Paul’s Prayer for the Power of Faith

  • October 3, 2019
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  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Ephesians 3.16
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being

Reflection: Paul’s Prayer for the Power of Faith
By John Tillman

Paul does not presume faith or spiritual power and neither can we. We also must kneel humbly, admitting our powerless state and our tendency towards unbelief. Let us pray this prayer on our own behalf and on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.

Prayer for the Power of Faith:

“For this reason I kneel before the Father…”

We are your children, adopted through Christ into your family.
We kneel, humbling ourselves, acknowledging our poverty, our nakedness, our need.

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being”

We do not need your power only for great deeds of faith.
We need your power for every moment and miniscule act of goodness.

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”

We need Christ to dwell in our hearts by faith. 
It is not that we do not have faith, Lord.
We do not lack belief. But we struggle with putting our faith in other things.
We are full of self-belief. We believe in our wealth. Our faith is in stockpiling resources. Our faith is in our human wisdom. 
Empty us of these beliefs.
Fill us with true faith in you alone.

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Fill us with the Spirit as Jesus prayed.
May we fulfill the words of Christ when he said that we would do greater things than he did.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…

Our imaginations are sinful, Lord. Do immeasurably more than we can imagine.
Do immeasurably more than give us wealth. 
Do immeasurably more than give us power. 
Do immeasurably more than give us honor.
Give us service to perform.
Give us needs to meet.
Give us debts to cancel.
Give us trouble for which you are the only answer.

“…according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.”

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. — Matthew 5.6

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
1 Kings 6 (Listen – 4:30)
Ephesians 3 (Listen – 2:41)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Read more about His Blessings, Our Curse :: A Guided Prayer
May we hear in God’s Word, always the tender love of our father who wants blessings for us.

His Blessings, Our Curse :: A Guided Prayer

Read more about The Miracle of Faith
Jesus’ greatest miracles were helping the faithless to believe again, helping the cynical to trust again, helping the hardened to love again.

The Miracle of Faith

Putting To Death Racial Hostility

  • October 1, 2019
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  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Ephesians 2:15-16
His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

Reflection: Putting To Death Racial Hostility
By John Tillman

In the ancient world, every race and people claimed supremacy. Supremacy of race or country is an ideology that is based on one of the oldest, perhaps first, sins: pride.

The secular vision of evolution does not posit equality as a trait or as a policy. In fact evolutionary biology is the source of much of the past century’s eugenics-based racist thought.

Our culture’s concept of human equality is based not in science, but in Christ. The wellspring of the concept of racial equality is the cross of Christ as described in the above verse from Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church. The first voice in history crying out for racial equality and the end of slavery was a Christian one.

This is why it is such an enduring tragedy that throughout history the church has struggled to keep various strains of racism from infecting and crippling the church and its work. Every era of the church is touched—and sometimes scarred—with this struggle.

While it is true that without Christian abolitionists, the abomination of racial slavery would still be common, it is equally true that many Christians also stood on the other side. Many lent support to slavery as a legal institution—allowing economic needs and cultural norms to force an ungodly twisting of their theology. (Economic needs and cultural norms fuel today’s illegal slavery crisis—including sexual slavery and secular society still has no answer to the problem.)

Idolatry takes many forms and modern Christians are just as susceptible to them as our first century counterparts were. We must not let nationalistic pride become the idol that keeps us from pursuing the death of racial hostility through the cross of Christ. Only at the cross can we drop our pride, let our hostility die, and take up the new life of unity that Christ died to give us.

Christians must take the lead in racial issues because we have the only viable ideology that, if we let it, will counter the ideology of hate. We cannot grow weary. We cannot tire of addressing the issue. We have the only answer.

“Because so many Christians haven’t yet learned, these words of Paul must continually be proclaimed—that in Christ the barriers of race, language, culture, and social class are all transcended. For man to put up these superficial fences truly reflects the superficiality of his humanity.” — Dr. Nelson Hayashida

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
But I will call upon God, and the Lord will deliver me.
In the evening, in the morning, and at noonday, I will complain and lament, He will bring me safely back…God, who is enthroned of old, will hear me… — Psalm 55.17

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
1 Kings 4-5 (Listen – 7:21)
Ephesians 2 (Listen – 3:04)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Read more about When the Dream becomes a Nightmare
I still have a dream that with this faith we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism.

When the Dream becomes a Nightmare

Read more about Racism Wears a Mask
The church was the first entity in history to directly attack racism and the Holy Spirit is the only way its burden can truly be put down.

Racism Wears a Mask

Purpose

  • March 26, 2018
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: Ephesians 6.10, 13
Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power…so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. — Mark Twain

Reflection: Purpose
By Matt Tullos

Purpose: When the song of our lives synchronizes with the heartbeat of God.

Yesterday evening—Palm Sunday evening.
The road is scattered with green branches quickly turning brown, trampled by a festival of triumph.
The darkness settles in as shadows fall on the city sky.
It seems as if the shouts still echo through its gates.
His feet drenched in alabaster and tears.
He begins his walk toward the torment of a world’s curse.
Mary senses things only a mother could feel.
The week begins.
Jesus weeping alone… No one else was less deserving of Friday. But in a transcendent, eternal sense there was no one else in the history of the universe qualified for Friday.

