Healthy Habit | DaveTrenholm.com

Published January 23, 2017

A Lifestyle of Prayer

Over the past several weeks we’ve been looking at the spiritual disciplines – or the Healthy Habits – that Christians have been practicing for centuries in order to help them develop and maintain a close relationship with God. Things like Bible reading, prayer, worship, fasting, times of silence and solitude, giving, serving – all those that we do (not because they earn us salvation or forgiveness or favour with God) but because these are the things that help us know God and to hear his voice and to become more like His Son Jesus. In other words, these are the things that help us remain in Him and He, in us – like it says in John 15:5…

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. ” John 15:5

All of these spiritual disciplines or as we’ve called them – these “Healthy Habits” – are tools that help us remain in Him. They help us stay close to and connected with Jesus – who is the source of our life, our joy, our peace, our love – everything. Apart from Him, we’d have none of that. We’d be like a branch that has been broken off from the tree, that just withers up and becomes dry and brittle. We don’t want to be like that. We want to have His life flowing through us so that we can produce fruit and lots of it!

And so these healthy habits are exactly how we do that.

Last week we talked about the purpose of prayer. And we discovered that praying really isn’t about getting answers to our prayers. Prayer isn’t like popping coins into a cosmic vending machine – where we put the prayers in and expect the answers out.

Prayer doesn’t work that way – and if you expect it to – you’ll undoubtedly be disappointed in prayer. Prayer isn’t so much about changing your situation – it’s more about changing you.

Now God certainly may change your situation – but at the same time, He may not. But when we go to God in prayer, and we tell him our concerns and our issues and we make our requests – and then when we leave that all with Him and just trust Him to do whatever it is that He knows is best, that changes us. It grows our faith and our trust in Him. As we see how He answers (either yes or no), we learn to see things from His perspective. We see his goodness and his faithfulness and his wisdom and his sovereignty. And as we see all that, God works within us to change us from the inside out. Richard Foster writes…

“To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue that God uses to transform us…. In prayer we learn to think God’s thoughts after Him: to desire the things He desires, to love the things He loves, to do the things He wills.”

Richard Foster ~ Celebration of Disciplines.

That’s the purpose of prayer. It’s not just a way of giving God our grocery list of things we want Him to do for us, but it’s how God changes us to become more like His Son, Jesus Christ.

A great example of this I think, is King David. Probably most of you know how the Bible describes King David as a man after God’s own heart. Well, these past couple of weeks as I’ve been studying up on prayer, I’ve come to the conclusion that David’s prayer life probably had everything to do with that!

As I read through the Psalms and as I read through the story of David’s life – I can’t help but notice how David was always praying! And if this statement by Richard Foster is true, then it’s no wonder that David was known as a man after God’s own heart – because if prayer had taught him to think God’s thoughts after Him: to desire the things God desires, to love the things God loves, to do the things God wills – well, that sure sounds like the definition of a “man after God’s own heart”, doesn’t it?

So today, I want to share with you just a quick example from the life of David of how he made prayer his healthy habit – how his relationship with God was shaped by prayer – how through that, He himself was shaped by prayer. And hopefully, along the way, I can point out a few practical tidbits of how we can develop this lifestyle of prayer as well.

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The Purpose of Prayer

Well, here we are two weeks into the new year. That means that 27% of all the New Years Resolutions have now been broken! I don’t know if any of you have made any new year resolutions this year (If I remember right – I don’t know that any of us did last year when I asked.) But if you did, I sure hope you’re able to stick with it longer than two weeks.

This week I was reading an article about the business model of gyms and fitness centres. And the article said that these businesses bank on people to sign up for gym memberships in January and then never show up. That’s a key part of their business model. The article said that…

If gyms operate at more than 5% of their membership at any given time, no one can use the gym. They want them to sign up, but they know that after the 15th of January, they won’t see 95% of them again.

That’s pretty incredible! But not too surprising, because I think a lot of us can relate.

I think all of us recognize the value of staying healthy and fit. Now certainly there can be those factors out of our control that prevent that, but generally speaking, all of would like to see ourselves healthy and fit and physically able to do all the things that we’d like to do.

And so most people would agree that it would be good for them to exercise more. Going to the gym would be beneficial. It would be a good habit to get into to. But yet, despite the knowledge in our head of how valuable physical activity and fitness is, very few people actually make it a priority to exercise or go to the gym or do all those things that are required if we want to stay healthy and fit.

Many of us have really good intentions – and we may go through short bursts of time of making the effort – but in the long run, very few people actually stick with it and make it a part of their lifestyle.

And I think we have a similar experience when it comes to the spiritual disciplines.

Over the past several weeks we have been looking at the spiritual disciplines (or the healthy habits) that Christians have been practicing over the centuries in order to cultivate a deep, meaningful relationship with God. We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the Bible (because that really is the foundation for everything we believe – we have to know and understand and apply this book to our lives), but today I want to look at another healthy habit – and that is prayer.

And prayer, I think, is very much like exercise. Everyone knows that it’s important, and everyone agrees that they really should do it more often, but yet, very few people make it a priority so that it becomes a central part of their life.

And so I spent some time this week trying to figure out why that is. Because every Christian I know agrees that prayer is important. They have the head knowledge that prayer should be central to every Christian’s life! But yet, almost every Christian will tell you, “I really don’t pray like I should. Maybe I pray some, but I really should pray more.”

