POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - The Power of Prayer
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There is an old story of three blind men, who were arguing over exactly what an elephant might be. One of the men was up front, holding onto the elephant’s trunk. He said to the others, “An elephant is a long, round, muscular animal.”
The second blind man was standing alongside the elephant. He felt the tremendous mass on the side and he said, “Absolutely absurd. Elephants are vast beyond comprehension.”
The third blind man was standing behind the elephant, holding onto the elephant’s tail. He said, “You fools, don’t you know that an elephant is a small, tough, and hairy animal?”
They could not resolve their argument because they continued to hold to their individual points of focus. A fourth man was sitting nearby with his eyes closed. They asked this man what an elephant was. The man, without even opening his eyes, said: “It is simply the idea of an elephant that I carry in my mind.”
If we go to our dictionary, quantum, as it is used in the “quantum theory,” means an elemental unit. But in the new physics of the day, we most often hear it referred to as a “quantum leap.” A quantum leap is that which is a sudden, and extensive change, or advance.
This is a leap year, with God it can be a time for us to make a quantum leap in our lives.
A paradigm is a pattern, an example, or a model. I like to think of it as a mental spiritual map. Maybe we are not always aware of it, but we do have mental spiritual maps. It is through these maps that we map our way through all of the sudden challenges of our lives. We particularly refer to those maps a great deal when some sort of challenge comes along. Persons and organizations have a stamp of identity, that they use as a path or a map, whether it has worked in the past or not.
In the fifth chapter of John [John 5:2-14] the Bible tells us of the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda.
Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethesda, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids – blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
Often this is talked about as the healing story in the Bible of a lame man. But the Bible did not say he was lame. The Bible says he was ill.
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”
For thirty-eight years, he has been lying beside this pool, waiting for the waters to be stirred up, perhaps by the wind, or the current, and it was believed within this short period of time that if you could make your way to the water this would heal you. But there were always people in front of him. He could not make it in time, so he laid there on his mat , Since 1999, .
He said that there was nobody there to help him. This man had quite an attitude of giving up.
Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat, and walk.” At once, the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Now that day was the Sabbath. So, the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” Here is a man who has been ill for thirty-eight years. Now he is walking away with his mat, and they are saying – he cannot do that.
If we look at it in a spiritual way, which is spiritually enlightened? Is it the touch of God and the miracle, or the human ordinances and practices to try to induce spirituality? Something comes to us and we immediately want to know if it is legitimate, direct. We even question the fact that perhaps we feel much better and we have gone through what might be a healing.
But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk?'” The man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. In the minds of the questioners these men were sinning because they were not following the ordinance of God, however it was God that did the actual healing and what better day for God’s actions than on the Sabbath.
This is the part of the story that is usually left out, or is at least skimmed over and nothing is really made of it. It goes on to say: Later, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” He is teaching spiritual cause and effect not the punishment of God.
The symbol of this temple is the enduring temple built in the understanding of God.
All of a sudden, it says that this man who did not even know who Jesus was, who did not even know what Presence was actually healing him, really had no identification with the spiritual whatsoever, but he was NOW in the temple.
The temple had an outer court and an inner court. The outer court is where the Gentiles – the people who had not committed themselves to the laws of God as the Jewish tradition (as the very tradition that brought us our Judeo-Christian heritage) – stayed. It was thought that people who wanted to be near to God would be in the inner court, but the Gentiles were on the outside.
The inner court was quite different. You had to be a Jew who had committed yourself to the law, had gone through rituals, and had purified yourself to be allowed into the inner court. The story does not tell us whether the man was in the inner or outer court, but I choose to believe that he must have been in the inner court, because this is where the realization comes.
(Insert the following if the meditation and prayer was before the sermon)
We prayed that we enter into the inner court, this morning when we were in prayer and meditation. At the end of the meditation, I suggested we go into our closet. That is the inner court, or that which has access to the holy of holies – the whole presence of God.
Lindsay Ferrigo tells us about his ideas of grace versus works. He says it this way: “We should work as though it all depends on us, and we should pray as though it all depends on God.”
You see, there is a little of a dichotomy in some people when they start to pray. They pray as though it all depends on them, and then they go out and blame all the mistakes on God. It is just a little backwards.
Medical doctor, and author, Dr. Larry Dossey, conducted a 400-patient study in a coronary care unit. One group received traditional, state-of-the-art care. The other group received the same care with one difference: they were prayed for as well, he assigned the names to various Protestant and Catholic prayer groups throughout the country. The study was a double-blind study. Neither the patients, the doctors, nor the nurses knew who was being prayed for.
