prayer

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Psalm 67:1-7

1 God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; Selah.

2 That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.

3 Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.

4 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. 5Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.

6 Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.

7 God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.

We introduced a song couple weeks ago called “May the Peoples Praise You” written by Keith and Kristyn Getty, Staurt Townend, Ed Csh, and David Zimmer. I have learned to appreciate songs that have been written by multiple writers. The depth of Biblically based lyrical content combined with a singe-able and beautifully written melody shows that the song has been labored over, prayed over, and written from the perspective of multiple different sources. This song comes directly from Psalm 67 and gives the call to proclaim the name of the Lord because we have “been called out of darkest night”. (Romans 3:23) The purpose of our redemption is to make Christ known! What a challenge to make praise the name of the Lord and work towards making His name known throughout all the earth!

Here is a link to the song so you can continue to listen to it! I am looking forward to singing this song with you again on Sunday!

Keith & Kristyn Getty - May The Peoples Praise You (Live)

My one year old daughter loves to read. What I mean by “read" is more just flip through pages, look at all the colors and animals, and mumble through her favorite words. Every night we try to read a book before she goes to bed, and often times we read through a Children’s Bible that does a great job depicting the biblical stories and relating them to the gospel. It has caused me to think of how I will continue to teach my children the Bible. I know this can often be a struggle for parents. A lot of words can be difficult to understand, the chapters and can be long, and the parent’s may not have a full understanding of what a passage means in order to articulate it in a clear way. This article by Jon Neilson gives some very helpful and practical ways we can do this. Enjoy!

In Christ,
Brandon H.

6 Ways to Teach Your Kids the Bible

The Gospel Coalition · by Jon Nielson · July 26, 2017

I’m a father of three young kids. I can’t think of many things more important for them than regular exposure to the living Word of God. If you’re a Christian parent of young children, I assume you share the same conviction: Your kids need to hear from God, and you long for them to listen carefully to his good Word.

But it’s hard. Life is busy, kids are lively, and reading the Bible often struggles to compete with the Disney channel, Legos, and the newest phone app.

Here are six tips my wife and I have found helpful in our rhythm of Bible reading with our young kids (currently 6, 5, and 3).

1. Pick a regular time and place for Bible reading.

In general, children tend to love a routine—a regular, anticipated time with Mom and/or Dad associated with a particular activity. Sporadic and random Bible reading may not engage your children in the same way a regular, planned, prioritized “special” time will.

In our home, we’ve chosen the chunk of time before bed for Bible reading. Our two older children know that, in the 15 to 20 minutes before bed, we’re going to gather in their room to read a Bible story, discuss it together, and pray. They’ve come to look forward to it, and it’s become as regular and natural a process as brushing their teeth. It may even help them sleep better, as many bedtime routines seem to.

2. Read short chunks.

Some of us will have to guard against being overly ambitious in the beginning. Since we believe in the power of God’s Word, we want our children exposed to as much of it as possible. So we read two full chapters from Genesis each night. Needless to say, a 5-year-old’s eyes will probably start to glaze over.

I encourage you to pick manageable passages, chosen based on thoughtful criteria. You may decide to begin in Genesis, and move through the Bible sequentially. The key is to not rush it, and to think ahead of time about the right “chunks” for each day.

3. Stop to explain and gauge comprehension.

Even if the passage for the day is only one chapter, that can be a lot for a young child to absorb if read all at once. It’s incredibly important to stop often along the way, explain things, ask questions to gauge comprehension, and ensure your kids are following along and grasping what the passage is saying.

4. Think of age-appropriate questions for discussion.

This aspect has become my children’s favorite part of our nightly time together in God’s Word. I’ve begun thinking of a few basic questions for each of them that will help them do three things with the passage we’ve read: (1) solidify their comprehension of the passage, (2) connect it to the Bible’s overall story, and (3) apply it to their lives.

When you ask simple questions, you’re doing much more than “quizzing” them to ensure they were paying attention. You are actually leading them, interactively, in a time of interpreting and applying God’s Word. And you are preparing them to engage the Scriptures directly on their own in the years to come.

5. Connect each passage to Jesus.

Jesus makes an amazing—even shocking—statement to the Pharisees in John 5: “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life. But it is they that bear witness about me.” He is saying, in no uncertain terms, that the Scriptures are centered around him—his incarnation, his life, his teaching, his death, his resurrection, his return.

What does this mean for daily Bible reading with our kids? It means if we’re trying to help them understand any part of the biblical storyline, we must give them a sense of how that part connects to the major character—and great climax—of that big story.

6. Let Bible reading lead to prayer.

Listening to kids who are learning to pray can be humorous. If yours are anything like mine, their prayers can be hilarious in their simplicity and self-focus. God has heard prayers in our home for dogs, movies, imaginary people, and, of course, coveted toys.

If we’re honest, though, our children’s prayers often are really just “kid versions” of our own. We can easily resort to praying only for our needs and wants, rather than spending time praising and adoring God, and asking for his Spirit’s work in the lives of others. One way to grow in our prayer lives, then, is to intentionally tether our prayers to our reading. We can help our kids “talk back” to God daily, based on the ways he’s speaking to them through the Scriptures.

Parents, press on. Daily, prayer-fueled exposure to the Word of God is the best gift we can ever give our kids.

Reprinted from The Gospel Coalition, Inc.. Copyright 2017 Find the original article here at https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/6-ways-to-teach-your-kids-the-bible

Everybody will go to war this week with something. There is going to be some obstacle for you and it's going to be a fight just coming face to face with it again.
- Brian Loveless

"The Fights Too Big For You" Brian Loveless Sermon on June 25, 2017 at Calvary Baptist Church, Grand Prairie, Texas. Part 1 of the series "Before The War"

** Part 2 "Standing On Your Knees" was not recorded due to technical difficulties.

"The Armor Of Identity" Brian Loveless Sermon on July 9, 2017 at Calvary Baptist Church, Grand Prairie, Texas. Part 3 of the series "Before The War".

