayer by Various Authors

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

Prayer is so very basic, yet it is also so deep and boundless in it meaning. In my reading I have found nine different descriptions of prayer.

 1. Prayer is asking and receiving. According to E.M. Bounds, “Prayer is the outstretched arms of the child for the Father’s help.  Prayer is the child’s cry calling to the Father’s ear…Prayer is the seeking of God’s greatest good, which will not come if we do not pray.”

Matthew 7:7-8 says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

Again E. M. Bounds writes, “Prayer is asking, seeking and knocking at a door for something we have not, which we desire, and which God has promised to us…Prayer is the voice of need crying out to Him who is inexhaustible in resources.  Prayer is helplessness reposing with childlike confidence on…

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Three Types of Petitions—from the Disciples Prayer

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

The following article is an excerpt from this book.

When we look at the Disciples Prayer (or The Lord’s Prayer), I believe we see three types of petitions that Jesus taught (Matthew 6:8-13).

 1. Invocation

We get this idea from the first three requests:  “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name; Your Kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

This first type of petition, according to Jennings, is the invocation of our prayer; it is the summoning of the Spirit of God that He would come to us and be God to us, to help us pray and do His will.5  

Yes, it is asking Him to help us pray that His name be hallowed–let Your name be hallowed. And bring your kingdom to us; and bring your will to us.

But it is even more than that.  It is asking…

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Ezekiel 43:7: Will the Millennial Temple last forever?

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

Ezekiel temple

Click on the picture above to see a YouTube: a 3D animation of Ezekiel’s temple, showing all the measurements.

In Ezekiel 43:7 it says,

 And He said to me, “Son of man, this [the millennial temple] is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell among the sons of Israel forever.  NASB

When I first read this I was a little confused.  If the temple in the millennium is built with earthly building materials like iron and concrete and wood, etc., how can it last forever?  And besides, if after the millennium the earth is destroyed and God creates a new heaven and new earth, how can the millennial temple then still exist?—unless God pulls it from the earth and then sets it back down on the new earth.  Well then, if He can do that, He will have no problem…

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The Petition Part of Prayer

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

 

As I see it, from my study of this topic, there are two very basic natures or meanings of prayer: (1) petition, and (2) soul to soul communication with God (which really includes all parts of prayer). In this post we will focus on petition.

According to the original Biblical words translated for us as “prayer,” every Hebrew and Greek word I studied (three Hebrew words and eight Greek words) indicate that prayer is petition—asking God for something.  It is an expression of a wish or a desire; Christian prayer is an expression of a wish or desire to God.  We see this particularly in the following Greek words: euchomai (to pray to God, to wish for), deomai (to desire, to want, to ask, and to beg), and deesis (a wanting, a needing, then an asking, entreaty, and supplication).

Here we see in these words that desire comes first…

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The Wealth of the Sinner Is Stored Up For the Righteous: Proverbs 13:22 and Job 27:17

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

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Reading in Job this morning, I ran across an interesting passage: Job 27:16-17 (my thoughts mainly on verse 17).  It reads…

Though he [the wicked] heaps up silver like dust
and clothes like piles of clay,
17 what he lays up the righteous will wear,
and the innocent will divide his silver.  NIV
                             

Adam Clark says of verse 17:

Money is God’s property. “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord; ” and though it may be abused for a time by unrighteous hands, God, in the course of his providence, brings it back to its proper use; and often the righteous possess the inheritance of the wicked.

Another verse that says something similar is Proverbs 13:22.  It says…

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children,
but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.  RSV
 

From the Jamieson…

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What Is the Meaning of Prayer?

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

There are so many different views on the meaning of prayer.  One author, John R. Rice, says that prayer is nothing but petition.  He insists that prayer is not meditation or communion or spiritual enjoyment or praise or confession or humiliation; “[it is simply] asking something definitely from God.”1

Many other authors (that Rice would say are liberal or modern) seem to say the opposite—that prayer is fellowship and communion and friendship with God, and not a demand for His gifts. For example, E. M. Bounds said, “Prayer is communion and intercourse with God. It is enjoyment of God.”2

Ronald Dunn seems to agree with Rice.  He wrote, “Prayer is an act. While we should live in an attitude of prayer, prayer is more than an attitude.”3

Others I have read would disagree.  They would say that since prayer is communion and fellowship with God that would…

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Paper Tiger — Ernie’s Musings

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The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength. (1 Samuel 2:4) Unless you have completely isolated and insulated yourself from the outside world (and I would not blame you if you have; sometimes I wish I could completely detach from the constant flow of bad news), you […]

Paper Tiger — Ernie’s Musings

The Ark of the Covenant Gives Us a Wonderful Salvation Message

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

If we study the meaning of each part of the Ark of the Covenant we will receive a wonderful salvation message.

The Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat and the Cherubim was located on the other side of the veil in the Most Holy Place.  There the High Priest entered only once a year to sprinkle sacrificial blood on top of the Mercy Seat.

The appearance of the Ark was quite awesome, not only because of its brilliant gold, but also because of the mysterious light that hovered over the center of it—the Shekinah Glory, which was the glory of the very presence of God.

The Ark itself (without its lid) was just a box, 3 ½ feet long, 2 ½ feet wide and 2 ½ feet deep.  It was made of acacia wood overlaid with gold.  The wood represented the humanity of Christ, and the gold, His…

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