Carter Conlon - Prayer and the Bible

As new believers in Jesus Christ, you are about to undertake the journey of a lifetime. The Christian life is a supernatural life. As a matter of fact, the Bible promises that whoever is in Christ, or may I put it this way, if Christ is in you, you become a new creation. The old things in your life will pass away. That means they lose their ability to dictate your present and your future, and all things become new. So you become a new creation in Jesus Christ. So what I want to talk to you today is about how that happens. It happens through reading the Word of God, the Bible, and through cultivating a prayer life. Now I'm going to explain how these things work together. Years ago, we had one of the foremost heart surgeons who used to attend this church here at Times Square Church. I was in a conversation with him one day, and he shared something with me that I never had fully understood before. He told me, he said, if somebody needs a heart transplant, generally they need a lung transplant along with it. I didn't know that. I thought you could just have a heart transplant, and I suppose maybe in some cases you can. But usually, he said, the heart and lungs come together because they operate as a single unit. Even though they're separate, they operate together as one organism in your body. In other words, your lungs will breathe in oxygen, and then your heart will pump that oxygen to all the four corners of your body, all the extremities of your body, and keep you healthy, and rejuvenate you, and heal you where you're wounded, or anything that's going on in your body. The heart will pump the oxygen that the lungs breathe in to all the parts of your body. Keep that illustration in mind, because we're going to finish with that in just a moment. When I first learned to read the Word of God and to pray, I remember reading about the

life of a missionary. His name was George Mueller. This man prayed with an open Bible. God met him. When he would open his Bible, he would be reading scripture, and as he read, he would stop and he would pray about certain things that he was reading. I don't know what he prayed, but as I've done over the years, I'll be reading my Bible, For example, David the psalmist might say, Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. I'll stop at that moment and say, God, is there anything in my heart that's not clean? Is there anything in my spirit that needs to be brought back in alignment with your Word? Is there anything that grieves you? Is there anything that's causing me to be deficient as a person? Am I becoming something or doing something that's going to discredit the full extent of your work in my life? With George Mueller praying with an open Bible, God gave him miraculous provision. I'm sure in his own personal life, but he fed hundreds of orphans with no particular source of resource except from God. And as he prayed with that open Bible, the resource of God was revealed to him and through him. And you think of all the people around him that were fed because of his devotional life. And I suppose that's the word I could encourage you with today, that as you spend time in the Word of God, you spend time in prayer, people are going to be fed around you, fed spiritually. They're going to be encouraged. They're going to be given direction, guidance. They're going to be brought into the place of healing, perhaps, that God has brought into your life by your ability and willingness to testify of the things that God has done for you. It's an exciting thing to open the Word of God because this is God's letter to us.

This is God's writing to us. This was written by the Holy Spirit through numerous authors over many, many years and different circumstances, but it's one story. And it's as if God, when Christ died and rose from the dead, he made sure that we had a letter from him so we could understand his heart, so we could understand what he had done for us and who we are or what is the potential for each one of our lives because of the victory he won for us on the cross. I think one of the first things you begin to see when we read the Bible is the mercy of God. The mercy of God is everywhere. For example, in Luke chapter 23 and verse 34, Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. And they divided his garments to cast lots. So here is the Son of God hanging on a cross. At the foot of the cross there are soldiers and they're throwing dice, literally, for his clothing. He had every right to be angry, he had every right to judge them on the spot, he had all the power that he needed to perhaps even command that they stop breathing for the sin that they were committing. But all we see emanating from the heart of the Son of God on the cross is mercy. And when You begin to realize how merciful God is, how he's willing to forgive us even for the most egregious things that we've done against him. Thank God for that forgiveness. That's one of the first things that you'll begin to really become aware of is the mercy of God. And then again in Luke chapter 12 and verse 32, we start to see after the mercy of God, we start to see the desire of God where he says in these words, do not fear little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you a kingdom. It's in the heart, Jesus was saying, of God to give you everything that he has for you

