The Prayer of Thanksgiving

This week, we are going to add another color in our palate of prayer and worship—Thanksgiving. It is similar to praise, but focuses on what He has done, not who He is. Praise is a meditation on the attributes of God. Thanksgiving is meditation on the works of God.


Why keep these two separate? Because of the difficulty we have in keeping our minds focused on God.

A.A. Milne, wrote a poem about Christopher Robin praying. Every time he asked God to bless someone, he would begin to think of what they did, and how much fun it was. This same problem plagues grown-up prayers, too. Our minds run to the hear-and-now, not to eternal truths. It is difficult to think about eternal things, especially when we set ourselves to pray for things.

A typical church prayer meeting is a perfect example. Prayer requests if not stopped will run longer than the prayer. They usually consist of our ailments, of the ailments of our friends and relatives. Few people will thank God, or think to praise Him, or pray for the coming of God’s kingdom.

That’s why praise is so important. Praise focuses our attention on God Himself. It takes us into the presence of the Living God.

But sooner or later, we must pray for worldly things. How do we come down to earth without losing our focus on God?

The best way to it is to recognize God’s hand in the world around us. Thanksgiving reminds us that God is in charge of what we see every day.

Everything can distract us from God, if we view it without Him.. Magnificent churches can become idols, great hymns can be reduced to meaningless tunes, preaching can be just the worldly art of rhetoric, good deeds can be seen as proof of the goodness of man, the world around us can be seen as just the product of evolution, and so forth. We easily worship the creator rather than the creation.

But everything can lead us to God, if we view it with him. Storms can reveal the majesty of God, human evil becomes a chance to see God’s mercy. The human body, that fills us with desire can be an example of His handiwork. Even death itself, so feared by us all becomes a welcome doorway home to the Creator. Without thanksgiving, everything is darkness. With thanksgiving, everything is light. us.

Thanksgiving is more than saying “thank you” it is a perspective on the world, the knowledge that God is in control, and that God is good.

When we bought our first house, it had a barren yard. There were no bushed and hardly any trees. The first thing we wanted was shrubbery. One of our church members was a landscaper, who owned a large plant nursery. He took me to his yard, and showed me what I should take. Then he loaded those plants on his truck and drove them to my house. I tried to pay him, but he refused to take the money. I didn’t feel right about taking all this, but he said, “All I want for payment is two words ‘thank you.’”

What did that “thank you” mean? I recognized that what he had done for me was a gift, given in friendship. I was returning friendship for friendship, love for love. I would never look on those plants without thinking of my friend who gave them.

What does it mean when we thank God? We recognize that we do not earn what He has given. It is a gift, given out of love. By saying thank you, we return to God the friendship He gives to us.

Thanking God changes our perspective. If we thank God for our food, we acknowledge that God made the food, the taste buds that savor it, and the stomach that receives it. All these gifts were given in love because He is good. Even the food on our plate is a blessing from God.

But what if we don’t like the food we are given? It is still a blessing.

Martin Luther hated peas, and whenever his wife served peas he made her say the blessing. But peas are part of what our body needs. It is a give to us, even if we think it tastes awful. Can we thank God for blessings we would rather not have? Not only can we thank God for things we don’t like, but we should do it even more than for what we like. God cares for us so much that He is willing to do what is best for us, not only what we want. He will do the right thing, even if we get angry about it.

Our parents made us eat food we didn’t like, because they knew it was good for us? Those vegetables on our plate were a better expression of their love than the dessert afterward. When we became parents, we realized this, and were grateful. A rare parent lives long enough for their children to thank them for making them eat their vegetables.

Do we only thank deserts, or do we thank Him for the vegetables as well? Do we only thank God for the necessary, or only for the pleasant? Paul said in Romans 8:28

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Doubt is a great temptation to all of us. But most Christians do not doubt God’s existence nearly as much as they doubt His goodness. We see all the difficulties in this world, and wonder how a God who loves us can allow us to suffer as we do.

This attitude leads us to grumbling, complaints, worry, and depression. If God is there and He is not good, then we have no protection, no assurance, and no hopes. But if God is there, and He is on our side, then every situation becomes an opportunity for giving thanks.

Paul reminds us “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you.” (1 Thess 5:18.)

When we thank God, we replace grumbling with blessing, complaints with gratitude, worry with wonder, and depression with joy. We learn the true beauty of the world God made for us, and the blessing of the life He prepared for us.

Some people have very little in this world and enjoy it much. Other people have much and enjoy it little. The latter are never satisfied with what they are given. They are always looking for more. It only takes an attitude adjustment to turn a king into a pauper, or a pauper to a king. We have a choice to believe whether our life is heaven or hell on earth.



Paul understood this when he wrote in 2 Cor 11:24-31

Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?



Even so, he wrote in 2 Cor 12:9-10



"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.”



Paul could have justifiably made a case that his life was not worth living, and that God had been cruel to him. Instead, he chose to believe that all his sufferings were signs of God’s favor, not of His wrath.

We, too have a choice of stories to believe. We either see our lives as tragedy or comedy. This is what we do when we give thanks. We affirm that our life is good, and that God is good.

An attitude of gratitude is the key to a successful life. That attitude begins with making thanksgiving a regular par of our prayers.

Try it yourself. Start giving thanks for all things. Don’t just thank Go for the answers, thank Him for th uestions. Don’t just thank Him for your friends. Thank Him for your enemies. Don’t just thank God yur hearling, but for your sickness as well. Acknowledge God’s hand anywhere and everywhere.

So let me encourage you this week, not to pray for anything. Instead, when you come to your quiet time. Start praising Him. Repeat to yourselves who He is and what it is you like about Him. Tell Him you love Him, over and over again.

Then thank Him. Think about the life you have been given, and acknowledge that all things have come from His hand.

What do we thank Him for? Here are six things I want you to thank God for this week.

1. For creation. God made all things by His hand, and then pronounced each one good. When he made us, He said “It is very good!” You are the crown of creation, the most blessed thing in a blessed world. God made you that way. So why do we complain about our looks, our lack of relative intelligence or relative influence? God made you good. God Himself ahs called you very good.

2. For Jesus. What an amazing thing, that God Himself became a man to die for you? How could we not be overtaken with the enormity of that gift? How can we not thank God every day for such a wonderful sacrifice on our behalf?

3. For those we love--our spouses, children, parents, family friends, and church.

4. For those special times when His goodness became clear to us.

I hardly need to ask you this. Most of us have no trouble thanking God for these wonderful things. But this is not where God wants us to stop. God wants us to go on to acknowledge His hand in everything. I Thessalonians 5:17 says In everything give thanks for this is the will of God concerning you

So continue to thank Him.

