(Washington, D.C.) — Panic is wrong. We need to stay calm. We need to turn to the Scriptures and prayer and trust the Lord to protect us. We would do well to start with Psalm 57:1, which a Christian leader in France just sent me. “Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me.…
My school looked almost identical to this one, except there was only one door.
Life on the farm was far different than life in the city. I don’t remember too much about my life in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The main thing I remember is that I went to kindergarten there, and there were paved streets and sidewalks. I don’t recall moving to the farm near Montevideo, but I remember first grade. The little schoolhouse was white and there were two outhouses in the back on each side, one for the girls and one for the boys.
The inside of the schoolhouse was all open—one big room. And it had a large wood burning stove or furnace near the front. That’s funny, I don’t remember ever having to get wood for the furnace. I guess the teacher did that before all the kids arrived in the morning, and maybe she added wood during recess and lunch breaks. Who knows? But I know she never called on me to help. Maybe because I was only a kid—in the first grade.
I vividly remember what the inside of the school looked like. There were about four or five rows of student desks. I’m not sure how many grades of kids there were, just that there were three in my grade: Rollie, Cheryl, and me. Cheryl sat in the middle of our row and Rollie and me were in the front and back. I know that because I remember how me and Rollie would always be poking Cheryl and pulling her hair. I would pull her hair from the back, and then when she turned around to hit me, Rollie would get her from the front. But it was all in fun!
You know, I don’t remember ever getting in trouble, at least not in the first grade. I really liked the teacher. I think everyone did. I wish I cold remember her name. I do have a very old picture of her. She looks to be about 25.
I learned a lot in the first grade: how to read, write and do arithmetic. And then after the first grade I have no memories of school until 7th or 8th grade. It’s all a blank. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was because as a family we moved a lot. From age 6 to age 13, I would say we moved about six times to different houses and schools. So, I had so many different teachers and class mates. I really can’t tell you what happened to me, but my guess is that all the mental confusion of moving, along with family troubles, caused me to just shut down.
I do have one school memory—a very unpleasant one. I can’t tell you what school or grade it was, but I was sitting, looking out the window, and the teacher came over and grabbed me by my ear and almost pulled it off. She didn’t like that I was day dreaming instead of paying attention to her teaching. So, I have a feeling that that was what my school life was like all the time: sitting in class, but wishing I was somewhere else, anywhere but school.
Oh, one more thing I remember about first grade. Walking there. I don’t remember ever getting a ride to school. The three of us kids always had to walk. My sister Diane was two years older than me, and my brother Mark was one year younger. Anyway, it was a long way to walk for us kids, more than a mile I’m sure. It was a gravel road all the way, and rarely would we see cars on the road. So we usually just walked down the middle of the road. I don’t know why I did it, but I can remember picking up rocks from the road and throwing them toward, and even at, my sister. I guess at that age I didn’t have much of a sense that little rocks could actually hurt someone. I know I wasn’t especially close to my sister, but still, throwing rocks at her was a terrible thing to do, and I regret it.
As I ponder the task before me of telling my life story, I have decided that the best place to start is to recount my earliest memories. I suppose most of us can’t recall too much before the age of three or four. I think my earliest memories were when I was about four or five. Here are five vivid early memories—and I will do my best to explain why I think I have those memories.
Walking to school. I was five years old and in kindergarten. I don’t remember too much about the routine of walking or even how far I had to walk. What I remember most clearly is meeting and walking with a little black girl. And it was a pleasant memory. I suppose the memory has stayed fixed in my mind because she was black and different than me, and because I enjoyed her company. At that age I suppose we have no prejudice. We see the differences but we don’t care. I think that was true for me. Later on in life, unfortunately, I came to be afraid of the differences—as most people do. That was true especially at that time in history—in the 1950’s. I thank God that over the years I have grown to be less fearful of people. I just wish we could all get along and accept each other.