"The Armor Of Surrender" Brian Loveless Sermon on July 16, 2017 at Calvary Baptist Church, Grand Prairie, Texas. Part 4 of the series "Before The War".

"The Armor Of Intercession" Brian Loveless Sermon on July 23, 2017 at Calvary Baptist Church, Grand Prairie, Texas. Part 5 of the series "Before The War".

Meditating on Scripture

I read a statement the other day in a devotional book by Robby and Kandi Gallaty that was simple, yet powerful. It said, “prayer is the most effective tool we have against any opposition or temptation we face, both in our personal lives and in our church today.” I truly believe prayer is vital for the life of the Christian and for the church. Because of this, I believe that understanding what prayer is and how to pray is also vitally important. There is a spiritual discipline that is a vital step before prayer that many Christians tend to leave out, and that is meditation on the Scripture. At its most basic level, meditation on Scripture is getting the truth of the Word of God from your head to your heart. Meditation literally means to “mutter”, to work out, or to work through. Doing this allows the Word of God to become real to you and allows you to commune with God at a deeper level.

Timothy Keller, in his book, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy With God, gives some helpful questions to ask when approaching the Scriptures that allows you to work through the Scriptures and move it from the head to the heart.

Is there any example for me to follow?
Is there any command for me to obey?
Is there any error for me to avoid?
Is there any sin for me to forsake
Is there any promise for me to claim?
Is there any new thought about God himself?
Am I living in light of this?
What difference does this passage make?
Am I taking this seriously?
If I believed and held to this, how would that change things?
When I forget this, how does that affect me and all my relationships?

Over the past couple of weeks, I have done my best at working through these questions and it has really helped my understanding of the Scriptures. I hope this helps you as well in your pursuit of seeking after God.

Take your bibles this morning if you would turn to Luke 18. I imagine some of you the moment I came up on state probably took your eyes away from the video for just a moment see what on Earth I was up to. A lot of you no doubt recognize the chairs I have on stage this morning. These chairs go all the way back to the beginning with this church.

[Indicating larger char] A lot of these chairs (this will mean something to some of you) go back to the J. Frank Norris days, the seminary days, and all of that. When this church got its launch, these were the chairs God's people were sitting in when they heard the word, they grew in Christ, and started reaching their community.

Weston and Barbara Winter began attending Calvary Baptist Church in 2004 and have been faithful attendees the Prime Timers Sunday school class ever since. In November 2016, Wes and Barb’s son, Jace, was suddenly called home to be with Jesus at only 42 years old. When the news came their Sunday school class was quick to respond.

Church Family by Wes Winter

It is amazing to me how fast members of the Primetime class were at our house. It meant so much to Barb and I that they would drop everything to be there, support us in prayer, and comfort us. The "world famous" Primetime class came through with meals until we eventually had to ask them to stop bringing them; it was more food than we could eat. That was such a blessing.

The cards and prayers are still coming! My dear, sweet wife is trying to answer those cards but she is overcome with grief every time she starts doing them. Please continue to pray for her. Pray for me as well. I try to restrain my emotions the best I can but we have our ups and downs. I know am not alone in this. Friends like David & Sharon and Gary & Sheryl, who have gone through this kind of loss, the loss of a son, have been so helpful to us. Please continue to pray for us.

If you are not in a small group or a Sunday school class, please join one. The love, the fellowship, the bond that you have in that class is immeasurable. I don’t know how anybody functions through life, with all of its ups and downs, without a church family. You are closer than blood. All of you are close to us. We can call on you any time and you’re there. It is a great support and a great feeling to know that you have a family, a church family that is that close.

The Primetime class will always be family and all the rest of you that aren’t in Primetime, I’ll just call you cousins OK?

It has been on Pastor Brian's heart for our church to return to being a PRAYING church. This has challenged my faith and given me a desire to become someone who prays regularly with purpose and meaning. Timothy Keller's book on Prayer is a game changer when it comes to how and why to pray. He looks into what the Bible says about prayer as well as highlights the writings of some of the most influential theologians of all time. One such theologian is St. Augustine. This article gives us a look at a letter he wrote that specifically addresses prayer.

In Christ,
Brandon H.

Saint Augustine on Prayer
by Timothy Keller

Anicia Faltonia Proba (died AD 432) was a Christian Roman noblewoman. She had the distinction of knowing both St. Augustine, who was the greatest theologian of the first millennium of Christian history, as well as John Chrysostom, who was its greatest preacher. We have two letters of Augustine to Proba, and the first (Letter 130) is the only single, substantial treatment on the subject of prayer that St. Augustine ever wrote.

I had the chance to read the letter over the Christmas holidays and was impressed with its common sense and some of its unusual insights. Proba wrote Augustine because she was afraid that she wasn’t praying as she should. Augustine responded with several principles or rules for prayer.

The first rule is completely counter-intuitive. St. Augustine wrote that before anyone can turn to the question of what to pray and how to pray it, they must first be a particular kind of person. What kind is that? He writes: “You must account yourself ‘desolate’ in this world, however great the prosperity of your lot may be.” He argues that no matter how great your earthly circumstances they cannot bring us the peace, happiness, and consolation that are found in Christ. The scales must fall from our eyes and we must see that—if we don’t all our prayers will go wrong.

Second, he says, you can begin to pray. And what should you pray for? With a bit of a smile (I think) Augustine answers you should pray for what everyone else prays for: “Pray for a happy life.” But of course, what will bring you a happy life? The Christian (if following Augustine’s first rule of prayer) has realized that comforts and rewards and pleasures in themselves give only fleeting excitement and, if you rest your heart in them, actually bring you less enduring happiness. He turns to Psalm 27 and points to the Psalmist’s great prayer: “One thing have I desired of the Lord, one thing will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord to behold the beauty of the Lord.” This is the fundamental prayer for happiness. Augustine writes: “We love God, therefore, for what He is in Himself, and [we love] ourselves and our neighbors for His sake.” That doesn’t mean, he quickly adds, that we shouldn’t pray for anything else other than to know, love, and please God. Not at all. The Lord’s Prayer shows us that we need many things. But if God is our greatest love, and if knowing and pleasing him is our highest pleasure, then it transforms both what and how we pray for a happy life.

