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Daily, it seems, we’re besieged by harrowing reports of hatred and conflict among people everywhere, both on a local level and on a global scale. The increasing violence leaves us heartbroken, anxious, and unsettled.
In addition, it seems that economic upheaval and its accompanying hardships, environmental issues, and increasing social unrest are becoming a fixture of life today. The world’s problems appear to be insurmountable with no solution in sight.
How should we believers react to the enormous problems in the world today?
First, we need to see what the true source of all the terrible things in the world is, and secondly, we need to see that God specifically desires us to do two things today: pray and share the good news of the gospel with people.
The Bible reveals that God has an enemy: the devil, Satan, who actively opposes God and God’s will. Satan is the source of all evil.
The account in Genesis 1 and 2 tells us God created Adam and Eve and put them in a garden. In this garden was the tree of life, representing God, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, representing Satan.
God wanted Adam and Eve to partake of the tree of life so that they would share God’s divine life. By partaking of the tree of life, they would have God’s life and would be able to live by and express God. This was God’s heart’s desire.
But concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God warned them in Genesis 2:17:
“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of it you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Because Adam, who represented all mankind, was the focus of God’s heart’s desire, he became the focus of Satan’s efforts to prevent God from getting what He wanted. Through Satan’s subtle and deceptive influence, Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command and took the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, becoming poisoned with Satan’s evil nature. From that one act, all mankind was polluted with sin, resulting in the fall of the entire human race. And because the holy and righteous God cannot tolerate sin, mankind was cut off from God.
Since then, Satan has been unceasingly and actively seeking to damage and even destroy mankind, which God so lovingly created for His purpose. All the terrible things that have happened throughout history have been instigated by the devil working within fallen human beings, and he continues that work today. In 1 Peter 5:8, we’re warned:
“Be sober; watch. Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking someone to devour.”
Yet in the midst of this gloomy situation, there’s hope for all mankind. God became a man named Jesus. In John 10:10, Jesus said:
“I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly.”
Life here in Greek, the original language of the New Testament, is zoe, which refers to the eternal, divine life. God’s original intention was for mankind to possess and share in His divine life. Satan may have interfered, but God never gives up. Whatever He plans, He fulfills.
But since fallen, sinful mankind was cut off from God, how could anyone have God’s divine life?
In John 10:11, Jesus continued:
“I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”
Jesus is the good Shepherd, the Almighty God Himself who became a man and lived a perfect, sinless life. He then laid down His own life for us, the lost sheep, to redeem us and bring us back to God.
Our Shepherd saved us from God’s judgment by shedding His blood for us. Then in resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit, able to enter into and give life to anyone who repents and believes in Him.
The Lord Jesus did so much to save people and give them life, but many don’t know anything about Him. Others have misconceptions about who He is. They need to know this wonderful Shepherd who loves them and wants to give them life. They need to know everything He’s already done for them. How can they? We need to pray for them and to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to them.
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The world’s worsening condition can easily cause us to be disheartened and discouraged. But in Luke 18:1, the Lord Jesus encouraged His disciples “always to pray and not lose heart.”
Then, in 1 Timothy 2:1-4 the apostle Paul wrote:
“I exhort therefore, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men; on behalf of kings and all who are in high position, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and gravity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of our Savior God, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth.”
In the New Testament Recovery Version, note 1 on all men in verse 4 explains:
“We should pray on behalf of all men (v. 1) because God our Savior desires all men to be saved and know the truth. Our prayer is required for the carrying out of God’s desire.”
Certainly, God is almighty, but He needs us to cooperate with His desire for all men to be saved by praying for them. Our prayers give God a way to work in people’s lives so they repent and believe in the Savior. This is why we must pray for our relatives, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and even all men to be saved.
The second thing we must do is go and share the gospel, the good news of our dear Lord Jesus, with people.
In Matthew 28:18-20, the resurrected Jesus appeared to His disciples and commanded them:
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age.”
This command applies not only to the disciples who were with the Lord then, but to all believers. We must disciple all the nations, that is, proclaim the gospel to them.
What does it mean to go? It doesn’t exclusively mean to go forth as missionaries to a foreign country. Most of us may never have that opportunity. But each of us can go to our friends and relatives and tell them about the Lord Jesus. After all, how can they repent and believe in Jesus Christ if someone doesn’t speak to them about all He’s done for them? Romans 10:14 says:
“How then shall they call upon Him into whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe into Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without one who proclaims Him?”