Trying to be the class clown. This memory isn’t as vivid. In fact, my mom told me what happened and then I seemed to recall it. In my kindergarten class I would stand on the tables and would basically do crazy things in an attempt to get attention: like make faces, crazy noises and dance around—anything that I could get a laugh out of. But the most significant part of it was when my mother very seriously and firmly told me that I had to stop doing it. That I was disrupting the class. And, according to my mother’s recollection—and I seem to slightly remember it—after that talk I was like a different person. I sometimes wonder what happened there. If she wouldn’t have said anything, would I be a more outgoing person. Or maybe what she said to me changed me in a positive way, like kept me from being a life-long rebel. I don’t know.
A scary lady. I don’t remember what the lady across the street looked like. All I remember is that she was constantly yelling at us kids and telling us to stay on our own side of the street. We actually thought she was a witch. Her house was black with a picket fence around it, and with a gate that no one dared enter. I remember that at Halloween we would dare each other to go up to her house. We were surprised that she was actually friendly and gave us treats. But we were very suspicious. Maybe the candy was injected with poison.
Why have I held on to that memory? Maybe Satan is using it to enforce any fears he wants to instill in me; fears of dark and wicked things, fears of angry people, fears of the unknown. But I keep taking my fears to God and He continues to give me victory over them.
Saturday morning TV. Let’s see, the memory had to be in the year 1956. I think we had just gotten the television. The screen was very small and black and white. I remember that especially on Saturday morning the three of us kids, and maybe a couple neighbor kids, would set around the TV and watch cartoons. But the most vivid memory was when my dad got very angry and yanked the TV cord out of the electrical socket and even out of the back of the TV. I can’t remember what he said to us, only that he was very angry that we were watching TV. I think he said that it was a waste of time and that we should be doing something more constructive.
That whole memory was centered only on my dad’s out of control anger. That’s the way he was, and we never knew when it would flare up. More fears from the devil. I think he was using my dad’s problems to make me fearful. At times I still have fearful memories and dreams of my dad. Right now I’m thinking that maybe it was like David’s strained relationship with Saul. Saul had a mental problem, as did my dad. And like David, I seek the Lord constantly in prayer.
When my uncle came to visit. If my calculations are right, I was about four years old and my uncle Lyle was about 25. I don’t remember many details about his visits, except just seeing him, and seeing his shinny gold watch. I also remember feeling so good about being around him. He was so cool. That’s the only word I can think of to describe him. He was nothing like my dad. He never got angry. I always have thought of him as being cool and rich and smart. He lived on the farm with our grandpa and grandma, and with our younger uncle Mike. Mike was cool too. Both of them had their own horses. But it was Lyle who had the brains and who kept the tractors and machinery running. Lyle could do anything. We all knew that about uncle Lyle.
This will be the last of my book promotions—for a while. I have to tell you about my other six books on prayer. These books actually are of the same content as my Prayer A to Z, but arranged differently. My idea was to give the buyer a smaller and less expensive choice. Instead of putting the chapters in alphabetical order, I arranged them under topics.
Book 1, entitled Basics of Prayer (see above), has 10 topics that I thought were related to the basics of prayer. And I really like the photo I took for this book.
Book 2, entitled Purpose of Prayer, has only nine chapters, two of which are my personal favorites, on the Lord’s Prayer and on Answers to prayer.
Book 3, entitled Principles of Prayer, has eleven chapters, all loaded with great prayer teachings.
Book 4, entitled Joy of Prayer, I’m sure is a favorite of many. The titles Aroma of Prayer and Xanadu will bring a delight to your soul.
Book 5, entitled Service of Prayer, is the longest of the six books. Five of its chapters contain all the prayers of the bible.
Book 6, entitled Zenith of Prayer, is basically the same as the last chapter of my book Prayer A to Z, and was meant to be a summary, or a condensed version, of that book.
How to Buy Any of These Books
As you can see above, each title has a link on it and it will take you to the Lulu book page.
You can also see them all together in two different places to order any of them you want:
If you want to see them at Amazon, you can go to Amazon books, and then type in “Books on prayer by Stephen Nielsen” to see all of my prayer books displayed. Or Just click HERE.
If you want to see all of my books at my personal Lulu store just click on the link HERE. Pay no attention to those free e-books. I will make no money on those. Just kidding!