He quotes Proverbs 30 as an example: “Give me neither poverty nor riches: Feed me with food appropriate for me lest I be full and deny you…or lest I be poor, and steal and take the name of my God in vain.” Ask yourself this question. Are you seeking God in prayer in order to get adequate financial resources—or are you seeking the kind and amount of resources you need to adequately know and serve God? Those are two different sets of motivations.

In both cases the external action is a prayer: “Oh, Lord—give me a job so I won’t be poor” but the internal reasons of the heart are completely different. If, as Augustine counseled, you first became a person “desolate without God regardless of external circumstances”—and then began to pray, your prayer will be like Proverbs 30. But if you just jump into prayer before the gospel re-orders your heart’s loves, then your prayer will be more like: “Make me as wealthy as possible.” As a result, you will not develop the spiritual discretion in prayer that enables you to discern selfish ambition and greed from a desire for excellence in work. And you will be far more crestfallen if you have financial reversals. A Proverbs 30 prayer includes the request that God not give you too much, not only that he not give you too little.

The third rule was comprehensive and practical. You will be guided, he said, into the right way to pray for a happy life by studying the Lord’s Prayer. Think long and hard about this great model of prayer and be sure your own appeals fit it. For example, Augustine writes: “He who says in prayer… ‘Give me as much wealth as you have given to this or that man’ or ‘Increase my honors; make me eminent in power and fame in the world,’ and who asks merely from a desire for these things, and not in order through them to benefit men agreeably to God’s will, I do not think he will find any part of the Lord’s Prayer in connection with which he could fit in these requests. Therefore, let us be ashamed to ask these things.”

The fourth rule is an admission. He admits that even after following the first three rules, still “we know not what to pray for as we ought in regard to tribulations.” This is a place of great perplexity. Even the most godly Christian can’t be sure what to ask for. “Tribulations…may do us good…and yet because they are hard and painful…we pray with a desire which is common to mankind that they may be removed from us.”

Augustine gives wise pastoral advice here. He first points to Jesus own prayer in Gethsemane, which was perfectly balanced between honest desire “let this cup pass from me” and submission to God “nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.” And he points to Romans 8:26, which promises that the Spirit will guide our hearts and prayers when we are groaning and confused—and God will hear them even in their imperfect state.

Anicia Proba was a widow by her early 30s. She was present when Rome was sacked in 410 and had to flee for her life with her granddaughter Demetrias to Africa where they met Augustine. Augustine concludes the letter by asking his friend, “Now what makes this work [of prayer] specially suitable to widows but their bereaved and desolate condition?” Should a widow not “commit her widowhood, so to speak, to her God as her shield in continual and most fervent prayer?” There is every reason to believe she accepted his invitation.

See Augustine’s Letter 130 (AD 412) to Proba found in Philip Schaff, ed., “Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,” First series, vol. 1, 1887. Christian Classics Ethereal Library pp. 997-1015.

Copyright ©2016 Redeemer City to City. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Find the original article at http://www.timothykeller.com/blog/2014/3/1/saint-augustine-on-prayer

It has always been a struggle for me to move the knowledge of the Scriptures from the head (intellect) to the heart. I want to feel close to God, but there are many times I read the Scriptures and still feel distant. This article has helped me in very practical ways to move towards a deeper relationship with God. Hope this helps you as well.

In Christ,
Brandon H.

Five Strategies for Avoiding Intellectualism

Interview with John Piper Topic: Study & Scholarship

[Audio Transcript] Pastor John, you have, for years stressed an approach to Reformed theology that is both hard-thinking and deep-feeling. Each of us will tend to fall on one side or the other, either an anti-intellectual feeling, or an anti-feeling intellectualism. Both are to be avoided. In today’s question, a listener wants to know this: “Dear Pastor John, in your 30+ years of ministry, what have you practically done to avoid mere intellectualism — cold academic study — in your Bible reading and in your exposition?”

1) The first thing I would say is that I need to be, we need to be, deeply persuaded that this really, really matters: this non-cold, non-intellectualistic, warm, practical, affectionate relation to the living Christ. We need to be persuaded. This really matters because there are a lot of people out there — I keep bumping into them — there are a lot of people out there who either for personality reasons or sometimes theological reasons think it doesn’t matter what your emotions do. That is, they think emotions are the caboose at the end of the train. They are just not essential at all. And it sounds like the person who wrote this question is persuaded that they matter, and it might be good to ask why. And here is my reason.

The first and greatest commandment is not to know the Lord our God — which is, of course, assumed — but to love the Lord your God. And that includes with all your heart (Matthew 22:36–37). And Paul says at the end of 1 Corinthians: If you don’t love the Lord you are accursed (1 Corinthians 16:22). Love the Lord. And Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). In other words, the love that we must have isn’t just a kind of dutiful, commandment-keeping love. That is not what you have for your kids, nor your parents. It is the deepest, heartfelt, affectionate, relative kind of love, the kind we have for mother and father and son and daughter — only more, more for Jesus. And if we don’t have it, we are not worthy of Jesus.

So, this is the first thing I would say. We must be totally, John Piper must be totally persuaded that knowing God truly without loving him duly is eternally deadly, deadly. I must be persuaded of that. So, I am trembling at the thought that I could go about my academic work or my scholarly work or my writing work or preaching work or study work in some kind of cold frame with no awakened love for God, affection for God. So, the quest for overcoming what he is referring to as intellectualism is a life and death battle. That is the first thing.

2) The second thing I would say is that we should therefore read all things — Scripture and everything else, especially the word; the Scripture, but also the world and everything in it — we should read everything on the lookout for evidences of God’s value, not just evidences of his truth. The devil owns that God is true and probably knows more true things about God than we do. But the devil will not own that God is supremely valuable and supremely satisfying. The devil values himself above God. God’s presence gives no joy and no satisfaction to the devil whatsoever.