5. For the bad things that have happened to us. It is the blows and scars of our lives that give us character. God reveals His character in His guidance through the storm.

6. For our enemies as well as our friends. A man’s heart is revealed not only by his friends but by his enemies. It takes no grce to get along with our friends. It takes much help from God to get along with our enemies.

7. For the current problems we are facing. There is nothing happening to you that is not a blessing in disguise. Even if it is not the direct work of Him, he has allowed it for a reason. It is another knot in the great tapestr that is his perfect plan.

You get the idea. Thank God for it all, because all is His. Recognize the life you live for the precious gift it really is. Give Him thanks for carrying it, and for letting us flourish. God is with you always, will be qith your always, and has been with you always. He will not fail you now. In the meantime, all he asks in return are two words “Thank you.”

A Manly Grace

Highway 74 west of Waxhaw is our main link to the outside world. It's just four miles long, stretching from Highway 521 to downtown Waxhaw, parallel to the railroad tracks. It is, for the most part, a barren stretch, except for an occasional old house or trailer. Otherwise it's mostly woods and kudzu.


I was surprised then to see a sign for a new church go up on this lonely stretch of road. I was even more surprised to see it on the north side in a kudzu patch, slap up against the railroad tracks. I cannot imagine how they will manage to build a church there.

The sight said "Future site of Our Lady of Grace Catholic church."

The sign of a new Catholic church coming to our neighborhood fills me with--well actually it doesn't fill me with much of anything. Not being a Catholic, I don't much care where the put a church. They can put one on he moon, if they want to. It's their right, I guess.

The name fascinated me. "Our Lady of Grace." I presume by "lady" they meant the Virgin Mary. It is unlikely that they would build a church and dedicate it to someone else. To my Protestant ears, naming a church "our Lady" seems a little weird.

But the last word "Grace." Is one I am very familiar with. It's a good Protestant word. Grace, as we are fond of saying is God's Riches at Christ's Expense. Grace is a free gift a donation to us as charity, instituted by Christ on the Cross and given upon asking to anyone who will believe.

But it puzzled me to read the sign. I know that Catholics are particularly fond of the Virgin Mary, but still why would we associate with Mom that which seems rightfully associated with the Son? After all, we don't refer to the "Obama's Mom's Administration." We don't celebrate "Columbus' Mother's Day."

This is not to take anything away from Mary at all. It's just a question. Since Catholics believe as we do that it is Jesus, not Mary who really saves us, why do they say "Hail Mary, full or Grace?"

I don’t' think the reason for it is spiritual. I think it has to do with our emotions. We tend to associate grace with women more than men. When we skinned our knee as children, who was it who bandaged us up, kissed our forehead and gave us a cup of hot cocoa? It was mom. Our dads were yelling at us go get back in there and finish the game. We look to Dads for inspiration. We look to mothers for grace and hot cocoa. That's probably why Mother's Day is bigger than Father's Day. Mom's are just cooler, that's all.

In our society grace has become (I think) a feminine Ideal. Women are gentle an graceful. Men are tough and forceful. Grace is gentle. Men are proud. We men tend to leave grace to the women folk, as we go out with our guns to blow holes in cute little animals. Leave the grace to the women.

But God didn't see it that way. Our Savior was male on purpose. Again, not to take anything away from Mary, but God chose to come to earth in male form, not female.

Christ came to offer us, not just grace and forgiveness, but a manly grace and a manly forgiveness. I'm not saying the sexes are not equal. Both sexes need this forgiveness equally, to be sure. But it's just that the kind of grace that God offered us is a grace born of blood and suffering. It is a grace that came from facing the worst that people could dish out, and to throw back forgiveness into their raging faces. In order to give us God's grace, he had to bleed like a soldier in the height of battle. He had to bear a burden that would make Atlas shrug. He had to stand before kings and governors and speak truth boldly to power. In short he had to stand up like a man.

Come to think of it, women also know what suffering is like. What man could bear the pain of child-bearing? What man could bleed and groan, and through that suffering bring new life into the world? There is a reason that God made women more able to bear pain than men--because they had to.

God was no wimp when it comes to grace. Grace is never soft, not when it was given to us on the cross, nor when we give it out to the persecuting world. It is still God's riches at our expense. It is still a forgiveness born of blood and pain.

Maybe I'm just being picky about word, but then that's what theologians do. Grace did not begin with our lady. It began with a suffering Father looking down on his dying Son, and pronouncing it good, a necessary sacrifice for the sin of the world. No one on earth, man or woman, can fully grasp the enormity of this sacrifice.

Prayer Skills 1: Praise

Today I want to invite you to join me on an experiment in prayer. The goal of our experiment is to determine whether or no we can learn more from prayer by doing it than we can by teaching about it. For the next five weeks, we are going to treat prayer not as a subject, but as a skill. We are going to practice prayer, and hopefully get it right.


Whenever we learn a skill, whether it be playing football, learning guitar, or dancing, the only way to learn is to break it down into its component parts, and to practice them separately. If we are learning to play football, we repeatedly practice blocking, then kicking, tackling, passing, and so forth. Then we put them all together and practice it as a whole. If we are acting in a play, we first learn our lines, and then our blocking, and then we practice the play together. If we learn dancing, we practice the steps without music, and then we practice them together.

If we regard prayer as a skill, then we must first break it down into its parts, look at each sub-skill separately. Not everyone will break it down in exactly the same way. In our case, I want to break prayer down into five distinct sub-skills—praise, thanksgiving, confession, petition, and listening. There are other things to be learned, but these five sub-skills are the foundation for everything else.

The first of these is praise. Psalm 100:1-4

Make a joyful shout to the LORD,

all you lands!

2 Serve the LORD with gladness;

Come before His presence with singing.

3 Know that the LORD, He is God;

It is He who has made us,

and not we ourselves;

We are His people

and the sheep of His pasture.

4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,

And into His courts with praise.

Praise is how we enter God’s court. As such, it is the most important skill we must develop if we are to truly worship God. It is the door to the presence of God. Prayer is not simply a method of meditation, neither is it a wish for the Great Santa in the Sky. It is talking to a living, loving God.

But how often does prayer actually feel like a relationship? Many times, prayer seems like one-way communication. It is something we do because we are supposed to do it, or because we are in trouble. We come and go in prayer, but we never feel like we’ve really encountered God. If we truly met God in prayer, why would we want to stop praying?

The problem with most of our prayers is that we rush into them unprepared. God is ready to talk with us anytime and anywhere, so we assume that we are always ready to talk with Him. This is not so.