Now of course, there are some exceptions. There are some people out there that just have amazing prayer lives – and usually, you know exactly who those folks are. They just seem to be so in-tune with God. Even in the midst of great struggles and trials, these folks aren’t shaken at all. It’s like they have this unwavering trust in God. And these folks tend to be so wise and patient and loving and kind. It’s like they’ve been mentored by God Himself! That’s the result of a lifetime and a lifestyle of prayer.

So why aren’t there more of those folks? Why isn’t every Christian like that? What is it about prayer that makes it so difficult to adopt as a lifetime habit? We know how important prayer is, and yet we struggle to make it a central part of our lives! Why is that?

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Transformed by God’s Word

Last week we spent some time looking at the Bible. Of course, that shouldn’t be too surprising. I think I’d have some serious questions about the validity of our church if we didn’t look at the Bible every Sunday! However, last week, our topic was actually the Bible itself.

And we asked some big questions. What exactly is the Bible? What’s it all about – what’s the main message? How did we get the Bible in the first place? And perhaps more importantly, how do we know we can trust it? As Christians, the basis for what we believe about God, about ourselves, about our world, about the meaning of life and how to live it abundantly, about eternity – all of that is found in the Bible. So it seems to me that I want to know with certainty that what I’m basing my beliefs on is true.

And for myself – I’m convinced that it is. I’ve personally spent quite a bit of time researching and seeing for myself – if the evidence truly adds up. And my conclusion is… it does. The evidence seems pretty indisputable to me. But don’t just take my word for it. Check it out for yourself!

We mentioned just a few of the evidences last week. One of them was the continuity of the message of the Bible. Even though the different parts of the Bible were written over a span of 1600 years by 40 different authors on three continents and in three languages – yet somehow, every one of those 66 books of the Bible fit together perfectly to make up one big story – the story of how God loved his creation so much, that despite their constant rebellion and failures, God chose to redeem them. He did that ultimately by sending His Son Jesus Christ, to be born in a stable, laid in a manger, and to one day die on a cross in our place, rising again three days later, so that through Him, we can find forgiveness and eternal life. That’s the message of the Bible – and you find that message throughout the Bible – everywhere from Genesis to Revelation.

We also very briefly touched on the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible and the way the Bible agrees with history, geography, and archaeology. There is just such a host of evidence that I have to conclude that, not only is the Bible true, but it is in fact, as it claims, the Word of God – recorded and preserved over the ages for me and you. But again, don’t take my word for it. That’s just my conclusion. Do your own research and find out for yourself.

Because if the Bible is true and if the Bible is the Word of God as it claims, then the ramifications are huge. If the Creator of the Universe has given me a book that contains all the truth I need to know about Himself, about myself, about my world, about life and how to live it abundantly, about eternity – then I want to know and understand what this book says!

If we are convinced that the Bible is true and that it is God’s message for us, then what should we do with that message? How do we make sure that we understand it correctly and how do we apply what it says to our lives? Should the Word of God actually make a difference in our lives – and if so, how does it?

And so my goal for this message is to give you some tools and teach you some methods for how to discover what’s in the Bible and how to get it off the pages and into your life so that it can actually transform you.

And that’s kinda the important bit right there. I’m not here to convince you to study the Bible just so that you can have a head full of knowledge. Knowledge is good – but it’s not our end goal. The end goal is to know and become more like our Creator. The goal is to strengthen and build our relationship with God. That’s the point of all these spiritual disciplines that we’ll be talking about over the next several weeks as we go through this series on “Healthy Habits”. I’ll tell you right now that reading your Bible is pointless unless it changes your relationship with God. Praying is pointless unless it changes your relationship with God. Going to church is pointless unless it changes your relationship with God.

Doing these things simply out of obligation or habit without actually engaging with God is like taking your car to the mechanic on a regular basis – but not allowing him to make any changes! How ridiculous would that be? Can you imagine going through the effort and paying the cost to take your vehicle into the mechanics every week – but never allowing him to make a single change to your vehicle? That would be ridiculous. That would be stupid!

But often I think we’re guilty of doing exactly that when it comes to these healthy habits. We go through the motions of reading our Bible or praying or going to church or whatever else we do, but we do it without the real intent of connecting with God through those activities. We forget that the purpose of all those things is to help us draw near to God and to abide in Him.

Remember that verse we read in John 15 a few weeks ago?

5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5

That’s why we do these things – to remain in Him. To stay connected with God. To know Him and become more like Him. If we’re not interested in doing that, then why are we doing all this ‘religious stuff’? All of these religious activities that we take part in – if we’re not trying to know God and become more like Him through those things – then it’s complete foolishness! We’re just driving our car back and forth from the mechanic shop!

But on the other hand, if we are seeking to know God and to become more like Him – to build and strengthen our relationship with Him, then these spiritual disciplines – these healthy habits – are some of the best ways you can do that! Without that desire, these practices will be empty and pointless. But when you go into it looking to connect with God, these practices will quickly become some of the most joyful, fulfilling moments of your day!

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Tag: Healthy Habit

A Lifestyle of Prayer

The Purpose of Prayer

Transformed by God’s Word