Note: If you want to read some of the content of the books I would go to the Amazon link. Click on the book you want; it will take you to a bigger book; click on that book to see a few pages of content.
In the last post on this subject I wrote about what the Bema is—a place where Christians will be judged according to their works. In this post I will continue with this discussion, focusing on the time, the place, and the subjects of the Bema.
THE TIME OF THE BEMA
Most agree that the time of the Bema will be immediately after the Rapture and will occur at the same instant that we see Him and are transformed. This is substantiated in the following verses:
In 1 Corinthians 4:5, the term “until the Lord comes,” indicates when the Bema will be—at His coming.
In 2 Timothy 4:8, we see that the Bema will be “on that day.”
In 1 Peter 5:4, the term is, “when the chief Shepherd [Christ] appears.”
Besides the above references, there is also proof of the aforementioned time in Revelation 4:4. Here we see in John’s…
When I began thinking of what I wanted the book to be like, my thoughts were drawn to some of the classic books on prayer I have read, books by E. M. Bounds, Andrew Murray, Hudson Taylor, R. A. Torrey, and Charles Spurgeon. I considered these authors to be powerful and holy men of God, and so I wanted to follow in their steps.
What would I do? How would I form its content? The first thing I did was to look through all the books I had (about 30 book) to get ideas. I wrote down all the possible topics or chapter titles. I came up with about 80 topics; and I also decided that I would take some time to read through the bible to find all the prayers of the bible. It took me over a year; and during that time, I also worked on the formation of the chapters. Eighty chapters was way too many. I eventually narrowed it down to 52 chapters, including five chapters on the prayers of the bible.
Then I had a brilliant idea. If a person would read and study one chapter a week, that would make a good year-long study. I also got the idea of trying to put all the chapters in alphabetical order. That took some doing, but it came together. Well, after I was done patting myself on the back for my brilliance, I suddenly got the thought that maybe God had something to do with it. And the more I realized how everything came together, I was sure of it. It was all His doing!
Okay, here are the fifty-two chapters, with just a short comment on each chapter.
Answers to Prayer. Seventeen pages on this topic. A great start.
Aroma of Prayer. This is a favorite to many readers.
Authority of Prayer. All our authority is in Christ.
Burden in Prayer. In this chapter you realize God’s heart of compassion.
Confidence in Prayer. Discover God-confidence in prayer.
Definition of Prayer. Discover here what prayer is.
Desire in Prayer. It is important to pray with desire.
Earnestness in Prayer. Earnest prayer grows out of desire.
Evangelism in Prayer. How to pray for the lost.
Failure in Prayer. Why we fail in prayer.
Faith and Prayer. Why faith is necessary in prayer.
Fasting and Prayer. Instruction and guidelines for Fasting.
Forgiveness and Prayer. Why forgiveness is so necessary for prayer.
God’s Idea. Prayer is God’s idea.
Holiness and Prayer. Holiness always goes with prayer.
Holy Spirit and Prayer. Prayer and the Holy Spirit work together.
How to Pray – Part 1. Eight of Jesus’ Teachings on Prayer.
How to Pray – Part 2. A study of the Lord’s Prayer.
Importunity in Prayer. Persistent and urgent prayer.
Intercession – Part 1. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit’s Intercession.
Intercession – Part 2. The definition of intercession.
Intercession – Part 3. How we intercede for others.
Jesus’ Name. Prayer in Jesus’ name.
Kneeling in Prayer. Prayer posture.
Length of Prayer. How long should we pray for.
Ministry of Prayer. Practical help on how to have a prayer ministry.
Necessity of Prayer. Nine reasons why prayer is necessary.
Obedience and Prayer. Being obedient to God is so necessary in prayer.
Possibilities of Prayer. Praying for big things.
Power in Prayer. How to have power in your prayers.
Praise and Prayer – Part 1. Praise as a vital part of prayer.
Praise and Prayer – Part 2. Biblical examples of praise.
Prayerlessness. The sin of prayerlessness.