At the end of the study, the differences were remarkable. The group prayed for excelled in many ways – fewer deaths, fewer cardiac arrests, fewer requirements for mechanical respiratory support, a lesser incidence of pulmonary edema (the filling up of the lungs with fluid), and a decreased need for antibiotics.
Medical author Dr. Larry Dossey, has stated firmly that if prayer was a new pill being brought out by a drug company, it would be touted as the greatest discovery in the history of medicine.
Dossey thinks that the doctors probably should not only give out prescriptions for pills, but should also give a prescription out that instructs the patient to pray three times a day.
Doctors have pads of paper that have Rx on it. It says: “Take three times a day.” What IF there was room for a prayer or positive prayer affirmation?
Dossey reports, that we do not have to be close to the person we pray for – praying in absence, works as well as praying in person.
Prayer does not lose its strength of great distances. Rather, it does not matter about the proximity – the closeness the distance, the near or the far – of the subject – everyone is right in the middle of God’s help.
There is still so much we do not understand on this side of life. Dossey said there are things that happen in the medical field, all the time that we do not hear about. He said there was a lady who was being operated on, and she stopped breathing for a little while. She suffered a cardiac arrest. Dossey said that after she was finally revived, she accurately revealed that the chief surgeon was wearing an unmatched pair of socks (one brown and one blue). She recited the names of the surgeons who were down the hall in the surgeon’s lounge awaiting their next case. And she recited the names of the upcoming cases that were written on a board outside of the operating room as though she was standing out in the hall reading them.
Her reports were flawless, but the amazing part is she was congenitally blind; she had been blind from birth. She had never seen a single thing through her eyes, but she saw through her spirit, in ways we do not fully comprehend in human mind.
I believe the man at the pool suddenly had a new spiritual leap. I think he finally made the paradigm leap from the outer court to the inner court (if you will), from the small picture to the big picture. He went from the realization that he really did not need human help, but what he really needed to do was to help the need – directly through God.
Yes, we should work as though it all depends on us, and then pray as though it all depends on God.
So, I end this lesson by giving you a prescription –
Pray 3 times a day, “God is my present help for my every need.”
Lead congregation in speaking aloud –
God is my present help for my every need.
God is my present help for my every need.
God is my present help for my every need.
God bless you!
PRAYER / MEDITATION_________________________________________
Let us now prepare for our prayer time.
As we become still, in prayer, let us consider the ageless wisdom of our Lord’s Prayer. We set them to music; we recite them; but today, let us spiritually look behind the words.
“Our Father who art in heaven” …
Take a few moments and let your mind absorb this meaning. Receive an individual realization of what this idea means. Let this become very real to you, but so subjective that it would be nearly impossible to put into words. We are ALL children of an ALL-providing God. Let us hold onto the realization of this meaning – our ALL-provider who art in heaven which is God’s kingdom – everywhere present. It is so close, so near. All the good of the kingdom is ours. We are included.
Reflect, in the silence of prayer …
“Hallowed be Thy name” …
A name means nature – a symbol that denotes the true nature – the true nature of God. Hallowed means wholeness. Wholeness is God’s nature, and we as children of God are of like nature – whole in God.
In the silence of prayer …
“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
God’s kingdom through our lives is expressed as power, wisdom, life, love, and substance. Thy will be done, for all this power is ready and is waiting to be expressed by each one of us. On earth as it is in heaven means our physical expression may be as perfect as the spiritual Source.
In the silence of prayer …
“Give us this day our daily bread” …
All potential is ours as we give thanks for our daily bread. Bread represents supply. We live in the world as connected spiritual beings, and we have supply, both materially and spiritually.
In the silence of prayer …
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
Remember, Jesus was telling His disciples and us how to pray when we go apart alone. This points to the great need for us to forgive ourselves as we forgive others. Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the prison that we have placed ourselves in. We have been both the jailer and the prisoner and it is time to let ourselves out. The consciousness-cleanser is to forgive and release the pain within us with God’s help.
In the silence of prayer …
“Leave us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Dear Lord, let us not be tempted to respond to things in our lives with anger, resentment, impatience, or fear. Let us be saved from negative wrong responses to life.
In the silence of prayer …
As we hold to these ideas, we do affirm this great benediction:
“For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever” …
This is a great benediction that ever-reminds us that God is the source of ALL good. To God belongs the praise, the honor, and the glory.
Now let us take these words into that inner closet, shut the door, and bathe in the meaning …
In the silence of prayer …
For this time alone, apart from the temptations of our world, we are indeed grateful, as we pray in the name and through the power of Jesus Christ … Amen.
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