Suppose on the spur of the moment, that a husband decided to take you to a fancy restaurant. He calls ahead, and finds that no reservation is needed. They have plenty or room. The restaurant is ready for them any time. But is the wife ready to go? No! She doesn’t feel right going to a fancy restaurant without doing her hair and makeup. The restaurant is ready, but she must prepare.

God is ready to receive our hearts. But our hearts are not ready to enter His presence. We need to get into the right frame of mind to talk to God.

I don’t feel that it is necessary to dress for church. Other people do. I respect that. But I do feel that is is necessary whenever we come to God to first take time and prepare by understanding who God is what He is like. Our heart must be prepared to come into His presence.

I play the guitar. But when I pick up the guitar, I am not ready to play a turned. Before I do, I must tune the guitar. Then, I must do finger exercises to get m fingers limber.

We are all instruments of worship, just like a piano or a guitar. If we are to glorify God. we must first get in tune. We don’t want to rush into His presence hitting wrong notes. But if we can first tune ourselves to God, then we will get so much more out of our prayer.

So for this first week of our experiment, I’m going to ask you to do something unusual. For this one week, do not pray for anything. That may seem impossible. It may even seem blasphemous. After all, aren’t we supposed to ask God for what we need? Of course we are, and we can throughout the day. But God knows what we want even before we ask. I want you to set aside some portion from the day, if you do not already do so, for spending time with God. During that time only in this first Week, do not ask anything from God. Piece by piece I want us to build the skills that make for a meaningful prayer time, and the first of those skills is praise. All I want you do to for the first week is just praise God. Tune your heart for praising the Lord. What is praise—the easiest definition I can give of praise is acknowledging the personal attributes of God. It is thanking God for who He is. In this, it is different from thanksgiving, which recognizes what God has done for us. We are not ready for that, though until we first understand Who we are thanking. For now, we concentrate on His person and attributes.

Why? Because that is how we get tuned. Let’s imagine four-strings on a musical instrument. Before we can play it, we must first tune it, to get just the right pitch.

The first string is the body string. This is the where, when, and how of prayer.

We can pray anywhere, and at anytime. We can pray on our knees, sitting, or standing. But the way we pray really does matter. We can’t just pray in the shower, or in the bathroom or while going down the road. But when our bodies and minds are involved in other actions, we are not fully attuned to Him. A guitar string cannot be tuned to two notes at once. Neither can our bodies and our souls be fully engaged in praising God and doing other tasks. We need to set aside a time place for prayer.

What time, and where? There is no fixed rule on this Just so long as during that time that is all we are doing. The saints of the Bible seemed to set aside as a minimum a morning and evening time for prayer.

What should our bodies be doing while we are praying. People assume various postures for prayer. I do not know that God had a preference for any of them Just as long as our bodies do not distract, but rather enhance our hearts as we pray. We must turn off he television, the radio, and other distractions. We need to find a way to hold our bodies that doesn’t make us forget why we are there.

Then there is the head string. We must remember who we are talking to. A common practice of many is to read the Bible when we pray. This can help us focus on God. But even more important than reading the Word, It is to focus on what kind of God we are addressing.

How big is your God? If we understood better the greatness of God, we would be more inclined to be silent before Him

Then, there is the heart string. Reformed Christians emphasize the primacy of the Word of God. This perspective is inadequate, though. Prayer is like any other relationship. It is emotional. God wants us to love Him, not just know Him.

Praise is by its very nature an exercise of the emotions. That is why singing and music is so much a part of worship. Music expresses the heart, not just the feelings.

Who wants to be in a love affair that is not emotional? Who wants a relationship with children that has no laughter? Who gets a pet for logical reason, and does not appreciate the joy of that relationship? Relationships require emotion to survive. If our hearts are not stirred towards Him, then worship becomes a dry and onerous duty.

How do we keep the heart in worship? There are many ways. Music is a big one. Listening to moving Christian music, or even better singing to Him, will provoke joy in us, as we celebrate His Greatness. Poetry is one of my favorite ways. So is art. An appreciation of God’s creation provokes joy in us.

Emotion that is shared grows. For that reason, the psalmists tell us to praise God to each other. Expressing our emotions regarding God causes others to experience those emotions along with us. If religion is boring, controlled, and solemn, few people will leave uplifted. But if our worship contains appropriate emotion, then others will share in the emotional praise of God.

The fourth string is the Spirit string. Paul wrote “I will pray in the spirit, I will pray in the mind, also. I will sing in the Spirit, I will sing with the mind also.” We should not treat worship as an emotional thrill ride. We should remember that it is the Holy Spirit who wants to speak through us and to us in worship.

The greatest hindrance to worship is the fear of losing control. We want to know what is coming next. But it is the when God surprises us that are the more gratifying.

When we open ourselves to the Spirit, we never know what will happen. He surprises us with blessings and bliss. But we must be willing to allow Him to do what He wants.

For this week, just praise God. Don’t ask for anything, don’t confess to anything, don’t even thank God. Just find a time every day to concentrate on His divine attributes,. I promise you that it can change our lives.

Confessions of a failed prayer warrior

As a pastor, I have preached and taught hundreds of times on the subject of prayer. I know all about its importance. I understand the vital need for it. I realize that prayer is the most important thing we do.

I know all about prayer. The problem is I don’t always practice what I preach. I read somewhere that the average pastor spends no more than three minutes a day in prayer. Many days, I am that average pastor. As much as I talk about prayer, I often still neglect it. I can talk the talk, but I fail to walk the walk.

Why don’t I? For the same reasons as everyone else. I get busy. I get distracted. I get bored. Other people tell of the mystical joys of prayer--I fall asleep. Other people write of the closeness their closeness to God—my prayers seem to hit the ceiling. When it comes to prayer, I can be a real hypocrite.

I think part of our (by that I mean my) problem with prayer is that we have heard much of prayer, but have never actually learned to do it. Prayer is not subject to be studied but a skill to be learned. When Jesus’ disciples asked Him “Teach us to pray” they did not have in mind “Teach us about prayer.” Every believer understands something about the meaning of prayer. It isn’t the meaning of prayer we have problems with—it’s the practice. The disciples lived in a day when rabbis didn’t just teach on prayer. They trained their disciples to pray. Every rabbi had a set of particular actions he required his disciples on prayer. Some had their disciples pray two times a day, others three. Some had their disciples kneel, others stood. Some raised their hands; others put them across their chest. All of them gave their disciples specific prayers to pray.

This has been the case for most of history. Catholics cross themselves, genuflect, and kneel as church-sanctions methods of prayer. Charismatics raise their hands and speak in tongues as methods of prayer. Most Protestant groups have stayed away from requiring such practices because we do not want to become rigid or legalistic. In doing so, we have often turned prayer into an intellectual exercise rather than a life skill.