Quietness in Prayer – Part 1. Hearing God’s voice.
Quietness in Prayer – Part 2. Our quiet time with God.
Quietness in Prayer – Part 3. The importance of solitude.
Quietness in Prayer – Part 4. How the Devil perverts our prayers.
Revival and Prayer. What part prayer has in revival.
Specific Praying. How to pray specifically.
Survey of Prayer – Part 1. Prayers of the Bible, Abraham through Moses.
Survey of Prayer – Part 2. Prayers of the Bible, Joshua through Samuel.
Survey of Prayer – Part 3. Prayers of the Bible, David through Jehoshaphat.
Survey of Prayer – Part 4. Prayers of the Bible, Elijah through Daniel.
Survey of Prayer – Part 5. Prayers of the Bible, Ezra through John.
Travail in Prayer. Why we need to travail in prayer.
United Prayer. Praying together in agreement.
Vigilance in Prayer – Part 1. Why vigilance is necessary.
Vigilance in Prayer – Part 2. Overcoming the enemy through vigilance.
Word and Prayer. The use of the word in Prayer.
Xanadu. Experiencing the beauty of prayer.
Yielding in Prayer. Why we must yield to God when we pray.
Zenith of Prayer. This last chapter of 93 pages summarizes the entire book.
In this blog post, and the next few, I will be writing about my books. I have written nine books and will soon be completing a tenth book. Today I will start with Prayer A to Z: A Comprehensive Bible-Based Study of Prayer. I began putting it together in 1992 and it was published in 2013. So, it took me a while to write it. But it’s long, 735 pages.
As you can tell by the title, it’s a book on prayer and was meant to be very comprehensive. Some may ask, why do I need to read a book on prayer? Especially a book of that length? I remember one person saying to me, just as I was beginning to write the book, that he didn’t need to be taught how to pray; he just needed to pray more. He was saying, in effect, that just by his practice of prayer, that, in itself, would make him better at prayer.
Well, I agree that the more we pray the better at prayer we will get and the closer our relationship with Him will be. But I also think that some instruction is necessary. In fact, we know that from what Jesus taught His disciples. He took the time to instruct them on how to pray. In chapters 17 and 18 of my book, I point this out. In chapter 17, I give eight of Jesus’ teachings on prayer. Then in chapter 18 is my study of the Lord’s Prayer, which is really Jesus’ lesson plan (or tutorial) on prayer to His disciples—and to us.
So, we really do need to be taught how to pray, and we especially need to pay attention to Jesus’ teachings on prayer. And really, all through the bible we can find prayer help and instruction. I especially like the Psalms.
And for those who think that all we need to do is pray, I want to give this warning: if you do that, you will be fighting against the Holy Spirit and your praying will not be according to His will or what He desires. For if He has given us instruction on prayer in His word, and we choose not to follow it, then we are being disobedient to the Holy Spirit and all our efforts at prayer will fail and may even cause us to be misled.
In my book, I not only present all the biblical teaching I could find on prayer, as I searched the Scriptures; I also read from about 100 books and articles offering their biblical studies on prayer, being careful not to include any material that was not biblical. I think there are too many books out there already that offer only people’s experiences. In my opinion, those kinds of books will do more damage than good. In terms of prayer, the only thing we need is God’s word and the testimonies of those who followed His word. Anything else is simply speculation.
I think this is enough for this post. Next time I will try to summarize the book by briefly going through the chapters.
I’ve been thinking lately about the first Psalm—mainly about chaff. In this Psalm the Psalmist compares the righteous man to the wicked man.
Here is what is said about the righteous man:
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the path of sinners,
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
3 And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season,
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.
(Psalm 1:1-3)
Here are my observations on the righteous man:
He does not listen to the teaching of the wicked or even spend much time with them.
He meditates on the word and delights in it all the time.
He is like a fruit tree. He is fruitful and prosperous.
Like a tree, his life is stable and is firmly planted.
The Lord knows him and will be with him for eternity.
Here is what the Psalmist says about the wicked, unsaved man:
The wicked are not so,
But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the wicked will perish.
