Matthew 24: 3-8 “3As Jesus
was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell
us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming
and of the end of the age?”
4Jesus
answered: “Watch out
that no one deceives you. 5For many will come in my name,
claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are
not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There
will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are the beginning of birth pains."
We should not be surprised. The Lord told us it would be like
this. Police gunned down in the streets while protecting a peaceful
demonstration, black men gunned down by police who reacted with their baser
instincts rather than their training, hate crimes that cannot be numbered, ISIS
and everywhere in the Middle East, Africa, South America, and anywhere hate
makes its incursion and the weak are prayed upon.
How do we pray? What proceeds our ‘Amen’?
All around us our friends and family fall ill, our children succumb
to drugs and alcohol, and people violate the weak. Our parents are aging, we
are aging, and our days are spent trying to find our car keys just to keep
going. We worry for our children and their children and how a world that is
overrun by people consuming resources at unsustainable rates can support them
in any reasonable state.
How do we pray? What proceeds our ‘Amen’?
Our times of respite from the woes of the world are short and interrupted.
We seek peace for ourselves and the world and the moments of calm can only beat
a hesitant staccato without rhythm. We wait, we pray. We work, we rest. All
around us our neighbors attempt to hold life together as they can manage.
How do we pray? The Apostle Paul gives us a window, a hint of how
to proceed in Romans 8: 26 & 27. And so we must take his lead and be
earnest in our prayers for our loved ones, our neighbors, and our world. Let ourselves
groan.
“26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do
not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us
through wordless groans. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the
Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the
will of God.”
What proceeds our ‘Amen’? The Lord Jesus himself taught us to pray
and first instructed us to ask for the Kingdom to come. We ask for our basic needs,
we ask for forgiveness, we cry out for God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in
heaven. Jesus tells us to knock and keep knocking, ask and keep asking.
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There is only one complete answer to the afflictions rampant in
these days. Jesus must come again, first in our hearts, then as the lightening
is seen from the east to the west, He must come in power and glory.
And so to that end I will add to my prayers before the ‘Amen’, ‘Maranatha,
come Lord, come quickly’.
In His grip, jerry