We do have our rituals. We practice prayers before meals, prayers at the beginning of meetings, and so forth, without thinking of what we are doing. Our prayers resemble all our other prayers.

Eventually the form becomes more important than the actions. Then we think that the form itself is what God requires. If we don’t say it right, God will not hear us. If we don’t have a prayer before we eat, we might get food poisoning!

I’m not suggesting that we do away with these invocations and blessings—far from it! We need these rituals. They help to remind us of God’s presence in all life. I merely suggest that the practice of prayer is more than this. Prayer is a skill. We learn prayer by doing, not studying.

How does a person learn to play a musical instrument? By practice of basic techniques. Sometimes, the practicing seems boring and unfruitful. We are often tempted to quit. But if we continue to practice, eventually we will get better.

The same thing is true of prayer. Effective prayer requires that we practice it on a regular basis every day, and that we learn skills and techniques of prayer that will help us become deeper Christians

It is possible to backslide in prayer, just as it is possible to backslide in dieting and exercise. (I know I have, many times). That is why we need accountability and coaching from others. But eventually, we get better.

Martin Luther once famously said that his responsibilities were go great and the demands on his time were so severe, that he could not help but spend at least four hours a day in prayer. Not only do we not do this—we don’t even understand it! How can praying gain us time, instead of losing it.

The goal of this study is to help us all (including myself) gain or regain the skills necessary to become effective warriors in prayers. It will require working on it daily. It cannot be accomplished on a single hour once a week, but it has to be practiced on a daily, regular basis.

So where do we begin? First, we need to acknowledge the basic understandings of prayer that the Bible teaches, and that most of us understand.



The Basics

1. Prayer is talking with God. Not to Him, necessarily, but with him. In effective prayer, there is as much listening ad talking. Prayer is not about getting answers, but having a greater communion with our Lord and Creator.

2. Prayer does not depend on when, how or where we pray. We may pray anywhere and at any time.

3. Prayer rituals help us to focus our attention on God as we pray. It is best to have an undistracted, regular time in a quiet place to pray. It is also best to have a plan before we pray, so that we can get to business.

4. Effective prayer involves faith. When we ask, we should sincerely believe that God will answer. If God is God, then He will answer. It is therefore important to understand something of the nature of God before we pray.

5. Effective prayer involves repentance and humility. We don’t demand from God. He gives it. Some pastors and churches teach “sure-fire” methods of getting what we want from God. For example, if we say a few “Hail Marys” or pray using certain words as we pray, then God is obligated to bend to our will. This is ridiculous on the face of it. God is in control, so we cannot be assured what we want, even if we ask.

6. To God, the words we use don’t matter nearly as much as the condition of our heart.

7. We pray in Jesus’ name. This does not refer to a ritualistic mouthing of the name of Jesus. It is not the sound of the name, but understanding that our access to the Father comes through Jesus’ blood. We are sinners, and God is not obligated to hear sinners. But Jesus bought out access to the Father through His suffering and death. When we approach God in humility for our sins and gratitude for His salvation, then we are praying in Jesus’ name—that is, by his authority.

8. Prayer is not a force or a substance. We sometimes assume if we get more people praying, then God must hear us more. Or if we pray longer and more emotional prayers He will give us what we want. Prayer is not a commodity that accumulates by the number of people and times we pray. He says where two or more agree it shall be done. He does not say wherever five or more agree it will be done more. He says ask, and keep on asking. He does not say that if we spend two days asking, He might change his mind

9. Nevertheless, God want us to work hard at prayer. Why? I don’t know. He just commands it. The act of prayer (and fasting) puts passion in our prayers and helps us attune ourselves to hear His voice. We pray and keep on praying, ask and keep on asking, not to change God’s mind, but to change our own. God will not bring am answer until we fully grasp the question. As long as we think that some part of us still thinks we are capable of bringing about change by ourselves, we are not ready to receive the answers of prayer.

10. Public and private prayers are both necessary. Prayers should not be for show. (see Matthew 6) Praying out loud or praying eloquently does not affect the answer to our prayers. Nevertheless, Jesus encourages us to pray together. In Matthew 18: 20 He says “Whenever two or more of you agree, it will be done for you in heaven” He is talking about shared prayers. Group prayer keeps us focused. If we do not have the humility to pray for our own sins in public (James 5:16), then we do not have the humility to actually admit them before the Living God, who is capable of judging us far more severely than our peers.

Nothing I have said here is new. Anyone who has sat in churches for any length of time has probably heard most of this. It is not just Biblical, it is also common sense.

But this is not the end of our knowledge of prayer. It is the beginning. It is the practice that gives us the skills to be an effective prayer warrior.

The Parts of Prayer

There are many ways describe the aspects of prayer. However, there seems (in my estimation) five aspects of effective prayer.

Praise—the introduction of ourselves to God by focusing our attention on who He is. In praise, we remind ourselves of the majesty, love and greatness of the personage we serve.

Thanksgiving—the attitude of gratitude for what God has done for us. In thanksgiving, we review our lives and see God’s grace and generosity.

Confession—this is a reality check before God. We admit to God who we really are

Confession has two parts to it. First and mainly, we confess the things we have done wrong. He already knows them, but confession is our admission to these things before an almighty Gd. Our confession of sin cleanses the line of communications with God from all obstructions. Second, we confess to God what He has done in us. We declare to God His faithfulness in our forgiveness.

Petition—this is the least important part of prayer, yet it takes up most of our time. God already knows what we need, and what we are going to ask for. He gives us our answers before we ask. Nevertheless God wants us to reveal our concerns before Him, not only for ourselves, but for the whole world.

Listening—this is by far the most neglected aspect of prayer. We need to take time in the presence of God to do nothing and to think nothing, but to let God speak to us. Prayer is a two-way street. We cannot be effective at it is we have only one lane, from us to Him. We have to have two lanes, listening as well as sending.

Getting down to business

In order to receive what I hope you will from these exercises, you will need three things

• A Bible

• A Notebook

• A group of people with whom you can share and will hold you accountable.

This group needs to people with whom you can be open and honest. We must not be judgmental, but neither should we mind our own business. We all fail all the time, and need mutual accountability. Nothing ruins a friendship group more than passing judgment on each other.

Your notebook will be filled in week by week. The pattern for the first week will be repeated for each upcoming week. It is up to you whether you want to make a page for each day or whether you just fill in a page a week. I recommend using the notebook daily to write down what you learn from God, but that is up to you.