People need the Lord Jesus, and God desires to save them. God has put the people around us in our lives so we can pray for them and proclaim the gospel to them. This is how they can be forgiven of their sins, receive the divine life of God, and be brought back to God’s wonderful purpose for them. May we all see this need and cooperate with the Lord to pray for all men and to proclaim the gospel.
If you would like to share the gospel with someone, we encourage you to visit our Share the Good News page, where you’ll find gospel tracts, videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes. All these resources can be easily shared with people you know and are praying for. Once they’re saved, you can also help them order a free New Testament Recovery Version here so they can begin to read and understand God’s Word.
We all know breathing is the most fundamental need for sustaining our physical life. But did you know that continually breathing in the life of God is essential for maintaining our spiritual life?
We were saved eternally when we believed in Christ, and we received the divine life when we were born again. From the moment we’re saved, we need to continue to breathe spiritually so we can grow in the divine life.
In the post How Is Prayer Our Spiritual Breathing? we saw that to breathe in the life-giving Spirit is our greatest need. We also saw that the Greek word for “Spirit” is pneuma, and this same Greek word is also used for “breath.” The resurrected Lord is now the life-giving Spirit, or “breath.”
So how can we breathe in the Spirit as the living breath? It is by prayer. Just as we have to use our lungs to take in oxygen, we have to use our human spirit when we pray to breathe in God as life.
Physical breathing involves both inhalation and exhalation. In the same way, as we breathe in all the positive things of the Lord Himself, we also exhale all the negative things in our being. We’re revived and strengthened by the fresh supply of the Spirit, and most importantly of all, we gain God Himself.
In our fast-paced, busy lives, it’s easy to find ourselves “holding our breath.” No wonder we’re spiritually weak, negative things build up in our heart, and we’re susceptible to sin. How we need to breathe! We need to absorb the life of God in order to live the Christian life. Too often we pray to ask God for things and answers to problems. But our primary need is to breathe in God.
Today, we’ll touch on eight points that can help us breathe in God through prayer.
1. Set aside time to pray. Much like working out, if we don’t schedule time to pray, we won’t do it. Maybe it’s simply a matter of going to bed at a decent time and waking up thirty minutes earlier than usual. In fact, spending time with God first thing in the morning really sets the tone for the day. We can begin our time with Him by telling Him we love Him: “Oh Lord Jesus! Lord Jesus, I love You.” We can exhale all of the things that are bothering us and focus on enjoying Christ.
2. Develop a habit of prayer. Studies show it takes about twenty-one days to form a new habit. We can try to spend twenty minutes with the Lord in prayer every day for three weeks to begin to develop a healthy prayer habit. It will make a big difference in our life if we spend consistent time in prayer to be filled with the Lord and be spiritually recharged.
3. Turn off our electronic devices. Matthew 14:23 tells us Jesus “went up to the mountain privately to pray.” He left the crowd below, even His disciples, to be alone and spend uninterrupted time with the Father. While modern technology helps us, it also brings huge distractions into our lives that keep us from spending time with the Lord Jesus and breathing Him in. He wants to spend personal, private time with us. By going to a place free of other people and putting away our devices so we’re not distracted, we can shut out the world and take in the Lord in a solid way.
4. Muse on the Word. Psalm 119:15 says, “I will muse upon Your precepts and regard Your ways.” Note 1 in the Holy Bible Recovery Version defines muse:
“To muse on the word of God is to enjoy His word as His breath (2 Tim. 3:16) and thus to be infused with God, to breathe God in, and to receive spiritual nourishment.”
Did you know that not only the Spirit is breath but also His Word is breath? Second Timothy 3:16 tells us, “All Scripture is God-breathed.” By using our spirit to pray with the words in the Bible, we can muse on and take in every God-breathed word, so we can be infused with God and nourished by Him.
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5. Pray with the Bible. We can make any verse in the Bible our prayer. For example, we can pray, “All Scripture is God-breathed. Thank You, Lord, all of Your Scriptures are Your breath! I come to breathe You in through Your Word right now.” We can spend time praying over a certain verse; we don’t need to feel like we have to rush ahead to another one. Instead, we can continue to enjoy a particular phrase, lingering to breathe deeply.