Therefore, our aim in reading the Bible should not be demonic. We are not aiming to rise just to the level of the devil. Our aim is, of course, to see what is really there, what is true about God — but always more, always more; namely, with a view to feeling what is valuable about God, treasuring the treasure that God is. The aim is to see the millions of reasons why God is a treasure, not just the millions of evidences that God exists or has certain attributes. All of our theological refinement should be for the sake of doxological embrace and enjoyment. This affects the way you read. This is what I try to do. I try to read. You read on the lookout for evidences of value, evidences of preciousness, evidences that he is beautiful and sweet and satisfying.

Peter says in 1 Peter 2:1–3, “Long for the pure, spiritual milk” — and I think he means the milk of the word — “that by it you may grow up into salvation — if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” What is the point of that if: if you have tasted? The point is that all the drinking in the world without tasting will not grow us up into salvation. The aim of drinking the word is tasting the Savior. It is the tasting that is the nutritional encounter with the living God that grows us up into salvation. So, that is the second thing I would say. In all of our reading, be on the lookout for evidences of God’s value, not just evidences of his truth.

3) Which leads now to the third thing that I would say, namely, that the goal of valuing or treasuring or feeling the preciousness of or enjoying the beauty of God in all of our reading confronts me immediately with the impossibility on my part of making it happen. You can’t make yourself value God. You can make yourself read. You can make yourself list off attributes of God that you see. You can make yourself list of ways that God behaves. But you can’t make yourself feel how wonderful they are. That is why the psalmist cries: Open my eyes that I may see wonders in your Word (Psalm 119:18).

So, the third point is: Pray, pray, pray. And we pray not only for illumination to see what is really there about God, but to feel. We pray Psalm 90:14, “Satisfy [me] in the morning with your steadfast love.” Why in the world would the psalmist pray that, except that the human heart doesn’t naturally feel it when it hears and sees the beauties of God? God has to work this. We ask God to make us satisfied in God. So, prayer is absolutely essential not only that my eyes would be open, but that my affections would be awakened.

4) The fourth thing I would say is that, beyond the Bible, I read authors who have understood God deeply and felt him mightily and expressed both the understanding and the feeling with clarity and power. For me, that has been mainly Jonathan Edwards and John Owen and C.S. Lewis and the Puritans. You need to find the great seers of God and the great lovers of God and the great expressers of the seeing and the loving, so that they can feed your soul with true and large affections.

I know you, Tony, would put John Newton in that category and so would I — kind of a latter-day Puritan who saw things deeply and expressed things beautifully and felt things deeply. So that is number four.

5) And then, finally, I would say: Open your mouth and bear witness to family and friends and neighbors and colleagues to the beauty of God and your joy in him. It is precisely in giving expression to our joy that intensifies the joy itself. A shared joy is a doubled joy. God loves mission. God loves witness. God loves sharing. God loves loving people. And he does not love hoarding. Therefore, when we turn on our affections and express them to other people, God is pleased and our joy is intensified.

So, those are my five strategies against cold intellectualism. There are lots more strategies, but maybe that is enough to set the trajectory of discovery.

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including A Peculiar Glory.

Stephanie Grounds has been attending Calvary Baptist Church since 2005 and resides in Grand Prairie, TX with her husband Chad and their three children. You can find Stephanie teaching in the Refinery or Boulevard of Kid City on most Sundays. In her spare time, Stephanie likes to hang out with family, play volleyball, and cheer for THE Dallas Cowboys!

Immeasurably More

Some of you might know me as Chad's wife or you might know me as the girl that wears the blue shirt since I'm always in Kid City. I met my husband at Arlington Baptist College in 1995. Seven months into our friendship, and our courtship, we were sitting in an Arlington hospital room with my parents, and a doctor with bad bedside manner. At the age of 20, he told me I needed a full hysterectomy. The words simply rolled off the tip of his tongue, “You're never going to be able to have children. You might as well go ahead and get the surgery. We can schedule it today or tomorrow.” What he said so easily, felt as if a house just landed on me, and crushed me. I also remember my very sweet, but very Texan mama replying, “Well, I don't think you are God and we will definitely be seeking a second opinion! Thank you, bye-bye. You are done here.”

The road to my surgeries began. There were six surgeries to be exact, one before I was married, five to follow afterwards, and they all led to exactly the same place: no children. It is amazing how during some of the loneliest times in my life, I absolutely felt my Savior the closest to me. He was right there beside me. He was whispering truths because the enemy was on a mission. Satan wanted to sift me like wheat and sometimes I let him. He would start whispering, “What kind of a woman are you? This is what your husband has dreamed of! All he talked about while you dated was having a family. You cannot give him that. What is wrong with you?” About the time that the enemy would start feeding me those lies, my Savior would start shouting out words of truth; everything depended on who I chose to listen to. The Lord taught me so much during my journey and gave me what I like to call “nuggets of truth”.

About eight years into my journey with infertility I was at my very lowest after learning a birth mom was choosing another family; not Chad and I. This was the second time we had tried to pursue adoption and the door had been shut. I fell on my face in my living room floor and sobbed from the depths of my soul. I gave myself time to weep and mourn before I got up and I went to the Word. That's where the comfort came from - friends can give you comfort, I love my family more than life, but the Word is what kept me sustained. I remember telling the Lord specifically, “I am lost. Please take away this desire to be a mom. I feel dried up and empty.”

My kind and gracious Savior took me to the Bible study I had been doing. The verse was Isaiah 58:11,

”And the Lord will guide you continually...” Wait Lord, you mean I’m not lost?

“And satisfy your desire in scorched places...” My desire was to be a Mom and let me tell you, I felt really burned.

“And make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” Wait, I’m not dried up?