Synod-Day Two

I had to leave Synod early this year--Joy has been sick. By "early" I mean suppertime. The synod was still going on when I left. Now I understand that it was stopped for lack of a quorum.


I feel bad about that, but not too much. Getting home to my wife when she is sick was more important at that time Besides, like about two hundred other people. I was not prepared to spend another night in the mountains.

The ignoble end of the Synod is indicative of a problem we often have in the church. I don't mean the lack of dedication. I mean the lack of sensitivity to others feelings. We need to repent of this before we preach at others.

Christianity is a religion of grace. But too often we think we can do the work of Christ by scolding others. We resort to shame when we fail to love.

I saw that lived out as Synod this day. The Erskine board, in an act of reconciliation, agreed in advance to avoid a meeting which threatened to break our ties. It was abundantly clear that they wanted to continue to be ARP. But others in the Synod wanted to force them to rebuke people they thought had offended them, and to do it on the basis of their interpretation of I Corinthians 6. There was no need for this. The discussion added hours to the meeting. Then there was an attempt to replace one slate of board nominees for another. That added more hours. At every turn the spirit of reconciliation was thwarted by people who seem to have no regard for the peace and prosperity of the church. I do not fault the moderator or any of the officers for this. It was simply that we had no regard for the feelings and needs of others.

I did not rise to speak at Synod, but I was prepared to. I wanted to point out the survey that is available on a website called erskineforeveryone.com. The faculty portion of the survey was included in the moderator's committee report, incredibly scrubbed of all results. The survey showed that more than eighty-five percent of the students did not agree that there was any culture of intimidation on the campus. Among those who did thing there was such a culture, more than two thirds believed that it was Synod and ARP students who were doing most of the intimidating. Among the faculty, only one professor who answered the question expressed any agreement with the actions of Synod and the commission. Common sense would suggest that any attempt to roughly impose change from the outside would be greeted with serious resistance.

One commentator on the Erskine situation had the temerity to call the Erskine community a "mutinous den of thieves." This is slander of the worst sort, of course . But one thing is probably true they might have a mutiny on their hands. At least, when Captain Bligh was thrown off the Bounty, a third of the men wanted to go with him. We would be hard pressed to find a sixth of the Erskine community who are not offended by the heavy-handed treatment of Synod representatives.

I agree that Erskine needs to become more evangelical. For thirty years I have wanted to see the school better integrate faith and learning. But It seem to me that the actions of those who have made it their mission to change Erskine are clumsy at best and cruel and insensitive at worst. Like an abusive father, they get upset when the ones they beat up on are not content to sit down and take it.

I know the men on that commission, as well as those who have driven them are sincere, Godly men. They are highly intelligent and sincerely convinced that their course is right. But the same thing can be said for the captain of the Titanic. When we ignore the feelings of those we lead, we court disaster. And disaster is what we get.

I believe the quorum crisis at the end of Synod is a similar issue. When people's needs are ignored, they tend to get up and walk out. When we stretch a meeting beyond what most people are prepared to do, they tend to set their own priorities. This is not lack of faith, or laziness, or unfaithfulness. This is the simple fact of life that we must all choose priorities, according to our own conscience. I am sorry I had to leave, but I would do it again. Next time, we can be prepared to stay, but not to listen to other people's pointless and uncivil bloviations.

We need an outpouring of the Spirit in our denomination. But it won't come just from asking God from it. It will not come until we are all willing to admit our own personal sins. We have to clean house, starting with ourselves. Until we can truthfully say that we've done all we can to obey the Great Commandment to love God and to love our neighbor, especially our fellow believers, revival will not come.

My college, Asbury experienced just such a revival in 1970. That revival which started at that Christian College spread over the entire country and is still being felt today. I came there the following year. I talked to the people at the center of that revival, and I know what they told me. It came when they admitted to their wrongs. Professors confessed not loving their students. Students confessed cheatig. Administrators confessed to financial irregularities. All confessed that they had neglected God's call oh their lives. It was these individual acts of repentance, more than the big meetings that drove that revival.

If we are ever to see Erskine and the ARP Church revived, it will come hot only by prayer but by repentance. We must stop abusing one another. "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land." II Chronicles 7: 14.

Synod--Day One

We just finished the first working day of the 2010 general synod. This is the most tense and arguably the most important Synod meeting in years, due to the controversy regarding Erskine College and Seminary. The forecast for tomorrow is stormy with a chance of broken friendships and hurt feelings. Let's hope the storm blows over.


This controversy has had an interesting effect on the tone of synod. Tempers have flared in some committee meetings, but overall it has been peaceful so far. There is a strange feeling of unity here, not the unity of people who agree, but of people who have no choice but to be here, who realize that whether or not we are on one side or another, we have to go through it together.

Tonight I heard someone pray that God's will be done. I wanted to say "what do you think will happen except his will?" but I restrained myself. God's will being done is not the problem nearly as much as our being willing to accept God's will when He does it. We are always thinking that God's will will be pleasant for us. When often His will hurts. A lot. I'm just praying that, no matter what the fire, It will refine us.

Synod is like heaven in a way. Everyone you know from many different churches meet together in a beautiful place. There we sing Hymns, prayer prayers, and slap each other on the back in greetings. Year after year they are the same people--a little grayer, more wrinkly, and a bit unsteady on the feet, but the same otherwise. If heaven allowed uncomfortable chairs and floor fights, it would be Synod.

One thing bothers me about Synod more than anything. Synod takes itself way too seriously. We're prone to forget that we are just one little sliver of the whole Body of Christ, and that what we say or do does not matter that much in the larger scope of things. We allow ourselves paroxysms of piety, and feel great and grand in our dark suits and power ties. It's easy for us minister to forget that the mother of all sins is pride, and indulge in grand posturing. If ever a group needed the Marx Brothers, it is Synod.

Still, every so often a gem emerges from the usual slush., like tonight when the children sang, or when the man spoke honestly and from his heart about taking care of orphans. Then there was the conversation under the trees where a minister told me about an old drunk in his church who got saved, dried out, and healed of terminal cancer, and then testifying in church with tears in his eyes that God really answers prayer.

Another gem found at the Synod is my friend Jay Hering, professor of New Testament at Erskine Seminary. I've known Jay since he was sixteen. He's my oldest friend in this denomination. At an early age, he brought his brothers to Christ and lived to see his parents follow as a result of their testimony. In his twenties he developed a passion for Germany, and became fluent in the language, going to Berlin as our first missionary to Europe. Then he went back to school, got his Ph. D and became a professor at Erskine. Jay has become a target in this controversy with the school, and has been accused of being disloyal to his vows. No on who has ever known Jay could think that he would behave in any way but in charity, humility, and integrity. He is one of the most genuine souls that I know. Sharing some time with him will be one of the highlights of this synod for me.