without holding anything back. This incredible generosity of God is available to every one of us as we begin to read the word of God and we begin to see the mercy of God, secondarily we start to see the heart of God or the desire of God, and then moving from there, we begin to see the generosity of God. It's amazing when you see it. In 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 17 and 18, here's what the scripture says. Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Another word for liberty is actually generosity. But we with an unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the spirit of the Lord. So when you came into a saving relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ, the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, took up residence inside your earthly body. And there's an incredible generosity of God that came to dwell inside of you when the Holy Spirit of God came into your physical body. And as we begin to look into the word of God, suddenly by the spirit of God we start to be changed from what we were into what God has destined us to be. And the change doesn't happen because we try harder to do something. The change happens because God in his mercy and God in his desire begins to transform us as we begin to read the word of God. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there's this incredible generosity. Now you would say to me, Pastor, what is my part in all of this? In 2 Peter chapter 1 verses 3 and 4, the scripture says, As his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to glory and virtue. In other words, he called us to a place where he would be glorified through each one of our lives. And he called us into a place where we live, though we live in a corrupted world, we are able by the presence of God's mercy and power within us to live in a higher place, to live a better way, to live God's way in a corrupted society.

By which, Peter says, have been given to us exceeding great and precious promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. God has given us promises. Now in the Old Testament, this is before the cross, you had to actually work to have a relationship with God. You had to do things. Essentially, the relationship was you do this and God says I'll do this and you do this and I'll do this. But at the cross, everything changed. God says you can't change yourself. You can't become everything I've destined you to be, so I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to die for you and win an incredible victory on the cross. I'm going to conquer everything that was sent to conquer you. And then I'm going to shower you with promises, promises of victory that I've won for you, that I'm willing to give you because I'm merciful, because I'm generous, as you begin to behold the victory in the Word of God that I've won for you. And you begin to see the promises that I've made to you. You see, that's why reading the Bible can never become a chore, because in the Word of God there are all these promises of God. It's amazing. It's as if you got a notice in the mail that you just won this incredible contest and there are hundreds of prizes that you've won in this contest. And you open the envelope and there's a list of these prizes. You would read it, would you not? But that's exactly what the Word of God is in the New Testament. There's a list of all these promises and all these victories that Jesus Christ won for you on the cross. us, and He's willing to give you by faith.

This is our part, is to read the promises. That's why the reading of the Bible should never become boring and prayer should never be a chore. It should be the delight of your day and the delight of my day to say, God, what new thing are you going to show me today? And my part is just to agree that this is mine. Isn't that amazing? In Christ. My part is to read it, and my part is to agree with it. And your part then, in my life, is to make your promises to me a reality. Let's keep it really simple. That's how you become a new creation in Christ. That's how the old things begin to pass away and all things become new. I'm not just speaking to you some kind of a pie-in-the-sky theology. I've lived this, and I've known the power of God, and I've loved the word of God, and I've loved the promises of God. A new heart, He says, I'll give you. A new mind. A new spirit. New courage. New goals in life. New desires. Actually, He says, I'll give you new desires. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. He will give you, actually, the desires. New desires in your heart. If you delight yourself in God, suddenly your heart doesn't want the old things anymore. Your heart starts to want the new things. As you start to desire these new things, God in His generosity says, if you will believe me and if you will desire to live the life that I promised to give you, I will make that

a reality in you. I will change you from the inside out. Your life becomes a living miracle. As we read earlier, by the Spirit of God, you begin to change from image to image and glory to glory. From what you used to be into what God has destined you to be. You leave that which needs to be left behind and as Paul says elsewhere in the Scriptures, you start moving towards this new and high calling of God that's on your life in Christ Jesus. It's an amazing adventure to walk with God. To read His Word and to pray. Now Romans chapter 10 verse 17 says, so then faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. So our part now is to believe. That's faith. Our part is to believe God. God, you told me I would have a new mind. I don't like my mind. I don't like the way I think. I don't like the thoughts that try to occupy my everyday all day. I need new thoughts and God says I'm going to give you a new mind and you simply start to agree and say God, I want your thoughts to become my thoughts. I want your heart to be my heart. I want your will for my life to be preeminent before me. I want to walk in this new path. I want to be this new creation. I desire God that you bring healing into my whole body. The totality of my personhood as it is. I want to be whole. I want to be the person that you've called me to be and God says I will do it.

