Gordon Christian Fellowship

Daily Devotion - 04/28/2008

The Lord is with us!

As we have reached the last day of the academic year here at Gordon I would like to write a few closing comments. It has been a good year in my mind and I hope the same is true for you as well. I know that some of you have struggled, as we all do, through difficulties and setbacks but I hope that the journey has brought you closer to our God in Christ Jesus.

Daily Devotion - 04/25/2008

The Lord is with us!

As we come to the conclusion of the semester let me write for a few paragraphs about tow related but distinctly separate topics: a life of prayer and a prayerful life. Over the last fifteen or so weeks we’ve written about both of these things but I’d like to take this time to make a clear distinction between the two and discuss why both are important, each in their own ways.

Daily Devotion - 04/24/2008

Christ is in our Midst!

The End! Of a semester, of another academic year, of another set of attempts (all too-often vainly I fear) of writing something that somehow, somewhere, someway, helps somebody on the Way.

Daily Devotion - 04/22/2008

Christ is in our Midst!

The beginning of Orthodox Great and Holy Week is perhaps not the best time to offer a cheery valedictory on our semester’s work in prayer. The services of this week are long and solemn, the mood unmistakably somber. The Lord of Glory comes to His voluntary and saving passion; for us to re-experience these harrowing days is to be plunged into an atmosphere of gloom and sorrow. Perhaps we can contemplate the words of the Prophet Isaiah:

Daily Devotion - 04/21/2008

The Lord is with us!

It’s been a long semester. Way back in January we began out journey of prayer by looking at what prayer was. We spent time to try and understand prayer in the Old Testament, in the Psalms, in Hebrew tradition and in the New Testament. We looked at different techniques and practices of prayer ranging from the personal and private to the public and corporate. We studied methods both ancient and modern and I hope that we have all grown in the practice of prayer throughout the semester.

Daily Devotion - 04/17/2008

Christ is in our Midst!

The end of the Great Lent is in many ways the perfect time to comment one more time on the phenomenon loosely termed “unanswered prayer.” Those of you who have endured these scribblings over the past two weeks know that I believe that no such thing as unanswered prayer exists. God hears our every prayer, and He answers every one---it’s just that sometimes the answer we receive is not the one we hope for, expect, and often, even look for.

Daily Devotion - 04/16/2008

Christ is Risen!

Perhaps the most wrenching and difficult instance of unanswered prayer comes in the cases of affliction and suffering. When we pray for someone stricken with cancer or dementia; when we petition for a child struck with some rare and inoperable or incurable disease or condition; when we go to God in response to a circumstance of persecution or deprivation and see that our prayers are not responded to in the way we hope, it is easy for us to become angry or bitter or disbelieving that God can do all of the things that Christ tells us He can do. We look around and we see certain instances where it seems that the hand of God has played a role in relieving or averting one person’s suffering while our prayers seem to fall on deaf ears.

Daily Devotion - 04/15/2008

Christ is in our Midst!

This Saturday is in the calendar of the Orthodox Church the “Saturday of Lazarus,” the beginning of the Great and Holy Week. The theology behind this feast has much to tell us, I think, about “unanswered” prayers.

Daily Devotion - 04/14/2008

Christ is Risen,

One of the biggest conflicts found within the practice of prayer is the conflict of our will and God’s will. While, as I’ve written before, I don’t think God always has some sort of “set in stone” plan for every moment of our lives that we can’t modify or change, I do think He has a will. In some ways this will has to do with general attributes He would like our lives to display such as love, grace, forgiveness and the like (the Fruit of the Spirit passage from Galatians is an excellent list of such qualities as is the description of love found in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth).

Daily Devotion - 04/10/2008

Christ is in our Midst!

I strongly suspect that one main reason God doesn’t answer our prayers---meaning of course, that we don’t get an immediate affirmative answer to our request---is that in reality we aren’t all that serious about the petition we seek. Let me try to explain.