We don't know what tomorrow will bring. Whatever it is, God will guide it. I know, because of all the prayers that have been prayed, and because He is and always wil be in control. Keep us in your prayers, though, that we can be the tools through which he works, instead of the stumbling blocks that He will overcome .

The Double-Edged Sword

The sixth weapon mentioned by Paul in this passage is the “sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.” The writer of Hebrews says in 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” John in Revelation 1 says “These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword.” “Double-edged sword” must have been a common expression among Christians.


This is odd, because most knives are not double bladed. But the Bible insists that it is a two-edged blade. Why?

The Bible is God’s Word—without error in all that it teaches. We take that for a fact. Our standards teach this.” The Bible is the rock on which our church stands. Hence it is a two edged sword, cutting against the false doctrines of the world, but cutting out the sinful parts of ourselves as well.

Do you remember the first cutting tool you ever used? It was probably a pair of plastic scissors. Those things cut terrible, but they were safe. Grown-ups knew better than to give us something sharp, because we’d run with them, or poke our sister with them. So we used those plastic scissors at home, at school, and even in Sunday school.

We got the equivalent of plastic scissors in our Bible lessons, too. Children’s Bible lessons are safe. All the stories of war, incest, rape, adultery, and God’s wrath got left out. The story of Noah became a story of cute little animals. The story of David and Goliath had the gorier parts cut out of it. We were told that Jesus died for us, but we didn’t have a clue what “dice” really meant, much less about the true bloody horror of crucifixion. The Bible was like plastic scissors—safe and sanitized.

As we grew older, we learned to use other knives, starting with the butter knife, then graduating to the steak knife. I got a pocket knife for my birthday. But still there were some cutting tools I was not allowed to use—switchblades, razor blades, and bowie knives. Certainly not a chain saw. My folks still wouldn’t let me cut fruit in the kitchen without supervision.

In Sunday School, we grew up a bit in our Bible stories, too. We saw the pictures of Jesus on the cross and realized that those nails must have hurt. We understood that the world was not safe. The Devil was real. So was temptation. This knowledge did not destroy our faith or ruin us. The more we learned about the suffering of this world, the more we understood about the infinite grace of God, who suffered on our behalf

When we reached junior high and high school, we arrived at the time of what educators call “concrete thinking.” That’s when we learn to tell the difference between right and wrong, and our opinions about them are set in concrete. We learned the rules and the boundaries of real Christianity. We learned about cults and other religions, and how ARPs are just a little bit better than most other Presbyterians. If we had good Bible training, we learned those arguments and proof texts we needed to defend those views.

In those days, right and wrong seemed all so simple. We could not understand why others couldn’t accept the easy answers we had been taught. We would never say it, but we knew that everyone else must be stupid not to see it. We lived in the confidence and certainty of those who only knew one side of the blade of the Word of God.

We didn’t know it, but we were still children. In our immaturity, God tolerated our partial understanding. We had the Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit--single-bladed version.

That’s fine for kids. But for adults, it’s not enough. We need the Word of God, not just to defend against external foes, but internal foes as well. As the writer of Hebrews says, we must allow it to penetrate us through our joints and marrow, between our own souls and God’s Spirit. If we can read God’s word and not be cut by it, then we’re not really reading God’s word. We are still children.

Take the commandment “thou shalt not commit adultery.” Kids find that easy, because they thinks “adult” has something to do with age. That’s a grown-up sin, which doesn’t apply to them.

When we learn that adultery can mean any illicit sex. Even so, most of us were “good kids” ho didn’t think it applied to us. But the teenage mind can be endlessly creative when it comes to sex. We often found excuses and evasions about the sexual restrictions of the Bible.

But then we read Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount that if we look at a woman with lust in our hearts, then we have committed adultery with her in our hearts. This commandment doesn’t give us the right to condemn people with loose morals, because if we condemn them we must also condemn ourselves. The commandment is a two-edged sword. It isn’t enough just to be celibate. God wants us pure. He doesn’t just want us to be obedient. He wants us to hunger for Him. That’s a lot harder than just avoiding adultery.

II Timothy 3:16 says “All Scripture is God-breathed, and useful for rebuke, correction, and instruction in righteousness.” All Scripture—not just part of it. But all Scripture is not easy to understand. We don’t agree always on what all Scripture says. As we grow in maturity, our understanding of Scripture has to grow with it.

Paul knew the Bible better than most people of his day. He may have had the entire Old Testament memorized. But when he encountered Jesus on the Damascus Road. God blinded him. He did not just take away his physical sight, he also took away his spiritual sight. Everything he thought he knew about the Bible had to be changed. The facts were still there, but the meaning had changed. His guide to life failed him. Then gradually over a three year period, he regained a new understanding of the Scriptures. Now he saw them differently. He who was a teacher became a learner.

Paul remained a learner of the Bible till the end of his days/ While he was imprisoned in Rome, he sent to Ephesus for “the books, especially the parchments.” The parchments were his Bible. Even at the end of his life, he still needed to learn more about the Word. It was still cutting into him.

Martin Luther was a German monk in the Sixteenth Century. Monks didn’t actually spend much time reading the Bible in those days. They just recited formulaic prayers and learned dogma from priests. But Luther read the Bible. until one day, he came across this tatement in the book of Romans-- “The just shall live by faith.” It changed him, and the Protestant Reformation began.

Karl Barth, in the Twentieth Century, was a professor at a liberal seminary. To him, the Bible was just a good book. But he read the same words that Luther read—“the just shall live by faith” and recognized that he was a sinner and needed to be saved.

ARPs are great students of the word, but only the single-bladed Word. We are great at recognizing doctrinal difference, and can go on at length over Biblical minutiae. But we are often guilty of reading the Bible for the wrong reasons. We want to find out what’s wrong with everyone else. We do not want to let it change us.

Where is the next Paul? The next Luther? The next Barth? Maybe right here. Maybe one of us will allow God to perform surgery on or hearts and remake us in His image, and therefore change the world.

How do we let the Bible change us? Here are some suggestions:

Read it! Most Christians don’t read the Bible. They read about the Bible. Devotions tell us what others say it says/ Sermons that tell us what the preacher says it says. But how can the Bible challenge us if we don’t read it?

Read it humbly. To many people, Bible verses are like Tinker Toys. They are a collection of sayngs that we can put together to make any kind of doctrine we wish. But it often surprises us in what the Bible actually says.