If you will believe, if you will read and if you will see my promises to you, I will do in you what I've said I would do. Remember we talked about the lungs and the heart, right? The lungs breathe in the oxygen and the heart dispels it throughout the body and gives life. If the oxygen didn't reach your fingers, they would atrophy literally or turn to gangrene and you'd have to be cut off in a sense. Thank God for the heart that sends the oxygen and the healing components of it to all the parts of your body. But that's exactly the way it is. In a sense, the word of God is the lungs. We breathe in the word of God and the Holy Spirit is the heart that dispels it to all the parts of our body. We really do become new creations in Christ Jesus. So don't settle for less. Don't settle for a religion when you can have a relationship. Don't settle for mediocrity when you can live in the miraculous. Don't settle for struggling with your natural strength to become a new creation when God says if you'll believe me, if you'll believe my promises to you, I'll do it for you. I would encourage you to do what George Miller did and what I do, is pray with an open Bible. Now there's going to be times when you pray in a prayer meeting, there's going to be times when you maybe are just led of the moment to pray specific prayers, I understand that. But I've found it a great strength over the years to pray with my Bible open right in front of me, reading along and just stopping once in a while and just saying, God, I want to understand. Understand this verse, I want to know how it applies to my life, if I see a deficiency in my heart, I say, Lord, I want you to meet that area in my life, and it becomes a journey with God. So I'm delivered from just trying to read five chapters of scripture in the morning out of obligation, or just pray and get to the point where prayer becomes a chore. It's like the heart and lungs of the Christian life.

It gets to the point where you just do it naturally. You don't go through your day going, I need to breathe in, I need to breathe out, I need to breathe in, I need to breathe out. Some people live their Christian life like that, when it comes to reading the word of God and prayer. It's just such a chore. It gets to the point where it's just natural. You want to read the word of God. Now, it's not volume, it's the quality of what you're reading and the time you spend with God. You might only go through 10 verses of scripture, but you're letting your totality of who you are ingest that scripture, and you're letting the spirit of God make it part of the fabric of your character. I hope you've been able to understand this, because it's such a simple concept, yet over the years, people can try to make it very, very complicated when it isn't. God loves you. God is willing to forgive you. God through his Son, Jesus Christ, is more generous than anyone you'll ever meet on this side of eternity. God is willing to give you everything he bought for you on the cross. God is willing to make you into a new creation. And so reading the Bible and praying, honestly now, should be the most exciting part of your entire life from this day forward. And don't let it become anything less than that. Don't let it become just repetition. Don't let it become boredom in your life. Don't let anybody turn it into a program. It's a relationship, and it's an exciting relationship. And when you begin to do these things that I'm talking to you about, you're going to find your prayer life is just going to explode, because you find yourself agreeing with God.

And then suddenly you find yourself praying for other people around you and saying, God, what you've done for me and what you're doing in my life, would you do it for my children? Would you do it for my family? Would you do it for my neighbors? And suddenly you begin to pray outside of just yourself and the promises, because you've begun to know how powerful and real those promises are and how merciful God is. You begin to see the Christ on the cross saying, Father, forgive them when they're gambling for His clothing. You're able to take this mercy and this forgiveness of God, because you've been spending time with Him, reading His Word, and in prayer you're able to become an ambassador of this incredible mercy of God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Before you know it, your life is on a whole new path, a whole new trajectory. I look forward in heaven to talking with you about the journey that God's going to take you on, because I'm telling you, if you will let Him, it will be an exciting one. Love you so much, and I hope you really enjoyed this Bible study, and I hope you enjoy the Bible studies and the times of prayer that God will give you in the future. God bless you.