Then I gave up! Not the way you quit something, but I surrendered once and for all. This journey would be 100% His will and not mine, His timing and not mine, His way and not my way. I promise you, besides salvation, that was the sweetest surrender of my life!

In August 2008, after a nine-year battle with infertility (and you can say nine years, “like oh yeah nine years” but that’s a LONG time), I found out we were expecting. I embraced every moment of sickness. Every time I felt like throwing up I celebrated; I was so excited! It was a reminder of the life that the Lord had amazingly placed inside me. One month later we found out we weren’t only expecting, but we were expecting twins! At 20 we were told we would never have children and 13 years later we’re carrying twins... TWIN GIRLS! Their daddy was in trouble.

Everything was going perfect until my 24^th week. I taught at an elementary school, having a normal day, until the pain hit. I thought, “Good grief what did I eat that you two disagree with?” Before I knew it, I found myself in the nurse’s station at the school, buckled over, while she told the school counselor to get me to the hospital pronto! This could not be happening.

At the hospital, they told me I was in full labor. This was not good, it was January and my babies were not due until May! There were about six people in the room and everybody was doing something different - rolling me side to side, giving me shots, pumping meds through my IV. I had no idea what was happening because nobody was talking to me. I remember thinking, “I haven't even had a Tylenol since I found out about these babies!”

I was finally able to ask what the nurses were giving me but nobody was listening. Finally, one nurse looked at me and she said, “Honey, we're giving you steroid shots. Your babies’ lungs have not developed. If they're born today, there's a very good chance they’re not going to make it.” I was devastated. They had done a sonogram and Baby A weighed one pound and Baby B weighed 14 ounces! This was a nightmare, but within a few hours the meds started working, my body was responding, and life started making sense again. I was told the girls were stable, but I would have to spend the duration of my pregnancy in the hospital on bed rest. Two days later as I lay in that hospital bed, two of my precious friends were trying to cheer me up and brighten up my room. I'll never forget they painted a verse for me on a little board:

They hung it up in my room without knowing a few hours later that verse would be my lifeline! I had complained to the nurses that I was having a hard time breathing and they told me it was the medicine they gave me to stop the contractions and I was okay, but the feeling continued. I insisted that I really couldn’t catch my breath, but they suggested that I was going through some anxiety. Once I made it clear that I COULD NOT BREATHE I was taken for a CT scan and chest X-rays. The techs were laughing and having a good time, cutting up, and then all of a sudden they were very somber. When they took me back to my room, they treated me like I was a delicate rose. I was confused, “What’s going on? What happened to the funny people from before?”

The techs said my doctor would talk to me if there was anything they needed to discuss. The on-call nurse came in and she told me they found an aneurysm on my heart. They were talking with a heart specialist who would be in shortly to discuss this with me. The heart surgeon arrived with my mom, my husband, and preacher. When I saw preacher, I knew it was bad. My husband wanted to break the news to me, so with tears in his eyes, yet so strong, he said, “Stephanie, this aneurysm has to be removed but in order to do so, it requires open-heart surgery. They're going to have to lower your body’s core temperature to the point that your pulse is very weak. But the girls won’t survive that.”

I refused and insisted we just wait because they were only 24 weeks; we just needed to give them a chance and wait a little longer. The heart surgeon insisted that I didn’t have time. The aneurysm could burst at any moment. Again, I insisted we give my daughters a chance. I suggested doing a c-section. They could deliver the babies (and we would pray for God to sustain their life) and then the doctors could do the open heart surgery afterwards. The surgeon told me my body could not go through a c-section and in then immediately have open heart surgery. I would die on the table. I recognized the options all as lose-lose situations but right there hanging in my window, seriously the same day, was this freshly painted sign: God is able to do IMMEASURABLY more than all we can ask or imagine. It is His promise, immeasurably more, and that was what it would take. A peace came over my body that I can’t explain to you, it was the Lord, and I resolved this wasn’t my story. This was not where God brought me. He did not bring me here for this.

No heart surgeon in DFW wanted to touch me because I was a huge insurance liability, but the hospital found a surgeon in Houston who would do the surgery. The plan was to CareFlight me to Houston so the doctors wanted to do a sonogram of my heart. They brought in the sonogram machines and told all my family and friends to step out. As hot tears were streaming out of my eyes, they had me swallow a scope. Normally scopes are done while you are under anesthesia, but I couldn't have any, so I was consciously swallowing a scope that would take a picture of my heart. The process seemed to last forever but I felt (literally felt) my Savior holding my hand through it. After it was over, I looked up at that surgeon and he had a very strange look on his face. He told me I had done well and walked out of the room. That was all he said.

I was later told the heart surgeon went straight to my husband and a waiting room full of prayer warriors there that day. The doctor looked at Chad and told my husband he couldn’t find the aneurysm. It was on the CT scans, every test they did, but when they did the sonogram the aneurysm was gone. Chad asked if I still needed surgery, and the doctor said “Nope. She doesn’t need anything. It's gone.” The doctor was so puzzled and even had me go in weeks later for follow ups. He admitted he didn’t know what happened. I said, “I do! I told you. It was God. He did immeasurably more...”

I want to thank so many of the people who prayed. When you tell somebody you will pray for them: pray for them! Prayer works and God is still in the miracle business! I was able, with the Lord's help, to hang on to those precious baby girls. At 32 weeks, my beautiful twin miracles made their debut. Abigail Elise came first weighing 4lbs, 6oz and Reese McKenna came one minute later weighing 3lbs, 7oz. and they are the joys of our lives. I want you to know that God is still in the miracle business. He loves to show off because nine months later, we all discovered there was a sibling coming. Our son, Noah Colt was born 18 months after his sisters, rolling in at 9lbs pounds. More than their COMBINED weight.

The kicker of our story is that I delivered all three of those babies in the same hospital where that first doctor told me I needed a full hysterectomy and would never have children. Wow, I guess my mama was right when she said that things aren't always as they seem.

Last time, we read about the three keys to having a more powerful prayer life. Today, let's touch on a subject I think we all have encountered a time or two: unanswered prayer.