In seminary we learned two words about Bible study—exegesis and eisogesis. Exegesis is the science of getting truth out of the Bible. Eisogesis is the practice of putting what we think into the verses, of making the Bible say what we want it to say. Too much of what is presented as Bible study is really just eisogesis.

A proud man learns nothing. A humble man learns everything. Some people string a few proof texts together and become convinced they know it all. How can we learn anything, if we already know everything?

Read it prayerfully. The Bible is the sword of the Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit applying it to our hearts, it makes no sense. We need to read it on our knees, asking God at all times to open it to us.

Read it deeply. Have you ever held a conversation with someone who you realized was not paying any attention. They only want to talk about themselves. We do the same thing with the Bible. We only listen to what we want to hear, or what we have been told to hear. It is only when we listen deeply that we a be changed deeply by it.

Read it all. The most important messages in the Bible does not come from reading Bible verses. It comes from reading chapters, books and section. We often miss the forest of meaning while examining the trees of verses.

Read it relevantly. If you are reading the Bible every morning, and you go away every morning feeling more confident in your beliefs and affirmed in your opinions, then you don’t understand the Bible. The Bibl ought to challenge us and our beliefs. The meat of the Scripture is not in what we know, but what we don’t know.

The Bible is a storehouse of wisdom—an endless fountain of the mysteries of God. It is not safe for any of us. But it is good. The more we read it, the better it becomes. Don’t neglect to know the one book that can truly change the course of your life.

Someone asked Charles Finney once how he defended the Bible. He said “I do not defend it. The Bible is a great lion. It an defend itself.” God is not tame. His word is not tame. It is alive and powerful. Read it, and let that power loose.



The Sword with Two Edges

Ephesians 6:17

The Helmet of Salvation

Christian author Don Miller told a class at a Christian that he was going to present the plan of salvation, but leave one important part of it out. He asked them if they could tell what was missing. He said:


“All of us have sinned, and fallen short of God's glory. It is necessary to repent of our sins and turn to God. We need to pray for God's forgiveness, and He will save us. Then God will enter into our lives, through the Holy Spirit, and enable us to live a more Godly life. In the end, God will accept us into heaven.”

None of them could spot what had been omitted. Then he told them. He left out Jesus.

He tried this in many other times with similar results. Most people did not notice that Jesus had been left out. They recognized the plan. They just did not remember the person.

If being a Christian is just a “plan” to follow, then why do we need Jesus? If all we do is follow a formula, or accept a doctrine, why do we need a Savior?

Flannery O'Connor in her satirical novel Wise Blood invented the Church of Jesus Christ without Christ. It was for people who had lost their faith in God but still wanted to be religious. Her satire is all too close to the truth, especially here in the South, where religion is so much a part of lives. If we took Jesus out of our religion, would most people notice? There are many who go to church, sing Gospel music, and wear cross jewelry who leave out the most important part—fellowship with a living God.

There is no salvation without Jesus. Jesus is our salvation

In Ephesians 6, Paul refers to salvation as a helmet. It is the first thing we should have to guard against the Devil.

If we were to wear a single piece of body armor, it would be a helmet. Soldiers, construction workers, motorcycle riders, and football players all wear helmets, even if they have no other protection. That’s because our heads need the most protection. If you break your leg, it will heal. But if you break your head, you’ve ruined your whole life.

The head is the leader of the body. The word "head" has always been synonymous with leader. We sometimes use “head” to describe the whole person, as in "talking heads" or 'heads of cattle." We call Christ the "head" of the church. If you have the head, you have the rest. Therefore, whatever part of this divine armor is placed on the head is the most important part.

The “helmet of salvation” comes from Isaiah 59: 17. Isaiah says



He put on righteousness as his breastplate,

and the helmet of salvation on his head;

he put on the garments of vengeance

and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.



The Hebrew word for “salvation” is Yeshua. That word was transliterated into Greek language as “Jesus.” Literally, salvation is Jesus.

We do not need to be challenged to do good, or led away from temptation, or enabled to do good, unless we are first rescued from death caused by sin. Jesus is the one who saves us from sin. That’s why Jesus is salvation.

When I was a small child, my father often traveled to Chattanooga on business. When he did , we always stayed at the same hotel—the Alamo Plaza. Sometimes he took or family along. Whle he worked we swam in the motel pool. Once, while my mother was distracted, I wandered out too far into the deep end. I remember the sensation of drowning--the panic, the helplessness. Then a man jumped in and pulled me out. I do not know the man's name. I do not know where he was from. All I remember is that he was are real man, and that he really saved me.

That’s salvation—to be rescued when you cannot save yourself. You can’t rescue yourself. Someone else has to rescue you. Our rescuer is Jesus.

This understanding of Jesus as our Savior puts to rest two misconceptions of how we become God’s children.

The first misconception is that salvation is something we must do for ourselves. Salvation is not a kind of moral duty. It is not just straightening up and flying right. Certainly, we have moral duties. but salvation is not one of them. If it were, where would Jesus fit into that equation? Jesus wouldn’t be needed! If that man by the pool at that motel had just shouted out to me "Try harder!" then I would be dead now. Someone had to do something for me that I could not do for myself. Yet we keep thinking that we must save ourselves by our own efforts.

The Devil loves moralistic religion, because it promises what it cannot give. Moralism is a trap. At first an easy way to have a relationship with God. All that God requires are a few commandments, a decent life, just getting along with others. All we do is follow the manual., and do what’s expected. But the problem with moralism is that we can never be really sure what is expected.

We fail to be good for many reasons. We want to be better, we try to be better, but we aren’t better. We remain the same old incorrigible sinners we always were..

We fail because know how. I once tried to build a computer. I thought it would be easy. There are only a few basic components of a computer, and I had replaced most of them, so how hard could it be to put one together? But what I thought would take and afternoons wound up taking several days. Then, after several trips to the computer store, it never did work right, because I did not know what I was doing.

We fail because we don’t seem to have the power to resist. Try as we will, we can’t seem to walk away from that cigarette, or that piece of chocolate, or avoid anger or gossiping. Then we berate ourselves because we are weak-willed. Yet no matter how much we tell ourselves something is wrong, we continue doing it.

We fail because we do not believe we can change. Having failed in our efforts, we remain conflicted and unhappy until we just give up and become honest sinners. Then we are not longer conflicted, but we are no less unhappy.

We fail because we justify our actions by comparing them to others. When Alcoholics Anonymous first began, people with drug addiction problems were sent to it. But it soon became apparent that this would not work. You see, the alcoholics looked down on the drug addicts. In their minds they somehow felt that to ruin your life with drink made you a better person than someone who ruined their life with drugs.

A moral person who fails in his morality is less happy than an immoral person who never tried. Some of us even make a virtue out of our misery, because we think it makes us holy!