6. Praise the Lord. When we spend time with the Lord, musing on His Word and enjoying Him, praises will spontaneously issue from our lips. Say, for example, we’re enjoying Matthew 1:21, which says, “And she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.” From musing on this verse, it will be easy to praise Him, “Lord Jesus, I praise You. You’re the most wonderful One in the universe. Praise You for becoming a man! Thank You, Lord, for saving me from my sins. I praise You as my Savior!”
7. Allow God to finish His speaking. We often cut our time with the Lord short. Imagine if we were treated like this by the people in our lives. Let’s say a good friend comes to talk to us. He tells us about something that happened to him, tells us how he’s doing, asks us to do a few things for him, and before we can respond, he walks away. How would we feel? We might have had a lot to say, but we didn’t get a chance. Quite often, this is how we treat the Lord. We vent to Him, unload what’s on our heart, ask Him to do something for us, ask Him to help us with something, and then finish our time of prayer without allowing Him to say anything to us. To breathe in the Lord, we also need to allow the Lord the opportunity to speak what’s on His heart to us.
8. Pray throughout the day. The simplest way to pray throughout the day is by calling on His name. Calling on the name of the Lord Jesus is something we can do anywhere at any time, whether loudly or quietly. It’s an easy way to breathe in the Lord all day.
Prayer isn’t a duty; it’s a necessity for survival, because it’s our spiritual breathing. And it’s a delight! We can breathe in our enjoyable God moment by moment to be refreshed, strengthened, and filled with Him.
A hymn by A.B. Simpson aptly describes the experience of breathing in God by prayer. The final verse says:
I am breathing every moment, Drawing all my life from Thee; Breath by breath I live upon Thee, Lord, Thy Spirit breathe in me.
To see the entire hymn and listen to the tune, visit this page.
If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
A BfA staff member talks about his experience of praying with the Word of God.
In Ephesians 6, the apostle Paul tells us to receive the Word of God “by means of all prayer” (vv. 17-18).
There are certainly many ways to understand and practice this charge, and probably all are profitable. If the content of our prayer mirrors the content of God’s speaking to us in His Word, we’re probably on the right track.
I once read a book that used an illustration likening the words in the Bible to a tree with limbs full of fruit, and that by prayer, we can shake a limb until some fruit comes down for us to eat.
I read the Bible regularly, chapter by chapter, but I decided to experiment and add a little bit of “pray-reading” to my daily Bible reading.
So I began to occasionally pick a verse or two from whatever chapters I was reading that day and simply prayed aloud with the phrases and words, repeating them and emphasizing them out loud.
On some days, a general appreciation resulted, but no “fireworks,” you could say. On others, though, I really sensed the Word coming alive as I prayed. That kind of specific, focused prayer made the verse vibrant, bright, and as Hebrews 4:12 says, “living and operative” to me.
A particular occasion stands out to me. I was waiting for a friend to pick me up at a bus stop one day and casually reading through Ephesians 4. The chapter ends with what I thought was a rather unremarkable verse about being kind and forgiving one another.
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But I stopped and began to pray over that final verse. Very unexpectedly, I was made keenly aware of some fair but harsh remarks I had made to some of my coworkers. As I repeated the words again and again, “Be kind. Be kind. Be kind, forgiving one another…” so much light shined from them. I saw how cold and strict I was with certain of my coworkers. I was stricken, suddenly realizing how tyrannical I could be at times. I didn’t expect that realization to come, but through my prayer over the words, it almost knocked me over!
Under the shining of the Lord’s light from His Word, I just confessed to the Lord, and let the words from that verse wash away all of my unhappiness with others. As I “ate” the words of Ephesians by praying with them, I felt the kind, forgiving One spread into new areas of my heart. I even shed a few tears.
When my friend arrived to pick me up, he took one look at my face and asked, “What happened?” How do you answer such a question? By means of prayer, a verse printed in black and white on a page became a very personal light shining within me and provided an opportunity for Christ to expand into more of me.
What a tremendous miracle that we have a book as rich as the Bible in our hands, and furthermore, that we have prayer as a means to actually realize what lies printed on every page! This experience and many others like it have taught me to always take the time to pray over one or two verses. I simply don’t want to miss any experience the Lord has ready for me in His Word.