In Christ,
Brandon H.

What to Do with Unanswered Prayer by John Starke

Anyone who’s given himself or herself to prayer for a sustained amount of time has likely experienced the disappointment of unanswered prayer. But the more theological astute among you may not like that phrase “unanswered prayer.” You may call it a category mistake. I understand your point. In reality, there are no unanswered prayers. God is sovereign and giving us all what we would’ve asked for if we knew everything he knows.

And I’m sure David was told something similar when he penned Psalm 13: “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?” (v. 1).

Surely you know, David, that God hasn’t forgotten you!

I’m sure he knew.

David continues: “Consider and answer me, O LORD my God” (v. 3). Apparently, David hadn’t experienced an answer to his prayers for a while, and was asking God “why?” I trust you could give a quick, theologically accurate answer.

But David is a serial offender in the Psalms. Maybe you would even quote the Psalms to David and correct him! “He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see? (Ps. 94:9).

Still, David and other psalmists consistently ask the God who never forgets if he has forgotten them.

My Experience

Have you experienced this pain? I have. There have been days I’ve felt as if I could only pray, “Will you forget me forever?” Maybe you feel that’s overdoing it. Perhaps you’d say, “Well, maybe you should pray for something else. It sounds like you’re expecting God to do your bidding!”

Maybe. But I wonder if you’d be as quick to say so to a brother or sister struggling with addiction, praying 10 years for relief, longing for a wandering child, or to a congregation fearful of its doors closing.

I penned a poem about unanswered prayer once. I wince sometimes when I read it:

Where is your listening ear, O Lord?
Why have you ignored me?
All my prayers are swallowed up in the ceiling!
Is my voice too quiet for you?

It gets worse:

Where have my prayers gone, Lord? What have you done with them? “Ask me anything,” you say—“The desire of your heart!” All my desires have been crushed. All my groanings ignored.

Those last two lines are a sore spot for people who experience unanswered prayer. We read Jesus’s words of almost completely unqualified invitation—“Ask me anything and I’ll give it to you!” (Matt. 18:19; 21:22; Mark 11:24; John 14:13; 15:7; 15:16; 16:23–24; James 1:5–6; 1:17; 1 John 3:22; 5:14–15)—and wonder why he hasn’t answered us.

When will I get some relief?
When will my sighings give way to smiles?
I know where comfort comes from,
But you have locked its doors from me.

My smiles are like powder, my laughter like grass;
With a breeze, they are blown away.

Finding Companions

As I read the Psalms, I continue to find companions. Asaph considers his trouble and all the times he has prayed for relief: “When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints” (Ps. 77:3). He’s grown tired of asking. The morning comes, and it’s time to pray, but he’s too tired of being disappointed to ask for anything again.

Asaph continues: “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he shut up his compassion?” (Ps. 77:7–9). Asaph knows the answer to his questions. In fact, elsewhere he answers them. Even Jesus begs for relief (Mark 14:36), and when he experiences the Father’s absence, he cries aloud: “Why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).

The Psalms keep good company. They give me words when I’m at a loss. They open windows in the rooms of my heart I didn’t know were there, and they let in fresh air. That’s a grace for seasons of unanswered prayer.

When you sit patiently with these psalms, you find something more. You remember these aren’t just the words of David and Asaph; these are the words of God. Before David gave me the words, “Will you forget me forever?” God gave them to David. These complaints are God’s gifts. He knows how we are. When we are at the end of our rope, these words are his way of lengthening the tether.

Isn’t that something? God has inspired words of complaint and protest to say to him when we are confused and sad, angry and desperate. He gave us words to say into our pillow as we drink our tears. “Here,” he says, “these words will help. Go ahead. I’m not self-conscious.”

Fighting to Wait

There’s an old church father, Diadochus of Photike, who was part of the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. He was known for writing On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination, or as it’s best known, “The Hundred Chapters,” which is primarily on prayer. He introduces a term that probably won’t catch on with modern readers: “educative desolation.” Diadochus says “educative desolation” is God’s intentional hiding of his presence from the senses of his children. He hides the “experience of divine attention” in order to increase their desire for him. “Educative desolation,” he explains, “brings to the soul humiliation, grief, and proper despair in order that the part of the soul that seeks glory and is easily exalted may return to humility.” Such a soul that “seeks glory and is easily exalted,” he observes, “does not easily renew its love of God.” In infinite wisdom, the Lord uses various ways to awaken our longings for himself again.

I don’t know if this is why God sometimes doesn’t answer my prayers and makes me wonder if he’s near. But I’ve found comfort in these instructions and have tried to look for ways to stir my love for him. When I do seek him, I’ve often heard the whisper of the Lamentations: “You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear’” (Lam. 3:57). Notice he doesn’t say “Here’s your answer,” but “Do not fear.” I can use that.

Until then, Jeremiah teaches me to wait as he laments his exile: “The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him” (Lam. 3:25). He says so when all he can think about is his affliction, and he wonders if God thinks of him (Lam. 3:19–20). He knows the right answer. So he waits. And God says “those who wait for me shall not be put to shame” (Isa. 49:23).

The Lord is good to those who wait for him. In my heartache and confusion, my waiting is not in vain. He’s going to be good to me. He already has been.

Will Maxwell has been attending Calvary Baptist Church since 2012 and resides in Grand Prairie, TX with his wife and children. Will assists Calvary's Communications Team during the week in the sound booth as well as ushering and helping with the Judgement House production. When he's not working or pursuing his Electrical Engineering degree with UNT, Will enjoys playing video games, carpentry, and keeping his marksmanship skills honed.

