Now in Print: Strategy Sessions with Jesus

From my latest article in the current issue of Lookout magazine:

For anyone who, like Jesus, is active in doing God’s work on the go, prayer becomes a natural part of life, like it was for him. The more I’ve been involved in doing God’s mission, working with a team that includes leaders, apprentices, and the Lord himself, my prayer life has grown stronger. Seeing prayer as a natural extension of ministry-minded conversation replaces “I have to pray” with “I need to talk to my ministry partner.”

Link: Strategy Sessions with Jesus

Last Night: FOJ

The term FOB became popular during Bill Clinton's administration, referring to the president's inner circle, the Friends Of Bill. Some have continued to use FOB for Friends of Barack, for the current president's closest pals and advisors, including friends from Chicago, grad school, and a few going all the way back to his years in Hawaii.

"Many people call Obama aloof, and he hasn't made a lot of friends in Washington," [Douglas] Brinkley said. "When you're president, everybody wants something from you and only these types of friends are able to simply want your well-being. They have a different level of affection for you than friends you meet later in life." (Meet Obama's Hawaiian Posse, AP/HuffPo, 12/30/14)

In the first century world of Rome, the phrase "friend of the emperor" was in common use (although I doubt they shortened it to FOE). It carried much the same meaning as the FOBs today.

According to one scholar, a true Friend of the Emperor would be known for his frankness:

In the first-century world of the New Testament, discussions of friendship moved from a friendship ideal to focus on the more pragmatic realities of patron-client relationships and on the political expediency captured in expressions like “friend of the emperor”. One of the main distinguishing marks of a friend in this context was the use of “frank speech” (parrēsia). Philosophers counseled the patron to be on the lookout for whether “friends” were speaking honestly and openly or whether they were engaging in flattery to further their own ends. . . According to the Hellenistic philosophers, to be someone’s friend was to speak frankly and honestly to them and to hold nothing back. (I Have Called You Friends, Gail R. O'Day, Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University)

We think of Peter, Andrew, James, and John as FOJs, His inner circle. Jesus, though, invites all His followers to be FOJs.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.  This is my command: Love each other.  John 15:13-17

Like the "friends of the emperor", there is a clear understanding of a patron-client relationship underlying the friendship. Jesus is not saying we are all his casual pals.

Like the  emperor, Jesus cherishes the"frank speech" of His friends. To be an FOJ is to be open and honest with Him.

The best example of an FOG (Friend of God) being frank and direct is David, who was describe as a man after God's own heart. The Psalms are filled with David's questions toward God, some of them quite blunt. The psalmist takes it upon himself to remind his friend of His promises, wondering out loud whether He intends to follow through. In the end, though, David always finishes with praise and trust in God, not presuming to be an equal.

Some of the questions the disciples asked Jesus on this last night, as well as during the preceding three years, were open and honest, sometimes blunt. They obviously felt comfortable enough with their friend to not be intimidated when talking to Him.

If your prayer life seems stale and lacking intimacy, maybe it's because you're not accepting Jesus' invitation to be an FOJ. He wants to hear everything that's on your mind.

Last Night: Conversations with Jesus on the Way

I like to use my imagination when I pray.

When I pray for the Lord to comfort someone, I picture Jesus embracing that person in a warm and tender hug. When I pray for a specific thing to happen, I visualize the desired event in my mind.

One of my favorite ways to pray is to imagine myself walking along with Jesus and the Twelve, or sitting on a hillside with them.

Sometimes I imagine hanging out with them in the rec yard at the prison, along with the ladies from our Monday chapel gathering.

“Come now; let us leave." (John 14:31)

Jesus and the Twelve always seemed to be on the way to somewhere. The majority of the events and teachings in the Gospels took place while they were on their way to somewhere else.

I think that's because Jesus wasn't interested in just talking. He talked a lot, teaching the 12 and the crowds of followers. He also spoke one on one to people He met along the way.

But He was always on the move, walking toward His destiny, headed to fulfill His Father's mission.

Even on this last night, it appears that most of Jesus' final conversations with the Twelve Eleven took place after they left the upper room. Realizing this adds a bit of a different feel to their conversations.

Could it be they were carefully navigating through the dark streets and byways of Jerusalem, avoiding people who would turn them in to the authorities, when Jesus said, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." (John 15:18)

Perhaps they were walking through a vineyard when Jesus said "“I am the vine; you are the branches."

When Jesus "looked toward heaven and prayed"(John 17:1), they were likely standing outdoors and they might have followed His gaze as He was looking up into the night sky. (He certainly, it appears, did not bow His head, close His eyes, and fold His hands like we were taught as children.)

Try, some evening, praying through the scriptures of John 13-17 while walking about outside. Picture being the Twelfth Man, if you will, listening to Jesus as He talks, asking questions. Imagine the uncertainty and fear you and your fellow disciples must have been feeling as He spoke of death and sacrifice and persecution.

Imagine.

Last Night: Free Agent Faith

Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton dominated the daily news cycle for better than a year during 2007 and 2008. The two produced volumes of words detailing their differing thoughts on the issues, including their approach to foreign policy.

As happens in American politics, the end result of all this disagreement was twofold: (1) Mr. Obama won the nomination, and eventually the election, and (2) the new president named his former opponent, Mrs. Clinton, to one of the most important jobs in his administration.

As the United States Secretary of State, Clinton was responsible for representing her country in its diplomatic relationships with the rest of the world's nations. In addition, as President Obama's Secretary of State, she was charged with representing her president's approach and priorities, not her own. Whenever there was a conflict between her opinions and those of her boss, she was obligated to represent him. By accepting the job, she was no longer free to pursue her personal foreign policy agenda at the expense of the president's.

She was charged with representing the name of the United States and the name of President Barack Obama in the eyes of the world.

This modern day political reality can help us understand Jesus' promise to the disciples on this last night with them:

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. (John 14:13-14)

As a child I learned to end my prayers with the words, in Jesus' name I pray, Amen. As long as I said those magic words, my prayers would be answered, or so I was convinced.

I was wrong.

Jesus' name is not a magic password. To ask in the name of Jesus is to to ask as a representative of Jesus, in pursuit of his priorities and mission.

A successful Secretary of State must be confident that any promise she or he makes in line with the priorities and purposes of the president will be backed up with the full power of the oval office, for the good of the United States. Likewise, anything she would request from the president, as long as it was within the scope of his priorities and purposes, would likely be granted.

By the same token, when I align my heart with the heart of Jesus, when I make his priorities my priorities and his mission my mission, then I can confidently expect that when I ask for something within that scope, the full power of both the Father and Son will be available to grant my request.

Prayer isn't about making me feel better. It isn't about getting what I want. It isn't about praying for my own priorities and mission and then expecting a rubber stamp approval from God.

Free agent faith, the kind that assumes Jesus is granting me a blank check for whatever I want, is a faith in myself rather than in Christ.

Prayer is primarily about growing closer to Christ. As that relationship grows, the things I pray about will increasingly be the things he cares about. As intimacy deepens, the power of my prayer life grows.

A prayer asking God to do stuff beyond our power

♦ A Prayer Asking God to Do Stuff Beyond Our Power (Heavenward by Scotty Smith)

It’s always been about your great faithfulness, not our great faith. The only real hero in your story is Jesus—in whom all your promises find their “Yes!” (2 Cor. 1:20) And so we come to you today asking you to do things well beyond our power—looking to Jesus, not to ourselves.

There are things many of us are facing which, on the surface, seem just as unlikely, just as daunting, just as impossible as Sarah giving birth to Isaac. Bring much glory to yourself as you hear and answer the cries of our hearts, Father.

Read more HERE