The second misconception is that salvation about knowing a plan, not the person behind it. We Presbyterians are particularly susceptible to this argument. We think salvation is merely salvation from intellectual error, not from a sinful life. If our doctrine is straight, we think our hearts must be straight. But doctrines are windows, not walls. They open us up to what is beyond them.

The story of Jesus is real. His death and resurrection is real. Reformed theology is real, too. But they do not save us. Salvation is not just knowing what is real but living in the truth.

Over the years, I have learned several different ways of presenting the "plan" of salvation. I still believe the plan is true. I also learned that the Apostles’ Creed is true. I learned that Jesus was the coeternal Son of God. I learned about Trinity, substitutional atonement, and the two unmixed natures of Christ. Many of you probably do not even understand what some of those terms mean. But does that make me saved, and not you? Not at all. We don’t have to understand to believe. We have to believe to understand.

Think for a moment--when I was drowning in that motel pool, did it matter if I knew the man's name who jumped in and rescued me? Did it matter that I did not know his town or his occupation? I do not know whether he was a good man or a bad one. I only knew that he got in the pool and saved me.

Salvation is not about knowledge, but trust. You have to trust that Jesus died for your sins, to give you eternal life. You can have knowledge without belief. You can even have belief without trust. But you can trust without knowing the details of who you know and trust. The smallest child who trusts in Jesus is in better shape than the greatest theologian who does not.

It is not enough to know about Jesus. It is not even enough to serve Jesus. We have to trust Him.

So how can a person be saved? Does he follow four spiritual laws, or ten basic steps. Does he follow the Plan of salvation? Real salvation is both simpler and harder than that. We have to trust Jesus.

What can we do to be saved? Nothing—literally nothing. I cannot tell you how to be saved, because God is the one who must do the saving. If we could do anything to help our salvation, we would have already done it.

But I can offer one piece of advice--quit struggling! Be still! When a person is drowning, their natural instinct is to flail madly about. While they are trying to save themselves, they actually push way assistance. It isn't until they give up trying to save themselves that the lifeguard can pull them out.

Yes, you are a sinner. Yes, you need to change your life. But you'll never do it by yourself. You’ll just escape one sin to fall in another. Be still. Let Jesus come to you. Tell Him you need Him, that you want Him to come save you, and He will.

The best protection we have against the wiles of the Devil is our knowledge of our own special place with Jesus. The close we draw to Him, the less power the Devil has over us.

Be still, and let Jesus save you. He will save you, if you allow Him to have His way.

Why We Need Clothes

I bought some clothes recently at JC Penneys. I love going into Penneys because they have a big and tall section. For a person of "ample dimensions" big and tall shops are like heaven. It is especially gratifying when you go in and discover clothes on the rack are actually too big for you.


Anyway, I bought some pants and took them home. I had to pry a bit do get them in my crowded closet. So many clothes! I must have thirty shirts, at least a dozen pairs of pants, and probably a half dozen hats, which I don't need. Over the years, I've had enough clothes to adequately dress a third world nation--if such a nation could be found that needed big and tall outfits.

This led me think about the mystery of clothes. Why do we need them? It's easy to understand why we once needed and still need clothes in cool climates. After all, human skin would freeze in Norway or Iceland or somewhere like that. But most of us don't live in Norway or Iceland. So why do we need clothes?

Some people don't think we need clothes. In fact, there are whole organizations devoted to the concept that people don't need clothes--like nudist camps and HBO. But in spite of years of concerted effort on their part, they have failed to convince the majority of what we seem to know by instinct.

Remember the old Tarzan pictures? Why is it that Johnny Weismuller always ran around the jungle in a loincloth? I'm not being flippant here. The truth is that even in the most hot and primitive parts of the world, among the mud men of Indonesia or the desert wanders of the Kalihari, there is a universal instinct to cover oneself, even when that covering serves no pragmatic purpose.

One theory is that clothes represent status. Clothes tell us who is important and who is not. Maybe the chief wears a red loincloth, while everyone else wears brown. But that doesn't make sense. Since clothes originated in Genesis 3, with Adam and Eve, who were they trying to impress? Status had nothing to do with it back then.

Another theory is that clothes are about modesty. Again, this can be shown by the bikini. People around the world seem to know instinctively that the genitalia need to be covered. This certainly helps social interaction, especially among people of the opposite sex. Clothes preserve the mystery.

But then again, we have a problem with Genesis 3. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed, so why did they suddenly need to cover themselves, or even a portion of themselves.

It is true that in the Fall, our sexual passions were distorted, as were all our other passions. What was mean to be beautiful and desirable, became enslaving and irresistable. What was meant to serve became the ruler. Sexual openness is impossible only in a society where sexual apetites are universally mastered, which is not our society. So clothes are necessary for modesty today. But not at the first. Not with Adam and Eve.

Clothes were meant to hide ourselves, but from whom. At the first, there were only three sets of eyes that could see us--Adam's, Eve's, and God's. Since Adam and Eve made their clothes together, the eyes they must have been most fearing had to be Gods. As irrational as it sound, they thought they could hide from God.

We wear clothes for one reason--because we do not want others to know who we really are. We would rather put ourselves in cloth boxes all day than to let others see our imperfections, or our perfections. Clothes are a defensive act, an opportunity to deceive even ourselves about who we really are.

"Naturally", we say. "It is a rare person who looks better naked than they do clothed." But is that really true? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Is a taught, hard body really more pleasing than a wrinkled, lumpy one. True, the latter may be more sexually desirable, but does that make it actually more beautiful? An accomplished artist or photographer, with a keen eye for beauty, is capable of seeing God's handiwork in bodies that do not seem to be the least bit desirable to us. Reubens' buxom nudes or Van Gough's paintings of an old man's face are beautiful, sometimes beyond words. Surely God, who sees all things beautiful, looks upon our physical form with appreciation and not disgust.

After their first attempts at fig leaves, God himself taught them how to make clothes from the skins of animals., not as a divine direction, but as a concession to our own fears and shame. In an imperfect world, we sometimes need to hide, because others cannot see God's beauty in us, and are likely to abuse what they cannot understand. But it is really our own shame that keeps us hiding behind threads and skins. We wear clothes because we cannot bear to look on ourselves.

We are not who we think we are. We are who God thinks we are. We deceive ourselves into an illusion of self-knowledge. Sin had made it impossible to see us as we really and truly are.

And what are we? We are the image of the living God, beautiful beyond words. We are the work of a master sculptor, perfect in all his ways, and no abuse of our body or injury to our souls can ever fully take that away. We are as God made us to be, the most beautiful creatures in the world.