God Didn't Give Up

Although I wouldn’t know until years later, my journey to Christ started while I was in the military. I enlisted in the Marine Corps out of high school and served for nine years. I was active duty during 9/11 and spent significant time deployed to the Middle East. I was close to other Marines, men I considered brothers. Some of them were devout Christians and whenever a situation would go awry they would look to me and say, “God was watching over us today.” Being the hardened heart I was, I would brush it off and crack a joke. Truth be told, I often could not explain why certain things happened the way they did. I lost too many brothers along the way. We didn’t grow up together, but I would have traded my life for theirs without hesitation. I carried a huge amount of guilt, not for what we were called to do, but the fact that friends, my brothers, did not survive. I felt left behind. I wanted to be with them cracking jokes and hanging out.

When I left the Marine Corps life behind in 2008, I had a hard time dealing with being in the “real world”. People seemed rude and as if they truly did not care about anyone but themselves. I found it difficult relating to anyone who had not been military and deployed. This was very dark period for me; I was fighting an uphill battle every day. I leaned heavily on my wife of 14 years (and counting) and a former Army brother I met after joining the civilian world. We developed a bond quickly because Daniel understood what it meant to have a rough night (because of my nightmares) or that I felt off (because of my anxiety) or the pain was bad today (from my back injury). He could look at me and know something was off and that I needed him to just be there. Half the time we didn’t talk, and when we did, we were cracking jokes.

Daniel invited us to his church many times in the first years I was out of the military. Eventually, my wife started attending on a regular basis while I stayed home or “had something to take care of”. Soon, my wife recommitted herself to Christ and invited a Life Group into our home. I was absolutely against that, but I love her, so I let it ride. As the weeks passed, I found myself getting involved with the group. I also realized these people did not judge me in any way. They knew about my military service, deployments to the Middle East, and they did not care. They showed me unconditional love even with all of my faults (to include anger, rage, and the occasional outburst).

Over time, I started attending the church on a regular basis and enjoyed helping out around the church (especially preparations for the Judgement House production). I developed a friendship with the Pastor, Brian Loveless, and Outreach Pastor, Ron Adams. I would meet with these men regularly. They would always tell me that Christ will accept me, faults and all, but I did not believe I was worth saving. I did not believe that Christ would want me in His church, but God didn’t give up on me. Since I wasn’t listening to God’s pull on my heart, He found a more forceful way to get my attention. In the span of a single week we had our car repossessed, could no longer pay our bills, and everything else that could have gone wrong did!

When things fell apart, I had a meeting with Brian. I laid everything out and again he pointed out, “Christ is after you and is calling you”. In that moment, I understood that I could not do life my way. I needed Christ in my life. I needed Christ to lead me and lead my family. That was when I finally accepted Christ in the pastors office, crying and broken. The feeling that I had someone in my corner was instant.

I would be lying if I said my walk with Christ since that moment has been easy. There have been trials and times where I fall flat on my face. The difference is instead of trying to do it my way, I allow Christ to direct me through prayer and open myself up to His “nudge” in the right direction. I still have flaws, but they are being worked out through our trials. God puts me in situations that are difficult, and once the initial shock is over, instead of getting vengeful I start looking for the thing that I am supposed to learn from this.

In 2013, my wife and I had two miscarriages relatively close together. The losses tore me up inside, but instead of letting it destroy me; my wife and I lead tour groups through the Judgement House production. We explained what we were going through to each and every person in our group and how we believed that God would see us through. Our church family rallied around us too; giving support, listening, and encouraging us.

A few years later, God gave us two more sons. One was born in January 2015. And a year later, God put an 18-year-old man in my path, leading me to bring this young man into the family. Now all four of our living children are thriving and our family is complete.

I have a saying, “family does not have to share our blood but must be willing to shed blood for each other.” It’s an idea carried over from my time in the military. You must be willing to help each other, be there when a family member has needs, fill in the gap when one appears. You must be willing to follow through with action, not be the type of person who attends church each week just to check off a box. I have a large church family now, and when we have rough patches, they’ve come running to help. There are multiple women I call “mom” who pray over us, brothers and sisters in Christ willing to help. Being a follower of Christ is more than getting baptized and making a proclamation of faith. Those things are important, but there is much more. You need to read the truth (the bible), you need to surround yourself with friends who will speak the truth into you, and you need to be an active member of your church (both through work and through tithing) and the most important task of all - pray on a regular basis.

Pray for your family, pray for others when they are in the middle of a trial, pray for your pastor, pray for your church. One on one time with God through prayer will open you up to direction and guidance. You will be amazed how he uses you! Being a follower of Christ is not easy. You will face trials on a regular basis. You will have more questions than answers most of the time. However, eternal salvation and being in a relationship with Christ is worth it. I wake up every day with all the faults I went to bed with, but I now lay it all at the cross every day knowing He will see me through. My sincere hope is that my story will speak to someone who needs to hear it; someone struggling to understand that Christ is there for you. His gift is free and all you have to do is accept it. And if you have questions, come to our service at Calvary Baptist Church on Sunday, we will help you answer them.

I recently found a couple of articles helpful concerning the subject of prayer and I wanted to share them with you. Today we'll look at the keys to a powerful prayer life. Next time, we'll discuss unanswered prayer!

In Christ,
Brandon H.

3 Keys To a Powerful Prayer Life by Tim Challies

Every Christian comes to find that prayer is difficult. Prayer is a tremendous joy and a tremendous blessing but the joy and blessing come through tremendous difficulty. Thousands and tens of thousands of Christians have written about prayer and offered their counsel on becoming more skilled, more consistent, and more confident in this precious discipline. I was recently reminded of David McIntyre’s counsel as offered in The Hidden Life of Prayer and it both encouraged and motivated me to pray and to pray all the more. Here are his 3 keys to a powerful prayer life.

A Quiet Place. The first key is a place of quiet, a place that is free, or as free as possible, from distractions. “With regard to many of us, the first of these, a quiet place, is well within our reach. But there are tens of thousands of our fellow-believers who find it generally impossible to withdraw into the desired seclusion of the secret place. A house-mother in a crowded tenement, an apprentice in city lodgings, a ploughman in his living quarters, a soldier in barracks, a boy living at school, these and many more may not be able always to command quiet and solitude. But, ‘your Father knoweth.’” Of course today we have distractions that may arise from the very devices we use to pray—the iPhone that houses our prayer app, for example—so we need to take special care that we “silence” our devices so they do not distract us.

