Dr Paul Allen

Prayer. One of the most frequent representations of obedience, which often appears as a separate condition, is prayer.60 This condition is usually built on the accounts in Luke 11:13 and Acts 1:14 where prayer precedes the impartation of the Spirit.  It is held that the gift cannot ordinarily be received apart from prayer. The gift is “without money and without price,” writes Riggs (pp. 103–04), “but He will give it only to those who ask for it.” Skibstedt (p. 68) affirms that “God fulfills the promises of the baptism in the Holy Spirit as long as the candidate knows that he needs this power—and seeks it in intensive and persevering prayer.”  As may be gathered from the latter part of the last remark, it is not simply prayer that usually obtains the gift, but a definite kind of prayer—“intensive and persevering prayer.” Riggs tells us emphatically that “we must ask importunately,” and queries, “Shall we consider that He gave the Spirit to us when asked once, even though there ...

Speak to God God is not asking for silence. When we suffer and do not understand, he is not demanding the stiff upper lip. He does not object to our groanings, our pleas for help, our desperate whimpers when we can’t even form words. He does not need us to piece ourselves together before we say our Thee’s and Thou’s in formal prayer. He invites us to question him. God is not threatened by our questions, so we should not tell the suffering to silence their complaints. Instead, they must take their accusations straight to God and listen. Everywhere you look in the Hebrew Bible, you’ll see exchanges between God and the patriarchs, prophets, or kings. God does not shrink before our speech. If anything, as we see amid the calamity of invasion at the outset of the prophet Isaiah’s ministry, God invites this dialogue. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet,       they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson,   ...

The Book of Psalms is the prayer book of the Bible. It contains prayers written by men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which means that the Psalms teach us how to pray in accordance with God’s Word. Therefore, one of the ways that we can grow stronger in prayer is to pray the Psalms as our own personal prayers. The Psalms make clear that the life of the true believer is inevitably full of conflict, adversity, trouble, danger, and sorrow. The Psalms show us that, for the true believer, life is difficult, indeed, life is a fight. There are external enemies in this fallen world who hate God and His people; our own sinful natures that still reside in us, inclining us to disbelieve and disobey God’s Word; and Satan and his demonic minions who tempt us to sin, pester us with worldly distractions, accuse our consciences, and mock us for our feeble faith. Read the Psalms, and you will see that not all of them are beautiful words of comfort such as Psalm 23 or songs of praise such as ...

Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 21) If you are a Christian, God “keeps” you (see Jude 1, 24). He preserves you in his love so that nothing can separate you from him (John 6:37–40; 17:11–12; Rom. 8:28–39; 1 Thess. 5:23; 1 Pet. 1:3–5; 1 John 5:18). And you are responsible to continue in the faith. Not only does God keep you; God commands you, in community with the other believers in your church, to “keep yourselves in the love of God” (Jude 21; see John 15:9–10). He tells you to do this in three ways: 1 . Keep yourselves in God’s love by “building yourselves up in your most holy faith.” What is this “faith”? It is “the faith” that verse 3 says you must “contend for.” The faith is the content of Christian belief as Christ and his apostles handed it down. It includes foundational teachings such as Christ’s atoning death in the place of sinners, his resurrection, salvation by grace alone through faith alo...

In the Book of Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah expresses his feelings of being deceived by God in Jeremiah 20:7 . Here is the verse: Jeremiah 20:7 (NIV): "O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me." In this verse, Jeremiah expresses his deep frustration and betrayal, feeling that God has enticed him into a problematic and unrelenting prophetic ministry that has brought him nothing but mockery and suffering. Jeremiah felt deceived by God because of the intense and relentless opposition, suffering, and ridicule he faced as a prophet. Here are several vital reasons why Jeremiah felt this way: Unpopular Messages : Jeremiah delivered messages of impending doom and judgment to the people of Judah, calling them to repentance for their sins. These messages were unpopular and often met with hostility and rejection. Personal Suffering : Jeremiah experienced significant personal suffering due to his prop...

At first glance, it seems odd that human acts of any kind could affect God. After all, the distance between the Lord and us is infinitely greater than between us and a worm, a fly, or a slug. Indeed, we are uniquely created in His image. But He is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, the Creator of the universe, while we are here today and gone tomorrow, full of weakness, corruption, and wickedness. That’s why many atheists and agnostics reject the very concept of the God of the Bible. If such a deity existed, they reason, His last concern would be how human beings lived — unless, of course, He was a petty, mean-spirited, tyrant bully. Otherwise, why would our sins concern Him? But it’s not just atheists and agnostics who have raised this question. It is actually posed in the Bible itself, as Job, amid a tormenting trial, cries out to God, “If I have sinned, what have I done to you, you who see everything we do? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you?”...

By   TYLER O'NEIL   Published on  January 4, 2024 Imagine the government told you what you  can and cannot pray for , inside your own head. Such an idea seems better suited to “thoughtcrime” dystopias — such as George Orwell’s  1984  or Aldous Huxley’s  Brave New World , where the government attempts to control your every thought — rather than to the modern, free English-speaking world. Yet a government in the Australian state of Victoria has trodden on the sacred space of one’s own inner prayers, all in the name of protecting people  who identify as LGBTQ . The Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021, which went into effect in August 2022, forbids certain practices aimed at changing or suppressing an individual’s gender identity or sexual orientation. The law also bans “carrying out a religious practice, including but not limited to, a prayer-based practice, a deliverance practice or an exorcism.” The Victorian Equal Opp...

Samuel Emadi I’m naturally suspicious of anything that smacks of religious ritualism. Prayer labyrinths? No, thank you; I’ll stick with corporate prayer in the church and the private prayer Jesus commends ( Matt. 6:6 ). Candles and incense? Again, I’ll take plain preaching and congregational singing. So when asked whether we should anoint the sick with oil, I confess I reflexively resist the idea. For someone in my theological tribe, pouring oil on someone just feels . . .  weird . But faithful theology isn’t an enterprise in following feelings or intuitions; it’s a matter of submitting to Scripture wherever it leads. In this case, Scripture directly addresses whether we should anoint the sick with oil. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the church's elders, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. ( Jam...