A deep and unfathomable dichotomy of grace and truth, joy and sorrow, pain and bliss.

Soon, in the final hours of Jesus’ life, he will face the horror of the coming brutality, minutes outside the door of the Roman Governor’s court. Jesus stands before him and says, “I was born for this.” Blessed be the one who rises above the pain to apprehend His purpose.

Jesus shows us how it’s done.

What could possibly be greater than standing for Jesus just as He stood for us? If only men and women viewed their call to suffer as Christ suffered, to live as Christ lived, and to serve as Christ served. If only we would seize the helm of holy opportunity and say these same words, “I was born for this! I have come into the world for this!”

What mission and purpose gives you bliss, contentment and meaning?
How could you embrace your purpose with more passion and desire?

We each have a unique purpose, but also we all have a universal purpose. It is found at the cross and it calls out to us every day we live…

Lay down your life. Put others first. Don’t manipulate people. Swallow the tendency to whine when you aren’t the center of the universe. Give the world and the Jesus family service, second to none. Embrace your divine calling every day. Cling to what God has promised and discard the rest.

This is our purpose. Simple. True. Beautiful.

*From a series Matt Tullos wrote called 39 Words. A few of these posts are available in audio form via Soundcloud. — John

Prayer: A Reading
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant…
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered the promise of mercy… — Luke 1.46-48, 54

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Proverbs 13 (Listen – 2:45)
Ephesians 6 (Listen – 3:17)

When We Fast from the Feast

  • March 23, 2018
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: Ephesians 4.22-24
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Scripture: Luke 14.17-18
At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, “Come, for everything is now ready.” But they all alike began to make excuses.

Reflection: When We Fast from the Feast
By John Tillman

We already know how to fast. We have simply been fasting from the wrong things.

Our culture has steadily, for decades, been encouraging us to abstain from spiritual disciplines in favor of activities that we are led to believe are more profitable.

Our culture tells us that rather than read scripture in the mornings, we must pound through more emails. Productivity trumps biblical literacy.

We are told rather than praying at noon, we should skip lunch to work at our desk or take lunch with a valuable business contact. Productivity and self-promotion trumps prayerfulness and relational spirituality.

Rather than living simply and giving extravagantly, we reverse the equation, making our giving a simple percentage that satisfies a legalistic requirement or gains a tax benefit. Moral satisfaction trumps active compassion.

Rather than draw away from the world to worship in community with other believers, we draw away from others to worship with our headphones in—shutting the world out via podcast or streaming music and worship services.

When we have had just enough of God to make us feel more emotionally healthy and morally superior, we wish to move on to productivity, profit, and success. (All with the implied blessing of God of course.)

Many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel (though we do not put it into words) that we are now good enough. He has done all we wanted him to do, and we should be obliged if he would now leave us alone. — C.S. Lewis

We’ve pushed our chairs back from the banquet table of God’s Word and placed our hand over our glass to prevent being refilled with the wine of his Holy Spirit.

God invites us to the feast of the kingdom. But many are fasting from God’s feast in order to binge on the benefits we can wring from the world.

May we return to the table and to the fellowship of believers with gusto, pushing aside distractions and false supplements that aren’t real spiritual food. As the voice of Christ cries through the prophet, Isaiah, “Why spend money on what is not bread?”

Spiritual disciplines of daily Bible reading, prayer, and meditation are not the spices and subtle flavorings of life—they are the main course. Everything else is sprinkles of garnish.

Prayer: The Request for Presence
Show me your marvelous loving-kindness, O Savior of those who take refuge at your right hand from those who rise up against them. Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me under the shadow of your wings. — Psalm 17.7-8

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Proverbs 10 (Listen – 3:34)
Ephesians 3 (Listen – 2:41)

This Weekend’s Readings
Proverbs 11 (Listen – 3:41) Ephesians 4 (Listen – 3:58)
Proverbs 12 (Listen – 3:07) Ephesians 5 (Listen – 3:42)

Easter Wings :: Throwback Thursday

  • March 22, 2018
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: Ephesians 2.1, 4-6
You were dead in your transgressions and sins… But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ…

Reflection: Easter Wings :: Throwback Thursday
By George Herbert – (1633)

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.
My tender age in sorrow did begin:
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
With thee
Let me combine
And feel this day thy victory:
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Editor’s Note:
That our fall and affliction may further our flight is a part of the miracle of Easter. Not only Christ rose from the grave. We, with him, arose to newness and life.

George Herbert’s beautiful poem explores both the rhythmic shape of these thoughts in meter and their physical shape on the printed page.

May we become “thinne” that Christ’s fullness may shine more fully through us. We must decrease and he must increase. — John

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for my hope has been in you. — Psalm 25.20

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Proverbs 9 (Listen – 1:50)
Ephesians 2 (Listen – 3:04)