A Quiet Hour. Having found a quiet place, we also need a quiet, committed period of time. This is the second key. “For most of us it may be harder to find a quiet hour. I do not mean an ‘hour’ of exactly sixty minutes, but a portion of time withdrawn from the engagements of the day, fenced round from the encroachments of business or pleasure, and dedicated to God. … We who live with the clang of machinery and the roar of traffic always in our ears, whose crowding obligations jostle against each other as the hours fly on, are often tempted to withdraw to other uses those moments which we ought to hold sacred to communion with heaven. … Certainly, if we are to have a quiet hour set down in the midst of a hurry of duties, and kept sacred, we must exercise both forethought and self-denial. We must be prepared to forgo many things that are pleasant, and some things that are profitable. We shall have to redeem time, it may be from recreation, or from social interaction, or from study, or from works of benevolence, if we are to find leisure daily to enter into our closet, and having shut the door, to pray to our Father who is in secret.” The most important appointment you make every day is the one you make with God. All of life’s other responsibilities will threaten to encroach upon this time. You will be constantly tempted to neglect it. But it is too good, too sweet, to miss.

A Quiet Heart. With place and time secured, we now face the most difficult task—securing the heart. McIntrye is right when he says “For most of us, perhaps, it is still harder to secure the quiet heart.” Prayer is difficult when we are hurried or surrounded by distractions. Prayer is more difficult still when our hearts are withdrawn, when our hearts are distracted, when our hearts are uninterested in praying. McIntrye shows how this has been the challenge of many great Christians: “Stephen Gurnall acknowledges that it is far more difficult to hang up the big bell than it is to ring it when it has been hung. Mc’Cheyne used to say that very much of his prayer time was spent in preparing to pray. A New England Puritan writes: ‘While I was at the Word, I saw I had a wild heart, which was as hard to stand and abide before the presence of God in an ordinance, as a bird before any man.’ And Bunyan remarks from his own deep experience: ‘O the starting-holes that the heart hath in the time of prayer; none knows how many bye-ways the heart hath and back-lanes, to slip away from the presence of God’.” It is difficult but necessary.

Christian, find a quiet place and a quiet time where you can quiet your heart before God. These are the keys to powerful prayer, to effective personal devotions. If you need further inspiration, consider Jesus himself:

Crowds were thronging and pressing Him; great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed of their infirmities; and He had no leisure so much as to eat. But He found time to pray. And this one who sought retirement with so much solitude was the Son of God, having no sin to confess, no shortcoming to deplore, no unbelief to subdue, no languor of love to overcome. Nor are we to imagine that His prayers were merely peaceful meditations, or rapturous acts of communion. They were strenuous and warlike, from that hour in the wilderness when angels came to minister to the prostrate Man of Sorrows, on to that awful “agony” in which His sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood. His prayers were sacrifices, offered up with strong crying and tears. Now, if it was part of the sacred discipline of the Incarnate Son that He should observe frequent seasons of retirement, how much more is it incumbent on us, broken as we are and disabled by manifold sin, to be diligent in the exercise of private prayer!

Kindergarten graduation for Joshua, Jessica, and Brandon Hochstetler.

I don’t remember much when I was five, but one thing I do remember was my kindergarten graduation. I remember putting on my extremely large white graduation robe, the nervousness of speaking in front of my family and friends, and how much fun it was to play with the tassel on my cap. In preparation for the graduation, I had to do a lot of memorizing. There were a few songs that I vaguely remember memorizing and I remember memorizing the poem “What Can I Give Him”. There is one thing that stood out from this graduation that has stuck with me ever since, and that was memorizing Psalm 23. As a five year old, I was extremely nervous about reciting the Psalm, but I had gone over it so many times. I remember putting the Psalm to music and rehearsing it over and over again. So, with an extremely high and "chipmunk like” voice, I quoted all of Psalms 23 in front of all those people and didn’t even mess up!

Twenty years later, I have never forgotten that Psalm. It has often been a source of encouragement to me when going through difficult times. For me, and I can assume that for many of you, the Psalms hold a special place in your heart. The reason for this is that the Psalms were not written just for theological instruction; "they were written to be prayed, recited, and sung- to be done, not merely read.” There is a certain poetic nature to the Psalms that penetrates deeper than mere theological facts. The Psalms help us see God in a rich and real life way. They lead us to commitment and not just understanding about God, but having a relationship with Him. When read in the context of the entire Bible, the Psalms point us to Jesus. The Psalms were, in a way, Jesus’ songbook. Even more significantly, Jesus not only sang and recited the Psalms, they were about Him.

With the understanding of why the Psalms were written, we should be challenged to included the Psalms in our daily life as Christians. We have examples going back to the Israelites of how they were used. The Psalms were the hymnbook for the public worship of God in ancient Israel (I Chronicles 16:8-36). The early Christians sang and prayed the Psalms (Colossians 3:16; I Corinthians 14:26). Theologians and and church leaders have always advocated that Psalms should be used and reused in the Christian’s daily life.

I have been challenged this week to make the Psalms a daily part of my life. I don’t want to just read the Psalms. I want to mediate on them, sing through them, memorize them, pray them, and commit to acting out on the truths they convey. I have included a few resources that I have used in helping to do this. I believe it is Biblical and important to do this. As Timothy Keller says, “Psalms, then, are not just a matchless primer of teaching but a medicine chest for the heart and the best possible guide for practical living.”

Resources: “The Songs of Jesus”: A year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms by Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller.

Psalm Songs, Vol. 1 by The Corner Room. https://open.spotify.com/album/4yYPJ5dAnpHHpSuuM4BwEC

In Christ,
Brandon H.

Faith | Hope | Love

May The Peoples Praise You

6 Ways to Teach Your Kids the Bible by Jon Nielson