(Psalm 1:4-6)
Here are my observations about the unrighteous man:
He is like chaff. He has no fruit, no stability, no real prosperity.
He has no hope of eternal life. In the final judgment he will be found unrighteous and will be cast into the lake of fire for eternity (Rev. 20:11-15).
A farmer tosses the wheat into the air so that the wheat chaff will be blown away.
More on the Chaff
How would you like to be compared to chaff? Well, the Psalmist compares the wicked to chaff in verse 4. Think of it. Chaff. Chaff has absolutely no value, no worth. Wheat chaff is the outer casing of the wheat kernel that has gotten old and is coming off. That outer shell is so flimsy that when you would throw the wheat into the air, the wind would blow the chaff away.
Think of that. Think of being blown away. The non-Christian is in a state of constantly being blown away. He is blown wherever the wind happens to blow. He has no strength of will. He lets the evil world blow him wherever the devil and the world want him to go. Just like the chaff, the unbeliever has no fruit, no value, and no real prosperity. Oh, he may have momentary desires and delights of the flesh, but nothing that will last and nothing that has any lasting (eternal) value. And he has no stability. He is not like a stable tree. He has no roots. He is just chaff that is blown from place to place with the wind—with the evil world.
The Chaff Compared to the Unformed Earth
As it happened, on the same day (yesterday) that I read Psalm 1, I also read Genesis 1. As I was thinking of the chaff, I also thought of how the earth was in the beginning. The bible says, “And the earth was formless and void.” (I’m not sure how to interpret this. I tend to think that God first created an unformed earth—like a big lump of clay—out of nothing; then later He formed it as it is now). Anyway, I began to think of the chaff much like that formless earth.
And that got me to thinking. If God could make a beautiful, fruitful earth out of that formless mass, why couldn’t He make something out of the chaff. Well He can and He has. Every time a person is saved it is like a formless piece of chaff being miraculously created into a beautiful new creation of God—with hope and purpose. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says,
Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
This is a Reblog from my Prayer blog. I thought it would have relevance to this personal blog. We always have to pay attention to our heart, whether there is sin in the heart.
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
In this passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, He indicates that the Pharisees and Sadducees had reduced the…
A muskrat comes out of hiding and looks up at me. Should he face the world or go back under?
Today is one of those days. Really blah. A low energy day. A day of transition. A day of testing. I don’t even know how to start this blog. Let’s see. What to write about? I woke up this morning in a fog. I didn’t want to get going. I sat on the edge of my bed for the longest time—trying to decide: should I start getting dressed, or maybe just flop back into bed? I had very low energy, even to think things through. Eventually, the battle was won over the bed. I got up. I did my regular things: eye drops, meds, some TV news, my quiet time, then off to breakfast where I am now—at Perkins. I have an omelet, hash browns, fruit and coffee. I glanced through the paper. Nothing worth reading. Usually the comic strips give me a pick-up. Not so much today. They reflect sort of how I feel. Dustin was rejected by a couple gals in a bar; Garfield was told by his cat girlfriend, “I am cute, and you…well, you’re you.” Suddenly I thought of myself. I think I use to be cute, but no more. Oh well. I’ll just be me.
Besides being a day of blah and low energy, it also happens to be a day of change and transition. I just finished reading the bible through, and today I started again in Genesis; and I will also be reading the Psalms. I look forward to it. Hey, looking up! I sort of finished writing on all of my blog categories at least once—except a couple that I’m waiting on. I still need to send something out about my books. I hate trying to sell myself, but I have to do it. I mean, I think some people will benefit from them, so I really should do some promotion.
I also will be telling my story—sort of my autobiography, in many continuous blogs. I’ve never even though much of doing that, but I think maybe it would be a benefit, both for myself and others. There is so much in my life that is blank—no memories. I hope that some things will come back to me. I hope and pray also that somehow I could be a benefit to others.
Well, I’ve eaten my breakfast, the coffee’s cold, and I need to get going—do something. My energy is slowly coming back. I feel somewhat revived! Thank you, Lord.
Stephen Nielsen 